Tag: by Ed Teja

Poetry Reading: The Girl on the Bus, by Ed Teja

Performed by Katelyn Varadi

Get to know the poet:

1) What is the theme of your poem?

We never know exactly what is going on in life. It’s complex and confusing and its real beauty is often bittersweet.

2) What motivated you to write this poem?

A girl I saw on a bus in Hong Kong while thinking about the difficulties of connecting with people.

3) How long have you been writing poetry?

Over fifty years.

4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

Henry Miller.

5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

I like hearing poetry read well. Hearing someone else read it will let me think about it differently.

6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

I write novels and short stories.

7) What is your passion in life?

To live it fully.

Read Poetry: The Girl on the Bus, by Ed Teja

She turned her face toward the light,
the moving, blinking, shadowy light.
I watched patterns of darkness
pool above her high cheekbones,
her eyes deep, dark hollows
containing all her sorrows.

“It’s an enigma,” I offered, speaking
in a reassuring tone and with a beat to match
the motion of an ancient city bus
rocking down dark streets striped in light.
“It’s all truth can ever be,
our poor, sad truth.”

The look she gave me said that this lady knew all that.
Life in a hostile city had taught her well
how truth, obscured by light and shadow,
often hid in the confines of contrast.

For a moment she faced me,
half smiling some sad rejoinder.
Then, when the light changed,
she flickered with it from the bus.

Genres: society, angst