All About Life Poem
Take a look at the below poem. It was accepted by and published in Ibbetson Street’s June issue. Ibbetson is the leading locally based poetry magazine (this is my fifth inclusion I think in this magazine, published by local poetry guru Doug Holder; if you like poetry you can connect at www.ibbetsonpress.com).
Here is an interesting factoid: Somerville appears to be the center of the local poetry scene; many of the folks involved in New England Poetry Club live in or near there, Ibettson is located there. I need to find out the history of all that.
But meanwhile, hope you enjoy the below. Share via above permalink if you like it.
All About Life
There is so much common wisdom about life and death,
sardonic asides, dark aphorisms.
Proof it is something on the mind.
Sometimes….
“All you need is your health.”
Life exists on the sharp edge of an infinitely sharp knife,
a balancing act that takes no prisoners.
Slip off and you are gone
step down too hard and you are cleft in twain.
“Life sucks and then you die.”
You are not issued a balancing beam
sweat obscures your view
the knife is curved and serrated
and someone has taken your shoes.
“Life is what happens while you’re making plans.”
My knife is whetted by blood, honed by fear,
rusted by tears,
angered by experience
informed by a desire to jump.
“Here today, gone tomorrow.”
I am dancing on the edge of my knife
as you on yours.
Stay sharp—
ah, a poor admonition…
“Live as if you expected to live an hundred years, but might die to-morrow.”—Ann Lee
My knife is whispering about tomorrow
but it is a tease.
It is beginning to wriggle beneath me.
It is causing other knives to kill the ones I love.
“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.” –Voltaire
You!
I’m talking to you!
Keep your goddamned hands off
the handle of my knife….
About The Author
Stephen Honig
Stephen Honig has been writing fiction and poetry all his life. The sources of his writings are of course his life experiences: growing up in ethnic New York City; attendance at two alleged bastions of Ivy League erudition; a long career in the law with its attendant exposures to people, business and technology; reading everything eclectic along with alleged classics of the Western canon; wide travel including a gig in the USSR in the ‘70s to bring legal briefs to refuseniks; teaching at three colleges and at a law school in Russia; raising two families in very different generations. Now, Honig has completed his first novel, Event, a thriller combining the international espionage style of John Le Carre with the gripping pace of novels by James Patterson. If you’d like to sign up to automatically receive my blog posts, please go to the Contact page and submit the form. Thank you!