Sample Poetry
The poems below were chosen as “Best Poems” and excerpted from the most recent two issues of the Aurorean. Poems were selected by independent judges. Rights remain with authors.Dear Cynthia,
(a found poem)
I am submitting another poem. It’s about the continuing miracle
Of dawn, which we tend to take for granted. I am up early and so I
See this phenomenon, which never fails to excite me. The dawn is
Always different: its moment containing new spots of light, new
Possibilities, the chance of new thoughts. Czeslaw Milosz wrote
That a moment is not just a blip of time, but an occurrence that
Also has substance, sometimes color, even sound. I feel that way
About dawn and find a need to write about it.
— Henry Berne
(from the Fall/Winter 2007-2008 Aurorean.)
Grass Smell, Bright Orange
Finished with the week’s work,
the silenced mowers on the trailer,
I inhale grass scent in still air.
I am a child at the picnic table,
a hand on my pet rabbit,
my father in a white T-shirt,
the sound of the rotary blades.
I helped him rake, he took me
for ice cream.
A single trill from high
in the pear blossoms,
a vainglorious Oriole,
starlings and robins seemingly
too self-conscious to sing
around such royalty.
My first bicycle from the town dump
I brushed Day-Glow orange,
ran the mile home from school
to ride until dusk when
mother called me for supper.
In the truck, ten lawns worth of tired,
I decide these are the purest unfettered joys
I have known.
— Michael Tempesta
