THE FRONTIER: POETRY AND PROSE
​
Crossing back and forth over the border of poetry and prose this book brings fresh perspective to the big questions of human life. Based in memorable observations of the natural world it also brings into sharp focus the doings of the everyday world about us. In its brief space it defines the vast frontier between the preoccupations of our contemporary culture and the possibility of living an authentic life.

Some poems from the upcoming book:
  
A Dog and his Master
 
If a dog can go only so far,
never beyond
a human’s blissful mental age of two or three,
bred and trained in his routine
and connected to pack or family, happy in domestication
unless deprived of loving attention or food –
 
how much more are we bound to contemplate
his master leashed,
his evolution extending only so far,
checked at the edge of sustained contentment,
pulled back into familiar human ways --
warfare, competition, cruelty, deceit --
 gripped by the gnawing suspicion that perhaps
he can be looked upon as he
looks upon his dog,
conditioned to accept
the brief, uncertain time,
the limited perception and awareness  
neither he nor his dog
                              can run beyond.
 
 
The Pendulum
 
Difficult to imagine its first slow swings
sometimes years in the making,
then growing shorter and shorter,
reverting back to a slow sway,
and back again, and back again.
Changes of mind,
shifts of perspective,
compromise, stubbornness,
close stifling arcs, then wider open ones,
reaching for distance, then falling back,
at last in seeming suspension, motionless
in a rapid and obliterating flutter
that like a hummingbird’s wings
denies any show of movement at all
and defines the sum
of all assurance.
 
PROSPERO
 
Between the forgotten swaddling at birth
and tender mercies offered in the drift into death,
is a raging contest between noble commitment
and the simple joy of indulgence.
And as we can no longer recall
our wordless joy at birth,
so will any stated pride of purpose in life
unravel inarticulately in death.
Vigorous in his powers Prospero
renounced even the magic of his books,
high-minded purpose yielding
to the truth of time’s passage,
brief joy bookended
by birth and death.
 
How to live is always –
                a question of the moment
                that cannot wait on an unknown, and final
                answer.
                Particularly in spring.
​
 
Voice and Viola
​
A performing duo composed of poet Robert M. Giannetti and violist Leslie Bahler. They present pairings of Giannetti’s poetry with Bahler’s solo viola renderings of classical and folk music  selections. Their programs find synergies of emotion and language in the two modes of artistic expression, and create the effect of an engaging dramatic conversation, complete with agreements and disagreements, shifts of mood and direction, comparisons and contrasts.
The group’s performances have been well received in several diverse venues including the Youngstown Presbyterian Church, St. John's Grace Spiritual Cafe, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, the Fridays at Westminster series, the Canterbury Woods Community, the Niagara Falls Public Library, and the Western New York Land Conservancy, which recently engaged Voice and Viola for a $100 a person benefit performance in East Aurora.