A Nod to My Father: Three Generations of Poetry - Softcover

John, Lee And Adam McKinley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1440199272 ISBN 13: 9781440199271

Verlag: iUniverse, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

POETRY ONCE WRITTEN IN QUIET SOLITUDE and then shared between three generations is now offered together in this first collection of poems. In A Nod to My Father, a father, son, and grandson-with obvious differences in style and depth-show uncanny similarities in subject and vision. What ties these writers together, besides relation, are their reflections on our modern times. Influenced by his early research of Longfellow and Whitman, grandfather John McKinley's poetry centers on the irony and absurdity of the human ego and our place in the natural world. Lee, John's son, prefers to write within the syllabic style of haiku.. Adam, John's grandson and Lee's son, cites Mary Oliver and Robinson Jeffers as his poetic influences. He enjoys the latitude of free verse but also the discipline of writing in cinquains and haiku to express his social discourse. A Nod to My Father demonstrates that although poetic styles may differ between fathers and sons, what they seek to imbibe and digest rarely does.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John McKinley, a retired professor from Indiana University, has published books in experimental education, participation training, and group dynamics. Lee McKinley, John's first-born son, received his medical degree and completed an internal medicine residency from Indiana University. Adam McKinley is Lee's youngest son. He is studying English and comparative literature.

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A Nod to My Father

Three Generations of PoetryBy John McKinley Lee McKinley Adam McKinley

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 John McKinley, Lee McKinley, & Adam McKinley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9927-1

Chapter One

Monuments We are the monuments that celebrate the dreams Of those who strove to live beyond their time and needed proof, Or those who spurned the future in the fevered grip of careless love; They were also monuments whose birth allayed the fear of death or loneliness and nurtured hope that new-born lives would not repeat the past; Does future lie abed with history?

Where Hawks Held Sway

Down the dawn wind came a quavering call born in the throat of a hovering hawk high above the wooded hills where ancient hawks held sway and greeted morning light with calls that no one heard except the mice that feared the feathered strike of beak and claw; Now it echoes from the past and floats on morning air, an audible spirit that pricks the warp of time and lets the ages flow into my conscious life.

Reunion

They smiled at me from faces showing hints Of former selves that now seemed strangely alien, Like shards of broken mirrors yielding only Partial images that once were whole But now were being shattered by the force Of fifty years. We talked of mundane matters and tip-toed'round The things we came to hear; "Remember whens" and "What-do-you-thinks" refused to come, as in our early years; the social graces claimed the day as we skated on the surface of our lives, shared our children's news, and drank another coffee when the conversation died. We parted with the pats and smiles of younger days But time had taken long ago the care-free lives of old.

Stones

Small stones click in my pocket; unrelated, you say, to human life? We both are made of atoms and our bodies share the dust as a common end. The pace of their decline is slower than mine, so time is on their side. But I can taste the bacon in the morning.

Autumn

Spring winds die and birds go silent in the waning life of breathless summer; The earthen maw awaits beyond the brink of autumn, ready to receive. Spring's hope and summer's last bravura are trumped by a blanket of fallen life.

Expectations

We stood in line in awkward silence- Shifting our weight uneasily and whispering in awe, afflicted by the majesty of satin finery and death and by the dawning thoughts of brevity of life that filtered into consciousness despite their long suppression in the shadows of our minds- And wondered why these rites of passage made us view a lifeless body when the purpose of the visit was to comfort those who mourned. But we bowed to ancient custom and made the studied stare, then lied about how good he looked and why he's in good care.

The Landscape

On yonder wall The silent winds will bend The trees forever in the Hush of time And the questing hawk will hunt Its quarry down the years In changeless skies; The pinioned maple seeds can't spiral down To keep their birthing tryst, But in the meadows of my mind The sun-struck daisies blink A different message.

Stars wheeled for ages to bring us to this instant- now you don't have time?

Purpose surges through the swallows' final day-swoop- nightfall's chimney law?

Bedouins in an intellectual desert- man burnoosed by faith?

Sycamore bones shine through the flesh of summer- flashes of winter.

Kildeer calls- sharpen the wind and sink into the soul.

Under wind-blown trees noon focuses to circles of quivering shade.

Insect Dreams

A peaceful sunset dominates the scene While swallows execute their lethal dives; Their open beaks are portals to infinity Where insect dreams soon end, transformed To bones and flesh of birds to scour Tomorrow's skies and sleep In neighbors' chimneys.

A Colloquy in the Department of Religious Transportations

Unitarian: The rim of the mind is a spiritual frontier- the hub, rational

St. John: The rim of the mind is a rational process- the hub, spiritual

St. Aquinas: Worthless rims and hubs; the integrating spokes- logical spirit

Moses: Wheels move us too fast; God has decreed that we are to be dragged by law

Pismo Beach

Lines of white-topped waves marched quickly toward the land and spent their force against the sandy beach; my friends who tried to do the same in Italy did not reach the shore, although their bodies did.

It passes

So soon it passes, Like a bird on the wing; Morning dews and rising suns Are brushed aside and spat upon As things that must be borne To reach the morning coffee and the office, Where the world is far away And the noon-hours turn up empty And the sun arcs down unseen; So soon it's gone the way of Other days and other suns.

Lee McKinley 1.

Seeking the life goal Like hyenas ripping flesh Or, pick a white rose?

Teal blue sky, white moon Can we suspend our guilt to Only gaze at it?

I don't recall it- The peace of walking to walk Only talk of it

2.

We have forgotten More than just how to whistle With green maple wings

Spring's velvet oak leaf Turns to dark shiny leather As my skin has done

I miss the feeling Of baseball card motors And 20 inch bikes

3.

A loose jointed fawn Skitters on November slate In McCormick's Creek

Global warming may Signal migration to Maine And the new corn belt

Armadillos may Trace that warm November slate In the years to come

Can we stop the flood? Montezuma's revenge of Fire ants, killer bees?

I will wait for it Sitting in an Igloo, cold The next Yukon gold

4.

Resting gently upon A cold Howitzer's breach Is a warm sparrow

Traces of gray lead Belie the red blood it spilled Covered now in shit

A killing machine Subverted to a bird perch Not so, humankind

5.

How are you today? "I am not so damn good" Tom said

Benign patter to A man dying of C-A I should have just sat

6.

Where am I living? Where my head lies or is it Living when my head lies

The "Age of Reason" Unbalanced by the heart Coming to an end?

7.

We lay in the ground Rows of stone, Adam and I Buried some pain too

As sons to fathers Dew droplets cling more tightly Just before they're free

Falling into air In the form of perfect spheres To the world below

Once dewy leaves, spring Back in horror at the sight Of lost perfection

Haiku...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: iUniverse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1440199272
• ISBN 13: 9781440199271
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 56
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland