Shut up Shakespeare and Other Poems

By Ellen Beener

Behind every closed door waits cruelty and kindness. Behind every experience lives inequity and justice. Behind every bland smile hides misery and joy.

Ellen Beener channels a world of pains and pleasures, exposing thoughts and feelings, moods and passions, telling the story of Us from inside her own mind.

Its stream-of-consciousness fast and sometimes furious.

Come on in, and please enter from the right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781490787398

Ellen Beener

Ellen Beener was born and raised in New York City. She has been writing most of her life. Her poems have appeared in local publications. She now lives in Florida with her husband.

Book preview

A Bridge Weeps

A small boy looking down the sewer for his lost blue and green prized marble

That rolled away as did his life when the truck struck him head on

Far away in training camps where terrorists celebrate each and every life they take

Away from weeping mothers as their tears will never wash away the intensity

Of their battle to go on breathing

A beautiful lovely woman in her prime of her life struck down in that

Hate filled attack on a bridge that was supposed to take

Her to her lover who had a ring for that special night

He will slip the ring on her third finger left hand as she lay in her coffin

With dreams of forever love now never to be

Men on their way home to feast and family

Pantry no longer filled with food of love

Bodies all torn apart by hate that fanatical

The familiar chants of Papa’s home now gone into the tavern of memories

And brides with no fathers to walk them down to their grooms

For a moment of blinding rage and training many years prior

He floored his truck gas pedal

Without a glitch or even a blink, his intended death he drove on

Into lives he never really knew

Annihilation obliteration of a tragically perceived enemy of his time

A bridge weeps

A Chance

Sitting leaning into your body pressing my head down on the white sheet

Tears fall copiously as I grieve for us

Years passed by and so many promises made

Anything you wish fulfilled I now vow I plead

No you cannot die we have places to go

To whom will I scream my frustrations disappointment anger

Where will my eyes gaze with adore

My arms will feel vacant embracing emptiness

Move jump dance or just breathe that one precious breath

Do it for us so we can go on touching caressing blending loving

Give me a sign call my name once more

Give me a chance to write this poem

A Child Far Away

To have a child far away

Stings when children of another mother

Sing songs of dinners and get togethers

Only intensifies loneliness for my own

When my child’s independence grows

My pride soars and fills with joy

Still I yearn to have her in front of me

Just not to forget the curl and color of her hair

The scent of her body next to mine as we embrace

The look in her eyes questioning why

Her answers to my curiosities

To have a child far away

Is a sting that challenges and

Tugs and pulls my heart

Makes visits so gratifyingly sweet

A Little Gulf Breeze

When the winds pick up and blow gulf songs

Their chorus packs a mighty punch

Memory serves up good Christian names

And leaves scars throughout

Crash force debris does not float across

Pieces of lives rush in and around like raging wounded bulls

Scattering blood and coffee tables

Swirling mess of dead snakes, tires and dinner plates

Shoddy dwellings and scanty empty pantries

And durable ornate rooftops all merge in fateful spinning

Nature employs anarchy in a ominous dance with death

Her rage blows and rips lives apart no plea can halt

Come to Disney World where nothing is as it seems

A Moment in time

She touches my face with well-aged burlap hands

Rough with edges that might scratch my heart

Yet so gentle her caress

I feel nothing but her love

As her words run through the air I breathe

And her eyes point the way

For every thought a passage

From cradle of my innocence

I gaze up to see her life as my own

We are connected in ways so minute

Only to mold them in unison dreams

Awareness falls away as dew slides off the meadow trees

She sits watching my pen move up and down

As I hum to tunes of easy happiness

She waits to hear my enchanting songs

Relishing this moment

A Petal Drops

She was sick long and lonely

Her once full face grew thin and shallow

She managed a slight smile but not often

Pain and sadness overcame what was left of her life

She held a single flower and let the delicate

Petals fall one by one sailing slowly across time

Never landing on the cold hard tile

Floated like a soft tender memory

Into a silent abyss she slipped

My teardrops stained that last moment of us

As her life sailed away into that harbor above

For my loneliness I wept

After Life

Monotoned female voice

Come in Stockholm, do you read? Over.

Come in Moscow, do you read? Over.

Come in Hamburg. Do you read? Over.

Come in Tokyo. Do you read? Over

Down the line, up the desperation

Nothing, nothing, dead silent

Come in Tampa. Do you read?

The craft continued while passing the continent

Like a swirling skirt dancing around the globe

She danced as her band played on into night

Through dawn’s early lights and another day, another fruitless orbit

The globe ominously dark

Come in Honolulu, Do you read?

So quiet not a microbe stirred

Come in New York. Do you read? Over.

Alone so alone even the computer cried

Animal? Vegetable? Mineral?

Anyone? Anything? Nothing?

Swing by Olympus Mons

On to the drop-off on Mars

Afternoons at Ida’s House

Her pockets neatly pressed covered by a clean but well-worn white apron

She stood not much past me but her warm aromatic welcome surpassed us all

We came as families do, on cold holiday afternoons late of hour

Every room a tribute to our half-hidden culture of shrouded Judaism and worldliness

Not a Torah in plain sight although the unusual sight of

A small Star of David that lay atop some obscure shelf has stuck deep inside me

Kitchen happiness announced in trails of aroma so sweet memory has never forgotten

Her carefully placed dishes and sparkling hand wiped clean glasses as they took their places

On a beautifully set table in her dining room on Willow Street in pristine Brooklyn Heights

Napkins folded to perfection became a young girls’ contest, which cousin could do it better

Ida’s oldest excelled, the rest of us tried in vain to follow but to no avail

We skipped through this happy afternoon house of many small bed rooms

My mind’s eye can see Ida slightly bent walk as she presented the table with scalloped edged platters

A harvest of food so magnificently bountiful I am still so astounded by

Variations of fresh vegetable colors

Pumpkin orange spinach green sweet potato yellow and butter dishes filled

Side challah bread makes the need to go back to that room even more desperate and rewarding

Even her soup dish had a ladle of past imperfections that on those

Afternoons fell away and emerged into evening and darkness settled over the city

It did not seem to matter because it was Ida with