Assistance

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on August 25, 2018
Posted in: POETRY. 18 Comments

I would like some assistance from you all.  I have heard there is away to have my fathers poetry run on some sore of “loop”   He has thousands of pieces that he wrote and i was told there is a way I can have them posted on this blog.  Anyone have ideas?

Blog continuing

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 30, 2018
Posted in: POETRY. 42 Comments

Thank you for all the condolences and well wishes.  I don’t think my father truly knew the  amount of people he was able to reach out to with his poetry.   My family and I plan on keeping my fathers blog active with his poetry.  Please bare with us as we try to figure it out how this all works.    Thank you again.

 

Paul Lenzi Jr

Sad News

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 13, 2018
Posted in: POETRY. 124 Comments

It is with deep regret that I to have to announce the sudden passing of my father Paul Lenzi.  He was the cornerstone of our family and will be missed dearly.

He began this blog as a creative outlet and as a way of sharing his poetry. He never imagined it would develop such a large following, and the overwhelming support he received from this community touched him deeply.  On behalf of our entire family, thank you.

We are proud of the legacy of words he left behind.

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Mortality

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 7, 2018
Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Body, Conflict, Mind, Mortality, Night, Pain, Soul, Spirit, Time, War. 20 Comments
dark

“The Dark Night” by Alison Lawlor

dark night of the soul

long running beyond

the marked moments

cadenced by beats of

the clock of the heart

no orbit of planets

will influence time

in the war between

bodily pain and cruel

tortures of mind

it can last for a lifetime

perpetual violence

wracking raw flesh

and blood places

the sunless and airless

pink spaces where

life should find

sweet affirmation

where body and soul

should reach blissful

concordium

nonetheless here is the

permanent battle engaged

pitting forces of spirit

against vicious powers of pain

every moonrise occasions

another new skirmish

enlarging the conflict

a blooding of more and more

cognitive acres

mortality never more vivid

than now in this deadly

dark night of the soul

Prizefight 2

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 6, 2018
Posted in: Jorio, POETRY. Tagged: Biology, Boxing, Brain, Faith, Intuition, Logic, Mind, Psychology. 7 Comments

 

boxingdrawing

“Internal Conflict, Eternal Enemy” by Candace Fong

 

right brain left brain
crease to crease contest
intuition takes on logic
faith is the referee

 

 

From my book Bullets from Bones

Origins

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 5, 2018
Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Aesthetics, Grace, Origins, Words. 32 Comments
womb

“Womb” by karmic katha

 

in a world plagued
by too many words
and too little grace
poetry is inevitable

 

Bullets from Bones

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 4, 2018
Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Casualties, Death, Ethics, Flaws, History, Human Nature, Humanity, War. 10 Comments
Indifference1944-0007

“Indifference, Year of Peril, 1944” by Thomas Hart Benton

 

we are that species

who numbers cadavers

more wardead than

died-in-their-sleep

since antiquity more

bloody years rent with

combat or suffering

siege than at peace

knowing war begets

war we make beautiful

bullets from bones

to recycle their valor

reconstitute sacrifice

crumbled in graves

of both soldiers and

citizens lost in the

billows of battle-fog

all of which pale against

whole populations

entire generations

erased by the wickedly

punishing sword

flame or slavemaker’s

brandiron victory often

takes into its hands

asserting its dubious

rights of immoral

barbaric revenge

oh the genocides

staining each century

back through prehistory

utter depravity

strangling humanity

with our pretensions

to power that mock

the theology vested

in principled ethics of

jus bellum iustum

we know the right

thing yet continue

continue continue

to do what we know

to be wrong leaving

open for all our black

bloodied millennia

questions of whether

or not our apparent

intractable flaws

are perfectible

 

 

 

From my books Bullets from Bones and Legacies (vol. 1)

Abyss

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 3, 2018
Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY. Tagged: Abyss, Aging, Birds, Cormorant, Disability, Heart, Madness, Ocean. 4 Comments

 

double-crested-cormorant-john-james-audubon

Double Crested Cormorant by Audubon

a cormorant settles
the swell of my chest
lunar tides ebb and flow
beneath rice paper skin
its blue disc of an eye
tracks anonymous prey
lurking somewhere
within fleshy oceans
vague shadows that dart
near the surface elicit
its quarter note calls
before plunging its beak
into tumbledown tissues
diving the chasm where
once beat a heart at the
precipice gone now to
swallowing depths out
of sight sunk in endless
black swirls ever down
into bottomless madness

 

 

From my books Bohemian Scents and Legacies (vol. 1)

 

Kiev

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 3, 2018
Posted in: Free Form, Free Verse, POETRY, POLEMICS. Tagged: Economics, Freedom, Independence, Kiev, Liberty, Oil, Repression, Revolution, Russia, Ukraine, War. 3 Comments
dome-kiev-anna-sokol

“Dome, Kiev” by Anna Sokol

 

writhe at the unseen lingering touch

by Chernobyl fingers of Soviet hands

draw deep cleansing breaths

exhale liberty

over these broad ancient steppes

where the ancestral horse

was first tamed to the bit

and the burden of riders

where breadbasket wheat

sways in capital waves

over savory oilfields catering

menus of sham independence

it’s time for that spirited bloodline

those fiercely proud Carpatho-Rusyns

to rise from repression and

once and for all

plunge the dagger of freedom

right up to its self-declared hilt

in the slavering red hearted bear

 

*******************************************

 

(Originally written February, 2014 upon Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian Crimea)

 

 

From my book Bullets from Bones

Spring Tease

Posted by Paul F. Lenzi on July 2, 2018
Posted in: Haiku, POETRY. Tagged: Flowers, Snow, Spring, Tease, Winter. 15 Comments

 

spring-crocus-mountain-snow-1905

Image by grimarika

 

twirling her skirts
shapely flower stem legs
embarrass the snow

 

 

From my books Bohemian Scents and Riverthink