Poetry by Bruce Louis Cohen
On this page are samplings of various kinds of poetry written by Bruce L. Cohen outside of his song-lyric writing (available on different page with its own drop-down menu).
Publishers or agents with interest in commissioning new poetic works by Bruce Louis Cohen, or publishing extant works, please email to this link. Thank you.
For his wife’s every decade-marking birthday since their marriage in 1991, Bruce has written Debi 10 original, new sonnets for each year of the decade.
They were written to be a private collection all Debi’s own: but in mid-2014, Debi gave permission to publish some of them in the open.
Below are a few of the forty sonnets written so far – Decades by Years • Sonnets For Debi • Sonnets 1 through 40).
Decades by Years • Sonnets For Debi • (Vol. I: 1-30) • Bruce L. Cohen ©1997 • All Rights Reserved
4. My family wants to sleep on me, that’s all
They seem to want to do. First one then two
Then three all have a piece of Abba, who
Is just lying there, quite horizontal.
Horizontal never had it so good,
Or so sweet. And I, who used to dream of
Such a pure smother of cuddling love,
As one, then two, then three all in the mood
For me dig above, below beside and
Everywhere ... I sigh, and say so be it.
The little two, they will soon enough flit
Away into their bigness shying from such grand
Umbrage as my form can now provide, and
You ... my Bun ... will still be there to smile and
Hold and oooh and drain love thermally ... and
Mark with me the sheer wonder of it. Stand
I do, and often shall. But the laying
Down with you now, Family ... makes Abba sing.
* (Fourth stanza is outside classic sonnet form here: I
experimented in the late 1970’s with re-inventing the sonnet:
some of that inclination lingers. Shakespearian, Miltonic,
Petrarchian & Cummingsian forms all beckon so. - BLC.)
10. We went through hell together, you and I,
And somehow we survived, but how, I do
Not know. The winds that tore, the hail that flew
And tore the softness out of us, God knows why,
When we lost everything, every mooring
That held us to the stable shore was cut
By man’s inhumanity to man, but
Made still sharper in the depth of the sting
That came from raw betrayal by all whom
We held dear. Did King David err in his
Love of Saul? Was he a fool to stress
His life with trust of one gone mad, and tomb
Himself in the cave of madness only
For love of God and godly loyalty?
11. By Mount Tabor in the blonded hay, we
Kissed our separateness away, and how we
Kept level in our souls, or sanity
Between us I will never know. To me
It is all a blur, as I went from one
Twoward toward you only you in that then
That created this now; and we know when
God does, He does what He knows should be done.
So Debra and Barak came out of Mount
Tabor, and tens of thousands with them (we
Pray!). For we (the we that live because
We daredtoceaseourdanceofbeing d i s t a n t)
arenowoneinsomanywayswecan’t
begintotelljustwhereweendorstart
16. Jerusalem, Jerusalem. I hear
It singing in your heart when quiet comes;
And some hard accommodation benumbs
The underseeth of hunger to be there.
I know. I feel it, too. We both have stood
Within her walls and as her children we
Have danced in her streets and joyed in her, free
With our love for her and faith for her good
As the plan of God unfolds for her and
Us. The day will come when we know our
Time and place in her; til then we labor
For her good from here. One eye towards Our Land.
We remember each day in Dispersion;
The day is coming for our Inclusion.
20. You and I, we speak in code, and no one
Outside has a prayer of understanding
Even one so open word, the meaning
Of the words is buried so in pure fun
And history. Kids are bunlets, “One-let,
Two-let.” Wives are buns, and husbands are huns;
“We’re leaving, “ and “Moon!” are laden with tons
Of undermeanings imbued with tacit
Experience no two others share. We
Alone are we, and Summersby is not
A possible scenario, so taut
And sure are the lines that fix doubly.
One plain sentence is all it takes to know,
Miles of us beneath every word speaks below.
21. “Be free!” It totally undid me, to
See a paperclip set free. Ein Gedi
Stood on the nearby horizon. And I
Stood on the brink of commitment. The true
Depth that little quip reached inside my soul
And pulled me closer to the waterfall
In whose pool with cascading bluish wall
Quite overwhelmed and washed and soaked in all
The dry and laughless lonelinesses love
As yet had found no moistening means.
Above The lonely noise, my heart alaugh in chains
With kingish waters flowing from above.
When you, that little clip had thrown away
And opened with it me, as with a key.
29. You are the strongest summer I can know,
And how your summer sweetened all I see;
The gift of you in summer was bounty
I can never repay you. To allow
Me to spend your summer with you in this
Life God built for us; and know you know kiss
Your summer fond and every more to pass -
Makes me to wrap such deep-laden endless
Embrace upon you. Pardon my over-
Coursing flood of words, but as your twenties
Leave I want to bid adieu with you ... thirties
Shall be easier at least. Spring weather
Is milder than the summer, this we know.
But ahh, such times we grateful watch to go.
31.
Forty is what forty does and that is
Far from uniform – it might improve, it
Might devolve, it might reward or edit
Former goals or dreams – and pull at the seams
What once was thought and once believed to be
A destination absolutely so
Certain that it took no effort to know:
Of course that root would grow to such a tree
Then sun and night and wind and rain arrive
Informing all the growing that becomes
The life at forty with its own rhythms
Unbidden they emerge and they contrive
To live to love to learn and always better
A life devout to spirit and to letter.
37.
Married to the mob is quite a life; but
Married to the target of Capone takes
A special woman who of trouble makes
An opportunity to stand for what
Capone does not, no do the ones who fear
His anger. There are things worse than danger.
There are fates worse than jeopardy, there are
States worse than peril, and trials worse than mere
Movement into harm’s way. The peace of soul
That comes from no piece of soul surrendered
To mere fear of some hope being murdered
Can not be known by those without the will
To say “I’d rather die than give Capone my
Soul by calling ‘truth’ what a child knows a lie.
38.
“You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
Jack says, “You messed with the wrong Marine.”
Few know how wrong a choice it’s ever been
To cross my wonderwoman – there’s a tooth
In mothers that comes out for kids like
No other force in the universe can
Come out for them: Ema rises to stand
Up for whatever they need, and can strike
A blow for their good with the strength of ten.
Nowhere no how no one will keep away
From her babies what they require each day
Each year each minute each life –will be won.
“You’ve messed with the wrong marine” if you have dared
To cause her sons to lack what might be secured.
39.
Israel is still later and not now. She
Sits there calling us but always later.
Jerusalem is home but is not here
And not now. How fortunate we are to be
Where we are until we are at last where
Our hearts have been from even long before
We became us – it’s impolite to stare
At the future when our now is so far
Above what could be Iowa … or New
Jersey. Thank God Manhattan is our call
For now until when Jerusalem will
Send her golden summons to us – right through
To exalt above our chief joy as it should
The City of the King, and work for its good.
40.
We have swum in Eilat’s bay and theatered
In New York. We have anniversaried
In the Plaza, Waldorf, Rainbow Room and
Popped many a cork. It has been so grand
To live and love and thirty with you as
You EmaWifeRebbetzinPal about
Through tests that would make a patriot doubt
His country – and you are not above pause
To question, reflect – or party hearty
With your HunBoysPalsShulmatesorYali
And savor every moment fierce or jolly
And remember why – always and ever why
You live and love and labour for the true prize:
To give the world what has worth in Heaven’s eyes.