Esperanto

The precarious beat of the lonely heart,
The valiant pump of life's blood
There in its dark cavern, working,
Working.

Who thinks of thee, dear heart
'Til you cry out in anguish,
Perhaps to be stilled forever?
Stilled.

Pick up a silken, squirming puppy,
Feel the wild throb of terror
And love.
Gradually it slows, trusting.

Listen sometime, if you can,
to the beat of a baby's heart
Within the womb. Deep.
Muffled

Pick up an injured birdling, gently,
Oh, ever so gently.
Mute eyes seemingly unblinking,
Watchful.

Let his warmth permeate your hand-
Speak softly, murmur reassurance-
There is a universal language.
The language of the heart.

God knows.


© Robert Ernest LaRock (1920-1978)

"What In Me Is Dark . . . "*

Within my ill-sorted lexicon
There lies a treasure infinite in scope
At which I peer with tantalizd hope
And pry and probe for pearls that I can pawn;
Or glowing phrase which I might build upon.
To seek, to find and not forever grope
With fumbling fingers powerless to cope,
Before the fervent flame has flared and gone.

If limpid luminescence fades with time,
perhaps the fault lies not within the eyes;
This flashing brilliance is but pantomime
Of stellar light that waxes, wanes and dies.
Though blind, man still the infinite may climb
To win again a promised Paradise

© Robert Ernest LaRock


* John Milton (1608-16740, Paradise Lost [1667],
Book I Line I.

Utopia

© by Robert Ernest LaRock (1920-1978)








Durward Winze had spent most of his life without a goal. he read many books on how to be a success. Some of them were cleverly done and easy to understand, whereas others were patent frauds or come-ons. A few were honest, practical how-to books that could be of real benefit to the serious success-seeker. All, without exception, predicated success on the establishment of a goal, which he did not have, so the rest of the advice, however expert, was of little value. As he drifted along, a plaything of fate as it were, his lack of worldly success would sometimes cause pain, but he became inured to it and somewhat fatalistic.

Then one day he heard about another how-to-book. Its title was Goals, but his informant didn't know the author's name. Durward understood that the book was essentially a list, in alphabetical order, of thousands of goals ranging from adultry to zealotry. He tried the book stores; they'd never heard of it. He went to the local library; they did not have it but promised to try to get it. No success. He wrote to the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, The Vatican Library in Rome. His self-addressed, stamped envelopes came back containing regrets and asking the author's name. Books in Print listed seventeen titles beginning with "Goal," or "goals," and he sedulously checked them out, even one that proved to be about hockey, but all he had to show were several useless additions to his shelves.

He refused to be daunted, however, going from city to city, attending auctions and pestering librarians; to foreign countries (incidentally expanding his linguistic abilities to eight or ten languages) where he badgered bibliophiles and bookworms, Oxford Dons and archivists, and caused the book-stall owners on the Left Bank to petition the Prefecture for protection. He would travel until his money ran out, take six months off from his quest and work at any available job to build up a stake. As he became older he returned home and conducted his search by mail and telephone and word of mouth. He filled dozens of notebooks with fascinating book-lore, human-interest stories, personnal philosophy and observations. He died at a great age, his search unrewarded.

After his death his son gathered up the notebooks and took them to a publisher. The editing job was colossal, but it was done with care and affection and rare discrimination. Released to the trade it exploded overnight into a best-seller. Its title is Goals, by Durward Winze.

Sonnet For Julie

The sonnet's made for lovers to impress--
Or maybe noble sentiments impart.
A kiss, a wish, a fragrant rose to press,
A catalyst to stir rememb'ring heart
With sudden chill. Not fitting place for Dad
To tell his love. Perhaps a simple verse
Would do, to tell sweet Julie that he's glad
Of her. No trite and banal lines rehears'd,
No fond and foolish sentiments of love;
He borders on old age and she is youth.
Can Spring and Autumn walk with hand in glove
Pretending that the truth is not the truth?
Enough! Enough! What need of reason clear?
Just say it with your heart and she will hear.

© by Robert Ernest LaRock (1920-1978)

Not With a Whimper

The world will end when the poets die. It will end, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a sigh----and a silence.
Just as the great ocean rolled silently over Moby Dick and Ahab, so too will the great universal ocean roll silently over us, and there will be no herring-gull or albatross to pipe us to the grave.
Over the vast void the unquenchable Spirit will brood for a time, then turn with a cosmic sigh to other dimensions. The Spirit contains many elements (indeed it contains them all) and among the brightest, most durable and unquenchable of those elements is poetry.
Then poets are the "Chosen Race"? Poetry is the alpha and omega, the first and last? Yes, because there is a poet in each of us. What is it that cries in us, laughs in us, loves and despairs in us? Inside the fat man, it is said, there is a thin one crying for release. So too there is a poet in each of us, a soul if you prefer, striving for expression.
There is no nobility in matter, only in spirit, and even though it is a poet who says in triple tongue, "This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper," it is demeaning to the human spirit to impugn it thus. Poets deserve better at the poets hand.
Everyone writes a poem. Perhaps it starts in a fourth dimension or in the electrified air between lovers. It may begin in the velvet sea of the womb ("The Cradle Endlessly Rocking"), but it does begin and verses are added every hour. The lengths of the poems vary according to our spans. There will be dull, pedestrian stanzas interspersed with harmonic passages. There will be dirges and wedding-songs, aubades and nocturnes; paeans of celebration and tinkling tunes of laughter. Each of us will write a love-sonnet -- if not, more's the pity -- and there will be ironic poems and sardonic poems, along with cradle songs.
Each of us has a built in metronome calibrated for hexameter, pentameter, what you will. We will call it the heart, the core of our life, and somehow we sense that it is more than muscle. It is hooked up with the mother sea and the urgent moon and keeps time for us tirelessly and incredibly.
And when, soon or late, this noble heart cracks, its impulse does not die. Its throbbing beat is one with the spheric music that will never die.
Yes, the world will end if the poets die.
But there will always be an Ishmael.


© by Robert Ernest LaRock (1920-1978)

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem













You think sometimes that greener pastures lie
Across the fence or down the road away
Impatience makes you fret at such delay
And in your mind barbed questions wonder why.
"This life, this now, green pastures will deny
As work I must from dawn "til end of day;
I put off dreams with what good grace I may
And let the midnight pillow hear my sigh."
Yet all around your feet are pastures green,
Your love beside you strong and warm and bright;
Like saplings are your children lithe and keen
And youth is yours to celebrate delight.
"Tis well to plan for future ills unseen--
But seize the day, leave sighing for the night.


©Robert Ernest LaRock (1920-1978)