BRUCE LEVINE - POEMS

Bruce Levine, a 2019 Pushcart Prize Poetry Nominee, has spent his life as a writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional. His literary catalogue includes four novels, short stories, humorous sketches, flash fiction, poetry, essays, articles and a screenplay. Over three hundred of his works are published in over twenty-five on-line journals including Ariel Chart, Friday Flash Fiction, Literary Yard; over thirty print books including Poetry Quarterly, Haiku Journal, Dual Coast Magazine, and his shows have been produced in New York and around the country. Six eBooks are available from Amazon.com.  His work is dedicated to the loving memory of his late wife, Lydia Franklin. A native Manhattanite, Bruce lives in New York with his dog, Daisy. Visit him at www.brucelevine.com.

​Marigolds and Thyme

​A season filled with marigolds
Laced with lavender and thyme
Holly berries left from Christmas
Hung from transoms in doorways
Vestiges of seasons defined
Reminders of other memories
A golden glow in the mind
Replaced and redefined anew
Each solstice and equinox
As marigolds bloom and holly festoon


A journal entry left unwritten
Remembered and unsaid
Toasting a new beginning
A calendar engraved
With glories of the future
Brightly colored flowers
A season filled with marigolds
Laced with lavender and thyme

​Praying for a Blizzard

​Summer heat
Lassitude permeating every pore
Wasted days
Too hot to even think
And moving takes more energy
Then it produces
With after-effects of permanence
In a single place
Unable to raise one’s body
Beyond a reclining chair
Heat rising
Steaming up from the pavement
In unending streams of perspiration
The only respite is recumbent
Drifting into a semi-comatose mixture
Of suffering and gloom
As days become nights
With no relief
But
Around May
To begin
Praying for a blizzard

​Reading the Blogs

​Reading the blogs
Is a perpetual challenge
Wondering why something is there
Wondering if the author is scared


Are they writing to write?
Or writing for reason?
Or are they simply compelled
Just to put something up?


Fashioning fancy after
Reader’s approbation
Extending a handshake
To comments not meant


Reading the blogs
Of writers prolific
Joyous new wonders
A daily dose of cheer


Writers keep writing
And upload your treasures
The universe awaits you
To savour your gifts

Finishing the Thought

​Finishing the thought
Producing commentary
With or without meaning
Measuring space on a page
Of unknown value
Awakening a prism of the intellect
Printed against a background
Of tangerine
Books filled with words
Amounting to nothing
Thoughts piled one on another
Illuminating hidden understanding
Through a transom of enlightenment
In the age of reality
Never forgetting to cut and paste
In a journal kept hidden under the bed
Thoughts of great minds
Produced in history
Resolving complexities of hidden meanings
And finishing the thought

​The Bicycle and the Balloon

Hyacinths and helium
And an orange colored sky
Melding into a pool
Filled with goldfish
Laughing like a crimson balloon


A lake of rainbow trout
And a parade of dinosaurs
Riding on the wind
And hanging from clouds
Taking care not to bump each other


An upside-down bicycle
Glued to a table
Handle bars of chrome
Turned westward
Riding in concentric circles


Happy days and happy times
Packed in a picnic basket
Sandwiches and tuna fish
Pared with slices of pickles
Filling an empty cup to the brim


Time remembers everything
In a perfect sphere of lightning bolts
Candy bars and calliopes
And merry-go-rounds galore
To bring joy forevermore