Walter William Safar

October 2012 | poetry

Destiny

While you are dealing the cards, your face is stoney and noble,

You observe your victim like a sphynx.

I escape to the casino table,

Because I don’t have much left,

Just an  old family heirloom ring

And very little hope

That I shall avoid seeing you in the croupier’s uniform,

Or the habit of a butler

Who is serving death.

My place is at the casino table.

The emptier my pockets,

The hungrier my passion.

I’ve heard the restless voice of a gambler:

“Perhaps I shall once manage

To deceive destiny… Perhaps…”

And the voice vanishes in the echo of many a gambler’s sigh.

You once again decided to scourge me,

Your shiny hand throws the white ball.

Who knows whose bones this white ball was made of,

This ball that dances so seductively

In front of the inebriated man’s eyes?

Will my bones end up

In its white interior tomorrow?

It didn’t take you long, destiny,

To throw me out into the street

With an empty wallet and a vacant gaze.

Now I stare into this empty night,

And death awaits below the old oak tree

That has accusingly raised its bare branches

Into this empty night.

Do not wear the black butler’s suit, destiny,

Let death wait.

I know you will comply, destiny,

You don’t like those who play it safe,

Because there is me in you,

And there is you in me.

Throw another one, destiny!

by Walter William Safar  

Newborn Verse

I could write a new verse today

About two roses

That we laid down onto the black soil

When we parted,

Perhaps even a poem

About the warm tears that were mutely sliding

Into the  cradle  of your wonderful soul.

I could call you loudly,

Without shame and boundaries,

Like a bird calls another bird,

But my throat is trapped by silence

Born to powerful solitude.

Yesterday, I loved you less than I do today,

And the living memories are proof of that,

Memories that are warmly flowing

Through the dreamy summer air,

Like blood is flowing through veins.

In the silence of this summer day I could write a poem

About our last dance below the old walnut tree,

From which the beautiful memories still emanate,

But the sun is still so cold without you,

Shining like gold:

Cold and deadly blinding.

When solitude tends to my heart with sadness,

All I have left are memories

To give birth to a verse

Like a wonderful child of hope. 

While the present haunts me into the past,

I haunt my spirit towards the sun’s  golden  cradle,

So it would become a blood brother to the newborn verse,

Because I might see you tomorrow

And read this poem to you.

by Walter William Safar 

Old Oak

In the shadow of solitude now I see Your eyes,

that so faithfully carry about the light

through my thoughts so dark,

and the pen trembles in the hand,

waiting for the prodigal son’s acknowledgement.

My one and only, acknowledgements arrive in solitude’s embrace,

just like tears, and where there is a tear, there is love,

always faithful and  invisible but so real

that you can touch it with thoughts

and with the fiery breath in the infinity of solitude.

I admit to using my verses as ransom for my guilt,

(and guilt is my silence),

and I listen to the rumor

that perpetually, like a bat,

whirls across the lonely poet’s street.

They say that me and You,

my one and only,

are fantasy, but a pen immersed in ink.

But You know, don’t You,

that me and You are perfectly real, full of wishes,

dreams and memories.

My one and only, I am listening to the whisper of the wind

in this warm, dreamy summer night…

It is silent, horribly silent without You,

and the wind’s whisper is dying down, farther away, oh so far,

as if called by death to its black hearse,

and I have waited for so many days, months and years to appear,

to bring Your voice to me,

gentle, soft, warm and yearning,

but it is so silent, oh so silent now,

that I can hear the screams of solitude

chase away memories

into this warm summer night,

my one and only, I am standing in the shadow of the dignified oak,

and I am looking into his empty sleepiness,

as if its playfulness left along with You,

it is silent like the wind.

Its dear, green, eternally waking young leaves,

who used to whisper in Your vicinity, untrammeled and confidential,

are completely silent now, completely dead.

Now I am trembling in the shadow of our oak,

fearfully looking at it as it drags its dignified old face along the ground,

its memories are as lively as mine.

Once, yes, once the memories,

who live so inaudibly,

shall become so weak,

so humanly weak,

that they shall find their dark home

next to our wooden crosses.

by Walter William Safar 

Walter William Safar was born on August 6th 1958 in Sherman-Texas. He is the author of a number of a significant number of prose works and novels, including “Leaden fog”, “Chastity on sale”, “In the flames of passion”, “The price of life”, “Above the clouds”, “The infernal circle”, “The scream”, “The Devil’s Architect”, “Queen Elizabeth II”, as well as a book of poems.