From a Collection By J R Simone - Lunch at the Ritz...
Transcript of From a Collection By J R Simone - Lunch at the Ritz...
Gabriel’s Oboe __________________________________________
Melodies for a Rainy Day
From a Collection
By J R Simone
Smoke over the Paris Railway
________________________________
By J R Simone
Lunch at the Ritz Studios Publication
New York, London, United States
Copyright, 2012
By Lunch at the Ritz Studios Publication
Previous Page
“Nareina in Paris”
All paintings are original works
By J R Simone
INDEX
1. Song for Nareina……………………… Page 5 2. Gabriel’s Oboe …………………….….…Page 6 3. Meditation from Thais ………………Page 4 4. Conversations in the Rain………..…Page 6 5. Turning Pages ………………………..…Page 8. 6. The Boy who Dreamed
Of Women…………………………...Page 11 7. What She Left for Me to Find…..…Page 14
Snow on the Elegant 8. Northern Pines………….......................Page 16 9. Black Swan ………………………….…...Page 18 10. The Journey to Life ………….……..…Page 20 11. The Firefly and Young Child……….Page 24 12. Brief Interlude……………………..……Page 26 13. A Letter to a Friend, Ageless……….Page 28 14. Art in Central Park……………………Page 30 15. Last Night at the Opera………………Page 33 16. The Morning Song……………………...Page 35 17. The Decision………………………………Page 36 18. The Artist Who Spoke
to the Trees………………………… .Page 37 19. Children of a Lesser God…………..…Page 38 20. Transitions……………………………...…Page 40 21. The Old Barn Swallow………………..Page 45 22. Reflections…………………………………Page 47 23. The Ballerina……………………………...Page 49 24. Denial………………………………..………Page 51 25. The Gallery …………………………….….Page 53 26. Being Aware of Life without
Living it……………………………….Page 56 27. Waiting………………………………………Page 58 28. In a Moment Before Time,
She Came……………………………………Page 61
29. If We Remove ……………………………..Page 61
A SONG FOR NAREINA
What gift, this,
We have in separate worlds that join
By the mereness with a
Desperate reach
Do we need more or do more
Than in this one soliloquy
Unrepeated dancing
In our minds
From step to step
One tree by another
One stone by another
One smile near another
Mine and yours
For in the changing
Scenes the stage
Lies empty and no actors to pretend
A whisper is loud enough
Reach me
Dare me as I have dared you
In the briefness
Of one moment
Forever is everything
Play that song one more time before I go
GABRIEL’S OBOE
From the moment I saw you
I had already felt your presence
Not alone
But always alone
Life but a short walk
From the rise to the setting
In a sequential gathering of
All we knew and all we loved
A light fawn in the breathless fear
Of its mother
Lies near her
The passiveness release
Unfearing for life unfolding
There in the symphonies idle
Call
The winds chaffing demise
The snow building
Coveting each
In that world where
Presence is known before
Sight
Where hearts are one
Where the fallow fields
Burst into measures rhyme
The orchestra throws itself
In simple cadence
From the moment I saw what I knew
Heard what I had heard
Felt what I felt
You appeared
In that brief fleeting
Field
That broken cold stream
That shallow bed
That fawn near its mother
Complete and finally
Alone in one
I hear the symphony
Come with me and hear it too
For it is time
It is time
Gabriel’s Oboe
Nareina
TURNING THE PAGES
I held my mother’s breast
In my mouth until I came of age
To hear the sounds of life
Like the rustling hurried thunder
Clapping over head
I reached for the window, the paper
Printed in squares and black ink
Before I left the door open
In the room above the unheated garage
Where the music of hurricanes
Was recorded
They named me after the saints
Regarding the nature and stature that would
Endure the wrath of life
Until the womb gave forth
I was clear and sane
Then the white dust gave me this life
I held my mother late in life as her
Breath faded like sullen musical notes
Softer and softer with a halo
Until she sunk into my arms
And I gave back to her
my life
She gave me
Gone in a wisp
She took the person I was
Too
MEDITATION FROM THAIS
My heart is my enemy
Emotionally deteriorates
As it drives
My mind to elope
To gather fragments
A letter here
A poem there
A faint smell of
Perfume left on an envelop
Hers or mine
The pages of the book torn and
Embedded with
Small tear stains
For me or for her
Does it matter
In the selfishness I exhibit
Does it matter in the brief moments
At a table, a small cup of café,
A small lip, a word, a smile
A departure
No anecdotes
The window foggy and impure
Cluttered to half way
Curtains soiled letting only one ray
Of light to penetrate
And the floor frocked with stains and
Old, weathered in time as I
As you
Waiting here
The rain torrential keeps me from seeing you
And then across the boulevard
The red umbrella
The tan coat, the hair
The movement
There across the street
You
And then
In a quiet freeze of love
You are sitting with me
Near me
Around me
At that small table
In the café
For one more morning
For one more evening
CONVERSATIONS IN THE RAIN
Mixed emotions that reach toward
The sky dust whose fur like the
Trampled skirts that hid us
Awake like the startled ghost
Caught in the act
sombering
A magical guest, a flute, the
Honor of coming back to your side
Each time the gentle flow
Of your whisper, your curls,
Your unfathomable smile
Your warm ebbing that came from the
Inner reaches
Sit with me for I am alone
Sit with me for you comfort
Sit with me until the sky parts
And I see the goldenness of your hair
Again like I saw before
Sit with me here near the streets
That echo like canyons calling
Sit here until the sky dust
Glitters and fades
I know you are well with me
Mixed emotions die for they
Can’t believe that in all the
Stilled restlessness
I talk as the water of God
Pours around me
And you touch
From a petal throne
Sit with me as you did
And all the tragedies of life
Go away
THE BOY WHO DREAMED OF WOMEN
Stilled by the torment’s rage
Quiet fires that kindle
Into a bloom
As the canopy
Shrouds the muted
Eyes
Empty scenes
Where the edge
Becomes the center
I have but fond
Memories of
The home that sat
Beneath the elms
Lulling me away into
Adolescence
Untouched by the
Endeavors of life
Optimistic
Assured
A lone fabric
Woven tightly
Restrained by the
Duty and formality
A family holds the
Endearments like a warm
Sea against the stone clouds
Vibrant plumes
That reach beyond a mind
Empty and yet longing
For the wonders
As a small fragment
Breaks away and streaks
Toward the sun
The earth as a cone
The lofty spirit
A young man
A lonely woman
Growing into the
Bedlam and belief
Optimistic
Through the offspring
No lullaby
In the journey
Until the sea touches
The shore and sand floats into your body
Renewed like the vase
Of crystal
Pure and beholden
Then scattered
Coming to knowledge
By instinct alone
What SHE LEFT
FOR ME TO FIND
The nostalgic eeriness
Of the papers and small books
Exquisitely written
Each name and number
Guided in perfectness
The harmony
Your writings and
Thoughts embedded for
A purpose
The lingering knowledge
Your rapture
In a quiet disarray
Agile and serene
I hesitate, tentatively
Before dawn can own me or I
Despise it, another
Preclusion, a day
In discord
I found your
Phone book, small and fragile,
As you, from when we met thirty years ago
And like the yester eves of
Our mating time
The nostalgic warm eeriness of
Your touch still
Is sensed
Sleep has found you but not me yet
And in that small book I see
Your work which I have caught
Suspended as if that moment
We saw each other
Wound up in eternity
SNOW ON THE ELEGANT
NORTHERN PINES
The slant of the roof
Curling in the lost winds
Enduring
As the ageless journeys
Come to a cease
Amidst the slow howls deep in the
Sturdy northern pines
The break of silence
The deadening sifting of the snow,
Unfurling along the lonely spindly fingered branches
Bending
Would these own the day in the mid air
Of Winter
As if not
Desolate, alone
Biding their time
Until the season expressed its will
On them curing them of this burden
Are they gay in the delight of frisky play
The sliding shapes of snow dunes
The melting balls of ice that roll
Into the still meandering chill waters of the
Hudson Falls
Witness the years that pass
Those who have grown and left
The children now who remember in the
Late years
If this Winter the bending branches
Can hold the new storm
If the frost will spare them
If they shall enjoy the gaiety
Of the new silence
The new young
The new season
THE BLACK SWAN
In that indignity
Defying the expected
Under the closing umbrella
Her movements
Glass over the
Silence
The thorns of music
Wandering the shore
Rapture abundant
Grasping onto the
Known
Stares of regret
Solace
One melody distinct
A yellow pine tree
A green rock
Umber sky
In the whispers they heard
In the glare they knew
In the emptiness
They gathered again and again
One alone
One word
One echo
One cello vibrates
One bird in flight
One rainbow
One world
One universe
Distinct
THE JOURNEY TO LIFE
The journey to life
The eyes weepish and closed
In the narrow passage
Time relinquishes its hold
In the clusters of
Love that
Seeps into the cell
Without the blemish
The thoughtless purity
Of her hands guiding themselves
Over the inner horizon where
The giving becomes the gift
Of the spirit in the domed
Chalice slowly emerging
And in the tone of light
That evaporates
The tiny fragility of
A beginning nestles its way
To a smiling exodus
Entering this domain for the first time
With fists closed
Anticipation and darkened stares
To hear and then to feel
The warmth of milk in the pulsating
Mouths
Across the universe
The signals abound
This cherished
Coming out to the
Chariots born and
Without notice
The journey begins
Where it began
And the kingdom
Comes to observe
In filmy particles shimmering in the
Dawn and tides
Carrying us away
MY GRANDFATHER’S
ATTIC ROOM
I remember my grandfather’s attic room
Where the musk of the wood and the
Smell of his age
Merged
And I could not tell the difference
Where through the glassless glare
From an unsuned room
He would stand
Drapped in an old sweater
That he had worn for over fifty years
Cold and sullen and yet
Fitting him as it should
In him,
Me
And in us,
We
Stood together for such a brief time
And I knew what he had to say
Years passed and he came from that
Room often to sit in the sun, in the garden
By the table
The vine and his pipe near by
And where he grew things that we ate
And told stories that we loved
My grandfather was a simple man
And yet he made the earth his homeland
His life ours to keep
I remember him in that attic room
And the smell of his two worlds
I think,
Are grandfathers relegated to this
As they age
Small mementos, small fragments of an entire
Life all on one dresser
One table
In one drawer
With a picture of my grandmother
Near his bed
He died a happy man
With his heart and hands open
And his world still intact
THE FIREFLY AND
YOUNG CHILD
You fade and drift Like the spark of
A fire fly That lifts up
Over the small hand Holding the jar
The child of destined
Promises Smiling
Alert and captivated
Wipe away the tragic tears That engulf your
Small face
Take the fire fly and watch Its glow
Then like the fury of Rain
Let it go
t is not lost Like you
Lifting as it
Drifts toward Another heart
Lift with it child
For you too Are the world
You both are one
BRIEF INTERLUDE
Leave me here Near the water’s edge
Near its heart Near the reflections
Of my long ago Where the subtle beat
Of the pebbles soothed me
Leave me here near the fading Glow of tall grass
As it Grows into the age of
A season’s end
Leave me here near the Forgiving voices of nature
Calling tunes That made me warm When days were lost
Leave me here For it is the cello’s rapture
That holds me Wanting to hear its
Chords played over and over
Leave me here now for the time In this quarter
Has shortly passed And I must lift above
The sensible
A LETTER TO A FRIEND,
AGELESS
It took time to uncover the deadness of
The letter as it sat Stoic at first
In hand Blemished like the
Frown of fall New and old Continuing
What could be left
After the early hours Responding in anecdotes
No ascension No briefing No pause
Til the pesky sun’s penchant For shadows
Brushed wide across the Desk
Filled now with Anger
Hate and fortitude On paper scraps
Between the journeys end and the
Shipping carts The fragile signs that
Lit the way To the tower
And then the corn fields strewn like Straw
For a time when the Last red dust settles and
The last steam blows An engine winding
Through the bending rocks
By the time you receive This in disarray
Things will be different and The seasons tide
Will erupt and
Under the narrow light of a sky’s Dark prism
We will sit next to Each other
Til dawn and break down And away as we did
in this ageless season
ART IN CENTRAL PARK
The last chapter was
Insufficient
Insignificant to those
Around me
The wounded peril
Taking comfort as it prowled
Throughout the night
Beside me
As fiction in these
Depths
Not far from the lurid wall and
Hung flawlessly, works of art
Your finished product
like
the images on night snow
the dark blue crystals
stalled
absorbing the
nights flow
the soot dampened sides
of the park
the horse carriages bundled
for the cold chills
vapors rise so slow now
across Central Park
gaps in the wind
tugging aimless
the streets tuned finely
no humming
along the narrow and high black
marauding fence, stacked like
the ancient Gods
beckoning
to the truth in art
young your fancy
hearts racing toward the
moon
in the chilled ringing of
bells from the church
looking to see
your lights
your hand guiding mine
sweeping past the faces
so late to call you
but vaguely knowing
here somewhere in envy
in my sense
before the dead dream
stalking
quiet in the lone art
displayed with precision in the hall
on the second floor
under the gold chime clock
one last time
before the ending fades
LAST NIGHT AT THE OPERA
Her shoulders fell in
Proportion
The black laces on her
Boots
The slinkiness of her
Silk dress
Touching and
Smoothing the
Weariness
The arrogant smell of
The cologne
Strange and new
For the moments
Under time
Taking away the fullness of
The games in tragedy and drama
In my arms
Her spirit
Like the litheness
I remember
The dimming shadows
speak to the walls
Empty now
Without a façade to hide them
Without the envy
The pain and torment
On the floor brocaded
Tarnished like pewter
Near the small well
Cupped in the wall
Rushed cold from the
Nights long journey
Fingers grapple
Emptiness sits like a friend
And unlike the Park
Rising high with the first of
Early December snow
The long
Unpathed walk
At dawn’s arrival
The long black coat
Inside me without the
Daring comments
All forgotten
And it being too late
THE MORNING SONG
Many nights swollen with envy and
Concern, I approached sleep
less
My eyes would not close, at my bedside
They came in irregular patterns,
Reaching, touching, tormenting
Displeased with my lack of
Capacity to see the synergy,
The last composite requiem for their deeds
Or to touch me in reassurance
Familiarity is not my pedigree
Startled in deep fear
Only to assess the presence
Knowing more than I, wanting to
Tell me somehow, in some way,
That childhood was not wrong
To be afraid of things
We don’t know
The day brings less appearances
THE DECISION
And in the end, who shall
carry the last rock,
bury the last dead,
carry the last letter
send the last email, spend the last dollar,
Call out the last name, carry the last soul,
Celebrate the last birthday,
Reflecting back
In these final moments what can I say
Is death like rejection or is it curative
Is everything we do the last thing we do
Or does age make that big a difference
Do they listen to the old
Do they find us profound, do they look at us with lust
Or do they fear we are where they will be
Do we hasten their time, do they reject our words
of wisdom as faint memories
Fury bent the laws of the sea
Facing the storm in torments path
Lazy the mind that refuses
No tests, no signs, no warnings, no matter
All depends on the least of what we do and
No beginning can predict the end
Fatal our thoughts more than our actions
THE ARTIST WHO SPOKE
TO THE TREES
In the stormy stormy woods of winter
drenched in the
desolate fractions of ice and snow
Heavy to burden, glimpse of the shallow clouds graying
in our midst
Somewhere across the northeast near the collision of
Vermont and New Hampshire
The woods expanding, dripping the sweet sap
of the trees as if they are
Whispering to us things they heard,
things they know, things that were done
From a poet or artist who would sit
in stormy woods bending tree limbs
and touching the veined
Outline of the maple and oak,
birch and elm leafs
He would sit each day
talking and listening and responding
Solitary in the face of splintered
limbs that stretched and yawned
To the canvas bound,
Remembering the voice, knowing the sounds
he sang to the tunes of words and
Paint the joyful bliss of agonizing
separateness to nature born
Like a trilogy of life or the
equally perrenialness of the seasons
Adorn the outline feeble noting the
characters come forth
What youth in life was born here
at the fallen break of streams and fields
Beauty of the soul confided,
inspiring the domain to come back
As we do
Out on the last corn field road that
backs up to the early hills that rise
Near Canada is the sparking click
of rapid winds that tender
The harvest of art and the artist
Sitting in between the tallness of bark and
bridges lofting high over the falls
Near Hudson Falls Gorge
Who spoke in these woods
for us to hear and listen
For they do remember
and with our thirst unquenched
Will tell us things we need
to know and listen for our very soul to
Uncover itself in bestowing
the secrets held deeply in
The stormy woods
CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD
From the northside of the canal
The greenish brown water
Separated us
As twins of doubt
You with the wealth of
Manmade
I the prince of
Poor things begotten
Fragments of learning
Are we the disciples
Of a new age
Or the remnants of
History
Weary the longboards
That jut out
Across the pier and over the
Reeds
Hiding the fox and hawk and heron
I saw you on a throne
With the hair of a child
And the face of a steel
Door
Hands that held the reins
Of the largest steed
And at Christmas we watched
The ornaments float around your yard
And the clamor of bells and
Riddles
Woke us in the early morning
The years that grew the heart
Have broken the dreams
Adrift
In spiraling cities
Separated by
A Nation
A continent
A world
Now that we have no
Paths left to wander
Holding in the
Gifts we gave
You the queen
I the pauper
Together
Above the canal
Across the reeds
Near the blue heron
THE OLD BARN SWALLOW
Restless wings settling near the last rafter
perched with
Siblings working
In and out
Funnel nests, the sticks, the
Swathing wrapped neatly
Like an old aunt would do
patiently
the torrential rain kept them inside
like small children
In the school yard
There was work to be done
Episodic ventures
Rehearsing the plan
Quietly hushing away
Til there was a sign, a signal
And releasing
the feeble voice
Peaked efficiently
It seemed every morning
arising with artistry and me
they
Gathered along the ridge line and then the
Broken trench wire
Then to the posts and then into the highest part of the
Old barn
With regularity
One could only imagine
Their choice
Raising families
Protecting their small
Possessions
Saturday morning was colder
I was desperate
The week would soon be here
There in custodial splendor
Were chores to be kept
The quiet rituals
Were embedded now and with reluctance
There were no sounds
In a cavernous outpouring
Judgmental
And there on a small twig
Lay the swallow with its head gently
Resting on the leaf
Eyes closed
And even I knew
REFLECTIONS
What drives us to be human
The parallels in the cosmos the
Heart that strings along in a wild gallop
To catch a small glimpse of Him
The natural boundaries that we post
What drives us to misunderstand the valor The courage, the sanity
As we become tightened in a continual Bond, a rewinding circle whose end
Touches us first and then lets us go
What drives us to quest for meaning and not hope
Where two worlds would try to thrive in one
When two worlds don’t really exist Beyond the bottomless and utter ridiculousness
What drives us disturbs us and we carry on
In order that sense can be made from inner limits
Why do we turn from the sun and move inward
Why do we reach up and beyond when all of it Is deep within the corpus of who we are
In essence
In challenges
In doubts
What drives us away from who we are and to what we should be
Perhaps the never ending ritual of discovery
That takes us from that small step into the
World and that slow and methodical exit out of it Where in the substances in between
We change our course and find the path generous
What drives us
Perhaps that in the mastery, the plan
The sequence
He created a small part of the Universe so that It could learn, watch and see and study the rest of itself
What drives us is what preserves us
THE BALLERINA
Its been a while
We haven’t spoken Or seen each other
Like the canvas in my studio Empty but alive, filled
And waiting for life In the blossoming
Rage
The frequent laughs The utter silence
The dead awakening in the Morning after our night
Eyes closed near your
Side Warming
And feeling the guardian fox Standing near the
Chamber
The clicking sound Do you hear it
As I Ticking away the minutes and hours of each
Day
You are in middle stage Then stage left
Until your arms cloud the imagination You command the piper
and full ensemble Beckoning to your movement
Floating like the queen The archaic master
Of the flow
Dance until the narrow floor beneath Reasons you to be the work of art
I have long pursued
DENIAL
Once again in a dark room,
Looking for a black purse that isn’t there
Still
Tormented day after day
Like frogs on a dry beach
Dead to the sun, sparrows gulping
Down the after glow
Turning page after page beginning
With the middle letters of the
Alphabet, skimming
Ruthlessly without
Any purpose, functioning
Now as if you were in the room with me
Together lost, combining our insanity
aimlessly groping for answers
selecting syllables carefully
holding hands
both looking through the phone book for one
person who could tell us
if we are here or not
have we come to the bridge where the road turns
slightly to the south
are we skeptics now
you are not in the room
I continue to search
til I can’t find what I lost
or can’t remember
your name or the city you were born in
Like vulturing retreats
Scouring the high skies
Until night falls and I am relieved
Briefly by a flicker from the prism ghost
An opal earring lies dormant near the door jam,
Imbedded with gold leaf with a dark brown
Wire loop threading its way up
THE GALLERY
The journey short on life’s court
Perceptual indignities by rank and honour
Adoring fans like thistles torn from branch to ground
In utterancelessness
Tongues twisted rebukes from critics in tails
Awkward at first
I caught your eye all wrapped up in matrimony
But glancing at everyone
Doubt or sinister you the tall limbed ambassador of
Lust
Is Madison and Fifth still quaint with subdued floral plates
Garnishing the windows
Are men at rest digging their graves
Sipping their lattes
Are the women frizzed to hell with rambunctious tights
Throbbing breasts, canned heat, the gallery was lit well and
Reprised of such avant garde etchings and ink stained frameless sheets
The danger we face in the holocaust of immorality
Seethes in a tender heart, that innocent well
Deep and burrowed below the sands
Arresting and quiet
The perennials are coming back aren’t they
If you have to ask, you don’t understand art
Drawing dainty, scapes like fawns under the mother’s womb
Lambasted for perculiarity, loved for its color
Its my work, by hand, by subdued light, in early morning
Between love and coffee,
Bands and listlessness, the sounds of sex or the sounds of
The palette, to me neither is better, both equal
Weekends dumped and lost
After hours in stench soothed upper hallways
Windows create the look of the canvas only to
Threaten my own belief, day after day selling not me but my talent
Refused to gloat, but willing to satirize myself
The fear of anticipating rejection at the hands of the callous
Bones trickling through their hair, frost bitten contempt
For my work, hung with care, the light is such
They show too well
A damn good place in the scorned ferocity of city life
Competitively drowning by frame and dust, squander and
Penance
Did I pay my dues or do you just dislike my
Interpretation
Tomorrow again and next week again
Is the approval acceptance in the domain without
Precedence or just acceptance without reward for
Skill
You don’t love them but they are mine
The only thing I own is owed respect
Look with your own eyes and flourish praise on the rainbowed curtain
But never glance at me
For I am hidden in my work
Where I belong and want to be
Don’t ask me back again
BEING AWARE OF LIFE
WHILE NOT LIVING IT
We awake like parables
Prepared to enlighten and cause concern
To be read as an example of a good life
Learning and noticing
With books tightly clenched in our
Hands
We are friends aren’t we
Stilled by the varnish drying on the newly
Finished table I did for you
Or the rows of yellow and orange
Flowers that were planted like
Alphabetical chimes
We go to work, come home, sleep before the kids,
Do Sundays where we have more belief than the rest
Of the week, read and live our lives
In what we think is the modality of acceptance
But what of our hearts and dreams of magnificence
Of the detour you and I took years ago
All suspended
For us to live and raise our family
I was idle as you cherished
I was lonely while you were fulfilled
I was unnoticing while you were taking care of
The world we created
The latitudes don’t change, we do
The longitudes don’t change, we do
The course was set and has been
Listen to me now
When we walk alone
On either side of the long arched roads
Those trees we saw as green and took for granted
Are in their Autumn and will begin
Anew like us
In time
As we pass this season and look to another
WAITING
The world misjudged me
Or just forgot about me
Not knowing a thing about me
Or the pain
As we suffer -- mostly alone
Varieties of things mostly found
Lost again,
change
Unnoticed, impersonal
A silent disaster
Without a path to share
Like prisms without the sun
Chairs without legs
Roofs without walls
Roots without trees
Meaningless
Overcome by some strange distance
As if not connected to the world
You are your own beacon on an empty
Landscape
Reaching for the hand
The heart
The face
The voice
Listen well for in the ravages of storm days
Comes the ebb and the flow
Coasting in the meander
Adrift with a purpose of no purpose
Until the land appears once again
Judging from an open sea
IN A MOMENT BEFORE
TIME SHE CAME
The wind that swept by me before
Has swept me into it now
Unlike the quickness of a fleeting rain drop
Or the cunning of the flake of snow
But the glimpse here and then gone
Of a note played gently
On the instrument
In the field where nature plays
No sung has been sung
No poem written
No work of art painted
No story told
That can truly explain what
Things are left in me
In an old school yard
Where she played and I saw her
Or in the street when she crossed
In a hurried dash to catch a
Train
Or in a room with another
In my place and
Never knowing that my eyes had
Already seen her
Quietly
No world has been created
No language spoken
No life planned
Until this becomes
The story unfolding in her arms
And then mine
Toward that which we reach
Beyond where we are
I can do more than love you
But I can t love you more than I do
TRANSITIONS
If you the flower,
I the bee;
If you the shore,
I the Sea;
If you the tree,
I the leaves;
If you the locked door,
I
The keys
IF WE REMOVE
If we remove the time that
Surrounds each of us
We are left to devise in our way the
Nature of our lives in a compass
Passing through and passing on we
Become the fragile beauty
That lifts a sky or
Settles a storm
That flies away on the
Little children at curiosity
If we remove the bright aura
That quietly surrounds us
We see the inner glow of rapture
The serenity of so many generations
If we remove the facades
And the clutter from the high roof gutters
Where has been collected a lifetime of
Understandings
We remove the uncertainty
And follow the only
Path there
If we choose as we can
Then we remove the doubt
And start believing in that
Child again
Who sat so alone
And wondered
About his life
Just before it began
Two paths led into the wood Each took the same the best they could
Until one day when they were done They saw that two paths
Now were one
“When You Love, You Live:
When You Live, You Love”
About the Author
J R Simone is both an accomplished writer and Internationally known artist. He has
painted over 300 works and written more than 250 Poems, prose and short stories in his varied career
spanning forty years. He was a former partner of the late Lena Spencer, founder of the oldest
Sustaining coffee house in America that gave stage to such illuminaries as; Bob Dylan, Arlo Gurthrie, Tom Paxton, (Peter, Paul and Mary) Don McLean, Asleep at the Wheel,
Bucky Pizzereli,Emmy Lou Harris, Balfa Frere, Dave Van Ronk ( Bob Dylan’s mentor in NYC),The world famous
composer David Amram, Bobby Hacket, Robert Klein, Fireside Theatre, to name a few. Simone makes
his presence known in New York, Washington, DC, London and Virginia
He lives alone..