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Selected Poems
by Arthur Porges
As well as his many stories, Porges has written down the years scores
of poems. Nearly all of these have been published locally, in Monterey County newspapers
and magazines, and are therefore not known to most readers of his fiction. Porges' poems
tend to be idea-based, in the manner of Browning, or Hardy. His poems cover such human
themes as mortality, loss and remembrance, as well as more cerebral reflections on time,
history and the natural world. Like his stories, Porges' poems often touch on quite
esoteric subjects. Some of his poems are playful and quirky; others are poignant. All are
strong on ideas, and his very best poems are very fine works indeed. Presented here are
some of my personal favorites. The selection below should give the reader a representative
sample of his verse.
~ Spring 1836 ~
by Arthur Porges
I found them, quite unexpectedly,
in a dimly-lit alcove
of a magnificent old building,
once a luxury hotel in 1925,
now a shabby but dignified retirement home;
and thought, "How odd!"
There they were, hung on a wall like a painting,
framed, behind glass, in some dark wood,
a narrow column of four butterflies,
titled in an elegant 19th century script,
Collected in the Spring of 1836.
Dry, fragile little corpses,
still displaying something of their varied, subtle hues;
and I felt a tiny frisson of grief,
thinking of how these lovely, harmless fliers,
sailing warm April air of a long-gone time,
when a girlish, eager Victoria was only months from her crown,
sipping nectar from great, glowing blooms,
were snatched from their vague yet blissful consciousness
and dropped into the deadly fumes of a killing-bottle.
Surely, a few molecules of fragrance from those flowers,
scentless dust for almost two centuries,
still vibrated in the brittle, faded wings.
~ Departure ~
by Arthur Porges
My mother would never say, "Goodbye."
It was too bleak and final for her.
Instead, in a comically bad accent for each,
it was always one of these:
"Au revoir,
Auf Wiedersehen,
Adios,
Ciao,"
or even in the plummiest British,
"Parting is such sweet sorrow..."
But then, at her sixty-first birthday party,
in the middle of a sentence,
she suddenly sat back in her chair,
her big, brown eyes,
soft and warm as caramel,
closed, and she said very quietly,
"Goodbye, my Darlings,"
and left us forever.
~ Bishop Paul's Vision ~
by Arthur Porges
I know exactly what you're planning, Lord.
You gave us another chance after the flood,
but we hardened our hearts and again chose evil.
Now we have sinned beyond redemption,
a loathsome skin-disease of the pristine world,
leprous-white here and in Europe;
gangrenous-black in Africa;
scabrous-yellow in Asia.
Last night I had an unbearable vision:
You pressed one mighty finger against the earth,
instantly stopping its rotation.
The blocked energy raged into million-degree heat;
the towering Himalayan peaks slumped,
melting like giant piles of sugar;
the deep waters boiled miles-high,
violently sweeping away the slag of dead cities.
London, New York, Paris, Rome, Moscow,
all steaming plains of utter desolation,
and when I lifted my eyes to beg your divine mercy,
I saw the four great nightsuns of Orion:
Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, and Saiph
tumbling headlong from the black vault.
~ Six Death Sentences ~
by Arthur Porges
Eleanor Herrick, forty-eight:
she thinks about the people on Death Row,
and weeps, just a little, quietly,
for she is strong and self-contained.
Kwami Stedman, thirty:
he killed a cop in cold blood four years ago;
three shots in the back,
but is still very much alive
after six appeals,
eating wolfishly, sleeping well,
watching cable TV.
Harry Emerson, fifty-one:
he kidnapped, tortured, murdered
a seven-year-old girl in 1988.
He enjoys his Playboys,
studies lawbooks,
pumps iron while thinking up petitions.
Luis Vasquez, thirty-six:
he stabbed his pregnant wife to death.
That was ten years ago,
but thanks to repeated stays,
he's alive, well, has gained sixty pounds.
The Mendoza twin sisters, nineteen:
they poisoned their wealthy parents in 1993,
but have so far escaped execution,
once by only four hours.
They claim to have found Christ
and been born again,
new and guilt-free.
Eleanor Herrick envies all five.
She got her death sentence decades ago
from too much hot summer sun,
but it was just confirmed by Dr. Mason.
Pressed, he gravely gave her four months.
Malignant melanoma; metastasized; hopeless.
She appeals daily, in silence,
to Somebody, Anybody, maybe Up There,
but has not received even one Stay of Execution.
All works on this webpage are Copyright © The Estate of Arthur
Porges 2007
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