Spring Publication

Camouflage of Noise and Silence

Poems

By Barry DeCarli

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(cover mock-up)

transition

what of the dream 

dispersed just as you wake

sensed for seconds

then almost impossible

to recall

is there cryptic meaning 

pressed through the cheesecloth

of dawn

so diffused 

that no more than a trace

remains

like worry

the struggle to recall

to salvage

with the desire to fall

back

to sleep

collide

the dream slides

like a childhood memory

into a moment of surrender

evanesces

and then

is forfeited to the provocation of waking

Barry DeCarli

February 15, 2019

On South Street

©Barry DeCarli

My photo.

human history

what of all the missing

and missed moments

the magnitude

the magnificence

even the mediocrity

of all the memories

lost to time

who would feel compelled

to catalog them all

who would be willing

to try to  remember

to recount every thought

that each human being

had considered in each lifetime

would it even be possible

is there enough

random access memory

for billions of sighs and whispers

dreams and schemes

secrets, songs and sonnets

so much lost to the silent history

that death and indifference leave

the ramblings and ravings

longing and yearning

what of the millions

who waited for an invitation

a subpoena that did not came

never asked to bear witness

to their own lives

what they had seen

and said

what was important

what drew their tears

their laughter

will no one be able to tell their story

will nothing chronicle that they ever lived

would anyone know what lies beneath

the ragged wooden cross, the crumbling cairn of stones

how much could be chiseled

onto a headstone

words that so few would ever read

cemeteries holding so much cold hard truth

what of our failure to offer even a penny for their thoughts

Barry DeCarli

January 18, 2019

Revised on January 20, 2019

On South Street

©Barry DeCarli

Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/…/woman-old-senior-female-elderly-1031…/

similar wars

similar wars?

another war ending

more guilty feelings for not

being able to pick up a gun

or grenade

or hear a fellow soldier's dying wish

to carry a letter home

some part of speech lost

this war

had less protest than that one

where we would have put a daisy

in a gun barrel

and said “ make love, not war”

and surely the feelings are different now

my reluctance hardly balances

your willingness

my comfort weighs lightly

on your sacrifice

my desire for self-preservation

 is too thin a veil to obscure the generosity

of you overcoming your fear

my inability to know what I might die for 

can not diminish your steadfast belief

that you are doing the right thing

yet, at the end, I am here alive

and you, number 4,556 are

on the list of those lost to memory

who can say thank you, now

and have it mean anything

to your family, to anyone

conscripted, enlisted or dodged

or just the luck of a high lottery number

does it matter whether this war

was any more necessary than that war

can it matter now

if your death or my life was in vain

Barry DeCarli

Ferrisburgh, VT

December, 16, 2011

Revised in 2015 and 2019

©Barry DeCarli 

Reference to Vietnam and Iraq

Photo credits:
Vietnam  "flower power" war protest photo from Wikipedia
Iraqi Freedom photo from www.itv.com

synesthesia

have you ever been able

to taste a sound sizzling
reverberating across your lips
felt the momentary sensation
of knowing something
no one else
can know

can you name the flavor
of steel wheels screaming
or groaning down the tracks
of your dream

oil and vinegar
unseasoned tofu
anchovies

sound crazy

can you still taste them
straight-jacketed in a nightmare
where noise
and sound torture
your taste buds

where days of the week
each have a coinciding color
where you begin
to feel hunger that is louder

than the blaring red of Friday

Barry DeCarli
November 9, 2018
On South Street
©Barry DeCarli
My photo 2014 photo of rose petals on the Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy

changes

changes

which part of a person

stays 

unchanging much from

decade to decade

even as we all play roles

pirate or princess

poet or pretender

priest or player

what fragment remains

how can that sameness

survive so much movement

the constant flux and upheaval

sporadic boredom

imagine being 

a new person with each breath 

you take

can you feel the loss

the growth

or the withdrawal of some

part of you

do we allow others to transform us

into someone no one ever knew

would we resist the change

to hang on to every vestige

of who we think

we are

does a part stay behind the mask we wear

can we eventually

unravel the impostor’s guise

to untangle someone real

is there a junction where

we see another path

where we toss away disguises

that protect us in obscurity

to reveal a part 

at least to ourselves

that is still the same

Barry DeCarli

June 1, 2018

On South Street

©Barry DeCarli

My photo

the rose and the raspberry

we grow thorns
like the rose
and the raspberry
to keep us from slipping
to protect us
from our enemies
how similar we are
to the barbed plants
we tend
the gardens we neglect

we irritate like nettles
we get under the skin
like poison oak or ivy
in the closed quarters of friendship
and family
we become indiscriminate even
to those we love

sometimes we are
passive partners
the stoic sentries
standing against a storm
a season
awaiting the dormant demands to come
our fear fertile
with exaggeration or excuse
prepared to break off
but not to bend

willing to squander
history and evolution
for our prickly pride
taking what we can
while leaving behind
the waste of
our
reckless

pruning


Barry DeCarli
March 30-31, 2017
South Street, Easthampton
©Barry DeCarli
Photo credit: www.needpix.com/photo/1442566/background-thorns-crownthorns-punishment-suffering-symbol-easter