Down by the River
A café table tethered along the sidewalk
A crepe, café au lait, a Caesar salad
Right out in the stream of liquid humanity
Buoyed by a flood of color, light, and shade
The sweet air clinging to the skin like cream
Less than 24 hours from the hospital
Traveled, rested, ticketed
Engaged for dinner with friends
At our ease
Looking ahead at the rapids
The hours and films
Rippling and sparkling and pooling ahead
On our life’s river
Running, like asphalt, a movie, Montreal
Under the cry of gulls
With, as yet, no thought of the sea
Alan Cohen/Poet first/Then Primary Care MD, teacher, manager/Living a full varied life
To optimize time and influence/Deferred publication, wrote/Average 3 poems a month/For 60 years/Beginning now to share some of my discoveries
Married to Anita 40 years/in Eugene, OR these past 10
Poems Published: Our Twentieth Century’s Greatest Poems,The Beast in a Cage of Words, “The New England Journal of Medicine,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Adelaide Literary Magazine,” “The Wild Word,” “In Parenthesis”/Poems Pending: “Praxis Magazine,” “North Dakota Quarterly,” “Aberration Labyrinth,” “Front Porch Review,” “Ephemeral Elegies”/ Honorable Mention, Ninth Annual Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest/Letters to the Editor: Poetry Magazine
A café table tethered along the sidewalk
A crepe, café au lait, a Caesar salad
Right out in the stream of liquid humanity
Buoyed by a flood of color, light, and shade
The sweet air clinging to the skin like cream
Less than 24 hours from the hospital
Traveled, rested, ticketed
Engaged for dinner with friends
At our ease
Looking ahead at the rapids
The hours and films
Rippling and sparkling and pooling ahead
On our life’s river
Running, like asphalt, a movie, Montreal
Under the cry of gulls
With, as yet, no thought of the sea
Alan Cohen/Poet first/Then Primary Care MD, teacher, manager/Living a full varied life
To optimize time and influence/Deferred publication, wrote/Average 3 poems a month/For 60 years/Beginning now to share some of my discoveries
Married to Anita 40 years/in Eugene, OR these past 10
Poems Published: Our Twentieth Century’s Greatest Poems,The Beast in a Cage of Words, “The New England Journal of Medicine,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Adelaide Literary Magazine,” “The Wild Word,” “In Parenthesis”/Poems Pending: “Praxis Magazine,” “North Dakota Quarterly,” “Aberration Labyrinth,” “Front Porch Review,” “Ephemeral Elegies”/ Honorable Mention, Ninth Annual Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest/Letters to the Editor: Poetry Magazine
