Oranges and grapes refuse to grow in the cold.
Today I sing and dance, refuse to grow old.
Yet all the same, time is tyrant and ruthless,
Unfolds my wrinkling years, it is relentless.
...
"The surgery is a short and quite a painless procedure",
the opthalmologist said. "We apply highly precise laser
technology. You will be out of the clinic in less than an
hour."
...
You stand quite firm on the ground and don't fly in the air
like the people in one of Magrite's enigmatic paintings.
The same force of gavity that keeps us quite reliably
on the ground, as Newton discovered,
...
My mother liked to do needlework.
With skillful stitches she embroidered
bright human figures, red watermelons,
and brown trunked trees
...
Science flies the triumphal banners
of magnificent human accomplishments.
Mind you, among many other things,
it provides us with antibiotics, electricity
...
The kangaroo ordered an orange juice.
The crocodile preferred a cup of coffee.
Holding the Party Paper, Edition Zoo,
The hyena opted for his downy dream,
...
In logic facts are true or false,
Black or white.
But in real life facts are matters
...
An old wing of the university
housed the laboratory.
She passed through a narrow corridor
oozing the autumn moisture
...
While life is about
love, family, fun and joy,
learning and service;
we live it as if it were
...
Knowledge constantly expands
but remains finite forever.
Ignorance constantly shrinks
...
The Spanish poet, novelist and philosopher
Miguel de Unamuno Y Jugo,1864-1936,
was born in Bilbao into a Basque family.
He was educated in Bilbao
...
She was not really sick, nor severely ill;
only taut, tense, tired, anxious and stressed.
But when she asked the doctor for help
he had swiftly prescribed her the pill:
...
It did not matter what the subject was.
Each time that the Roman statesman Cato the Elder
rose to speak, he ended it with these words:
'Also, I think Carthage must be destroyed'.
...
An electron is a unit of consciousness.
This elementary particle with indivisible charge
of negative electricity, found in all atoms
that acts as carrier of electricity in solids,
...
Science thrives
absorbed in the myth of objectivity.
The vision of science as rigorous research
based on exact observation
...
It depends. For, contrary to the politically correct
vision of religions, not all faiths and deities are equal.
Take, for example, the sixth Biblical commandment:
...
She smiled. "Today is the first day of the rest
of your life."
"I am aware of that", he said. "What is your point? "
...
A man of many Odysseys, Paul Hartal is a Canadian poet, writer and artist born in Szeged, Hungary. His volume of cognitive and lyric poems, The Sinuosity of Straight Passions, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press Georgetown, KY. The author's books include Postmodern Light, poetry,2006, Love Poems 2004, The Brush and the Compass 1988, Painted Melodies 1983, A History of Architecture 1972 and The Kidnapping of the Painter Miró novel,1997,2001. The latter has also been published in Chinese translation, Art Museum series, the Commercial Press of Taiwan in 2014. In 1975 Paul Hartal published in Montreal A Manifesto on Lyrical Conceptualism. Lyco Art is a new element on the periodic table of aesthetics, which intertwines the logic of passion with the passion of logic. In 1980 the Lyrical Conceptualist Society hosted the First International Poetry Exhibition in Montreal. A few years later Hartal formed the Centre for Art, Science and Technology, which Clifford Pickover describes in Mazes for the Mind as a network that " facilitates the exchange of ideas between various domains of human knowledge" . In 1978 Hartal exhibited his paintings at the Musée du Luxembourg and the Raymond Duncan Gallery in France and his canvas Flowers for Cézanne won the Prix de Paris. He also presented his oeuvre in museums and galleries in New York, Montreal, Budapest, as well as many other places. Representing Canada, his work was featured at the cultural events of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. An explorer of global habitats and cultures, Hartal has traveled through Europe, North-America, Argentina, Australia, China, Japan and Korea. His research interests focus on the connectivity of art, mathematics and science. He has been involved in interdisciplinary symmetry studies and in 1994 NASA invited him to participate in visionary space exploration projects. In the 1970s the poet attended Concordia University in Montreal and wrote a thesis on Aesthetics and History. He also holds degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Columbia Pacific University 1986. CPU was an innovative school in San Rafael, state approved and supervised by the Department of Education in California. Hartal's dissertation, The Interface Dynamics of Art and Science was published by University Press of America under the title, The Brush and the Compass New York,1988. The interdisciplinary periodical Ylem published excerpts from the book. Vie des Arts and The Montreal Mirror described it as a 'thought-provoking work bridging art and science'. The volume also generated wide interest overseas. As a student at the University of Medicine in Szeged, Hartal participated in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. A few months later he burnt all his poems and papers and escaped to freedom. Horace long ago observed that by implication all poetry is didactic: It aims to instruct and delight. Paul Hartal approaches poetry from a different angle; embracing the credo that the heart of poetry is the poetry of the heart. A recurring theme of his recent work explores the human tragedies of wars and genocides. He is not a newcomer to the field. In March 1944 German troops occupied Hungary and the future poet at eight years of age was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp of Strasshof in Austria. He was liberated by the Russians a year later. Writing about the Shoah experience is a gloomy and difficult task. Indeed, the philosopher Theodor Adorno once remarked that writing poetry after Auschwitz is not only barbaric but even impossible. Yet Hartal begs to differ. In his opinion, after Auschwitz we require even more poetry than before. Poetry precipitates catharsis. Poetry heals the soul. We need to extract light from the core of darkness, he says. We need poetry to commemorate and to remember the victims; to denounce the villains. We need poetry to solemnize magnanimous acts of sacrifice. We need the magic power of verse, extolling heroes, honoring courage and compassion.)
Oranges And Grapes
Oranges and grapes refuse to grow in the cold.
Today I sing and dance, refuse to grow old.
Yet all the same, time is tyrant and ruthless,
Unfolds my wrinkling years, it is relentless.
Now and then the lots seem to be gentle and kind,
But alloyed with fate the somnambulist is blind.
Luck and fortuity might act as a soubrette,
Life spins our fate like roulette in a film set.
Still, let us drink to life, celebrate, and be glad,
Let us sing and dance today, refuse to be sad.
Oranges and grapes do not grow in the cold,
A warm wind ties ribbons to maple leaves of gold.
My love soars high above trees and towers,
Carries to my beloved a bouquet of flowers.
The poems about Anne Frank, and Sobibor were almost 3 dimensional Your poetry and art is brain and heart stimulating.
Paul Hartal is wonderful and very talented poet and who writes poems basing upon his perception. He is a keen observer and he deeply goes into the thing he looks upon. His science and Ethics poem elaborates about his thought and reality and represents the truth. The poet expresses his worries die to danger of Corona Virus and tries to bring social awareness to prevent people from its infection. His effort is admirable. May God bring happiness for him!
Your poems and the pictures - they truly inspire me. I like your take on Zeno's paradox very much - you capture the frustrating nature of it perfectly! Jason I. Brown, Professor Dalhousie University
Dear Paul Hartal, Thanks for sharing your poem with us. Your exquisite writing has conveyed the pain and terror of the massacre in Nanjing very vividly. It was very much admired here at our office. Would it be okay for us to post your poem on our Facebook page or Twitter, attributing and linking it to you? We look forward to your reply. Best wishes, Jenny from womenofchina.cn
In the NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW (16/10/2006) , John Cartmel-Crossley, Fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts, writes: “For Paul Hartal the heart of poetry is the poetry of the heart, ” yet his oeuvre “transcends the realm of love and passion. His poetic sensibility balances dreamy emotion and discerning intellect, creative vision and insightful thought. His work is both serious and humorous, philosophical and surreal, formal and experimental.” “A very powerful poet, Paul Hartal inspires poets worldwide”, observes Tracy Repchuk, President of the Federation of Canadian Poets. About Paul Hartal’s LOVE POEMS: “Thought provoking verse”, by “an individual who evidently bridges the ‘two cultures’”, says Richard C. Levin, President of Yale University. On POSTMODERN LIGHT: “Renowned artist, poet and philosopher Paul Hartal consistently seeks the emotional core of the reader in his poetry”, writes Daniel Goldberg. However, in Postmodern Light: A Collection of Poetry, “his goal is transcendence — leaving behind the realms of love and passion for a whimsical and, at times, deadly serious journey through the realm of dreams and the intellect, through the spirit of creative vision and the potential for personal enlightenment” (Concordia University Magazine, Fall 2006) . Also an award-winning artist, the recipient of the Prix de Paris, in 1975 Paul Hartal published A MANIFESTO ON LYRICAL CONCEPTUALISM, a new element on the periodic table of art. “Lyco Art emphasizes the creative process as an interaction of emotion and intellect, where the passion of logic and the logic of passion are inexorably interwoven through the voyage of consciousness”. “This Canadian artist has ushered in a philosophy that proceeds with many layered viewpoints, an elaborate dialogue between paint and concept”, points out Elizabeth Exler in MANHATTAN ARTS (November-December 1992) . In MAZES FOR THE MIND (St. Martin’s Press) , renowned author Clifford A. Pickover writes: “Paul Hartal is an artist whose ideas, like his artwork, seem to span space and time.” In Hartal’s vision poetry and painting originate from the same primeval fountainhead of creativity. Forms are wordless verses and colors are sleeping poems on the artist’s palette, he says. The muses inspire and elevate by the same themes. The moon and the stars, for example, continue to enchant poets and artists alike. The cosmos fascinates him. For centuries, poets and artists portrayed the glories of the universe, depicted the wonders of distant travels. As a visionary artist of space exploration Space Week in 1994 invited Paul Hartal to exhibit his work at the Space Center in Houston.