Poet's Corner

[sky dancer]

Beauty




Beauty is truth's smile

when she beholds her own face in

a perfect mirror.



~



Beauty is truth's smile
when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.



~



Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony
which is in the universal being;
truth the perfect comprehension of the universal mind.









- R. Tagore

 

[midcan5]

"you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance"

ee cummings

 

[editec]

Anne Sexton is starting to grow on me.

Yeah, she's a great poet, I agree.

 

[sky dancer]

The Chance to Love Everything

By Mary Oliver

All summer I made friends

with the creatures nearby ---

they flowed through the fields

and under the tent walls,

or padded through the door,

grinning through their many teeth,

looking for seeds,

suet, sugar; muttering and humming,

opening the breadbox, happiest when

there was milk and music. But once

in the night I heard a sound

outside the door, the canvas

bulged slightly ---something

was pressing inward at eye level.

I watched, trembling, sure I had heard

the click of claws, the smack of lips

outside my gauzy house ---

I imagined the red eyes,

the broad tongue, the enormous lap.

Would it be friendly too?

Fear defeated me. And yet,

not in faith and not in madness

but with the courage I thought

my dream deserved,

I stepped outside. It was gone.

Then I whirled at the sound of some

shambling tonnage.

Did I see a black haunch slipping

back through the trees? Did I see

the moonlight shining on it?

Did I actually reach out my arms

toward it, toward paradise falling, like

the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---

the dark heart of the story that is all

the reason for its telling?

 

[tigerbob]

That is quite delightful.

I'm cutting, pasting, and emailing to my wife.

My wife teared up when she read it.

 

[tigerbob]

Since it's snowing here in Maine...


All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--
The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
And WINTER slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring !
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where Amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye Amaranths ! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not ! Glide, rich streams, away !
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll :
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul ?
WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve,
And HOPE without an object cannot live.

Work Without Hope
Samuel Taylor Coleridge


This may be the first sonnet on the poetry thread (I stand to be corrected).

 

[midcan5]

Desiderata

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."

Max Ehrmann

 

[sky dancer]

Now No Trace Remains

by Niyazi Misri


I thought that in this whole world
no beloved for me remained.

Then I left myself.
Now no stranger in the world remains.

I used to see in every object a thorn
but never a rose–

the universe became a rose garden.
Not a single thorn remains.

Day and night my heart
was moaning “Ahhh!”

I don’t know how it happened–
now no “Ahhh” remains.

Duality went, Unity came.
I met with the Friend in private;

The multitude left, the One came.
Only the One remains.

Religion, piety, custom, reputation–
these used to matter greatly to me.

O Niyazi — what has happened to you?
No trace of religion now remains.

 

[sky dancer]

Song for Nobody

by Thomas Merton

A yellow flower
(Light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.

A golden spirit
(Light and emptiness)
Sings without a word
By itself.

Let no one touch this gentle sun
In whose dark eye
Someone is awake.

(No light, no gold, no name, no color
And no thought:
O, wide awake!)

A golden heaven
Sings by itself
A song to nobody.

 

[sky dancer]

This Only

by Czeslaw Milosz

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.
Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,
When snow first fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

(English version by Robert Hass)

 

[midcan5]

My wife teared up when she read it.

This may make her laugh. Music is poetry.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5axlwCBXC8]YouTube - John Prine and Iris DeMent - In Spite of Ourselves[/ame]

 

[tigerbob]

This may make her laugh. Music is poetry.

YouTube - John Prine and Iris DeMent - In Spite of Ourselves

That's a very cool song.

 

[sky dancer]

A Visitor

My father, for example,
who was young once
and blue-eyed,
returns
on the darkest of nights
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door,
and if I answer
I must be prepared
for his waxy face,
for his lower lip
swollen with bitterness.
And so, for a long time,
I did not answer,
but slept fitfully
between his hours of rapping.
But finally there came the night
when I rose out of my sheets
and stumbled down the hall.
The door fell open

and I knew I was saved
and could bear him,
pathetic and hollow,
with even the least of his dreams
frozen inside him,
and the meanness gone.
And I greeted him and asked him
into the house,
and lit the lamp,
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last
I saw what a child must love,
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.

from Dream Work (1986). © Mary Oliver

 

[sky dancer]

My Burning Heart


My heart is burning with love

All can see this flame

My heart is pulsing with passion

like waves on an ocean



my friends have become strangers

and I’m surrounded by enemies

But I’m free as the wind

no longer hurt by those who reproach me



I’m at home wherever I am

And in the room of lovers

I can see with closed eyes

the beauty that dances



Behind the veils

intoxicated with love

I too dance the rhythm

of this moving world



I have lost my senses

in my world of lovers

Rumi

 

[sky dancer]

The Privileged Lovers


The moon has become a dancer
at this festival of love.
This dance of light,

This sacred blessing,
This divine love,
beckons us
to a world beyond
only lovers can see
with their eyes of fiery passion.

They are the chosen ones
who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun.

They have left behind
the world of deceitful games.
They are the privileged lovers
who create a new world
with their eyes of fiery passion.

Rumi

 

[sky dancer]

View from Vanilla Pudding Bowl


by sky dancer



Just milky, thick

Off-white

Muted sweetness

Nothing to get too excited about.

All smooth, no hard edges

Anywhere.


Just sitting here

Waiting for you to taste me/

Why run?

When you can walk.

Why walk?

When you can stand.

Why stand?

When you can sit.

Why sit?

When you can

Be.

 

[Sidestreamer]

They gather poems from near and far,
Their scars, shown in zeroes and ones
The sum of their thoughts, in a tongue
But theirs, muted in convenience.

Vermin

 

[sky dancer]

Death by Poetry

by sky dancer


Let's read yet another turn of phrase

Beautiful sounding words,

Don't make them mean what they say.

Has to be hidden.

Requires a map.

A compass.

A pompous ass.

A fictionary.

An encyclopedia of myth and illogistry.

A thesaurus.

A brontosaurus of vague, ambiguous

Soliloquy.

Synonyms/Antonyms

Make it work for me, baby.

Analyze me

Paralyze me

Synthesize me

Kill me with hidden meaning

Scrabble my rabble

Burn out my brain.

 

[chloe]

The Women On My Journey


To the women on my journey
Who showed me the ways to go and ways not to go,
Whose strength and compassion held up a torch of light
and beckoned me to follow,
Whose weakness and ignorance darkened the path and encouraged me
to turn another way.

To the women on my journey
Who showed me how to love and how not to live,
Whose grace, success and gratitude lifted me into the fullness
of surrender to God,
Whose bitterness, envy and wasted gifts warned me away
from the emptiness of self-will

To the women on my journey
Who showed me what I am and what I am not,
Whose love, encouragement and confidence held me tenderly
and nudged me gently,
Whose judgement, disappointment and lack of faith called me
to deeper levels of commitment and resolve.

To the women on my journey who taught me love
by means of both darkness and light.

To these women I say bless you and thank you from the
depths of my heart,
for I have been healed and set free
through your joy and through your sacrifice.


Rev. Melissa M. Bowers

 

[Sidestreamer]

I sense in one, a triggered gun
From which I run
But the sum of her words are like a fucking drill to the back of my brain it won't stop no it won't stop it will never stop OH MY GOD FUCKING KILL THE SUN MAKE IT GO AWAY SHE WON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP PLEASE STOP THE FUCKING TORTURE JUST FUCKING STOP IT!

...

Tuesday morning, I'm just yawning
See an awning,
Then she wakes and she just won't stop bitching and FUCK SHE JUST HAS TO KEEP TELLING ME OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN LIKE I GIVE A FUCK JUST FUCKING LET ME GO!

Drunk at the bar, I went too far
Reveal the scar
of her... but she's far from me,
I'm in a sea, my mind just bleeds
(Or planting seeds? Am I just free?)



Another horrible spur-of-the-moment prose by Vermin