A Country Rag Gloria!



by Harold Jansen


SOLITUDE AND STILLNESS

running around in the altogether
bright-eyed
brilliant
no interference

the altitude of life and death
death and life
life and death
come again
climb

daily life and after all
it makes a smile
behavior and ideas
a saddened heart
a day ends and night starts
moon and falling stars

the influence of the whatever to unfold
                    from its source
             to meet
like the flower that opens
emotion        bleeding passion
              and pallor
sky and water
whatever sends the ebb and flow for the physical body

solitude and stillness
rise from the clamor of commerce
noise reaching the ear
is exhaled
breathing is the first
           and last rite of the body
in or out


ALL THAT I CAN DO

          when i walked thru
and you were opening your fire
i had nowhere left to go
all that i could do
was fall to your desire
and leave the long and winding road

            i stayed awhile
and you were over flowing
but a river runs away
now all that i can do
is face the growing distance
that fills this cold and lonely place


ON THE SURFACE OF LAKE WATER

things more distant
time less urgent
days and days of foot travel
peeked clouds and blue mountains
on the surface
of lake water

and the day is getting late

this liquid landscape
in mind and reality
words that fall in place
this frame-work
that holds together space

from gravity's eyes
to find indigenous stars
and go thru constellations
to hide in space so deep
in thought

to forge and write the sun



Harold Janzen, a Canadian poet of vividly unusual imagery and cadence, lives in the Southern Manitoba country on three acres of oak trees and the meandering Dead Horse Creek, just outside the small Town of Morden of which he is Parks Director. With his wife Lori, a grade 4 & 5 teacher, he has lived and taught school in Honduras for a year, explored most of the United States and parts of Mexico and Europe, and most recently spent five months travelling throughout southeast Asia. In addition to numerous publications on-line, his poetry is archived in A Country Rag for 98 and 97. His poetry has been published in the hard copy Manitoba periodicals Prairie Fire, the Gopher and Paper Rainbows; in Pieces Of A Jigsaw Puzzle, a multi-cultural anthology. Two self-published chap books are also available: The Cat Sleeps In My Head and Ultravisions, a collaboration with artist Marcel Debreuil.

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text© Harold Jansen, March 1999
graphics© A Country Rag April, 1996, 2000. All rights reserved.