Hello In There -- John Prine

Guest poem submitted by Rama Rao:

(Poem #1966) Hello In There We had an apartment in the city, Me and Loretta liked living there. Well, it'd been years since the kids had grown, A life of their own left us alone. John and Linda live in Omaha, And Joe is somewhere on the road. We lost Davy in the Korean war, And I still don't know what for, don't matter anymore. Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger, And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello." Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more, She sits and stares through the back door screen. And all the news just repeats itself Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen. Someday I'll go and call up Rudy, We worked together at the factory. But what could I say if asks "What's new?" "Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do." So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes, Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello." -- John Prine

I am  a little surprised not to see John Prine on the Minstrels. Hailed
by some on his debut as "the next Dylan " he has had many of his folksy
lyrics sung by other famous singers. As the developed world including
America ages, with larger percentages of older people in their
populations, this poem captures some of the increasing loneliness they
feel. The stanza contrasting old people to old trees and old rivers is
particularly powerful.

A John Prine bio is available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prine

Rama Rao.

Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye -- Leonard Cohen

Guest poem submitted by Rama Rao:

(Poem #1823) Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time, walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me, it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea, but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. -- Leonard Cohen

I have hesitated for a long time to send this. One associates Cohen with the
haunting lyrics of Suzanne (Poem #116, where his bio is also included) or
his other songs (some of which are already on the Minstrels) and this poem
is mushy by comparision. But I'm encouraged by Martin's comment that
"sometimes even a single line" can make a poem. And ever since I first came
across the line "It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the
sea" more than three decades ago, it has stuck in my mind as an example of
'sheer poetry'. What a simple but brilliant analogy of constant change in
togetherness.

Rama Rao.

Talk -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Guest poem submitted by Rama Rao:

(Poem #1776) Talk You're a brave man they tell me. I'm not. Courage has never been my quality. Only I thought it disproportionate so to degrade myself as others did. No foundations trembled. My voice no more than laughed at pompous falsity; I did no more than write, never denounced, I left out nothing I had thought about, defended who deserved it, put a brand on the untalented, the ersatz writers (doing what anyhow had to be done). And now they press to tell me that I'm brave. How sharply our children will be ashamed taking at last their vengeance for these horrors remembering how in so strange a time common integrity could look like courage. -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

        Translated by Robin Milner-Galland and Peter Levi.

What can be more representative of the times we live in than these lines?
Although perhaps referring to the pre-Khruschev times of the Soviet Union,
the poem is equally valid when we face the distortion and humbug prevalent
in so many places. And nothing is more powerful than the last line:
 "common integrity could look like courage".

Yevtushenko is already on the Minstrels and profiled also [see Poem #850,
Poem #1532, Poem #1561 for examples -ed.].

Rama Rao.

Excerpts from a Father's Wisdom -- A K Ramanujan

Guest poem submitted by Rama Rao, a stanza from:

(Poem #1692) Excerpts from a Father's Wisdom Do not worry about Despair Just comb your hair Despair is a strange disease I think it even happens to trees. -- A K Ramanujan

Sometimes a poem seeps in without one realising, and resonates. Ramanujan,
in my opinion the finest Indian poet to have written in English, is often
simple and matter-of-fact in his themes. Yet I find these lines haunting and
melancholic and memorisable.

Rama Rao.

People -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Guest poem submitted by Rama Rao:

(Poem #1561) People No people are uninteresting. Their fate is like the chronicle of planets. Nothing in them is not particular, and planet is dissimilar from planet. And if a man lived in obscurity making his friends in that obscurity obscurity is not uninteresting. To each his world is private, and in that world one excellent minute. And in that world one tragic minute. These are private. In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. It goes with him. There are left books and bridges and painted canvas and machinery. Whose fate is to survive. But what has gone is also not nothing: by the rule of the game something has gone. Not people die but worlds die in them. -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

In this world of heroic biographies there are relatively few homages to the
"average" man. After Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard", the only
other one I have come across is this fine poem by Yevtushenko. The last line
sums it up: "worlds die in them ."  Yevtushenko is already in the Minstrels'
collection. His "Courage" is another of my favourites.

Rama Rao.