Edward Steinhardt
Edward Steinhardt Poems
We are shadows thrown upon the wall.
We are images, what others see;
How we see ourselves, true-
Or what we think we perceive
...
Forgive us Lord for the graven image.
We had them before Baal,
Ashtoreth, the golden calf.
Thy agonizing likeness
...
If it weren't enough
That the farms have gone for broke,
The two-child family awakens one morning
To find the farm machinery gone;
...
Lord, how can I pray
When my heart is hard as rock?
Lord, how can I pray
When I'm mute and cannot talk?
...
I came upon a brook the other day,
My step intrepid and sensing still
I stood,
Awash in wonder at its current soul
...
At times, it is the childhood scenario:
Losing the parents in the store or mall,
The puzzlement, the quickening panic,
...
We miss you already, Diana.
You came to us in the magic hour,
A blushing bride at St. Paul's.
We were there in the carriage
...
for Ryan
We are folded into one another
As only lovers can be.
...
for Ryan
The Southern Belle Supper Club.
A pianist, an ear-ring
...
That's how it must have been
In the Old Days- the Train,
Like a roaring beast
Come to rock the babes in their dreams
...
Gentle Lamb, O so mild,
Stay with me a little while;
Let the sorrows in my keep
Bury in Thy whitened fleece.
...
'Woman places corpse of husband in closet.
Linah B-,64, said her husband died
In October 31 in either 1977 or 1978 and she
Put him in a closet because she
...
What is this thing of considerable size
That lies within our chest:
The heart,
That goes on beating, beating,
...
When I was a child
And my father pressed my small hand
Into his large one,
I did all I could do
...
Dear child, your Queen is dead,
The Germans have returned
To their borders;
That cursed Nazi shot himself,
...
It is sad that a man
Who has children,
Who loves them;
Worships them as he once was,
...
It was matter of fact
That your name came into conversation
The other day concerning the tragic news
Of your passing away:
...
The second time we met
It was at this place
Where the sand goes
Down to the sea.
...
Edward Steinhardt Biography
Edward Steinhardt is a poet and writer who lives in Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. He worked in newspaper journalism for many years. Mr. Steinhardt was president of the Missouri Writer's Guild from 1994-1995. He produced Missouri Writers Week inaugural ceremonies for many years, which featured readings by Howard Nemerov, Richard Wilbur, Mona Van Duyn, Charles Guenther and others. Mr. Steinhardt produced Mr. Nemerov's last poetry reading in 1991. Journalism awards include Best Historical Article, Best Regularly-published Newspaper Column and Best Newspaper Article. His first book, The Painting Birds (1988) placed a Walter Williams Major Work Award. The book Dandelion Dreams and Other Poems (1999) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. 'Skilled, tasteful and delicate in feeling.' (-Howard Nemerov, on the poetry of Edward Steinhardt) 'This collection (Dandelion Dreams) is replete with honest and authentic American life in the finest traditions of such greatly neglected poets as Edgar Lee Masters, E.A. Robinson, Maxwell Bodenheim and others early in our century... Dandelion Dreams is the work of one touched by many ages and cultures- but it is an American original.' (Charles Guenther, from the Introduction) . 'Edward Steinhardt's poems move in a characteristic exploratory way, through scenes large or small, through memories, through relationships. They are highly readable- talkative, sympathetic, humane- and it is a pleasure to follow their courses. He can be precisely evocative, finding the odd in the ordinary, as in 'Sleeping in Sikeston.' Another good evocation is 'Walking the Tracks at Hermann, ' which he dedicates to his late friend Howard Nemerov. And I espcially enjoy the jauntiness of such engaging poems as 'Billiards' and 'Reruns.' (-Richard Wilbur, concerning Dandelion Dreams and Other Poems) 'These poems are fact of an enduring human attention to what values and feelings are still posible in our world. They are pledge and record, testament and persuasvie story, of a real life in a real time and place. Edward Steinhardt has learned his art with great determination and humility. His generous authority is clear in every page.' (-Robert Creeley, concerning Dandelion Dreams and Other Poems))
The Best Poem Of Edward Steinhardt
The Shadowlands
We are shadows thrown upon the wall.
We are images, what others see;
How we see ourselves, true-
Or what we think we perceive
Or want to be.
We are shadows, souls in circumspect,
Flesh and blood souls
Who love, hate; lie and get up,
Fall and desist.
Our emotions are our ramparts,
Our will: our army;
We of our several selves
Count in unison and apart.
We go forward alone and together,
Seeking the childhood of our nursery,
While gaining the world
By grown-up design.
We are scared of living, yet wither
At the thought of mortality.
We think that in loving
Aloneness may be less-lonely,
But it is not.
We pass one another on tracks
Of a variable gauge,
Locomotives bound
For this dream or that;
Our own stationmasters
With our own rules,
Solitaire by cheating;
Playing with more cards, or less-
We are the poker-faced children
Who lie but do not deceive,
Caught red-handed in the secret garden,
Having purposely lost the key
So as not to be incriminated.
We choose to remember backward;
Not forward- taking less the prize
But the reception crumbs instead.
We are the invited guests
In a stranger's house,
Being by being, but somewhere else.
We look to the window
While talking; hearing- but not.
We seek the lands and fair weather
On the other side of the glass,
A mind-manufactured substitute
For the present-tense.
We look into the fire
And see what is not there,
Secret arsonists who see something
The firemen do not.
We shake with the fever of a spell,
A magic of incredulity
And unbelievability,
A terrestrial credo of faith
Against hopelessness and helplessness.
For in believing in our separate selves
We hold ourselves to treason,
Taking life on as in a trinity;
Going forward with condemnation
And absolution. We change our souls
Even as we spring forward and fall back;
Toddlers who waver but do not yet run,
Children who parry, but mind the switch,
Adolescents who grow up
But have not the answers.
We take the first bicycle ride
And absorb the first panic;
Then free-wheel through the wind,
Seeing the twilight shadows
That gather and stretch across the road,
An intermittent projection
Of brilliance-darkness, brilliance-darkness.
We rocket with temporary momentum,
Believing while feeling, feeling to believe,
That one's shadow melds with the others,
And becomes darkness
So that there may be light.
We go forward many times into darkness.
We fumble, we waver, we go into a ditch.
We remember the majesty of the thrill
Made moreso by the fall.
We pick up our bikes as children,
Go forward as through many lands,
Tourists by design- or bad directions.
We visit this place and that place
Within ourselves,
Opening shutters here and there
To both feel the rain of the storm-
And shut it out.
We exult, we distress,
We shuffle the cards,
Deal them out.
We gather storms
To make our own rain,
We press our nose
To the glass of our soul
And think that whatever should come,
Tempest or not,
We will see our own
Shadow cast upon the wall.
We will remember that
We are our company in our aloneness,
That our image is that
Of belief battling unbelief,
Both in ourselves
And when we are in the shadowlands.
Edward Steinhardt Comments
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