Poems
GOLDENROD DAYS
The Author at 9-Years-Old
In those goldenrod days of youth
I stalked imagined enemies in a
Small woods behind our house-
Hot dry grass sheltered me while
I among the crickets ants and
Flying grasshoppers gloried in
Summer days before sex was
Joined to women or energies to
Moneyed labor.
Peering through Queen Anne's Lace
Clouds became floating filigree
As I lay quietly feeling the prick
Of weedy grass through my pants-
Ear to the ground to hear the worms
Ants and beetles scuttling about
their world below.
In those goldenrod days of youth
I was closer to the earth
Closer to the sky and to my heart-
On my back became the sun and clouds
Time and life were mine and cricket
Moment or exploding star were one.
O goldenrod days of youth
In that tiny woods
Be with me always.
​
George Eastman
RUMI'S FIELD
While my heart grows
and my body shrinks
I slowly merge into a
collective compassion
beyond my narrow
self and ego longings
Waiting in Rumi's field
free at last of ideas of
wrongdoing and rightdoing.
George Eastman
(A 90th birthday poem)
DEFINITION
Poet:
Drunk with words
Splashes his fancies
Over the cosmos.
Staggering
He trips on truths
Like innocently petting a lion
He speaks them.
Falling
His stupor’s not all dark
But mixed
Brighter by the contrast.
Frenzied
Indiscriminate hangerings
Child’s Christmases elsewhere
Cathedral deaths, burnt somethings
And nonsense.
Unquenchable
With dipsomaniacal drivenness
Runs on his imagistic peristalsis
Poet: The original inebriate.
George Eastman