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    First Eighty-five Poems 1959-1963
    First Eighty-five Poems 1959-1963
    First Eighty-five Poems 1959-1963
    Ebook211 pages1 hour

    First Eighty-five Poems 1959-1963

    By Paul David Robinson

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    About this ebook

    First Eighty-five Poems is a book of poetry written between January 1, 1959 and August 1, 1963 while the author was in junior high and high school. He shares what he was feeling and thinking when he wrote some of his poems. It is an autobiography in poetry. The author often considered taking his own life, but decided not to do that. The author questioned his Evangelical Protestant upbringing and later chose to be a Christian through his philosophy of life and not through the church. He served as a pastor for a number of years. The poems are presented in the order in which he wrote them and they share the feelings and questions he had during that time in his life. Readers may find his poems and comments helpful as they struggle with their own feelings about the world, their family and friends and their purpose in life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPaul David Robinson
    Release dateDec 20, 2015
    ISBN9781311489494
    First Eighty-five Poems 1959-1963
    Author

    Paul David Robinson

    Dear Reader,I've been writing stories and poems for sixty years. I have a closet full of rejections and this year I decided to e-pub.The first novel I chose for this is dedicated to my wife, Carolyn. I wrote it in 1998. It is entitled: Summer. It is about pain and suffering, the difficult choices people face, and how love can overcome anything.As a pastor and theologian, I do not separate the sacred and the profane. The difference is in the human mind and not in life itself, just as evil is in the human mind and comes out of the choices people make and not from the devil who made me do it. The devil has nothing to do with it. We are the ones who choose to do evil or good. The whole world is in our hands. Enjoy the books.Paul David RobinsonReverend Paul David Robinson,BA, MDiv, Pastor, Retiredhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.comhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.com/blog/

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      Book preview

      First Eighty-five Poems 1959-1963 - Paul David Robinson

      DEDICATION

      This first volume of my poetry is dedicated to my mother.

      Faith Naber

      September 27, 1920 – April 7, 2007

      My mother would have loved the artwork of Rebecca Swift. Rebecca’s back cover is based on Poem 49: To a White Blanket. Rebecca’s front cover is based on Poem 40: Rain, the Cleanser.

      From: Rain, the Cleanser

      I love the sounds

      As it plays

      Upon the roof and walls and windows.

      I know the music made

      As it splashes

      Into puddles, ponds, and lakes.

      Walking through the flowing stream

      Of run-off water,

      I love the pressure

      On my boots

      And the wet splashes

      Of the heavenly torrent.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

      FIRST EIGHTY-FIVE POEMS

      POEM

      DEDICATION

      1a: LOVE AND TIME

      1b: LOVE AND TIME

      2: MAN AND BEAST

      3: DID YOU SAY DIE?

      4: CONTEMPT OF A BELIEVER

      5: I LOVE THE GROUND ON WHICH YOU WALK

      6: I LOVE YOU

      7: A THOUGHT

      8: BEAUTY

      9a: CHOICE OF A CHILD

      9b: CHOICE OF A CHILD

      10: GREEN

      11: A LOST DESIRE

      12: CONSERVATION

      13: WHAT DO YOU HAVE WORTH DYING FOR?

      14a: THAT YOUNG LOVE

      14b: UPON REFLECTION

      15: PROCRASTINATION

      16: WHOA!

      17: DID YOU FINISH THE TASK?

      18: REMORSE

      19: THE AMUSING

      20: IN AWE OF A HORROR

      21: THE MOLD OF A MAN

      22: A COMMANDMENT

      23: ONE PRAYER

      24: CAN HE SEE?

      25: I CAN SEE HIM

      26: A LITTLE SONG

      27: DESIRE

      28: EONS AGO

      TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

      FIRST EIGHTY-FIVE POEMS

      POEM

      29: GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!

      30: MAN

      31: NOW SHOW ME!

      32: I ALONE AM ALL

      33: A GOD IN PINK

      34: A MURDERER ON THE PROWL

      35: A JOURNEY

      36: LOVE ME

      37: A CONVERSATION

      38: MAKE THEIR LIVES RICH

      39: A FOREWORD

      40: RAIN, THE CLEANSER

      41: THE TAPEWORM

      42: THE WORTH OF MAN

      43: I HATE THE THOUGHT OF IT

      44: COMPOSED WHILE IN ANGER

      45: WHY DON’T THEY CARE?

      46: REASON

      47: COMPOSED WHILE IN DISGUST

      48: A WORTHY REQUEST

      49: TO A WHITE BLANKET

      50: WISHFUL THINKING

      51: WHILE IN SORROW

      52: THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

      53: THE SPICE OF LIFE

      54: HE WAS BLACK

      55: TO AN ANGEL

      56: SLEEP IS NOT ALWAYS PEACE

      57: HOW SHALL GOD FORGIVE?

      58: WHAT IS A NAME?

      59: WHERE ARE MY WORDS?

      TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

      FIRST EIGHTY-FIVE POEMS

      POEM

      60: FOR YOUTH

      61: THERE IS NO GOD!

      62: FROM THE END OF THE RAINBOW

      63: WHERE IS SHE?

      64: THE THINKER

      65: THE LOST POEM

      66: AN ELEGY FOR A DAY

      67: AN ELEGY FOR A DAY

      68: AN ELEGY FOR A DAY

      69: AN ELEGY FOR A DAY

      70: THE ETERNAL CYCLE

      71: I AM A CHILD

      72a: A WALK THROUGH TREES

      72b: AN AUTUMN WALK

      73: WHERE IS MY HEAVEN

      74: MY JINGO – BY JINGO

      75: ONLY SNAKES HAVE THAT POWER

      76: HEY YOU UP THERE

      77: WHY ARE MEN ON EARTH?

      78: OOOO L’AMOUR

      79: JUST ANOTHER LINE – FOR MEG

      80: A FELLOW I KNOW

      81: DO YOU WANT A GOD?

      82: FACE THE FACTS!

      83: WHITHER THE PEARL?

      84: WHO SHALL TEACH?

      85: UNTIL ONE DAY

      EPILOGUE

      DEAR READER

      First Eighty-five Poems

      The poems in this book are presented in the order I wrote them. All eighty-five of these poems were written between January 1, 1959 and August 1, 1963. They reflect the thinking and feeling of the teenager I was at that time.

      I started writing these poems in eighth grade when we were studying American History with our teacher, Mrs. Agnes Riffle. The last poem in this book was written about a month before I went to Otterbein College for Freshman Orientation Week.

      To be true to my earlier self, I am signing each poem the way I signed them in the past. Some of the poems are not signed at all; other poems are signed: PdR. (That is the way I always sign my initials.) Some poems are signed: Rob. And I started signing some of my poetry with the initials: a. a.

      I was thinking of poems written by anonymous and I liked the way e e cummings signed his poetry.

      a. a. was an abbreviation of anonymous amoré. Amoré was a Latin word meaning To Love. It was pronounced ah-more-ray. Since I couldn’t do an acute accent easily with my typewriter, I changed the amoré to amoret and hoped that readers would know to pronounce amoret the same way the French would pronounce it: ah-more-ray. After thinking more about it, I changed anonymous amoré to anthony amoré.

      Anthony Amoré was my first pseudonym. The name means: Anthony, the Lover. And I wasn’t thinking about being a Casanova. I was thinking: Lover of Life, Lover of Mankind, and Lover of peace.

      Between the fall of 1957 and the spring of 1958, my voice changed. By the fall of 1958, I grew eight inches. I couldn’t sleep at night. I listened to Music ‘Til Dawn on Cincinnati radio. It was classical music all night long.

      I played center on the junior high basketball team. I was fourteen years old, five feet and ten inches tall in my shoes and I never grew another inch.

      I bought a book on Yoga and learned how to self-hypnotize myself to sleep. And I became a believer in Ahimsa or non-injury to all life forms, which is a principle of Buddhism and Yoga. I added Ahimsa to my own concept of Christianity: Thou shalt not kill anything. (Including plants and trees, not just animals.)

      Applying logic to my belief, I realized if I took the non-injury idea to extremes, I would starve to death if I never ate anything that was alive at one time. But I still move wooly bear caterpillars and earthworms off sidewalks and driveways and put them into the grass and I say a prayer for any road kill I see.

      I wrote poetry when I was eight years old and learned how to read and write. I don’t remember any of those poems. If my mother had them, I don’t know where she put them.

      I wrote poems in my diary when I was in seventh grade. I don’t have any of those poems anymore either, except the one I found that was cut out of my diary and glued into a scrapbook. And I would be embarrassed to print it. I can’t find the rest of my diary.

      The first poem that I wrote that I remember in detail was a class assignment given to us by our English teacher when I was in seventh grade in the spring of 1958.

      I believe we were supposed to write a poem using the spelling list for that week. It was a way to introduce us to the words we had to spell at the end of the week.

      The poem I wrote was about lions: lion, dandelion, literary lion, and dandy lyin’. It was quite creative. I will look for it, but I think my mother loved it so much that she kept it somewhere. My mother died April 7, 2007. It is not very likely that I will be able to retrieve my poem from her files.

      I would write poetry on any paper product at hand, like on the back of an envelope.

      But usually I wrote them on wide-ruled paper. I still use wide-ruled paper when I write longhand. I wrote my sermons longhand on wide-ruled paper. It is easier to correct grammar or misspellings when there is

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