Sometimes the ideas come in a rhythmic structure formed of words, and to me this feels like poetry. Some certain thing in my life is like the grain of sand in the oyster, layers of thought and image swirl, mix and harden around it until the grain of sand is no longer recognizable on the outside, but is still, and always, at the center of the pearl’s existence, that gem of words, the poem.
Library of individual poems
Please stand by: I am rebuilding my galleries of poems and working out the way I want to display them. I hope to be done in a week or two.
The silence of ice hard-smooth glaringly mocking a manufactured perfection life, birth, spring held captive in plain view under a solid clear glaze pale world strangely hushed I tiptoe through afraid to break the surface with my sound but a snap, a crack, a drip, another whispers return to life around me once broken, the...
A waning moon at daybreak awakens, slips sleepily over the horizon begins her transit when the day is new left our nighttime dreams unilluminated fading, undistinguished, into the wakening day. Venus knows it’s only a phase; soon enough she will wax full over the horizon before brother sun has bid goodnight and fill our dreams...
Regardless of the many outstanding qualities any person may have we are essentially remembered for only one of them. In my mother, all would agree this one would be her remarkable beauty. All through her life the compliments trailed her as she carefully maintained “the look”, her look, so glamorous, from tailored suits to taffeta...
Dedicated to the people and places of the Chartiers Valley after the flood of September 17, 2004 After a day of rain the creek has been rising and by night it thunders down its channel writhing around its curves like a medieval dragon, pulling at its banks and anything overhanging, carrying whatever it can grasp...
There used to be a house here snug against the hill three floors and steps to an upper terraced yard in this impossible spot. Breakfasts, dinners, Christmas trees, hot summer nights, births, deaths, first days of school, graduations, conspiring teenagers, changing colors of paint and people. That was before the road was this busy and...
So much is wrong So much is sad So much cannot be fixed The detritus of the past lies all about But I find also diaphanous angel wings filled with eternal sunshine Bright smiling eyes of faerie flowers Reflecting the tranquil blue of the sky’s protective arch The old daffodil has stories to tell And...
Bits and pieces from The Pittsburgh Press, evening edition, August 28, 1941 1935 Ford sedan for $95. ’33 Auburn Sedan for only $5.68 per month. Cary Grant’s Mexican jaunt to invest $300,000 in silver mines there. Fred Astaire is building a private golf course on his San Diego County ranch. Steelers Make Guard Out of...
I had no explanation for the exhilaration of color floating above the street undulating through the air until caught on a utility pole and identified as a bunch of colored balloons held together with string continuing to flutter and wave against a perfect blue sky that stopped me as I set out worried and distracted...
My first geranium blossom started me out on an ode to spring: Warm, bright, in wisdom, nature signals it's time for love even in cold rain. Then turned unutterably sad: Will they never bloom nor feel another spring rain; so young now, lives crushed in mud. Life begins, life ends, but not in a natural...
Bridal Wreath Blooming in drifts so dense and tall they hide the entire porch The bridal wreath greets the May bride Though she first crossed the threshold decades ago when the shrubs were new, And placed a vase of the blossoms on her first dinner table, Has since raised her children, Lost her son in...
Roiling clouds blown by winds Before a summer thunderstorm, Huge constructions in purple and blue And lurid green tinged with coral. The delicate lace of a fair summer day, Puffs and wisps in white and cream Shaded with lilac and blue And edged in yellow. Hazy wisps in autumn Moving slowly from one horizon to...
I have a book that remained in my mother’s house after I moved her to the personal care home, The Pennsylvania Almanac 1945, in which were nestled three corsages pressed flat, spaced among the thousand pages of information about the administration of Pennsylvania, maps and lists and departments, information anyone would need to know to...
The dogwoods are blooming up and down my street. The breaking of the cold, The unusually warm, brilliant spring day Has brought my neighbors out to wash cars and cut grass. Like the returning birds Their conversations drift and circle from yard to yard And cross the street on capricious breezes; We have been put...
I paddled the canoe around the bend, and was faced with the effortless beauty of the panorama, the trees in all their colors, the sky with changing clouds, the water moving and reflecting simultaneously, all perfectly arranged, I realized that my creations are but raindrops in a puddle, wisps of cloud that change and dissipate...
The night’s eternal darkness shifts to a color less black and time begins again, cobalt to cerulean spreading across the sky to snuff out the stars and a glowing edge on the horizon heralds the sun rising quickly to sparkle on leaves and faces infusing the dank pre-dawn mist with warm yellow sunbeams and the...
Oh, I can’t stop looking at all the feverfew in my garden, I just keep running from one cluster to another those tiny perfect daisies in umbels as if floating without stems on waves of bright green leaves the dots of dew flashing, sparkling in the day’s new sun just arrived over the horizon its...
A field of grass, Never still, never silent, Responding as one being to wind and weather, Rippling in breezes, dancing in rain, Changing each moment in its fervent march To ripened maturity; In the spring, new bright green velvet Covers hillsides, Undulating in capricious spring breezes, Laying flat to reveal the shining silk beneath, And...
They traded Andrew McCutcheon and I had to call my brother and hear his side of the story, I don’t care what the Pirates do or really anything about sports but my brother lived for it all and I liked to hear his normal voice discussing games and stats and history as if it was...
They tried to re-create the sun in all its round perfection, a flat perfect disc, in stone. They set their creation on its edge to work the surface smooth and the edge clean like the life-giving orb they worshipped, but it began to move on its own smoothly along its own track. They followed. It...
A cardinal flashing red in the bare winter landscape innocent of my intent I missed my shot, my camera open to receive too much light yet it was then that I heard of the shooting of other innocent birds on this brilliant morning colorful plumage melodic chatter gathered in a trusted place a flash of...
To live my life like a tree, to grow steadily from small beginnings, fervently when possible, and quietly adapt when necessary, stand in peace and harmony with my neighbors, bear my fruit appropriately, bring shelter and comfort to others indiscriminately, and when my season is over graciously give my gift to the earth for the...
The sun shines at full volume on the brick street, The American Legion has equipped everyone with a small American flag on a stick; Children race around waving their flags While adults mill around looking for a good place to open folding chairs Waiting for the parade to start. Politicians roll by in fancy cars...
She was calling, calling reaching from the depths of the body I no longer recognized to this world she no longer recognizes an imitation of reality patched together from leftovers of memories, pleading for someone to do something, but the first thing I saw was the afghan across her bed one big granny square row...
I awoke to gentle rain this morning, raindrops tapping on the roof and softly whispering in the trees all around the house. I remember a quiet rainy Saturday morning five years ago, and Kelly. This poem was inspired by her and a another drizzly summer morning in 2009. I could have no better tribute to...
For Cookie I thought Cookie was being stubborn, contrary, when she wandered away into the overgrown garden sauntering at her own pace beneath the stems of fallen burdock and grasses and through the forest of tall goldenrod and asters where I couldn’t follow. She sat calmly among grasses and blooming beggar’s ticks and when I...
This isn't actually "all" my poetry, but it is a good bit of it, the archive of all I'd written and finished up to about 2012 which I'd set up in this list on my old website and it was just so simple to copy over. I will be adding poetry individually, though, and breaking...
For each of my four annual "Paths I Have Walked/Art of the Watershed" poetry reading and art exhibits I set up a formatted page with all the poems and art, each different according to the content. These pages don't compose on a site like this one, but I like the presentation. These links will take...
Imagine the pussy willow flower, a soft white catkin bursting open its hard, protective shell swelling into a furry powderpuff sprouting yellow pollen fronds attracting the season’s first buzzing bees. They’ll do this sometimes during a one-day thaw so eager are they for life, ignoring ice and snow still hanging on their shells and temperatures...
You can best see the constellations by lying on your back and dreaming and in due time the sky is filled with cavorting gods and goddesses, mythological beasts, love, death, politics, art all in the air above you; yet concentration on one will cause them all to lose their magic. So I, facing the surprise...
Green, green waves ahead diminishing to blue over the northern horizon exalted rises and shadowed valleys gradually made plain to rolling hills and misted hollows interstate unrolled as ribbon around hill and following valley, signs noting unseen destinations bearing hopeful small town names: “Freedom” “Prosperity” “Harmony” little hamlets of Pennsylvania coal being crushed to diamonds,...
Today looks no different from yesterday but forever against the backdrop of a blue September sky we will now remember the loss of our innocence. September 11 was a blur of images and fears and unknowns, and for me it wasn’t until September 12 dawned and brightened into another seemingly perfect September day, blue sky...
I check under the streetlight whenever I pass the window, the still night scene like a Hopper painting, tranquil and perfect, or the set on a stage, ready for the players, the houselights dim. I anticipate the first action of the play, and I grow impatient— the stillness, the leaden sky as the afternoon aged...
How many snowfalls have gently covered this ground, How many summer sunsets flared against the rock of this cliff, How many feet have trod this sacred spot, human and animal alike, Stood on this outcropping as I do today feeling history beneath my feet in the remains of recent generations and from the millennia. The...
The wounds of trauma, the sin of killing, the witness of unspeakable acts against the bodies and minds of others the leaving behind of others held more dear than lovers another world, all too real, all came home in the duffel unpacked into the house worn like unwanted medals that could not be removed but...
The clock on my bathroom windowsill tells whatever time it pleases. A small, cheap battery-operated alarm clock, the works inside have begun to let go and the hands move independently of each other and of time, skimming around the dial like birds circling in the sky, flying first in opposite directions then together. I keep...
Oh, please, painting, go away! Poem, poem, I want to go to bed! Short story, I will never finish you, especially with you showing up at this late hour! I wish I’d never allowed myself to start carrying my camera everywhere. I stop every step and photograph something new and wonderful, a leaf, the sky,...
Blending with the scenery, more chittering sound than sight, you are more than just a bird fishing for an afternoon snack but evidence of changes that have already come and those certain to be. Little indicator of the health of a stream and by that the health of a community and a region your presence...
What gentle lesson I learn from this nightshade, unwanted in its habitat, its toxins legendary, growing as it is from a crack in the pavement no other greenery but itself for comfort, facing unprotected the wind and cold and precipitation splashed with road salt and motor oil and antifreeze, yet gracefully spreading tangled limbs against...
Bright yellow sunflowers are for sale in the grocery store. A tiny woman bent over her cart can't reach the cheese she wants on a shelf above her head. A middle-aged man in shorts and a tank top holding a loaf of bread veers off his course, easily reaches to get it, drops it in...
Dedicated to Moses, the most gentle, loving being I have ever encountered. Tiny rivulets of water released from thawing soil flowing beneath last year’s debris, trickling and gurgling all around hurrying down hillsides before the freeze returns. A cup-shaped fungus holding a tablespoon of snowmelt for a song sparrow to sip, practicing its vernal melody...
In this sepia scene of late-winter twigs and matted leaves I found the small tattered orb she had built that lasted the winter, this tiny creature no larger than a grain of sand now curled in the center, her spirit long gone from her desiccated body, yet her tiny children, awakened by a warming spring...
Startled, an unexpected kitten before him, he cautiously greets this unknown feline, offers friendly gestures though it has no true kitten attributes, no smell or sound. He doesn't know, of course, it is himself he sees, for he senses himself in a different way, the horrors he endured before rescue blurred in the distant darkness...
Colorful beaded necklaces, orange and apple green, and pearls and plastic flowers, a linen hankie with soft green lovers-knot lace edging, a blue and white stripe pillow cover, real pillow-ticking, a ruffled chair cushion, what made these things so cherished that they survived the years intact, ready to be cherished again even when similar things,...
I have never loved so deeply as I did in that moment in the summer dusk, hearing footsteps in the alley pause, my heart racing to hear our gate softly squeak open; it was you, I saw your beloved silhouette enter our sacred space coming home from work; that moment, stop, before our loving greeting...
At a bend in the trail, The scent of wild apples greets me. A tree abandoned from an old orchard Or sprung up on its own from old stock, wild and uncultivated, Stands trailside, Heavy with small round burnished apples. The late summer heat releases their scent, Sweet and tart, that the world may know...
For each of my four annual "Paths I Have Walked/Art of the Watershed" poetry reading and art exhibits I set up a formatted page with all the poems and art, each different according to the content. These pages don't compose on a site like this one, but I like the presentation. These links will take you to those pages, but you will still be able to reference this site.
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled "Stories From Home/First Person" for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar. This area on the site still exists, and if you go all the way back in the list you'll see my entries.
In addition, I've had worked published in online journals and small folios.
poetry readings
In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person” for submissions of writing about the place we feel most familiar. I’m a long-time listener to PHC and reader of Garrison Keillor’s books as well as a daily listener to The Writer’s Almanac featuring news about writers and writing and of interest to writers as well as a poem, all compiled and read by Keillor himself. I was astonished to find my poems were among the first chosen from apparently thousands, and so happy to be able to share them with a potential audience of so many similarly inclined writers and readers.
My poetry readings and art exhibits were the vision of Maggie Forbes, executive director of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, after learning of my publishing of those two poems. I owe her many thanks for encouraging me to present this combination of my visual and literary art, a first for me. I love that building, every inch of it, and the opportunity to bring people in to visit is an honor.
"Paths I Have Walked" poetry book.
I’m proud to offer a folio of my poetry
Paths I Have Walked: the poetry and art of Bernadette E. Kazmarski
FROM FOUR ANNUAL POETRY READINGS AT ANDREW CARNEGIE FREE LIBRARY & MUSIC HALL IN CARNEGIE, PA
People who attended one or more of my poetry readings encouraged me to publish some of my poetry in a book from the beginning.
Once I completed my 2010 poetry reading, my fourth featuring the final piece of artwork in the “Art of the Watershed” series, I decided it was time to publish something and it should be those four poetry readings.
Poetry books are not best-sellers; it’s difficult to convince a publisher to risk effort on a beginning poet, and while self-publishing is the best option it’s not inexpensive and once you’ve got the book, someone’s got to market it. Plus, I’m a graphic designer and I designed books for years, and I want things my way.
All of this is a recipe for a little bit of trouble, but I decided the book was well worth the effort so I designed the book myself and had a set printed—no ISBN or anything formal, but it’s a start! I’m really excited to offer it.
Books are 4.25″ x 11″, 40 pages of information and poetry, with glossy covers featuring “Dusk in the Woods” and little thumbnails of all four pieces in “Art of the Watershed”.
$8.00 each plus $2.50 shipping (they are oversized for mailing first class).
You can order one here, or on Portraits of Animals, my online marketplace for all my art, photography, books and other inspirations.
