Thoughts of Being

By Daniel Polskey

Daniel Polsky, shines his introspective light as well as his empathy and belief in the power of the human spirit through the character portraits, odes to loved ones and thoughts about life and suffering. He exposes the irony and humor of life, but also its loneliness and emptiness. The essays display the author’s insight regarding love and the human condition. They are the result of, to borrow the phrase from the author, “the maturing of the wine of life.” The clear thread that runs through the writings is the appreciation of love and making it possible to “meet” him even posthumously. Several of the spiritual poems were published in the Jewish Studies Journal of Queens College, Spring 2013. Poets House was added hardcover and paperback copies of “Thoughts of Being” by Daniel Polsky to their collection and are listed in their Directory of “American Poetry” and website: www.poetshouse.org. By going to www.youtube.com you may hear, Beth La Grange, actress, read poems, “Soft Voice”, “Intoxicated” and the essay “Freedom to be Free”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mira Digital Publishing
• Release date: Mar 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780984054008

Book preview

Polsky

SO EASILY DECEIVED

I am so easily deceived,

Too gullible am I,

Much too ready to believe,

Wanting to believe.

Ready to be seduced by convincing spirit,

Adoration deceives me,

Devotion deceives me,

Warmth has icy fingers,

Sturdy, imposing structure,

Gigantic dam, great bridge,

Washed away, blown away,

Unsinkable ships, jet airplanes,

Deceive me.

Cries for freedom, for independence,

For peace,

Draw my sympathy,

In their place come lash and chain,

To teach me how again I was deceived.

Works of art, one day admired,

Another day disdained.

Kindness and religious faith,

Turn at once to rage and violence,

How easily am I deceived,

Passion is a flame that burns

And leaves its scars as well.

The peace of the night is broken

By a mountain’s eruption into volcano,

Calm sea has sharp teeth,

Sleep disturbed by nightmare’s beasts,

All these things deceive me.

Learned people deceive me,

Statements of certainty deceive me,

The preacher who pounds on his ible,

Who would show me the way to salvation,

The political leaders who speak convincingly of destiny,

Patriotic anthems and the flags of nations

Impress me and deceive me.

The power to make destruction,

Rockets and battleships and nuclear might,

And fully weaponed armies,

All deceive me.

The entrepreneurs of commerce,

The self-righteous, the moralists.

I am so ready to believe,

Then I find the truth

Is hidden away

As swaying branch brings

Wavering shadow to sunlit spot.

Civilization deceives me,

Heavy industry, scientific symposia

Do impress me and make me

Feel small and less intelligent.

The philosophers tell me the cause of,

The reason why, the explanation for.

Their theories full of insight

Deceive me too.

Positive thinkers, positive speakers,

Positive writers who deceive me,

Who all deceive me,

Who all mislead me,

Who all claim to know the Truth,

The Truth,

The Truth,

Who all claim to know the Truth.

Let the hungry child teach me,

Let the beggar woman teach me,

Let the crippled man teach me,

Let the blind man teach me,

Let the hopeless teach me,

Let the suffering neglected masses teach me,

Let the victims of genocide teach me,

Let the tortured teach me,

Let parched and unfed humanity teach me,

Let the populations of misery, unseen, unknown, teach me,

Let their cries teach me.

The Truth,

The Truth,

Who claims to know the Truth?

The Truth belongs to all men and no man,

To no wom n and all wom n,

To no one, to everyone,

To me.

TRAGEDY

Sleeping member of the race,

Your existence is in twilight phase,

Tied in bonds by violent nature and

Fate’s reckless moment,

Thrown into the prison of yourself

Your eyes scream of anguish

And your soul fights valiantly

In vain rebellion.

From the prison of your desperation

Is there no release?

Lie quietly, waiting for

Relief that will not come,

While the desperate grow more weary,

And the hopeless sink away

Into the mire of frustration.

Wait for time to fly by on monster’s wings

To lift you from this nightmare

That goes on around you

Waiting for release that will not come.

Sleeping, waiting, for last hours to go by

And nothing to do but live and wait.

What is this living that confines you there,

This cell that makes your prison?

For everyone the prison of himself,

Try to share it with another,

Your prison has no walls,

It is life.

Fly away from here, from night,

From horizon veiled in gold and red and

Fires cut across the sky.

Tomorrow comes again,

But now is must

That one does not comprehend

Until it has arrived.

Despair does not stay, but journeys on,

Hopelessness ignored and put aside.

Say that it all is nothing

For we are nothing too,

It does not matter,

All is the same,

The clouds float away and

Others come in their place,

As it has always been.

Oh, leave me by myself

To cry tears that do no good

And change nothing.

PATRIARCH

I am the son of my father, and

My father is the son of his father, and

His father the son of his father too,

And so the generations back,

Further than my eyes can see,

As I stand reflected in reflecting mirrors,

Over and over again.

I would extend my hand

Out beyond the present.

Through time’s reduplications,

To draw the father of my fathers

To my side,

That I may bow my head, and

Lay it close against his heart.

LIBERATION

Wearily on carpet of moss I trod,

Keeping pace along swift river’s edge,

Quicker still through underbrush I prod,

Hastening to fulfill my inner pledge.

The world outside my wish to desert,

Entrance I seek in a realm of peace,

A holy vision’s sphere to balm mortal hurt,

Away from pain and thunder’s roar without surcease.

Flee from squalid land and master cruel,

From struggle fierce and back forced bent,

Where the heart of man is just a