TWENTY SIMPLE POEMS

1. MY POEM
2. FINGERPAINTING
3. POET
4. OLD SNOW
5. STRANGE RAIN
6. EVERY DAY
7. DON'T DIE
8. AMTRAK STOP AT WESTERLY, MASS.
9. LABOR
10. LEBOYER BATH FOR A NEWBORN SON
11. BEHIND OUR HOUSE
12. FALL CAMPOUT
13. GUILT
14. SKATE
15. THANK GOD
16. WHEN FRIENDS MEET
17. SEVEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT AN ORANGE
18. AVENUE A IN SEVENTY-TWO
19. CAT SWIM
20. TOLERATIONS'S LIMITS AT THE GREEN PAVILION READINGS

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MY POEM

by Rich Accetta-Evans

 
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My poem delights me.
My poem is mine.
It is like fresh bread
When I bake it myself.
It is like my son
The day he was born.
I laughed as I wrote it,
And clapped my hands.
I will stop a stranger
To show him my poem.
Because it delights me.
Because it is mine.
     September 11, 1993.
FINGERPAINTING
OF THE POET AS A YOUNG BOY

by Rich Accetta-Evans

 
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He is wearing a smock.
The table where he sits
Has four short legs.
The paper on the table is shiny and wet.
The paint in the porcelain cup
Is wet and bright and cool.
He is timid at first.
A single finger touches paint,
Draws back  quickly, waits awhile.
At last he takes
     a dab.
And after that he smears.
A forest scene
Is spread in green
Across the slippery page.
There are trees with mighty trunks
And greenish rivers feed
Their lovely twisted roots.
May 1993

POET
by Rich Accetta-Evans

 
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Poet -
Write no more about the moon.
Better to be silent
In your yard
And watch it rise.
November 3, 1994

OLDSNOW
by Rich Accetta-Evans

 
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Old snow piles
Retain the shape
Of drifts that drift no more.
They are porous and pitted
And hollowed out with little caves.
Their skin is glazed
 And is mottled with soot.
The old soft flakes
 Have been reduced
To icy grains.
Old snow piles
Will melt inside
Sending rivers down the street.
April, 1993

STRANGE RAIN
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Its drum and splash is faster
Than the beat of wiper blades
Which race in vain to clean the glass.
It seems not to fall upon us
But to wash against us
As it blows across our path.
And yet the day is bright -
And the sky is all 
A perfect placid blue,
Except for that single ragged cloud
Running, dark and angry, toward the sun.
       April 21, 1994

EVERY DAY
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Every day my father
Got out of bed at five
And my mother - up before him -
Had his breakfast waiting.
Their quiet breakfast voices
And the clinking of their dishes
Were carried on the stillness
To the darkness of my room.
They ate poached egg on toast
And drank their coffee strong and black.
            October, 1993
DON'T DIE
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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No, Daddy.
  No, Daddy.
      No, Daddy, NO.
Please don't go until I've said
        ....You know.
Please, Daddy.
   Please, Daddy.
      Please
         Don't
            Go.
         - - - Fall 1990

AMTRAK STOP AT WESTERLY, MASS.

by Rich Accetta-Evans

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The landscape slides slowly, then slower, then stops.
The low sun, slowly, toward the river drops.
I turn in my seat and look through the glass.
A railway station stands in a field of brown grass
Which is not even stirred by an autumn breeze
But is quietly waiting for next winter's freeze.
A rusty freight car on a side track there
Is surrounded by trees which are stunted and bare.
After just a few seconds or eons have passed
Someone in charge must decide that at last
It is time for my train to move down the track,
For the view starts again its slow slide back.

LABOR
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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She is deepdownfaraway fearfulsinkingweary.
Who can ride on waves of pain
In frail canoes of breathing?
He is watching aweful-striken,
Never knowing how to touch or where.
He is thinking of the mysteries.
He is waiting (see how long he waits)
For his chance to help along
The universe And her.
But now
The long-awaited Life to Come
Is coming and has come.
It is pushing through a tunnel
And it batters at the door.
It wrinkles out to light.
It cries to feel the cold.
         July 20, 1986

LEBOYER BATH FOR A NEWBORN SON

by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Let me take you from your mother now,
(On whose breast you'd like to rest)
For she's exhausted, just like you,
Maybe even more.
I marvel at the work you two have done together -
Two long days of labor
To make a separation
Of  your beings
From each other.
You are in a new world, now.
Brighter, colder, louder.
You no longer swim
In heartbeat-sound
Or mother-warmth.
But I can take you part-way back
For just a little while.
Is the incandescent light too bright?
I'll ask the nurse to turn it down.
Do  you shiver in our air?
Let me carry you over there
And put you down in a man-made womb
(A pan of warm water we've kept for you
There in the corner of the labor room).
Ah, now you've stopped your crying.
You're relaxing, resting, almost sighing.
Awash in warmest fluid, float.
My arm is underneath you
And I will hold you up.
       - November 30, 1993--

BEHIND OUR HOUSE

by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Burdocks surround tomato plants.
Thistles smother roses,
A tree drops rotting fruit
And heavy flowers droop,
Watching in sorrow their drying roots.
I see them in the morning
Through the quickly lifted blinds,
Before I turn away and dress.
The day we planted the seeds
My little son was proud.
How can I show him
What we have grown?
       September 1992
       Revised September 1993.

FALL CAMPOUT
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Ten boys and four men, with their packs
Walk in the leaf-filled ruts
On a road into the woods.
They find a clearing on a hill,
Pitch their canvas,
Gather wood.
After dark, the campfire burns.
They stand with faces toward the flame
And long cold shadows thrown behind.
Inside the zippered tent at last:
A smell of mold,
A sound of falling leaves,
A bit of moonlight
Coming through the open flap.
      January 1995

GUILT
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Right now, your guilt is heavy fruit,
Growing on your branches, bearing them down.
Your springy sapling strength is overcome.
You cannot keep your longest limbs
From bending with the weight.
They will brush their leafy ends
Against the the ground.
But do not ask too soon to be relieved of guilt.
If picked when green, this heavy fruit
Is hard , sterile and sour.
Let it grow til its season comes.
Let it ripen, sweeten, soften.
Then it will loosen its grip.
And drop of itself to the waiting earth,
Carrying seeds of a new resolve.
       November, 1993
       Revised June 15, 1994

SKATE
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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We skate upon the skin of life.
It's Egg-shell brittle, made of ice,
And stretched upon a pond.
Undereath, in waters where
We swam in summertime,
The chill is soaking in
And torpid fishes stare ahead
Not moving even fins.
        January 1994

THANK GOD
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Thank God, the planets don't revolve
In perfect circles round the sun.
But wander oval orbits
Far away in space.
Thank God, the axis of the Earth
Is turning tilted, like a top,
And wobbles as it spins.
Thank God, rivers never flow
In straight efficient lines
From the heights down to the sea,
But crash their way down mountainsides,
Fall over rocky cliffs,
And carve out twisting valleys where they run.
Thank God, Thank God, for all our days
And for every single creature
And each one's singular, quirky ways.
           - August 1993

WHEN FRIENDS MEET

by Rich Accetta-Evans
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The Quakers coming one by one
Into their Meetinghouse
Do not talk but just sit down
And fold their hands
Or close their eyes.
And each of them settles down and down,
Until - sometimes - a floor is found
Where all, who've gently sunk
In separate solitudes
Can firmly stand together.
Meanwhile, in their Meetinghouse,
Sun-cast squares of light
From unstained window-panes
Move without a sound
Across the soft gray walls.
        December 1, 1993

SEVEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT AN ORANGE

by Rich Accetta-Evans

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           1
   One orange Section
  Standing for the whole.
           2
       Two of them       
   their thin wet skins
     adhering gently.
            3
A long white string of pulp
          pulled
      from the mouth
     of the naked orange.
            4
The translucent orange body
          holds
  opaque and pointed seeds.
             5
       The setting sun
          is hotter
   And drier than an orange.
             6
    The orange peel is gone,
   a soft white coat remains.
             7
    Orange peel and eggshell    
    Among the coffe grounds.
         
         September 14, 1994
AVENUE A IN SEVENTY-TWO
My First Morning in New York City

by Rich Accetta-Evans

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The sleeping-bag was soft on the bare wood floor
And I might have slept for an hour more
But I was wakened by a flashing light
From the silvery bellies of pigeons in flight
Who turned and turned and turned in the sky
And looked so pretty it made me cry.
           November 26, 1994

CAT SWIM (A DREAM)

by Rich Accetta-Evans

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Looking down into the water
Where the lake was clear and shallow
I saw a kitten swimming - - like a fish.
Rippple shadows waved
Along her tiger back
And a kitten shadow followed her
Across the pebbled floor.
    March 13, 1992

TOLERATION'S LIMITS AT THE GREEN PAVILION

READINGS
by Rich Accetta-Evans

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There are Christians, there are humanists.
More than one's a Jew.
One fella sings a name for God
(Ithink he calls her Hugh).
Republicans and democrats,
Maybe a commie or two:
In politics, like everything else
We make a varied stew.
Some of us write poems that rhyme
Some write verse that's blank.
No one requires us to write as we do
We have only ourselves to blame or to thank.
Mostly we will tolerate
Each other's views, each other's rhyme.
But woe unto the reader
Who takes up too much time.
     October 1993

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AUTHORSHIP INFORMATION

© 1995 Rich Accetta-Evans.

This web page was created in May, 1997, at another address on the web. The poems on it are
taken from my chapbook "Twenty Simple Poems", printed in January 1995. Send comments or
suggestions to RAdashE @ ix.Netcom.com

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Return to TOP OF PAGE or LIST OF POEMS or RICH ACCETTA-EVANS' BLOG.