Poems and Stanzas Ii

By George Lysloff

The following poetic reflections were not included in my first published book of Poems and Stanzas. I let them gather strength and body, and I have now decided to make them into a companion to the first collection of my verses.

Those poems belong to three different groups.

The first one is a run of incidental pieces expressing personal and inspirational ideas and emotions I intuited in verses, they are contemporary and totally original.

The second group is a trio of poems I initially did render in the French language. They are translations from a work by writer and poet Jakub Kolas from Bielorus. He created a famous lyrical and nationalistic book with the title of SIMON MUZYKA, the fictive name of a juvenile dreamer who grew up and lived in a small village of White Russia. The boy senses very acutely the subjugation of his land by the rulers of the Russian Empire, and the centralized rule of the Great Russians. Some years ago I ran into the English translation of a couple of those pieces on a Canadian site, written by a Canadian poetess; yet I felt it did not adequately render the pathos of Kolas lines. So I decided to put my mind to task and came up with my own version of those three pieces.

Finally I selected a number of the more lyrical chapters in my book From that Side of Awakening, written in quasi poetic prose, and transposed them in somewhat more orthodox and better-metered pieces of versification! As in the first volume of the Poems and Stanzas those items reflect my philosophical way of thinking, including what I call transcendentalism. They deal with the concept of a spiritual split occurring within an amorphous entity I call the Prime One, resulting in the Creation of the Universe in the polarized and dual mode, accompanied by the Fall and banishment of the one aspect of the Prime entity that brought on the initial Big Bang. That aspect of the One is destined to assume the role of the all-encompassing God- Nature of the World, to be its Creator, projected and reflected ad infinitum in every facet of the Reality he authored, at the same time to be the common soul of all its biological denizens, both in the individual as in the general sense..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 27, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462838028

George Lysloff

"The world should know and learn to accept the fact that life and fantasy (read "inner experience") co-exist in any person's existence. Subjectivity is the primary motor to anyone's being. My stories illustrate the point, I hope, and give the reader the chance to review his own personal life, placing its events in an acceptable and worthwhile perspective and allowing him to retain (or maybe regain) a proper distance from the fallacies of 'what's real." This is most certainly "existentialistic" and, from a philosophical viewpoint, an "idealistic" attitude. It offers a powerful alternative to the current evolution of society toward a strictly materialistic and utilitarian mode of living" - George Lysloff Lysloff was born in Paris, France of a Russian emigré father and a Baltic-German mother. He went through is primary and secondary education in various French schools. He studied medicine in Germany and Belguim, obtaining his diploma in 1951. He immigrated to the United States in 1954, and took his specialty training in the field of Psychiatry. He received his Board Certification in 1963. He was employed in various mental hospitals in the Midwest, and then moved back to Europe in 1972. He remained active in his profession until his retirement in 1993. George was married in 1950, and the couple had four children. After his wife fell ill with Alzheimer's disease and had to move to a care home, he lives close to his children in Wisconsin. His writing career began with poetry, initially written in the French, which he later translated to English. Other books by George Lysloff: Life and Fantasy: Pilgrimage, Life and Fantasy: On that side of Awakening, Life and Fantasy: Growing Up, Life and Fantasy: New World Rhapsody, Life and Fantasy: Andernach on the Rhein, Letters to my Beloved Ghost, Poems and Stanzas, Reaching Out, Poems and Stanzas II, Poems and Stanzas III, Poems and Stanzas IV, Poems Visions Reflections, Impressions in Verse and Prose, and Visions and Reflections II

Book preview

 - 1 -

After you left, I tried recalling your likeness,

Your hair, your eyes, your smile. I first met with success,

I could envision you, and you appeared to say:

Remember me!. Years passed; you faded more each day.

The time came when I could not see or visualize

Your visage and your voice, the color of your eyes,

The softness of your lips. I tried to evoke you;

You came to me only when I dreamt of us two,

But your image was gone as I woke in the morn.

I knew you were there still, just around the corner

Of my recall. For you hid from me, I reckon,

Too many hollow years now separated us,

And you wanted to keep from me your lingering

Regrets. I let you go and lived my current life.

Yet there arrived the day when I found you again,

And at that time you seemed as you had always been:

Nineteen and lovelier than you were heretofore.

In thoughts I linked with you to reminisce once more.

It was too late, for years before,

You left this world and its heartaches,

Looking for other horizons, for skies beyond

Mine and ours; and you were gone, with me stranded

To mourn and to wonder, to fantasize again

As I had done so many times prior to now.

 - 2 -

This is where I buried my dream,

Where my soul still lingers,

This is where my heart lies.

Time submersed the ones I once loved

And only traces of their lives

Have survived in my mind,

To populate my solitude.

The ones I felt the closest to

Are gone and all that’s left

Is to await the final day

When I shall join the ghosts

Of what they were, echoes

Of our common days.

 - 3 -

I’m lost in the desert wastes

Of contemporary culture

With tiny oases

Of soft greenery here and there.

The flames in my soul burn fiercely,

Attempt vainly to penetrate

The darkness that settled

On the world that I knew.

The fire rages in my breast,

Bright and steady; it sweeps my heart

And it engulfs my mind,

A smoldering spiritual

And hopeful awareness,

Maybe a future firebrand

In human destiny.

I am the projection,

The voice of the Fallen Spirit.

I seek a path to speak

To my many creatures

And to open the way

To the full realization

Of what I mean to accomplish.

I created the world against

The will, the command of the One

That went his way. Already then

I proposed to bring him

The results of the fantasy

He played with, which I proceeded

To implement, the split

That led to the nascence

Of consciousness and life.

 - 4 -

I dream of her often, she who

I met last spring after I left

The embattled Eastern Province.

The war now seemed so very far.

She came, she spoke, she laughed,

And I could but rejoice,

For I knew her to be the one

I had been waiting for.

I think of her often,

She who I wanted for my queen.

The war was soon over,

The future upon us.

I played and made music,

I wrote poems of love

As I sought to express

My need for her, for us.

Indifferent, Fate then moved on,

Shifting in randomness,

Autumn broke and caught up with us:

The leaves began to fall.

That evening, late, we walked

Holding hands, and the fog

Dampened the sound of our steps

As we followed the silent path.

Which brought to its end that last day

Of our hopeless love.

I kissed her, she kissed me,

We parted on that night,

Desolate, unfulfilled,

Drifted apart, until to me

Maybe for her as well.

We became youthful memories.

 - 5 -

Sunset. She stands by the window

Watching the crimson horizon.

Like blood, the wounded day wavers.

Dear, you do not know it yet, but

This was the finale,

The last day of our living

Together.

Crepuscule. She gazes

At the night descending;

The clouds are dripping red,

The cycle is about to close.

My love, you may soon learn

The truth, for this is the begin

Of the end of this glorious day.

It’s been four years since you stood there;

You never watched the skies

Again, the sinking sun,

The final glow of its passing,

As you looked one last time

At its final setting.

Across the horizon, the clouds

Bleed their terminal agony,

Sagging into the grays of Death,

Attempting still to hold

On to the dwindling light.

Your crepuscule has come to stay.

You beheld a final vision

Of the extrinsic sceneries.

Your own sunset goes on and on

In the dark privacy

Of your innermost world.

 - 6 -

LONELINESS

When I happen to catch myself

Reaching out to embrace

One that is not there any more,

A beloved child, a cherished

Partner or a close friend,

I encounter only a painful emptiness.

I feel a sudden loss,

Grabbing at empty space.

My friend is dead or gone;

My child has grown and left;

My spouse now lives away,

And I find myself existing

In a different world.

Loneliness is all that,

And much, very much more.

I seek the voices and the sounds

That used to surround me

The laughter of