Animal Endurance: 100 Poems To Keep You Company

By Erik Lewin

These poems are warm little bites of everyday life, a friendly companion through the everyday wilderness. There's something for almost anyone, from grief and confusion, to love and joy. Above all, these pieces are simple and honest, meant to entertain, reassure, and keep you company.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098384203

Book preview

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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-09838-419-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-09838-420-3

Dedicated to my mother and father

Table of Contents

1 life

Playing the Ponies

Over Forever

Musical Chairs

Prisoner Inside

Blue ‘Trane

Blue Moon Morning

Far Away or Closer than Usual

Finally Get It

For A Day

Forward

Not Afraid

Sexy Bitch

The King & The Servant

The Way Home

Southern Drawler

Straight in her Eyes

Air Is Bright

Without Interrupt

The Young Mind

The Streets

The First Traveler

Janis

Animal Endurance

Knuckleheads

Simply

Home

Living Courage

Not for me to Say

Time to Leave

Bureau of Missing Persons

The Jazz Singer

Clouds

The Postman

An Outsider

2 grief relief

No Rush

Together

Garden

Caregiver’s Mantra

All the Way Alone

The Rooms

This Sound

Mom - A Life

Loved One

Master Plan

Return

Safe Passage

Sky

The Maker

This Loss

Big Lincoln Town Car

Bagels

Togetherness

Dad

3 more life

Advice

Alone in This

Anyone, Anywhere

At Home

At Rest

Beautiful Song

Boy

City

Company

Days

Deli

Short Circuits

No Fix

Full Again

Go Home

Inner Chords

Discovery

Left Behind

Magic

Phantoms

Pray

Promise

Rock

Shadow

Sidewalk

Snake Bite

Soft

Still

The Fences

The Sails

The Visitor

The Witness

Then What

Time Being

Weightless

Sorry to Hear

What if the Whole World

Old Souls

The Other Side of Innocence

Tiger’s Mouth

Honored by You

Write Freely

Scary as Hell

Something Immense

The Voice Inside My Head

Help Me to Remain Steady

Real and Natural is Hard to Find

1

life

Playing the Ponies

These new friends don’t understand

they secretly think me naive, foolish even

don’t I grasp what this friendship is?

we’re not sharing popsicles,

horsing around or chasing chicks here

there’s deals to cut

introductions to be made

favors to swap

like we’re all just sheister betters

groomed to run around an endless loop

We just band together now

the business of relationships

it’s not even questioned

as the world gets more and more global

people grow more and more insular

shrinking affection by night

and playing the ponies by day

Over Forever

It’s often the case

that times you lived were

not the black nightmare of despair

and misery you thought they were

when looking behind your shoulder

in the rearview mirror now

there is no wreckage

all the dramas and fights

the broken up relationships, the battles

down to the smallest, most innocuous thing

that needled you back then

they’re gone

a super-human cleaning crew came in the night

while you slept your way into ten or twenty years later

and they shoveled all that debris away

if you’re lucky, the crew was so diligent

that with it they carted off the nasty residue

the grudges and ground axes

for who knows how long

and the way is now smooth behind you,

like road well-traveled

you can take a breath where you are

light a blue cigar and wrinkle your eyes

into an open skyline

and see deeply into

the portal of time

and touch, slightly

the heart of a moment

lived long ago

and feel it clean,

no stakes

only soft,

fragile

and

over forever

Musical Chairs

Some men never come back

and some never went anywhere to come back from

but to those dropped into a nosedive

left bereft

broken

and dismissed

the love was never constant

that is the one consolation

it will flatline

leaving crumpled newspapers

frittered memories

and half-eaten sandwich crusts

Some force soon after takes up under your legs

and helps you walk off the old hurts

nursing the wounds to a dull throb

and the front door to your inner palace opens again

out you step

back into the same cold world that threw you out

The musical chairs start up again

of which you are always a part, like it or not

the biggest surprise is this:

you were one woman’s low, and she let you drop

soon there is a brand-new woman you met at the park

or the hospital, or even a party you got dragged to

and where she last stopped is where you start

the burning song in you captures her ear

and speaks to it

she learns from you, where you have been

and it draws her near

you don’t wince at this, you marvel

at the infinite combinations of man and women and harmony and sex

the places we find