Roberta Gould

My Name

I was an aspiring beauty queen
I wore pretty blouses with no pockets
That's why I'd never find a pencil
That's why there's no record of my wisdom
Still, I was almost happy
Food was plentiful
and that brought contentment
a cliché, you comment,
as I breath the June garden,
life of ease, you say,
as I linger through dawn in my bed
Correct!
I stay
and eat comfortable bread
as the world's bombed in my name:
Freedom


Attempted Dialogue With Cicadas

Flinging this voice up
is futile I'll never find them
singing in the tree tops
They seem to be everywhere like stars
but I am defeated
for there are only two or three
each with single notes
pitching me out of my frame
into the sky's dome
and my voice will never discover
what branches they call from
thriving while I fail to reach them
charging the air
with their magical tremble
thrilling the forest as they did
when we were dream seeds
from Three Windows


Ants

The ants are racing to their hole
vanish inside as we do
molding donuts of sand above them
as we lift mushrooms to the sky

A few cannot participate
scurry lost or mistake their address
another hole back of the erratic
glacial rock--shattered--along the path

Oh they are busy, have purpose
endless members of species!
while turning about on the periphery
the others who've wandered too far

too close or close enough to see
they are wrong turn round
and race back living memory,
dream time, or transcending


About the Author

Roberta Gould lives near the Ashokan Reservoir, West Hurley, and has published work in many literary magazines including the Green Mountain Review, Confrontation, Borderlands, Pacific Coast Journal, in newspapers, (The New York Times, Catholic Worker, Woodstock Times) and in various anthologies. Her poetry is varied in theme. concise and musical. Dream Yourself Flying, (Four Zoas Press), her first book, was followed by the favorably reviewed Writing Air, Written Water, Her eight book, In Houses With Ladders, will be followed by a chapbook, Even A Little Music in the coming year.

Of two books published in Mexico, 1990, Esta Naranja, was written in Spanish. During her school days she studied in Mexico under a grant from the Mexican government and in 1990 organized an educational campaign for international tourists as a partial expression of her gratitude to the Mexican people.

She belongs to PEN America and Poets House, studied geology at U.C.C.C., is currently teaching a course on poetry in Spanish for LLI. and is a student of chess.

She welcomes exchanges of poems and can be found on the web at www://robertagould.net

(click here to close this window)