The Forgotten Man and Other Poems

By Barry Spencer

These poems were composed in a desultory manner over the past fifteen years, many since the author's retirement from his law practice in 2007, without giving any thought at the time to collecting them into a book for publication. Some were e-mailed to friends, some languished on scraps of paper in a drawer, others stored in the author's computer while a few remained inchoate, unwritten, mere poetic fragments in the author's mind until he eventually committed them to paper. There is no unifying theme. Each poem stands alone, written in respnse to the specific inspiration of the moment with wide structural diversity in rhyme, meter and versification.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483435688

Barry Spencer

Calling himself a Speculative Type Designer, Barry states that he often makes letters that may or may not look like letters. For over a decade he has researched, explored and played with the Latin letterforms and through his research and exploration he has been able to reach a point where he believes he has fundamentally altered the way that he creates, perceives and understands the shapes of the alphabet.Barry continues to explore the potential of letterforms while also writing and lecturing on graphic design, typography and type design.

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THE FORGOTTEN

MAN AND

OTHER POEMS

BARRY SPENCER

Copyright © 2015 Barry Spencer.

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: 978-1-4834-3569-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3568-8 (e)

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: 09/02/2015

CONTENTS

Preface

Shahnaz

Morning.

A Love Poem

Bubbeh

Ramah

Father

The Roly-Poly Man

Do You Remember, Dear, When We Were Young….?

For Bella

Adam

Terminal Island

Akhmatova

Trains

Fear

September 11

The Refugee

The Bullet Factory Of Rehovot

Potsdamer Platz

Blame It On The Jews

Obamabird

An Italian Wedding

Barmitzvah At The Kotel

The Rabbi Of Vitebsk

The Forgotten Man

The Atheist

Milk

Honey

Barren Bohol

Hong Kong

Arrival In Hong Kong

Tea At The Peninsula

Hackney Boy

London Scenes

Rainstorm In Los Angeles

Impartiality

Reflections Through My Window

Gloria Pearl

Leicester

Sinatra

Myth

Fragment

Once Upon A Starful Night

Birthday Greetings

Jack Cohen

Gerald Fox

Barry Garfield

Manny Allen

Kenny Berkovitz

Self Portrait

Schooldays

The Tale Of The Outside Clerk

For Shahnaz

whose constancy and encouragement

overcame my indolence

to make this a reality.

PREFACE

These poems, or rather verses (if the reader doesn’t believe that such humble offerings rise to the level of sensibility, heightened consciousness and felicity of language we normally associate with poetry) were composed in a desultory manner during the past fifteen years on those rare occasions when the muse chose to tap me on the shoulder. There is no unifying theme or thread that binds them together. Each poem stands alone, written in response to the specific inspiration of the moment, from feelings stirred by time and place. There is considerable structural diversity in rhyme, meter and versification. I gave no thought to collecting them into a book for publication. Hence, the collection is something of a hotchpotch. Some were sent by e-mail to friends, some languished on scraps of paper in a drawer, others were simply stored in my computer and a few remained inchoate, unwritten, mere poetic molecules somewhere inside my head until I eventually put them on paper.

However, in the process of collecting, organizing and re-reading the poems, it seemed that, even in the absence of some overarching pattern, there were a number of recurring topics. There are, for example, several love poems, by which I mean love in its broadest sense, not merely sexual, including one to my father. Two poems, Milk and Honey, were inspired by Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things, which show, in Neruda’s case, how even the most mundane objects in life can be elevated to a level of almost Platonic spirituality by the human imagination. There is a group of poems, each a verbal caricature of a close friend and former schoolmate, written to commemorate a reunion in London collectively to celebrate our seventieth birthdays. The subject matter of these and certain other poems is, if only due to the passage of time, inherently nostalgic and perhaps a trifle sentimental, both not unpleasant sensations and, I submit, as one settles into old age, quite forgivable.

I’ve therefore arranged the poems by topic as far as possible to provide some semblance of order. Where necessary, I’ve also appended explanatory notes both to provide the context in which the poem was written and to assist in the understanding of the poem. Sometimes, husbandry of language can lead to obscurity which I have done my best to avoid.

The book concludes with a much longer poem, (2098 words) a kind of short story in verse, The Tale of the Outside Clerk, which is partly autobiographical. I leave it to the reader to untangle fact from fiction.

SHAHNAZ

It is your darling smile moves my heart,

makes love palpable,

the silence we hold when music ends.

It is your laugh makes the orchid bloom

soft and crimson as your lips,

far from any desert spring.

It is the dazzle of your Persian eyes,

black as a raven’s wing,

burns and sets my heart aflame.

It is your fingers’ touch, your hand in mine,

makes love manifest,

opening like an undying rose.

The preceding love