November 2014
I have been writing poetry for over 30 years. My first poems in Greek were protests against the military Junta that took over Greece when I was a University student. When I immigrated to the US I continued writing in both Greek and English, often translating poetry and theatre. I now write mostly in English.
I live right on the side of Black River in a colony of old tall trees that make part of the Hacklebarney State Park, here in central NJ. My wife, Tamara, is also from Europe (Poland) and we came to the US in the same year. We have a small (boutique size) consulting firm specializing in Executive Coaching and Leadership Development. We teach and coach at Cornell University.
REDRAWING BORDERS-2010 and BLUE HERON ON BLACK RIVER-2014 are my first two books. The first one is about the transitional process of creating the psychological space to live in two homelands. My second book goes beyond the transition. It is about assimilated life in America The early life losses are now grateful acceptances and source of growth. Validation, fulfillment, and acceptance are now the refrains of the songs. A third collection of mine, THE WINDOW THAT FACES SOUTH was a quarter finalist to the third (2014) Mary Ballard poetry Chapbook Prize by Casey Shay Press.
My poetry has also appeared in on-line venues such as
Princeton Public Library Podcast (https://archive.org/details/BasilRouskasFourOriginalPoems),,
Shot Glass Journal (http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/issue5/basil_rouskas1.html),
ZingaraPoet.net, (http://zingarapoet.net/?s=rouskas&submit=Search)
Poetry Pacific (http://poetrypacific.blogspot.ca/2013/03/3-poems-by-basil-p-rouskas.html),
Switched-on Gutenberg (http://www.switched-ongutenberg.org/archive/issue19/rouskas.htm),
and Tiferet Journal (http://www.tiferetjournal.com)
I live right on the side of Black River in a colony of old tall trees that make part of the Hacklebarney State Park, here in central NJ. My wife, Tamara, is also from Europe (Poland) and we came to the US in the same year. We have a small (boutique size) consulting firm specializing in Executive Coaching and Leadership Development. We teach and coach at Cornell University.
REDRAWING BORDERS-2010 and BLUE HERON ON BLACK RIVER-2014 are my first two books. The first one is about the transitional process of creating the psychological space to live in two homelands. My second book goes beyond the transition. It is about assimilated life in America The early life losses are now grateful acceptances and source of growth. Validation, fulfillment, and acceptance are now the refrains of the songs. A third collection of mine, THE WINDOW THAT FACES SOUTH was a quarter finalist to the third (2014) Mary Ballard poetry Chapbook Prize by Casey Shay Press.
My poetry has also appeared in on-line venues such as
Princeton Public Library Podcast (https://archive.org/details/BasilRouskasFourOriginalPoems),,
Shot Glass Journal (http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/issue5/basil_rouskas1.html),
ZingaraPoet.net, (http://zingarapoet.net/?s=rouskas&submit=Search)
Poetry Pacific (http://poetrypacific.blogspot.ca/2013/03/3-poems-by-basil-p-rouskas.html),
Switched-on Gutenberg (http://www.switched-ongutenberg.org/archive/issue19/rouskas.htm),
and Tiferet Journal (http://www.tiferetjournal.com)
A New Life in the City
That dawn, trees held their breath,
mountaintops vanished in a fog
and villagers crossed themselves
before shutting their doors.
They loaded the mules, gazed
at the distant threshing floors,
wiped the last tears from their
cheeks, and never looked back.
Years and harsh winters took
care of the rest. First the roof.
Then the windows.
The rotten steps gave out last.
No Pilot
(based on a recurrent dream)
Just arrived in Athens --
mother in ICU.
Flight late and brother’s
voice mail frustrates me.
No taxis. I’d hitch a ride
yet traffic’s jammed.
A helicopter’s blades turn
but no pilot to fly me.
Time’s run out --
I wake to
no cars, no crowds
just tall trees and the river.
She smiles to me from her frame on the wall.
Author's note: When my wife sings Yiddish songs which her mother used to sing in their Warsaw apartment (not far from River Wisla), I think of members of the family lost in the Holocaust. I picture Euterpe (muse of Songs and Elegiac Poetry) and my late mother-in-law singing together in our home.
Euterpe's Song
To my wife Tamara
And this evening
you read to me chapters
of perished families in Europe,
stories from yellowed pages
in your mother’s journal.
You keep this journal
in a locked drawer
when daily living makes
our windows opaque
to years long past.
Your expression is suspended
like a bridge over Wisla,
between a smile
and a cry.
But, when Euterpe
visits, her songs
(in tune with your mother’s)
transfigure our home
to an elegy only a cello
can play, framed
within soft strums
of a harp, when she
and your mother pause
their song to take in
their next breath.
What Remains the Same
“In reality two things cannot ever be the same because they are really taking place in different times.”
-John Cage interview with Terry Gross on NPR Fresh Air July 2009)
A friend who lives in Missouri
calls to reconnect. We reminisce
the years before we both
came to the States. He tells me he
just came back from the Greek island
you and I and the two of them - still together -
spent two weeks in the summer
of ‘64. He says he looked up the B&B
we stayed. He asks if I remember.
I lie - I say I don’t. He tells me
about the new marina, the yachts and
the tennis courts. I say “too bad it changed so much”
but he likes the changes. So, we do not
debate the island’s progress. I lie again;
“forty years — too long to remember.”
That dawn, trees held their breath,
mountaintops vanished in a fog
and villagers crossed themselves
before shutting their doors.
They loaded the mules, gazed
at the distant threshing floors,
wiped the last tears from their
cheeks, and never looked back.
Years and harsh winters took
care of the rest. First the roof.
Then the windows.
The rotten steps gave out last.
No Pilot
(based on a recurrent dream)
Just arrived in Athens --
mother in ICU.
Flight late and brother’s
voice mail frustrates me.
No taxis. I’d hitch a ride
yet traffic’s jammed.
A helicopter’s blades turn
but no pilot to fly me.
Time’s run out --
I wake to
no cars, no crowds
just tall trees and the river.
She smiles to me from her frame on the wall.
Author's note: When my wife sings Yiddish songs which her mother used to sing in their Warsaw apartment (not far from River Wisla), I think of members of the family lost in the Holocaust. I picture Euterpe (muse of Songs and Elegiac Poetry) and my late mother-in-law singing together in our home.
Euterpe's Song
To my wife Tamara
And this evening
you read to me chapters
of perished families in Europe,
stories from yellowed pages
in your mother’s journal.
You keep this journal
in a locked drawer
when daily living makes
our windows opaque
to years long past.
Your expression is suspended
like a bridge over Wisla,
between a smile
and a cry.
But, when Euterpe
visits, her songs
(in tune with your mother’s)
transfigure our home
to an elegy only a cello
can play, framed
within soft strums
of a harp, when she
and your mother pause
their song to take in
their next breath.
What Remains the Same
“In reality two things cannot ever be the same because they are really taking place in different times.”
-John Cage interview with Terry Gross on NPR Fresh Air July 2009)
A friend who lives in Missouri
calls to reconnect. We reminisce
the years before we both
came to the States. He tells me he
just came back from the Greek island
you and I and the two of them - still together -
spent two weeks in the summer
of ‘64. He says he looked up the B&B
we stayed. He asks if I remember.
I lie - I say I don’t. He tells me
about the new marina, the yachts and
the tennis courts. I say “too bad it changed so much”
but he likes the changes. So, we do not
debate the island’s progress. I lie again;
“forty years — too long to remember.”
©2014 Basil Rouskas