Shalom Freedman Poems

I have written for so long
I have forgotten how not to write
But then too
I am afraid to remember
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As a poem leads to other poems
A life leads to other lives -
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Out of my last sadness I wrote another little poem
And that little poem made the sadness less sad-
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DYING IS NOT A HAPPY THING

Dying is not a happy thing-
We see it again and again-
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WHERE I AM/ I CANNOT WRITE

Where I am
I cannot write-
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There is no poem I can write
That can deal with the threats
To our very existence-
There is no poem I can write
That can imagine the horrors
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A poet talks to himself
And hears his own praises
And does not believe them.
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A POEM CAN BRING ME BACK TO HOPE

A poem can bring me back to Hope-
Even if it is a poor poem
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I WAS ALONE WITH A POEM I COULD NO LONGER WRITE

I was alone with a poem I could no longer write-
It was a love poem
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I HEAR WITHIN MYSELF THE GREATER LINES OF OTHERS

I hear within myself the greater lines of others-
I began to write ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’
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