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  1. TopTop #3031
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Icarus


    When Icarus falls

       a fragmented world’s wounds

    receive the falling boy
       who has suffered an excess of light

    his frantic wings
       collapsed in distracted flight.

    He falls
       into every burning abandonment.

    He falls into the last tiger’s dream.

       He falls into the lies

    told by those who have
       to those who have not.

    He falls into the lives
       of black men dying of brutality

    the women and children

       caught in the fire storm, the agony gasp

    of refugees.

       All suffocating beneath the ashes of

    words injustice fear
       betrayal hate separation bigotry

    He is falling into city streets
       bloodied in homelessness

    scarred in desperation

       broken by illusion.

    In the old story
       no one listens to the cries
       no one turns to look
       no one decides to do something to help.

    But we are not in that story.
       We are listening
       We are looking

    for the boy has fallen into our hearts
       Ignited us and we are awake.
       Our wings beat as One

    The wounded words will rise from the ashes
       Justice love honor connection
       Can we pledge to care enough

    to shout to roar
       what really matters?

    to do what we can
       In the ways we can

    While we can

    - Gail Onion
    Last edited by Barry; 09-08-2016 at 02:59 PM.
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  3. TopTop #3032
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Moth

    “New research suggests that butterflies and moths come with mental baggage…left over from their lives as larvae.”

    - Science

    He’d like to be at one with his new self
    but memories sit in him like eyes.

    Sometimes scent implies an unheard-of
    idea and he’s off
    but it’s just another of the given forms.

    You’d think flight would be decent redress,
    the power to sift himself through air
    and leave each thought in its old place,
    where hard feelings also could be left.

    He shrugs and the wings
    quiver with great precision,
    nature will have to live with what it’s done,
    he cannot manage even resignation
    without a show of grace.

    - Jana Prikryl
    Last edited by Barry; 09-09-2016 at 03:33 PM.
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  5. TopTop #3033
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Paul Robeson

    That time
    we all heard it,
    cool and clear,
    cutting across the hot grit of the day.
    The major Voice.
    The adult Voice
    forgoing Rolling River,
    forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
    and other symptoms of an old despond.
    Warning, in music-words
    devout and large,
    that we are each other's
    harvest:
    that we are each other's
    business:
    we are each other's
    magnitude and bond.

    - Gwendolyn Brooks
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  7. TopTop #3034

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    He was a Deep River.
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  9. TopTop #3035
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To Those Born After Us


    I. Truly, I live in a time of darkness!
    The innocent word is foolish. A smooth brow
    Suggests lack of sensitivity. Those who are laughing
    Just haven’t heard the terrible news yet.

    What kind of times are these,
    When a conversation about trees is almost a crime,
    Because so many misdeeds are left unspoken?
    That person there – calmly crossing the street,
    Is probably no longer available
    To his friends who are in trouble.

    It’s true: I’m still earning a living.
    But that’s pure coincidence.
    Nothing in what I do justifies my eating my fill.
    By chance, I am spared. (When my luck runs out, I’m lost).

    People say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad that you can.
    But how can I eat and drink, when what I eat
    Is taken from the mouths of the hungry, and the
    Water I drink deprives one who is thirsty?
    But still…I eat and I drink.

    I would like to be wise.
    In ancient books one can read what is wise:
    To not participate in the conflicts of the world,
    To be without fear, in the short time we have,
    Also to get along without violence,
    To requite evil with good,
    To not satisfy one’s wishes, but to forget them –
    These things are considered wise.
    All of them are beyond me.
    Truly I live in a time of darkness!

    II. I came into the cities at a time of disorder,
    A time of hunger.
    I came among people at a time of uproar,
    And I was outraged with them.
    So passed the time
    I was given on Earth.

    I took food between battles,
    And laid down to sleep among killers.
    I was careless in love,
    And regarded nature without patience.
    So passed the time
    I was given on Earth.


    In my time, all roads led to a swamp.
    My language gave me away to the executioner.
    I could do very little. But the rulers
    Sat more securely without me – that was my hope.
    So passed the time
    I was given on Earth.

    III. You, who are the ones who will rise up
    From the flood in which we went down,
    Remember,
    When you speak of our weaknesses,
    The dark times from which you escaped.

    We travelled, changing countries more often than shoes,
    Through the wars between classes, in despair
    Because we found injustice, but no outrage.

    And yet we do know this:
    Hatred, even of meanness,
    Distorts the visage.
    Anger, even at injustice,
    Makes hoarse the voice. Alas,
    Though we wanted to prepare the ground for kindness,
    We didn’t know how to be kind ourselves.

    But you, when the time comes,
    When human beings can help one another,
    Remember us
    With forbearance.

    - Bertolt Brecht
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  10. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  11. TopTop #3036

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ah, Brecht...worth your weight in gold as a poet, just for this poem, if one never sees another. The greatest "time capsule" ever penned, imo. If we think we have problems... and yet, fittingly chosen for the 15th anniversary of 9/11.
    Also known in English under the title "To Posterity," and available online in a few different translations. This poem has brought me to tears many times over the years. Always grateful to see its nuggets of truth being shared publicly.
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  12. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  13. TopTop #3037
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Onions


    Of relationships,
    and of our individual lives,
    they say that once
    you finally figure-out
    what’s really going on,
    what’s actually true,
    you discover that it’s only
    one layer
    of an onion,

    which then presents
    a new layer
    for us to solve.

    Ahh,
    those who compare this
    to an onion
    have never
    savored stew's delicious
    carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, celery, broth
    until only a single translucent onion is left
    in the bottom of the pot
    awaiting our large spoon
    to pick it up
    the whole onion
    and slip
    its entire delicious slurp
    all at once
    into our mouth.

    - Trout Black
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  15. TopTop #3038
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal


    After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
    I heard the announcement:
    If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any
    Arabic,
    Please come to the gate immediately.


    Well -- one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own
    gate. I went there.
    An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
    Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor,
    wailing loudly.

    Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her.
    What is her
    Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four
    hours late and she
    Did this.

    I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
    Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway,
    min fadlick,
    Sho bit se-wee?

    The minute she heard any words she knew -- however
    poorly used -
    She stopped crying.

    She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely.
    She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical
    treatment the
    Following day. I said no, no, we're fine, you'll get
    there, just late,

    Who is picking you up? Let's call him and tell him.
    We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
    I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on
    the plane and
    Would ride next to her -- southwest.

    She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
    for the fun of it.

    Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
    in Arabic and
    Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

    Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call
    some Palestinian
    Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took
    up about 2 hours.

    She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her
    life. Answering
    Questions.

    She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies --
    little powdered
    Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts --
    out of her bag --
    And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

    To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It
    was like a
    Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler
    from California,

    The lovely woman from Laredo -- we were all covered
    with the same
    Powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better
    cookies.

    And then the airline broke out the free beverages from
    huge coolers --
    Non-alcoholic -- and the two little girls for our
    flight, one African
    American, one Mexican American -- ran around serving
    us all apple juice
    And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar
    too.

    And I noticed my new best friend -- by now we were
    holding hands --
    Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some
    medicinal thing,

    With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling
    tradition. Always
    Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

    And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones
    and thought,
    This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

    Not a single person in this gate -- once the crying of
    confusion stopped
    -- has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

    They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other
    women too.
    This can still happen anywhere.

    - Naomi Shihab Nye
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  16. TopTop #3039
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Speech To The Garden Club Of America

    (With thanks to Wes Jackson and in memory of Sir Albert Howard and Stan Rowe.)

    Thank you. I’m glad to know we’re friends, of course;
    There are so many outcomes that are worse.
    But I must add I’m sorry for getting here
    By a sustained explosion through the air,
    Burning the world in fact to rise much higher
    Than we should go. The world may end in fire
    As prophesied—our world! We speak of it
    As “fuel” while we burn it in our fit
    Of temporary progress, digging up
    An antique dark-held luster to corrupt
    The present light with smokes and smudges, poison
    To outlast time and shatter comprehension.
    Burning the world to live in it is wrong,
    As wrong as to make war to get along
    And be at peace, to falsify the land
    By sciences of greed, or by demand
    For food that’s fast or cheap to falsify
    The body’s health and pleasure—don’t ask why.
    But why not play it cool? Why not survive
    By Nature’s laws that still keep us alive?
    Let us enlighten, then, our earthly burdens
    By going back to school, this time in gardens
    That burn no hotter than the summer day.
    By birth and growth, ripeness, death and decay,
    By goods that bind us to all living things,
    Life of our life, the garden lives and sings.
    The Wheel of Life, delight, the fact of wonder,
    Contemporary light, work, sweat, and hunger
    Bring food to table, food to cellar shelves.
    A creature of the surface, like ourselves,
    The garden lives by the immortal Wheel
    That turns in place, year after year, to heal
    It whole. Unlike our economic pyre
    That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,
    An anti-life of radiance and fume
    That burns as power and remains as doom,
    The garden delves no deeper than its roots
    And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruits.

    - Wendell Berry
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  18. TopTop #3040
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    End Of Summer

    An agitation of the air,
    A perturbation of the light
    Admonished me the unloved year
    Would turn on its hinge that night.

    I stood in the disenchanted field
    Amid the stubble and the stones,
    Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
    The song of my marrow-bones.

    Blue poured into summer blue,
    A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
    The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
    That part of my life was over.

    Already the iron door of the north
    Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
    Order their populations forth,
    And a cruel wind blows.

    - Stanley Kunitz
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  19. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  20. TopTop #3041
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Master Dogen Walks on the South Fork


    The eyes of the fox are shells,
    Her home is sand, this luminous beach.

    She is washed by saltwater, bleached by sun,
    Wrapped in the calcium ribbon of shellfish.

    Her body is a skeletal map, a lens, a geographic mark.

    Did she leave the security of oaks,
    Descend the dune of scrub and marl,
    Or rise, carried by the waves of the Sound?

    Myriad things come forth
    To make the map of eyes and bone,
    To mark the art of shell and stone.

    Water, wind, stone, luminous sand, wind, water . . .


    - Scott Chalky
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  21. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  22. TopTop #3042
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sky Slope

    The strange September sun departs
    A soft breeze cracks the wall of humidity
    Those on the way to work glide above the pavement
    Happy as if Second Avenue were transformed:
    Ah, a brick lane in an ancient city on the day
    Of the morning of a religious revival
    When the prophets and clowns come to town

    Yes, we all deserve the best
    Isn’t that so?

    Looking east: tiny clouds piled
    One on top of another
    Like stones on a trail elsewhere
    Shift your head and the frail blue sky is empty
    High and empty
    This is the void
    Nobody wants to die

    We all deserve the best
    Isn’t that so?

    If I were to follow the path of clouds
    Mind recollecting, backtracking then brazenly
    Galloping ahead, never releasing the thread
    Of what the sky has to offer
    Might I not catch a glimpse of promise
    Buried deep
    In weather dying:

    Look at it another way
    Perhaps an image of a subsistence farmer
    Blissfully encountering
    A rare eatable fungus
    Beneath a rock
    In a patch of barren soil

    Conversely
    Would the void resurface

    Dry fissure in the mud


    We all deserve the best

    Isn’t that so?



    - Barry Denny
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  24. TopTop #3043
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Kindness

    Before you know what kindness really is
    you must lose things,
    feel the future dissolve in a moment
    like salt in a weakened broth.
    What you held in your hand,
    what you counted and carefully saved,
    all this must go so you know
    how desolate the landscape can be
    between the regions of kindness.
    How you ride and ride
    thinking the bus will never stop,
    the passengers eating maize and chicken
    will stare out the window forever.

    Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
    you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
    lies dead by the side of the road.
    You must see how this could be you,
    how he too was someone
    who journeyed through the night with plans
    and the simple breath that kept him alive.

    Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
    you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
    You must wake up with sorrow.
    You must speak to it till your voice
    catches the thread of all sorrows
    and you see the size of the cloth.

    Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
    only kindness that ties your shoes
    and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
    only kindness that raises its head
    from the crowd of the world to say
    it is I you have been looking for,
    and then goes with you every where
    like a shadow or a friend.

    - Naomi Shihab Nye


    "The person who is in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.”
    - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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  25. TopTop #3044
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
    Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
    Humanity with all its fears,
    With all the hopes of future years,
    Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

    We know what Master laid thy keel,
    What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
    Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
    What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
    In what a forge and what a heat
    Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

    Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
    ‘Tis of the wave and not the rock;
    ‘Tis but the flapping of the sail,
    And not a rent made by the gale!

    In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
    In spite of false lights on the shore,
    Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

    Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
    Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
    Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

    Are all with thee, -are all with thee!

    - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    Last edited by Barry; 09-19-2016 at 01:53 PM.
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  27. TopTop #3045
    Roland Jacopetti's Avatar
    Roland Jacopetti
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I didn't know the Trumpster was THAT old!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! ...
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  29. TopTop #3046
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Campesinos’ Maestra


    And it was in that season when the countryside is a painter’s pallet of yellows, and reds, and crimsons that I met her.

    She walks in a deliberate step even as campesinos in stained and soiled pants run row to row, slicing stems, stretched from the weight of bunches, sagging with the liquid sugar of the vines. Instinctively they find only the ripe.

    Cut go. Cut go. Cut go.

    But it was her wont to smile and speak with the certitude of a warm breeze, soft, gentile, quiet, but unquestioned resolve.

    She has countless children under her charge loving each as her own, encouraging all to reach for the brass ring of life’s carousel.

    And the campesinos, who never knew such a teacher, continue their jog up and down row after row, parcel after parcel, acre after endless acre, making their wage kicking dust into the air, carried by the wind forming tunnels in the sky.

    "Save them from this," beckon the men in sweat, and dirt, and juice-soaked shirts.

    She smiles and embraces their offspring. "I shall," she guarantees speaking with the measured conviction of the self-assured.

    And the campesinos, they smile the smile of hope and wave to La Maestra displaying like trophies their fingers, scarred, and sliced, and bandaged from the errant swing of the hook that divides stem from branch.

    "I shall," she vows walking off in a deliberate pace, with her youthful charges in tow.

    - Armando Garcia-Davila
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  30. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  31. TopTop #3047
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Rubai Ninety Two


    Take a pear and pare it of its bruises.

    Old bruised pears are best to eat.
    Lean over, let it drip
    onto your favorite plate.

    The knife is sharp, serrated, and it shines
    with tiny pools of juice.
    Inside, your teeth ache a trice
    of refrigerator cold.

    Slice another slice and thank your pal the pear
    for living – not to make you live
    but just to grow, be swallowed,
    disappear,
    like you.

    Grow, be swallowed,
    disappear.

    - Bruce Moody
    Last edited by Barry; 09-21-2016 at 02:47 PM.
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  32. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  33. TopTop #3048
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Buddhist Grace
    or What’s Wrong With This Picture?

    Somehow I never make it through this prayer:

    Potatoes, celery, carrots, onions,
    each tenderly coaxed
    from soft soil aerated by your hand.
    Thank you farmer for your work,
    I am connected to you
    through this fine stew
    unified by its good red burgundy stock.
    Thank you vintners and wine makers
    for your part in this symphony
    conducted with the tang of a bay leaf.

    Let’s see—allow me to consider what else
    for which to be thankful in my
    deep dish of pungent stew—
    —ah the succulence of fall-apart beef
    nurtured to morseled chunks by your hand,
    my cook, my uniter of all components.

    Thank you cattle for offering yourselves as sacrifice.
    Thank you slaughterhouse workers
    wading ankle-deep in blood.
    Thank you, those of you with the courage
    to impersonally slay.
    Thank you to the packers hanging carcasses on hooks.
    Thank you for the cutters
    who hew beef bodies
    as if they were so many grades
    and cuts of lumber.
    Thank you, all of you, for the intimate part
    you play in my meal and my life this day.

    - Ed Coletti
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  35. TopTop #3049
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Autumn Leaves


    Celebrations of gratitude for
    past seasons' fullness;
    Last bright colors anticipate
    winter's muted solitude.
    Brilliant hurrahs on painted sunsets
    announce inward turnings,
    silent renewals.

    Leaves that affirm, remind, invoke --
    then let go

    and

    fall

    so new births can begin.


    - LynneAnne Forest
    Last edited by Barry; 09-23-2016 at 02:40 PM.
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  36. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  37. TopTop #3050
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    You Want it Darker

    If you are the dealer
    I’m out of the game
    If you are the healer
    Means I’m broken and lame
    If thine is the glory
    Then mine must be the shame
    You want it darker
    We kill the flame

    Magnified, sanctified
    Be Thy Holy Name
    Vilified, crucified
    In the human frame
    A million candles burning
    For the help that never came
    You want it darker
    Hineni Hineni
    I’m ready, my Lord

    There’s a lover in the story
    But the story’s still the same
    There’s a lullaby for suffering
    And a paradox to blame
    But it’s written in the scriptures
    And it’s not some idle claim
    You want it darker
    We kill the flame

    They’re lining up the prisoners and
    The guards are taking aim
    I struggled with some demons
    They were middle-class and tame
    I didn’t know I had permission
    To murder and to maim
    You want it darker
    Hineni Hineni
    I’m ready, my Lord

    Magnified, sanctified
    Be Thy Holy Name
    Vilified, crucified
    In the human frame
    A million candles burning
    For the love that never came
    You want it darker
    We kill the flame

    If you are the dealer
    Let me out of the game
    If you are the healer
    I’m broken and lame
    If thine is the glory
    Mine must be the shame
    You want it darker
    Hineni Hineni…..this line repeated
    I’m ready, my Lord

    - Leonard Cohen
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  39. TopTop #3051
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Comice pears

    ripe to the very edge of ripeness,
    are perhaps god’s greatest gift
    or so it seems when I slice one
    down the middle, quarter it, seed it
    and bite into its soft fullness
    and savor the sweet juices
    some of which always, without fail,
    drip past my lips or down my fingers
    waiting, then, to be licked
    that none of this gift
    might go unused.

    If this, then, is god made flesh,
    who is satan
    if not my fear?

    - Bill Denham
    Last edited by Barry; 09-25-2016 at 03:49 PM.
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  40. Gratitude expressed by:

  41. TopTop #3052
    gabriela
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    How does one thank Bill Denham for the 'truth' about Comice pears? Always grateful for these postings Larry. Cecilia


    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Comice pears
    ...

    - Bill Denham
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  42. Gratitude expressed by:

  43. TopTop #3053
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I, Too


    I, too, sing America.
    I am the darker brother.
    They send me to eat in the kitchen
    When company comes,
    But I laugh,
    And eat well,
    And grow strong.
    Tomorrow,
    I’ll be at the table
    When company comes.
    Nobody’ll dare
    Say to me,
    “Eat in the kitchen,”
    Then.
    Besides,
    They’ll see how beautiful I am
    And be ashamed—
    I, too, am America.


    - Langston Hughes
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  44. TopTop #3054
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Study of Two Pears

    I
    Opusculum paedagogum.
    The pears are not viols,
    nudes or bottles.
    They resemble nothing else.

    II
    They are yellow forms
    Composed of curves
    Bulging toward the base.
    They are touched red.

    III
    They are not flat surfaces
    Having curved outlines.
    They are round
    tapering toward the top.

    IV
    In the way they are modelled
    There are bits of blue.
    A hard dry leaf hangs
    From the stem.

    V
    The yellow glistens.
    It glistens with various yellows,
    Citrons, oranges andn greens
    Flowering over the skin.

    VI
    The shadows of the pears
    Are blobs on the green cloth.
    The pears are not seen
    As the observer wills.

    - Wallace Stevens
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  45. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  46. TopTop #3055
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    How to Stop Rushing

    Sit in an alpine meadow or
    by the side of a dying friend

    Taste the wind
    her letting go breaths

    Imagine a glacier scouring the valley
    her first inhale

    A butterfly alights on your hand:
    become a flower, nourishment for it’s life
    Her gaze turning toward eternity, finds you:
    become a bridge for her passage

    You will not rush the butterfly or
    your friend’s last glimpses of this life

    So: why rush this?

    - Jennifer Louden
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  47. Gratitude expressed by:

  48. TopTop #3056
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Snakes of September


    All summer I heard them
    rustling in the shrubbery,
    outracing me from tier
    to tier in my garden,
    a whisper among the viburnums,
    a signal flashed from the hedgerow,
    a shadow pulsing
    in the barberry thicket.
    Now that the nights are chill
    and the annuals spent,
    I should have thought them gone,
    in a torpor of blood
    slipped to the nether world
    before the sickle frost.
    Not so. In the deceptive balm
    of noon, as if defiant of the curse
    that spoiled another garden,
    these two appear on show
    through a narrow slit
    in the dense green brocade
    of a north-country spruce,
    dangling head-down, entwined
    in a brazen love-knot.
    I put out my hand and stroke
    the fine, dry grit of their skins.
    After all,
    we are partners in this land,
    co-signers of a covenant.
    At my touch the wild
    braid of creation
    trembles.

    - Stanley Kunitz
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  49. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  50. TopTop #3057
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Refugee

    They have no need of our help
    So do not tell me
    These haggard faces could belong to you or me
    Should life have dealt a different hand
    We need to see them for who they really are
    Chancers and scroungers
    Layabouts and loungers
    With bombs up their sleeves
    Cut-throats and thieves
    They are not
    Welcome here
    We should make them
    Go back to where they came from
    They cannot
    Share our food
    Share our homes
    Share our countries
    Instead let us
    Build a wall to keep them out
    It is not okay to say
    These are people just like us
    A place should only belong to those who are born there
    Do not be so stupid to think that
    The world can be looked at another way

    (now read from bottom to top)

    - Brian Bliston
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  51. TopTop #3058

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    WOW! That's amazing!


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

    ....
    Last edited by Barry; 10-01-2016 at 05:35 PM.
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  52. Gratitude expressed by:

  53. TopTop #3059
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Refugees


    Someone else’s little boy
    walking immediately behind

    I arrive at the final check point
    am insistently waved through

    I want nothing more in the world
    only to simply cross over

    Certainly not change to salt
    looking back at the child

    All I have left to me is
    my ability to rationalize

    At best for me on the other side
    stretch twenty declining years

    seventy or eighty for him
    But I am not this child’s keeper am I

    He has my sympathy: From him I have
    the burn of his eyes on my reddening neck

    all the more so as I admit to myself
    I am not helpless before this determined little kid

    Here in the presence of real human suffering
    All I have left: clear choice and ability to justify

    - Ed Coletti
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  55. TopTop #3060
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    October Arriving

    I only have a measly ant
    To think with today.
    Others have pictures of saints,
    Others have clouds in the sky.

    The winter might be at the door,
    For he’s all alone
    And in a hurry to hide.
    Nevertheless, unable to decide

    He retraces his steps
    Several times and finds himself
    On a huge blank wall
    That has no window.

    Dark masses of trees
    Cast their mazes before him,
    Only to erase them next
    With a sly, sea-surging sound.

    - Charles Simic
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