The New Volunteerism Project
The Archival
Collection of
Ivan Henry Scheier
Additional Poetry by Ivan Scheier
| Some of my poems are really bad,
And some are good, If I could tell you why, I doubt I would. *** My second book of poems I gave away, The first one costs a penny; Hurry, if you want to pay; I won’t write many. *** I think your starving poets, deserve to; I would myself, if I had the nerve to. *** Once, Volunteering Was for Dreamers (1997) Once, volunteering was for dreamers… We were – and some still are – pioneers in compassionate enterprise. It was the way we Got good things done before there were big Budgets or bureaucracies. Once, volunteering was a legacy… It was an inheritance from family, friends, or Faith, An unself-conscious way of living out basic values. Volunteering was just the way we were, A private matter of public consequence. Once, volunteering was a power. We didn’t react to trends, we CAUSED them. We didn’t supplement staff, we CREATED them Politicians didn’t use us; we USED them. And we made dreams happen. Once, volunteering was for dreamers. May it soon be so again. *** Poem in Honor of a New Volunteer You will be as light: In sickness, The diminishing of pain. Always, in the dry desert of uncaring, You will be the rain. As you now come to join A growing line of light and love, May your gift be to yourself as well, A healing fountain See you on the mountains. *** Whatever more men know It is the fate of art To grow Without a growing heart Or universal rhyme No man may start Where Shakespeare ends Though critics order and arrange, Fellow poets, All we have is change. Till poetry takes time apart. *** Once Before Once before,And once more soon, I know a meadow In the snow and moon, Slanting its face of flowers In the wind and thunder, In the wind And under cold black air, I will sleep there Soon and forever In the phantom places of the highlands Where moonbeams slide down cold white flanks of stone Unity they melt and boil blue into rivers Up where the air’s too clear for the smoke of the mind And rocks too hard for grinding Let soft flowers sleep in their forever shadows Under sometime snow In the neighborhood of heaven Hope waits for summer…. *** Stillpoint Beside the Great River In the awe of old; Earth and Stone Come through time with it Till it falls From mortgage of an honorarium: Heart put this place where it is; And truth will live here. **** Sometimes there are Soft and summer smells In Illinois The corn, The soy, And here and there a rose Contributes to the wind; And the wind slows, Smoke grows fresh By a farmhouse well And eyes, When eyes are added to a nose can tell: The is the greenest part of Hell. *** A Not Forgotten Spring If there is another summer,Will Someone remember That the grass needs greening And which green, The correct color of flowers Not seen since September, And the subtle insinuations of a weed? Who holds these thoughts In Winter visions Which remember Spring? *** Says Who? “You can’t push the river,” But you can dam it: Yes you can, dammit. Also, you can drain it So low a dead fish can’t explain it. But you can’t push the river. What river? *** Salute Hypocrisy: I think the word they used was “fate.” But just before life gives me one last shove, I thank you for the wine and love, For things that still grow green and still smell sweet Against our fumes of gas And push up through our cold concrete; In fact, what I am most appreciative of Are things we have not made Except for wine, except for love. *** Weather Report
Old John, With Love I watch my neighbor’s every moveAnd well before an hour is gone, When Old John’s out and watering at dawn, My lawn gets wet. If I detect conspiracy to spray On dandelions and such, I find out what he uses And I sprinkle twice as much. Should Old John go to the manure, If get some too, of course, If possible, from the same horse; For whatever makes his lawn Grow green and weed-resistant Makes my psychiatrist enough more money To hire another Gardener’s Assistant. *** All Hail With busted blisters Swat ye hard the slow mosquito, And Home Gardeners, Arise! Time for the killing of the crabgrass, The reluctant stomping on the baby dandelion, Ho, for the stealthy trowel Hoping to sneak down on a tulip sneaking up And wake the earthworm early, It is October…. In Australia. *** Family Reunion The shadowed heart can never seeThe lights of home Shine down the years. What never was can never be. *** Explorer I I see discovery occurring everywhere about me;Expeditions leave here every day without me Bound for night, And I am left alone with light. *** Explorer II You think there are no meadows on the moonOr blood on Mars, Winds that blow Out of the stars and into night; Nothing is ours except our light. In all black heaven burning, Nothing except our light And our own light returning In the neighborhood of heaven Found a presence not our own Much more than seeming; There was Someone Else dreaming. And we were the dream… *** I left some lights along the way To mark my path upon the hill. I leave them burning night and day, And you to pay the bill. *** Blame Somebody Else Daily desperations were interrupted By occasions of hope and jog Mistakes made were learned from. Risks taken were recovered from. Times I should have died… I didn’t Times I should have quit… I couldn’t My whole life has been A conspiracy of angels. *** Animals at the Holistic Healing Retreat Center The hummingbird keeps trying to pollinate our Christmas lights;To be fair, only the red ones, And only because they’re still up in July Confident spiders crouch the corners of the Meditation Cottage Knowing a Buddhist will never bite back And even an accidental stomp Will be the best wishes for better luck next life. Our cat fell in love with a startled dog Rubbing, purring Neglecting her duties as Resident Predator to the Field Mice Who therefore multiplied into homelessness Until one jumped out of a stovetop pot Closely followed by the asparagus. Our Roadrunner does not run on the road; He sleeps on the windowsill Just West of the Geraniums. The mysterious inscriptions on the Community Art Studio floor. Are bat droppings, best read upside down. The Meditation Pond is alive with orange fish, occasional toads, and careless lizards, On its banks, a confusion of land plants and water plants run into each other Trying to trade places. One morning, The computer made a sound like a rattlesnake Because that’s what was behind it. Rattled, I killed the snake instead of the computer And more ants than I could ever apologize to. Our dog meditates *** The more I see of frisky whales, The less I’d like to be one; But I can tell you right off now, Don’t ever try to tree one! (Gelett Burgess doesn’t deserve an apology) ***
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Snuggler’s Lullaby
On Watering the Cactus After A Rain Some of my best friends love cats,And I love some of my best friends But that’s not why I’d rather watch a bird than a cat watching a bird Or worse, about to kill a bird, Though I appreciate Momma Cat who yawned; The bird flew out of her mouth and never came back. Let’s hear it for sleepy hunters! Suppose you love a cat who wants to eat the bird you love. Overfeeding a cat is impossible and no solution. Over feeding a bird just makes it slower and more nutritious. A bell around your cat’s neck will frighten trees And must be balanced by a bell around the neck of every bird, That is every bird you can catch\ And a cat if fast enough. When you think about it And please don’t Mercy is a relatively recent human invention, And we haven’t got the bugs out…. *** For Gloria and Heinz, my friends, on the occasion of their marriage by a small river in 4-mile Canyon, Colorado long ago, in June (1970). I have been asked to say a few words on behalf of the hills And blue air as it sings in arms of pine. For the green and growing, A word from quick flowers In the summer of mountains To this meeting, I have been asked to say
Forever Lovesong - I This world is Not without love. I wonder sometimes How we’d survive if there were more. I only know this world has Just enough love, Just enough. It needs no more to be a shining thing. *** Lovesong – II Alas, there is no lovesong leftYou haven’t heard a thousand times. It looks like love’s exhausted. Every tune, word and rhyme, Or so I thought until today At last I heard a new song, The miracle of one song more: We are the ones love waited for. *** Listen for never, In the ending of each eternal instant I will love you Longer than forever. *** Proposal Practice Greeting Cards – Birthday Section For My Friend Martin on His Fortieth Birthday
To Katie, On Her Seventeenth Birthday Until you’re eighty,Never turn eighteen, Katie. Say you’ve rounded seven and ten, Just don’t “say when,” Not even when I pour the wine For you at eighty, Me at thirty-nine *** Birthday Card Seeking their sum,The last days of a twelvemonth come; Another year ends cold on a point of price, In snow, remembering what summer tried When, seeing winter come, Summer died. The sun itself is worn… Just now, a child is born. Noel *** Next to extreme halitosis The thing to encourage neurosis Is a nose, is a nose, Is a nose, is a nose, Is the size the shape of proboscis. *** Identification "What’s in a name?” a name alone,Was asked by Shakespeare Not by Cohn (Who knows, to the letter; After all, A Rose by any other name – Does better) Happily, some younger Folks may not even guess what’s supposed to be funny about this. That’s because it’s become quite rare for Jews to try to hide their Jewishness by changing their last name.) *** November I have a confused crocusGrowing in my garden, Early for spring, or late for fall, Or with no thought at all For season, Taking snow for showers; We don’t deserve December flowers. *** Rationale for a Tired Homeowner Every lawn should have a little clover,A few dandelions left over, To show it’s only held in fief For Someone Who finds weeds relief! *** Contributor
The (nothing) People They do not lie;They just neglect to tell the truth. They do not take; They simply cannot bring themselves to give. They do not steal; They just never return things. They will not rock the boat, But did you ever see them pull an oar? They’ll never pull you down; They’ll only make your pull them up And let that pull you down. They do not hurt you; They merely will not help you. They do not havt you; They merely cannot love you. They will not burn you; They’ll only fiddle while you burn. They are the nothing people, The deadweight freeloaders, The sin-of-omission kids, The neither-good-not-bad- And-therefore-worse. Because the good, at least, keep busy trying And the bad try even harder. Both have that character That comes from caring, action, and conviction. So, give me every time a straight-out sinner Or, carefully, a saint, My expectations of a nothing person, Ain't *** To the Memory of Philip Stanley |
Ivan Scheier
Stillpoint
607 Marr
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, 87901
Tel (505) 894-1340
Email: ivan@zianet.comFor comments and editing suggestions please contact Mary Lou McNatt mlmcnatt@indra.com
