Category Archives: Poetry

After Thanksgiving

After Thanksgiving
Michael Gollin

Cold rain drops from gray
that was sunny warm before.  
Echos of family reverberate
from now empty rooms. 
Fourteen feasted on love (the  secret sauce),
and filled four cans with refuse. 
After inspiring 
great gulps of guests mornings
and expiring them evenings,
this house resumes its normal
rhythm of breathing people
in and out
One by one.

****

Not Dead Yet with two lost stanzas

I wrote Not Dead Yet in spring 2013 during an especially dark period in a difficult stretch of time, when I suddenly saw the beacon rays of hope. As I wrote more and more stanzas I felt torrents of defiant optimism coursing through me.

I let it sit a while and then reorganized stanzas and worked on turning it into a song. Somehow we ended up with two songs. Both versions were performed at my raucous 57th birthday party in July 2014. Son Max turned it into a ballad. Friend Mike Guerreri arranged it as an upbeat anthem which his band, Long Time Coming, has since played at many gigs.

Then I finalized the poem version and posted it in November 2013.

Not Dead Yet

Along the way I somehow decided to drop two stanzas. I went looking for the first one below after hearing Natasha and Max sing for me last weekend when both were home. All three kids were blessed with their mother’s voice and they sound beautiful together.

The second stanza feels poignant for me, having just passed three years from my definitive diagnosis.

Fortunately I saved old drafts and so here they are, the two lost stanzas, two years later. They would fit at the end of section 2 of the poem, or elsewhere. Click the link to the original, and you decide.

###

When I hear you sing your solos
And harmonious duet
The song could last forever,
‘cause I’m not dead yet.

I learned the most important thing
With my disease onset
No one lives forever,
But I’m not dead yet.

Yes! We’re not dead yet.

***

Infinite Art

Infinite Art
Michael Gollin

I live in a painting
Of infinite detail.
Green leaves gray bark
Blue sky white clouds
Washed in yellow sun rays.

I inhabit a sculpture garden
Of massive dimensions.
Tree trunks railings
Walls and doors.

I sit in a song
Of endless variety.
Bird cricket frog wind
Cars trucks jets
A train a dog a voice my breath.

My skin is caressed
with loving touch.
A breeze, the sun, raindrops.
My clothes embrace me.
I am at peace —
a piece of the art of the world.

***

Who Am I?

Who Am I?
July 3, 2013, 56th birthday
Michael Gollin

 
I am my name, my address, my town.

I am my mind.

I am my face, my picture, my silhouette, my fingerprint and gait.

I am my voice, expressions and words.

I am my parents and siblings and aunts and uncles.

I am my grandparents and their home towns.

I am my children, my relatives and friends,
I am my teachers and students
and the books I read and wrote and songs I heard and played and sang.

I am my birthday
I am my birthplace.

I am my SSN, usernames, IDs, passwords and digital presence.

I am the paths I’ve walked, the streets I’ve driven,
My employer,
The clients I served.

Not my illness?

The food I cooked and ate and cleaned up.

The fish I caught and killed and cleaned.

I am my breath and heart beat.

I am my spirit….

 
***
 

 

 

All the World

All the world
January 2013

In Lima live nine million people
And all the world.
The long march from Africa,
East and north through Asia,
over the straight to America,
turned South with arrows and fire and seeds.
My cousins walked back down
below the equator again.
Year by year they came,
with hopes and horror, together.
They built the trail that leads, surprisingly,
to Machu Picchu
and beyond.

The other branch
moved quickly north to Europe’s rocky shores,
and steel and guns, and germs.
Their ships sailed to the new world, crossing paths with the pedestrians
who walked around the world.

The family reunion was not a joy.
A bloody clash ensued.
What’s worse, the Europeans brought
the Africans in chains
to work beside the Indians.
There’s so much to say, so little good,
about the braided trails.

By now we have to realize,
the world is big, but it’s only one.
We all have walked the same long road,
and arrived here where we are today.

There’s a long way yet to go.
What path to choose?
What to bring? Who to join?
Step by step, with care,
is all that we can know.

***

Endless wind

I rolled out Skipper’s Pier
Setting sun behind me
Strong wind in my face
From afar and blowing free.

When I was young my father
Made up fairy tales at bed.
I told my kids of sailing trips
That from this pier were led.

White cap waves in harbor
More out in the bay
If I had a rainbow boat
I could sail away.

But back to land I roll again
and family and fun.
Though times are hard, with love I see
Our stories are not done.