Poet's Corner

[Sky Dancer]

Only Breath



Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion



or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up



from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist,



am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any



origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.



I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,



first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.



Rumi

 

[midcan5]

'Affirmation'

"To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything."

Donald Hall

 

[midcan5]

'Take Your Pills'

"I’m home now and every thing is supposed to be okay
As hard as I try I still feel so out of place
trapped inside of a world deep within my mind
My thoughts keep rewinding backwards to a distant time
Instead of being a fuzzy picture projected on a screen
I see a high definition massive war machine
We all have demons deep down inside
Mine just come alive when I close my eyes
I yell and holler and cuss and scream
I can’t wake up from my violent dreams
Smoke burns my eyes, I see the face of the dead
The war is still raging inside my head
Paranoia slowly sets in
Lock the door, check the door, check the door again
It’s impossible to fall asleep without a loaded gun
A gun is not a guarantee that sleep will even come
Take a number. Wait your turn. Go to the end of the longest line.
“After a review of your paper work son, we believe that you are just fine.”
“Take this pill, and every thing will be all right…
Don’t let your kids piss you off and try not to hit your wife.”
There concerns are not for me. Its for every one else around
I try to tell them what is wrong but they never hear a sound
I am not the only one who has these thoughts and dreams
Our numbers are growing rapidly because of the war machine
With the sound of mortar rounds still ringing in my ears
The intensity of battle will stay with me for years
I’m expected to be, a functioning member of society
So I do what I can, to hide who I am, so I can be who they want me to be."

Steve Carlsen

 

[mystic]

I don't want to go to work tomorrow
the wail of the insomniac
for if I go to sleep,
I will surely have to wake up

so I postpone my dreamtime
with Random Rattling of the Keyboard
splattering my innards
all over the internet's walls

a soul bouncing around in cyberspace
unhindered by reality
communing with other souls
other Lives being Lived

ever stare out into traffic
and wonder at all the Lives
passing you by in rapid succession?

this screen is my vehicle
your words are a traffic jam

I want to reach out
and touch the intangible
become smaller than an atom
and land in a glass of water

so I may be drunk by the unknown observer
and examine their soul
from the inside out

-me

 

[midcan5]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6W_a2U-bIU]YouTube - Steve Goodman/Penny Evans[/ame]

 

[midcan5]

'A Soldier’s Demon'

"In the fog of war
Believe me, unfortunately I know...
A lot can happen in an instant
In the instant after clear and present danger reveals itself…
Time then slows down, way down
You hear bullets and shrapnel whizzing past you in slow motion,
As if you could reach and pluck them out of thin air...
It is in this moment that you realize that you may be dead…
Before your next thought is able to collect itself in your conscience.

Your finger reaches for the trigger...
You start shooting before you even aim...
As if your entire existence depends on firing your weapon...
You cannot think about anything other than survival...
Not your past, not your family, and not your wife and kids...
All the training means ABSOLUTELY nothing...
No one in your training was willing to die in order to kill you…

Now you start to see red. Different shades of red.
You feel anxious and cosy simultaneously.
You feel inside of the whirlpool and yet on the outside of it as well...
YOU FEEL PROFOUND AND SHALLOW AT THE SAME INSTANT...
BRAVE AND COWARDLY AT ONCE...
Right and wrong means nothing...only alive and dead are on your mind.
WITH A WICKED DEMON AS YOUR SOLE COMPANION...
While you wish for an angel in flight to pass by.

As the dust settles you wonder when, how and why
Your mind is dull, yet your body could begin to fly
Is this the end or just another nightmare that will pass by …
No telling apart the screams of the enemy from a friend’s death cry."

Edward Porter

 

[midcan5]

'Memorial Day'

"M is for mothers who sent their children off to war
E is for the everlasting gift of freedom
M is for the mums that decorate the graves of the soldiers
O is for the old men that are veterans
[R is for reflection]
I is for the island off Hawaii where the Japanese bombed Pearl harbor
A is for America, the home of the brave
L is for the land of the free."

Anna, 3rd Grader, Academy Elementary School, Madison, Connecticut.

Anna missed the 'R' so I took the liberty to add.


Classic title for Memorial Day 2010: This Republic of Suffering - CSMonitor.com

 

[midcan5]

'The trouble with terrorists'

"The trouble with terrorists
is
that they have sunk to the level
of their enemies
condemning whole peoples
on the basis
of the actions
of a few
and with almighty arrogance
have assumed the right
to allot punishment –
torturing injuries, trauma and death
almost at random
as if they themselves
are innocents!

Let them forsake their hysteria
stop the rant
state their aims
make their case.

This cuts
both ways."

David Roberts

 

[midcan5]

'Asking for Directions'

"We could have been mistaken for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan to Chicago
that last time we were together. I remember
looking out the window and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places, the world
with its back turned to us, the small neglected
stations of our history. I slept across your
chest and stomach without asking permission
because they were the last hours. There was
a smell to the sheepskin lining of your new
Chinese vest that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early and asked you
to come with me for coffee. You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour and you came.
We didn't say much after that. In the station,
you took your things and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned. So you would have
ten minutes to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end, so still I was
aware of myself breathing. I put on the vest
and my coat, got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window standing outside looking
up at me. We looked at each other without any
expression at all. Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of as proof
that you loved me permanently. After that I was
a woman alone carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi."

Linda Gregg

 

[midcan5]

'Yard Work'

"My leaf blower lifted the blackbird—
wings still spread, weightless,
floating on the loud, electric wind
almost as if it were alive.

Three or four times it flew,
but fell again, sideslipped down
like a kite with no string,
so I gave up. . . I had work to do,

and when the dust I raised
had settled in that other world
under the rose bushes, the ants
came back to finish theirs."

Don Thompson

 

[Sheldon]

I wouldn't be surprised if this one has already been posted in this thread. One of my favorites.

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

--Rupert Brooke

 

[midcan5]

'Bored'

"All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove, steered, paddled. It
wasn't even boredom, it was looking,
looking hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their time at,
ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels,
shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed
such things out, and I would look
at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under
the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know."

Margaret Atwood

 

[midcan5]

'A Boy and His Dad'

"A boy [girls too] and his dad on a fishing-trip—
There is a glorious fellowship!
Father and son and the open sky
And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
And the laughing stream as it runs along
With the clicking reel like a martial song,
And the father teaching the youngster gay
How to land a fish in the sportsman's way.

I fancy I hear them talking there
In an open boat, and the speech is fair.
And the boy is learning the ways of men
From the finest man in his youthful ken.
Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
With the gentle father who's with him there.
And the greatest mind of the human race
Not for one minute could take his place.

Which is happier, man or boy?
The soul of the father is steeped in joy,
For he's finding out, to his heart's delight,
That his son is fit for the future fight.
He is learning the glorious depths of him,
And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim;
And he shall discover, when night comes on,
How close he has grown to his little son.

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
Builders of life's companionship!
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,
For out of the old, old long-ago
Come the summer days that I used to know,
When I learned life's truths from my father's lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips."

Edgar Guest

 

[midcan5]

'Summer at Blue Creek, North Carolina'

"There was no water at my grandfather's
when I was a kid and would go for it
with two zinc buckets. Down the path,
past the cow by the foundation where
the fine people's house was before
they arranged to have it burned down.
To the neighbor's cool well. Would
come back with pails too heavy,
so my mouth pulled out of shape.
I see myself, but from the outside.
I keep trying to feel who I was,
and cannot. Hear clearly the sound
the bucket made hitting the sides
of the stone well going down,
but never the sound of me."

Jack Gilbert

 

[Woyzeck]

If you understand others you are smart.
If you understand yourself you are illuminated.
If you overcome others you are powerful.
If you overcome yourself you have strength.
If you know how to be satisfied you are rich.
If you can act with vigor you have a will.
If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting.

If you die without loss you are eternal.
- from the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33 by Lao Tzu

 

[midcan5]

'Fat Southern Men in Summer Suits'

"Fat Southern men in their summer suits,
Usually with suspenders, love to sweat
Into and even through their coats,

Taking it as a matter of honor to do so,
Especially when the humidity gets as close
As it does each Southern summer.

Some think men could do better
By just going ahead and taking the damned
Coats off, but the summer code stays

Because summer is the time
For many men, no matter what their class,
To be Southern Gentlemen by keeping

Those coats on. So late in life here I am
Down here again, having run to fat
(As Southern men tend), visiting the farm

Where my grandfather deposited
So much of his own working sweat,
Where Granddaddy never bought into any

Of "that Southern Gentleman crap."
Up north where I landed in the urban
Middle class I am seldom caught

Not wearing a coat of some kind. I love
The coats, and though I love them most
In the fall I still enact the summer code,

I suppose, because my father and I did buy
That code, even though I organized students
To strike down any dress code whatsoever

In the high school I attended (it was a matter
Of honor). And it still puts me in good humor
To abide with the many pockets, including

One for a flask. So whether it's New York,
Vermont, or Virginia, the spectacle
Of the summer seersucker proceeds,

Suspenders and all, and I lean into the sweat
(Right down to where the weather really is)
Until it has entirely soaked through my jacket."

Liam Rector

 

[PatekPhilippe]

Passing Time
Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk

One paints the beginning
of a certain end.

The other, the end of a
sure beginning

Maya Angelou

 

[dilloduck]

The Two Sided Man

Much I owe to the Lands that grew--
More to the Lives that fed--
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.

Much I reflect on the Good and the True
In the Faiths beneath the sun,
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Sides to my head, not one.

Wesley's following, Calvin's flock,
White or yellow or bronze,
Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok,
Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze--

Here is a health, my brothers, to you,
However your prayers are said,
And praised be Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head!

I would go without shirt or shoe,
Friend, tobacco or bread,
Sooner than lose for a minute the two
Separate sides of my head!

Rudyard Kipling

 

[midcan5]

'A Lesson for This Sunday'

"The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
And rituals no more upsetting than a
Black maid shaking linen as she sings
The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna—
Since I lie idling from the thought in things—

Or so they should, until I hear the cries
Of two small children hunting yellow wings,
Who break my Sabbath with the thought of sin.
Brother and sister, with a common pin,
Frowning like serious lepidopterists.
The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.
Crouched on plump haunches, as a mantis prays
She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.
The lesson is the same. The maid removes
Both prodigies from their interest in science.
The girl, in lemon frock, begins to scream
As the maimed, teetering thing attempts its flight.
She is herself a thing of summery light,
Frail as a flower in this blue August air,
Not marked for some late grief that cannot speak.

The mind swings inward on itself in fear
Swayed towards nausea from each normal sign.
Heredity of cruelty everywhere,
And everywhere the frocks of summer torn,
The long look back to see where choice is born,
As summer grass sways to the scythe's design."

Derek Walcott

 

[midcan5]

'Politics Last Summer'

"The pederasts were pederasting,
The sycophants were sycophanting
and Washington was awash in the slime of politics

when suddenly the three wise monkeys
burst into the committee room
beating on drums and demanding

an end to the teaching of Darwinism or any
theory that related them, even distantly,
to such a debauched creature as man.

Meanwhile, the homeless were trying
to form a union so each of them
could have a pot and a window.
Can you imagine the gall? A pot and a window!"

Richard Shelton