The author was born at home, on Carmine Street, New York City, N.Y., May 29,1938 to Concetta and Carlo Serra. He is the sixth son of seven and one sister. As a child the family moved to Spring Valley, N. Y., in Rockland County, where he attended a four room country school, Brick Church. He later graduated Spring Valley High. A graduate of Rockland Community College, class of 1961, AA; Fairleigh Dickinson University, class of 1968, BA; Montclair State University MA, Sociology, 1976. An educator by profession and an operative mason by trade. His teaching career included classes as an adjunct instructor of Sociology at SUNY Rockland, Professor of Sociology at SUNY Orange, and Secondary Education, Ramapo Central, Suffern, N.Y. He is a retired member of The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, Local 5 NY.

Perceptions

By Paul B. Serra

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Paul B. Serra
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-0828-4

Chapter One

      Freedom


    On this hollowed ground, on the banks of this great river,
    For a second time raise again a votive stone to me.
    Do not forget me, don't ever forget me,
    So long as you breathe, love, touch, laugh, weep,
    Not to forget, for as long as you know the price freedom
    demands, of what waiting alone is like to broken lovers,
    As long as you own the soul—heart of humanity,
    As long as you resemble the image, in any disguise,
    In any color, do not forget me.

    But some have forgotten, for some too often forget
    The bitter taste of fear, blood, fire, murder, war;
    The inevitable sweeping sword of truth and justice.
    But do not forget me, as long as you live remember.
    Let me see it in your face, in your handshake,
    In each sip of soup and bite of daily bread;
    You will not forget me!

    You will not forget God lives in each of us,
    If but for a moment:
    The child torn apart, the unmolested doll in a
    Tiny severed hand, each wound, each shattered body
    Or turned to dust, each crying lung yelling do not forget;
    For me.


      Something About The Color

    Where the house divided against itself
    Could not stand, leaves a bloody legacy
    Of relentless feuds fought no-longer
    In silent desperations concerning
    Something about the color.

    Capital pin-strip suits reveal warring games,
    Exposing disguised life long quarrels
    Of self against another color of self.
    Creating nothingness.

    Razor words like secret weapons wait to humble
    Our humiliated humanity.
    The child's dead black triumph in weary labor
    echo the chant of crimson crying outs.
    We clothe them still, in what science pretends is race.

    Human reason replies with distain at being defined
    By width of nose, strand of hair,
    Rather than our inner wear.
    If we're satisfied by what anthropologist theorize is true,
    Then zoologist need to redefine chicken, lobster and the stew.


    Arlington, Virginia, July 1976

    Their white aging heads are beautiful
    Above the full grace of ended youth.
    Standing sentinels unforgotten, silent
    Flag draped earthen mounds.
    Decorations of patina eagles, crosses
    An high relief emblazon stars.
    Witness to so vast a destruction, neatly,
    In steadfast precision, stretch rank
    Upon gleaming rank into the long
    Shadowed violet-crimson dusk.

    We give praise to you our youth,
    Whose hot blood will not discover
    The coinage of having lived through youth,
    Given time to wait, remember.
    For you the unrevealed nothing extra,
    We believe is eternal peace, upon
    The honored isle of youth.
    Where you will never share infirmities,
    Possess forever our burning glory.


      Fallen American Soldier

    That life would be forever in contract signed,
    Yet we know all will pass in time.
    To lawyers consternation is its will,
    In speed of light or standing still.

    In swiftness or in burning haste embrace,
    Like the stone deflects the bullet's trace
    With energy lost in waste.
    Holding the power to stand at will
    Cannot be parted or die disgraced.

    Now they sleep, sink, return to dust and rest.
    Kneel all countrymen in farewell bless.
    In some returning Spring may their dress be white,
    More decked in grace standing in His light.

    In trumpet song their glory being,
    In unknown forms their gift to sing;
    In honor carry them in Pilgrim grey,
    May God bless the ground for each this day.
    In hope their precious gift to us declare,
    May we always keep a lamplight guarded there.


      Mother Nature's Doubt

    Did our invented heavens understand the child
    Whose gregarious voice load and courageous,
    With returning fullness, an undefiled,
    Echo through the silent city streets and mountains;
    Raise them up unbound.

    Could this earth tell the sons she possessed.
    The wounded beasts and men whose trails
    Of blood into her breast she bore;
    To each she gave a blessing best at hand.

    How soon she comes to call us out,
    As each year becomes us trim or stout.
    She does not linger or stand about,
    But strips our time down to the bone.

    She has no aim but to forget, leave us in peace;
    Spread our ashes such to forget the years,
    Millenniums yet unknown, unknowable
    And forever anonymous.

    Once marked for perfection, but tarnished by greed,
    Trading countryman and truth for a temporary
    Warm bank account upon which to rest.
    A sense of comfort not easily acquiesced.


      Forms

    For those who know the gift of light
    See darkness and light as equal things.
    Sometimes it's argued the Children of Light
    See these two as imposters of the night.

    As told in ancient stores of strong and weak,
    Socrates and Christophanes celebrating man's
    Tragic doom; Montague's and Capulet's
    Declare each forever wear a saving Eros amulet.

    What Great Compasses will measure there be no other light?
    And if there be a different chance,
    To gauge their joy or sorrows, or being both the scales
    And distance of mere circumstance.

    Was it foretold before the Ark was built
    How embittered the journey would be.
    A voyage on the sea to drown,
    Or sail forever in darkness and be free.
    Such blindness could it be for each
    Soul the source of peace,
    Where there exists nothing good or bad;
    And be counted such, as souls gone mad:
    By God is just.

    Yet, truth broke in to hold tight the seeds of will.
    A place beyond where prophets live,
    A refuge for the prophets' lies.
    Hold faith in honest doubt to keep,
    Eros may bridge the communal divide.
    Though the compasses hands are metered wide
    The steadfast foot does being us home again.

    Time moves in returning tides,
    Such spans and architectural wonder to abide,
    Joining the being and becoming side.
    Perhaps between the twilight and the thunder our faith is kept.
    We hold to life and curse the storm,
    Knowing the Universe wears two cloaks to hide
    The sacred inside and outside of our form.


      Roman Blinds

    Again to sleep under triangle Orion's belt,
    Watching milk laden Venus melt
    Open mouth impatient Mars as dancing
    Milky way crisscross the morning star.
    In locked up union these illusions explore,
    As gossamer morning knocks upon Apollo's door.
    The Roman blinds damp just above the sill,
    Pried open lids catch clouds distilled
    In droplets left behind to capture all in sight;
    Pent up storm leaving pearls and diamonds overnight.


      Mysteries (to Tammy)

    After the wind came to lift the moon
    And summer birds sang with songs untaught,
    Gently Tiger Lilies closed their bloom,
    Catching place where sun is caught.

    A young woman came in search of beauty's flight
    And passed the songs in lilies tight;
    With visions of Venus the belle passed at night
    Missing the Apollo-Tiger burning, burning bright.


      A Crazyman's Song

    Far better to see your face grow wrinkled,
    to delight in your temple worn
    than forget those humble beginnings,
    and follow after the golden horn.

    Far better to wrap the brow in brambles
    and keep a pact with natural peace
    than to sleep on a pillow stuffed with hundreds
    and worry about who will next be thief.

    Far better to see your hairy-ear-puffs
    and hair grown thin and silver, too soon.
    Remember the delights of mid-night
    and with running hounds howl at the moon.


      Party Watching

    Young lovers moving instinctively toward
    understanding what they would like done;
    their touches appear introverted and extroverted.
    Asking themselves how do I touch?
    They find gentle, believing appreciations,
    while eyes direct the mingling spirits.
    Each watching for the not seeing symptoms—
    they find ways of tucking it into the conversation.

    The young homo-politicus who wants to be
    senator, asking political questions.
    (How clever. It's just what he wants me to do.)
    The well done lady who touches with a respectable coolness,
    a young university professor who wants
    me to observe her ponderous intellect, hangs
    fact-signs all over me.

    The man with richly wrought gold ornaments,
    fine white virgin silks,
    with a C-cup secretary;
    a millionaire they tell me.
    He spends time telling me who he was.
    Subjects at his finger tips, versed and vocabularized.
    I listen to the eyes peeking out from his
    power and authority.

    I feel the presence of a middle aged, overweight
    man who is dying.
    His companion gives me scrubbed opinions
    of her friends.
    I listen to the analysis of persons she
    has known for years,
    an accurate criticism of slow poison,
    which magnified and disfigured them.
    She finished the betrayals; I committing
    my own by having listened.
    Yet, I move away not liking myself,
    having confronted a bitterness which
    diminished her.

    Slowly, delicately the young lovers' hands
    intertwine.
    The coolness of the moonlight streams through
    the window, the leaves move.
    There is a newness outside residing in me.


      Considerations

    We are astonished seeing such pedomorphic
    faces in the floral market place
    acting so grown-up, making careful
    deliberation about which to buy.
    Dressed in hats too large, in adult play;
    bow tie too wide, lady's scarf too long,
    the rest fits fine,
    as they gently stroke pale pink or crimson faces.
    If only they could avoid the thorns,
    learn not to touch the spiky ends
    and be surprised by innocence
    when they discovered it was the petal
    of the rose that stung.


      I and You, Martin Buber

    I have been encountering grace all day
    until I am seeking tired, but to who was encountering
    whom neither would speak of IT.
    God knows what you speak is a deed of whole being;
    perhaps with too much strength, being being is your
    essential need.
    I enter IT with you as the whole being approaches
    stillness passively, as it always does with a sense
    of humility.
    The moving part is spoken with concentration and
    fusion, into which the whole being cannot be
    accomplished by you, can never be without me.
    I require a you to become;
    becoming Thou, I say you.


      Mr. John Stuart Mill's Reply

    It's against the law you say to advocate another
    American Revolution.
    As if an absolute number of preordained aristocrats serve
    a democratic solution.
    The trouble is not with skillful numbers,
    but rather the lobbyist social balm reaching to the congress.
    The power elite so resemble one another it's hard to tell
    courts from assemblies.
    No noble titles allowed among we free; liberty, justice,
    (if you can buy it) honor and equality.
    While the republican President receives the British knighthood
    Of the Queen's garter.
    Here we are fellow citizens with HMO's of
    fraudulent new wealth
    procured with sickness, pain and computer stealth.
    As our princely Senate speculates, with wonder, the greater rise
    in sub-class hunger awaiting a time to equalize the blunders.


      Carl Roger's Potato

    Like stored potatoes kept too long
    In the cellar coal bin:
    gnarled, whitened, twisted and stunted;
    growing through the the harsh bearing
    of life's later passage where the forbidden
    fruit has seared the roots, reach still,
    with waxing heat,
    while narrow amber shafts carry with tenderness
    the burning weight.

    I make my distorted stems reach
    toward the welcoming coal shoot window.
    Hidden in shadow I can hear the children's
    day go bye outside.
    Whose hand forgot me here too late,
    bends me upward, the light blistering each leaf,
    as I grow.

      Paolo Picaso Serra


      Uncartesian

    The heart feels no devotion greater
    than roots in fields, hands in motion,
    moon to earth, sea to shore, sand to ocean,
    blood upon the broken thorn,
    calm inside the storm,
    holding to countless repetition,
    belief in one homeward-curved position;
    frozen to ice, heat to fire
    neither can become one desire
    without offending or ending the other.
    Some will say what Decartes insisted,
    others say feeling was before thought existed,
    although giving credit to things somewhat right
    perhaps feelings existed before day and night,
    or our thinking tried to make them light.


      Predisposed

    So you tell me, "Do not be concerned
    with way,
    in time I will know more about it,
    when feelings say."
    Your wisdom is a recurring phenomenon
    as informed feelings precede the choosing,
    understanding everything discussed about you
    still means having no conclusions.
    Accepting and stripping away the face
    of judgment, perfect value,
    a place for friendships, of substance, marrow.

    Often when I become critical of a non-present you,
    I wonder about the needs of confidences,
    the forms of posing.
    Sometimes these mouth gambling experiments
    are minor disasters.
    Yet, friend, you do pursue me still.
    You understand unlimited time cannot
    pour perfect facts into imperfect form.
    Your knowing words describe the refusal
    to bend,
    hoping the transforming choice can reshape
    the points of breaking;
    fallibility becoming predisposed to change.
    A permanently discomforting form of adaptability.


      Teeth-hanging with Zen

    "Now you've caught me!"
    I am suspended, hanging from the branch,
    above the abyss,
    by only my teeth.
    And you, in classic Suzuki style
    coming asking me questions
    about the Bodhi!
    If I choose to answer
    I would drop like cheese
    from the mouth of crows to foxes.

    But how shall I dismiss the question?
    "I must answer you without using words."
    There appears no way around the dilemma.
    Except.
    Accepting the learning to live with teeth-hanging.
    And in the hidden secret of silence:
    not as the rock remains silent,
    nor as the Rose of Blake speaks;
    but now begins the work of discovering
    a certain way your eloquence
    and my silence can become identical.


      Listening For The But

    Buy your tone of voice it seems
    We have opened upon a rolling sea:
    Like toying laughter poured from bottomless bowls,
    Like youth pried open it falls upon my soul.
    Perhaps on arrival we have touched a place
    Where it has rained this morning,
    Thin, foggy, silver ghosts dressed in peace-armor.
    Each appearing in likeness to the other
    Like some shimming, brilliant bird turns to marry
    The distance between thought and meaning.

    What is this monotonous human tide in debate?
    The morning glory has the same wisdom
    As the great tree of joy, as no hands clapping.
    Like the dark waste of war staining rivers it passes.

    You were saying something with compliment,
    And I waited for the predictable but:
    Like a mouth just arriving at a banquet,
    Like the explanation of weed dust we hate to watch grow.
    Yet, they do persist between like a mine shaft boring
    Into the hard bones of self-defense.
    Like river oarsmen toiling within the limits
    Of departing bank and greeting shore; we move.

    Saying to her, you are the moon falling broken into fire.
    You are the jade within the garden.
    You are the crimson in the dragon's mouth.
    The vermilion dew upon the rose's skin.
    You give praise with silence: like autumn laying traps
    Upon hidden rocks, like distant cloud falling into mountains,
    Like the silence of a wish touched by bread and wine,
    Like a branch reaching for its roots.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Perceptionsby Paul B. Serra Copyright © 2011 by Paul B. Serra. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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