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  1. TopTop #2161
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Bedecked

    Tell me it's wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy
    store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.

    He's bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star
    choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
    Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says
    sticker earrings look too fake.

    Tell me I should teach him it's wrong to love the glitter that a
    boy's only a boy who'd love a truck with a remote that revs,
    battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping
    off tracks into the tub.

    Then tell me it's fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy
    who's still got some girl to him,
    and I'm right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in
    the park.

    Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son
    who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—
    this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and
    prisms spin up everywhere
    and from his own jeweled body he's cast rainbows—made every
    shining true color.

    Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once
    that brave.

    - Virginia Redel
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  3. TopTop #2162
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This Ecstasy

    It’s not paradise I’m looking for
    but the naming I hardly gave a thought to.
    Call it the gift I carried in my loneliness
    among the animals before I started
    listening to the news. Call it the hint
    I had about the knowledge that would explode.
    In the meantime, which is real time
    plus the past, you’re swishing your skirt
    and speaking French, which is more
    than I can take, which I marvel at
    like a boy from the most distant seat
    in the Kronos Dome, where I am one
    of so many now I see the point
    of falling off. There’s not enough seats
    for us all to attend the eschaton.
    This ecstasy that plants beauty
    on my tongue, so that if it were
    a wing, I’d be flying with the quickness
    of a hummingbird and grace of a heron,
    is so much mercy in light of the darkness
    that comes. Who would say consolation?
    Who would say dross? Not that anyone
    would blame them. All night I hear
    so many echoes in the forest I’m tempted
    to look back, to save myself in hindsight,
    where all I see is the absence of me.
    Where all I hear is your voice,
    which couldn’t be more strange.
    How to go on walking hand in hand
    without our bodies on the path
    we made for our feet, talking, talking?

    - Chard DeNiord
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  5. TopTop #2163
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    That Child

    That child was dangerous. That just-born
    Newly washed and silent baby
    Wrapped in deerskin and held warm
    Against the side of its mother could understand
    The language of birds and animals
    Even when asleep. It knew why Bluejay
    Was scolding the bushes, what Hawk was explaining
    To the wind on the cliffside, what Bittern had found out
    While standing alone in marsh grass. It knew
    What the screams of Fox and the whistling of Otter
    Were telling the forest. That child knew
    The language of Fire
    As it gnawed at sticks like Beaver
    And what Water said all day and all night
    At the creek's mouth. As its small fingers
    Closed around Stone, it held what Stone was saying.
    It knew what Bear Mother whispered to herself
    Under the snow. It could not tell
    Anyone what it knew. It would laugh
    Or cry out or startle or suddenly stare
    At nothing, but had no way
    To repeat what it was hearing, what it wanted most
    Not to remember. It had no way to know
    Why it would fall under a spell
    And lie still as if not breathing,
    Having grown afraid
    Of what it could understand. That child would learn
    To sit and crawl and stand and begin
    Putting one foot forward and following it
    With the other, would learn to put one word
    It could barely remember slightly ahead
    Of the other and then walk and speak
    And finally run and chatter,
    And all the Tillamook would know that child
    Had forgotten everything and at last could listen
    Only to people and was safe now.

    - David Wagoner
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  7. TopTop #2164
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Making A Fist

    We forget that we are all dead men conversing wtih dead men.
    —Jorge Luis Borges

    For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
    I felt the life sliding out of me,
    a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
    I was seven, I lay in the car
    watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
    My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

    “How do you know if you are going to die?”
    I begged my mother.
    We had been traveling for days.
    With strange confidence she answered,
    “When you can no longer make a fist.”

    Years later I smile to think of that journey,
    the borders we must cross separately,
    stamped with our unanswerable woes.
    I who did not die, who am still living,
    still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
    clenching and opening one small hand.

    - Naomi Shihab Nye
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  8. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  9. TopTop #2165
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Cast All Your Votes For Dancing


    I know the voice of depression
    Still calls to you.


    I know those habits that can ruin your life
    Still send their invitations.


    But you are with the Friend now
    And look so much stronger.


    You can stay that way
    And even bloom!


    Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
    From your prayers and works and music
    And from your companions' beautiful laughter


    Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
    From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
    And, my dear,
    From the most insignificant movements
    Of your own holy body.


    Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
    That may buy you just a moment of pleasure
    But then drag you for days
    Like a broken man
    Behind a farting camel.


    You are with the Friend now.
    Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
    What actions of yours bring freedom
    And Love.


    Whenever you say God's name, dear pilgrim,
    My ears wish my head was missing
    So they could finally kiss each other
    And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!


    O keep squeezing drops of the Sun
    From your prayers and work and music
    And from your companions' beautiful laughter


    And from the most insignificant movements
    Of your own holy body.


    Now, sweet one,
    Be wise.
    Cast all your votes for Dancing!


    - Hafiz
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  10. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  11. TopTop #2166
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Cultural Evolution


    When from his cave, young Mao in his youthful mind
    A work to renew old China first designed,
    Then he alone interpreted the law,
    and from tradtional fountains scorned to draw:
    But when to examine every part he came,
    Marx and Confucius turned out much the same.


    - Carolyn Kizer
    1925 - 2014
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  12. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  13. TopTop #2167
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Democracy


    If a tree falls in the forest

    And no one is there to hear it
    Does it make a sound
    If a ballot falls in a box
    And no one knows
    What they are voting for
    Does it really count
    What happens to a dream deferred
    To justice deterred
    To life
    When it becomes impossible to live it
    I don't want to know
    Because I want more than a vote
    I want to be a participant
    See
    I want to live in a free country
    A democracy
    Where hate speech
    Doesn't pass for freedom
    Where
    No one has to turn to crime
    To feed their children
    If you were to put
    A measure on a ballot
    I would vote for democracy
    I want the same things as anyone
    And i want them for everyone
    I want to live in a free country
    A democracy
    Not with over two million
    Locked in cages
    Or millions more
    Pushed into the street
    Where as Ferguson shows
    You cant even surrender
    To police
    One nation
    Under ghetto birds
    And terror copters
    Locking down children
    At the border
    Cutting off
    Families
    From their water
    While cutting lunch programs
    To drop bombs on Iraq
    I dont want to live like that
    I want to live in a free country
    A democracy
    What happens to a dream deferred
    To justice deterred
    To life
    When it becomes impossible
    To live it
    If you dont know who you are
    You can never know your power
    You dont know who you are
    But you will soon find out
    Let your voice be heard
    And may it finally count


    - Matt Sedillo
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  14. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  15. TopTop #2168
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Jesus Incognito


    Don’t tell anyone, but I love Jesus.

    I love his big dark Jewish eyes, so full of suffering soul,
    like an unemployed poet’s, and his thick sensuous Jewish lips,
    and his kinky curly hair, just like mine, uncontrollable despite conditioners,
    and the way he always argues with everyone
    and will go to hell for love.
    He’s just like that Buddhist god Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion,
    except his name is easier to pronounce.
    When you’re in trouble it’s hard to remember to yell for Avalokiteshvara,
    but “Oh Jesus!” arises naturally
    every time a crazy driver hot-dogs past me on the freeway.
    I know I should say the Shema when I’m about to die,
    but will I be able to remember Hebrew at a time like that?
    I don’t want to die saying “Oh shit!”
    I’d like to leave my body consciously, like a Tibetan lama, sitting in full lotus
    with my head turned toward where I’ll reincarnate next.
    But let’s be realistic: I probably couldn’t meditate enough to become enlightened
    in the however-many years I have left.
    Jesus seems easier. All you have to do is love everyone.
    Well, seems is the key word here.
    Sometimes the more you try
    to love people, the more you hate them.
    Maybe it would be better to try
    not to love people, and then watch the love
    force its way out of you like grass through cement.
    Anything is better than organized religion.
    I don’t like the singing in churches — all those hymns in major keys.
    I don’t think religion should sound so triumphant.
    It should be humble and aware of the basic incurable pathos of the human condition,
    and in a minor key and sung in a mysterious ancient language, like Sanskrit or Hebrew.
    Is it OK for me to love Jesus but not be Christian?
    I could try to open my heart and give away all my possessions.
    It’s not that different from being Buddhist, after all, except for a history
    of witch burnings, the Inquisition, the subjugation,
    rape, and pillage of indigenous peoples all over the world,
    not to mention twenty centuries of vicious antisemitism. That’s a lot to overlook
    to get back to a baby born among animals to a Jewish mother, Miryam.
    And what about that other Mary, the sexy one? Jesus, I don’t believe you died a virgin.
    I think you needed to taste everything human, to inhabit the whole mess:
    blood, shit, flies, regret, envy, why-me.
    I owe you and all the other bodhisattvas and sages
    and newborn babies a debt of thanks
    for agreeing to come back and marry yourselves
    to our painful predicament again and again —
    and I do thank you, bowing to the infinite directions.


    - Alison Luterman
    Last edited by Barry; 10-16-2014 at 02:10 PM.
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  17. TopTop #2169
    Barry's Avatar
    Barry
    Founder & Moderator

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    If my life is a mythological tale

    then my art is all around me waiting to be formed
    my freedom is demanding that I keep my eyes open
    my demons are protective dragons swirling in my home
    and my choices are doorways into potential realms...
    a sliding door moment with each breath
    what will I choose next?

    if there is no tomorrow, so let me fly forth in this moment
    for there is not art born of a moderate soul

    what if I spoke my truth
    what if I raged against the way things are
    not accepting them like a good girl
    would I be too much for you then?

    how wild is too wild?
    how free is too free?

    I long to be wild as the wild horses
    thundering and biting
    racing under an untamed moon

    I long to be on fire with flames song
    torching my tongue
    my lips split open

    I long to stand on the wildest mountain
    with my arms flung wide
    fingers prying the heavens

    I long to run through woods in the rain
    dive into the rivers and
    be born in Her oceans again

    I am naked as I write this
    I stand in the cold truth of my flesh
    Curves and scars and sacred breath
    I trace my ribs my belly my neck
    Coming home to myself

    Her mark...
    Her mark is upon my skin
    The broken open and the opening
    Light is slowly trickling in
    And a secret longing dares to begin
    I tremble with immortal yearnings

    - Suzanne Sterling

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  18. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  19. TopTop #2170
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Seawater Stiffens Cloth


    Seawater stiffens cloth long after it’s dried.
    As pain after it’s ended stays in the body:
    A woman moves her hands oddly
    because her grandfather passed through
    a place he never spoke of. Making
    instead the old jokes with angled fingers.
    Call one thing another’s name long enough,
    it will answer. Call pain seawater, tree, it will answer.
    Call it a tree whose shape of   branches happened.
    Call what branching happened a man
    whose job it was to break fingers or lose his own.
    Call fingers angled like branches what peel and cut apples,
    to give to a girl who eats them in silence, looking.
    Call her afterward tree, call her seawater angled by silence.


    - Jane Hirshfield
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  21. TopTop #2171
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Poem A Day

    I got another poem today
    Just like everyday
    A miracle on the internet
    Sometimes I read them
    Sometimes I'm too busy
    Yet they still come
    A poem a day

    The sender doesn't know
    If I read them or not
    Its his Yoga
    He says it keeps him focused
    A poem a day

    Some of them are beautiful
    Sometimes I scratch my head
    What was the writer thinkin'
    Some touch me deeply
    Some I don't understand
    Doesn't matter what I think though
    They keep comin'
    A poem a day

    Today's poem
    Cracked me open
    Like a vase of water
    Dropped and shattered
    Its all about Jesus
    Buddha
    Sages who came to heal
    Down home wisdom
    Elegant and eloquent
    Mind engaged then
    Dragged straight to the heart
    Sobbing at my computer desk
    Tears on the keyboard
    With a poem a day

    My dog
    With the compassion
    Of all those sages
    Wags her tail at my tears
    Puts her nose on my knee
    Looks soulfully up at me
    With loving brown eyes
    Is the dog a poem

    The cat also
    Comes and jumps up
    Rubbing his head on my leg
    Is the cat a poem too

    Maybe the dog is Jesus
    Always loving

    And the cat is Buddha
    Always reaching up

    Just for me

    A poem a day

    - David McNair
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  22. TopTop #2172
    Timothy Gega
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thank you Larry, for your poem each day.
    It enlightens my soul in so many ways.

    A poem a day can fill this bowl
    It gives the mind a structured goal.

    Way better than Sudoku or a crossword each day
    It fills the soul in many a divergent way.

    Like the astrology forecast of Mr. Rob Brezsney
    One can bounce these new ideas across this vast, open sea.

    Or for Hemmingway whose typed pages that were never trashed
    With his previous words now published indeed he had cashed.

    I’ll be glad with reading a poem each day
    So I can write something new in some other way.

    Words of poetry here don’t always have to rhyme,
    But what better use of one’s mind is there with all this free time?

    ©2014Tim Gega

    Your Bubbling Enthusiasm
    Greets me and meets me,
    Infuses me and enthuses me,
    Imbues me and seduces me,
    Excites me and delights me,
    Smiles on me and shines on me,
    Frees me and increases me,
    Reflects me and protects me,
    Pleases me and releases me,
    Amazes me and encourages me.
    Your Bubbling Enthusiasm completes me.

    ©2010Tim Gega
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  24. TopTop #2173
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Farm OnThe Great Plains

    A telephone line goes cold;
    birds tread it wherever it goes.
    A farm back of a great plain
    tugs an end of the line.

    I call that farm every year,
    ringing it, listening, still;
    no one is home at the farm,
    the line gives only a hum.

    Some year I will ring the line
    on a night at last the right one,
    and with an eye tapered for braille
    from the phone on the wall

    I will see the tenant who waits—
    the last one left at the place;
    through the dark my braille eye
    will lovingly touch his face.

    “Hello, is Mother at home?”
    No one is home today.
    “But Father—he should be there.”
    No one—no one is here.

    “But you—are you the one . . . ?”
    Then the line will be gone
    because both ends will be home:
    no space, no birds, no farm.

    My self will be the plain,
    wise as winter is gray,
    pure as cold posts go
    pacing toward what I know.

    - William Stafford
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  25. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  26. TopTop #2174
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Beggar's Song

    Here’s a seed. Food
    for a week. Cow skull
    in the pasture; back room
    where the brain was:
    spacious hut for me.

    Small then, and smaller.
    My desire’s to stay alive
    and be no larger
    than a sliver
    lodged in my own heart.

    And if the heart’s a rock
    I’ll whack it with this tin
    cup and eat the sparks,
    always screaming, always
    screaming for more.

    - Gregory Orr
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  27. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  28. TopTop #2175
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Old Bones


    Out there walking round, looking out for food,
    a rootstock, a birdcall, a seed that you can crack
    plucking, digging, snaring, snagging,
    barely getting by,

    no food out there on dusty slopes of scree—
    carry some—look for some,
    go for a hungry dream.
    Deer bone, Dall sheep,
    bones hunger home.

    Out there somewhere
    a shrine for the old ones,
    the dust of the old bones,
    old songs and tales.

    What we ate—who ate what—
    how we all prevailed.


    - Gary Snyder
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  30. TopTop #2176
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Flaws


    Of the dead ones
    it’s the flaws we remember most
    and may the most cherish
    that part of life they couldn’t ever get right
    pain never stopped running riot along those nerves

    something irreplaceable is gone forever
    the breath knows more than the voice will say
    grief is our first glimpse of eternity

    still— young Psyche defiant in her love
    walks tall and naked out of adolescence
    into the forest of eventuality
    the forest with the understory of thorns
    hands bound with vines behind her back
    at every turn she’s redder in the neck and chest
    bleeding toward her Calvary

    Woodland Artemis gestures with her chin to muse Erato—
    Folly is the true wisdom of youth,
    the will to exist.


    - Lee Perron
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  32. TopTop #2177
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Trust

    The Precipice It doesn't matter when they appear, these thresholds, these footpaths that again and again end, drop in to a chasm. We shift out of a phase that lingered too long on a broken horizon.

    We resist the fall with all our being, holding on like tenacious weeds to the cliff where meaning faltered, slipping from the place we made for it.

    Now life's change waits like a stepchild at the doorstep of the house where it may belong. As it gets darker you are afraid of the next step's blind touch.

    What can you now rely upon? Nothing to do about the encroaching fact of gravity, a hint of vertigo, anonymity.

    The precipice is the resistance to the next moment, its unveiling, its miracle. Nothing to do but wait for a visualization, a vague shape of a memory that provides a theory of where you stand at this moment.

    No other way but to perhaps study the light inside you.Abide in it as threshold, as prayer or as somebody who thinks about you as God.

    Abide in that courage that arrives as trust.

    - Rich Meyers
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 10-24-2014 at 01:00 PM.
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  33. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  34. TopTop #2178
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Won't Come

    I won't come
    I wob't go
    I won't live
    I won't die

    I'll keep uttering
    The name
    And lose myself
    In it

    I'm bowl
    And I'm platter
    I’m man
    And I'm woman

    I'm grapefruit
    And I'm sweet lime
    I'm Hindu
    And I'm Muslim

    I'm fish
    And I'm net
    I'm fisherman
    And I’m time

    I'm nothing
    Says Kabir
    I'm not among the living
    Or the dead

    - Kabir
    (Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra)
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  35. Gratitude expressed by:

  36. TopTop #2179
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Growing Old

    What is it to grow old?
    Is it to lose the glory of the form,
    The luster of the eye?
    Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
    —Yes, but not this alone.

    Is it to feel our strength—
    Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay?
    Is it to feel each limb
    Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
    Each nerve more loosely strung?

    Yes, this, and more; but not
    Ah, ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be!
    ’Tis not to have our life
    Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow,
    A golden day’s decline.

    ’Tis not to see the world
    As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
    And heart profoundly stirred;
    And weep, and feel the fullness of the past,
    The years that are no more.

    It is to spend long days
    And not once feel that we were ever young;
    It is to add, immured
    In the hot prison of the present, month
    To month with weary pain.

    It is to suffer this,
    And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.
    Deep in our hidden heart
    Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
    But no emotion—none.

    It is—last stage of all—
    When we are frozen up within, and quite
    The phantom of ourselves,
    To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
    Which blamed the living man.

    - Matthew Arnold
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  38. TopTop #2180
    ChristmasCarla's Avatar
    ChristmasCarla
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Secret Joy of Growing Old

    The secret joy of growing old:
    The new perspectives that unfold.
    No longer needed every day;
    No expectations come your way.
    The years of toil are finally gone,
    With generations moving on.
    We always did as we were told,
    Without a thought to growing old.

    What does a formless future hold?
    Is there a joy in growing old?
    It's time to let your mind expand,
    To hold life's wonder in your hand,
    To sweep the floor and make the bed,
    Be sure the animals are fed;
    To watch a sunrise, smell the air,
    Feel life revolving everywhere;
    To water plants and pet the cat,
    And taste the magic in all that.
    So does a Paradise unfold:
    The secret joy in growing old.

    3-20-14
    I like this better, Larry. smiles ....

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Growing Old

    What is it to grow old?
    ...
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  39. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  40. TopTop #2181
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Voyeurs
    —after the short documentary Vultures of Tibet by Russell O. Bush

    We watch others
    watch a Sky Burial
    in the flapping winds of Tibet.

    The vultures arrive
    from the stony peaks
    piecemeal at first
    then as sky avalanche
    a tumble of
    boiling birds tearing
    into flesh.

    The curious pay a fee
    to local officials
    make a short climb
    for the best angle
    snap shots of the vultures
    the human body.

    We watch each other watch

    audience
    filmmakers
    tourists
    camera lenses
    monks
    vultures

    their hard copper beaks
    brown feathers fluttering
    like prayer flags.


    - Jodi Hottel
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  41. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  42. TopTop #2182
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Dream On


    Some people go their whole lives
    without ever writing a single poem.
    Extraordinary people who don't hesitate
    to cut somebody's heart or skull open.
    They go to baseball games with the greatest of ease.
    and play a few rounds of golf as if it were nothing.
    These same people stroll into a church
    as if that were a natural part of life.
    Investing money is second nature to them.
    They contribute to political campaigns
    that have absolutely no poetry in them
    and promise none for the future.
    They sit around the dinner table at night
    and pretend as though nothing is missing.
    Their children get caught shoplifting at the mall
    and no one admits that it is poetry they are missing.
    The family dog howls all night,
    lonely and starving for more poetry in his life.
    Why is it so difficult for them to see
    that, without poetry, their lives are effluvial.
    Sure, they have their banquets, their celebrations,
    croquet, fox hunts, their sea shores and sunsets,
    their cocktails on the balcony, dog races,
    and all that kissing and hugging, and don't
    forget the good deeds, the charity work,
    nursing the baby squirrels all through the night,
    filling the birdfeeders all winter,
    helping the stranger change her tire.
    Still, there's that disagreeable exhalation
    from decaying matter, subtle but everpresent.
    They walk around erect like champions.
    They are smooth-spoken and witty.
    When alone, rare occasion, they stare
    into the mirror for hours, bewildered.
    There was something they meant to say, but didn't:
    "And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros
    next to the tweezers, and walk around the room three times,
    learn to yodel, shave our heads, call
    our ancestors back from the dead--"
    poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
    You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
    You're a nowhere man misfiring
    the very essence of your life, flustering
    nothing from nothing and back again.
    The hereafter may not last all that long.
    Radiant childhood sweetheart,
    secret code of everlasting joy and sorrow,
    fanciful pen strokes beneath the eyelids:
    all day, all night meditation, knot of hope,
    kernel of desire, pure ordinariness of life
    seeking, through poetry, a benediction
    or a bed to lie down on, to connect, reveal,
    explore, to imbue meaning on the day's extravagant labor.
    And yet it's cruel to expect too much.
    It's a rare species of bird
    that refuses to be categorized.
    Its song is barely audible.
    It is like a dragonfly in a dream--
    here, then there, then here again,
    low-flying amber-wing darting upward
    then out of sight.
    And the dream has a pain in its heart
    the wonders of which are manifold,
    or so the story is told.


    - James Tate
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  43. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  44. TopTop #2183
    Timothy Gega
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Dream On


    Some people go their whole lives
    without ever writing a single poem.
    Extraordinary people who don't hesitate
    to cut somebody's heart or skull open.

    And the dream has a pain in its heart
    the wonders of which are manifold,
    or so the story is told.


    - James Tate
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  45. TopTop #2184
    Timothy Gega
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Came up with this one yesterday afternoon:

    Poetics 101

    Behind every poem there lives a true life story.
    Some words are laced with anguish and pain
    while others are illuminated with magnificent glories.

    Some Poems fall under the Ex Malus Gratis Theory
    Where something good is later discovered
    in something that was once thought dreary.

    There are picket fence metaphors
    and allegories and euphemisms galore
    As some are dying to get in on this floor
    while others would kill to get out of the door.

    Some poets do it with rhymes
    while others merely reflect on nostalgic times.
    It’s as old as time these lexicons of rhymes
    to bear ourselves in versed poetic lines.

    Each one of us has a story to share
    exposing our raw souls if we can dare.
    Every poem becomes one hallmark
    if you say it gently or create a spark.

    Poetic journaling can help at times
    untwist the logics in one’s own mind.
    Not every script can be sublime
    or written into such a comedy divine.

    At times we wish our words would flow
    to each and every average Jane and John Doe.
    Unfurl that flag of emotion now
    and share your pain and show us how.

    Our words sometimes may be many
    as the journey goes up a steep hill.
    But when the past dies out in us
    One hopes their poetry never will.

    So master those words and you can’t go wrong
    and maybe some day we will all sing your song.
    Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me
    was nothing more than a sailor’s immortal epiphany.

    This life is short and some take it for granted.
    These poems are our voices and need to be ranted.
    Silence is banal and who needs more of that?
    Just find your own voice then punch a hole in your hat.

    ©2014Tim Gega
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 10-29-2014 at 01:19 PM.
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  47. TopTop #2185
    Chris Dec's Avatar
    Chris Dec
    Supporting Member

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I always enjoy poems about poetry. My contribution...

    Faking Poems

    Only the really shrewd can tell.

    I'm moaning in meter,
    under white sheets of paper,
    Turning some trickery
    In pseudonymph style.
    My well-crafted climax,
    and creative writhing
    are pulling the wool over
    somebody’s sighs.


    With my cunningly-acted
    passionate breathing of metaphors,
    arousal of muse,
    I've been faking poems again
    for some inarticulate love.

    © Chris Dec 1990
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  48. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  49. TopTop #2186
    Timothy Gega
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Love it, Chris
    Some days it's true, but they tend to lead to better lines at other times too...

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Chris Dec: View Post
    I always enjoy poems about poetry. My contribution...

    Faking Poems

    Only the really shrewd can tell.

    I'm moaning in meter,
    under white sheets of paper,
    Turning some trickery
    In pseudonymph style.
    My well-crafted climax,
    and creative writhing
    are pulling the wool over
    somebody’s sighs.


    With my cunningly-acted
    passionate breathing of metaphors,
    arousal of muse,
    I've been faking poems again
    for some inarticulate love.

    © Chris Dec 1990
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  50. TopTop #2187
    Richard Nichols's Avatar
    Richard Nichols
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I've got one also

    I need a new poem

    not like the last one
    something fresh
    unpublished
    something with a tinge of god
    or trees
    or mint crushed by a footstep

    it doesn't have to be fancy
    or slick
    it just has to say what I mean
    clearly
    more of less

    i need a new poem today
    whatever is says
    I'll accept
    enjoy and move on
    the poem need not speak
    the deep meanings
    or the cliches of the century

    it only needs to speak its words
    its sounds
    it's meanings and innuendoes
    what ever
    they are
    where ever they come from
    from a void
    or from a deep well
    a mountaintop
    the dirty gutter of a city
    a glacier
    just so the words
    say something
    say what needs to be said

    i need a poem today

    Richard Nichols
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 10-29-2014 at 01:19 PM.
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  51. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  52. TopTop #2188
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Shifting The Sun

    When your father dies, say the Irish,
    you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
    May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the Welsh,
    you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
    May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the Canadians,
    you run out of excuses. May you inherit
    his sun, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the French,
    you become your own father.
    May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the Indians,
    he comes back as the thunder.
    May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the Russians,
    he takes your childhood with him.
    May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the English,
    you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.
    May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
    When your father dies, say the Armenians,
    your sun shifts forever.
    And you walk in his light.

    - Diana Der-Hovanessian
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 10-29-2014 at 01:20 PM.
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  53. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  54. TopTop #2189
    Timothy Gega
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I like it, Richard.
    With all the neurons firing here today I feel like the earth is spinning just a bit faster today...
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 10-29-2014 at 01:20 PM.
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  55. Gratitude expressed by:

  56. TopTop #2190
    gardenmaniac's Avatar
    gardenmaniac
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    "A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language." ~ WH Auden
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  57. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

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