Two Poignant Poems by Stephen A. Rozwenc

Poem

 

not natural or ethereal

not composed of elements

from any needy origin story

this particular city morning

revels in luminous telepathy

 

with the first rising sun

ritual sacrifice

skyscraper phalanxes

those high priests of profit

who are really deluded prophets

cast beloved death-waking shadows

to confess monstrous alibis

deep listening heals

 

for the second blinding

white flash of rapture

beyond tenacious reality

the alter-ego mirror

of the collective unconscious

shatters

ornate sprigs of Thai gold

that cheerfully drown in restless pajamas

of heroic separation

from any earthly body

ordeal or recovery

 

Poem

 

silent prayers

for betrayed autumns

these remaining New England trees

conceal nothing

their projected limbs

climb skies to eat sunlight

only punch air in bitter winds

scheme no species death masks

and utter the soundless Ommmm

that lets go pain

of never again released beauty--

treetops crowned the highest right

between wrong

and we

 

still glowing coals and embers

of dying lives

their all-seeing leaves

are miniature orange robed Buddhist monks

doused in human gasoline

to set themselves on fire

as flaming ghosts

who chant purple crimson supplications

to feed the earth

as they drip down hillsides

Stephen A. Rozwenc is a widely published expat poet, who currently resides in Thailand. He has published seven collections of poetry. His published book collections are: The Fourth Turning, Grass Hill, Ekphrastic Nightingales, New England Fortune Cookies, Death Is Birth, Russia, Translations of Famous Russian Poets, and Thai Diary. 

More than two hundred of his poems and translations have appeared individually in numerous poetry publications including: The Mailer Review, Buddhist Poetry Review, Blue Lake Review, Dm Du Jour, Equinox, Eunoia Review, Glass Poetry, Naugatuck River Review, New Pattaya Review, Philadelphia Poets, Poets Against War, Plum Tree Tavern, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Wordpeace. His poetry and translations have been published internationally in Europe and Asia. He has been a past recipient of two Williamsburg Massachusetts Arts Council Grants for poetry.