Robert Pelgrift – Foxglove Journal

The Play’s the Thing – Robert Pelgrift

– Hamlet, II, ii; Macbeth, V, v; As You Like It, II, vii

“…de petits morceaux de papier… deviennent des fleurs, des maisons, des personnages…”

– Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann

From lines of printed letters on a page,

figures stand and move, flats rise in a set,

shapes, sounds and actions exist. On the stage,

for their hour, the poor players strut and fret.

Where nothing was, the play becomes a thing,

a being; and the stage is all the world,

where, like folded paper bits opening

in water, flowers and houses are unfurled.

And people rise, exist. The play takes place.

The being is the idea that attends

the people’s acts, words and purpose; and when

they feel love or anger, speak, stand or pace

about, they make the play, until it ends,

and settles on the printed page again.

Robert Pelgrift practiced law in New York City for many years and is now an editor for a legal publisher, working in New York City. His poems have been published in various anthologies and in The Lyric, The Rotary Dial, The Galway Review, The Foxglove Journal and The Waggle.

December 26, 2017June 5, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: anger, creative, creativity, emotion, feelings, humanity, idea, letters, love, NY, page, paper, play, poem, Poetry, purpose, Robert Pelgrift, senses, stage, US, words, world, writing Leave a comment

Sunset Paths – Robert Pelgrift

To paint a sunset sky above a bay,

one lightly brushes a blue field on white,

then brushes pink trails from an overlay

of plaited rose clouds on blue twilight.

One paints a thin blue strand across the bay

where watery shapes of yellow and pink rose

mirror the rainbow curtain whose array

ascends behind, in colors that transpose

the waters’ hues; its pink rose valance shades

the sunset clouds above a yellow haze

that thins to bright white sun upon the strand.

On the near shore, one paints blue shrubs and blades

of blue beach grass to mark a twilit maze

of winding darkening paths of blue sand.

November 10, 2017November 10, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: art, bay, clouds, colours, creative, creativity, elements, mirror, nature, NY, painting, poem, Poetry, rainbow, Robert Pelgrift, sand, shapes, sky, sun, sunset, twilight, US, writing Leave a comment

Wickham’s Crick – Robert Pelgrift

(Cutchogue, Long Island, New York)

The air is still, the Crick is low and clear;

and like the rain slanting down from storm clouds,

the sun’s rays streak this watery atmosphere

and light the mud bottom and wrinkled kelp shrouds.

We pole the old boat and silently pass

through a broken wall of mud and green rush,

into a salt pond hidden by marsh grass,

floating, weaving with the prow’s gentle push.

Through the muddy bank, the tides barely seep;

and under the pond’s smooth slick, thick with sun,

gray leaf flecks float, then settle, where the years lay

their ruin in a watery carbon heap

in the pond’s bed, as they have always done,

and will ’til all the centuries decay.

October 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: air, atmosphere, boat, clouds, colours, creative, creativity, decay, elements, mud, nature, NY, poem, Poetry, rain, Robert Pelgrift, ruin, salt, storm, sun, US, writing, years Leave a comment

The Emerald Tide – Robert Pelgrift

How can I hold on to this leafy scene

of emerald lights that, numberless, do glint

in glistening points at times more gold than green –

a scene that shimmers with each shade and tint?

Mirroring these leaves, the emerald tide

seems motionless, a glassy pool at rest,

till it meets a sharply riffled divide

whose race freezes in a curled, crystal crest.

How to possess these fleeting greens and golds,

that shimmer in and out of leafy heights?

Would that their beauty could ever abide

in verse, just as the crystal cascade holds

its crest, and, mirroring the green gold lights,

the watery leaves rest in the glassy tide.

Robert Youngs Pelgrift, Jr. practiced law in New York City for many years and is now an editor for a legal publisher, working in New York City. His poems have been published in various anthologies and in The Lyric, The Rotary Dial and The Galway Review.

May 23, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: beauty, cascade, colours, creative, creativity, divide, elements, emerald, leaves, lights, nature, NY, poem, Poetry, pool, rest, Robert Pelgrift, scene, shade, tide, US, world, writing Leave a comment

The Trawl – Robert Pelgrift

We stand on this sandy point in the bay,

where the channel races into squally seas,

knee deep in riffles that mirror the gray

of iron clouds rushed by the gusting breeze.

Partly clothed by the sea, I scarcely heed

the raw, bitter rain. Balanced here, I stand,

and see schooling, swerving silversides lead

quick unseen hunters past our ledge of sand.

In their path, we stretch, then draw, our small seine,

and the wet, the chill, the gray, the chop recall

the old village ships, struck by gusts and spray

as they ploughed these waves. And now once again,

we net our catch, as those ships dragged their trawl

of silver to the beach across the bay.

May 19, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: bay, beach, breeze, clouds, creative, creativity, elements, nature, NY, poem, Poetry, Robert Pelgrift, sand, sea, senses, ships, silver, US, village, waves, weather, world, writing Leave a comment

The Painter – Robert Pelgrift

What woodland shall my vision paint today?

Like Millais, I’ll mold each leaf of this oak,

Scribe each twig, score its trunk with a fine stroke,

With sunlit drops trim lines of green and gray.

Or perhaps like Monet, I will essay

An inward sight; the folds of a green cloak,

Heedlessly strewn, in memory evoke

Wooded foothills in mists of green and gray.

My visions like my poem, seek the real,

Beyond the real, this wood as it should be;

As in my poem’s words, I read in my Millais

From image to image toward this ideal,

Or I glimpse wood or poem in memory,

The remembrance painted in my Monet.

May 13, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: art, colours, creative, creativity, foothills, humanity, image, memory, Millais, mists, Monet, nature, NY, painting, poem, Poetry, Robert Pelgrift, US, visions, woods, words, world, writing Leave a comment