A Poem Thread
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
The Coming of Light
Mark Strand - 1934-2014
"Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath."
Mark Strand - 1934-2014
"Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath."
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Desolation dwells
Left emptiness, vacant room
stark walls, lonely broom
tilting table, checkered cloth
coffee stains, lifeless moth
human beings here once dwelt
perhaps hope here once was felt
but look around and see
could it have been but misery
desolation dwells
Uninspired ornaments of alabaster
molded scrolls of casting plaster
windows smudged with coated grime
wooden floors revealing time
desolation dwells
Left emptiness, vacant room
stark walls, lonely broom
tilting table, rusty knife
reminders of the time
this lonely place once was alive
human beings here once dwelt
joy and sorrow once were felt
now shadows cast a silent spell
and desolation dwells
W4U
Left emptiness, vacant room
stark walls, lonely broom
tilting table, checkered cloth
coffee stains, lifeless moth
human beings here once dwelt
perhaps hope here once was felt
but look around and see
could it have been but misery
desolation dwells
Uninspired ornaments of alabaster
molded scrolls of casting plaster
windows smudged with coated grime
wooden floors revealing time
desolation dwells
Left emptiness, vacant room
stark walls, lonely broom
tilting table, rusty knife
reminders of the time
this lonely place once was alive
human beings here once dwelt
joy and sorrow once were felt
now shadows cast a silent spell
and desolation dwells
W4U
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RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
the age of empty nesters
wrestling empty gestures
founded cruise ships on brand new artificial hips
busy doctors offices with social tips
the age of empty busy lifes
busy husbands
busy wifes
the age of empty lifes
busy being nesters
alone in empty gestures
together alone in work & home
defining empty nesters
RainbowSingularity 13/04/2021
inspired by Write4U Poem - Desolation dwells
the concept of passing social ages
lifes many stages
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
"If dark nights must come, let them come.
Open your doors.
Let them come, my dear, and ask them what they want.
Maybe all they want is your presence. Nothing else.
Maybe all they want to do is to hold you so close and polish you secretly, without telling anyone–
Maybe that is all they want.
Know that deep inside they hold ten thousand fragrant mornings. They hold the source of laughter.
They hold life."
~ Guthema Roba
Open your doors.
Let them come, my dear, and ask them what they want.
Maybe all they want is your presence. Nothing else.
Maybe all they want to do is to hold you so close and polish you secretly, without telling anyone–
Maybe that is all they want.
Know that deep inside they hold ten thousand fragrant mornings. They hold the source of laughter.
They hold life."
~ Guthema Roba
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
"Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness....
...Before you know kindness as the deepest thing
inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
----Naomi Shihab Nye
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness....
...Before you know kindness as the deepest thing
inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
----Naomi Shihab Nye
What a great find, MR!
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Thanks wegs!
The Awakening
In the early dawn of happiness
you gave me three kisses
so that I would wake up
to this moment of love
I tried to remember in my heart
what I'd dreamt about
during the night
before I became aware
of this morning
of Life
I found my dreams
but the moon took me away
It lifted me up to the firmament
and suspended me there
I saw how my heart
had fallen on your path
singing a song
Between my love and my heart
Things were happening which
slowly slowly
Made me recall everything
Poem by Rumi
In the early dawn of happiness
you gave me three kisses
so that I would wake up
to this moment of love
I tried to remember in my heart
what I'd dreamt about
during the night
before I became aware
of this morning
of Life
I found my dreams
but the moon took me away
It lifted me up to the firmament
and suspended me there
I saw how my heart
had fallen on your path
singing a song
Between my love and my heart
Things were happening which
slowly slowly
Made me recall everything
Poem by Rumi
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
― Lucille Clifton
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
― Lucille Clifton
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I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies
June Jordan, 1976 (Dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neto, President of The People's Republic of Angola)
1
I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me:
. . . . . . . . . . Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits
and facial tics
I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to those who hear my footsteps
or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery
cart
then turn around
see me
and hurry on
away from this impressive terror I must be:
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched a blind man studying his face.
I have set the table in the evening and sat down
to eat the news.
Regularly
I have gone to sleep.
There is no one to forgive me.
The dead do not give a damn.
I live like a lover
who drops her dime into the phone
just as the subway shakes into the station
wasting her message
canceling the question of her call:
fulminating or forgetful but late
and always after the fact that could save or
condemn me
I must become the action of my fate.
2
How many of my brothers and my sisters
will they kill
before I teach myself
retaliation?
Shall we pick a number?
South Africa for instance:
do we agree that more than ten thousand
in less than a year but that less than
five thousand slaughtered in more than six
months will
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?
I must become a menace to my enemies.
3
And if I
if I ever let you slide
who should be extirpated from my universe
who should be cauterized from earth
completely
(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the
. . . . .terrorist degree)
then let my body fail my soul
in its bedeviled lecheries
And if I
if I ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate I o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
. . . . . .wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.
I must become
I must become a menace to my enemies.
June Jordan, 1976 (Dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neto, President of The People's Republic of Angola)
1
I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me:
. . . . . . . . . . Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits
and facial tics
I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to those who hear my footsteps
or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery
cart
then turn around
see me
and hurry on
away from this impressive terror I must be:
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched a blind man studying his face.
I have set the table in the evening and sat down
to eat the news.
Regularly
I have gone to sleep.
There is no one to forgive me.
The dead do not give a damn.
I live like a lover
who drops her dime into the phone
just as the subway shakes into the station
wasting her message
canceling the question of her call:
fulminating or forgetful but late
and always after the fact that could save or
condemn me
I must become the action of my fate.
2
How many of my brothers and my sisters
will they kill
before I teach myself
retaliation?
Shall we pick a number?
South Africa for instance:
do we agree that more than ten thousand
in less than a year but that less than
five thousand slaughtered in more than six
months will
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?
I must become a menace to my enemies.
3
And if I
if I ever let you slide
who should be extirpated from my universe
who should be cauterized from earth
completely
(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the
. . . . .terrorist degree)
then let my body fail my soul
in its bedeviled lecheries
And if I
if I ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate I o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
. . . . . .wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.
I must become
I must become a menace to my enemies.
[via Poets.org↱]
Bridge 14. Feb. 45
Karl Kirchwey
Yet why not say what happened?
―Robert Lowell
On his way to New York at the time of the Trade Center attacks,
Gerhard Richter's flight was rerouted to Halifax.
. His response, having survived a childhood in wartime cities,
was to appropriate a black-and-white photo that depicts
Cologne after a bombing raid in World War II,
an American aerial reconnaissance photo
. . containing only information, without judgment,
and mount it under reflecting Antelio glass, so
the self is not involved in it anywhere,
no composition, therefore, no style, pure picture,
. . freeing the artist from personal experience
and yet incriminating every passing viewer,
for whom it is impossible not to be seen in
that landscape bleak and pitted as the moon,
. . while the Rhine snags in darts of light on a broken bridge.
So it was that one day in a gallery on Madison,
as if drawn by the boisterous and nonchalant whistle
the Australian butcherbird uses to impale
. . its prey on a thorn, I was drawn to this picture,
and watched my own image float and settle
inside the gray frame and the catastrophe,
though it wasn't the cunning of it, but a memory
. . that caught me: and what it was that I remembered,
or rather, what it was reflected there dully,
was a visit to the unfinished cathedral church
across town long ago, and the great porch
. . for which a friend of ours was carving sculptures.
I had just dropped by, I wasn't thinking much,
and in my arms I held our infant daughter.
Smiling, he turned to greet us, the ghastly pallor
. . of stone dust on his face, and the baby screamed,
as Astyanax does when he sees his father Hector
in the grim helmet of war and the plume nodding,
for it was as if she had seen a dead thing
. . climb from the rubble, and she was inconsolable.
But just before we left, I saw what he was making,
which was a column capital with a scene of Armageddon
in which the Twin Towers seemed to waver and lean
. . toward final judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat:
and you understand this was years before 9/11.
Then my face slid from the picture and I was back
in the gallery, in the world of poor passing fact,
. . and I realized I had never seen it in place
on the church facade, that sculpture both prophetic
and now anachronistic of its own loss.
In the roaring avenue I took a bus
. . —and I suppose it should not have surprised me
(I knew the stoneyard had been gone for years)
to find someone had climbed the Great Portal
and, driven by who knows what conspiratorial
thinking, smashed those towers to limestone stubs,
someone for whom the moral mirror was intolerable,
the implication in a greater crime,
and no relief from self, and I by random
. . ways come to witness this,
still squared, forever squared, in that gray frame.
Karl Kirchwey
Yet why not say what happened?
―Robert Lowell
On his way to New York at the time of the Trade Center attacks,
Gerhard Richter's flight was rerouted to Halifax.
. His response, having survived a childhood in wartime cities,
was to appropriate a black-and-white photo that depicts
Cologne after a bombing raid in World War II,
an American aerial reconnaissance photo
. . containing only information, without judgment,
and mount it under reflecting Antelio glass, so
the self is not involved in it anywhere,
no composition, therefore, no style, pure picture,
. . freeing the artist from personal experience
and yet incriminating every passing viewer,
for whom it is impossible not to be seen in
that landscape bleak and pitted as the moon,
. . while the Rhine snags in darts of light on a broken bridge.
So it was that one day in a gallery on Madison,
as if drawn by the boisterous and nonchalant whistle
the Australian butcherbird uses to impale
. . its prey on a thorn, I was drawn to this picture,
and watched my own image float and settle
inside the gray frame and the catastrophe,
though it wasn't the cunning of it, but a memory
. . that caught me: and what it was that I remembered,
or rather, what it was reflected there dully,
was a visit to the unfinished cathedral church
across town long ago, and the great porch
. . for which a friend of ours was carving sculptures.
I had just dropped by, I wasn't thinking much,
and in my arms I held our infant daughter.
Smiling, he turned to greet us, the ghastly pallor
. . of stone dust on his face, and the baby screamed,
as Astyanax does when he sees his father Hector
in the grim helmet of war and the plume nodding,
for it was as if she had seen a dead thing
. . climb from the rubble, and she was inconsolable.
But just before we left, I saw what he was making,
which was a column capital with a scene of Armageddon
in which the Twin Towers seemed to waver and lean
. . toward final judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat:
and you understand this was years before 9/11.
Then my face slid from the picture and I was back
in the gallery, in the world of poor passing fact,
. . and I realized I had never seen it in place
on the church facade, that sculpture both prophetic
and now anachronistic of its own loss.
In the roaring avenue I took a bus
. . —and I suppose it should not have surprised me
(I knew the stoneyard had been gone for years)
to find someone had climbed the Great Portal
and, driven by who knows what conspiratorial
thinking, smashed those towers to limestone stubs,
someone for whom the moral mirror was intolerable,
the implication in a greater crime,
and no relief from self, and I by random
. . ways come to witness this,
still squared, forever squared, in that gray frame.
[via The Yale Review↱]
Two Butterflies went out at noon
By Emily Dickinson
Two Butterflies went out at Noon—
By Emily Dickinson
Two Butterflies went out at Noon—
And waltzed above a Farm—
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested on a Beam—
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested on a Beam—
And then—together bore away
Upon a shining Sea—
Though never yet, in any Port—
Their coming mentioned—be—
Though never yet, in any Port—
Their coming mentioned—be—
If spoken by the distant Bird—
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman—
No notice—was—to me—
By Frigate, or by Merchantman—
No notice—was—to me—
If the Cure for AIDS,
Linda Gregersonsaid someone in that earlier pandemic, were
a glass of clean water, we couldn't save half the people here.
the workers at Tyson Meats come down with the virus we still
have a plan for protecting the owners from lawsuits.
rings when it's long past dark and the milk …
If milk dumped into the culvert makes you think of death.
My neighbor drove to Lansing in his pickup, I expect
you've seen the photos too. The statehouse floor. The rifles. He
we're casting about for ways to summon normal, I've been
watching footage of the day-old chicks.
thousand buried alive, it seems we can't afford the feed.
chicken. I'm mostly confused
Look at the spill of them, dump truck into the pre-
Impassive skyscape. Skittering
a glass of clean water, we couldn't save half the people here.
If half
have a plan for protecting the owners from lawsuits.
If the phone in the farmhouse
If the tanks at the co-op are full …
If milk dumped into the culvert makes you think of death.
My neighbor drove to Lansing in his pickup, I expect
you've seen the photos too. The statehouse floor. The rifles. He
had just culled half his herd. And while
watching footage of the day-old chicks.
The hundred and sixteen
thousand buried alive, it seems we can't afford the feed.
Or can't afford the falling price of
by the articles meant to explain.
dug ditch, the mewling yellow spill of them, still
in the down we find adorable. Red earth.
bits of agitation on the body of the whole.
[via The Yale Review↱]
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”
― David Whyte
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”
― David Whyte
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“Rain"
Oh amiable rain
Washer of trees
and roofs
who has prepared them
for
the pink ray
of evening"
("Poems")”
― Charlotte Gardelle, The Cubist Poets in Paris: An Anthology
Oh amiable rain
Washer of trees
and roofs
who has prepared them
for
the pink ray
of evening"
("Poems")”
― Charlotte Gardelle, The Cubist Poets in Paris: An Anthology
Tonsure
by Kevin Young (2021)
by Kevin Young (2021)
Forever you find
a balding head
for blocks after
some stranger a beer
among a world that mends
upon your face
yours, this father
you became when yours
the men bowed
as a heart: lit
your father
in other faces―a balding head
or beard enough
to send you followingfor blocks after
to make sure
you're wrong, or buying some stranger a beer
to share. Well, not
just one―and here,among a world that mends
only the large things,
let the shadow growupon your face
till you feel
at home. It's allyours, this father
you make
each day, the oneyou became when yours
got yanked away.
Take your place betweenthe men bowed
at the bar, the beer
warming, glowing faintas a heart: lit
from within & just
a hint bitter.― via American Life in Poetry↱
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“Come clean with a child heart
Laugh as peaches in the summer wind
Let rain on a house roof be a song
Let the writing on your face
be a smell of apple orchards on late June.”
― Carl Sandburg, Honey and Salt
Laugh as peaches in the summer wind
Let rain on a house roof be a song
Let the writing on your face
be a smell of apple orchards on late June.”
― Carl Sandburg, Honey and Salt