The Demosthenian Literary Society

The nobler and loftier days, gone by,
The auld lang syne of the decades that fly,
The vast contemplation of time and of space,
The fast moving spirits of truth and of grace,
The panes in the windows were wavy and old,
But mainly, back then, we were brilliant and bold.

 

At Indian Boundary

I drove up to the lake to see
A turning golden poplar tree,
And bending down upon the shore,
A burning one of golden more.

I wondered why I’d wished to go
And thought I’d blundered, rushing so
Some type of cure from all that’s stressed,
As wrote John Muir, when calledout West.

 

Note: “The mountains are calling, and I must go” – John Muir

Alexander King Ream, formerly known under the penname Neal Dachstadter, is a poet living in Tennessee. His work has been printed in Decanto Poetry Magazine (UK), Western Viewpoints and Poetic Images: the Great American West (Woodinville, Washington), Society of Classical Poets Journal 2015 (Mt Hope, New York), Rocky Point Times (Puerto Peñasco, Mexico) and The Lyric (Jericho, Vermont). A member of the Demosthenian Literary Society at the University of Georgia, he deployed to Hawija, then wrote on Lookout Mountain, continuing with Delta Kappa Epsilon International. Berkeley, Ann Arbor, and Athens encouraged him as a writer. In 2015 he wrote in Arizona at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument five miles north of Mexico.


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5 Responses

  1. James A. Tweedie

    I can’t say that I ever thought of myself as being “brilliant.” Brash, perhaps. I appreciate Mr. Ream’s honesty in placing his own flirtation with brilliance in the past tense. As for things being “nobler and loftier” in the days of yore, it is clear in the second poem that Mr. Ream is still able to experience such things in the present . . . at least in nature. Our mutual lack of brilliance perhaps explains both the existence of the phrase “a burning one of golden more” and my inability to make sense of it.

    Reply
  2. Alexander Ream

    I’ve been remiss – thank you…several of you…very…much – the things you say always have weight and are never ignored.

    Demosthenian Literary Society at UGA – I don’t have the words to tell you how much it meant to be a part of it. Another aspect of my life which was “not popular,” and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

    Reply

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