Joseph Kreydt

Tag: poet

  • The Man Who Just Sat Down

    The man who just sat down,
    You smiled at him.

    He did not smile back.
    He’s a large man.

    You might have been offended
    By his lack of courtesy,
    But you’re wiser now.
    You’ve received the grace of pain.

    And so instead of taking offense,
    You wonder if his age and size
    Have amounted to a painful walk
    That felt, to him, like a marathon.

    And then you see his knee,
    The scar down the middle,
    The oceanic swelling.

    It wasn’t that he didn’t smile,
    This man who just sat down.
    It was that he couldn’t smile.

  • The Curious Groundhog

    Where I live, there are lots of groundhogs. I see them all the time, but not during winter. Last spring, as the world was finally coming back to life, I saw one who also saw me. This poem came to me then. Happy Groundhog’s Day!

    Most of the trees and shrubs
    Have begun to bud.
    As I walked past a field
    Of last year's grass and frozen mud

    I saw a groundhog waddle toward
    The bank beside me.
    He ducked behind a culvert pipe
    But didn't crawl beneath.

    He waited 'til I passed beside him —
    Peaking like he wondered what
    This thing that moves so high above,
    And with so strange a strut,

    Might be or do or be and do,
    Or how he smells or how he sounds —
    And then, when I could see his face,
    He swiftly climbed beneath the ground

    Into a hole where, I assume,
    He has a blanket and a book,
    And having gathered vegetables,
    He hums as he begins to cook.

  • A Poem About a Hope

    The following is a poem I wrote very recently, based on a very true event. It’s most-likely unfinished, but I wanted to share it anyway. Merry Christmas!

    I walked over the hill, at dark,
    Past the willow by the frozen pond,
    Then slowed my gait and steeled my gaze
    ‘Cause something caught my eye beyond.

    Make it newfound love, this thing I sense,
    Or a run-in with a few old friends,
    Or at least an angel singing songs, I prayed,
    And prophesying better days.

    Finally, the lamplight bent just right,
    So I could see the sad, and sadly funny, sight.
    A goose stood upright on the ice
    Alone, there in the dark of night.

    I walked as close as I could get,
    And saw the goose was frozen stiff,
    Unmoving,
    Motionless as a monolith.

    Afraid the ice would not support my weight,
    I recommenced along the normal way,
    But the goose was frozen in my foremost thoughts.
    I ruminated, thinking of the poor bird’s fray.

    Webbed feet frozen to the icy pond,
    He must have flailed his wings and yanked.
    But, in the end, instead of freezing contorted
    Like a scared, pathetic, dying thing,
    He stood up nobly like a king,
    And gave his life into a marble work
    Of Michelangelic beauty–quiet, strong, strange.

    I went back out in the light of the next day.
    The weather’d turned and a thaw’d begun.
    The pond was still half-frozen,
    But the lonesome, solid goose was gone.
    And where he’d stood, my hope had sprung.

  • I Published My New Poetry Collection!

    The collection is called Finding. You can buy it here.

    It’s a book of poems and a few reflections that are meant to feel like I am walking through the poems with you.

    Cover of the poetry collection titled 'Finding' by Joseph Kreydt.
    Cover of the poetry collection 'Finding', featuring abstract artwork and the title prominently displayed.

    BUY IT HERE

  • Five Reasons Why Robert Frost is a Poetic Genius (with Poems)

    Five Reasons Why Robert Frost is a Poetic Genius (with Poems)

    Robert Frost is one of the most known and loved American poets. Almost everyone has heard at least one of his poems, maybe even three or four. Did Robert Frost just get lucky, or is there something truly brilliant about his poetry?

    Of course there is some level of luck in any success, but Frost also wrote some of the greatest poems in the English language. Here are five reasons why Robert Frost is my favorite poet.

    1. Frost balances the fine line between poetic rhythm and conversational rhythm.

    A poem written with a regular form of poetic meter (a recurring pattern of rhythm in each line of a poem) sounds great, but does not always sound like our normal conversation. Robert Frost wrote with excellent poetic rhythm, but at the same time made his poems sound like ordinary conversation. Frost’s poem titled A Patch of Old Snow is a good example of this. Notice how the poem is presented as if Frost is our neighbor or friend, and we are just having a chat. Yet this is not free verse. He writes with standard rhyme and meter.

    A Patch of Old Snow

    There’s a patch of old snow in a corner
        That I should have guessed
    Was a blow-away paper the rain
        Had brought to rest.

    It is speckled with grime as if
        Small print overspread it,
    The news of a day I’ve forgotten —
        If I ever read it.

    2. He has fun!

    Robert Frost is not afraid to add humor as an ingredient in his poetry. It’s the main ingredient in a few of his poems. Of course, he always keeps his form which can make him seem a bit stiff next to modern free verse poets like Charles Bukowski or even William Carlos Williams. The truth is, Frost covers many aspects of being human, including fun. He even makes himself the butt of the joke at times, like in his poem Dust of Snow.

    Dust of Snow

    The way a crow
    Shook down on me
    The dust of snow
    From a hemlock tree

    Has given my heart
    A change of mood
    And saved some part
    Of a day I had rued.

    3. He shows us beauty.

    Experiencing beauty is something that makes us human. It’s an important part of human nature. It makes life better! Robert Frost is great at sharing the beauty of the world around him with us through his poetry. Birches is a popular Frost poem that really shows us the beauty that he sees in Birch trees. Even just the first few lines of the poem present us with awe-inspiring imagery.

    Birches

    When I see birches bend to left and right
    Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
    I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
    But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
    As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
    Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
    After a rain. They click upon themselves
    As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
    As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
    …

    4. He is full of wisdom.

    Knowing how to navigate life, being able to accept mystery, understanding the ways of the world—Robert Frost is like an old sage sharing his wisdom in a fun, beautiful, and conversational way. In his poem A Time to Talk, he stresses the importance of taking a break from the day’s work to have a conversation with a friend.

    A Time to Talk

    When a friend calls to me from the road
    And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
    I don’t stand still and look around
    On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
    And shout from where I am, “What is it?”
    No, not as there is a time to talk.
    I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
    Blade-end up and five feet tall,
    And plod: I go up to the stone wall
    For a friendly visit.

    5. He’s existential yet he’s so accessible.

    Robert Frost is easy to understand and his poems can be read through quickly, but the reader can also read the same poem again and again and continue to find depth and meaning. See what meaning and enjoyment you can find in his poem House Fear.

    House Fear

    Always–I tell you this they learned–
    Always at night when they returned
    To the lonely house from far away
    To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
    They learned to rattle the lock and key
    To give whatever might chance to be
    Warning and time to be off in flight:
    And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
    They learned to leave the house-door wide
    Until they had lit the lamp inside.

    It doesn’t take an English teacher or a poetry professor to see why Robert Frost’s poems are great. Anybody can enjoy them. That is why Robert Frost is one of the English-speaking-world’s most beloved poets.

  • The Tower Cafe

    When the trees were small –
    The trees that grow all through
    The patio at the Tower Cafe,
    Where we had breakfast Sunday,
    Where you had the most delightful French toast –

    The trees, now tall, when they were small,
    The cafe’s keeper gave them faith.

    “Whichever way you grow,”
    The keeper said, “it will be okay.”

    Faith, that is why they were allowed to stay.
    Faith is why they were allowed to become
    The beautiful cafe patio protectors they became.

  • Fourteen Stories

    Something caught my mind
    – A buzz like a bee, no, a buzz like bourbon.
    A thought broke free.

    I wondered what the ants
    On the ground would think
    If they saw us way up here,
    Fourteen stories high, clinking drinks,

    Dressed in red hue mood lighting,
    Shifting, laughing, drifting,
    Among our own tribes, uniting,
    Wondering about the other tribes and their princesses,

    And what the ants below must think
    Of the ways we shift and the ways we sync
    And the ways we dance and the ways we drink.

  • Steam

    Maybe the steam is a small tax,
    The cost of this drink’s warmth.

    Maybe the steam is a prayer.
    Maybe it is His share.

    Maybe it is the drink’s quest,
    Venturing out of the cup,
    Heaven bound, pouring up.

  • Night Walker

    At night, the woods come alive.
    They shape shift. They dance.
    It’s a glorious ball with painted eyes
    And noble gowns around a buzzing hive.

    They get bigger too, the woods.
    I think I hear them say, “you’re small.”
    They don’t say nothing, and it’s not banal.
    They seem to say, “this is not all.”

    A breeze blows. Something scurries.
    And though I don’t know what it is,
    I am sure now. I am certain
    There is more behind the curtain.

    There is more than what I sense.
    There’s something that I cannot grasp.
    I pause to listen by a fence,
    But hearing nothing I commence.

  • ‘It Is So No More

    Look at the pictures, young one.
    Oh, the way Orion danced across the sky.
    He danced as slow as icebox honey flows
    – In perfect rhythm, though.
    We watched him every winter night.

    He danced and glowed. Each lustrous node
    Was notched with reverie and delight.
    Oh, the way he danced so free (and leisurely),
    Unbound, at liberty, untied!

    Look at the pictures, young one.
    Oh, the sight, Orion danced away the night.

    It is so no more.

    His light has been obscured.
    Man and Mammon waged their war.

    They hid him in the sky
    Behind thirty thousand satellites.
    Stars that could be bought and sold
    Were slung like nets upon his home.

    Oh, he used to dance, child.
    We watched him move so gracefully.
    But now the night time sky is glowing
    Bright with forgeries.

    Orion’s hands and feet are bound,
    His dance no longer seen.
    He’s been uncrowned,
    His radiance drowned,
    Lost behind a spellbound screen.