by Alan J. Blaustein
Valhalla
by Alan J. Blaustein
High on West Street walking summer day
Sunlight in my face and to my right
Seeing more the Hudson than the street ahead.
I expected factories parking lots and bars,
Nothing else than pleasant afternoon
And then the wonder stopped me seized my sight.
Valhalla? Yes, it was!
Risen in all magnificence from the street
As proudly massive blocks of—stone.
It instantly awed me reduced me to a speck—
For what great purpose could this be?
Home for a breed of freshly risen gods?
I walked beside amazed and looking up
Until I came upon a massive porch
That stretched before great doors of glass and bronze,
Flanked by pillars, granite guards.
A plaque above the doors, all shining bronze,
Proclaimed the name.
Look what the age of heroes has become,
Look how Odin's dream has re-emerged,
See how the ordinary conquers all,
How wonder can vanish like a wisp of smoke…
I saw for what my hall of gods was built—
Manhattan Community College!
- Share this Poem:
ABOUT THE POET ~
Alan J. Blaustein, 350 East 195th Street, #WI, Bronx, NY 10458, 347-290-8121, alblau999@yahoo.com, alblau999@wordpress.com, @AlanBlaustein, I no longer have a copy of Poetry News, a mimeographed magazine that published a tiny poem of mine when I was seventeen in 1967. I wrote on and off through various crises throughout the late 1960s and 1970s with no success, and in the 1980s I was involved in the East Village poetry scene of the time and published in several collective publications, know as What Happens Next., By 1990, I felt that I had run out of poetic steam, to borrow a phrase from something of Breton's. I had already written mass-market paperbacks, and in September 1990 I started to work for Mixed Media Enterprises. I wrote and edited various publications for the client publisher., Poetry came to mind intermittently until October 2012, when I heard the pentameter again. I prefer formal poetry, taking Ezra Pound's dictum that "when poetry moves too far from music, it rots, " but I will write free verse if the idea, inspiration or whatever strictly calls for it. Real poetry is about language, first of all., Thank you for considering my work., Alan
Last updated November 02, 2014