american poetry

Neptune’s Wink, Dreams & Love

Poetry from Milton P Ehrlich

Searching for Neptune’s Wink

Requires showing up at sunset
or waking up before sunrise—
you can’t be early or too late.
The flash may dazzle your eyes, 
or make you green around the gills,
but one thing is certain—
if you can see the green ray,
a green that no artist could 
ever attain on his palette,
you will know young love
returning from the dead.


An Unfinished Dream

I’m reeling in a pickerel on Dyer’s pond,
and have trouble unhooking the lure.
A turtle on a lily pad watches me
reach for pliers to free the fish.
In a deep voice, he growls: 
What kind of creature are you?
I toss the fish back into the water,
and watch him swim away.
A red-tailed hawk swoops down 
and decapitates the turtle’s head.
He leaves an epitaph on his shell, which says:
“Creatures great and small the Lord God made us all”
I walk into the nearest church doing poetry readings 
where I can lie down and practise being dead.
I see the woman I’ve loved all my life, and ask: 
“Will you marry me?” “I’d love to, she answers.”
“I reply, if not now, when?”


Can Love Keep You Alive?

When you’re old and gray, falling by the wayside,
it can help you to not take yourself so seriously.
It makes a cold afternoon spent on a tattered mattress
seem like a journey into outer space.
Love can allow the superior vena cava
feed deoxygenated blood to your hungry heart.
Love can keep you laughing at the incredible absurdity of it all.
It can keep you smiling—like a fat Buddha. 
Your life depends on it.




NOV 2020 Milton P Ehrlich MONK



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