Constellations: Poems from my Universe

By Richard Fireman

Richard Fireman believes a good poem should reflect both individual and universal perspectives, and strives to do so in his work, expressing his thoughts and feelings about both the microcosm of his life's experiences and the macrocosm of the universe at large. Each of his poems are constellations in the sky of his life, presented to the reader for interpretation and meaning. Here is the world as I see it, he says; this is how it seems to me. We are all in the same world, looking up at the stars, and this is my viewpoint, one man in the vast unknowable universe.

Constellations are our attempt to make sense of the universe.

We create patterns in the sky, trying to understand what God might mean,

and write our stories as if we knew.

These poems are my constellations. The words are stars.

May their light be a guide to find your way home.
***
Scape

Ancestors called them constellations,

populated the heavens with stories,

made the giant wheel turn

to human rhythms, pushed

the wheel turning night

to day turning life

to tales of gods and men and women turning

into gods, conquering monsters as we conquer

the turning of time, guiding

the wheel with imagination's surging push,

through any black hole yet unthought-of,

past any edge at the end of any world.

New Worlds Need Names

This time it was all going well

but as we watched the TV

she said it's going too well,

something's going to happen.

At the end of the show I got ready to leave

and she asked me to take her home.

She was home. She didn't know

like she didn't know I came to see her each week

or what a galaxy was

or how to tear a tissue.

She couldn't understand how I knew she'd be there,

how I'd know what planet to point the ship at.

As I write this I hear on the news

we sent up a rocket to catch a piece of a comet.

On the way home on the radio is a story

of snow falling on the living and dead.

Outside the car freezing rain is falling.

Last week my mother said Pop is coming

but didn't know whose or the difference.

In the old days they were wise to make constellations

when they didn't know where they were heading,

to recognize what was too far away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prolific Pulse Press LLC
• Release date: Jan 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798986323794

Book preview

Scape

Our ancestors called them constellations,

populated the heavens with stories,

made the giant wheel turn

to human rhythms, pushed

the wheel turning night

to day turning life

to tales of gods and men and women turning

into gods, conquering monsters as we conquer

the turning of time, guiding

the wheel with imagination’s surging push,

through any black hole yet unthought-of,

past any edge at the end of any world.

Table of Contents

Scape

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Review

Introduction

About the Author

Unbound

Synapses

Anyway

We are Waiting

Finity

Nest

Looking for the Meteors

Too Early in the Morning

Too Many Lights For Us To Stop

Contact

I Should Know by Now

Take it, Leave it

Midnight Sun

Open

What Goes Around Comes Around

Rime

Letter from the Leonids

Buoyancy

Not My Little Troubles

As Close As We Can Get

Thaw

New World Order

Stepping Up

George

Calendar

Spindrift

Journey in her Room

Last Request

Celebration

The Leavetaking

Next

Commentary

The Space in the Air is There

An Image is an Image

On a Clare Day

In the Land of the Blind

Mother’s Day at the Nursing Home

New Worlds Need Names

Questions

I Cannot Show My Friend This Poem

Night Lesson

Because

Field of Vision

Promises

Night Trails

Unheard Melodies

Litany

Limits

In Lieu of Duct Tape

Prospecting

Mirror

Overlooking

Evidence

So That’s Why

Time is Not the Enemy

Wonderiddle

Pictures in the Wind

Across the Void

Beacon

Best of Both Worlds

Bird’s-eye

The Song

True Believer

Remember

Changeover

No Way

Dedication

For my parents, who always encouraged me to read, write,

and not be afraid to express what I believe;

my friends, who understand and accept the craziness that

comes with being a poet;

and my wife, who in her wisdom knows that words alone

are never enough.

Acknowledgements

Synapses and True Believer were published in East Meets West, American Writers Review, Fall 2011.

Celebration and Spindrift were published in The International Journal of Poetry Therapy, Vol. 18, Issue 4, December 2005.

Buoyancy, Too Many Lights for Us to Stop, Thaw, Too Early in the Morning, As Close As We Can Get, Unbound [as Angling], An Image Is An Image, Questions, Commentary, On a Clare Day, Letter from the Leonids, Midnight Sun, The Song, Field of Vision, New World Order, Take It, Leave It, Rime, Night Trails, Open, No Way, Because, George, Pictures in the Wind, Bird's-Eye, Looking for the Meteors, and Stepping Up were published in the Monmouth Review, issues 44.1 Spring 01, 2001 through 51.1 Fall 2007.

New Worlds Need Names, Journey in her Room, Last Request, Mother’s Day at the Nursing Home, and an excerpt from Commentary were published in the anthology: Writing Away the Demons 2009 Chapter 8: The Words that Built a Fortress (Northstar Press) May 15, 2009.

Contact was published in Worksheets 67

June 14, 2022

The Space in the Air is There was published in

Caring for Souls (Prolific Pulse Press LLC),

October 8, 2022

Nest,