A little bird named Maryb dropped a hint that this is National Poetry Month. Well! I guess we know what that means around here, don't we? Poetry is ON for the rest of this week, at least. Bring 'em, read 'em, write 'em, any time you please. The photo that looks like a poem? It's by Andif, our photographer laureate.
20 comments:
Yay for Poetry Day/Week/Month! And for a change, I have a real poem. Thanks to my friend Rob for sharing this with me.
after slow death
love must clean house
choose memories to keep
and memories to let go
give each lamentation
an ear to hear
a heart to lay rest
let no soul forget
an eternity of desire awaits
- bell hooks
Here's one of my own: "Witness Protection".
Beth I really like that poem (and appropriate for you this year.
Gerald LOL, I really enjoyed that.
Here's one of my favorite Frank O'Hara poems.
Poem
by FRANK O’HARA
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
Good morning Nancy, Beth, Gerald and Mary.
I guess I don't understand poetry. I always thought all poems had to start with - There once was a man from Nantucket. ;)
Nancy I hope you're feeling better from your dental work yesterday. Today is my turn at the dentist, and I'm going to be one big whinny baby. :)
Everybody have a good day.
Good luck at the dentist FM!
Witty way with words, Gerald.
Here's one for all the writers:
In my craft or sullen art - Dylan Thomas
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Louis Simpson
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
Morning All. Went to Poem in a Pocket site to find mine today. April 30 is Poem in a Pocket day.
What I like about the Blog--you guys/gals do such a good job of being drunk on life!!!
Andi--Nancy is so right that the pic is a poem in itself.
Weekend is winking at us.
Have a great day ALL!!
Picture poem of still
time in a soft serene world?
Ask me, says the red.
Poetry day, FTW!!! I'm just about to head out to Boston but must give you all my contribution:
San Antonio, by Naomi Shihab Nye
Tonight I lingered over your name,
the delicate assembly of vowels
a voice inside my head.
You were sleeping when I arrived.
I stood by your bed
and watched the sheets rise gently.
I knew what slant of light
would make you turn over.
It was then I felt
the highways slide out of my hands.
I remembered the old men
in the west side cafe,
dealing dominoes like magical charms.
It was then I knew,
like a woman looking backward,
I could not leave you,
or find anyone I loved more.
###
You all have a FABULOUS rest of the week. I'm looking forward to being with friends and fans.
Trying to make myself work, let's see if I can ride one from memory (a leaky boat at best):
"The witch that came, the withered hag, to wash the steps with pail and rag, was once the beauty Abashag, the picture pride of Hollywood.
"Too mnay fall from great and good for you to doubt the likelihood. Die early and avoid the fate. Or if pre-destined to die late, make up your mind to die in state.
"Make the whole stock exchange your own. If needbe, occupy a throne, where nobody can call you crone.
"Some have relied on what they knew. Others on being simply true. What worked for them MIGHT work for you.
"Better to go down dignified with boughten friendship at your side, than not at all. Provide Provide."
This is an unusually fine collection, my friends.
Welcome, Gerald So--you and your witty poetry, both.
Thanks, Nancy and all. Glad you liked the poem.
What rhymes with punchy?
breaks into song
I feel groggy, oh so groggy.
Oh so groggy and foggy and dim.
See the groggy boy in that stupor there.
What stupor? Where?
What can that disoriented boy want?
pauses
Caffeine, caffeine, caffeine!
pauses again, runs previous sequence past his frontbrain, shakes his head and quietly apologizes to West Side Story's lyricist then wanders off
Oooh, poetry day, goody.
Love this one: Everyone Sang (Siegfried Sassoon - WWW1poet)
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was fill'd with such delight
As prison'd birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror drifted away...O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Good luck FM. Let us know how it goes.
Nice Dylan Thomas andi. Why do I never think of Dylan Thomas? I need to think of him more.
Love, LOVE, the Baudelaire translation Lisa.
Good choices Maria and ghost.
Kelly - West Side Lyricist = Stephen Sondheim.
Outside my window,
Dogwoods and cherry blossoms
Promise a new spring.
Sappho left fragments in addition to complete pieces. All of these fragments are hers, but I have arranged them:
"I loved you, Atthis, long ago
even when you seemed to me
a small graceless child
you set me on fire.
The moon is set. And the Pleiades.
It's the middle of the night.
Time passes but I sleep alone.
Eros
coming from heaven
throwing off
his purple cloak.
Death is an evil.
That's what the gods think
or they would die.
I tell you
someone will remember us
in the future."
Great poems, great pic, here's one of my favs from Emily Dickinson:
I'm nobody, who are you?
Are you nobody too?
There's a pair of us, don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know!
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog,
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Poetry day?! Hurray!! Lovin' what's been shared thus far.
This is a ditty from Nikki Giovanni's Where Do You Enter in her book "Bicycles" - (I like the sense of movement.)
A poem unfolds
like a baby bat
testing her wings
or a kitten taking
her first steps
or a good dog
moving arthritic limbs
toward the door
That photo is like poetry.
Good evening all!
Not a poem tonight - a book to suggest.
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
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