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    From Chicago to Spinoza: Poems and a Play in Three Acts
    From Chicago to Spinoza: Poems and a Play in Three Acts
    From Chicago to Spinoza: Poems and a Play in Three Acts
    Ebook114 pages39 minutes

    From Chicago to Spinoza: Poems and a Play in Three Acts

    By Robert Tosei Osterman

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    About this ebook

    From Chicago to Spinoza offers a biographical compilation of verse by author Robert Tosei Osterman, written from 1980 to 2010. It is a personal memoir, a collection of reminiscences describing people and places in his past.

    Chicago illustrates the early years of Ostermans life during World War II. Faces in the Past is comprised of sonnets and other poems, depicting some of my coworkers at a school bus company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

    The Emotional Past exemplifies his feelings during the summer of 2000, just prior to his divorce in September of that year. Illusions in eastern Iowa contains images of his sojourn at a Zen Buddhist monastery, while the poems of The Forest were conceived during his many walks through Hixon Forest, located four miles east of the Mississippi River.

    A few years ago Osterman moved his residence to a converted granary in a small rural community in western Wisconsin. The Marsh and Transformations share images that of this location. Finally, The City contains poems and descriptions assembled in his eighth-floor apartment in a small mid-western city.

    A Play in Three Acts offers a mirthful entertainment inspired by the correspondence between Hugo Boxel and the seventeenth-century rationalist philosopher Baruch Spinoza.

    In the pages of this collection, youll find nostalgia, anecdotes, observations, and inspiration.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateFeb 15, 2011
    ISBN9781450282314
    From Chicago to Spinoza: Poems and a Play in Three Acts
    Author

    Robert Tosei Osterman

    Robert Tosei Osterman has been a practitioner of Zen since 1986. He was ordained a Zen Buddhist monk in 2004. He currently lives a quiet life in a converted granary in rural Wisconsin.

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      Book preview

      From Chicago to Spinoza - Robert Tosei Osterman

      Preface

      From Chicago to Spinoza is the offspring of an earlier proposed book whose title was Emily and Me, which described my journey to divorce in the summer of 2000. Emily Dickinson was the muse who inspired this earlier work; and parts of it are included in this collection of poems and a mirthful entertainment in three acts.

      When an editor suggested that Emily and Me be culled for the good images within it, I took out the numerous fragments and non-comprehensible text; and as a result there remained an insufficient number of poems for a complete book. I had been writing poetry since 1980, so I took all of my work and chose from it those poems that seemed to me to be worth putting into a book of poetry. Yet, how does the writer choose the good ones, especially when he is so close to them?

      All that I can honestly say is that herein are described the vicissitudes of an ordinary life with the common poetic themes of birth and death, of love and lost love, and of melancholy and joy.

      During this journey I have tried to stop and see the sky, Smell the roses, and look into the eyes of another.

      I wish to acknowledge Robert Young, my friend and mentor, who has been a source of inspiration for me during my retirement years. Many bows to Susan Cushing, CA whose acupuncture treatments have added many pain-free years to my life.

      Tosei

      2010

      Contents

      Preface

      Chicago

      I WAIT

      THE ENTREPRENEUR

      A MOTHER’S LOVE

      THE RAG MAN

      THE SCRAPYARD

      MEMORIES

      REALIZATION

      Faces in the past

      MICHAEL: A BUS DRIVER

      LUCY: TERMINAL OFFICE MANAGER

      JACK: DISPATCHER

      AL: A BUS DRIVER

      THE ROOM

      SHARON: ICU NURSE

      MY CHERIE

      The emotional past

      A HERMIT MONK

      SMALL AND HIDDEN

      LOVE JUST IS

      WOULD I SEE YOUR FACE

      DO I

      FALL IS COMING

      BREAD AND CIRCUSES

      THE TAVERN KEEPER

      DEATH

      FLOWERS IN THE MEADOW

      BEFORE AND AFTER

      THINKING

      DAY OF DIVORCE

      Illusions in eastern Iowa

      WALT WHITMAN

      A MOTHER’S END

      THE TAO

      IT WAS THE YEAR

      THE DOG

      The forest

      A FRIEND

      SQUIRREL HEAVEN

      THE FOREST IS GREEN AND GREEN TODAY

      ELIZABETH

      MORNING

      RETRIEVER

      OXYGEN FOR ROBERT

      A WOODPECKER

      The marsh

      A SINGLE ORANGE-BREASTED ROBIN

      THIS WAYWARD MONK

      MOMENT

      CARDINAL

      IT’S GOOD TO BE ALONE IN THE NIGHT

      The city

      SHE WALKED LIKE A MANNEQUIN

      THE MEDITATION BELL

      THE TREE

      PEACE

      CARLY

      A SAD LITTLE TREE

      MY OLD FRIENDS

      PAST LIVES

      CITADEL

      Transformations

      ANUBIS

      RED VIOLETS

      ECSTACY

      HEAT

      JOHN

      MARS

      I AM

      MOTHER’S DAY

      PENELOPE

      A SIMPLE SONG

      A Ghost Story in Three Acts:

      Imagination verses Reality

      About the Author

      Chicago

      I WAIT

      The time is vespers

      In a horn-curved hall.

      I draw silent symbols:

      Exit signs, a dry drinking fountain,

      Clean ashtray, distant clock.

      I silently wait and teethe rhyme

      As Rilke, as Milton teased inspirations

      Into sonnets, Paradise, and elegies.

      I silently wait for solitude and silence

      To burst into spontaneous birth.

      THE ENTREPRENEUR

      Jimmy was seven in the second year

      Of the big war; he worked

      At the railroad station

      In the middle of Chicago,

      Sixteenth and Wood St. His job:

      Take the money from the soldiers,

      All dressed alike

      In tan

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