Portraits

By Regina Alberty

Portraits is a book of poems about people, places, events, relationships that have stayed in my memory for some particular reason.

I meet many new people daily, and I learn from them and their stories. Each poem is a portrait of the person or the situation they experienced. I hope the reader will enjoy these poems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984561657

Regina Alberty

Regina Alberty is a poet by avocation and a lawyer by profession. She is a longtime resident of the City of New York. Her poetry speaks of her daily experiences in a constantly changing urban environment. The author acknowledges that the City has been preeminent in the development of her appreciation for those moments when the only thing to do is to record an emotional response to an event that transcends familiarity.

Book preview

They Went Back and Forth

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They went back and forth

Seesawing their complaints

Mixing chagrin with regret

Never admitting defeat, never

Giving up an inch. The half-full

Bottle changing hands while

I sat silently my mind full of

Those unsavory things

Those unsayable things

One hides behind sealed lips.

No, I didn’t say a word for what

Could I have said except

Those unacceptable truths

That mar a conversation?

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The Pieces Were Scattered

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The pieces were scattered on the table

None having anything in common

With the others, their proximity

Unrevealing regarding a connection

Beyond their spatial circumstance.

There they reposed, by a hand placed

On that surface in no particular

Arrangement. What did it mean? I paused

To regard them. Near each other but

Discrete, isolated, each a thing in itself,

Possessing individual characteristics

Sharing nothing, evoking, not a thing.

What if someone rearranged them

In a visually harmonious pattern,

Seemingly serendipitous, yet suitable?

My eyes were glued to some of them,

Going back over and again to

Admire their lovely properties.

Their quintessential pull on my attention

Grew stronger as I uncomprehendingly

Gazed at them. Was it something in them

Held my attention, or was it something in