"bergman" poems
I met Joan Baez in my sleep.
She whispered her poems and
sang her songs. I fell in love
with her instantly. DIAMONDS
AND RUST she sang in my
dreams. Linda Ronstadt sang
LONG, LONG TIME to me.
I cried in her hair, so fair was
she. We made love for eternity.
Ingrid Bergman came into my
life a long time ago. I was
mesmerized by her luminescent
beauty. She walked into my
life 20 minutes into CASA-
BLANCA. I was transfixed.
But it was Audrey Hepburn
who stole my heart. Tiny and
radiant, Audrey saw and
held and fed starving
children around the globe.
She entered my heart and
kissed my soul and never
left my life. Bless you, Audrey.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025 at 3:57 PM UTC
S3
Sleepless, Shuffling In Stockholm
Somewhere in my body,
A bifurcated clock ticks,
Two clock faces,
White on black,
Vice versa.
Mixed media messages,
Crazy train station internal,
Brain activity fevered,
Arrive/depart according to
Somebody else's schedule,
Somebody else occupying,
Every street of my body
Lying asleep,
Typing these words,
It is the middle of the night,
Bright daylight suffuses the room
What part of my metaphysical schema,
Ain't jet lagged legally,
And poetically entitled to be
Stockholm Syndrome Confused?
Times have really changed,
Oh my, when you propose,
Let's go to Stockholm,
Anything goes!
So my schedule reordered
In the land of either all
Light or Dark, twenty hours four,
I turn to my boon companion,
Who soothes at any hour,
My music, my Nano,
And I find myself, musically,
Shuffling in Stockholm.
Meatloaf and Piazzolla,
Muddy Waters and Purple Rain,
Marvin Gaye and Pink Martini,
Beethoven, Straight No Chaser,
Beatles, Stones, Bennett vs. Buble,
The lack of sleep a permanent fixture,
Courtesy of this Bach-us admixture,
So should you see a gappy, khaki, clad tourist,
Meandering o'er the islands of this charming city,
In Ingmar Bergman fashion,
Black and white erratic,
Alternating, swaying and shuffling,
No tongue clucking,
Nah, he's not drunken,
Just dancing while sight seeing,
In a sleep deprived manner,
Someday a movie to be,
Sleepless, Shuffling In Stockholm
A/K/A
S3
June 30 ~ July 2, 2012
Stockholm, Sweden
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 11:34 PM UTC
She was a pretty little girl with a jaded brain
and movie stars in her eyes
From a little town in northern Maine
where dreams fizzle out and die
She was looking for a Casablanca gent
to match her Ingrid Bergman looks
But all she found was me - her discontent!
Her face was like an open book
I paused to read and
she proceeded
to tell me that we had no chance
Before her mouth could shut
I jumped onto her tongue
and asked her if she'd like to dance
We waltzed into a secret fantasy
like our dreams were intertwined
She was blowing pink bubbles with her chewing gum
and it just about blew my mind
It wasn't long and we were lying on the floor
My shirt had come undone
For a workaday girl from a quiet town
she sure knew how to have her fun
Before I buttoned up
she handed me a cup
I drank and I asked for more
My head was swimming
like a salmon when
I watched her walking out my door
Jan 4, 2021
Jan 4, 2021 at 3:49 PM UTC
Dead people are no doubt bored, so I'm sure these folks would be happy for free food and conversation. Of course, this is just a partial list, subject to addition and deletion. Feel free to add your own in comments.
Buddha, but a light lunch.
Jesus, but kosher of course.
****** come on, who wouldn't.
James Joyce, just to mock him.
George Washington, to try to catch him in a lie.
Hemingway, but just for drinks.
Reagan, to deliver some Depends.
Bakunin, for mutual aid.
William Butler, my ancestor who survived The Wheatfield at Gettysburg.
Audrey Hepburn, but a date, not lunch.
Ingmar Bergman, just to cheer me up.
Ervin Schrödinger, about that cat.
Shakespeare, because I've always wanted to meet an extra-terrestrial.
Ezra Pound, to tell him he was right about usury.
God, to let her know how disappointed I am.
Richard Nixon, so I could drive a stake through his heart.
Julia Child, just to hear her voice again.
Lenin, because he was a self-starter.
Mozart, because he would be fun.
Emma Goldman, to dance.
James Dean, as we look so much alike.
Janis Joplin, because I might get lucky.
Come on, I'm sure you can add to the list. Don't be shy, try.
mce
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 7:27 PM UTC
It's a common trope,
the Danse Macabre that troops us
toward hushed tombs.
Blame its plague on Wolgemut
or Bruegel (Pieter the Elder),
and certainly Bergman
What with his iconic black-clad Death
and the parade of captive players taken
hand-in-hand on a joyless march.
But Life has her own fleet moments to lead,
and these flip-flop pageants though ragtag
are not the less enriching to behold
Or so I'm told in passing by
the delicate bluebell peaking its buds through
a monochrome rubble.
May 6, 2010
May 6, 2010 at 3:34 PM UTC
I take pleasure in the simple things
And I know a lot of people say that
But I think a lot of people get carried away
With the idea of getting carried away
They watch movies for the special effects
Go to baseball games for the big names
And watch trains go by for the wrecks
But I take pleasure in the simple things
The other day I paced in the rain
It was summer so the warm water
Reminded me of growing up in Shanghai
Where the chemical rain would burn when it touched you
And that's a happy memory for me
I watch movies for the kisses
The Humphrey Bogart
Reach out and kiss the crap out of them kisses
The Ingrid Bergman sly, seductive kisses
The Audrey Hepburn innocent, eyes closed kisses
I go to baseball games to smell the air
Little league games, high school games,
Minor league games, professional games
It doesn't matter they all smell like dirt and leather
I like to walk by freshly mowed lawns
Because it reminds me of when I was younger
And played soccer every Saturday morning
On just cut grass
I love, love, love to watch little kids run in circles
For absolutely no reason at all
I take pleasure in the simple things
I think too often people
Try to measure the was of each day
Against the could be of every dream
Forgetting that we don't ask our dreams
To accomplish themselves between 9-5
Some people get caught up in
Trying to live their life
Like it was a scene from a dream
They drempt while they slept last night
And though sometimes life can seem like a movie
We are not producers or directors
Merely actors following our lines
Trying to feel out someone else's vision
So I find pleasure in the simple things
The parts no producer could control
The lines that aren't in the script
The prettiest rose on my bike ride home
Warm Rain
Dirt
Leather
Cut grass, little kids, and puppy dogs
Because if we limit the pleasure we find
To the greatest moments in our lives
We're never going to believe it's happening when it is
Always dreaming there could be more to our life then there is
And when we do finally believe
The only chance we'll have to smile
Will be at a memory
And we'll miss all the beauty and pleasure
The world and life
Has put in front of you and me
Aug 25, 2009
Aug 25, 2009 at 7:40 PM UTC
He pumps away,
only his heavy breathing and dripping sweat
confirming that I'm not doing all this
to myself.
I try my best to enjoy it all and
let him know
and feel proud in the fact.
he is a sweet boy
i don't want to hurt his feelings
but deep down i know
he isn't here with me.
i am the tool easily accessible to fit the job.
and to a certain extent,
he is too.
although the part of me that linked *** and love died out long ago...
it echos sometimes.
like a phantom limb that itches.
or a tumor that makes you smell burnt toast.
sometimes i imagine deep, romantic passions
filmed in rose colored light.
those sweaty
tightly filmed scenes
of two people doing something
vastly different
from ******* or
******** or
getting one off.
something that jane austin would write about.
something ingrid bergman would star in.
something waterhouse would paint.
but this place where i am,
these things i do,
are far from such beauty.
i remember being a young girl in love,
barely a teen taking her first steps out
of being a little girl.
ribbons and dolls discarded
and replaced by
secret diaries and lipstick stolen from my big sister.
it all seems so foolish now.
such a waste. and even though
such thoughts have
lingering pains attached to them,
i know they are true.
i know what the chemical con job called love really is.
i know the true face of man and woman
face to face
in these days.
i know what such ideas have become,
in the world i live in.
Nov 8, 2010
Nov 8, 2010 at 2:15 PM UTC
Over and over again
the ongoing psychosis named reality
throws at us the vile complications of existence
like a rigged tax funded snowball war in which you are forced to enroll
when you are born among proletarians
and concrete orphans more twisted than Oliver Twist
like ghetto kids with knives and narcotic nights
men that walk the same sidewalk as you
the same asphalt dreams and latent ambitions
trapped in the same staircase of materia
causing the universe to circle reason
and stomp the ant man with work boots of international negligence
like something out of an Ingmar Bergman film
as the saints will prevail like the flickering candle in an artic snow lantern
battling it’s ice ceiling like flying intifada rocks in glass houses
while the chess game of psychoanalysis continues
like the sorrows of young Werther
in the blood of your martyred nightmares
Mar 19, 2019
Mar 19, 2019 at 5:37 AM UTC
I say there is no physical beauty.
This skin, this flesh, this bone
are but the clay of which we make our beauty,
the instrument on which we play our beauty.
Witness the failure of funeral directors to please true aesthetes:
the dead Ingrid Bergman lacks the beauty of a living bag lady.
Tennis masters
given K-Mart rackets
win gracefully,
while the high-school violinist
playing a Stradivarius
fails to delight us.
Thus noses, lips, ******* have no beauty in themselves.
Perfect features are easily distorted by
anger, sloth, irritability, or conceit.
But in a rare few
energy, grace, composure, and sensitivity
are blended in such a quantity
that they overflow
and color with an exquisite beauty every pore of the body,
fill with a subtle music every gesture, every word.
I say there is no physical beauty.
This skin, this flesh, this bone
are but the clay of which we make our beauty,
the instrument on which we play our beauty.
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 10:24 AM UTC
I like a classic movie
One with Bogie and Bacall
Kate Hepburn in her heyday
Or Errol Flynn in a brawl
A Cary Grant comedy
Irene Dunne at his side
Bette Davis raising hell
Or Frankenstein's scary bride
I think of Ingrid Bergman's smile
The sweetest nun appearing onscreen
And Mae West's sassy manner
As she lit up every scene
Spencer Tracy wowed us
Charlie Chaplin made us roar
Great stars, great stories, great times
The movies I adore
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
Ingmar Bergman scenes and Jewel’s poetic dreams figurative memes spilled like ashes across the page to be holy, unheavy, and alive is a granted feeling of being on high
Like God, he told me, only words get washed away if not kept sacred
Inside the blood and the host
irrevocably so
Whatever blindness calls itself
There was nothing left to be said
And so I dropped that filthy knife
Hot with the stain erased spilling on its face cooled by a star
I am not in the creator’s mind
I found the him within me
The ageism and the orientation of today’s world is met with chaos from the stories of so many...
How do we move on from such loss?
I don’t need new age *** or dates with the illusion of a soulmate that follow what the tarot’s say I need to make me happy today
I lost someone, I lost something, and that is enough to feel it.
We are not here to deny another’s pain
Death’s foreshadowing pretenses could never prepare for a dream
Filled with the hollowness of holiness and shallow breath
Makes a night of manipulation evaporate
A year later, I sang as I carried myself away
I went the mile
I walked to the depths
3 years later to the date
April 20th
The day I released all of the hurt I chained
To my self worth as a bad dream
As an epiphany of the love I wanted
Like a little girl
Lost and waiting on the front porch looking out towards the sky wondering when the truth of my own love would come
Someday..
To lose hope in intervals treading for reciprocity was the garden gate I needed to find myself anew
What I once feared was in me, was never in me and I yet the idea was at the same time
Strong diligence makes the heart grow that much more aligned to what creates your will, your beautiful will; a peaceful manifesto of a great new world
Mar 15, 2021
Mar 15, 2021 at 4:27 PM UTC
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and CASABANCA are tied as my most favorite film I've ever seen in my life, Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in the former, Ingrid Bergman--the most beautiful woman I've ever seen--and Humphrey Bogart, a fellow Andover alum (he got kicked out his first year).
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is, indeed, tied as my most favorite movie.
But it's also a documentary.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Feb 23, 2023
Feb 23, 2023 at 10:01 PM UTC
Ingmar Bergman externalisés by
Using women in his films to
Understand himself.
The two sides of himself.
So much of myself and my awareness
Of the graces of women come from my
Mother. The way my father treated
My mother was an sustaining influence too.
I remember my mother’s grey curly hair,
large ******* hanging like two full plums.
As she washes in the bathtub
Rounded belly, dark, floating, soapy ***** hair
Mother is forty - four.
Taking me into ************ softly, quietly
Mysteriously, my ******* are budding, two pink *******
A pretty navy padded brassière to wear under my blouse
When I go to school. This blouse is nylon and translucent
Womanhood that wet place of secret
sounds, scents and shapes.
Thank you mum for helping me to become a woman to take into my ****** form and become all that I did,Love you.
Love Mary xxxx. Your daughter.
Sep 23, 2019
Sep 23, 2019 at 9:43 AM UTC
New poems are great to write
But even previous writes still have lessons and meanings
That even the author didn’t quite uncover.
Downloadable music is efficient and convenient
When certain physical technology cannot be found
Or obtained.
Yet an LP gets a previous generation to see
That music from any time and for all occasions
Is just as much accepted
Than the “latest” or “most trending” iTunes release.
eBooks can act like a portable library
For those who love a good book, newspaper, etc.
But seeing many paged, hardbound or paperback books
Helps readers to remember the quantity of a collection
And the discipline of organization
Rather than having a tablet always ready for on-the-go
When sometimes the only place to go
Is a living-room couch or dining-room table.
Video games are quick-advancing
And the various virtual realms are eye-capturing
And free-from-reality.
But sometimes there are times
Unfocused from technology
That are just as much an escape from reality
Such as a walk in the park,
Biking along a mildly-breezy, clear-skied beach boardwalk,
Claiming front-row seats to a basketball game,
Or playing croquet, if that’s your forte.
Ingrid Bergman
Or Rod Carew
Even the old
Can rise anew!
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 7:50 PM UTC
Women - sounds, scents and shapes.
Ingmar Bergman externalisés by
Using women in his films to
Understand himself.
The two sides of himself.
So much of myself and my awareness
Of the graces of women come from my
Mother and father.The way my father treated
My mother was a sustaining influence too.
I remember my mother’s grey curly hair,
large ******* hanging like two full plums.
As she washes in the bathtub
Rounded belly, dark, floating, soapy ***** hair
Mother is forty - four.
Taking me into ************ softly, quietly
Mysteriously, my ******* are budding, two pink *******
A pretty navy padded brassière to wear under my blouse
When I go to school. This blouse is nylon and translucent
Womanhood that place of secret
sounds, scents and shapes.
Thank you mum for helping me to become a woman to take into my ****** form and appreciate it and become all that I did.
Love Mary , Your daughter. Love you ..
Sep 24, 2019
Sep 24, 2019 at 6:14 AM UTC
Faiths
When I grew up there as only on religion available-
choices are better now- Christianity. We had bible
classes every week and I found it entertaining
but I never got the message, I simply lacked
the gene that makes people believes in the impossible.
There was a time when I was around sixteen when
met a Christian girl and went with to meeting, sang
and prayed, while preying on her, but it never got
more than holding a damp hand. I went to the movies
instead Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman now
that is a reality for you. I'm old now and set in my ways
I know I shall die but, an abstract god play no role in
the drama of my death, that role is reserved for me.
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
*insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- anon.*
don't know why it boils down to this,
but i like the idea
of everything being stripped down -
i remember being 13 / 14,
and when the release date for
a computer game came out,
i have the sweats,
running into the ilford mall and gripping
the **** copy of a game
with sweaty hands...
but there's something different
about this release...
logan... i'm anticipating it
like a kid...
but i had a precursor dessert
(sort of speak) -
seeing clips from logan -
and then watching blood father
starring mel gibson,
i'm wondering: who copied who?
they're so alike in these films...
i'm starting to doubt whether logan
will live up to my kiddy-anticipation...
i already know that gibson added
the comic-edge to the role...
never mind the claws...
sure, imdb have it a 3 stars,
i never liked reading critiques
of either movies, books, or albums:
each to his own, after all;
it's just such a shame, that american
are like butter: easy to watch,
while all foreign cinema is so ******
meaty...
oh i don't mind the sub-titles,
but americana can be watched on-repeat,
european films, iranian, turkish,
they are always so ****** meaty:
notably those provided for the english audience...
of course you can have native films
that are just as american, as the american
movies...
i don't know if it's a compliment,
or whether it isn't...
up in the edinburgh film society,
pedro almodóvar was a hit,
notably for the film bad education...
and those films are just meaty,
you watch them once -
and then, for some reason, never return to them:
perhaps they have the content of
a pneumatic drill that drills past your
attention, and into your memory...
american films rare have that quality -
you keep watching them, over and over again,
simply because they're so easily forgettable,
but it's this "short-memory loss" regarding
them, that makes them so fascinating to
watch two, three times...
the memory loss doubles up with
sequels, prequels, rocky 8 rambo 7
terminator 10.
i've recorded a few e. i. bergman films,
trouble is, i haven't finished watching
wild strawberries...
i started, couldn't finish...
a bit like *** with foreign language cinema:
you really have to be in a mood,
otherwise it's just another **** by a blockbuster
from america.
Aug 9, 2017
Aug 9, 2017 at 6:42 PM UTC
I have always dated beautiful, and bright, women. I never married,
probably because of the trauma of growing up with a father and
mother who were so desperarately unhappy, but never divorced.
When I was a freshman at Columbia, I dated a Barnard freshman
named Stephani Cook. When Stephani was a senior, she entered a
nationwide contest sponsored by Glamour Magazine for the best
dressed coed in America. In effect, it was a contest for the most
beautiful coed in America. Stephani won, a win that launched her
on a multi-year career with the most prominent modeling agency
in the world, the Ford Agency in New York City. Thus, she graced
the covers of the most famous women's magazines such as Seventeen
and others. In the early 1980s, she authored the book "Second Life,"
which was an incredibly well crafted account of her years growing
up and her excruciatingly painful early years of adulthood. And
though I dated beautiful and bright women throughout my life,
really one of the happiest facets of my life, the most beautiful
woman I ever encountered I saw in the film "Casablanca" made
in the early 1940s starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
Ingrid Bergman, simply put, is the most mesmerizing, transcendently
beautiful woman I have ever seen. And I really cannot put into
words why she is, by far, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
When she came to Hollywood in the late 1930s, the studio moguls
said she needed to change her name, that she was too tall, and
that her nose was too big. Ingrid's riposte, an important part of her
exquisite beauty, I believe, was she was not going to change her
name, that her height did not bother her, and that she would not
undergo any plastic surgery. In "Casablanca," Ingrid first appears
as she enters Rick's Cafe Americain with her husband. I click at
that moment to freeze that frame so I can gaze, for as long as I
wish, at Ingrid's face (she never wore make-up), even from a
distance. It is iridescent, and every time I do this, I am transfixed
for minutes. That scene, that one scene, is the most extraordinary
moment of all the scenes of all the great movies I have ever watched.
I wish Ingrid were still alive so I could tell her what I've just shared
with you.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
every time I do this,
her h
May 4, 2020
May 4, 2020 at 7:57 PM UTC
"Casablanca" is my all-time favorite movie.
I usually only watch a movie once. If it is a
great movie, twice. "Casablanca" I have
watched probably 50, 60 times. Why is that,
you ask? There are many reasons. Every
scene is iconic. Bogart, who was expelled
from Andover, the school from which I
graduated, is not handsome, yet he emotes
a singular masculine appeal. I wish there
were a real Rike's Cafe Americain. I would
go wherever it was, even though I neither
drink alcohol nor gamble. Virtually every
actor and actress plays her or his part in a
scintillating way. The story line keeps me
rapt, even though I have seen the movie
so many times The Paris scenes are the
most romantic I have ever seen. When
Bogart helps the young married couple
from Bulgaria get enough money to get
to Lisbon, then to America, by cheating his
own casino, my heart, too, is softened.
And the dialogue at the end of the movie
is trenchant, unforgettable. But, to be
honest, the most compelling reason I have
watched "Casablanca" so many times is
that when Ingrid Bergman and her movie
husband first enter Rick's, I instantly press
"pause." Then I spend as long as I wish
staring at Ingrid's face, the most beautiful
woman's face I have ever seen, and I have
had the good fortune to see many beautiful
faces of women up close in my life, but none
as radiant and mesmerizing as Ingrid's.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
Jan 12, 2020
Jan 12, 2020 at 1:25 AM UTC