The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle: New and Selected Poems

By Charles Levenstein

A lifelong academic and teacher, Charles Levenstein has written poetry since the age of fifteen but was rarely published until the year 2000. Toward the end of his career, he watched one of his peers find comfort in projects outside the university environment. His peer built a sailboat as a form of solace and escape. Levenstein—never good with tools—sought a similar peace from the pressures of teaching.

He then developed sleep apnea, which kept him awake most nights. Instead of suffering in the dark, he got up and found his tool: the written word. He lost himself in poetry. Some of the work was therapeutic, working through the inevitable sorrows and losses of a long life.

The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle is the culmination of fifteen years of poetic practice. The symbol of the turtle is one of endurance and strength. To Levenstein, turtles may not be spectacular, but they survive—as do humans. Certain truths embrace the human spirit in us all and rise to the surface like a turtle taking a breath

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483436548

Book preview

THE PONDEROUS

GALAPAGOS TURTLE

New and Selected Poems

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN

Copyright © 2015 Charles Levenstein.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3653-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3654-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015913123

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 8/14/2015

Contents

I   The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle

The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle

Birthday Poem

Emeritus

A Man of Leisure

My Big Office

Walker

Window of Desire

II    Poets, Just Who Do You Think You Are?

Poets

Back

Fatigue

Broadway Harry’s on Beach Twenty-Eighth Street

American Worker

Hired Hands

My Brother’s Coat

III    Flood

Flood

Men in the Locker Room

Angina Monologue

Chernobyl: Not Exactly

Amber

Ukrainian Scientists

Conscientious

A Walk near Jesuit College

The Production of Wool

IV   From Elba

Three from Elba

Reading Galeano

Blizzard Sestina

Apolitical Toes

Wonder

Eats

Aliens

Snow Endures on Valentine’s Day

Witness Number One

V   No Nature

No Nature

Merrimack River Rhapsody

Bees

In Praise of Imperfection

A Note on Bugs

Revolutionaries

Ants

Fat Fannie and Blind Sophie: The Breakfast Gang

Nella

Apologies

VI   Love

Erotic Poems

Some Loves

Snowflakes

Point Reyes

American Snowflake

Her Holiday

Railroad Bill

Everything I Know Must Be Passed On

Acknowledgments

Chelonian Conservation and Biology

Poetry Bay

Artemis Review

Loch Raven Review

The Bridge Review

Moonwort Review

Niederngasse Poetry

Amarillo Bay Review

Loom Press

Big City Lit

Introduction

The poems in this book were culled from files accumulated over the last fifteen years. I had discovered online poetry workshops circa 2000 and began to write after many years of sticking to prose—applied microeconomics, policy analysis, advocacy, and the like. And I was in the last gasp of being a teacher. I retired as professor of work environment policy in 2003.

In those last years at the university I observed a colleague, an epidemiologist, find some sort of meaning—perhaps relief or solace—separate from the agonies of teaching. In his spare