Poet Laureate Jeannerene: October 2006 - March 2007

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Poet Laureate Jeannerene: October 2006 - March 2007

Post by heinzs » Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:54 am

Thank you ... Thank you! .... all .... for the opportunity to serve as Poetry Pages' Poet Laureate for the last six months. I have to say that I quite enjoyed it, especially featuring the work of my fellow poets. I have a passion for the history "behind" the English language and was also pleased to be able to share, with you a few, but not all, of the interesting tidbits I find while browsing late at night. I will continue to add to Bits and Pieces when times allows or I find something of particular interest concerning the history or development of the Queen's tongue. I also plan to keep adding to And this is dedicated to the one we love .... because ... ? ... because the friendship, admiration and respect we share and express with each other on these Pages is a good thing ... and good things need a special bookmark...:mrgreen:

Much love and peace .... many hugs ..... and blessings to you ... and to each your unique and unfailing Muse!!


...jeanne...


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Featured Page's Poets
March 2007 - Berlie (Kimberly Eddleman)
February 2007 - Amathir
December 2006 - Morgaine
Novermber 2006 - Moonflower (Valerie Vandegriff)
October 2006 - Drew Rush

Uncommon Words - PP Poets
Squawk
zero
Heinz

While Browsing
Elmaz Abi-Nader
David Whyte
Ted Kooser
Kenneth Rexroth

Bits and Pieces

. . . and this is dedicated to the one we love

A collection of quotes on the nature of .... and the writing of poetry

I said, There are 300 DIFFERENT WAYS TO SAY "SAID"

Ye Old English Sayings .... so that's where it came from!

Swear with a classic flare or how to insult with enthusiasm

WRITER'S BLOCK ... AND LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS ... OH MY!

MUSTERING THE MUSE...

*numerous humorous ludicrous poemious


__________________________________________________________
****************************************************


MONTHLY FEATURED PAGE'S POETS


Berlie.......Kimberly Eddleman :arrow: Member #1 and creator of PoetryPages.com.............

What can I say .... without Berlie ... none of us would be here, enjoying the opportunity to express ourselves, poetically and otherwise among friends. Berlie created PoetryPages in 1999 and with so many poetry sites being created each and everyday, the continued success and growth of PP truly speaks of her creative and administrative talent and insight....

...... and lets not forget Self-Pub.Net, ShoppingAide.com. I am sure there are more websites that I'm not aware of ... right!

Berlie's most recent book of her own poetry is To Claim My Soul.

...when reading Berlie's poetry I am very aware of her passion, the strength of her voice, and her quest to understand the world that surrounds her.

I've posted a few of my favorites. You'll want to read more:

Berlie's Poems


<center>We must not think evil

"we must not think evil of this man"
the words of a grandfather
spoken over the body of a slain little girl
his own family, his own blood
offering his forgiveness
to this sick, bastard of a man
who took the lives of five of their own

I did not cry
when I heard of the shooting
or the day two more died
instead I cursed the killer
and shook my head in anger

today I read Grandpa's words,
felt his strength and courage
from the faith in his heart

and now I cry
with an ache in my soul
where the old hurt resides

this simple man can forgive a stranger
who caused so much pain
yet I lack the strength
to forgive even my own father</center>


***

<center>i walked away

You held me close
I gasped for air
placed me on a pedestal
and left me there

You nurtured me
we grew apart
gave me your soul
I broke your heart

You said you loved me
ten times a day
begged me...don't go
I walked away</center>


***


stained


stained
by a dark past
these marks
meant to last
scrub them
bloody and raw
they always heal
with a scar
hide them
no one can see
this shameful
part of me

forgive the past
let it be
accept yourself
you're loved by me


it's too late
the stain too deep
I cut it out
and now... I'm free


***


today i wrote poetry

today i wrote poetry
it wasn't written down
there were no words to speak
it will win no awards
that wasn't meant to be

it contained no rhymes
nor meters or lines
syllables were not accounted for
i don't do that anymore

today i wrote poetry
by simply being alive
every gesture, every smile
a bit of muse set free

...thats poetry enough for me


***


Runaway


street signs flicker past
city lights fall behind
peering out the darkened glass
my reflection looking back

the past I leave behind
the future lies ahead
not sure where this road will take me
not certain I should have fled

sighing I adjust the headphones
drowning out the noise with song
closing eyes to try to sleep
the greyhound bus rumbles on


February, 1999


***


Whispering Prayers


a child lays huddled
under the covers
hands pressed tight
against her ears

a shattering of glass
follows a slammed door
and she whispers prayers...

please God


a shouted curse chases her
everywhere she runs, it finds
so she learns to build a fortress
and cowers, deep within her mind

just make them stop

loving voices, raised in anger
left a mark on her tender heart
fears and tears she learned to bury
but the scars her soul still bears

I'll be good, I swear

a child lays huddled
under the covers
whispering prayers...


***

I Wonder

I wonder what lies over the hill
Beyond the stars after the kill
I wonder what tomorrow will bring
Which flower will bloom which bird will sing
I wonder what the future holds
Where will I be when life unfolds
I wonder what lies over the sea
Beyond the moon; inside of me
I wonder what makes me breathe
My heart beat; the spider weave
And I wonder if I will ever know
Before my last breath; before my last show


***


Daughter of Man


No one knows
Just who I am
Yet I am simply
The daughter of Man


Grasping my hands
Of Heaven's dirt
A touch of love
A touch of hurt

From Death I come
To Death I go
On whispering winds
To claim my soul


***

Haiku

gossiping
on the telephone wire
blue jays

---------

blue heron
treetop landing
not a quiver


---------


behind the dumpster
three legged dog, skin and bones
best friend, discarded


***

The Fence that Separates
* for Troy

a chain link fence, separates
the two backyards of
two houses and
two young children
a boy and a girl
who one day spy each other
and with the launching of a tomato
war is declared
and so begins the bombardment
of rotten vegetables and
after much laughter
and ruined gardens
peace is declared and
a young friendship is born
nimble hands and feet find their way
over the fence that separates
and they explore
each others yards and
their new friendship
the fathers, seeing this
converge on the fence and build a gate
so it no longer, separates
a path is worn through the gate
and in each others hearts
trees are climbed and
secrets are shared
and troubles are forgotten
left behind, for a time
as they pass through the gate

over the years the path grows deep
and the friendship grows strong
then one day the girl is gone,
her family moved on
and a padlock appears on the gate
weeds grow and choke the path
the hinges turn to rust and
the memory of the friendship fades
and the fence, once again, separates

:hello:
____________________________________________________________
AMATHIR

FEATURED POET FEBRUARY 2007

Amathir joined Poetry Pages in November of 2003. I deeply admire and respect his poetry. An exceptional talent!! I have stayed true to Amathir's sometimes curious font size (bottom two poems) ... I tried posting it larger ... but then it just didn't say "Amathir" ...

If you don't know this Poetry Pages Poet ... stop and read awhile. You will leave richer for the experience.



***
Over Dinner


My senses are subdued, touched
By the gentle evening atmosphere;
The blue illumination of the moon,
And sweet taste of the cooling air.

The calamity of the street
Seems so far off,
As I cannot pull my mind away
From us, here. Immersed,

As in the devoted composition
Of a poem. Every word
Dwelt upon with utmost care,
As the rhythm of expression flows.

I cannot halt mid-passage,
Nor turn from intimate awareness
Of the metre of our interplay;
Banality cannot draw me out

Of this reverie over dinner.
The ambience we ourselves compose
By sitting across from one another,
Is punctuated by a genial duel of wits.

The appetite is only half-appeased
When dinner is done. Still more
To be consumed, even at this hour.
But that can be saved for a later date.
There is no rush to finish


***


When the Waters Cease Flowing


Light filters in through the crystals
Of the frosted glass; one determined
Stroke of white, the door ajar, slightly.
Enough for a solitary eye to peer
Through the rising steam.

She has forgotten to turn on the fan
To disperse the mists, and now
The mirror is fogged, reflection obscured,
Much like the glass door that conceals her.
Almost.

She bathes her face in the falling water,
Her mouth open, filling, closes,
Then opens again
As she pushes the water out
With her tongue.

Streaming down her throat, joining
The torrent falling from above, flowing
Between her wholesome breast,
A fountainhead, breaking off into rivers,
Coursing across her belly, caressing down.

She turns. Her eyes closed,
Still immersed by the heavenly rains
As she works the lather upon her body,
Long drawn-out strokes, both hands, her thighs up
To her face, across her breast, and down;

He cannot see, no matter the angles he tries,
Only the foam and bubbles that trickle
From her shoulders down,
The long lingering journey
Down the valley of her spine, settling

At the small, over-flowing down,
Splashing to the ground at her feet;
Pooling with yet more foam and bubbles,
The rest that she has washed from her skin
With her own hands.

He sighs. Suddenly stops.
He longs to be found out, but not now;
Trepidation sweltering with his tongue.
He shivers, even in these tropical climes,
He is beside himself in reverie watching on.

There is no satisfaction except to watch
As she turns once more, now facing him,
Her body in full, now in inches, distant;
Her navel but a kiss from his lips.
A bolder man might make himself known,

But he steals away as she turns the water off;
Bumping the towel loose and to the floor,
His haste and bashful hue lead him dizzy
To the door, out, and to safety.
A cool glass of water from the kitchen.

He sits, flicking through a magazine,
And then TV channels. She comes out,
Wrapped in her towel, barely concealing.
Breasts squeezed together in their bounty,
The least of her thighs covered.

If only she knew.
She closes the bedroom door, dresses,
Then re-emerges in a fine black dress,
Straightening, shifting, brushing.
He dutifully zips her up.
A car horn sounds. She leaves.

If only she knew.


***


Poem of the Week June 18, 2006

Last Poem of a Pirate


I closed my eyes and saw
The sky in the back of my ‘lids;
I breathed in the salty veil,
And the spray upon my cheek,
A welcome wetness, a kiss
From my mistress, and one
True love.

I have no feet for land these days;
The constant cutting of the waves,
The sturdy bough, and the whipping
Of an angry sail in the hazy tumult
Of the open sea, fill my senses
To the very brim of conscious holding.


Bound, alone, cold, I stand before
A gawking rabble, noosed
For their delight. All the whores
And drunkards of the taverns,
And the merchants and the soldiers;
I’d never slit their throats, till now.

All the bounty, buried beneath
My pants and the sands
Of a foreign island, now lost;
And I am condemned,
As they are, to lose my life
And take it all to my grave.


***


“Kess of Bacchia”

I

Roam the Woods of the Satyrs’ Endless Night
To catch a glimpse of Her. To see Her
Caress the waters’ of the lake.
An act mere mortals call swimming,
The routine of bathing by the moons’ light.

But She, wading the shallows,
Every wave about her supple flesh
Refusing to depart and ripple onward.
She does not bathe, for she is carried
By the water. Ever droplet yearning;

If only to caress Her once, from head to toe,
They would carry Her about across the lake.
Beneath the moon, that always seems to shine
Upon Her. Glistening off her curves as she glitters
On the lake like the stars above.

Even the trees sway toward Her,
And whisper with the winds, Her name.
Flowers like a lusting adolescent
Cannot but bloom too soon for Her
And burst in premature petals; their love.

And she, unaware or unconcerned
By it all. Perhaps used to it by now
That so many watch Her, adoring.
Or with fantasies of what can never be
Swelling their tongues and their loins.

Possessed of all the fullness of charm,
Mere seduction in her passing by;
A pleasure to all the senses.
She cannot but be desired by all in nature;
It is the justice of Her beauty.

II

You are but a flower in the forest.
You watch her emerge on the bank.
Sprites who spring from both woods and lake
Embrace her with a veil of silver
That clings to her still-moist body.

Enrapt as any eye, embracing every curve
And sacred grove. Every subtle arc of flesh
And flex of muscle, bestowed a silver lining,
Every shiver shimmering like the ripple on a pond.
Ever step a grace for eyes’ delight.

She dances around each and every tree,
And beneath each bough.
Her skin still drips with water
That splashes to the ground.
The earth seems to tremble

Wherever she treads. Shy from the touch
Of a beautiful woman, like a young boy.
Even the delicate lilacs, burgeon
As she nears. And wilt as she walks passed
Without a glance.

Fairies flitter about her brow,
Weaving, adorning her with laurels;
Her beauty, nature’s prize amongst all;
She casts them aside with simple gesture,
But smiles as she does.

III

The Satyrs gather behind her,
And play their music, and dance.
Gesturing and beckoning her to join.
Some tug at her arms, and abscond
As she shakes them away.

Unashamed and erect, they dance.
Pouring wine about her feet.
Lapping it from her footprints
As she keeps her pace, steady and fluid.
No notice of their offerings.

With fury they sing, and chant Her name,
And drink, and masturbate, those
Who can no longer contain their frenzy.
You watch as She smiles, mischievous,
At the debauched serenade.

She loosens the silver veil, tightly wound
About her body, and lets it drop to her feet.
There… in full glory, She is. Her own radiance
Lights the surrounding trees, as all nature
Lets out a collective sigh, and every Satyr

Groans in pleasure, and all and one soon
Become silent. Their breathing heavier;
Steadier; almost in unison. Even yours,
Rhythmic and deep, in the throes of satiety;
A symphony echoing…

IV

Drums sound. Horns blow.
The soft growl of every Satyr turns
Into a howl. Forced high in to their throats.
Their hands releasing all that they hold
As they pull at the hair upon their chests.

You hide behind a towering oak,
Though it wretched with age,
As the silhouette of a man, a True Man,
Steps out. A chalice in one hand,
His free hand, high into the night air.

His fingers click, and a purple light
Rises from the ground, coalescing
With the golden light from Her,
And the blue light from the moon,
Permeating through the canopy.

He stands naked, a more beautiful man
Envious eyes have yet to lay upon.
Even the floating faeries are in awe
Of His perfect form, well endowed
Of every muscle of His body.

His eyes meet Hers, and they linger.
He caresses the air before him
As he traces Her curves from afar;
As the woods’ themselves sigh,
And She quivers, though untouched.

V

He turns and She walks to his side,
Taking the chalice, she drinks.
The Satyr dance and sing
And thump their chests,
And bring themselves back to frenzy.

The music grows louder as they walk,
Hand to hand, down the path that seems
To clear away with every step they take.
How perfect they look, you think to yourself.
But you swell with a fury.

Your frenzy is not lost for her.
And you follow. Light from torches
Grow closer with every step,
As the music and the singing,
The moaning and chanting draw nearer.

An aroma of wine and sweat,
Mixing together, wafts and weaves
It’s way down the path to your nose.
The Satyrs have already caught scent
And raced out of sight, ahead and howling,

VI

Distortions of flesh, and fountains of wine,
In places mixed with blood,
As the light from torches dances with shadow
Upon the obscene and grotesque scene.
He, who is called Bacchus, with her hand

In his, steps upon body after body,
Guiding her across the writhing sea of flesh,
Effortlessly. She, still graceful as she kneels
To fill the chalice with the flowing wine.
With her finger, across a young girls back,

She takes a sample to her lips, and smiles.
He mounts his throne and claps his hands.
All and one stop, and rise to their feet.
Every eye upon the beautiful woman
Who wanders the throng of bacchic revellers.

Bacchus watches with intent, His eyes fixed
As every other eye. You see the look
Of anticipation in every face that follows her.
Hope. You know that look in your own reflection.
As if this scene has played out before. Many times.

You know what that smile is on her face.
He knows it too, as he rises from his throne,
Now erect, and calls to her, his arms out-stretched.
His Satyrs keeping the younger maidens who clamour
At bay. Some taking liberties with the young beauties.

VII

He sings with such a beautiful voice
As a chorus forms behind him:
Three satyrs; three men; three women.
Who sing accompaniment, as music
rises from the depths of the forest.

He sings a story of high romance,
Of a girl, who from birth was destined
To be His most glorious mate.
She, sprung from the fount of beauty,
The flowing waters where all nymphs bathe.

She, the most beautiful of them all.
No curve of her form lacking measure;
The envy even of Goddesses who watch;
But even they could not but adore her
As she rose, saturated and gleaming,

All present, held fixed, as if the rhythm
Of paradise had been disrupted
And replaced by something new: Her.
Each adjusting in Her presence
Like eyes to the glorious sun.

She is to be his, and only his.
The Queen of All Flesh, her title.
And they would rule all the forests,
Hand in hand, making love. His fidelity,
Secured for her, for the first time.

The envy of every Bacchante,
If only she would take it,
And don the mantle of his bride.
He offers her all Bacchia each night,
And each night waits on her reply.

VIII

She wanders where Her eye takes Her
While He sings in His rhapsody.
She greets the youthful onlookers;
A smile, and deep lustrous gaze;
The simple power that she wields.

All the throng surrounds Her,
To look upon, and be looked upon
By Her. The bestow of Her Grace
In Her presence; He would have it, too,
He would have it more,

He would offer more than any could.
And She knows it.
But Her virtue demands still more.
That prize, always out of reach,
Her will unbroken.

Hers’ is the greatest prize,
Sprung from that Womb of Beauty,
Where all nymphs bathe. Hers,
And Hers alone to decide. Beyond
The grasp and grope of destiny.

How he hates that he cannot take
What he desires. But he cannot
Relent in his pursuit. Endless Nights,
Revelled just for her, in her name.
He cannot recall how many now.

IX

She turns back toward the opening
And the path that leads here.
You watch as she passes all the faces,
Tinged with gloom, yet still with adore;
Bodies deflated, as if She

Had drawn the air from every mouth
And left them empty. It is one thing
To suffocate in the rarity of Her presence,
It is a bliss; but Her absence robs
The scene of all life.

Bacchus blushes, his lip curls.
You have never seen him look this way.
His head slumps but his eyes
Are attached to her form, now
Disappearing through forest.

The Satyrs cry out, and chase off
Down the path, no longer in joy.
They grovel; they lay at her feet;
Pluck flowers, hastily, and throw them
To her.

They share their masters’ pain,
But She will have none if it.
She will return to the waters,
The fount and abode of Beauty
Until the next Endless Night,

And avail Him, yet another chance
To woo her to his love.
But She is beyond the reach
Of any man, even Gods.
Her Beauty is untouchable.


***



What's in a Name, My Lonesome Friend?


I wandered from the bustling crowds


Of my countrymen, far from town,


Taking counsel from the clouds


And the falling leaves of brown.





So much is made of names there.


Not here; and I never let it slip.


I am never asked, to be fair,


No lure set to prise it from my lips.





For as it is, it is my lone domain


Left solely to my heart’s behest.


Unspoken, it shall remain


As I roam,


Clasped to, forever, at my breast.



***

A Photographer's Legacy


If I had not stopped to photograph
That child dancing in the fountain’s spray,
Throughout this hot mid-summer’s day
I would go on with much ill will.

If I had missed her play and laugh,
And take to the water with such a thrill;
Had I not been brought to a standstill
By her joyful ways,

I would be lost to this city heat;
Distanced from what my days may have
To offer me, and what I might save
From burning here, on one-way streets.


***


To Her Home


Is it not strange,
Never to have seen a Muse
In Her skin of inspiration?

More like a dream,
Woven in the borders
Of the mind and the gaze,

And the corners of the heart,
Where felt expression resides
With Her image, embracing.


Countless paths to Her terrace
And Her door, so readily trod,
But always passing, unheralded.

In the dark, passed by unnoticed,
Even in the light of day.
Fond feelings, thoughts left at Her sill,

Where a light flickers from within;
The unmistakable glow of life,
The buzz of activity and living.


What an abode to pass by
Without mention of its host:
Muse called Kess.

What luxury of persona
Those walls conceal,
And windows rarely reveal;

It is like a secret safely held,
Passed by, by the unsuspecting,
And even by we who know.


There is foreboding, silent
On the threshold to Her realm,
And this man standing idle,

Unsure to knock, or leave
Without a word uttered.
This home is not his,

Yet it holds sway over him,
Like the lure of a nymph;
Deeper into an unknown forest.


It is the rarest thing,
Drawn heedless, yet open-eyed
Through the streets

To Her door, locked, unlocked;
One cannot say for sure,
Nor surer that She resides within.

Or if She is alone inside,
Or if it is company She seeks,
Or if one is even worthy.


What fairy tale persists?
Or Myth, or Legend of Her,
The Unseen Muse,

That keeps Me at her door,
Yet my hands at bay,
Or toying with pen and paper.

Pleasurably stranded to brood
And ponder on Her step,
Sliding poems under her door.


Is it not a legitimate kind of love?
Strange that I see her face
And yet not, but so close;

It is in the orbit of the margins:
The doors, the windows,
The glimpses, the moments,

Where Her wholesome flesh
Is inscribed its wholeness;
Each poem bringing it nearer completion…


***


To the Girl and the Coffee Shop


Nectar of Modern God-likes,
That blessed brown bean,
The aroma dancing all about me
As I await my own chalice-full.

Of all those sweet mortals
Who tend the boiling ambrosia,
Call them angels, handmaidens,
Chosen, one outshines

Like the moon does the stars
When in full silver bloom.
And if I were a God, or like,
I would have called for her to sit

And sup on conversation
And a glorious potion, potent
On the palette, and while away
The afternoon as at a banquet.

Bless me twice, maiden;
Fulfil my senses in this temple
To the unhurried pleasures
Of simply being. A sanctuary,

Cherished by the few who find,
And take the time to sit.
If you would only take the time
To sit…
Who knows what’s there to find…


***


Poem of the Week: November 5, 2006


Encountering The Muses: The Phenomenology of The Poet


Part dreaming, part fantasy conjured;


Embodied in the senses, yet weightless.


Mystical reverie and direct intuition,


Active together


In Conscious and Unconscious frames.





The reality of it could not be more real,


But nothing like reality


In it’s apparent everydayness.


Indeed, she has her body-at-hand, and aspects


That draw the attention to its fine-most point;


The lucid horizon of the intentional gaze


Mapping the finitudes of a promising fate.





It is a pleasure,


But a pleasure on the threshold.


For there is always a ‘beyond’;


Just over the horizon,


Always more beyond.


And yet, to push back the horizon,


Back to its outer-most, only brings us back


To the point where one first catches sight.


The promise of that which lies beyond


Is always well beyond.





Our senses cannot penetrate the boundary,


For the boundary is the senses


And it lies in all directions.


It is the mind,


The original source and final destination,


The alpha and the omega of the senses;


The mind


Is always already beyond.





Through this Transcendental Gateway;


Through which


Muser and The Muse must pass;


Beyond which


Muser and The Muse float weightlessly;


The Poet irrupts into Being.





Where fragments,


Infinite shards of nuance


Reflect the light


From the gaze of angular consciousness.


Prismatic negation,


The attrition of mutual-cancellations,


Casting out blinding shadows.


Reminiscent of the darkest dark-spots


Of a once-glorious sun, now diminished


In it’s long, drawn-out throes of death.





But the collapse


Precedes the union (but not a reunion)


Of the fragments into total Concord.


It is a dawning


That dissolves the finite horizon


Resting upon the ocean of the senses.





As light fades


And gives way to Enlightenment,


And the ocean sinks away,


The Illusions,


Once the tools of navigation,


Unveil the potency of Being,


Its endless potential


Both realised and awaiting.





The Poet is revealed at once.


The becomingness of Muse and Muser;


Inspired Oneness


Moving towards the Infinite Mass


Of a wholly created universe.


The Unity of mutual origination,


A beautiful birth


That only I have known.



***


Delightful Reverie: Contemplation of Completion


I lay with Her,


In dreams;

Half-submerged in Her, coalescing.


A oneness where I can feel Her


From within, yet look upon Her


From without.



It is love-making, made free


Of restraints placed upon us


By a demanding physical universe.


Our embodiment,


Pure of sense,


Both bound and unbound at once;


The erotic consciousness awakening


In the dawn of Love’s limitless will.



Ours is the unity of the cosmos,


Its completeness,


Where the meaning of existence blooms


With the force of its first creation


To the Mind-in-Love;


(The Loving-Mind)




Aware, for the first time, of itself


Through Her.


:hello:
____________________________________________________________
MORGAINE
FEATURED POET . . . DECEMBER 2006



Morgaine joined Poetry Pages in November of 2004. I remember reading Morgaine's poetry when she first joined and thinking her poetry sprang from a very strong inner voice. Morgaine's voice has grown even stronger .... and I admire her powerful and honest emotion. It was really a pleasure to rediscover her work. I will be looking forward to reading Morgaine's new work ... and poems that reflect the recent changes in her life.......

She has just recently started a archive... definitely read it!
~morgaine's poems~


A Love So Strong

this willing soul
calls me by name
understands my flaws
sees the beauty of who I am

forever, a love so strong
each day my heart intensifies
to see his adoring smile, his familiar laughter
us together living the hours in this city
oh how, this soul keeps me real

I am drowning in pure devotion
the obsession of comfort and touch
bleeds through my pores
stretching this manic heart
reveiling thunderous splendor in him


***

To my love,
I've found hope inside:
borne out of a divine peace of mind.

To my god,
I've found devotion in someone.


***

when is it going to be my time to rise
to let all i am completely surround me...when I am stable?
reassuring to the hands of the people who love me

its all cloudy now
the viewpoint of my righteous form
she is hidden from the world, from myself
she stands like my shadow pleading my body to take her fire
but the desire is gone

it has left me stranded at the edge of my life
teedering a lifetime of fuckups
til i make the right move

maybe i'll runaway like before
but it never is like it was before
so i drain this hideous watchman that makes me stay
til I find my way back home


***


Brokedown

first you stay
then weeks you fall
how far will this stand
to say we are want

you taste the confusion
and i know
you feel my eyes
the cost of reliving
and you feel the change

cause tonight, we are brokedown
our hell is one.


***

Waiting to Run

I hate waiting, you know that.
the impulsive need to run presides.
so here I am, in front of my house, looking at the cracked entrance.
now i find myself entering the boarder of disconjoining states,
knowing this is not what we wanted, not this way.
so i think i better not knock on your door, just stand there
hanging onto hope that maybe you'll hold me in your arms
and nothing of me distrurbs our moment.
but this is only a dream and
so I am willing to wait because I love you.


***

The Secrets My God Keeps

I've got a secret
implanted deep in marrow
that its so far gone
you'd have to crawl the atmosphere
to rearrange some kind of cryptic analog

anticipate the coming of two moons
layed out on the black surface of the sky
'cause my god carries little sharp knives
proding out diaries of my dimensions
wearing its toothless grin like those artless statues

I've tasted God
it was sexless
no defining marks
you'd have to swim lake upon lake to see even a scratch
suppose I wanted to send God a story
reciting the words of my suffering
God would surely answer my calling

I take it you don't look upon a God
I can see the bleeding of your hands, your own doing
the grotesque feeding of denial

Wake up, the bliss you so desperately wanted
ran away while you, with the bathroom light dimmed
tasted your bitter hate of the world


***


19 Prostitutions - January Challenge

cramped in that dark basement, rots
77 feet deep nitroglicerin vats
glossy red with black undertones
seeps through the floors
bacterial nemesis
contagious when airborne

seek your execution.

the 19 glazed voices
of initiated pain calling you
through the airduct
while hurdling the verges
of turquiose vermin

give me your contribution.

solitary priest in white dress
points a bitter satirical finger
down your spine
the only resolution is the
first day of the end of
your reign

uptairs in that bleak house, you
call a home
you find a box of matches
pure retribution strikes
the wall and
fairy nemesis
opens your head
of 1977 lies


***


The World Grows Around My Head


there is enrichness...I see it spiriling in dark places
I wonder if the world sees me
shaking the bittersweet comfort of Gods hand
the grotesque scars I carry fade
words of my truth painted in the sky


***


She Has My Eulogy


misery drags me down,
underneath its breath.

the backdrop of everything
I'm not comes fleeting excuses.

am i not the energy of all love,
in all this suspecting love?

God, she has my eulogy!
I repent my womanly desire.

my life is an apocalyptic crime scene,
feeding on the power of her aversion.

She is the little girl,
I condemened to be good.

when my heart is confused with hate,
she is my blame.

I am dying,
she is surviving, thriving in me.


***


Righteous Woman, How Beautful Your Existence! (For My Mother)

mother can't you see
this swarming devotion
planted at your feet
I speak of so much adoration
pouring out of me, onto you
how being my mother, this righteous woman
catapults the sky

I've found my beating heart
get brighter as you guide me
bursting like a prism
stretching for miles and miles
you keep me alive
feeling that drive of love
penetrate all that I know
how you believe in me
even in conflict of minds
constantly faithful to accept my flaws
I sit and breathe in your wonderful existence

:hello:
____________________________________________________________
MOONFLOWER
FEATURED POET . . . NOVEMBER 2006


~ haiku waiting upon a gentle woman

moonflower daydream
seasons stirring mystery
valerie's haiku


Valerie Vandegriff ......
our moonflower, has been a member of Poetry Pages since March of 2002. She has been a moderator for the Tribute, Humorous and Briefs Forums for some time and her contributions to Poetry Pages over the years are beyond numerous. Her daughter, JellyBean, is also a member!

I admire Valerie's ability to so adeptly capture Nature's beauty. I also admire the gentle and very real way she touches the reader's heart in all her poetry. I think she is a "perfect haiku" .............

I hope you enjoy Moonflower's poems and please visit her Poet's Page.
~moonflower's poems~


***

<center>October

Earth wears Autumn's face
painted by October's hand
..Jack Frost waits in line..</center>


***

<center>November

Autumn's colors fade
sweaters reclaimed from moth balls
frosty November</center>


***


for Ravyn (Jennifer Sloan)

Living On...

The Raven flew among us
for a little while
She gave so freely of herself
Sometimes she cried,
Sometimes she smiled

Goodbye dear Raven
as you fly away
to rest in peaceful sleep
Though you had to go
you left each one of us
a piece of you to keep

Yes a part of her
still lingers here, even
though she may be gone
Its through her valiant spirit
her words and thoughts
and the memories she made,
that she will, in our hearts,
keep living on..


***

close enough..

she picks up her guitar
and twangs out some chords..
to her its anger-management,
a way to cope..and she says
it keeps her sane
when shes bored..

shes young and strong but
she thinks her life is going
nowhere, so she plays her pain
with a pick and some strings..
plunking out heartwrenching
notes and tunes of despair..

i wish i could ease her pain
while she lives her 'growing pains'
i wish i could make her see
that her dreams are not
just 'pie in the sky'
i wish she could see herself
through my eyes..

she has what it takes to live
her dreams..inborn determination
to be the best, combined with
learning skills razor-sharp..
but we only see what she
chooses to express..

she hides herself behind
her eyes..what is she afraid of?
why doesnt she want the world
to see and know her beautiful
but undiscovered soul?

music is her favorite world,
its a way of escaping..its her
place to go when things get tough..
she tunes life out, then strums
her feelings with her fingers..
its not perfect..but for her
its close enough..


***


<center>just when ...

just when i think i know..
thats when everything changes once again!
cannibal thoughts gobble my beliefs..yep,there they go!
just when i think i know..
my minds eye is dazed, (musing over 12th cup of 'Joe'!)
with trust in my own judgement gone, confusion reigns!
just when i think i know..
thats when everything changes once again!</center>


***

<center>snowflakes - cinquain

snowflakes
frosty visions
twirling spinning dancing
creating a white wonderland
magic</center>


***

<center>we danced

twilight advances softly
across the vacant beach
i follow her dancing shadows
to the edge of the playful sea

deepening blue horizens
far as my eyes can see
dark sea and dark sky melding
blending in perfect harmony

quiet thoughts meander
drifting in and out like the waves
seas rhythm dancing softly
to the tune Mother Nature plays

soothing aura surrounds us all
the sky the sea and me
it beckons me to dance along
inviting me to take the lead

so i skip across the crystal sand
waltzing with the teasing waves
i touch the sky with outstretched arms
welcoming her soft embrace

the mighty sea and the majestic sky
created their magic stage for me
and on this night we danced as one
the sky the sea and me</center>


***

<center>yellow

yellow is the color
of bright sunlight
taxi-cabs, smileys,
mustard and butterflies

its Big Bird's feathers
blond sunkissed hair
lemonade and schoolbuses
ripe juicy pears

its the golden eye of a pansy
road signs and canaries
daffodills and cheddar cheese
fuzzy, buzzing bumblebees

yellow is the color
that laughter would be
its warmth hugs the world
in perfect harmony!</center>


***

<center>sea mist

salty ocean spray
blowing wafting clinging
covering the seashore..and me</center>


***

everflowing

life seems like a river
timeless everflowing
tho its destiny is unknown
like a river it
keeps on going
surging continuous
everflowing

rivers endure
times and seasons
floods and drought the
same way life weathers
its storms..sometimes
by staying on course
sometimes by forging
brand new routes

the way a river flows
seems to be
the way life goes
moving pulsing ever on
always changing
always unpredictable
but...
boundless free and strong

:hello:
___________________________________________________________
DREW RUSH
FEATURED POET ... OCTOBER 2006



Drew Rush...is a long time member. He joined in October of 2002. His contributions to Poetry Pages have been numerous and steadfast ... not just as a poet, but as a moderator as well.

Drew is an artist too...and the same intensity that is found in his poetry is also found in his art work.

Below are just a few of my favorites ... and please take the time to visit his archive..........

*Drew's Archive*

....I enjoy your work Drew ...on the page ... and on the canvas ... both!!


Time: The Power to Waste

To the advantage
Of wasting time
I ponder reality
And creation
As a species
What are we if
We are not alive
Dead I suppose
Rot and wither
Easily enough
But what more
Are we something
Beyond our life
More than just man
Or is that all there is
Birth life death
As a blink in time
If we are even that lucky
But what of spirits
And the heavenly hosts
Or devilish domains
Are they just thoughts
Made to make us
Patient enough to live
Perhaps just ravings
The one bad part of our
Otherwise better half
And then they could be
The one truth we have
The very last thread
On our line of hope
But I do not know so
It is impossible to
Without faith these
Are just questions
You cannot answer
But then with faith
You are throwing
A stone into water
Hoping it will float
And that you have
Picked the right rock
For otherwise you sink
To the deepest bottom
Forever in wonder
Of how you went wrong
So this is a battle
That I cannot take sides
I’ll wait in the middle
And ponder your moves
Along with the idea
Of faith and religion
The good and the evil
I will move for none
Other than my insanity
For now, I am content
With the wandering
And wondering of life
Until I have no more
Time to kill away


***

Change

My fear is that you do not understand
That this is not about the crescent moon
That these tears of fire and bodies of ash
That our sword of ignorance is the spear in our side

To kill human or humane ideals
The greatest sin is to believe this is justice
Justification for absolutes is null
The war on terror, evil begets evil

My fear is that you do not get it
That the god cares not for names or titles
That the end begins with our ego
That fear is the crux of our world

To refuse the acknowledgement of mistakes
Responsibility lies in the hands of the living
Justice is void when we cannot effect change
Wisdom is worthless to unforgiving beings

My fear is that you just do not understand
That you will walk away without true thought
That you will just tell me how wise I am
That you will hear me, but not understand


***

Crossing the Crescent

Looking into the past
It reflects the present
Looking into the past
We see we have no future

Toy soldier boy
Toy soldier boy
King George is playing war

The righteous battle
Against the heathen nation
Barbarians in the East
Suffer into damnation

Heroes marching Eastward
To satisfy our godly need
To purify the pagan terror
Just cause to obscure our greed

Crossing the Crescent
The war to claim God
At the sacrifice of humanity
We will win the spoils of the East

The righteous battle
Against the heathen nation
Invaders from the West
Crusaders of damnation

Heroes creeping Westward
To drop our phallic towers
And purify corrupted design
Justice executed by cowards

The Crescent fights the Cross
The war to keep the holy land
At the sacrifice of humanity
Saving sacred oils of the East

Looking into the past
I see we’ve made no progress
Learning from the past
This will not be the last Crusade

Little King George and all of his men
Couldn’t put this world together again
Little King George and all of his men
Will rip this world apart again


***

What Cannot Be

What’s this?
A dark mist flowing,
coming forth from beneath the door
It’s getting closer, moving strangely,
It seems to live,
There it dances in the wind,
Yet, no air moves in this room
Strange swirls distracting me
I do not notice as it creeps around, behind my sight
Entranced, I cannot move
Closer still
Up my chair then up my chest
Around my neck and through my hair
I breath it in, then out, and again
What I do not know is that I am unaware
Its thick yet sweet
And most disturbing
Where from, how did, and what is, and what could - all these questions
Yet not one answer
It moves and touches…nothing is sacred
So thick is this fog now, I cannot see a thing around me
I should be frightened but I am gone,
My mind I mean,
And I have no control
I see only through the eyes of a lifeless body
I grow faint and soon lose consciousness
Have I died, I do not know
Have I awakened, it is beyond me
I am in the void it seems
Dreams and imaginations could not comprehend such a thing
Here, lost, in a thing that, itself, is lost


***

Untitled

I admire those gargoyle statues
The ones perched upon the tallest buildings
Up where no one else can reach
I admire their stamina of time
The way they laugh at the pouring rain
And smirk at the blazing sun
I admire the way they stand
How it seems they are always thinking
And always watching those below
I admire them for all they are
For their strength and fragility - so exposed
Their grace and wisdom upon their mighty thrones
I admire them as they admire man


***

Come, My Evil Angel

Come with me
My little angel
Come with me
Beyond the world
Into the sky
Beyond Heaven
We’ll go where everyone else only dreams to be

If your afraid, I’ll hold you
In the shadows, in the sun
All others will envy our love
Or fear the darkness in our passion

Come with me
My dark angel
Come with me
Beyond the day
Through the night
Beyond Hell
We’ll go where their nightmares are our fantasies


If it’s too bright, I’ll kill the sun
In the shadows, I’ll hold you
All others will envy our passion
Or fear that such dark creatures can love

Come with me
My pure angel
Come with me
Beyond this life
Into eternity
Beyond the heavens
We’ll go where others can only hope to someday be

If you want everything I’ll give even more
Under the black sky of night and the blue sky of day
All others will be captives of their own envy
Or be paralyzed by the fear of our blackened eyes

Come with me
My demon angel
Come with me
Beyond all death
Into the night
Beyond the stars
We’ll go where others have never even imaged to be

If you want the night, I’ll kill the day
In the dim light of the moon, I’ll love you
And all others will envy our mutual lust
Or hate us for our blasphemous kisses


***

Coma

Deep within the thick forest of the mind
Where thoughts tangle and twist like vines
A fire, a flash, a mere ray of light breaks through
It draws my attention and leads me away
My thoughts of before seem to slip and fade
Why am I guided by something so small
Something so insignificant
Something so different from the darkness in which I dwell

As I crawl through the leaves and branches
Where the thoughts try to block the way
To the light, the brightness, I must have it
It gains my every obsession and it grows
Easier and easier it becomes to follow
As my life and thoughts just slip away
I am beyond all captivation
I am enthralled by this magic and how it dances so near

The forest is now a clearing, I see only light
My thoughts are concentrated on this one entity
This fire, this warmth, this godly and eternal brightness
It has taken my life and I am the willing servant
But I cannot awaken from this self-induced coma
For I have followed blindly into my despair
This something that was so small
This something that has turned my darkness into a light-filled hell


***

Like Children

Like a child
wide-eyed and excited
but its a slap in the face
yet, that itself is a new sensation
a new experience
something from which to learn
it hurts, if only i knew pain
heartbreak, could that be it
or bodily dismemberment maybe
strange there are many possibilities
and what of love
what is this supposed magical thing
something like family i can only guess
ah yes, that special someone
the mystery of life and of death
what are these things
a passing moment or landmark in time
the mystery of love and of hate
why do we feel such vulnerable emotions
maybe we are ignorant entities
something like children


***

Where? (My Fear)

Where could she have gone?
My sister of the darkness
We used to meet right here
In the darkest of back alleys
But for some time she has not shown
And now in the shadows I hold my fear

The wind is cold and loud
As it is the only sound I hear
Her voice, her words – no more
It chills even my heart of stone
For she has not shown in quite some time
And in the depth of the darkness, I fear

I’ve looked for any signs
That show she’s still alive
And searched every grave
To make sure she’s not there
But nothing has been found
Not the faintest of whispers
And as I stand here alone I begin to wonder
Was she ever there or was it mere loneliness

My fear
Where is she?



:hello: :hello:

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
**************************************
An' it harm none, do what ye will. Blessed Be.
Image
***************************************
My Poet's Page Archive | Topics I've started

User avatar
jeannerené
Winter's Rose
Posts: 686
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2002 12:01 am
Location: CA

Post by jeannerené » Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:27 am

UNCOMMON WORDS:

Uncommon words by Squawk

Squawk..........Well .... It is certainly your month. Congratulations to you as well for being elected Poet of the Month.....

I thought I would add a few more pieces by Squawk. I find each and every one compelling and unique.

You can find more of John's work on his Poet's Page:
Squawk's Poems

***

Patience is a virtue

There's a person stride by stride with you.
Plotting every path and measuring every verb.
Smearing their blood on the mirror
Taming your demons and making your bed.

Their steps beat down a crunch on the earth beneath their feet.
The air they brush past spins behind them,
Swirling to their grace; a young face,
Which seems old as time.

The same face that studies
The back of your head.
Experiments on your trust
And stretches your truth.

An intruder but a friend.
Silent and yet so loud.
Their eyes remember still deep blue waters,
And their ears remember every suffered sound.

Your double lives near you,
Maybe down the same lane.
They watch you from behind the curtain slit,
Waiting for your first mistake to be made.

For there is the chance to show every man, woman, and child you've ever known, loved, or respected.
What a nice person you could be if you just walked straight:
Didn't slur your words, and got to bed at a good time.
Worked a bit harder, and smiled a bit more,
Drank less, and ate well.
Looked both ways, and cut your hair.
Maybe if you didn't embarrass yourself in front of the opposite sex.
Maybe then you'd be more popular,
And then of course nobody would need you anymore.

***


Die Handlungsmann

Pick my brain from my skull,
See it slither through a nostril.
Take some rain from the sky,
Watch as it drips to the floor.

To do with what?
What I will:
To glide, to search,
To connect a puzzle
Disfigured and scorched.

To the Rise and fall
Of the Sun and its Empires, Huzzah!
From settling owls hoot to re-awakening bird scream.
Both thrust man towards separation
Of reality and dream.

A big sleep or a little death?
A choice to be made.
Rules to be set.
Wars to be fought
Peace to be met.
What really matters to us and that?

Where is this generation
Lost in space?
When will they report back
To all of us lost in Earth.
Unable to find a cause,
Unwilling to confront God, because all we get back
Is one giant unending eternal - pause.

***


Home

The path, walked down, remembered.
Flash back to memories,
You had to forget.
It feels like cement
Gradually smothering your skin.
The smells, the sights, the sounds,
All those lost balls and lost dreams,
All those broken bones and broken hearts,
All the things that you used to be back then.

With every deep intake of breath
The air you know feels welcome home.
The familiar patterns, the familiar shapes,
The familiar people and familiar trees
That lose their leaves
At familiar times of the year.

Yet for all that is the same, something must change.
People will die, trees will decay,
The house that you once called home will acquire
All sorts of strange furniture, their placings throwing you off
Completely into the blue abyss.

Worst of all the paving stones cover the lawn,
They drown, with solid fortitude, all those good days and nights.
But the grass will change as the years go by
And the Earth rotates and circles around
The Sun will engulf us all.

This last fact eases your mind.

***


Squeaky Gears

Hold your breath tight
And smile real loud.
You are being tracked
Amongst the crowd.
The star of CCTV.

They see you wander
They see you stride,
Their eyes fixating, on your path,
As you glide
From place to place,
From station to station.
Once they are locked on
You move nowhere.

Because whilst you go about,
You remain.
Tethered to their screens
In their domain.
Forced to keep still
Whilst the world around you moves.

To even attempt to turn the tables,
Would cost you you're freedom.
They sit aloof on their thrones
The masters of their kingdom.
Their clipboards are shields
That mask their face.
And any thrust, they shall parry
Into the path of a truncheon
That swivels and swings
With the force and the madness
Of Kings.

Your leg forced bent,
Eyes watch, you crumple
To the floor.
The bird of hope,
That resides in your clasp,
Shall be released no more.

***


Squish Squash

Orange juice on my trousers,
Steadily staining away.
It's rather noticeable, there on my lap,
Orange against the blue.
I might as well have grabbed a marker pen
And drawn a fake set there
For all the attention it will get.

It's not something to show with pride;
It makes you look a scruff.
When really you're just a bit duff
At peeling a tricky clementine.
I'm afraid they'll point and laugh,
Then give me a nickname
That will stay with me for life.

Dripsy McOrange.
How's it going there Dripsy?
Having a good time Dripsy?
What's dropped down there today Dripsy?

I tried to get it out by making it wet,
But that didn't work at all.
And you see the stains they happen to be
Rather near my Crotch
And so, well,
It's made it even worse.
I will now be having to explain
How I am not incontinent
To all those that notice
The giant wet patch covering my groin.

Or I could just wait for it to dry,
Before I step out into the World.
Despite my attempts before though
I still look a state.
So whilst I wait
Maybe a bit of elbow grease
Could save the day.

I scrub in a tub,
Rub a dub dub.
I look at it every few intervals
Of my perspective time lapse.
Nothing has changed
Apart from my arm
It is ready to fall off
And scurry over to one of those
Sanctuaries that look after abused limbs.

Maybe I could strategically
Place my hand
So that nobody could see.
Or hold onto my trousers as if
I were wading through shallow waters.
I'd have to do it on both sides obviously
To use one as a bluff,
And keep my dignity intact,
Keep my game on track.

Or I could just slip on
A fresh pair of trousers.
Yes, I think that'll do.
Well that's really it I guess,
Apart from I really don't have anywhere to go.
I'll just go put the kettle on,
Do you want a brew?

:hello:
____________________________________________________________
UNCOMMON WORDS BY ZERO


again

feel it in the air
it's death's sting
cyclic passing of
the sun moon and souls
fading glowing returning
read it
the sting of life
written in stone rolls over all
we have a moment to love
we must be on guard
of the approaching storm
we must know
when to let the winds blow
learn from the leaves that fold
and the branches that let go beautifully
to beauty no more

hard to smile in Autumn's dawn
the harvest has come
left us in winter alone
trees barren
friends gone
age begins to crack
the child we were
sand sculpted by fates hand
all that remains
is the hard, the jagged, the ugly.
we learn to succumb to the storm
we yearn to let it wash away
to rain down with our kind again
to be reborn
we can smile in winter
we are not lost
we are on the way home
the sting of pain and death
spring's kiss

***

filing away

my art is my voice
i'm to keep my mouth shut
my art is my savior
in the long night
when i'm to pretend
my nightmares
are my saving light
my art is my face
scared and worn
i can look , not hide
my art is my voice
my life an illusion
of it's own choosing
when my life is lie
my works can not
be erased away
nor recreate themselves
though like me
are subject to
misconstruing
i create from my
diffusious soul
works of stone
which can't be persuaded
i become strong
through my art
when all is ugly
i can sing of flowers
born under the sun

***

hurt

a colorless ocean of love
tarnishes forever
with one drop of blackness

unfortunately
wrong is the easiest thing to do
unfortunately
it is also the hardest thing undone

a million i love yous
are ruined by 1 bad word
never the other way around

***


<center>hungry eyes


beginning,

you sit comfortably reading this poem
maybe with a cup of tea and cookies
as the crumbs litter the pages
they fall from the tip of your tongue
i sit here in a poor land
i starve ,have not one

your squinting eyes transverse the page
mine see only my brothers and sisters dying
my teary eyes are deep hollow and sunken
in your heart you feel the emotion of the words
mine, weak beating fast i sat on our dirt floor

you pull your eyes away from these words of pain
you catch a glimpse of a grocery sac on the table
outside in my village they have body bags at the ready
no one wants to help the disappearing children

my ribs are soft tiny and showing
my stomach swells and hurts
a curve is in my backbone
from the inside
my body begins to feast upon itself
lacking adequate protein
feasting upon my muscles
lacking carbohydrates
i slip into a comatose state
eventually i find relief
famine fills another grave
you just turn the page
forget my face

why? how?</center>

***


a forest of dream

asleep beneath a sky of dreams
cool drops of rain fall
slowly drifting trickling
down through the canopy of trees
into paradise awakening you
slowly and gently yet powerful
floral chlorophyll freshened drops
sunbathed held in pools in curled leaves
rolling of their tips
one by one
you taste them on your lips
they coat your bare skin
they invite you to taste
to become drunken with these gifts
a few drops you wipe onto your hand
from your abdomen
from fingers you lick.
they taste sweet..and pure
very free
sensations reverberate through
your body making their way deep inside
then travel back from your soul and out
into the forest
you feel the heart beat coming closer
with rhythms calling
you dance
drunken running haphazardly
barefoot away from cities
venture further into the beginning
deeper and further

away from a pile of discarded forgotten clothing
marred in the stench of hampered mechanisms
a warm mist transverses through the foliage
cleaning away the tarnish

coming to a rest to bask and reflect
to breathe...
below a wide opening in the canopy
rays of sunlight penetrate through the mist
delighting with prisms colors
they fall onto a pool of ancient mud
enriching it with dawn
calling to you with curiosity
and longing to share in it's knowledge
you creep closer crawling
you enter it become dirty
its so warm against your body
fitting like a glove
salamanders greet with tongue
speaking in sensations
the mud slides like snakes across you
like hands warm fingertips

you've enjoyed the earth
dusk is now calling
the rest is over
the sun slowly sinking below the tree line
you venture slowly

wearing dried dirt clothing
flaking pulling away with them old layers of skin
leaving it more sensitive to this knowing
a new path opens
into night
the moonlight glowing
you come upon
a stream

the water is rushing
from a steep cliff
the moon reflects from on the surface
rippled and distorted
by the water's movements
it's life..

it calls you to bask
to remove the final trace
in the darkness
you bathe
working you way from the bank edge
to the moon refracted center
surrounding the trees are softly with ecstasy
crawling with howling nocturnal creatures
as in the shadows below them
from holes in the tress and holes in the rock
and earth they are granted passage
for a while..till the dawn breaks
then back in the land of sleep
again the dream for this..oneness
they are never separated from their natures

you can see your face dimly reflected from
the surface
wide eyed smiling

you swim away towards the fields
miles away..encounter whirlpools gently turning
against you along the way
caressing

just before dawn you reach the low lighted
open fields
climb up the bank..
lay down in the dewy grass
breathing in..
you drift into sleep
tall weeds against you
moving with the rhythm of the breeze
exciting you
to dream again..

you wake up in sunny
wildflower fields..
butterflies covering you
stretch their wings carrying you
you begin the journey
again..
in reverse.

***

my angel

trapped behind the canvass of my world.
blues, greys and blacks.
i see a bright light, (so you've torn a crack)
still to light,i am blind (it's glory is too bright)
will reach through with your hand?
before i sew it shut? (save you from this i must)

no, you cannot come in.
you don't belong in this dark world.
reach through drag me out into yours.

***

rushing dead air


a ten year circut closed? forclosed on metamorphises?
i grew lot's of nullified wings
they aren't even tathered, just crowded
and rendered useless
they grow smaller to make room for the others
next in line for devalueing
why does the mind lag behind the body so?
still beleiving in what should have flown
yet tasting the retched taste of what it knows?
to do away with it's sinking premeditations

the radio sounds were spectacular
molding delicate silky thunder
filling hallow alone vessels with warm osculations
soon there was no alone soon the airwaves were crowded
too many songs getting it wrong
ruining the magic of it all
we had to put on ready made faces inside too
dust settled through the air vents
leaving behind years of it on the circuit board
i noticed at it shorted out, don't remember the mood
it is tormenting to stair trying to place
a finger back there
thinking of doing away with it tottally
in the trash unplugged tomorrow
i am hot off the assembly line
further disaffected still defective
evolving...all along still becoming
never being...

:hello:
____________________________________________________________
UNCOMMON WORDS BY HEINZS



Autumnal Equinox

Summer wanes
leaving a final impression
with its hottest days.
One last glorious excursion
into triple-digit Fahrenheit
and panting dog-like for relief.

This time around
the moon will still be full -
a rare coincidence
of monthly lunar opposition
superimposed
on the solar cycle.

Perhaps the added gravitation
affects the social mood,
or the anticipation
of climatic change.
The electricity runs high -
almost tangible; invigorating.

I feel at peace
within the chaotic turmoil
having found a quiet
personal backwater eddy
in the daily maelstrom's
ravenous vortex.

All about me the flotsam swirls -
relics of shattered lives
and terror's victims -
but within me
calm has taken root
and reigns... for the moment.

The sweetest summer fruit
melts deliciously
on my eager palate
as I judiciously avoid
the bitter or rotting flesh
that is my usual fare.

I have long hoped for such a time -
an eon's struggle
through the valley of death -
at last climbing up
from the dark depths of depression
to the welcoming light of day.

I can only strive
to make the moment last
ere I once again succumb
to the relentless abyss.
Perhaps, just perhaps,
it is not inevitable.

HeinzS
9/20/2002

***


Gently Savage
(a sonnet)

What is the nature of the savage beast
that sways the heart and mind to emulate
the spirit wild attracted to the feast
and gentle soul to tempt the hand of fate?

A life of dull and civil attitude
becomes us not - adventure do we seek!
A respite from the quiet interlude
to redefine ourselves other than meek.

A spark of rage or touch of abject fear
does wonders for the blood lest it stagnate -
the roller-coaster ride does make it clear
that never should enjoyment be too late.

So seek the joy, the heart's contented peace,
and strive to gain the inner child's release.

9/30/2002
HeinzS


***


Out of the Bottle

The tempest brews
Sometimes contained within my mind
Ofttimes escaped and ranging free.
How it will play itself out
None may fortell.
I stride forward
Yet each step I take is deeply scrutinized
Rationalized, hybridized, analyzed
'Till I no longer know whether it was taken
Or only dreamt.

Hamlet speaks to himself or a ghost
While fair Ophelia drowns in her own sorrows
Or are they indeed hers alone?
The tragedy lies therein
For all the world being a play
And we but puppets
Dancing for some unseen audience's amusement.
Crickets in a jar practising cannibalism for survival
Death not an end but a constant presence
Feeding renewed vitality.

It is time to reach up and take hold
Pull mightily upon the puppetstrings
And sunder that stranglehold they represent.
Stand upon each other's shoulders
While life yet flows in our collective veins
And climb out of the geni's bottle.
The world awaits to be discovered anew
And in that awakening to be rebuilt.
We have that capacity, man
To make ourselves the best we can.

12/27/2001


***


Exploring the Weird -
(1) incite insight

The three-fingered man
with no legs
stared up at me
from his palette.
"You're a waste," said he
"of a good pair.
Sittin' on your ass
while the world around you
self destructs
makes you part of the problem."
I felt rather put upon -
what gave HIM the right
to accuse me,
abuse me?
"What am I to do?"
"Do nothing,
and the world will change around you.
Do something,
and it will still change,
but maybe,
just maybe,
its direction might be influenced
by your participation.
Do something,
and your soul will know
you didn't just sit idly
to be steamrollered
by your own fate.
Do something!"

3/19/2003
HeinzS

***


Exploring the Weird -
(2) peace piece

"Become a peacemonger.
Make peace and keep it,
live in it, or rest in it."
The legless man
lifted himself from his palette
and walked on his palms
over to the dumpster -
reminding me of R2D2
in Star Wars.
He shifted his weight
onto his three-fingered hand,
unzipped his fly
and urinated.
"The thing about land mines,
once they're in the ground
they don't know who you are
or when the war is over.
The one with my name on it
waited seven years for me."
He settled back onto his cushion.
"War doesn't end
when the fighting stops.
Better not to start it
in the first place."

3/21/2003
HeinzS

***


Exploring the Weird -
(3) sole soul

Depressed and feeling alone
I sought him out,
the legless philosopher.
He had this uncanny knack
of pointing out the obvious
and making a revelation of it.
but his usual haunts
failed to produce contact.
I feared the worst -
knowing how precarious
life on the streets could be.
None of the regulars
had seen him today,
neither was there
any scuttlebutt floating around.
At last one fellow
produced a scrawled note
left for me.
I thanked him (with cash)
and read:
"As long as you are alive
you are never alone.
Your sould intersects all others,
and that great web
is the collective consciousness
that makes existence possible.
Learn to tap into it
during your darkest hours
and you will be uplifted
beyond time and space.
The dead pay little attention
to this dimension,
but I'll wait to greet you
on the other side.
----John"
I felt momentarily
even more alone than before -
but then the great weight lifted
from my heart
as his words sank into my mind.
Even if I never saw him again
I would know if he was alive
and if he was not.
His words are my legacy.

HeinzS
3/29/2003

***


Exploring the Weird -
(4) right write

It had been several months
since I had last seen him,
the three-fingered man
with no legs
who regaled me with
his remarkable Zen wisdom.
I thought of him daily
as I traveled the cold, lonely streets.
This day the bartender at Philo's
handed me a ragged envelope
--- from John!
I took it and my JD
to a table with some light
and read:
"Just when you think
you've got life figured out
it hits you between the eyes.
Complacency is the mother
of disaster...
her bastard son.
I've stopped reading
the headline news -
90% of it is fiction
and the other 90%
is propaganda."
I laughed at the sarcasm.
"I'm going to travel the country -
maybe I'll write
from wherever I stop...
which'll be whenever
I need to work for some cash.
I'm in a small town outside Sonora -
got a job as a bell ringer
for the local church.
Use your imagination."
I laughed again
at the vision of him
dangling by one arm
from the bell rope -
like a deranged ornament
on a giant watch fob.
He signed it: "---John,
For whom the Bell tolls."

4/2/2003
HeinzS

***

Silent Gulls

Daylight through glass
mixes with neon’s rays
to brighten the filtered air.
Soft, invisible breeze
moves leaves and fronds
but cannot caress
my sequestered face.
Yearning for simplicity
and past innocence
time’s burden gains weight
bowing shoulders even more.

Gentle waves reach out
to touch my flesh
rinsing away grains of sand
not sticky enough to resist.
The wonder of blue vastness
thunders between gulls’ cries
warm and cool at the same time.
The red speck tethered
to the long end of the string
responds to tugging
with graceful dips and swirls.
On the blanket, skin browns
where brastraps would meet –
temporarily cast aside
for the solar massage.

Reverie breaks –
"Code blue! Code blue!"
The turmoil of bustle
reaffirms its control,
rushing to a bedside
of frenzied activity –
an effort to prolong life
of one resigned to fate.
"D.N.R." I say to the attending,
and the chaos subsides.
Your peaceful smile is the reward,
reflecting that long-ago sun
as your eyes darken
to mimic that sea.
The breath of your passing
cools my moist cheek
and I can almost hear
the crying of the gulls.

3/19/2004

***

Mornings after

In the light of day
it all seems surreal
dreamlike
belief dwindles into apathy
as the images fade
yet the terror remains
just beneath the surface
waiting
to be re-awakened to full force
at the drop of an eyelid
or a passing shadow.
It will not be denied
collecting its dues
in sleeplessness
and mournful sorrow.
Madrid weeps
and commerce plods on
its juggernaut course
worshipping the Euro
as the last drops of blood
recede beneath the rails.
Innocents lost
perdition’s henchmen lead
at either extreme –
reaffirming the chaos
of status quo.

3/16/2004


:hello:
()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
... and his words purge up and outward,
expelled and onward through desert dust swallowed,
sands he says that gorge on simple sensibilities.
And, now he spits fragments, grit, extended vowels and elongated syllables
over cracked lips. Their sounds fall
piling round his boots…
~ jeannerené

Image

~breathe~


flickr -jeannerene photostream

User avatar
jeannerené
Winter's Rose
Posts: 686
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2002 12:01 am
Location: CA

Post by jeannerené » Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:28 am

WHILE BROWSING:

Elmaz Abi-Nader ...Lebanese-American Poet

<img src="http://x5e.xanga.com/8b38363a47d6880742 ... 016042.jpg" alt="elmaz_small">

...I came upon Elmaz Abi-Nader, a contemporary (and for me, local) poet while browsing one evening and was very moved and impresssed by her poetry.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elmaz AbiNader is an Lebanese-American author, poet and performance artist. She was born in 1954 in Pennsylvania. Much of Ms. AbiNader’s work is drawn from her childhood in an all-white appalachain coal-mining community and form her journey’s to her parent’s fatherland, other countries of the Middle East, parts of Africa, and travels throughout the United States. Her writing reflects her culture’s and family’s tradition to tell stories through poetry and music relating “the significant moments of a life, a family and a village.”

Ms. AbiNader received a MFA in poetry from Colombia University, and a PHD from the University of Nebraska. She currently is a professor at Mills College in Oakland, CA where her focus is providing a voice for writer’s of color. She is co-founder of Our Nations Arts Foundation (NONA).

For more insight into Ms AbiNader, her work and many ... many accolades, I suggest you go to Writers on America - Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State:

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/w ... inader.htm

Her article Just off Main Street is excellent reading. Here’s an excerpt…..
When I was young, my house had a magic door. Outside that door was the small Pennsylvania town where I grew up. Main Street ran in front of our house bearing the standard downtown features: a bank, a news stand, the hardware store, the auto parts supply, and other retail businesses. Families strolled the streets, particularly on weekends looking at the displays of furniture in Kaufman's giant window, the posters for movies hanging behind the glass at the Rex Theatre, and the mannequins, missing hands or fingers, sporting the latest fashions in the windows of my aunt's clothing store. In those days, the early 1960s, the small businesses in a town like Masontown fed the community's needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

My family's shops took their positions on Main Street as well: Nader's Shoe Store, Nader's Department Store, and the Modernnaire Restaurant. From the face of it, our businesses looked like any others and we gratefully satisfied the local mother trying to buy church-worthy shoes for the children, the father in for a good cigar and the newspaper, and the after-school crowd, who jittered near the juke box on the restaurant tiles. My father and my uncle stood in the doorways of their establishments, perfectly dressed in gray suits and white shirts, ties, and glossy polished shoes.

At that moment, frozen in second grade, at the threshold of the store, I saw no difference between my father, uncle, and the people who passed by.
I hope you will read the whole article. You can easily find more about Ms. AbiNader on the web. I hope to be able to catch one of her live performances or lectures ....


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by the Author
Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey from Lebanon (1991)
In the Country of My Dreams: Poetry by Elmaz Abinader (1999)
"Country of Origin." Play. (1997)
"Under the Ramadan Moon." Play. (2000)
"Just Off Main Street." Essay. Writers on America. Ed. George Clack. U.S. Department of State.
Works about the Author
Chan, Sylvia W. "Goldies 2002- Literature: Elmaz Abinader." The San Francisco Bay Guardian 8 November 2002.
Handal, Nathalie, ed. Poetry of Arab Women. Northampton, MA: Interlink Publishing Group, 2000.


Online Sources used:
:arrow: VG: Voices from the Gaps
:arrow: Arab American Institute
:arrow: Levintine - Cultural Center
:arrow: Writers on America - Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Poetry

My Father’s House is a Terrorist Target
By Elmaz AbiNader

Two For Hayan:
The subject line of an email
The subject line of my shortness of breath
The subject line of the phone call
to my own father
who stands in the sun and lifts his head toward the sky
listening
Your father slows his car
on the highway from Beirut
tea and anise cookies in a cupboard
a few miles away, a few miles away
where the beds are empty, the sofa
losing the impression of his body,
the kitchen table with a bowl of apricots
your father slows the car a few miles
away—his eyes glaze over at the night
in front of him, at the stars falling
into the ends of the earth the horizon
My father—in high dry grass in Maryland
leaves the television talking behind him
loud enough the neighbors all hear what
what he doesn’t, lets the phone ring
recognizing the sorrowful notes of his children
asking about home his brothers their families
twists buttons off his shirt counting them
like pennies and the years he left Lebanon
behind stars falling into the ends
of the earth the horizon
Your father taking his son and wife home
slows his car but does not watch for long
It is routine to turn around hope for Beirut
damage will be measured tomorrow
when they return if they can
My father alone in the yard implores
his mother and my mother
as the fireflies rise up and orbit
around his head – knowing that he cannot return
You are not the son sitting in the back of the car
reaching a hand forward as the city burns
I am not the daughter pulling my father back
into the house as he whispers the air
We both sit still our arms covering our heads
a kind of prayer and protection from memory
and anger and shortness of breath. You write
the subject line, my father’s house is a terrorist
target and I want to answer each word of that line
breathe deep into the dust and disaster, but cannot – slow down a few miles away,
gaze outside the glass
and find myself stuck. I cannot go beyond my father’s.


Letters From Home
to my father
by Elmaz AbiNader

Everytime you weep, I feel the surface of a river
somewhere on Earth is breaking.
You wipe your eyes as you read
aloud a letter from the old country.
From the floor, I watch the curls of the words
through the sheer pages.
Your brother and sister have gathered
around you. I don't understand
the language but feel a single breath
of grief holding this room.

Your mother writes of her weakening body.
She walks to church but cannot leave
the village. When you sat with her,
You wanted her forgiveness for your absence
but did not ask. She took you to her closet
to show you the linens she had gathered
which have already yellowed. Her hands
seemed small through the lace. You kissed
her palms, smelling your own fragrance on her skin.

She tells you of the refuge people have found
in the village. Others have gone to Paris.
You have a niece who is a doctor,
a nephew, an architect. Your own children
seem like nomads. They sit in scattered apartments
where you can't see your three daughters
gazing from their windows or your three sons
pacing the old wood of their rooms.
Yet you write to your mother,

they still pray.

You visit your mother now when you can
Each summer you cross the Mediterranean;
each summer you stand behind her house
looking into the sea hoping she will not die,
this time. And when these letters come,
I run my finger across the pages.
I hope I can learn the languages
you have come to know.


***
...hope you enjoyed...
...jeanne...

____________________________________________________________
*****************************************************


David Whyte (1955-)
Yorkshire, England .... currently U.S.

My poet friend, Patrick .... we met at a Barnes and Nobles monthly poetry meeting ... has for sometimes kept telling me to read David Whyte's poetry ..Patrick has traveled to hear Mr. Whyte read his poetry and lecture ...... Well I've finally have gotten around to it, tonight and I am sorry I didn't look into his poetry sooner. I can now understand Patrick's admiration.

Mr. Whyte spent his childhood at some point in Yorkshire, England. His studies were in marine zoology and he spent time on the Galapogas Islands training as a naturalist. Mr. Whyte has also led anthroplogical and history expeditions in parts of South America.

Not only is Mr. Whyte a poet, but he is as well a lecturer predominately in corporate settings, using poetry through workshops "to bring an understanding of the process of change, helping clients to understand individual and organizational creativity, and to apply that understanding to vitalize and transform the workplace."

Mr. Whyte has published four books of poetry, two books of prose and several audio tapes.

Poetry Books:
Songs of Comming Home
Where Many Rivers Meet
Fire in the Earth
The House of Belonging


I hope you will explore more of David Whyte and his poetry at the Many Rivers website. I found his lists of clients very interesting.
Link:
http://davidwhyte.bigmindcatalyst.com/c ... &node=1015

Online sources used:
:arrow: Many Rivers Company
:arrow: Sounds True, wisdom for the inner life
:arrow: Poetry Chaikhana, Sacred Poetry from Around the World

*********************

POEMS BY DAVID WHYTE

<center>The Faces at Braga

In monastery darkness
by the light of one flashlight
the old shrine room waits in silence

While above the door
we see the terrible figure,
fierce eyes demanding, "Will you step through?"

And the old monk leads us,
bent back nudging blackness
prayer beads in the hand that beckons.

We light the butter lamps
and bow, eyes blinking in the
pungent smoke, look up without a word,

see faces in meditation,
a hundred faces carved above,
eye lines wrinkled in the hand held light.

Such love in solid wood!
Taken from the hillsides and carved in silence
they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.

Engulfed by the past
they have been neglected, but through
smoke and darkness they are like the flowers

we have seen growing
through the dust of eroded slopes,
then slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.

Carved in devotion
their eyes have softened through age
and their mouths curve through delight of the carvers hand.

If only our own faces
would allow the invisible carver's hand
to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.

If only we knew
as the carver knew, how the flaws
in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,

we would smile, too
and not need faces immobilized
by fear and the weight of things undone.

When we fight with our failing
we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself
and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.

And as we fight
our eyes are hooded with grief
and our mouths are dry with pain.

If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carvers hands,
the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers

feeding the sea
where voices meet, praising the features
of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.

Our faces would fall away
until we, growing younger toward death
every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration

to merge with them perfectly,
impossibly, wedded to our essence,
full of silence from the carver's hands.

~ David Whyte ~

(Where Many Rivers Meet)</center>

***

SELF-PORTRAIT

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in *that* fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

~ David Whyte
(Fire in the Earth)

***
... hope you enjoyed
...jeanne

____________________________________________________________
******************************************************


Ted Kooser... 13th U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006

<img src="http://xfd.xanga.com/bb0a8a20c103110013 ... 507248.jpg" alt="20040913KOOSER1">

Picture from Website:
http://www.tedkooser.com/

I was browsing ... and came up with the idea (hopefully having time) of posting topics on Poet Laureates from around the world. Although Ted Kooser is not the present U.S. Laureate (that honor is currently held by Donald Hall) ... I became enchanted with his poetry and simply had to post his work first. His work is so "downhome" ... direct, honest, timely and captures an American voice that has served as a foundation throughout our history.

The bio after his poetry/prose is just a tad bit dated, but of all that I read held the most information.

*****

Porch Swing in September
by Ted Kooser

The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun

that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion

whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,

and a small brown spider has hung out her web

on a line between porch post and chain

so that no one may swing without breaking it.

She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,

time that the creaking and pinging and popping

that sang through the ceiling were past,

time now for the soft vibrations of moths,

the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,

the cool dewdrops to brush from her work

every morning, one world at a time.


From Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, by Ted Kooser, © 2005.

****

A Happy Birthday
by Ted Kooser

This evening, I sat by an open window

and read till the light was gone and the book

was no more than a part of the darkness.

I could easily have switched on a lamp,

but I wanted to ride this day down into night,

to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page

with the pale gray ghost of my hand.


From Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copyright © 2004 .

****

Slap of the screen door, flat knock

of my grandmother's boxy black shoes

on the wooden stoop, the hush and sweep

of her knob-kneed, cotton-aproned stride

out to the edge and then, toed in

with a furious twist and heave,

a bridge that leaps from her hot red hands

and hangs there shining for fifty years

over the mystified chickens,

over the swaying nettles, the ragweed,

the clay slope down to the creek,

over the redwing blackbirds in the tops

of the willows, a glorious rainbow

with an empty dishpan swinging at one end.


From Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copyright 2004 .


****

Father

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day—the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.

from Delights & Shadows, by Ted Kooser. Copyright 2004.



****

from LOCAL WONDERS
by Ted Kooser


Today I put on a cowboy shirt my mother made for me when I was fourteen. It still fits, though the style is quaint. It's red with a white yoke and white cuffs, and the yoke and cuffs are embroidered with plump green cacti. It's the kind of shirt Roy Rogers wore for the Saturday matinees when I was a boy. Long ago I lost my long-barreled pearl-handled cap pistols and wore out the boots with the stars.

Mother made most of our clothes when my sister and I were small, and nearly all of her own. One of the most difficult moments we faced after she died was carrying armloads of her handmade suits and jackets and skirts into a charity thrift shop. And then turning our backs on them. I kept her black Singer with its strap of green felt around the neck, with pins and needles waiting and ready. And the sewing basket my Grandfather Kooser bought for her at an auction when I was a baby.

Mother was working as a salesgirl when she met my father, but when they were married, she became a full-time homemaker and never went back to salaried work. My father was never a highly paid man, and in dime store spiral notebooks, she kept track of every cent they spent from 1936 till the day she died. The hospital bill, ten days for Mother and me when I was born, was $47.38.

For almost twenty years after my father was gone, she lived alone in their house. With the taste for frugality she'd learned in the Great Depression, she saved what she could from Dad's modest pension and her own small social security checks. She invested in CDs, watching the newspaper to catch the best rates, and slowly amassed nearly a half million dollars, far more than the sum of my father's income for all the years he'd worked. I asked her one day if she ever went out to eat, and she said, "Yes, when Colonel Sanders has that two-piece chicken special, I'll pick one up. Then I eat one piece that day and the other piece the next." Even with all that money in the bank, she liked to see if she could talk her doctors out of free samples of prescription drugs.

Perhaps fifteen years ago I was visiting with her long distance, and she told me she'd just finished another crazy quilt. She made about ten of these, handsome, featherstitched along the patches but not quilted, tied instead, like comforters. She made them from garage sale fabric scraps. She told me that because she'd already given a quilt to each member of our family, she didn't know what to do with this one. I asked her how much she had in it, and without a pause she said, "Twelve dollars and forty-three cents." I said, "Why don't you figure out how much you'd like to have for it, maybe seventy-five or a hundred dollars, and I'll buy it from you."

"Why would you do that?" she asked.

I told her I had an old girlfriend who had recently been married and I hadn't yet given her a wedding gift. Mother paused for no more than a breath and then said, "Ted, that's too much to give to an old girlfriend." And she wouldn't let me buy the quilt. I didn't argue. The Bohemians say, "Never blow in a bear's ear."


From Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps Copyright © 2002 by Ted Kooser

****

AT THE OFFICE EARLY
by Ted Kooser


Rain has beaded the panes
of my office windows,
and in each little lens
the bank at the corner
hangs upside down.
What wonderful music
this rain must have made
in the night, a thousand banks
turned over, the change
crashing out of the drawers
and bouncing upstairs
to the roof, the soft
percussion of the ferns
dropping out of their pots,
the ballpoint pens
popping out of their sockets
in a fluffy snow
of deposit slips.
Now all day long,
as the sun dries the glass,
I'll hear the soft piano
of banks righting themselves,
the underpaid tellers
counting their nickels and dimes.


From One World at a Time by Ted Kooser Copyright © 1985

****

So This Is Nebraska
by Ted Kooser


The gravel road rides with a slow gallop
over the fields, the telephone lines
streaming behind, its billow of dust
full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

On either side, those dear old ladies,
the loosening barns, their little windows
dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs
hide broken tractors under their skirts.

So this is Nebraska. A Sunday
afternoon; July. Driving along
with your hand out squeezing the air,
a meadowlark waiting on every post.

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,
top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,
a pickup kicks its fenders off
and settles back to read the clouds.

You feel like that; you feel like letting
your tires go flat, like letting the mice
build a nest in your muffler, like being
no more than a truck in the weeds,

clucking with chickens or sticky with honey
or holding a skinny old man in your lap
while he watches the road, waiting
for someone to wave to. You feel like

waving. You feel like stopping the car
and dancing around on the road. You wave
instead and leave your hand out gliding
larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

From Flying at Night, by Ted Kooser copywrite 2005

****



Website:
http://www.tedkooser.com/

Bio quoted from official website:


Ted Kooser is one of Nebraska’s most highly regarded poets and the country’s newest Poet Laureate. A professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he is the author of eleven full-length collections of poetry, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004) and Weather Central (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). Over the years his works have appeared in many periodicals including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Hudson Review, The Nation, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, and Antioch Review. Koosers’ poems are included in textbooks and anthologies used in both secondary schools and college classrooms across the country. He has received two NEA fellowships in poetry, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, The James Boatwright Prize, and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council.

Kooser has read his poetry for The Academy of American Poets in New York City as well as for many university audiences including those of the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell at Ithaca, Case Western Reserve at Cleveland, The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, and Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He has conducted writing workshops in connection with many of these readings.

In addition to poetry, Kooser has written in a variety of forms including plays, fiction, personal essays, and literary criticism. His first book of prose, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (University of Nebraska Press, 2002), won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003 and Third Place in the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award in Nonfiction for 2002. The book was chosen as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends of American Writers. It also won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards. The University of Nebraska Press will publish his newest book The Poetry Home Repair Manual in January 2005. The book will give beginning poets tips for their writing.

Currently he is editor and publisher of Windflower Press which specializes in the publication of contemporary poetry. Though mostly inactive now, Windflower published a number of books as well as two literary magazines, The Salt Creek Reader (1967-1975) and The Blue Hotel (1980-1981). The Salt Creek Reader was awarded several grants of support from the National Endowment of the Arts through The Coordination Council of Literary Magazines. Kooser published several anthologies through Windflower Press. One of these, The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry, was listed by Library Journal as one of the best books from small presses for 1980. Seventeen Danish Poets in Translation received international notice, and As Far As I Can See; Contemporary Writing of the Middle Plains is in use as a text in secondary schools and colleges across the plains region. In 1999, Kooser published Roy Scheele's Keeping the Horses as a fundraising project for the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association.
Born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939, Kooser earned a BS at Iowa State University in 1962 and an MA at the University of Nebraska in 1968. He is a former vice-president of the Lincoln Benefit Life, where he worked as an insurance representative for many years. He lives on an acreage near the town of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, and dogs, Alice and Howard. He also has a son, Jeff, and a granddaughter, Margaret.


Books Published:

Poetry:

Official Entry Blank, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1969
A Local Habitation & A Name, Solo Press, San Luis Obispo, 1974
Not Coming to be Barked At, Pentagram Press, Milwaukee, 1976
Sure Signs, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980
One World at a Time, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
The Blizzard Voices, Bieler Press, St. Paul, 1986
Weather Central, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994
Winter Morning Walks; 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000.
Braided Creek, with Jim Harrison. Copper Canyon Press, 2003.
Delights and Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
Flying at Night, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.

Nonfiction:

Local Wonders; Seasons in the Bohemian Alps. University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Chapbooks and Special Editions:

Grass County, privately printed, 1971
Twenty Poems, Best Cellar Press, Crete, NE, 1973
Shooting a Farmhouse/So This is Nebraska, Ally Press, St. Paul, 1975
Voyages to the Inland Sea, with Harley Elliott, Center for Contemporary
Poetry, LaCrosse, WI, 1976
Old Marriage and New, Cold Mountain Press, Austin, TX, 1978
Cottonwood County, with William Kloefkorn, Windflower Press, 1979
Etudes, Bits Press, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 1992
A Book of Things, Lyra Press, Lincoln, 1995.
A Decade of Ted Kooser Valentines, Penumbra Press, Omaha, 1996
Lights on a Ground of Darkness, University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
Awards:

Prairie Schooner Prize in Poetry, 1976 and 1978
Writing Fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts, 1976 and 1984
Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize, 1980
Stanley Kunitz Poetry Prize, Columbia Magazine, 1984
Pushcart Prize, 1984
Governor's Art Award, 1988
Mayor's Art Award, 1989
Richard Hugo Prize, Poetry Northwest, 1994.
James Boatwright Award, Shenandoah, 2000
Nebraska Arts Council Merit Award in Poetry, 2000
Mari Sandoz Award, Nebraska Library Association, 2000
Nebraska Book Award for poetry, 2001
Barnes & Noble Discover Nonfiction Prize, third place, 2003
Friends of American Writers Prize, 2003
Honorable Mention, Society of Midland Authors nonfiction prize, 2003
First place, ForeWord Magazine autobiographical writing competition, 2003
The Best American Poetry, 2003
Nebraska Book Award for nonfiction, 2003
Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize (with Jim Harrison), 2004
United States Poet Laureate/Consultant in Poetry, 2004
Pulitzer Prize for poetry (Delights and Shadows), 2005 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry, 2005
Best American Essays, 2005
Pushcart Prize, 2005

****************************************************
On-Line sources used:

:arrow: Poets.org
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1269

:arrow: Ted Kooser
http://www.tedkooser.com/index.html

:arrow: Nebraska Center for Writers
http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/kooser.htm

:arrow: National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4965544

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you enjoyed reading... please feel free to leave any comments or additional work by Ted Kooser you feel others would enjoy.

...jeanne

____________________________________________________________
******************************************************


Browsing late at night .... and I ran across this poet ....

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) ............

Quite interesting and very prolific ......

The links below will lead you to lots of interesting about Rexroth...if you are the least bit bohemian ... you'll want to investigate ....

Kenneth Rexroth Archive:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/index.htm
***
Rexroth Poems:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/poems/index.htm
***
Below a short bio from
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/linern ... xroth.html
Jerry Jazz Musician, interview with Sam Hamil
Kenneth Rexroth was a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and influenced generations of readers with his essays and consummate translations of Japanese and Chinese poetry.

Born in 1905, Rexroth's career spans almost the entire century. Although forty of his seventy-seven years as poet, translator, essayist, playwright, and revolutionary activist were spent in San Francisco, his intellectual and artistic formative years occurred in the Midwest, mainly in Chicago, where he associated with artists, writers, and theorists of radical politics and philosophies.

Rexroth's concerns were universal from his youth until his final years, focusing on politics, pacifism, erotic love, the environment, and a spirituality firmly rooted in both Asian and Western traditions. But he will forever be associated with the San Francisco Renaissance of the fifties in which he played a major role, promoting poets Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Denise Levertov and many others over FM radio station KPFA.

Sam Hamill, editor of The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth writes of him, "The man who survives in these poems is a great man, wise beyond words, a poet polished by great loss and small glory. He has given in his work exactly what he sought in life: a sense of a compassionate moral center from which the possibility of ultimate awakening may be realized."*

Hamill joins us in a June, 2003 conversation about Kenneth Rexroth, the man Time magazine described as the "Father of the Beats."
From THE HEART’S GARDEN,
THE GARDEN’S HEART

Water is always the same —
Obedient to the laws
That move the sun and the other
Stars. In Japan as in
California it falls
Through the steep mountain valleys
Towards the sea. Waterfalls drop
Long musical ribbons from
The high rocks where temples perch.
Ayu in the current poise
And shift between the stones
At the edge of the bubbles.
White dwarf iris heavy with
Perfume hang over the brink.
Cedars and cypresses climb
The hillsides. Something else climbs.
Something moves reciprocally
To the tumbling water.
It ascends the rapids,
The torrents, the waterfalls,
To the last high springs.
It disperses and climbs the rain.
You cannot see it or feel it.
But if you sit by the pool
Below the waterfall, full
Of calling voices all chanting
The turmoil of peace,
It communicates itself.
It speaks in the molecules
Of your blood, in the pauses
Between your breathing. Water
Flows around and over all
Obstacles, always seeking
The lowest place. Equal and
Opposite, action and reaction,
An invisible light swarms
Upward without effort. But
Nothing can stop it. No one
Can see it. Over and around
Whatever stands in the way,
Blazing infinitesimals —
Up and out — a radiation
Into the empty darkness
Between the stars.

1967

***

TRAVELERS IN EREWHON

You open your
Dress on the dusty
Bed where no one
Has slept for years
An owl moans on the roof
You say
My dear my
Dear
In the smoky light of the old
Oil lamp your shoulders
Belly breasts buttocks
Are all like peach blossoms
Huge stars far away far apart
Outside the cracked window pane
Immense immortal animals
Each one only an eye
Watch
You open your body
No end to the night
No end to the forest
House abandoned for a lifetime
In the forest in the night
No one will ever come
To the house
Alone
In the black world
In the country of eyes

1965

***

AUGUST 22, 1939

What is it all for, this poetry,
This bundle of accomplishment
Put together with so much pain?
Twenty years at hard labor,
Lessons learned from Li Po and Dante,
Indian chants and gestalt psychology;
What words can it spell,
This alphabet of one sensibility?
The pure pattern of the stars in orderly progression,
The thin air of fourteen-thousand-foot summits,
Their Pisgah views into what secrets of the personality,
The fire of poppies in eroded fields,
The sleep of lynxes in the noonday forest,
The curious anastomosis of the webs of thought,
Life streaming ungovernably away,
And the deep hope of man.
The centuries have changed little in this art,
The subjects are still the same.
“For Christ’s sake take off your clothes and get into bed,
We are not going to live forever.”
“Petals fall from the rose,”
We fall from life,
Values fall from history like men from shellfire,
Only a minimum survives,
Only an unknown achievement.
They can put it all on the headstones,
In all the battlefields,
“Poor guy, he never knew what it was all about.”
Spectacled men will come with shovels in a thousand years,
Give lectures in universities on cultural advances, cultural lags.
A little more garlic in the soup,
A half-hour more in bed in the morning,
Some of them got it, some of them didn’t;
The things they dropped in their hurry
Are behind the glass cases of dusky museums.
This year we made four major ascents,
Camped for two weeks at timberline,
Watched Mars swim close to the earth,
Watched the black aurora of war
Spread over the sky of a decayed civilization.
These are the last terrible years of authority.
The disease has reached its crisis,
Ten thousand years of power,
The struggle of two laws,
The rule of iron and spilled blood,
The abiding solidarity of living blood and brain.
They are trapped, beleaguered, murderous,
If they line their cellars with cork
It is not to still the pistol shots,
It is to insulate the last words of the condemned.
“Liberty is the mother
Not the daughter of order.”
“Not the government of men
But the administration of things.”
“From each according to his ability,
Unto each according to his needs.”
We could still hear them,
Cutting steps in the blue ice of hanging glaciers,
Teetering along shattered arêtes.
The cold and cruel apathy of mountains
Has been subdued with a few strands of rope
And some flimsy iceaxes,
There are only a few peaks left.
Twenty-five years have gone since my first sweetheart.
Back from the mountains there is a letter waiting for me.
“I read your poem in the New Republic.
Do you remember the undertaker’s on the corner,
How we peeped in the basement window at a sheeted figure
And ran away screaming? Do you remember?
There is a filling station on the corner,
A parking lot where your house used to be,
Only ours and two other houses are left.
We stick it out in the noise and carbon monoxide.”
It was a poem of homesickness and exile,
Twenty-five years wandering around
In a world of noise and poison.
She stuck it out, I never went back,
But there are domestic as well as imported
Explosions and poison gases.
Dante was homesick, the Chinese made an art of it,
So was Ovid and many others,
Pound and Eliot amongst them,
Kropotkin dying of hunger,
Berkman by his own hand,
Fanny Baron biting her executioners,
Mahkno in the odor of calumny,
Trotsky, too, I suppose, passionately, after his fashion.
Do you remember?
What is it all for, this poetry,
This bundle of accomplishment
Put together with so much pain?
Do you remember the corpse in the basement?
What are we doing at the turn of our years,
Writers and readers of the liberal weeklies?


***



...I like Mr. Rexroth....
:hello:

:cool: :cool:
_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+
... and his words purge up and outward,
expelled and onward through desert dust swallowed,
sands he says that gorge on simple sensibilities.
And, now he spits fragments, grit, extended vowels and elongated syllables
over cracked lips. Their sounds fall
piling round his boots…
~ jeannerené

Image

~breathe~


flickr -jeannerene photostream

User avatar
jeannerené
Winter's Rose
Posts: 686
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2002 12:01 am
Location: CA

Post by jeannerené » Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:29 am

. . . and this is dedicated to the one we love

We come to feel quite close to one another ... here.. on the Pages....
and often our members are inspired to write about one another.....I thought it might be nice to reread these poems of admiration, appreciation and often times concern.....

I found the poems below in the Tribute Forum ... I am sure there are more to be found in Tribute and in other forums...... If you have written (or come across) an archived poem in honor of or dedicated to a member here ... at Poetry Pages .... please add it as a reply ....

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<*

<center>Ravyn Rose

Gathering crowds of alone,
Wind whistles through cracked windows,
We have gathered here to be shown,
The tale of one, Ravyn Rose.

The candles flame, shudders and sighs,
Calms itself, as the wax rolls down,
Clouds roll apart, an owl takes to the skies,
A ghost sits outside,
Wrapped in her wedding gown.

Yellowed with age,
Browned in dried blood,
Still wet, with tears of rage,
Drowned in the cyclone flood.

Your hearts will not be free,
Her tale is one that will bleed to break,
And leave you all in some degree,
Feeling alone, burning upon a stake.

For it is our fault that this took place,
That a trail of life was left,
From Bakersfield, to Colorado, retrace,
We are the ones, who stayed the theft,
And denied her embrace.

A little girl screamed, but we never cared,
A little girl bled, be we never dared,
A child was lost, and we were the cost.

A million people, passing by,
We only saw a whore, an addict,
She probably did it herself, so why,
Should I stop to help some convict?

You shake your head,
Deny your own thought,
We all made this bed,
With lessons we were taught.

Imagine for a second, a cold night,
A young girl, wanting nothing but life,
Hiding from every car, from ever light,
Fearing the devil would find her, make her his wife,
That’s where your thought stops,
Too cruel to go on,
She couldn’t go to the cops,
But the devil did find her,
Raped her as you sipped coffee that dawn.

Yes your tears come now,
Too late and too little to help,
We all disavow,
Disallow,
That this could be so true,
But I tell you,
Even now,
These tears are not new.

The ghost outside, with phantom fears,
Walks inside and sits down,
Next to us, her peers,
For she is not dead, look around,
She will live for many years

Gathered crowds of alone,
Embrace and swear to those,
That before the night has grown,
We will all embrace her, Ravyn Rose.</center>

a rose is a flower that is beautiful beyond belief, even when the hardest winters tear its tangled branches apart, it will flower once again after the sun has shined...
you are loved Jen... by many more than you know...

by Thief of Dreams

***


<center>Gillian's Poems

Compositions kindle.
Her words gesture,
come hither, set fire my heart.
Flames touch me.

Perceptions flower.
Inhale her portrait,
buds caress diminished bloom.
Follow the scent of compassion.

Melodies murmur.
Voices offer song,
sound a celebration of love,
each time desire reveals her name.

Imaginations dine.
Delicacies penned sweet,
spiced with time’s sorrow.
Taste of tears left on the tongue.

Collection admired.
Poetic decanters . . . goblets,
catching Gillian’s hues and brilliance,
bedazzling our hopeful sight.</center>

by jeannerené

***


Anarcha Erika Carter

Great things come in nice, small (portable) packages
Of course, I write of the goddess herself
Deep in her own rhythmical world
Defying everything part of norm
Exceptional at her poetry
Simply the sweetest
Someone's known

Erotic poetries will be bringing her a lot of recognition
Rarely is she ever known to loose her temper
Insatiable desire to be "in-a-sense lost" almost always
Knows what she confidently wants from life
Anarcha Erika Carter… that 's her name.

by Friend_Forever

****


A Strong Southern Woman (For Leysa)

She's a strong woman...
Wired by
the old traditions
of the South.
Despite confusing definitions
from her children
and ex-spouse

Yet she'll persevere
with somber smiles
when conditions
change at will,
and accept new admonitions
swallowed hard
like a bitter pills

She's a strong woman...
Facing all
her own suspicions
late at night
Recounted each in repetition
till her memory
gets it right

Then she'll disappear,
as dreams embrace
bold transmissions
from her soul,
before beginning
her transition from
a loss she can't control

by Bags

***


Heinz

Last night
I found myself in much dismay,
I was searching with no avail
my poem to display.

I clicked and closed,
entered my password over and over again,
Went to the chat room
to find a helpful friend.

I found myself alone
no one in there but me,
Didn’t know how to get out,
but how can this be?

I signed in and log out
I don’t know how many times,
Searching and searching,
I felt I was losing my mind.

I felt like a deer in the bush
going for a run,
Only, I wasn't dashing through trees,
but different kinds of forums.

My computer started acting crazy
a virus tried to come in,
So of course a scan was done
and I rebooted again.

I can’t even begin to explain
after four hours what I went through,
The tears filled my eyes,
I wanted to pull my hair too.

My friend
who has been using the poetry pages for a while,
Couldn’t figure out who I was,
ignored my pms, thats when I lost my smile.

Now I’ve lost my dear friend, no new ones to make,
and my poems can’t be displayed,
Yet I is see so many othershaving fun in here,
is it any wonder why I'm dismayed?

Then out of the blue
I see a name I’ve come to recognize,
I see it everywhere,
its a name so unique
and a friendly one much to my surprise.

When I clicked on his name,
I saw the initial's pm,
I knew what that meant,
so I said here I go again.

Of course I sent a message
to him in urgency,
In no time at all
he got back to me.

The messages
went back and forth like a relay,
But in no time at all,
my poem was on display.

For those who know how this room works
it may seem easy to you,
But for a newbie like me,
holding back the tears is all I could do.

Now if there is someone out there
and you are new just like me,
Stop what you’re doing
before you start searching frantically.

Take a deep breath
and go to one of the moderators,
Who understand how this place works,
they certainly know it better.

To the friendly kind person who helped me last night,
this poem to you I dedicate,
Of course it is you HEINZ for all you have done
I think you are great.

My dilemma is over now,
I slept peacefully last night,
Now this is my way of saying thank you
for making everything all right.

Thanks again Angel friend.

by Debbie

***


<center>Beautiful Painter & Poet (Jeanne)

She struggles silently
Screaming with her paints
And using the brush
To show her tears

But even the beauty of her self
Cant be hidden behind the colors
That dry upon the canvas
For she is the very best of beauty

Inside her silent torture
There is a spark
That can overcome all her pain
And shine through to us
Ripping the shadows from our hearts

A painter and a poet
With hands that hold the sun
If only she would open her tightly clenched fist
And let her eyes take in the beauty
That we all know and love
The beautiful jeannerené
With the little squiggly mark in her name.</center>


by Thief of Dreams

***


Terry Lee McGhee

All along the paved highways
in the land of the free,
drives a broken down truck
of one Terry McGhee

Since his middle name turned out
to be one of three
He would shortly be known
by the nickname of Lee

Yes most would take umbrage,
and I'm sure you'll agree,
so be thankful your name's
so unlike his marquee

It rhymes and it chimes,
but most people think; "Gee"
I'm glad that my name's not
"Terry Lee McGhee"

by Bags

****


<center>Moongem/Ravyn

Blankets nailed over windows,
Keeps the suns smiling light away,
A pale portrait afraid to expose,
A single teardrop to the day.

The children’s laughter draws on curiosity,
Pulls you closer, painfully you strain,
To hear every whisper of generosity,
The power of a smile you can’t contain.

Pull back the blackness, and peek outside,
The sunlight dries the tears upon your cheek,
A smiles spreads into depression denied,
As you realize that laughter is not for the weak.

Rip curtains down, pull blankets away,
Death isn’t coming, not today,
So bathe in the light,
And love,
That will continue to hold you,
Long into the night.
As a Ravyn flies, alongside the Dove.
And together they will ignite,
The Phoenix delight.

Behold a beautiful sight.</center>

by Thief of Dreams

***


One Voice(dedicated to SamIam)

Perhaps a smatter of satire
will light the spark of reason's fire
Heaven knows that without wit
the darkness looms above spirit

A voice cries out on poets' page
to raise awareness of the rage
That we ourselves can only feel
expressing it to make it real

Though dark the day around may be
the words of wisdom help us see
By glowing with that inner light
to waken hearts and minds to fight

The poet's pen's a mighty sword
disguised as humor and absurd.

by Heinz

***


<center>
The Jousting Juko


In her eyes there waits a fire,
Fueled in part by the burned.
In her mind a war rages,
Shaking the bars,
Of infinite cages.

Her beauty becomes stained,
But in her eyes alone,
As she struggles with battles,
Trying to recapture the way home.

We stand in awe,
Witnessing the clashing of chaos,
Her hair fans the flames,
Her heart holds the loss.

If only we could reach her,
Hold her in comfort.
If only we could soothe her grievance,
And give her support.

Our hearts break for her in unison,
But the struggle is her own,
Maybe one day when the war is over,
She will find her way home.</center>

by Thief of Dreams

***


<center>Mingling Thoughts of Miyu

She sits quietly,
Watching the world,
Through the widest of eyes,
In a hushed whisper.

A spiritual field mouse at times,
Shaking with fear,
At the awesomeness around her.

Yet she is a mouse,
And something more,
Something that can drape a veil,
Across the entire world,
With barely a thought.

They say age brings wisdom,
But sometimes I disagree,
When the mouse peels back fangs,
For the world to see,
We shake in our fear,
Kneel to the ground,
And tremble in her frontier.</center>

by Thief of Dreams

***


Miyu

Softness of heart
My weakness
I can't get mad at you
Cause i'm just that way
I'll just nod my head
I'm complicated
I'm simple to the people that know me
If you think i'm hard to read
Then open your eyes
I'm burning away my life for you
Swallowing the ashes
That are shed from your depression track
You say you're no good
...pessimistic
Oh god can' t you see?
I worry about you
Because I care
Every statement you make degrading yourself
Puts a cut on my heart
To know I'm not a very good friend
For not stopping you from saying those words
I try...
Climb rugged and hard
You seem to reject my climb
Push me further down
By saying your no good
You have no concept of love
When it comes to loving yourself
Wish you could see outside of the box
See that someone cares
You're trapped in darkness
Digging yourself further into it
I'll save you...I'll save you
But torn between people
I can't save anyone...
I can only lend a helping hand
You have to do something good for yourself
So I'll sit here
With my lantern...
waiting....

dedicated to a friend

by JukotoxKanashimi

***


<center>
Lost & Found Sanity (Debab)


I seriously think she has slipped
Her noose of sanity and let loose
Upon the world like an avalanche
Now if only she would run
For some legislative branch
We could all kick up our feet
And let laughter into the air
As we sip on our whiskey neat
And listen as she lifts our hopes
Our spirits and our glasses
In a toast to rival the inauguration
With her famous wit, pinchable ass-
Ets, and loveable imagination.
Oh you know the one who out shines the fab-
Five,
She’s the one and only,
Debab. </center>

by Thief of Dreams

***


Poem to a Thief of Dreams

In the wee night hours, the hours that play
‘Tween the pages and shades of actuality,
He enters on steps soundless that stay
‘Neath the blankets of somnolent dreams.

Hehe . . . He slithers his whispered glee.
He creeps. . . he creeps most greedily.
Hehe . . . hehe . . . It’s me . . . It’s me. . .


In a room of shadows seen by the blind
The quiet cribber perches o’r the romance
That twirls and swirls his innocent’s mind
And licks his lips in such luscious reverie.

Which dream to pilfer. . . .
Which desire to pluck. . . .
Oh …to swoon in the sweetness
Of fantasy’s stealth . . .
The dream is mine . . . It’ time . . . It’s time. . .


From his knotted robe strays a hand ~
With fingers too slender, he pets the brow,
And in shameless joy, his will commands ~
This sleeper robbed of dellusion’s dance.

Ah. . . he muses . . . the night’s a rainbow…
Whose colors fill my empty soul.
And the morrow’s end . . . perhaps, a torment. . .
A toment . . . just to tickle me. . . hehe. . . hehe. . . hehe


by jeannerene

***


searching north star (for Northstar)

"i am in a small path
with cherry fields
pink cheeks
and empty stomach
until we celebrate together"

~~from empty stomach by northstar

searching north star . . .

You must look in the direction of the wish,
half-way up within the night sky
teetering on the horizon
of desire and intuition.
Polaris of the lover,
she defines the east, west and south of us.

You must look by the way of the heart,
the guiding path overgrown with rose tear,
mint flower and lemon thorn memory.
You must trace the line
of falling-dreams across the cheek as she passes,
following the quiver of the compass,

and embracing
the wistful brillance of her voice

to find the north star.

by jeannerené

***


<center>A Senryu For Nosh

In one poem she said
Everything I wanted to...
Give me your today

by GoddessErika </center>

***


A Tribute to Debbie

She’s a cheering presence; I’ll not be coy,
Like laughing leaves, on tree called Joy.
Deep roots of wisdom, born of pain, and endeavor,
Shooting up into branches, which nurture forever!
She loves all life. That’s the way it should be!
Yep… there she is; my good buddy… Debbie!

Is there no end, to her kindness and love?
She walks this life, with God up above!
She can count the stars, from the bottom of the sea,
And still take the time, to be a friend to me!
She no longer chooses to live with a frown,
She’s already driven, thru the bad side of town!

She’s one of those people, who bless your life.
She’s always there, and understands the strife.
With her wise loving verses, I must confess,
That’s why she’s called; “God’s Poetess”
Like a tree of life, giving shade at high noon,
Debbie’s branches, reach higher than the moon!

by budda head

***

I'd like to continue adding to this particular topic :hello:

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A collection of quotes on the nature of .... and the writing of poetry.



A poetry articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in order to make readers understand what is happening, really understand it, not just know about it but feel it: and should be accompanied by a willingness on the part of those who write it to take additional action towards stopping the great miseries which they record.

~Denise Levertov (1923-1997)
****

Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.

~Adrian Mitchell (1932-)
***

There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.

~Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867)
***

Poetry is the deification of reality.

~Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964), Life magazine, 01-04-63
***

All slang is a metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

~G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936), Defendant (1901)


Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

~G. K. Chesterton
***

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

~John Adams (1797-1801)
***

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

~H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
***

You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.

~John Ciardi (1916 - 1986)
***

Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance.

~John Keats (1795 - 1821)
***

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

~Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
***

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

~Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
***

Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance.

~M. C. Richards (1916-1999)
***

Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.

~Robert Graves (1895 - 1985)
***

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

~Robert Frost (1874-1963)
***

The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.

~Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
***

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

~Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988), Time Enough for Love, 1978
***

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

~Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
***

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.

~Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
***

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

~T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
***

A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.

~Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-)
***

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

~Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859)
***

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

~Novalis (1772-1801)
***

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

~Don Marquis (1878-1937)
***

You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.

~Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

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I said, There are 300 DIFFERENT WAYS TO SAY "SAID"
http://www.smcm.edu/writingcenter/Resou ... aysaid.htm

accused
acknowledged
acquiesced
acquired
added
admitted
admonished
advised
agreed
alleged
allowed
alluded
announced
answered
apologized
appeased
approved
argued
articulated
asked
assented
asserted
assured
attributed
babbled
baited
barked
bawled
began
begged
believed
bellowed
beseeched
besought
bleated
blubbered
boasted
bragged
breathed
broke in
cackled
cajoled
calculated
called
cannonaded
caroled
cautioned
challenged
changed
charged
chatted
cheered
chided
chipped in
choked
chortled
chuckled
churned
cited
claimed
clamored
coaxed
comforted
commented
complained
conceded
concluded
concurred
confessed
confirmed
consented
consoled
contended
contested
continued
contributed
cooed
coughed
countered
cried
criticized
croaked
crooned
cross-examined
cursed
cussed
debated
decided
declared
declined
defended
demanded
denied
described
determined interrogated
dictated
discussed
drawled
droned
echoed
edited
ejaculated
elaborated
emphasized
ended
entreated


enumerated
enunciated
exaggerated
exclaimed
exhorted
explained
exploded
expostulated
extolled
faltered
feared
frowned
fumed
gagged
gasped
gibbered
giggled
gloated
goaded
grinned
groaned
growled
grumbled
grunted
guessed
guffawed
gulped
gurgled
gushed
hastened
hesitated
hinted
hissed
hollered
hooted
horned in
howled
imitated
implied
implored
informed
inquired
insinuated
insisted
interjected
interposed
interpreted
interrupted
intimidated
intoned
jabbered
jeered
jested
joked
lambasted
lamented
laughed
lectured
lied
listed
made known
maligned
marveled
mentioned
mimicked
moaned
mocked
mourned
mumbled
murmured
mused
muttered
nagged
nodded
noted
objected
observed
offered
ordered
panted
perceived
persisted
persuaded
pestered
piped up
pleaded
pointed
pondered
pouted
praised
preached
predicted
prevaricated
proceeded
proclaimed
prodded
profaned
professed
promised
prompted
prophesied
proposed
protested
purred
pursued


put in
quavered
queried
questioned
quibbled
quipped
quoted
railed
raved
recalled
recited
recommended
regretted
reiterated
rejoined
remained
remembered
reminded
remonstrated
renounced
repeated
replied
reported
reprehended
reprimanded
requested
resolved
responded
resumed
retorted
revealed
roared
rumbled
sang
sang out
scoffed
scolded
scorned
screamed
screeched
sermonized
shifted
shouted
shrieked
shrilled
shrugged
sighed
sizzled
slurred
slurred
smiled
smoldered
snapped
snarled
sneered
snickered
snorted
sobbed
soliloquied
soothed
specified
spelled
spoke
spurted
sputtered
squawked
squeaked
squealed
stammered
stated
stormed
stressed
struggled
stuttered
submitted
suggested
surmised
swore
sympathized
tantalized
tattled
taunted
teased
testified
thought
threatened
told
urged
uttered
vaunted
ventured
voiced
volunteered
wailed
want to know
warned
wavered
whispered
wondered
wore on
worried
yearned
yelled
yelped
yowled

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Ye Old English Sayings .... so that's where it came from!
This is a great site:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sayings.htm

If you are interested in the history of the English language ... click on to the site .... below is just a one page (edited) of lots of interesting and fun tidbits .......
... the Amerispeak is fun too ...
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/amerispeak.htm

From Ye Old English Sayings:

THE CLINK The name of a prison which was on Clink Street in the Southwark area of London.

BLACK MARKET In medieval England there were nomadic mercenaries who wandered the country side and would sell their services to the highest bidder. These were hardened fighters who lived solitary lives in the wilderness. They did not have the luxury of servants to polish their armor and it would oxidize to a blackish hue, and they came to be known as black knights. At local town festivals they would have exhibition jousting matches in which the winner of the fight would win the loser's weapons and armor. The local gentry, softened by the good life, would lose to these black knights. The nomadic knights didn't have much use for an extra set of armor and would sell it back to them immediately after the fight. The losing nobility would be forced to buy back their armor and this after market came to be known as the "Black Market" (submitted by Gonzalo).

SON OF A GUN After sailors had crossed the Atlantic to the West Indies, they would take the native women on board the ship and have their way with them in between the cannons. Some of the women the sailors left behind would have boys, who were called sons between the guns.


PATENT LEATHER After the Patten shoe which the young women wore in the buttery. When the cream spilled on their shoes, the fat would tend to make the leather shiny.

DONE TO A TURN Meat was roasted until cooked on an upright spit which had to be turned by hand.

BEAT AROUND THE BUSH Game birds were scared out of their hiding places under bushes and then killed.

CUT THROUGH THE RED TAPE Solicitors kept their clients papers in a file folder tied with red ribbon to prevent the papers from falling out. Of course, when they wanted to get at the papers, they would have to cut through the red tape.

MINDING YOUR Ps & Qs Ale was served at local taverns out of a "tankard" ... you were charged by the angle of your elbow ... half-way up... you drank a pint, all the way up... you drank a quart. Since the Quart cost so much more than the Pint, you were warned to "Mind your Ps & Qs"


GETTING TANKED When you drank too much out of the above "tankard" you were said to be "tanked" ... if you got so "tanked" that you passed out, there was a chance that somebody might think you had actually died. Since back then they didn't have experience with taking pulses, they often buried people alive who were actually in a drunken stupor or otherwise comatose.

PITCHER A leather jug treated with tar pitch to help it hold its shape.

GETTING BOMBED A bombard is a leather jug which holds 8 pints or 4 quarts. A full bombard of ale would make you drunk.

WET YOUR WHISTLE Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used to blow the whistle to get some service.

TUMBLER & TIPSY Glasses were hand blown, thus flat bottomed glasses were difficult to produce. Those with curved bottoms would tend to tumble over when placed on the table, and too many tumblers of whiskey would make you a little bit tipsy.

SAVED BY THE BELL When our ancestors realized that they were burying a great deal of people before their time had actually come, they came up with a solution. They tied a string onto the "dead" person's hand, buried them, and tied the other end of the string to a bell and then tied it to nearby tree branch. If the person revived enough to ring the bell, their survivors would rush out and dig them up. Hence... "saved by the bell"
From Pete Hustwayte: Your definition of "Saved by the bell" more closely applies to the term "Dead-Ringer". After several coffins were excavated and found to have scratches on the inside, morticians began the process of tying a string to the finger of the corpse. If that person was alive and they pulled the string, they were called a dead-ringer. This is also the origin of the term Graveyard Shift. The person from the mortuary who was assigned the task of sitting at the new grave sight to listen for the bell to ring was said to be working the Graveyard Shift.
Comment from Michael: "Are you kidding? Where did you get this? From Poe? The expression is from boxing, where a boxer being counted out is "saved by the bell" if the round ends before the count."
Paul wrote: Bells have a long tradition of being used to scare away evil spirits. It was said that ringing a church bell would cause witches flying on their brooms to fall from the sky. Perhaps the ringing of a bell to scare away evil is the source for this saying?
Craig wrote: Saved by the Bell did come from the graveyard bells. People were dying in great numbers from disease, so there was a rush to bury them before disease spread. However, some people did not die, but only fell into comas, and when a person revived in the middle of a funeral, people started to take notice that this may be the case. Special bell ringing devices were put above graves so the buried person, if they revived, could bring help to unearth them.
Another voice: This now refer to a boxing match, but that was definitely a use which evolved from the original meaning which you outlined above. People need to realize that these are the origins we're talking about, not the later developments of the phrases!

THRESHOLD The raised door entrance held back the straw (called thresh) on the floor.


CHEW THE FAT A host would offer his guests a piece of bacon, which was stored above the fireplace in the parlor, so they could chew the fat during their visit.

GETTING THE SHORT END OF THE STICK
Candles were expensive to make, so often reeds were dipped in tallow and burned instead. When visitors came, it was the custom for guests to make their exit by the time the lights went out. Therefore, if your host didn't want you to stay very long, he would give you a "short stick."
George wrote: In the days of outhouses, often there were outhouses with multiple "holes" so that more than one person could relieve him(her)self at a time. Before the time of toilet paper, Sears catalogs and corn cobs, a stick shaped like a shoe horn was used for "hygienic cleaning." It was rather a short spatula device with a longer handle. Well, if one person was done, he could request that the person using the adjoining hole pass the stick. Of course the person with the stick would pass it holding onto the other person by holding the long end of the stick. The recipient would therefore receive it holding the "short end of the stick."


BURNING THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS If they REALLY didn't want you to stay very long, they would light "both ends" at the same time!
Bill comments: This had nothing to do with getting rid of guests. When a clerk worked at night, it was hard to see by candle-light. they did not have two candles, they would turn the candle on its side, and light both ends. This gave twice as much light, but burned out in half the time. The phrase, therefore, came to mean someone who worked very hard, but would wear themselves out (what today we call 'burn-out') very quickly.
Rob Flynn says: The phrase is actually 'burning the candle at both ends of the day' i.e. getting up early in the morning (and burning a candle) and going to bed late (and again burning a candle). Which is why we say that someone looking tired and haggard from overwork (or overplay) has been burning the candle at both ends...


NOT FIT TO HOLD A CANDLE TO A menial household task was holding a candle for someone while they completed some type of activity. Some people were not held in much esteem, therefore they were "not fit to hold a candle to."

GETTING THE BUM'S RUSH A short rush, which would burn for a short time, would be used when company came over rather late; when it burnt out, you would want to see the hind end of your guests out the door.
Paul wrote: What utter twaddle! A bum is/was a bum-bailiff, and "getting the bum's rush" was being helped on your way by a couple of officers.
Tim wrote: Rushes, attached to a stick, were used as a broom. Women in a home or inn where a bum came in would chase, or sweep, the unwanted, out of the place with said broom. Thus, the bum's rush.


GIVING SOMEONE THE COLD SHOULDER When a guests would over stay their welcome as house guests, the hosts would (instead of feeding them good, warm meals) give their too-long staying guests the worst part of the animal, not warmed, but the COLD SHOULDER.

GETTING A SQUARE MEAL Your dinner plate was a square piece of wood with a "bowl" carved out to hold your serving of the perpetual stew that was always cooking over the fire. The kettle was never actually emptied and cleaned out. New ingredients were simply added to the muck. You always took your "square" with you when you went traveling.
From Tommo, MIDN, RAN, Royal Australian Navy: Another Naval expression, correctly described by the second person as being to efficiently fit more plates on a sailors' table. A square plate allowed a larger amount of foot on a relatively smaller plate. So a square meal was a larger meal than they would otherwise be having - a good square meal being a favourable thing.
From BBC program about antiques: The British war ships of the time of Nelson and Trafalga had square plates to fit the tables slung between the cannons below decks. So many sailors were from such poor and under nourished backgrounds they saw this as a "Square Meal" - meaning the only good one they had had.
From John we get this version: Food was cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle hanging over the fire, and things were added to the pot every day. People would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes it had food in it that had been in there for over a week. Hence the rhyme: "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

FROG IN YOUR THROAT Medieval physicians believed that the secretions of a frog could cure a cough if they were coated on the throat of the patient. The frog was placed in the mouth of the sufferer and remained there until the physician decided that the treatment was complete.

UPPER CRUST Visitors to the Anne Hathaway's cottage (near Stratford upon Avon) are given this explanation while looking at the bread oven beside the fireplace in the kitchen: "The bread was put, as a raw lump of dough, straight into the bread oven. No bread tin, it just sits on the floor of the oven. The oven is heated by the fire and is very hot at the bottom. When the bed is done baking and taken out to cool, the base of the loaf is overcooked black and also dirty. The top of the loaf is done just right, and still clean. The bottom of the loaf is for the servants to eat, while the upper crust is for the master of the house.

EATING HUMBLE PIE Servants at "umble pie" which was made from deer waste while their Master and his guests had the better cuts of meat.

TURN THE TABLES Tables only had one finished side. The other side, less expensive to make, was more rough. When the family was alone, they ate on the rough side to keep the good side nice for company. When company came, the whole top lifted off and was turned to its good side.

CLEAN YOUR PLATE BEFORE YOU HAVE DESSERT The square plate (above) was never washed either. After your daily dose of stew, you wiped your plate clean with a piece of bread. Then you flipped it over which provided a flat surface for your dessert portion (if there was any, that is)
ROOM & BOARD An apprentice would journey to another village to learn more about his craft (journeyman). There he would pay someone for his room, and food for his board.
From Tommo, MIDN, RAN, Royal Australian Navy: A Board was a table on board ship. Having little room, one or two timber boards, otherwise used by the carpenter for general tasks like fixing the ship, would be set as the sailors' table. Room and board was some room to sling your hammock, (not A room) and board was your scran. [SCRAN = food, from a supplement sailors were once fed at sea; Sultanas, Currents, Raisans and Nuts.] Today, part of the Officer selection process involves "going before a board", being half a dozen or so senior officers at a table facing you on your own, as a group interview. The board is not the Officers, but the table itself. The Naval disciplinary process, at the lower end of seriousness, involves a going before a "Table". This is going before the CO (Commanding Officer); a little bit like a small court proceeding. This distinguishes it from a 'Board', as the Table was something only the CO would have. The table it was not long enough along one side to hold a "Board" interview, as the Officers would surround it during their meals, and it tended to be only large enough to hold the ship's Officer company.
Julia says: More to the point, the term "board" comes from the eating table. Before power tools, it was a great and lengthy effort to make smooth-hewn tables; people would make do with as few pieces as possible. Usually a table was just one board, sometimes two, set on trestles, making a long narrow surface to eat from. Coming to dinner was called "coming to the board," a table cloth was referred to as "board clothes," and when hired help or an apprentice came to stay, they paid in cash or service for their room (where they slept) and their "board" (what they ate). Note: the American colonials hated making boards suitable for tables so much that they often used split apart shipping crates; there are still examples to be found which have the painted names of the master of the house and the shipping agent/company on the underside.

RULE OF THUMB An old English law declared that a man could not beat his wife with a stick any larger than the diameter of his thumb.
Comment from Lance: When brewing beer, the temperature at which the yeast is added is important. Too cold and the yeast won't work, too hot and it'll die. Before the days of thermometers, a brewer would determine temperature by simply sticking his thumb into the mixture.
Another possibility: As an artist, I always thought that this saying applied to the act of using one's thumb as a judge of scale. You literally use your thumb to act as a ruler to determine the scale of an object in your painting.
Peter wrote: the French word for an inch (puce) is the same as for a thumb. I wonder if the thumb was used as a rough reckoner for inches? Just a thought.
Anthony wrote: this has nothing to do with painting, nor is it anything to do with wife beating, which is just plain old down home American stupidity. It was used by bakers in judging flour, the flour being rubbed between thumb and fingers.

GETTING YOUR GOAT This apparently refers to an old English (Welsh?) belief that keeping a goat in the barn would have a calming effect on the cows, hence producing more milk. When one wanted to antagonize/terrorize one's enemy, you would abscond with their goat rendering their milk cows less- to non-productive.
Comment from Angel: This explains the expression in modern America: "Don't tell people where your goat is tied up --- then they can never get your goat". Meaning if another doesn't know your weakness s/he can't use them against you.

SAVING FACE OR LOSING FACE The noble ladies and gentlemen of the late 1700s wore much makeup to impress each other. Since they rarely bathed, the makeup would get thicker and thicker. If they sat too close to the heat of the fireplace, the makeup would start to melt. If that happened, a servant would move the screen in front of the fireplace to block the heat, so they wouldn't "lose face."

MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX This came from the days when smallpox was a regular disfigurement. Fine ladies would fill in the pocks with beeswax. However when the weather was very warm the wax might melt. But it was not the thing to do for one lady to tell another that her makeup needed attention. Hence the sharp rebuke to "mind your own beeswax!"

STONE COLD Slate floors were often cold enough during the winter months that any bare skin coming in contact with them would "stick". The slate floors were covered with a layer of hay to provide some warmth. The kitchen was the only room kept heated during the winter. All of the family spent the day cooped up in this one room (often 10 kids or more)... also the family cats and dogs who served important functions of "mousing," "garbage disposal," and etc.

BABY'S HIGH CHAIR
with holes in the seat (a.k.a. "drainage chair") During the winter months, young babies were strapped into their chairs and were never allowed to crawl around in the hay on the stone-cold floor. They didn't wear any diapers of any sort. They sat in that chair all day... and you know why there were holes in their chair!

SPRING CLEANING The layer of hay in the kitchen, was finally hauled out of the house when the weather turned warm in the Spring.

BON(e)FIRE The discarded "bones" from winter meals were piled outside and a bonefire would be set to get rid of them.
Comment from Jeff Parsons: The term Bonfire originated in Scandinavia (Denmark specifically) and was the celebration after a battle victory. The bodies of the dead were piled and burned. The fire provided warmth and light for the aftermath party. The term was later (about 600 years) used for any large celebratory fire.
From Randy: The word Bon Fire is taken from Tudor History. In 1555, Edmund Bonner was the Bishop of London. Acting on his orders, over 300 English men and women were burnt at the stake for their faith. Because of Bonner's actions we now call them Bon's fires.


SLEEP TIGHT The bed frames were strung with ropes on which straw mattresses were placed. After some time the ropes would loosen and one of the young men would pull them tight.
From Bob Vila's tour of famous American homes: In Colonial America (and, presumably in Europe as well) the beds were not of the box spring variety that we enjoy today. The mattress laid on top of a web of ropes. There was a tool - an iron type of gadget that looked somewhat like an old clothes pin but larger - which was used to tighten the ropes when they became too slack. Thus, the expression "sleep tight."


GET OUT OF BED ON THE WRONG SIDE An old superstition said that it was bad luck to put the left foot down when getting out of bed.

TIE THE KNOT Tying the knot of the ropes in the marriage bed.
James in Japan writes: ... the priest performing the wedding would bind the bride and grooms hands with rope during the ceremony. In modern day, you will often see the priest place a sash around their hands rather than rope, and it is from this that the saying comes. Although the practice is not as common as it was, depending on your denomination it is still done.
Karen: This is also from the old marriage custom of actually tying the couple's hands together as part of the ceremony. They were not allowed to untie it until they had consummated the marriage.
Claudie wrote: A Swedish exchange student told me that illiterate sailors and soldiers of yesteryear would send a piece of rope to their sweethearts when they wanted to get married. If the rope came back with a knot in it, that meant she said "yes" to the marriage proposal. He demonstrated this by tying two ornate knots in a length of rope. When the ends were pulled, the knots came together in the middle. Even if this isn't the origin of the expression, it was a charming demonstration.
Mike wrote: Having recently attended a Hindu wedding it would seem that the phrase is a quite literal one where the bride and groom each tie a necklace of flowers to consummate the marriage.

HONEYMOON It was the accepted practice in Babylonia 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon".

REASON FOR CANOPY BEDS Most English homes of old had "thatched" roofs. Canopies were placed over the beds to keep bugs, mice, dirt, rain, etc. from disturbing your sleep! Of course, I think I would want to stay awake because I'd be so afraid of having to be "saved by the bell"!

************************************************************

Swear with a classic flare or how to insult with enthusiasm

Put a little fun and creativity into your insults .... swear like the Bard!!!


SHAKESPEAREAN INSULT SHEET
Directions: Combineth one word or phrase from each of the columns below and addeth "Thou" to the beginning. Make certain thou knowest the meaning of thy strong words, and thou shalt have the perfect insult to fling at the wretched fools of the opposing team. Let thyself go. Mix and match to find that perfect barb from the bard!
Column A ...... Column B........... Column C..........


bawdy. . . . . . .bunch-backed. . . . . . . canker-blossom
brazen. . . . . . .clay-brained. . . . . . . . clotpole
churlish. . . . . . dog-hearted. . . . . . . . crutch
distempered. . . empty-hearted. . . . . . cutpurse
fitful. . . . . . . . evil-eved. . . . . . . . . . dogfish
gnarling. . . . . . eye-offending. . . . . . . egg-shell
greasy. . . . . . . fat-kidneyed. . . . . . . .gull-catcher
grizzled. . . . . . .heavy-headed. . . . . . .hedge-pig
haughty. . . . . . horn-mad. . . . . . . . . . hempseed
hideous. . . . . . .ill-breeding. . . . . . . . . jack-a-nape
jaded. . . . . . . . ill-composed. . . . . . . . malkin
knavish. . . . . . .ill-nurtured. . . . . . . . . malignancy
lewd. . . . . . . . .iron-witted. . . . . . . . . malt-worm
peevish. . . . . . .lean-witted. . . . . . . . .manikin
pernicious. . . . . lily-livered. . . . . . . . . .minimus
prating. . . . . . . mad-bread. . . . . . . . . miscreant
purpled. . . . . . . motley-minded. . . . . . moldwarp
queasy. . . . . . . muddy-mettled. . . . . . nut-hook
rank. . . . . . . . . onion-eyed. . . . . . . . .pantaloon
reeky. . . . . . . . pale-hearted. . . . . . . .rabbit-sucker
roynish. . . . . . . paper-faced. . . . . . . . rampallion
saucy. . . . . . . . pinch-spotted. . . . . . .remnant
sottish. . . . . . . .raw-boned. . . . . . . . .rudesby
unmuzzled. . . . . rug-headed. . . . . . . . ruffian
vacant. . . . . . . rump-fed. . . . . . . . . . scantling
waggish. . . . . . .shag-eared. . . . . . . . scullion
wanton. . . . . . . shrill-gorged. . . . . . . .snipe
wenching. . . . . .sour-faced. . . . . . . . .waterfly
whoreson. . . . . .weak-hinged. . . . . . . whipster
yeasty. . . . . . . .white-livered. . . . . . . younker



*****************

Thou pernicious rump-fed rabbit-sucker!!

Thou unmuzzled fat-kidneyed malignancy!!!!

Thou sottish shag-eared snipe!!!!!


************************************************************
... and his words purge up and outward,
expelled and onward through desert dust swallowed,
sands he says that gorge on simple sensibilities.
And, now he spits fragments, grit, extended vowels and elongated syllables
over cracked lips. Their sounds fall
piling round his boots…
~ jeannerené

Image

~breathe~


flickr -jeannerene photostream

User avatar
jeannerené
Winter's Rose
Posts: 686
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2002 12:01 am
Location: CA

Post by jeannerené » Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:30 am

WRITER'S BLOCK ... AND LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS ... OH MY!

http://www.enursescribe.com/writersbl1.htm

Breaking Out of Writer's Block

by Apryl Duncan

You stare at the blank page. The white of the page embeds itself in your brain, resulting in your mind going blank.

Breaking out of the block doesn't have to be a mind-boggling challenge, though. Explore the causes and the cure and you'll be writing again in no time.

COMMON CAUSES

* Unrealistic Goals *
If you've decided that you're going to write from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every single day - no matter what - then you're probably pushing yourself too hard.

Your writing will become dull and drab. The natural flow you once knew will temporarily escape to Writer's Block Island with the rest of your writing talents.

* Stress! *
We all know how stress can affect your mood. But stress can also affect your writing.

For instance, say all you wanted to do was come home from work and write until bedtime. Your boss makes you stay late. Your supper was a half-cooked hamburger and cold fries from a local fast food restaurant. Your dog wants to go out. And all you want to do is crawl in bed and forget the entire day.

As much as we try to carry a stiff upper lip, we're still human. External factors can affect our mood and ultimately affect our writing. Our focus shifts to all the bad things that happened in our day and writing becomes the last thing we want to do.

* Neglecting Our Writing *
Sometimes Writer's Block comes from not writing! Writing every day is essential to keeping those creative juices flowing. You don't have to make an impossible deal with yourself to write 100 pages of your manuscript in one sitting. Taking as little as 10 minutes a day helps keep you writing and words will flow from your mind much easier.

* Perfectionism *
The perfect paragraph, word after word, is a carefully constructed piece of art. But hanging yourself up on creating that perfect paragraph will win you an all-expense paid trip to Writer's Block Island.

If you run into this problem, give yourself and your writing a cooling off period. After a couple of days, re-visit your work and see where or even if it needs improvement. Your mind will be fresh and clear, giving you a whole new perspective on your own writing.

* Research-Related *
A lot of writers don't realize how research can even be a hangup. Maybe you can't finish your crime novel because you don't know how police would handle a certain situation in reality. Sometimes the answer isn't so obvious and we try to write our way around it. All we really need to do is a little more research.

Now, let's take a look at how you can write your way through Writer's Block.

THE CURE!
After you've beat your fists on the keyboard and taken two aspirin for that migraine, try these cures for writer's block:

* Revisit *
Re-read some of your previous works. Maybe it was a journal entry. Perhaps you wrote a poem once. It doesn't matter if you're working on a novel. You can still gain insight and even inspiration from something else you've written.

* Change of Scenery *
How many times have you heard a song that reminds you of something? Perhaps you heard that song a dozen times a day when you were in college. So that particular song brings back memories. The same goes for scenery in your every day life.

If you're sitting in the same room, day after day, the scenery's going to get old. That scenery starts to remind you that you're not writing. That you're stuck in what seems like a hopeless case of Writer's Block.

The solution is simple. Seek out a change of pace. Go for a walk. Take a drive.

* Rewrite Another's Work *
Check out a newspaper or magazine article. Now rewrite that story from a new angle. Maybe a young girl was kidnapped. Police are still looking for the suspect and the little girl.

Your version of the story might portray the young girl as the daughter of a lawyer. Perhaps one of his clients wasn't happy with the way his own daughter's murder trial was handled. So he kidnapped the defending lawyer's pride and joy.

* Use Real Pictures *
Flip through a magazine. Cut out pictures, headlines, even certain blocks of text. Now write a short story based on your clippings.

For example, you might cut out a picture of a man riding a bicycle on page 14 of your favorite magazine. On page 22 you cut out a quote that says, "Anyone caught doing this will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Your story could turn into one man's crusade. Perhaps this man's riding his bicycle across country because he's outraged by automobile pollution levels. His point is to raise people's awareness about the effects of pollution.

Meanwhile, police keep hindering his efforts because the man's riding his bicycle on the freeway, a violation of the law. So you have a man on his bicycle and the police quote, "Anyone caught doing this will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

* Doodle *
Yes! You were scolded in elementary school for doodling on your paper. Now you have full permission.

Free your mind while scribbling. No need to think about your character's next move. No plot structures to consider. Just a sense of connecting your pen to paper.

* Object Focus *
Take a look around you. Does something catch your eye? Even something as simple as a stapler. Describe an object in full detail. Start with its size, shape, color.

* Building Blocks *
Romance. Mystery. Thrillers. All genres have their own keywords. Build keywords from your own genre.

If you're a romance writer, you could come up with words like love, marriage, betrayal, lust, happiness. Jot down as many words as you can think of.

* Life Events *
The birth of a child. Holidays. Graduation. Weddings. We all have our favorite life events. Pick one of your own and write down all your thoughts and feelings about that day. Turn it into a story.

* Network *
Many authors beat Writer's Block or avoid it altogether by networking with their fellow writers. Bulletin boards, chats and writer's Web sites all offer you the chance to meet other authors and work your way through the many facets of fiction writing. Think of talking with other writers as your own personal support group.

Writer's Block may attack you at some point in your writing career but always remember:

WB isn't fatal.

Overcoming WB is not impossible.

WB's only temporary.


***************



Apryl Duncan is the founder of FictionAddiction.NET. Visitors can post their work, search for publishers and agents, read articles on the writing craft, contact their favorite authors, subscribe to two newsletters, one for writers and one for readers and so much more. Visit: http://www.FictionAddiction.NET

____________________________________________________________

MUSTERING THE MUSE...


#1
WRITING PROMPTS

....some ideas .....to get the muse engaged....

1. Write a short story about an unwanted/uninvited guest.

2. Write a poem using the title "Heart Orchestration"....

3. Write a poem using the words "Open the door" or "Step outside" to begin each new verse.

4. Write a ... poem/short story/song .... about about a vintage or muscle automobile: for example ....
57 Chevey
Dodge Challenger
1960's Mustang
Pontiiac GTO
1968 Barracuda
Corvette Stingray
Dodge Charger
Chevy Malabu SS
Plymouth Roadrunner
Plymouth GTX
Ford Galaxy 500
Oldsmobile 4-4-2


5. Write a poem about your old dirty beat-up pickup/truck.

6. Begin a short story with the words "The hallway was silent"...

7. Write a story about something that "exists in the present" .... but "may not exist in the future"

8. Write a poem or short story about a Baby Sitting Misadventure

9. Write a poem using the words:
bumper
blueprint
dental
worm
formaldehyde

10. Write a sonnet to Lox and Bagels

***

#2
If you stuck ... here's a few ideas

Writing prompts.......


1. Write about a memory related to a holiday.

2. Write about the color of "loneliness

3. Write about the smell of "fear"

4. Write about a precious keepsake

5. Write a series of haiku (at least three) about one subject

6. Write a poem using these words: crash, crumpled paper, straw, gravel, ochre

7. Write a poem or story using "an office" or the "office watercooler" as its background

8. Write a poem or story about a super hero or super villain

9. Write a poem about murdering your muse :mrgreen:

10. Write a poem or story about the faierie you found hiding under a rock.

____________________________________________________

*numerous humorous ludicrous poemious:



I thought I would explore ... and share the more jovial side of poetry....over the centuries.

Poems in this thread:
(so far)
*Hymm to the Belly by Ben Johnson
*On a Tired Housewife by anonymous
*Ilka Blade O' Grass Keps Its Ain Drap O' Dew by James Ballantine
*Winter Morning Poem by Ogden Nash



.... It was interesting to find that some things simply do not change with time. Hymm to the Belly, by Ben Johnson .........sans the worry of trans fats and carbohydrates..........

HYMN TO THE BELLY

by: Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

OOM! room! make room for the bouncing Belly,
First father of sauce and deviser of jelly;
Prime master of arts and the giver of wit,
That found out the excellent engine, the spit,
The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper,
The hutch and the boulter, the furnace and copper,
The oven, the bavin, the mawkin, the peel,
The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel.
He, he first invented the hogshead and tun,
The gimlet and vice too, and taught 'em to run;
And since, with the funnel and hippocras bag,
He's made of himself that now he cries swag;
Which shows, though the pleasure be but of four inches,
Yet he is a weasel, the gullet that pinches
Of any delight, and not spares from his back
Whatever to make of the belly a sack.
Hail, hail, plump paunch! O the founder of taste,
For fresh meats or powdered, or pickle or paste!
Devourer of broiled, baked, roasted or sod!
And emptier of cups, be they even or odd!
All which have now made thee so wide i' the waist,
As scarce with no pudding thou art to be laced;
But eating and drinking until thou dost nod,
Thou break'st all thy girdles and break'st forth a god.

***

I couldn't pass this one up even though it is anonymous...You could put this on my tombstone...!

ON A TIRED HOUSEWIFE

An anonymous poem

HERE lies a poor woman who was always tired,
She lived in a house where help wasn't hired:
Her last words on earth were: 'Dear friends, I am going
To where there's no cooking, or washing, or sewing,
For everything there is exact to my wishes,
For where they don't eat there's no washing of dishes.
I'll be where loud anthems will always be ringing,
But having no voice I'll be quit of the singing.
Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never,
I am going to do nothing for ever and ever.'


SCOTTISH HUMOROUS POEM ..... I like this poem ....!

<center>Ilka Blade O' Grass Keps Its Ain Drap O' Dew

by James Ballantine

Confide ye aye in Providence, for Providence is kind,
And hear ye a' life's changes wi' a calm and tranquil mind.
Tho' press'd and hemm'd on every side, hae fath an ye'l win through,
For ilka blad o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew.

Gin reft frae friends, or cross'd in love, as whiles nae doubt ye've been,
Grief lies deep hidden in your heart, or tears flow frae your een;
Believe it for the best, an' trow there's gude in store for you.
For ilka glade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew.

In lang lang days o' simmer, when the clear an' cloudless sky
Refuses ae wee drap o' rain to nature parch'd and dry,
The genial night wi' balmy breath gars verdure spring anew,
An' ilka blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew

So lest 'mid Fortune's sunshine we should feel owre proud an' hie,
An' in our pride forget to wipe the tear frae poortith's e'e;
Some wee dark clouds o' sorrow come, we ken na whence or how,
But ilka blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew.</center>


<center>Winter Morning Poem
by Ogden Nash

Winter is the king of showmen
Turning tree stumps into snow men
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over lakes
Smooth and clean and frosty white
The world looks good enough to bite
That's the season to be young
Catching snowflakes on your tongue
Snow is snowy when it's snowing
I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going</center>


........ hoped you got a good laugh
........ I may add to this thread if I run by something...!


:mrgreen: Hope you laughed a little ........
...jeanne...
... and his words purge up and outward,
expelled and onward through desert dust swallowed,
sands he says that gorge on simple sensibilities.
And, now he spits fragments, grit, extended vowels and elongated syllables
over cracked lips. Their sounds fall
piling round his boots…
~ jeannerené

Image

~breathe~


flickr -jeannerene photostream

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