BARBARA EHRENTREU

BARBARA EHRENTREU

THE TRUE ESSENCE OF HUMANITY

Humanity is seen by the treatment you are given

and though some may appear to be loving and kind

it is only through dealings with them that they

reveal their true nature

There are those who have been graced with a

soul full of love and caring and who spread this

around with their words and deeds

They expect no praise for their efforts and continue

to shower the world with expressions of adoration

bringing sunshine to all they do

Their brilliance outshines the pettiness and underhanded

deeds of the very few who seek to tarnish their name

and they will always come out on top of those

who attempt to smear their shiny lives

The love of these people is immeasurable and precious

and we must guard their tender hearts

for they are the true essence of humanity

Copyright 2019 by Barbara Ehrentreu

ANGER

Anger arrives knocking over established furniture

in your life and bringing with it a strong wind

that leaps through with force

toppling normal functions and creating

a battleground where none had been before

As it slows -- this fury builds inside until

thought no longer controls brain functions

and the only way to deal with it is to

stand back and chastise yourself

for allowing this uncontrolled emotion

to rip through your life and create

tension and unrest in people who are

not the result of it

Yet on some plane they are because they are

around and might have precipitated the spark

that set off this tirade causing you to want to

throw things and slam anything you can find

to the ground

Anger is a recalcitrant child who must always

be tamed for if it is allowed to run rampant

you will find your life will look like a storm

has come through and sadly there is no

insurance for the destruction of a person’s life

So when those times happen

when anger slips out of its usual constraints

you must reign it in or else you will be sweeping

up the remnants of that moment when anger

caused your day to be one more notch in its

belt of misery.

Copyright 2018 by Barbara Ehrentreu

SPLAYED ON A DECK ON A SINUOUS RIVER

The river wound around bends and corners

Sinuous as a snake It went past homes

where no one spent

any time outdoors

One wondered why build on such land if you

don’t come out to survey it for yourself?

Sleek and satiny the water pulsed with

an inner movement seen only if you put

your hand in and then you didn’t really see

it but felt the pressure of all that current

on your skin pushing against it

and I imagine the fish felt it too if they went upstream

But we were going downstream and the current

flowed the right way moving us at a strong clip

down the valley -- and you could see that water

In the white wakes we left behind us –

the Interlopers on this body of water

Sailing above the real inhabitants underneath us

I lay flat on the deck of our boat

My legs splayed and felt the sun beat

down on my limbs as if I were being barbecued.

That reminded me of food and the satisfying

saucy goodness of real down home eats

at the end of this trip

And I let the river do its job

My stomach rumbling to the rhythm of the

movement as we glided along on the back

of the water on a summer’s day

the current navigating as I lay

splayed legs flat against the warm wood

of the gently used boat soaking up the day.

Copyright 2019 by Barbara Ehrentreu

BARBARA EHRENTREU

BARBARA EHRENTREU grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Queens. She has lived and taught in Long Island, Buffalo, NY and Westchester, NY as well as a year in Los Angeles, CA. She has a Masters Degree in Reading and Writing K-12. Currently she is retired from teaching and living in Stamford, CT with her family. If I Could Be Like Jennifer Taylor, her first novel, won second prize in Preditors & Editors as Best Young Adult Book for 2011, and her second novel, After is now available in print. Barbara also writes poetry. She has a book called You’ll Probably Forget Me: Living With and Without Hal, which is a memorial to her deceased husband. Several of her poems are published in the anthologies, World Poetry Open Mic, several international anthologies, Queen, Prompted: An International Collection of Poetry, Beyond the Dark Room, Storm Cycle and Backlit Barbell. Her short screenplay, “The Kiss” won awards at film festivals. Recently, her poem "TO CATCH THE UNIVERSE ” published in the September, 2019 OUR POETRY ARCHIVE was part of an art exhibition in a local library. Her poem “A WALK DOWN THE PATH OF MY MEMORIES” has been selected to be in The Walt Whitman Bicentennial Anthology for 2019. Barbara is a regular contributor to the Facebook page: “The Garden of Poetry and Prose” and United States Administrator for “Motivational Strips”. She has a blog, Barbara's Meanderings, and hosts a radio show on Blog Talk Radio, Red River Radio Tales from the Pages, once a month. She is a member of Greenwich Pen Letters and SCBWI.