Re-elected

"Who's shouting at my door,
"Seems I've heard that voice before",
Said St. Peter, sounding sore,
"It's GW, your beloved president,
To grace heaven as a resident."
This, to George did St. Peter tell:
"Go downstairs and ring the bell,
You'll do better down in hell."
But old Satan said: "No way,
Can you stay here, ruin my day."
Thus, by heaven and hell rejected,
George, by dupes was re-elected.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Love, Sex and War

It's love which makes the world go 'round,
Those sexual habits - satisfying, sound,
Without it - offspring won't be found,
They are a most delicious occupation,
The greatest thrill of every nation,
And if all love each other well,
Humanity will never go to hell,
Except, we'll soon run out of space,
And need some wars to curb our race...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Gwen

There is a gentle tapping
at my door,
a sound I've heard
so many times before,
when Gwen was still alive
and bright,
life but a dream, a happy flight,
and all my days so filled
with light,
I slowly opened up my door,
and there was Glen,
just as before,
my heart was filled
with joy and fear and love,
but with a hollow voice
she said:
'They want you, up above,
the master sent for you,
your time is up,
tonight, my love,
you'll drain your final cup,
you'll join me in the angels' dome,
where we'll hold hands
and call it home,
and nevermore you'll walk
this lonely, solemn earth,
for in your end,
there is an other birth....'

Next day, they found the old man,
lying on his bed,
his face?
A gentle smile,
but he?
Quite dead....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Mister Flush

By special interests selected,
by the majority rejected,
by a corrupt Court elected,
with election laws neglected,
the oil lobbies sponsored Mr. Flush,
a reconstructed lush,
made fearless leader in a rush,
a chap with little intellectual capacity,
but predatory in his rapacity,
started a war, just for the oil,
with thousands of our boys,
dead in Iraq's soil,
who soon, much more than less
put our country in a mess,
with inflation way up,
and employment way down,
but don't blame the voters,
they never elected this clown.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Reduction to Nothingness

From macrocosm to microcosm,
to atoms - to nuclei, electrons,
to protons, neutrons, neutrinos,
photons, mesons and on and on,
to quarks, to strings to nothingness,
till all matter is really only energy,
from which our senses construct matter,
in a world which seems - but never is,
thus, our perceptions are only sense illusions,
for the real world, within the atom, we never see,
while we, poor fools, pray to gods,
no one has ever seen - except psychotics,
or holy rollers who profit from this ruse,
though only honest agnostics say:
'We do not know, for god forbid, there is a god,
since there is no empirical evidence either way.'

Sadly, the more we learn about this strange universe,
the more puzzling we find it, the less we understand it,
for there is more between heaven and earth,
than meets with our poor philosophy,
and if you read this poem? prose?
excuse me for my speculations,
similar to the wild theories
of so many scientists and clerics,
with an apology for mankind,
so eloquently stated by Jesus:
'Forgive them, for they don't know
what they do (or say).'

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Applicant at Methadone Center

Chase the cold turkey blues,
and get the bread for the next fix,
two C's worth of stuff for the day,
had to rip off some dudes,
early in the morning,
'round Chelsea,
last one gave me static,
and I cooled him with my blade,
stuck him good,
and split
before the pigs came,
brought the loot
to the connection,
and got me a quarter of dope,
took it to the shooting gallery,
and got me a high,
not as good as it used to be,
there's just never enough...
but man, I'm tired of this hassle,
running, going nowhere,
worrying about tomorrow's rip-off,
gimme a chance, man,
put me on today,
I'm beat, so damn beat,
tired of cutting dudes,
tired of the street...
I want to be like them dudes,
with the ties, all clean and nice...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Massada

As I walked through the ruins
Of the ancient fortress of Massada,
Rising a thousand feet
Above the Judean Desert,
On that huge, square mountain table
Overlooking the Dead Sea,
Where the brilliant yellow
Of the forbidding sand and stone
Merges with the blue of sea and sky,
Its trance-like unreality,
Of beauty, ruggedness and magnificence
Deeply touched me,
With its mystic strangeness.

Suddenly, while standing
In the ruins of the old temple,
I heard the voices of the eight hundred,
Who had ended their lives here,
Two thousand years ago,
As free men, worshipping Jehovah,
Rather than surrender to the pagan Romans,
And I saw their images in the bright sunlight,
While the wind carried their plaintive lament.

Frightened I turned and left quickly,
Leaving my ancient brothers behind me,
To tell their story and work their magic
On some other spellbound traveler.......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

To Betty - my Mom 8/24/1981

On some silent, dreadful day,
Death came
And took my love away,
Took my sun,
Took my moon,
Much to soon,
Much to soon,
But time will heal,
And days will pass,
But memories of you
Will always last,
And in a way,
You'll be with me,
Today,
And through eternity...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Thanksgiving

Candles on the table,
And warm shadows
Flickering on the wall,
Old friends, family
And nostalgic memories,
Turkey and tradition,
A good glass of wine,
Warmth rising to the cheeks
And engulfing the heart
With the gentle sweetness
Of companionship
And good cheer - Thanksgiving.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

New York

New York, New York,
My Athens of the Western World,
You moment rare in time and space,
Where cultures meet and all the best there is
In human creativity takes place,
And in its art, music and drama,
Its soaring spirit, poetry and plays,
I see an ancient, well remembered face,
And long after all this has turned to dust,
Men will still dream of you and Greece,
- as dream they must.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

My Hero

My hero is
a follysopher I once knew,
staunch hero of the empty view,
a specialist in idle speculation,
full of verbosity,
but little revelation.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Mozart

I close my eyes,
And gently does his music lift me
Into a world whose beauty is so blinding,
It takes me out of life's drab drudgery,
Into that magic place,
Where hope returns
And faith 's restored;
A world which can create such music,
Is precious beyond words...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

To Baruch College

To free the spirit
And move the boundaries
From the narrow provincialism
To a wider comprehension,
From the doldrums of confinement
To the larger view,
Extending the geography of the mind
Towards a deeper perception,
From crudeness to sophistication;
What on earth could be nobler than that?

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Hindu

This self, this ever changing mystery,
So indestructible and permanent,
It wanders, eternally, from shell to shell,
And rents this home, we call our bodies,
For just a little while,
And with its tears, its joys,
It pays the rent to this frail world,
This world which seems - but never is.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Slums

The slums and the ghetto
Have turned my fresh, bright soul,
Into a crooked thing,
A thing which slinks
Through dark and twisted alleys,
Forgetting miseries in dope and drink,
I loved the clear and beautiful once too,
When I was young and full of hope,
- Like you, like you....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Confrontation

When black and white in anger meet,
On issues, basically on pigmentation,
Then children are poor pawns, indeed,
In such a senseless confrontation.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Racism

- and though your skin be raven-black,
or the cold whiteness of a frosty day,
the golden yellow of a field of corn,
what do I care which pigmentation
has your mortal clay,
such thoughts are made for fools
who waste God's given day -

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Auschwitz

So cold and gloomy lies the camp,
The steel of its ovens,
The cement of its death chambers,
Tell us so many bitter-sad stories,
Nearby, there are the fields,
And my eye wanders over the bright flowers,
And life goes on as if nothing had happened,
But one cannot forget,
The wind rustles in the trees
With a thousand voices,
Voices which call us from the quiet present
Into a horrible past,
They say: "Please remember us,
Hear our lament,
Do not forget us,
Women, men, children,
The dead from Auschwitz."
The sun, so warmly it shines,
So fragrantly bloom the flowers,
But the wind, the wind
Touches my very soul
Like an icy hand....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Come, Gentle Dreamer

Come, gentle dreamer,
Call forth your visions
Of sublimated splendor,
Where the seagull arches its wings
Against bluish vividness,
Where the sperm strives
With the delicate movements of its tail,
Seeking completion of life,
Where a billion impulses
Arch in perfect patterns
Across the circuits of the human miracle,
All forever moving in unknowable ways
Into that great reconstruction of particles,
Organized beyond the human sphere of vision
Or comprehension,
Where life and death
Are meaningless entities....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Where Lilies Grow

Part of my life
I left in fields
Where lilies grow,
And morning dew
Touches the grass
Like kisses
On a passionate night...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Giants

Where are they now,
Those men of steel and stone
Who ruled with iron hand
On mountain tops,
In ivory towers - all alone,
Their praise on lips of every man,
Devout, admiring looks
Were theirs throughout the land,
And everyone would freeze and stop
If they'd but lift a hand -
Forgotten, gone - a bit of dust,
A mossy stone - a line in books
Is all that's known........

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Frozen Lakes of my Eyes

The frozen lakes of my eyes
Turn the reality of this world
Into an oblique phantasy
Whose edges are blurred
And indefinite,
But whose images
Are of an exquisite beauty,
Dazzling and frightening
At the same time,
Yet, always uncertain,
Telling me that the world,
As I see it - never was,
Never will be......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Our Land

I love my land,
I'd like to see it grow,
Not in some predatory militancy,
Or in materialistic ostentation,
For these are qualities
Which should recede
As man matures,
I'd like it and the world to grow
Toward that Jeffersonian dream
Of dignity for all and humanism.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Our Fearless Leader

Give a cheer,
Give a cheer,
The recession is here,
Prices are up,
And employment is down,
But we are at fault,
We elected this clown.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Water Lily Pond

By the water lily pond,
Children's games we played,
Full of fun and still so young,
Just me and my Jo Ann Lee,
Listened to the lark's sweet song,
As the years went by,
Promised that we'd faithful be,
After love's first sigh,
To the water lily pond,
Many a night, we'd go
After a hard day's work,
Sat there in the evening glow,
By the water lily pond
We grew old and gray.
By the water lily pond,
I buried Jo Ann Lee today.

In the water lily pond,
They found him the next morn,
His face lonely, still and gaunt,
His eyes so lost and forlorn.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Visitor

Dark, grey streets,
All cold and bleak,
A freezing rain
Drums endlessly
Against the window pane,
A lonely room,
A sense of doom,
A knock on the door,
A grinning skull,
A bony hand,
A hollow voice,
This is the end.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Atomic Missile

A fiery, red-streaked messenger of death,
Sears thundering across the sky,
And with the brightness of a thousand suns
Explodes above the city,
Where in an instant, millions,
Their souls and bodies turned to flaming gas,
Evaporate into a nothingness of terror,
And countless more are burned,
Condemned to die a horrid, agonizing death,
While others stare with empty sockets,
Blindly at their evaporated eyes,
And an inferno worse than Dante's
Wildest dream of hell,
Turns our town and our lives
Into a glassy sea of lifeless slag.
These, my young friends,
Are the rewards which our elders,
Those wise establishments of our world,
Promise to our young and eager hopes.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Proposition

Oh, speak to me,
Young maiden fair,
Come show me
That you really care,
A loving word,
A subtle touch,
A kindly gesture
Do so much,
And though the world
Be filled with strife,
And men may curse
Their very life,
Sheltered we'd be
In our nest,
Come, be my wife,
I love you best.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Glenn Miller

Moving, moving....wild,
Going to the top of the world,
The id - id -id,
Rythm, beat, intensity,
Nothing, except to go! go! go!
With the joy of life,
And we,
Dreaming down below
Of your plane up high,
At the zenith of life and success,
Flaming through the skies,
Leaving the world at the climax,
The climax before decay,
In the midst of joy,
Man - you lived right,
Man - you died right!

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Ecstasy

Hold back the dawn,
And let us stay
For one delicious moment
Beneath the sacred canopy
Of night,
Those burning points
From distant space
Still touching us
With dreams of unreality
Of other worlds
And other times,
Fragrance of unseen flowers
Surrounding us,
And we, alone in our love,
Fully and wholly,
With our very souls and bodies,
Welded in unison,
Touching eternity,
And reaching heights
Of unimaginable splendor.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Captain Morton H. Singer

Captain Singer a chaplain in the US Army, former rabbi
and teacher, killed in Vietnam December, 1968.

Chaplain

Amidst the battle, the fatigue,
The creeping horror and the fear,
He spread the word of God and love,
From wounded, desperate cheeks,
He wiped a tear,
Comforted many a man,
During his final agony of death,
To him, each soul was precious, dear,
We knew him and we loved him well,
God loved him too,
Took him to heaven,
Left us in hell.

Friend

Where are you now,
A shell, where once great inner beauty lived,
Now in decay - an image loved,
Are you eradicated, gone?
Not so, not so,
For still in our hearts,
Deep, deep within, your spirit dwells,
Those gentle words spoken by you,
Yet, warm our souls,
And tell us that this flame,
Which once did give us warmth and strength,
Still radiates to light
Our dark and somber days.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Korean Memories

The sergeant said I was a topnotch shot,
Sent to Korea, a special rifle I there got,
Highly polished, with a fine sight,
With special dumdum bullets amply supplied,
A sharpshooter, I sat in foliage-hidden hills,
At year's end I had one hundred ten
Officially confirmed and certified kills,
The captain pinned a ribbon on my chest,
Called me a fine new American,
And said of all the shots he knew,
I certainly was the best,
Years have passed since I left the Korean hills,
Forgotten are my malaria chills,
But often, at night, I wake up in my bed,
And in my mind's eye,
I see all those dead.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Springtime

Nature 's greening and the birds make free,
As I sit in my garden 'neath the mulberry tree,
"We regret to inform you", said the cable, just read,
My son, my Johnny, my Johnny is dead,
The very best in life I ever knew,
With hair so curly and eyes so blue,
It seemed just like yesterday to me,
He played on the lawn, he was so full of glee,
While nature was greening and the birds made free,
As I sat in my garden 'neath the mulberry tree.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Wasted

Beneath this stone there lies,
What once had been a youth,
He died for God and country,
Or some such platitude,
But if you could wake and ask him:
"John, John, why did you go?"
He'd blush and say quite shyly:
"I'm sure, I do not know."

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Sigma Alpha Honor Society

Out of the multitude we were selected
For scholarship and dedication,
To serve our fellow students we were elected,
To carry the torch is our consignation,
The torch of yearning
To turn night into day,
The torch of learning
To see our way.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 1970 Alfred Charasz

Letter from Iraq

Have you seen young Lily, fair,
Standing on the village square,
Waiting till her beau returns,
While her soul so deeply yearns,
But the letter in my hand
Knows of his untimely end.
Never, never does it say
From a place so far away,
In the desert does he lie,
In Iraq did he die,
Dreams there with his broken eyes,
Staring up at leaden skies.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

John, Robert

Two brothers lie in graves,
And no one knows quite why,
With shattered heads they lie
Beneath that leaden sky.

Had they but lived for just another while,
God, all the things they might have done,
For they had character and style,
With them a noble chance is gone.

It's truly said that people kill
The things they love,
And blasted be the cursed judgment,
Which thus shaped our lives from high above.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Normal?

To be considered normal
In today's society, act and do
Conform to standards,
Something must be wrong with you.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

A Mother's Lament

In some hot and dusty village in Iraq,
Shell-pocked, tortured, bloodied,
Palm trees - torn and mangled,
Vainly, stretching broken remnants
Towards the sun, the light,
In gestures of futility,
There lies, what might have been
The perpetuation of my flesh, my only son,
My gift to fools and demagogues,
To those who wave bright flags,
Smoke their cigars and count their profits,
While we, the people, bleed,
But friend, do mark my word,
And mark it well,
A wind is rising in the land,
Nay, more than that - a storm,
Which in the winter of our discontent,
Will rip apart this sorry scheme of things
With wrath born out of agony.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Heart

- and yet, this throbbing heart
does dance a fearful dance,
does grab beauty, compassion
in its narrow orb,
and ranges from the tall and far
into the small and close,
and its narrow path,
it does the world
and love enclose -

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

To a Sea Shell

Transparency is thy name,
and superficial is your game,
instead of intellect and depth of mind,
neurotic tendencies I find,
my instincts long for the opaque,
the deep, the vivid and the stark.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

To a Connoisseur

She is subtle and charming and very discreet,
and her answers are pat, precise and quite neat,
her libido is strong and for love she has flair,
and she never says no to love practiced with care.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Wage Earner

In shining armor does his body he enclose,
and mounts his horse as any gallant knight is apt to do,
and leaves his castle, tensed from head to toes,
rides through the savage mountains to combat his foes,
and slays the fiery dragon ere the day is done,
courageously extracts and hoards its noble blood,
after his long and bitter battle 's won,
the weary warrior turns to home at night,
encumbered heavily by captured loot,
to rest his tired bones for next day's fight,
to gain more dragon's blood to feed his brood.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright Alfred Charasz

Vienna

Of my old home I dreamt last night,
City of song, nestled along the Danube's flow,
Where first I glimpsed the day's bright light,
And life moves peacefully and slow,
Where people waltz and idle in some small cafes,
Or climb the nearby mountain tops on bright and sunny days,
Then drink their wine and linger in the evening glow,
Where Mozart, Haydn and Strauss dreamt music long ago,
And Freud, reflecting quietly, began the human soul to know,
Dreamt that my long dead father in the doorway stands,
And on my shoulder does he pat his dear, old hands,
And asks: "Ocassionally, son, when you do have the chance,
Remember me and this old town and talk about us to your friends."

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Naked and the Wet

It's all illusion, nothing else my friend,
man is idea, a phantom, so speculations end,
a woman and a washstand are the same,
vast spaces filled with swirling, twirling nuclei, electrons,
playing that old, eternal, hidden game,
this, ere he died, some famous man did claim,
which makes me wonder if he ever with a washstand slept,
or for his personal hygiene a sensuous woman kept.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Art

Out of an intensity of feelings,
mixed with a touch of madness,
spiced with a mixture
of despair and hope,
out of the strange angles
of intuitive understanding,
grasping essence
in the vivid light
of an abstract reality,
out of all this,
art is born,

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Mansion

The mansion of my soul
has many a room, some are bright,
so filled with light and cheer,
some are filled with darkness, gloom,
and as the days, like beaded pearls,
are slowly strung, from room to room
my consciousness does pass along,
in some I linger for a while,
their quiet, happy atmosphere
does me beguile,
in others I feel frightened and alone,
and thus I spend my counted days,
till my life's mansion turns to dust
and broken stone.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Caruso

A dream out of the past,
a voice ever present,
beauty, never surpassed,
just to have existed,
lends divinity to man's estate,
as I listen, I close my eyes,
and all shabbiness falls away,
and life, suddenly, seems delicious.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Patrician

Who would sweep the dust
Of the graveyard
And phantom which particles
Were the patrician's?
The great man and the small
Are by the crucible of time,
After much meaningless strife,
Equated to the same position.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

To Ian

...the eloquence of silence
in the haze of evening,
just before darkness touches us
with nimble, searching fingers,
blocking out the screaming misery
with which your eyes
plead for lost hopes...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

My Devils

If my devils were to leave me,
My angels would take flight as well,
Let me ring the bells of heaven,
Or, at times, just feast in hell.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Iraq

I nursed him at my breast
When he was small,
And watched him grow into a man,
So handsome and so tall,
My only son,
Filled with the love for life
And youthful zest,
Of all in life I ever knew,
I loved him best.

He died last night
In the deserts of Iraq,
His body torn to shreds by mines,
While politicians, spouting platitudes,
Smoked their cigars and drank their wines.

There are no tears
Left in my eyes to shed,
I'm bitter and alone and old,
My world, my only son is dead.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Firefly

In the stillness
Of the night,
The firefly
Flickers its light,
As man does his own bit,
To stay the dark
Of the unknown
With one small candle lit.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

In a Small Cafe

In some small cafe,
Long ago, we met one day,
Where an ancient gramophone,
Did an old waltz play,
And we just looked,
Knew right away,
- that very day,
Love had come our way,
But then, the war did start,
And fate drove us apart,
And when from combat I returned,
My bridges to the past had burned,
Desperately, looked for you again,
But all my searching was in vain.

A life time has passed,
And I am old and gray,
But often do I think of you,
In that small cafe,
Where long ago,
We fell in love one day......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Hospital

Gleaming white halls,
Proper, sanitary, clean,
But within - broken bodies,
Burned out shells, savaged by disease,
Failing hearts, cancer-ridden wrecks,
In clean beds, for possible repairs,
Doctors in white coats,
Gods, performing miracles,
- so patients hope,
But in the basement - out of sight,
Death, hidden in the morgue,
The hospital, in all its profitable splendor,
A world thriving on human decay.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Yom Kippur

On this most memorable day,
We broken-hearted
Remember fondly
Our dear departed,
But to a measure,
Recalling them,
Gives us great pleasure,
Till one day, our loved ones
Will our memory treasure.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Inflation

Our currency melts,
Like ice in our hands,
The shrinking of the dollar
Never ever ends,
The presses print new money,
Constantly, just on and on,
Till soon its value
Will diminish and end,
On useless wars and tax cuts
For the rich - ill spent,
Elect new leaders,
And this foolishness will end.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

My Sister Rose

Clumps of earth falling
On the Mogen David
Of my sister's coffin,
Like the final thump, thump
Of a dying heartbeat,
A fine woman,
A part of me - gone,
Diminishing my world and me,
My family growing ever
Smaller and smaller,
Till we are all
But memories
In some eternal
Scheme of things.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Agnostic

If there be gods,
I have not found them,
If there be devils,
I have not seen them,
Yet rumors persist,
That god forbid,
They may exist......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Love is.....

Through tempests
And through storms of agony,
When the high seas of life
Engulfed our little ship,
And in my sweaty hand
The wheel felt most uncertain,
You've given me
The stamina, the courage
To battle through the waves,
You've never, never doubted me,
And in your eyes
I found the peace, the strength
Which sent me on my way.
It's stuff like this,
That love is made of....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Interlude in the Tropics

Vivid azure of tropical skies,
Palm trees and sunny beaches,
Beauty, style and elegance,
An aura of luxurious euphoria
On the island of a million colorful moods,
Where cosmopolitan wealth succumbs
To the Latin flair and temper,
Delicious fragrance of mimosa,
Amber turning into night,
Filled with a million starry eyes
Of promise and romance,
Music drifting from the beach,
Dona Felicia's black, racy eyes
Burning the essence of my being
With the passion of her Spanish soul,
An interlude - never to be forgotten.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Mom

Sweet balance
Of the soul within
Had given her
A gentle life,
A gentle love,
Enhanced by a
Gentility of spirit,
And when she closed
Her eyes,
She knew a life,
Well spent.
If there be gods,
They had been kind to her.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Past her Prime Lady of the Night

Flesh for sale, young man,
Maybe not the freshest cut,
But I'll give it all I've got,
't was a slow day,
You'll buy it cheap,
Please take me, friend,
Quickly, before I weep.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

A Modern Don Quixote

A modern Don Quixote,
Fighter of windmills
And lost causes,
Except for noble gestures
He espouses,
A man of principles and tact,
An idealistic dreamer,
Engaged in a laudable act
But in this predatory world,
He seems to be a fool,
Who doesn't know the score,
Yet, what he stands for,
We can't fail to adore.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Last Holocaust Survivors

The old survivors of the Holocaust
Are slowly dying off,
And people start to say:
We listened to your stories long enough,
But yet, one must never forget
Those six million dead,
Let them not have died in vain,
For some day,
You may be amongst the millions,
To be gassed and burned again.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Man

What is this thing called man,
A bit of flesh, some skin and bones,
A pitiful bundle of frailities,
The slightest blow of nature
Condemns him to oblivion,
And yet, within this shell,
So delicate,
There lives a soul, an intellect
Whose rippled waves
One day will travel
To the farthest reaches
Of the universe,
And merge with
Its guiding intelligence,
Which did create all this.

If there be gods,
Man is made of such clay,
As these divinities are made of....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

My Grandfather's Fiddle

Well do I remember
My grandfather and his fiddle,
A Jewish soul set to music,
Happy, sometimes plaintive and sad,
Painting my childhood
With the vivid colors
Of a treasured memory,
The quickening shadows
Of the years
Have scattered us
All over the globe,
Some of his little ones,
Dead in the camp at Auschwitz
Or heaven knows, where else,
But up there, he watches us,
The remnants of our family,
And in my dreams,
I still hold on to his coattails,
And in some empty, cold moments,
I close my eyes and hear his fiddle,
And then - all is well with the world...

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Hungarian Gypsies 1935

At the village end,
On a flowery field,
The gypsy wagons stand,
And on quiet, moonlit nights
Music drifts down from the camp,
Haunting notes from the gypsy band,
Melodies from a people apart,
Plaintive, sweet and melancholy,
They do break my heart.

They were burned in the ovens
Of Auschwitz one day,
But on quiet, moonlit nights,
I still hear my gypsies play.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Child in Auschwitz

The fear, the fear,
It touches me
Like a bottomless pit,
An unending well;
In its waters I see
A reflection of myself,
And if I let go
Of this thread
Which holds me,
My self, my ego,
My reality will tumble
Into the deep,
Towards my own reflection,
Into that heaven or hell
Which is my oblivion.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Last Flower

When winter's iron fist
Touches the last flower's
Vivid bloom,
Condemns it to oblivion
With its icy touch,
And wilted fall its petals
To the freezing ground,
Till naught is left,
The sky, the gentle
Whispering breeze,
And God himself
Will still remember
That so sacred spot
Where once a part
Of beauty lived.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Death - I Fear Thee Not

Death - I fear thee not,
You are that peaceful sleep
My aching, old body
Sometimes quietly longs for,
And yet, the atoms
Within my mortal clay
Will go on and on,
Perchance, part of a butterfly wing,
A rainbow in the sky,
A newborn babe,
And should the theory
Of circular infinity hold true,
Within the time-space curvature,
In the infinite circle limited
By all possible events,
I'll reach that point
In its circumference again,
When I will live my life over again,
Repeating it precisely as before,
Maybe, in some parallel universe.
In retrospect, I ask myself:
How was it?
Not bad - not bad at all......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Nothingness

Within the atom,
In a vast amount of empty space,
Electrons, nucleons, neutrons
Whirl around in a tandem race,
Composed of strings of pure energy,
With actual matter quite out of place,
Leading one to the conclusion,
That in a world which seems, but never is,
All perception is only sense illusion.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Return to Puerto La Cruz

From high above the canopy of stars
Shines down upon the shimmering sea,
Fragrance of jasmine sweetening the air,
Palm trees swaying gently in the breeze,
The distant sounds of music from the beach,
Bitter-sweet memories of a night - long past,
When you were in my arms, my love,
This last, most memorable night,
Ere you left at dawn, that very morn,
Your plane, a fiery comet, falling from the sky,
A painful day, etched forever into my soul,
A twist of fate - breaking my heart......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

My Gods are of a Different Hue

Little I care for the divinities of men,
Those hollow gods
Standing on shallow ground,
Those man-made graven images,
To which men pray,
Seducing them to serve their petty cause,
Their wars and little grievances,
They ask them to espouse.

If gods be bought
With flattery like this,
Cheap to secure,
They are no gods,
But less than men,
Of this you can be sure.

The power which did shape this universe,
Which circumscribes the path of sun and moon,
Lends us this mortal breath of life,
Incomprehensible to men and infinite,
Is far removed from our petty strife.

There is a scheme of things,
Which serves its own and hidden ends,
A claim to grasp its ultimate reality,
Would be for mere mortal men
Be blasphemous pretense.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz