Author: Gary Beck
Source: https://www.polseguera.com/writers/writing-111_desperate-seeker.html


Desperate Seeker


Desperate Seeker: 'Internet Yearning', 'Diminishing Voices', 'Observer', 'Protective Shield', 'Travel II'

 

Internet Yearning

Ms lonely heart

sits at her computer

reviewing candidates

at an on-line dating service,

each one promising

to make her happy,

most of them so clever

she cannot tell

who is sincere,

who is unscrupulous

hoping to take advantage

of a vulnerable person,

so she is indecisive

and does not push

the tempting button

of connectivity.

 

Diminishing Voices

I do not know

why the young become poets,

since they seem to be

more concerned with aesthetics

than issues of our time.

I think of Byron,

going to Misalongi

to join the Greeks

in their fight for freedom,

dying for an ideal.

I think of Whitman

seared by the horrors

of brutal civil war,

nursing the wounded,

giving of himself.

I think of Ginsburg

howling his frustration.

the classic outsider

accusing, opposing

the land that built him.

Poets have fallen silent

on vital issues

settling for security

in a university,

unfit for current challenges

 

Observer

Each morning

      I go to work

and see an old woman

looking from her window

in a ratty tenement

      eluding gentrification,

allowing her to peer

      at a confusing world,

face pressed against 

            unresponsive glass,

     seeking to decipher

why she's been marooned

in a submerging building.

 

Protective Shields

They sit at computers

desperate to reach someone,

make human contact,

but never know

who responds,

identities concealed

by remote electrons,

permitting indulgence

in communication

that does not lead

to risk of discovery.

 

Travel II

Eastern Europeans

sufficiently endowed

with ample euros,

some legitimately earned,

cruise New York City

camera in one hand

guidebook in the other

looking for landmarks,

reasonably certain

the secret police

are not watching.

 

'Desperate Seeker' is a poetry collection that uncovers the anger, fear and horror that resounds in the powerful struggle of existence.