Category Archives: Poetry

Albany Poets Presents~Albany Wordfest April 2017

rmEngelhardt

Albany Poets Presents R.M. Engelhardt

Poet and writer R.M. Engelhardt will be the featured reader 2017 Albany
Word Fest edition of the Albany Poets Presents reading series at Restaurant Navona (89 New Scotland Avenue, Albany) on Wednesday, April 19, 2017.

Albany Poets Presents puts a spin on the typical poetry event in the local literary community by highlighting one poet every two months with an interview and Q&A session following the reading

Bio:

R.M. Engelhardt is a veteran poet & writer whose work over the years has appeared in many journals & magazines including   Rusty Truck, Thunder Sandwich, The Boston Literary Review, The NY Times, Full of Crow, Dry Land Lit, The Outlaw Poetry Network, Telepoem & in many others. He is one of the original co-founders’ of Albany Poets and is currently the host of the Troy Poetry Mission, a monthly open mic for poets held in Troy, NY.

 

A Winters’ Tale

C__Data_Users_DefApps_AppData_INTERNETEXPLORER_Temp_Saved Images_15110846_1254903561227693_5052654562430728868_o.jpgA WINTERS TALE

In the evening
The early morning
This small world
Exists in silence

Just the wind
The snow envelops
All lights & this city

And the earth
Has momentarily
Ceased

Traveled back in
Time before man
Ran the show

The trees
Don’t seem
To care

I breathe in
The dark and
Breathe out
The daylight

And the earth
Returns again

Awakes to
The sounds of
Birds, machinery
And church bells

Perhaps

This is the
Closest we ever
Get to heaven

Perhaps

These are
The last moments
Of a sacred God
Who is no longer

Aware

POETS & WRITERS STAND AGAINST TRUMP 01.20.2017 AT 8PM

 

 

POETS & WRITERS STAND AGAINST TRUMP
POETS & WRITERS STAND AGAINST TRUMP  : JANUARY 20th, 2017 AT 8PM

On Friday, January 20th Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as The President of the United States of America.

This will be a very sad day indeed. And as poets and writers everywhere we need to speak up and say what needs to be said, and share those words with our nation and the world.

So here’s what we do.

At EXACTLY 8pm on the evening of Friday, January 20th I’m asking all my friends and fellow writers and poets to simultaneously all post a poem or prose piece against the election and presidency of Trump. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress …

EVERYWHERE.

That’s it, that’s all we need to do but we must all be united in this protest.

No matter who you are, what country, what race or what nationality this is the moment to Stand Against Trump.

All I ask?

Tag the bottom of your posts with these words that say we stand together.

#poetsandwritersstandagainsttrump

#westandagainstthispresident

Please join me, spread the word and invite all other writers and poets.

Join Us On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1633551503613211/1633847540250274/?notif_t=admin_plan_mall_activity&notif_id=1484335784769388


Thank you.

R.M. Engelhardt

THE GRIM REAPER NEEDS A HOBBY

C__Data_Users_DefApps_AppData_INTERNETEXPLORER_Temp_Saved Images_tumblr_ogkth5JfR41rssi62o1_1280.jpgThe grim reaper must be lonely
Or perhaps God is, sending him
Fishing for musicians, poets & actors, jesters and the like.
Or maybe the reaper was just bored in a place where it’s always
Dark and never light.

So he decided to play a joke on us
And made our new leader the joke
Itself.

Yes, this year the reaper has been quite busy lining up all his stops

Playing with the chessboard in the
Basement and taking the muse’s pawns

And has left us all to sink or swim
And find new ones to inspire
Generations to fight the dark as well

Or maybe just so he
Can play the game
Again

~ R.M.

The Poems of October by R.M. Engelhardt

RelicsThe burning smell of leavesHe dreams ofHer body stretched outUpon the bed.SamhainCold October.She wears a maskDrunken fucking to the rhythmOf the danceLike a final sacrifice toThe Gods.SheShe is the GodA Goddess inBlack makeupThe spell runningThru us 7 times uponThe moonlit night’sFrozen earth, throneOf graveyard dustThese are the remainsOf what we once called loveEaten by the cannibalsDown to it’s witheredBones.

Source: The Poems of October by R.M. Engelhardt

Faith To Believe In

“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.”

—   Henry Miller

Sir Geoffrey Hill ~RIP

“Not as we are but as we must appear,
contractual ghosts of pity; not as we
desire life, but as they would have us live,
set apart in timeless colloquy.
So it is required; so we bear witness,
despite ourselves, to what is beyond us,
each distant sphere of harmony forever
poised, unanswerable. It is without
consequence when we vaunt and suffer,
or if it is not, all echoes are the same
in such eternity. Then tell me, love,
how that should comfort us-or anyone
dragged half-unnerved out of this worldly place
crying to the end ”I have not finished.”

From ‘Funeral Music”
~ Geoffrey Hill, Collected Poems