Cornel Adam Lengyel

SONNET FOR TERESA

I cannot claim to make your beauty deathless.
Your loving self will long outlast my rhyme.
From words I build no cage to catch your breathless
Music, unbetrayable by time.
I cannot boast my love will prove immortal:
The pyramids are crumbling with the moon,
And time will find the fairest garden portal
To choke with sand the flowers of night or noon.

We walked these same hills before one evening
And ate red apples by a pool of Mars;
Like playful Gods who send far worlds careening,
We flung our apple-cores among the stars.
And since I could not trap eternities
I caught but that one moment: here it is.

NOON SONG

Noon so clear,
     night so long:
Shall I not dare
     invent a song?

Time so little,
     change so near:
Words so brittle
     who will hear?

Yet let who can
     turn air to song:
Breath in man
     lasts not long...

LAZARUS, WAIT FOR ME...

If you are Lazarus, wait for me, I pray!
A refuge from the world's last burning hotel,
traveling in the night without a map,
I have been searching for a twice-born man:
I look for one who knows the way, from tomb
to tomb, by candle light or furnace light.

What news for the living have you brought from the pit?
Is it true that you laughed when you left your tomb?
Is it true that your wife cursed the day you returned?
That your sons locked the doors of the house against you?
That your daughters became the whores of all the nations?
That you must wander abroad in your patchwork shroud
till a promising one redeems you a thousandth time?

If you are a witness, where is your box of ashes?
Where is the box with the new word on your forehead?
Where is the sign to light our darkening way?
What news do you bring for the children of the pit?
If you are Lazarus, wait for me, I say:
You and I have more than one bone to pick.

ISHMAEL

Yes, call me Ishmael, if you must name me—
I've heard the tapping on my coffin-door;
I'm grim enough about the mouth to shame me;
it's dank November in my soul once more.
Too long I've watched the townsfolk's fretful faces,
my eyes are fogged with questioning and doubt;
it's time for me to try remoter places:
With gear in hand I'm ready to ship out.

I'd sail new morning seas, yet land on
old anticipated coasts of night.
At sea I swear I never will abandon
my long pursuit of liberty and light;
I hope to catch the whale mad Ahab sought,
the one that many seek, yet who has caught?

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Poetry

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