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No War – Selected Poems of Ray Whitaker, an eminent American Poet

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No War – Selected Poems of Ray Whitaker, an eminent American Poet
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What are the subjects that I like to write about?

Ray-Whitaker-USA-Poet-SindhCourierI will write about anything that comes to mind. What inspires me to write my poems can be something as subtle as a railroad engine chugging, or a complex as human interactions. Then the frequent turns to be found in my work will usually take a reader towards the infinity of God’s designs.  There is such power in the gazing into our world that surrounds us. Also, to be aware of, and into the cosmos that we seem to be a part of, is powerful. Taking a trip into the meanings we all rely on -in our daily lives- is a strong source of subject matter.

Ray Whitaker

No War

My Father did not plant fruit trees

Or a garden with any sort of vegetable,

Like a tomato plant, or peppers.

 

It was I that planted, harvested all of that.

 

His example did not lodge with me

Never having flown down from the sky

Wrapped in a fighter plane

 

Machine guns blazing towards a ground confined enemy

They there, trembling in fear, hiding from

His bullets and bombs thrown while in God’s bubble.

 

I loved him so, yet my path differed

 

The healing arts chose me as sure as water churns in rapids

Born unafraid of cleaning up lacerations, wiping blood from torn flesh

When someone’s life was seeping away

 

Staunching the flow

With giving a damn ever present, it was

Acceptable risk to be in combat with purulent infection.

 

He was a great man even having never planted a plum tree

 

His bravery and deciding loving family decisions made

Did lodge with me, so it is now that he is gone

As it was when he, my best friend, was still here amongst us

 

His courage tempered my abundant compassion

Like the wind rippling the fall colors

In an autumn high plains field.

 

I can’t fly a fighter plane

Or command a tactical sortie in dive bombing a bridge

 

I have come home with blood on my scrubs though

Bearing stains from other’s wounds, having worked

Like a mule plowing furrows, towards healing Life’s casualties

 

And I have planted plum trees, some were for him

His face peering out from the green leaves

Feeling his hands on the shovel with mine.

***

On the desk

The mouse pad lying there brings possibilities

It asks for attention

For possibly going to the end of the internet

And having a departure into determination

The white mouse seems to have a life of its own

Accepting the click only on empowerment

That adds to my totality.

 

What is there when I move the mouse?

This interplay with consciousness and mechanics

Somewhere there is a river flowing

In all of it

Carrying the signals from my hand muscles.

 

It is a tributary

To what

Questions are here

That I have

Towards what makes me whole.

***

Close Journey

Just want to walk with you,

Go into the soft distance

Perhaps into a cave with hot springs

Where the entrance is a bit narrow

Gently pushing we two walkers close together

And touching the amethyst crystals in the walls.

 

I think I can go there with you

Unconcerned about where that destination may be

Go to a closeness where our fingers arch, and toes extend

That place where sweet is the only oder.

In there, the Qi blends     

Into smiles.

THE LINK TO THE LIVE EVENT

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About the Poet

Ray Whitaker has been writing both prose and poetry since he was seventeen. What Ray is writing now is very different from what he wrote those so many years ago. All writers and poets are writing out of “the Self” however there are directions that the self speaks into, that change. Now Ray’s writing is to put foremost in his work, just who he is writing for. He intends on writing for the everyday man and woman. He firmly believes that poems need to reach into the everyday person’s pictures in their minds, and engage with those. This is where he aims to make a difference in his creative writing. He’s fulfilled when he sees that his work is provoking thought in his readers.

Ray has read around the state of North Carolina [USA] and Colorado [USA], and has been a member or the North Carolina Poetry Society, the Winston-Salem Writers, and The North Carolina Writer’s Network. He has thrice been a ‘Writer-in-Residence” at the North Carolina Center for the Arts and Humanities, at Weymouth, in Southern Pines, NC. He is the father of two daughters, and lives in Colorado Springs, USA.

He has three books published by Newness Twoness Books:  “ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Poems from the Nam,” 2 volume set, and “FOR THE LOST AND LOVED”.  A chapbook, “THE SCUPPERNONG WORKS” is published September 2022. He has one other book he is presently seeking publication for: ‘WHITE DOG SPEAKING.”

Some of his work has been published in online American, Irish, English, Belgium, and Bali Literary Journals.

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