White Letters: Poems 2010-2014

By Spencer Szwalbenest

White Letters was created not as a collection of asserted truths but as a snapshot of an individual and his views in a particular moment. In each of the eight chapters of this book lays a piece of the worldview I once had, be it on life, death, society, or even myself. In reflecting on these poems, I have been able to see a perspective that in large part is distant from where I stand now and have been able to account for its advantages and deficiencies. In reading this collection, I hope you are able to appreciate its flaws as much as its strengths and, perhaps, even learn from my faults being brought to a new light.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514407424

Spencer Szwalbenest

Spencer Szwalbenest is eighteen years old and is a senior at Pennsbury High School in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania. Originally inspired by prophetic texts, such as Isaiah, Spencer began to write poetry in the seventh grade, targeting at the faults of society. After being short of inspiration for some time, Spencer returned to writing, this time song lyrics, in ninth grade, which eventually led to a renewed focus on poetry. Outside of his poetry, Spencer involves himself in a variety of activities and interests. Recently, he has been drawn to philosophy, and this has helped to inspire some of his poems. Spencer is also passionate about faith and has recently been investigating different methods and ideas of spirituality. He has been able to make use of both of these interests as the president of a religion and philosophy club at his school. In addition, Spencer plays the viola in multiple orchestras, attends a Hebrew high school, serves on his local youth group board, and works as a Hebrew schoolteacher’s aide.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Spencer Szwalbenest.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015915106

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-0744-8

                Softcover        978-1-5144-0743-1

                eBook             978-1-5144-0742-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 09/21/2015

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: A Hard Rain

For Those in Search of Aesthetic Words

A Limited Exposure

500 Days

Poetry is a Senseless Word

Upon Reading Leaves of Grass

A Christening

Lulav

Nebulae

Immersion

Document 2

An Introduction

Chapter 2: Sub-Alpha

Fences

Beneficence

Congratulations

Yardleyism 1

Futures

Reflections on Reflection

Closet

Two Sets of Eyes

The Empty Endeavor

Ian

Transmission

Pinned By Perspective

Teenage Angst

Chapter 3: Post-Alpha

If I Could Sing a Song in Earnest

Observations at Walden Pond

But What of Confidence?

The Brightest Star

A Sleep With No Dreams

A Warm Night Sky

Song of Contact

Overcast

Yardleyism 2

Song for the Voluntarily Bound

Man Is Dead

For Laura Cereta

On Why I Prefer the Pronoun They

The Glorious Vase

A Question

Roads to Babylon, Roads to Persia

Chapter 4: Abstract Obstructions

Metacognition

A Stitching of the Wound

Ashes Flying On a Summer Breeze

Watchful Eye

Basic Words

Zooming Out

Rending

On streams light and narrow

The Young of Sea Turtles

I Walk on Others’ Graves

Gardens and mines

The Junction Where All Roads Meet

Off the Grid

I

Chapter 5: Decades

A Scene No. 2

In the Bowels of the Urban Realm

An Exploitation

A Blue Stillwater Pond

Thoughts on Beauty

A Scene

Season of Youth

Leaders of Men

When the Pawn

Spirits of Revolution

Fated For War

1973

Looking to Old Europe

After Darkness…

Inheritance

Castles of Sand

Chapter 6: Concerning It Which Shall Not Be Grasped

So Sings the Silent Voice

Elijah’s Altar

A Meditation on Psalm 150

Trumpets of Silver

I Witnessed a Father Beating His Child

A Benediction

Chapter 7: The Great Castles of Miscellany

In This Seventh Hour

Flashback to Escapism

I Hear a Phantom in the Leaves

Strange tree

Meditations On a Slice Of Pizza (Wednesday, March 12, 2014)

0!

Electric Clock

Untitled

Palm Fronds

Ode to the Stop Line

Concerning the Wealth From Without

A Tile Floor

Chapter 8: Parting Words and Words on Parting

Eternities Calling

A Farewell

Sick Day

House of Youth

1 Year, 7 Months, and 14 Days in the Life of…

Two Stones

The First Human Funeral

A Living Will

I Fell Asleep at the Gates of Life

Ocean Line

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps the most painful stage of human development is that in which one must look back on all that he has done thus far, especially that which he may be less than proud of. The guilt that results from these bad decisions may serve to cripple the individual’s decision making ability forever; however, some eventually learn that those events and actions now belong to the past, and may never be truly undone. Rather than despair at the finality of wrongdoing, one can instead take each misguided decision, each embarrassing moment, each time of crisis, and draw from it every nugget of wisdom that it has to offer. In doing this, one learns to appreciate the qualities and perspective of his past self, an ability which later leads to an appreciation of the same in other people.

It is in this mode of thought that I deal with the poems featured in this book now. By now, some of these poems are four years old, and obviously my views on life have changed greatly. Therefore, it is not for the absolute truth of these poems that I decided to have them compiled into this book; I did so that perhaps some, including myself, would have the opportunity to appreciate one of the many unique perspectives on life that I owned earlier in my adolescence.

With each successive word that one writes on the tablet of his mind comes the assumption that it is etched there permanently, that its mark will never be smoothed out again. But soon enough, another idea, a new inspiration, be it from within or without, sends in its white letters, and starts afresh the same sheet on which one was writing. Within the confines of this book alone, one can find numerous incidents where the white letters had washed over me, and I only hope that the reader can experience the same effect, that he or she may make their perspective more nuanced as they encounter the evolving thought and emotion of another.

CHAPTER 1:

A HARD RAIN

To a Newborn

Though dust travels fast

We celebrate filling skies

And very clean clouds

FOR THOSE IN SEARCH OF AESTHETIC WORDS

For those in search of aesthetic words, a charming phrase to adorn your mantle, a pithy remark to woe, to court,

To all you seekers of beauty, I must duly apologize, for in no way do I speak beautiful words,

My calls do not ring gently to the ears, and they do not appeal to the wandering eye,

No love is to be gained by them, and no respect is to be gained by them,

My words are the antithesis of beauty, the nemesis of all grace and style,

To some a poem is to be the saving dew from The Lord above himself,

Yet this message is the volcanic odor of rotting eggs,

So smell at your own risk, and peer down at your own discretion,

Into the fissures and craters of all that is.

A LIMITED EXPOSURE

In the clearest skies of this hush suburban morn,

Greets the fog, embracing what little is there to hold,

This clarity is all I know,

For does a truth even exist beyond what we know to be false?

In what I can see, cast like friendly spectrums of light, greeting me after my mundane, water-logged apocalypse,

In all there is to be known of my quaint little world,

Movement awakens with the glow of my body in tandem.

Birds chirp their ever more dissonant songs, mating calls to simply find another, beckonings no less profound than any words to be discerned here,

The crisp chill of the freshly dewed grass, which hides a fluid far more dynamic beneath its crystalline shadow,

Animals looking for shelter, practicing their day’s ritual on a foreign wavelength from ours.

A sun peeking over from his depressed bed, a middle child of creation, seeking his Father’s approval through his fearful periscope of light,

The moon, proud and ungrateful, dethroned from its Reich, to return to dormancy, and rule through someone else’s eyes.

All nature in purest peace, wholesome instinct, untouched by the pains of reason, The Lord’s most beneficent tidings there sit content,

But lo!

Something emerges from dark above,

The vague middle zone, the debated, the wrong and right,

The ream of man is opened afresh, and again is inserted into this great press of our world,

Ungodly lights too peak over the horizon, not asking for approval as does the sun, but more so as the moon, triumphant in what they have achieved, together and alone, each an empire, and only one empire,

The baker arises and spells his aromatic prayer for all to take in, an offering for the morrow, a pleasing odor for none other than mankind,

The commuter lights his binary lunae, and with these lamps is tugged along to repeat a divine cycle of his own.

Mothers rise to care for their young, forced to see those creatures beyond their castles do the same (for nothing changes between us the animate, nothing turns away from the blessings of matter and spark.)

The sculptor raises his chisel, to create for himself, to create for all passing by,

And the face of fortunate handiwork awakes to gaze upon itself, to dwell upon another’s creation, and call it its own,

The hand brings up its sickle, and with it fills storehouses for his children, while also supplementing a deposit in the mind, a wisdom unknown to words.

The enlightened ones, scientists, teachers, poets, yarn-spinners, lovers, they all marvel at the waning moon, and see that truth unavoidable, that what ascends must fall the same,

The lookers on all gawk with their fuel newly provided, what they see, I know not, yet I see an image, so I look the same.

Masters of ear hear sound from the dormancy, sages of taste go on to feast upon their craft,

A world in a revolution massive, and a world at a gentle hum,

All based upon my perspective, upon me lying in this bed,

Drinking the sweet nectars of prosaicism, running back to the passing ferry of the dwindling night, aching for one last touch of that lost lover of mine,

It is in my hand, and it is through my eyes that I may make sense of all that goes about.

In it: I see outcomes of gifts bestowed to us, gifts bestowed to the Earth, flames from the nervous interior, simply aching, and set about to cool down these many furnaces of inspiration,

The very set of boilers whose energy would destroy the world otherwise.

In these words are the fumes of my inspiration, the vapors that will float to our atmosphere and gently warm the air for all.

Just as the bird does through its lightly-timbered tunes,

Just as the laborer does though his quivering hand,

And as does the prophet with his coal from above,

I serve before you today the warmth of my expression,

The bastard children of myself and each of my many muses,

The imprints left from the foot of this leather shoe of a world,

Reflections of my face, and perhaps even of yours.

Today on platters of bamboo and porous clay, my life’s work steams before your very eyes—

A gas escaping through the vents of my mind,

It passes through border to the promised