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    The Ocean's Edge
    The Ocean's Edge
    The Ocean's Edge
    Ebook164 pages36 minutes

    The Ocean's Edge

    By WILLIAM BERNHARDT

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    About this ebook

    William Bernhardt's second poetry collection explores the complex tapestry of family and the subtle interconnections that bind us to our past and forms the ballast to identity. Popular culture merges with classical allusions, weaving the colorful threads of a fabric composed of moments lived and still to be lived. These poems remind us that we are part of a collective history and that we are never alone.

    “William Bernhardt is one of Oklahoma’s and the country’s literary treasures. Anyone doubting that can sit quietly with his new volume of poetry, The Ocean’s Edge, and come away utterly convinced. Part William Carlos Williams (the big picture of our national lives) and e.e. cummings (poetry’s micro-moments), this new book will bring converts to poetry and to Bill’s yeasty vision. This is poetry for those who love reading and want a reminder of why they should read more poetry. They will not be disappointed.” –Robert Con Davis-Undiano, Executive Director of
    World Literature Today

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBabylon Books
    Release dateSep 7, 2017
    ISBN9780999342022
    The Ocean's Edge
    Author

    WILLIAM BERNHARDT

    William Bernhardt (b. 1960), a former attorney, is a bestselling thriller author. Born in Oklahoma, he began writing as a child, submitting a poem about the Oklahoma Land Run to Highlights—and receiving his first rejection letter—when he was eleven years old. Twenty years later, he had his first success, with the publication of Primary Justice (1991), the first novel in the long-running Ben Kincaid series. The success of Primary Justice marked Bernhardt as a promising young talent, and he followed the book with seventeen more mysteries starring the idealistic defense attorney, including Murder One (2001) and Hate Crime (2004). Bernhardt’s other novels include Double Jeopardy (1995) and The Midnight Before Christmas (1998), a holiday-themed thriller. In 1999, Bernhardt founded Bernhardt Books (formerly HAWK Publishing Group) as a way to help boost the careers of struggling young writers. In addition to writing and publishing, Bernhardt teaches writing workshops around the country. He currently lives with his family in Oklahoma. 

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      Book preview

      The Ocean's Edge - WILLIAM BERNHARDT

      Ship of Fools

      The Germans stare at me.

      They draw on their cigarettes,

      eyeing me from a safe distance.

      The deckhands have been in a tizzy

      cursing in guttural tones

      trying to secure a point of embarkation.

      Are we doomed to drift forever

      a New Age Flying Dutchman,

      a plague ship tracing an ethereal path

      up and down the listless Rhine,

      forever reenacting the daily drudgery:

      the ever-recurring cocktail hour

      and the Bavarian buffet?

      Are we cursed for our sins

      to spend a lifetime, or longer

      seeing, seeking, never arriving?

      Lines Composed While Leaving Oxenholme Station

      Visiting Dove Cottage was like visiting

      a temple erected to worship a god.

      I walked where he walked, thought

      where he thought, bought "I wandered

      lonely as a cloud" on a tea towel located

      just behind the more popular

      Beatrix Potter memorabilia.

      The train home is packed with people reading

      Reveal magazine and The Daily Mirror

      eating cheese sandwiches, drinking chilled wine

      yammering into their mobiles.

      I must be the only one thinking about poetry

      but I do not feel

      lonely as a cloud

      distant as Alpha Centauri.

      Even the chatter of others

      comforts, the rub of shoulders is

      artificial daffodils.

      Chatting with the Big Guy

      We were talking the other day

      just shooting the breeze

      and I was feeling rather guilty

      so I asked God if it would be okay

      if I skipped the book signings this year.

      He said, sure.

      The PTA meeting?

      No problem.

      The new Hamlet on PBS?

      Knock yourself out, Skipper.

      (He loves calling me that.)

      You seem very permissive today,

      I remarked.

      I created people, not prisoners.

      I said that’s not the way they taught it

      at the First Baptist Church.

      That made him smile.

      When will you people get it through your thick skulls?

      It’s not about being shamed to say no.

      It’s about wanting to say yes.

      Why Poets Don’t Take Cruises

      Sitting on the dock of the blue boat

      admiring the Old World eccentricity

      of the stretched A-frames

      each a different color from its neighbors

      rows of symmetrical windows

      a hint of motion in the distant foggy backdrop.

      I am suddenly aware of a jackhammer.

      The sound of metal bit splitting concrete

      harsh as the dentist’s office.

      This is why they take your passport when you board

      but do not issue guns.

      How many new apartments does Switzerland need?

      I try to imagine the jackhammer playing a part in the symphonic sounds of the

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