Poem

NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS
by Courtney Druz

Courtney Druz is a Jewish poet, mother, and former architect now living in New Jersey. Her poems have appeared in several publications including the current issue of Entelechy: Mind & Culture. She holds a BA in religious studies from Brown University and a MArch from the University of Pennsylvania.

It matters that this is true:
that pushing the stroller up the hill,
filled with sleeping boy and girl,
I thought about my muscles and
didn’t see the sky like smoke
at four o’clock, the drying trees
like black veins in the gray.

It matters that I thought
about my boots, that they were good,
and didn’t hear the red-eyed cars
rushing like wind, their terrible trumpets,
then the whisper of leaves.

All I saw, all at once,
black letters
stenciled on the pavement like a cut into stone,
the black showing through from a great distance:
NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS

Im not ready for anything beautiful

Im not ready for anything beautiful

I looked around, the world today

Inside me I found nothing pleasing

I looked inside, the people today

Emptiness abound, nothing enticing

Not a thing enticing

Apathy is not the word for me

I care much for humanity

Yet apathy is not strange to me

Because I look at it in the mirror, perhaps daily

Yes I must look daily

I searched inside myself today

I was not pleased, so I released my past

I searched inside for myself today

I saw something false, so I took of the mask

I took off my mask

Now apathy is a form of reality

So I tighten my gloves, look at it straight

Apathy is somewhat like love, you see

You must fight it long, and win

Fight it long and win

I realized that hope was real today

I grasped the wind and held on strong

I realized I needed to hope today

I felt it come and lift me home

Let it come lift you home

Im not ready for anything beautiful

So that long dull drone

Beat something in my soul

That told me I was wrong

That told me I was wrong

I thought some things

That never really could fit in

I knew that I was wrong

I knew that I was wrong

And the last last time

That I took a look behind

I dropped dead, I don’t want to drop dead

I stopped looking, inside today

I let the one who formed belong

I opened up, and wider still

I stopped looking

He is beautiful

So I fight it long and win

Love

Soledad, by Robert Hayden

(And I, I am no longer of that world)

Naked, he lies in the blinded room
chainsmoking, cradled by drugs, by jazz
as never by any lover's cradling flesh.

Miles Davis coolly blows for him:
O pena negra, sensual Flamenco blues;
the red clay foxfire voice of Lady Day

(lady of the pure black magnolias)
sobsings her sorrow and loss and fare you well,
dryweeps the pain his treacherous jailers

have released him from for a while.
His fears and his unfinished self
await him down in the anywhere streets.

He hides on the dark side of the moon,
takes refuge in a stained-glass cell,
flies to a clockless country of crystal.

Only the ghost of Lady Day knows where
he is. Only the music. And he swings
oh swings: beyond complete immortal now.


-Robert Hayden

The moon

Sometimes looking up at the stars I get depressed.

They seem to be in such a sad state, shining yes, but never really finding themselves in the vast void of black.

Yet when I look to the moon I find hope for the stars, hope for man.

The moon seems to set the stars in place, every one of us.

All so appropriate.

It sets the standard of beauty while extracting beauty out of this myriad of lesser lights.

This lesser light.

The moon tells us calmly, don't worry; you don't have to be great, im already everything for you.

The moon.

Like a big blue lighthouse, like a teacher; a friend.

The moon.

The moon.

The moon,

and me.