Post a Poem

[[ti...]]

PS: Love your new avatar too.  K.

[[re...]]

Thanks, Kathy

[[or...]]

My favorite poet and probably my favorite poem by him. He's an Oregon poet btw. Recently deceased. Great thread Redevan!

 

 

A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER

 

by William Stafford

 

 

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

 

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

 

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

 

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider--

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

 

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

 

William Stafford

[[No...]]

Not Waving but Drowning

 

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

 

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him, his heart gave way,

They said.

 

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

 

                                        --Stevie Smith

 

 

 

____________________________________

 

 

 

Rowing

 

A story, a story!

(Let it go. Let it come.)

I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender

into this world.

First came the crib

with its glacial bars.

Then dolls

and the devotion to their plastic mouths.

Then there was school,

the little straight rows of chairs,

blotting my name over and over,

but undersea all the time,

a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.

Then there was life

with its cruel houses

and people who seldom touched-

though touch is all-

but I grew,

like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,

and then there were many strange apparitions,

the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison

and all of that, saws working through my heart,

but I grew, I grew,

and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,

still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,

and I grew, I grew,

I wore rubies and bought tomatoes

and now, in my middle age,

about nineteen in the head I'd say,

I am rowing, I am rowing

though the oarlocks stick and are rusty

and the sea blinks and rolls

like a worried eyeball,

but I am rowing, I am rowing,

though the wind pushes me back

and I know that that island will not be perfect,

it will have the flaws of life,

the absurdities of the dinner table,

but there will be a door

and I will open it

and I will get rid of the rat insdie me,

the gnawing pestilential rat.

God will take it with his two hands

and embrace it.

 

As the African says:

This is my tale which I have told,

if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,

take somewhere else and let some return to me.

This story ends with me still rowing.

 

                                                    --Anne Sexton

 

 

 

______________________________________

 

 

 

The Smiles Of The Bathers

 

The smiles of the bathers fade as they leave the water,

And the lover feels sadness fall as it ends, as he leaves his love.

The scholar, closing his book as the midnight clock strikes, is hollow and old:

The pilot's relief on landing is no release.

These perfect and private things, walling us in, have imperfect and public endings--

Water and wind and flight, remembered words and the act of love

Are but interruptions. And the world, like a beast, impatient and quick,

Waits only for those who are dead. No death for you. You are involved.

 

                                                                                                          --Weldon Kees

 

 

 

[[pe...]]

Demand It Courageously

 

by Julia Hartwig

 

      Make some room for yourself, human animal.

      Even a dog jostles about on his master's lap to

improve his position. And when he needs space he

runs forward, without paying attention to commands

or calls.

      If you didn't manage to receive freedom as a gift,

demand it as courageously as bread and meat.

      Make some room for yourself, human pride and

dignity.

      The Czech writer Hrabal said:

      I have as much freedom as I take.

 

"Demand It Courageously" by Julia Hartwig

[[Da...]]

with anne gone, whose eyes to compare with the morning sun, not that I did, but I do now she has gone.

 

Leonrad Cohen

[[or...]]

moonlight on the dark

sea tonight is not more beautiful

than your bright hair

by Linda Wright

[[Ge...]]

I'm writing my own poem, so forgive my current state ....

 

Here we are, in the dark

We glimpse a light, it shines so bright

We follow, into the hollow

We strain,  we crawl, we use all of our might

Here we are,  again in the dark

We persevere, we embark

Having faith in resolve

We struggle to evolve

Very soon you will find the end

All healed I promise, my friend.

 

 

[[pe...]]

Georgy-

I like your poem, think I'll read it everyday.

Peace

[[Be...]]

One of my favorites.  Reminds me of this madness we're in, the left hand of God:

 

Summer Storm (circa 1916) and God’s Grace

 

By Robert Penn Warren

 

Toward sun, the sun flared suddenly red,

The green of woods was doused to black.

The cattle bellowed by the haystack.

Redder than ever, red clay was red.

Up the land the plow hands came pelting back.

 

Astride and no saddle, and they didn’t care

If a razor-back mule at a break-tooth trot

Was not the best comfort a man ever got,

And the hat that jounced off stayed off, like as not.

 

In that strange light all distance died.

You know the world’s intensity.

Field-afar, you can read the aphid’s eye.

The mole, in his sod, can no more hide,

And weeps beneath the naked eye.

 

Past silence, sound insinuates

Past ear into the inner brain.

The toad’s asthmatic breath is pain,

The cutworm’s tooth grinds and grates,

And the root, in earth, screams, screams again,

 

But no cloud yet.  No wind, though you,

A half a county off, now spy

The crow that, laboring zenith-high,

Is suddenly, with wings askew,

Snatched, and tumbled down the sky.

 

And so you waited.  You couldn’t talk.

The creek-side willows shuddered gray.

The oak leaf turned the other way,

Gray as fish-belly.  Then, with a squawk,

The henhouse heaved, and flew away,

 

And darkness rode in on the wind.

The pitchfork lightening tossed the trees,

And God got down on hands and knees

To peer and cackle and commend

His own sadistic idiocies.

 

Next morning you stood where the bridge had washed out.

A drowned cow bobbled down the creek.

Raw-eyed, men watched.  They did not speak.

Till one shrugged, said he thought he’d make out.

Then turned, took the woods-path up the creek.

 

Oh, send them summer, one summer just right,

With rain well spaced, no wind or hail.

Let cutworm tooth falter, locust jaw fail,

And if a man wake at roof-roar at night,

Let that roar be the roar of God’s awful Grace,

And not of His flail.

 

 

 

[[no...]]

I'm writing my own poem, so forgive my current state ....

 

Here we are, in the dark

We glimpse a light, it shines so bright

We follow, into the hollow

We strain,  we crawl, we use all of our might

Here we are,  again in the dark

We persevere, we embark

Having faith in resolve

We struggle to evolve

Very soon you will find the end

All healed I promise, my friend.

 

Fantastic! 

[[sn...]]

Time goes by, we begin to change

Everything is different, it feels so strange

Reaching out, from the pit of despair

Sometimes wondering if anyone cares

Days go by, and time stands still

All of this pain, from one little pill

If theres one thing Ive learned from all of this hell

If you stay the course, you'll soon be well

So keep your chin up and you will see

One day soon, You will be free

 

 

 

Snoball

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[pe...]]

A song my sister sent to me.... Seems like a good place to post it. Songs are poems set to music. 

 

http://www.sarahmclachlan.com/lyric-lounge/beautiful-girl/

[Guest [Mo...]]

http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/guest_house.htm

[[or...]]

This is a haiku for my friend Leslie who died 2 years ago, after losing a battle with cancer. Her friends planted her favorite flowers, forget-me-nots, on her grave.

 

To whose eyes will we

compare the forget-me-nots

now that you are gone

[[Fl...]]

 

Needles and Pins 

 

Needles and pins,

 

Needles and pins,

 

Sew me a sail

 

To catch me the wind.

 

Sew me a sail

 

Strong as the gale,

 

Carpenter, bring out your

 

Hammers and nails.

 

Hammer and nails,

 

Hammer and nails,

 

Build me a boat

 

To go chasing the whales.

 

Chasing the whales,

 

Sailing the blue,

 

Find me a captain

 

And sign me a crew.

 

Captain and crew,

 

Captain and crew,

 

Take me, oh take me

 

To anywhere new.

 

~Shel Silverstein

 

[Guest [Mo...]]

This is a haiku for my friend Leslie who died 2 years ago, after losing a battle with cancer. Her friends planted her favorite flowers, forget-me-nots, on her grave.

 

To whose eyes will we

compare the forget-me-nots

now that you are gone

 

That's beautiful, Katz.......

[[or...]]

Thanks MOO. I miss her every day. Especially now that forget-me-nots are in bloom.

 

Okatz

[[sp...]]

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could gaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Rage , rage against the dying of the light.

 

Dylan Thomas