Everybody Wins
Afterwards is when the game begins.
When games are being played they hardly are a game,
but once they’re over winners, losers both can blame
the other side, and everybody wins.
Johann Cruyff, the captain of the Dutch soccer team, said: “The game always begins afterwards” according to a review of “Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football, ” by David Winner (Bloomsbury) in The Economist, June 24,2000) .
6/25/00
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Los Angeles And London
LA has the density
of London, and its sprawl
lacks truly the immensity
that makes detractors crawl.
Los Angeles has open spaces
more than London does;
while London has more royal faces,
LA has more buzz.
LA’s fault is San Andreas,
in London it’s the Pakis;
both say, “Illegal to kick ass,
except against Iraqis.”
They both are surely very great
but how long will this last?
Now enemies are at the gate-
for both the die is cast.
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Captured Sunshine
One movement captures sunshine while
another gallops like a stallion. Beverly,
where hills and woods stretch mile on mile,
is dream-like, like the central piacevole,
while I, too, dream-like, write,
like stallions which like Icarus attempt
to capture sunshine’s brilliant light,
then stumble, not of gravitas exempt.
(11/11/07/Inspired by a Naxos performance of the Elgar String Quartet, which I heard on KUSC while writing in my Beverlywood home.)
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Minatory And Hortatory
To Adam the Lord was most minatory,
and said: “You must keep your virginity! ”
He learned about sex
From a tree whose effects
Made it change from a knowing- to sinner-tree.
To Adam the Lord had been hortatory,
and said: “You may eat from the shorter tree.
If you eat from the tall
you’re certain to fall
out of bed, going straight to the mortuary.”
Inspired by Mark Twain’s advice to writers: “If you catch an adjective, shoot it! ”
3/12/04
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Nights Of Madness
After nights of madness
mornings become grim,
dissonant as sadness
lowered like a scrim.
Darkened by normality,
feelings that are numb
take away vitality,
as we all succumb.
Written about twelve hours after the cease-fire between Israel and the Hezbollah on August 14,2006. Also inspired by a line from Another Green World by Richard Grant, reviewed by Art Winslow in the LA Times Book Review, August 13,2006: “After Nights of Madness, mornings are grim.”
8/14/06
poem by Gershon Hepner
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While The Raven Reminisces
Drunk on drunken kisses wild and wet,
flushed your face, your body wedged with mine,
fingers gently eloquent we let
tongues and even sweeter parts combine.
On soft sheets we two as one will drift,
mariners who sailed away to Circe,
anchor dropped until their captain sniffed––
carefree love commanding not his mercy.
Showing mercy to each other and
lying under nets we spin from kisses,
let’s resolve to put our heads in sand,
oblivious while the raven reminisces.
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Tender And Astringent
You’re tender, I’m astringent,
few detours to the sweet.
Our love is not contingent
on synchrony of beat,
the marriage of two true minds
some say that Shakespeare praised––
perhaps De Vere, but who minds? ––
the thought is sweetly phrased,
for marriage is a mélange
that thrives when two are polar,
immune to every challenge
as canine is to molar.
So love me, being tender,
astringent though I am;
be victor, and surrender,
when battered by a ram.
10/21/05
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Shall You Compare Me?
Shall you compare me to a summer's day?
I am more humid,
and in the winter when the world is gray
I am more tumid
than northern nights when love defies the cold
and makes me sing,
or autumn with the falling of the gold,
or dreams in spring.
To summer days do not compare me, dearie,
in spring and fall
and winter when the days are somewhat dreary,
I hear your call.
(12/7/97/Inspired by a satire of the Shakespeare sonnet written by the English poet Wendy Coates.)
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Napoleonic Fable
A fable that’s agreed upon
according to Napoleon
is what we should call history,
but ascribe its mystery
to recollections that are wrong
of brief events stretched into long,
in contrast to the brief report
that should, like our own lives, be short.
About this poem’s serious moral
A good historian would not quarrel:
Your history, if you are able
to write it up, is just a fable.
Napoleon once asked rhetorically: “What is history but a fable that is agreed upon? ”
1/3/10
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Rust In The Bones
He who hears the overtones
of wisdom will encounter disbelief,
and the fractures in his bone
will never heal, and cause incessant grief.
The bone of such a man will rust,
once he’s been drenched by wisdom as by rain,
and he mourn the way he lost the trust
in the divine, preferring the profane.
Augustine said: 'He who puts on wisdom puts on grief, and a heart that understands cuts like rust in the bones.'
This poem is a revision of “Overtones of Wisdom, ” written in 1999.
11/17/99
poem by Gershon Hepner
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