Stuart Kurtz - Three Poems

One Lasts

The snow lies still forgotten deep below my feet
I look back for other tracks but only those where mine end
In morning I started my letters soon to be sealed
Some business – some unanswered correspondence soon will be done

When I was young needs like that could wait
But I am old now

The morning sun claimed this valley with a reckoning
But even this master’s upright staff gives way to a longer weaker ray
For it is near twilight

The water’s of the brook might still run but who knows beneath this frozen seal?
And the rabbits, once too many to count, now in slumber beneath the ground
Only the crows pass by
Funny how they seem to follow my tracks

My sisters and I used to make pies out of this valley
I can still taste the wafer-thin crusts
Summer never seemed to end – nor the fruits –
But I am old now

Shadows are now long enough and all is still
Time to be setting home

But what’s there? Something on that old gnarly vine
All is now winter sunset but not this
Coming closer, I find to my delight only a long-forgotten grape
Still clinging to the vine’s end
Keeping its dignity beneath some other plant’s thorns
But still it keeps its crimson blush of color

I taste it expecting the tincture of summer gone away
Not true, not only sweet but holding summer back

In this valley the shadows are nearly gone but not this
The last grapes all eaten away, but one is saved
It will indeed be time to head home soon
But only to work on that letter
And end the night with a glass of wine

May 31, 2011



For Your Information

For your information
We are the Occupods

We occupy the streets, the squares, and parks of the here and now
And the channels of information in hyperspace
In The Information Age

From Altoona to Mankato
Tunisia to Taipei
But also in the air around us

We Facebook and Twitter. We are Linked In to you…and me
A Flickr of hope in the foreclosed night
Give us information – we Reddit
And StumbleUpon a raft of statutory redress
We’ll NetShoutOut their lies
And Livestream down an Amazon of ideas

We fill our minds with The Founders, with the prophets and the seers of truth
And also The School of Hard Knocks
We know the promise of money-green Oz don’t exist
So we’re pulling back the curtain
We want to meet the Webmaster

We’re too smart for you Svengalis now
99% means business; 1% means bullshit
We will not let the camel get its nose under our tents
Or the Wall Street bull run amuck in our China shop

Knowledge is power
We’ll outquote you politicians chapter and verse
And we’ve got reams and reams of verse
And we’re mining data while
Your workers are down in your mines

But the void of space ain’t really no void
It’s a hive of bits and pixels of info

Each one of us is a node
Together we are a network of interconnectivity
No command structure, no hierarchy
We may not go up the ladder of success
But neither sent out with security escort

We know too much info now
And we will use it
Until the Tower of Babel falls
And the Library of Alexandria rises again

October 27, 2011



Harmony of Opposites

As the plum trees exist with
The mountains above.
As the crack of thunder exists with
the gurgling stream in
the valley.
As the howl of wind
Gives way to the scholar's mind
in contemplation
So may Earth and Heaven
exist.
All sound and vision becoming

One.


Stuart Kurtz is a free-lance writer of arts reviews, social
commentary, travel, and interviews. He is published in 18 languages.
He is a budding playwright of short drama, and starting up as a poet.
He can be hired at writerstuartk@gmail.com  His blog is
www.stuartkurtz.blogspot.com