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Best Poems From
HERBERT NEHRLICH
(04 October 1943)
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285.
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Mature Student Days
For those of you
who did by chance
read my last poem
Student Days,
I wonder, would you
throw a glance
at what this says,
it does depict
a time of more
maturity.
The tram, it was
identical,
Krupp Steel,
closed windows,
overcrowded,
at five, late in
cloudy day,
when alpine winds
blow through
most any
garments
and every crotch.
Standing room only,
I had the fortune
to be, like a sardine
squeezed in between
the folding door
and one stout blonde,
she smelled of soap,
and Ambush perfume,
and if I had before that day,
seen anything at all,
it would have been
a skimpy substitute.
She was, what
one could call
endowed,
(I'm working on
inventing a term
more fitting) ,
and I was there to
doubtless,
cushion her,
protect her
from sharp edges
and perverts,
who hang about
in trams,
my peers had told me.
I loved that driver,
or perhaps it was
a combination
of track design,
and driving skills,
even voltage
fluctuations,
I understand the
commutator is
the key to smoothness.
Never you mind
I told myself,
taking my role
and wearing
an expression
of pure duty
and responsibility,
a public service
by a clean cut
and mature
young man.
So many turns,
and bumps,
and stops,
and slowing now,
accelerating then,
I wasn't much
of a believer
in those days,
churches cost money,
but thankful thoughts
were sent that day.
The journey ended,
luckily, she had endured
and stayed the trip,
this was no
innercity lady,
she liked the sticks,
the country air
near Starnberg Lake.
We did have,
it is now apparent,
our separate ways
to take.
A final Bim Bim Bim,
and there she went.
It must have been
the streetcar of desire.
Herbert Nehrlich
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286.
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Mediocrity?
Mediocrity
Is something quite elusive
For little low-lives.
Critiquing poems
No matter their great number
Requires talent.
A mind so vicious
And full of blinding hatred
Will always crumble.
It is who cannot
Build anything of value
He knocks all others.
Two thousand poems
Dumped in this place.A pleasure?
Perhaps to Nikhil.
Mediocrity
Perhaps describes these poems.
Then what describes you?
Herbert Nehrlich
Read more: poem poems
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287.
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More Haiku from the Confucius Collection
Man who ran in front
of car got really tired.
And they were Dunlops.
Man who ran in rear
of car was so exhausted
he went to heaven.
Hand in pocket makes
man feel cocky all day long,
it also warms him.
Man who scratches ass
is well advised to not chew
fingernails too soon.
War does not show us
who may be right in this world
but who will be left.
Man who eats many
prunes will soon get run for money
with noisy exit.
He lives in glasshouse
and always changes clothes in
the basement laundry.
Herbert Nehrlich
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288.
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Morgue
She took the lift
to speed things up
down to the morgue
she had been sent.
Pick up a tag
which could be found
attached to his big toe.
No soul in sight
(though they were felt)
she opened number nine.
A moan did greet
a student nurse
she ran in record time
up to floor ten
where she then hugged
the janitor's own broom,
she quit and works
even today
with parsley and with dill.
Herbert Nehrlich
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