SELECTED POETRY, Book I, THEMES AND VARIATIONS is a book of poetry by Paul Shapshak, PhD. There are also 10 photographs and a cover photograph of paintings and sculptures by the poet’s father, Sir Rene Shapshak. Several of the photographs were taken by one of the poet’s sons, Dag Shapshak, MD. (For additional information, see the poet-author description from the back cover.) This book divides into eight sections, Pastoral, Mythology, Cosmology, Theology, History, Social, Economics, and the Arts. Poetic forms that appear in the book include Sonnets, Cantos, Epigrammes, and Haikus. There are themes and variations on the themes in the book. A point is never completed, but builds and stretches examining time shifts, time drifts, and geographical climes, explored with surprises, and some balls hit out the ballpark. Some are paintings done at the beach by cliffs or in fields by streams, every hour on the hour that vary in chiaroscuro, color, and overtones. The poet enjoys and hopes that you will as well.

Selected Poetry Book I

Themes and VariationsBy Paul Shapshak

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Paul Shapshak, PhD.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4209-7

Chapter One

       HEARTH PROTECTOR


    Hearth protector principled, harvest kind
    Heath embers glowing last evening tides
    Kindnesses on air-laden breezes, branched
    Bower, roses at summer riverbanks.
    Day's flower now peeking through sunrise shy
    Blooming throughout the green summer day's glow
    Arms outstretched to anticipate the sigh
    Unfurling gleaming spring placid pools flow.
    Expecting, changing, and gathering storm
    Time protects against shifted dimension
    Lake, moon, erstwhile blush, reflect ocean calm
    Stars awakened, ponder lost horizon.
    Slender feet push ahead anticipate
    Slumber softly wintry dreamed snow carpet.


         SUNSET

    Hazed air smote ash tree
    Swayed estuary swollen
    Falling tide away


         MOUNTAIN

    Vista perspective
    Invisible walled cities
    Moated dimension


         MOUNTAIN AIR

    Air breathe told story
    Viewed emblems profiled above
    Chilled crisp snowy gaze


        MICCHU PICCHU

    Rock present sky-domed
    Cascades future ocean-sloped
    Paths passed-by stone-heaped


        WINTER SCENE

    Frozen island ice
    Geysers steamed flying stones spewed
    Darkening streams culled


         SPRING

    Congressed hidden blooms
    Confiding Spring leaves beneath
    Winter's snow eider


          DAWN

    Ocean by dawn's rise
    Each season wakes not alone
    We, never parted


    DAWN'S SECRET CLOUDS

    Dawn's secret clouds, awning surreptitious
    Special messengers and invisible
    Before ibis, sparrow, hawk, egret, tides
    Amulets, sandy, ebbing, and playful.
    Examine today's plays, with internet
    Cereal, yogurt, berries, coffee, milk
    Before dolphin's water-clicks, an egret
    On heels, stalks everglades frogs, silt, and silk.
    Palms sea-breezes stalking iguana saw
    Coastal crawfish oasis, time drifting
    Outgoing tide, rain, frogs, natural law,
    Riverbank, heron, leaves and grass swelling
    Warm, silent, awakened startled heron
    Glass flashes, glares into the rising sun.


    MORNING HAIKU

    For Madeleine, Sophia, Annika, and Evelyn

    Cranes awake, daybreak
    Storks preen white wings, Egrets blue
    Eagles widened gaze


    MID-DAY HAIKU

    Verse shadows mid-day
    Invisible divide crossed
    Afternoon disperses


    AFTERNOON HAIKU

    Sloped meadows larks skim
    In fragrance humming birds stay
    Soar starlings, kestrels


    TODAY

    Sunbeams softly broke
    Awakened light clouds rain pooled
    Beckon us look down


    RESTING

    Shaded grove branches
    Merging bringing down shelter
    Here doorway seasons


    PAST FIELDS

    Past fields oxen ploughed
    Ducks rising splintered silence
    Swans' sphinx phoenix sways


    EPIGRAMME 39

    Working the garden, debris debrided
    Busy bees, no sloth
    Busy beavers, no loss
    Busy frogs, no fight
    Unweary mowers, day earned
    Growers, day gained
    Light, bright
    Earning their daily sight
    Planting sods to spring
    Forth fully on the half-shell
    Radiant all is right.

    And on the one hand
    Ye seek
    And by the hand of the unseen
    Unknown
    Unthought
    Universe of tranquility
    Universal truth
    Conquests
    Bravado
    Bravura
    Hardened wooden fences

    Now resting, overworked
    Practising practiced plan
    Catcher in the rye
    Prussian nights
    Unbeknownst
    Clinging like ivy-coated walls


        CANTO LXVIII

    Midsummer's day,
    A day
    Another day
    Tomorrow, still another
    Remembered as it were, a gardened tree.

    A reed representationally
    Precision, gestured peace
    Faithful flock, another field, other folk, delusional
    Demi-notes as quiet ash and elms resurface for 100
    Years of solace, too. Seldom, do such questions reach
    The golden ladder
    Stairs, stars, slowed.


          CANTO XV

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