Roy William Gotaas
Roy William Gotaas Poems
Shield yourself -
Lead or carbon-fibre, some such
Impenetrable mask,
Black blank glasses:
...
CORRESPONDENCE INTERRUPTED:
if you should stop writing now:
I have sat long in cold, quiet darkness,
...
For that I have words
You shall not see my work:
Buried my bone in the wide flower-garden
Under the rose-petals and rotting leaves.
...
Ideally, dear reader, you need the text of 'The Passionate Pilgim', Stanza 12, in front of you as you read this. If you can't find a copy, message me and I'll send it to you.
You’re wrong Will: you who only ever cloak your truthes
With tact toward your proud and spinster Sovereign.
...
These days there seem to be no victories,
No marches in triumph between a roaring crowd:
Only the sad parade of sorrow,
The sounds of pain keening on a carrying breeze.
...
When one lies at night in the arms of a ghost,
What can one give but tears?
Are there no words to speak this kind of love?
...
(I promised I wouldn't say I loved her till we were face to face. This acrostic was my cheat on that. Acrostic? Read the first letter of each line down the page.)
I may not speak three words that tell all I feel for you:
...
Safer in my dreams:
Waking, close to you, your flesh too solid and unyielding,
...
Dreaming is prevision
By the bruised or lonely soul,
Of what in light of day
Most looks impossible.
...
Resting in his armchair one Sunday afternoon
Uncle Leon dozed and chose to die.
I say ‘chose', for he'd lived through Auschwitz
And was a man who did things his own way,
...
On Listening to an old tape recording, from Christmas 1961, in June 2004.
All dead...all long since barely bones but one.
Muffled voices struggling through a hissing curtain; a shroud really,
...
Most of the world is foolish:
What means or matters anything
...
(1st. voice) What do you see, my brother, lonely,
With eyes that seem to search
...
I don’t know your name
But you’re the unmistakable first-light that promises another day:
...
Driven memories
Back
To the now
That isn’t any more........
...
Roy William Gotaas Biography
I started writing at the age of 11: poetry mostly. Published in my late teenage years: stopped submitting when I realised how much was hormonal breast-beating and how little was from experience... but continued to write. Over the years variously visited/ worked in some 25+ countries. An unhappy and creatively barren marriage (except for two lovely children) took out another 10 years. Currently 18 years as a single father have absorbed much time and energy too. Finally fell wholely in love for the first time in my life a very few years ago. Ironic that by that time I'd written 2 romantic novels and much on the theme of love: but only then came to understand what it really means. Lost the lady tragically: the result of drug-addiction (hers, not mine) . Unable to help and having to watch the deterioration of the only woman one's ever truly loved (& one with a potentially brilliant mind at that) is a deeply scarring experience. In recent times have focussed more on my prose-writing and poetry has become something of a cathartic means for trying to heal myself. However, it does seem to me that the function of any creative artist is to place 'glow-worms' along their path through an often dark landscape: to say to other people who may come to that same place that they are not alone, that someone else has been there too and has been able to move on to some other place. Heading, in however stumbling, meandering a course, towards the light on the horizon, which presages, gives hope of, a dawn of something better? So, in that way, I write for my readers as well as myself. The suffering of personal pain may be turned to something positive if sharing that journey can help alleviate someone else's grief or difficulty. A question I'm often asked, though I doubt its relevance, is what other poets have influenced me. The answer, of course, is every one I've read, heard or met, in one way or another. In poetry though, the most memorable for me are Dante, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, Hilaire Belloc, Henry Lawson, Robinson Jeffers, James Elroy Flecker, T S Eliot. In line with my 'glow-worm' theory, I try to make my poetry as accessible to the reader as the depth of emotion will allow. One way to achieve this, for me, is to be as unadorned as possible: to write as near to the bone as I can. As a young man, having been a fluent reader from the age of 4, I was, as Dylan Thomas put it, 'in love with the sight and sound of words'. That love led me to use too much adjectival and adverbial decoration and it was only after some years living in the desert (and reading Dante & Eliot) that I made the breakthrough to a leaner style. (See my poem 'I have words'.) Currently I earn my crust partly through ownership of a Coaching College, where I enjoy very much teaching English to senior students, which is invigorating to my own writing. And still, bloody but unbowed, I look for love.)
The Best Poem Of Roy William Gotaas
Dark Glasses
Shield yourself -
Lead or carbon-fibre, some such
Impenetrable mask,
Black blank glasses:
For burn you my looking will this time.
Search you out I will
Through & through and through for fault;
For reason to leave, to care no more -
Find you out before the bell tolls I will, this time.
Such strong, brave words?
Yet you know, as I do, the glasses are to shield me!
Lift them from your eyes, give me one glance
And I’m yours as wholely as the other times.
I’ll wear the glasses!
Hide tears and pain and
The shame of grieving for my own mistake.
Hide those signs and be guessed a fool:
Reveal it all and prove I am.
This time... this time...
There is no this time
Nor ever will be.
I can strain my eyes
Looking for you to reappear,
Till I’m red and blind...
But there’ll be no this time again.
May 2008
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4/24/2024 6:12:43 PM # 1.0.0.1119
Dear Sir William Gotaas, this is to let you know that I am totally impressed with your biography! By reading carefully the details given, it seems that you have being through Heaven and Hell like most of us (grown-ups) . It is also amazing how you have come a long way to pursuit your goals, educationally as well as romantically! Bravo! I can't wait to run and read your works which I image to be also impressive! I hope to learn from your knowledge and works in order for me to improve and enhance my writing! There is one thing that really caught my immediate attention about your recent comment on a poem by Andy (last name omitted) where you openly made some suggestions which I, personally found to be offensive when you posted them as a comment! It is embarrassing for me and I imagine that is even worse for young writers like Andy! This suggestions you made, I am sure were made with the intention of helping him but you have done it in a private way through messaging! God Bless You for always! Now, I am going to read your poems with a great hope in my eyes and mind! Love and Peace! Romeo from New York City! ...