"When power narrows the areas of man's concern,
poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existance.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."
-John F. Kennedy

Poems

We Are Forget
-Gary Glazner

We are the words we have forgotten.
We are shifting and pacing.
We wrote this poem.
It's a pretty poem.
Can you bake a cherry pie?
Never more, never more.
We have no horizon.
We don't recall washing or eating
or what you just said.
Ask me my name.
Ask me if I have children?
You're a pretty lady.
You have beautiful eyes.
Wash me, put me to bed clean,
hold me as I fall asleep.
Give me a kiss, brush my hair.
You are my daughter?
Light washing over us moment, moment.
You're a handsome man.
Our hand writing is beautiful
twists and loops of letters
we can't remember our hands.
Our ears are wishful
we can't remember our ears.
We can speak every language,
we can't remember our mouths.
We are porous.
We are the past.
We are forget.

Here I Am
-Peter G. Beeson
(From Sparking Memories: The Alzheimer's Poetry Project Anthology)

So I'm here,
Well, sort of here,
Mostly so,
But not quite all,
Here.

There is a detached
Vacantness,
A distant vagueness,
An absence
To my being.

Life's become a struggle,
The day-to-day a challenge,
The ordinary a novelty,
The routine an obstacle.

I long for the openness,
The emptiness,
The vastness
Of the Great Plains.

I long for a place
That matches my mind,
A place detached from memory,
An endless nothingness.

A place to lose oneself,
A place to disappear,
A place to become one
With earth and sky.