These five poems by D.C. Buschmann explore the importance of living an authentic life — making and taking responsibility for one’s own choices, here and beyond…
by: D.C. Buschmann
Not Much Grass has Grown Beneath my Feet I have my own values to adhere to. —Tom Selleck I continue to move forward, sometimes leaping to the next stone through rough river rapids and fierce winds, not knowing the exact outcome. I can't always wait for calm winds and sunny skies. In such cases, the least harmful route for the moment has had to do. This has gotten me through.
Play —a modern sonnet I used to play my records every day in sixth grade. Stop playing that thing, Mama would say. I played The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five, The Animals and others. I played them loud—made me feel alive. Daddy didn't mind. He loved to play rock 'n' roll, too. Early in their marriage, Mama had said, Don't play that in the house! Stop acting like a teenager! So, he would play his car radio outside in his pea green 1951 Plymouth while I played with dolls on the back porch. He could have played Elvis in a local playhouse in his leather bomber jacket and his hair slicked back. Years later, Daddy told me I'd played a key role in saving his life, that I was why he wasn't drafted in the Korean War—and he wasn't playing me. I rarely play my albums now, though I still love the songs. What am I playing at? Nothing. Streaming is just easier. Modern Sonnet: The modern sonnet is simply a poem of 14 lines addressing any theme of the poet’s choosing. They don’t need to adhere to any set rhyme scheme or meter, nor do they need to include a volta.
Having Been Asked to Comment —with thanks to Billy Collins and Emily Dickinson I don't have a lot to say, whether on forlorn chairs on a veranda or dock or at a bar or at a teahouse where fortunes are told. While leaves gather in corners, and the dead of the day set off on their journeys, I say goodbye and try to remember why I would care I've not been fishing on the Susquehanna or why students make love in a room without a bed. How much of this short life is within our power? Even if famous we must day by day face obstacles and sing the songs of the living. For fame is a bee. It has a sting and a wing. Neither decades of arrogance nor a life of humility can postpone the carriage coming for us
Ballast into the Abyss Our past failures like bags of rocks of actions of inactions we drag around heavy mementos of inadequacy and regret We cannot carry this load if we want to progress. Without this hindrance the future may not be paradise, but it can be a sunrise so beautiful that others will remark on our shining faces, the light in our eyes, the weightlessness of our steps, and the music in our hope-filled words. We can choose to move in the only direction that promises peace.
I Would Tell My Current Self "I didn't know anyone ever left that place." — a friend of a friend about my hometown If I could back up, revisit my old haunts, do it over, I would tell my current self: Live as you did! You lived the only way you could. Revisionist echoes are stoked by fiction writers and storytellers. Keep your vehicle in drive and your eyes fixed forward. There are many potholes, flats, and head-on collisions in your rearview. You may not be the you others wanted, but the bumpy ride along People Pleasing Place eventually made the connection to Authentication Boulevard. Never regret navigating your own imperfect journey, for you will take no passengers when you drive off this sphere, when you answer the last call you will ever hear.
D.C. Buschmann lives in Carmel, Indiana. She is a former teacher, the retired assistant editor of two NW Indiana magazines, and editor of several books. Her first collection of poems, Nature: Human and Otherwise, was published in February 2021 (Amazon). She is the founder of Carmel Poetry Group and editor and publisher of Edmund F. Byrne’s My Life Poetically and Thursday Poems. Her work appears in journals and anthologies internationally, including AUIS Literary Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, So it Goes Literary Journal, The Hong Kong Review and many others.
