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  1. TopTop #3751
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Edge of the Wild

    It ends and starts with intention, for all beginnings are ends.

    Invaluable, it doesn’t count for much, I know, but I try. Hard.

    There are ways to repeat this, a chorus of crows, a fluttering of sound.

    I might get used to it, after some time, but I’ll often be on edge, pinfooted.

    It would look like spying, but see here, what I’ve quietly done.

    Love and love and more love: evergreen,

    Warm, belly-full; cool, satiated, a wilding of grin, romp and ballad.

    If all my fears went driving, all stirrings travelled on,

    I’d still be here, finishing things; planted and pruning.

    There is no gateway; no golden harp.

    I am in need, I am in want, I am in hope.

    It isn’t a secret, a sheltered hideaway or a silent hurt.

    I am admiring the view now, seeing all that it is full and plenty,

    And wanting it for myself, closing the distance of one jealousy to another.

    Forever; wild and steaming, rioting and skimming the sky with resilience

    I am mostly staring at stars, backlit by moonlight.

    Most nights, I wonder, half-handedly curious, yet struck with ebbing

    Let me, help me to see the worth, the riches, the flourish under the hibernating.

    I am so afraid of being troubled and alone at the end of this world,

    At the start of whatever is next.

    - Leah Umansky
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  2. TopTop #3752
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Two Kinds Of People

    We all get our signals
    mixed up once in awhile,
    moving forward
    on the same part
    of the sidewalk
    as someone
    coming toward us,
    then stopping
    before collision
    and engaging in
    a little foot-dance.
    Sometimes we even
    repeat the whole business,
    having both decided
    to switch to
    the same
    new path.
    Finally, untangled,
    we walk on.
    Here Is where we see
    two kinds of people.
    Most look us
    in the eye
    with a smile,
    as if to say,
    “Nice dancing with you!”
    A few, though,
    walk on
    with no hint
    of recognition
    or camaraderie.
    It's chilling
    to realize
    the truth:
    "for this person,
    I was nothing
    but a brief
    obstacle to progress."

    - Max Reif
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  3. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  4. TopTop #3753
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    El Palatero

    His fingers stop ringing the string of small brass bells and he peddles harder and faster as he pulls out of a lazy neighborhood street and onto the avenue of honking horns and screeching tires. Cars speed past this mobile vendor, some a little too close for comfort drawing concerned or vexed glances from harried drivers.

    He offers, paletas; frozen fruit bars of coconut, strawberry, tamarind, watermelon. How many can he possibly sell today; enough to feed his family? The back of his shirt is dark with sweat, but one must do what one must to meet his obligations; si no trabajes no comes (if you don’t work, you don’t eat.)

    A sparrow who lives this adage pulls a worm from out of a lawn where cats are known to dwell – a risky business indeed. He flies upward into a street tree eyeing the man who peddles the large insulated box on bicycle wheels passing below.

    El Paletero relaxes his tempo as he rides onto another neighborhood street and like a maestro he begins working his bells, hoping to lure those with a sweet tooth and a little extra to spend.

    The sparrow bounces branch to branch until he is at his nest then places bits of today’s earnings into anxious little beaks as children line up at the curb hopping with excitement clutching coins in their small hands.

    - Armando Garcia-Dávila
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  6. TopTop #3754
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Safety Within

    While staring at screens
    We lose the means
    To observe the fact that we make our own scenes

    I definitely get
    That it makes you upset
    Taking in this unnatural density yet

    It's not just the teens
    Or even the 'tweens
    Robots of all ages walk like Zombeings

    But don't forget
    It's a filter you set
    Resist it and it's resistance you'll get

    So here's the truth
    This world is uncouth
    Being in it at times is pulling a tooth

    Don't drop gaze to screen-in
    It won't give you mean-in
    That comes from relations so lift up that chin

    And look around
    Without defensive frown
    You find security, even in this old town

    Clogging up visual field
    Deep security won't yield
    Nor blasting music as an auditory shield

    the deal is that we all need some quiet

    if not the world can feel like a riot

    like a neverending arms race don't try it

    it can be hard to feel loved and secure

    in a dog-eat-dog world I'm sure

    but if you find the courage I tell you it's pure

    we were made to love and cooperate

    no matter how much the news spreads hate

    may you find you true self and a way to feel great.

    - Ben Fisher
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  7. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  8. TopTop #3755
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Listening


    Listening to trees.

    I asked
    if they have been talking to me
    all along.

    “We’ve been listening,
    contentedly,
    as you’ve been listening
    to others,
    to Spirit's voice,
    to Grandpa Fire,
    to your hilltop Oak.

    “And remember
    the log that spoke to you
    in Wiricuta
    as you placed it
    on Grandpa Fire.

    “Who you hear
    depends upon you,
    upon where you are
    in your listening.

    “Everything,
    of course,
    has a voice.”

    - Trout Black
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  9. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  10. TopTop #3756
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Rented Lakes Of My Childhood

    I remember the lakes of my Michigan
    childhood. Here they are called ponds.
    Lakes belonged to summer, two-week
    vacations that my father was granted by
    Westinghouse when we rented some cabin.

    Never mind the dishes with spiderweb
    cracks, the crooked aluminum sauce
    pans, the crusted black frying pans.
    Never mind the mattresses shaped
    like the letter V. Old jangling springs.

    Moldy bathrooms. Low ceilings
    that leaked. The lakes were mysteries
    of sand and filmy weeds and minnows
    flickering through my fingers. I rowed
    into freedom. Alone on the water

    that freckled into small ripples,
    that raised its hackles in storms,
    that lay glassy at twilight reflecting
    the sunset then sucking up the dark,
    I was unobserved as the quiet doe

    coming with her fauns to drink
    on the opposite shore. I let the row-
    boat drift as the current pleased, lying
    faceup like a photographer's plate
    the rising moon turned to a ghost.

    And though the voices called me
    back to the rented space we shared
    I was sure I left my real self there—
    a tiny black pupil in the immense
    eye of a silver pool of silence.

    - Marge Piercy
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  11. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  12. TopTop #3757
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thank You for Waiting

    At this moment in time we'd like to invite
    First Class passengers only to board the aircraft.

    Thank you for waiting. We now extend our invitation
    to Exclusive, Superior, Privilege and Excelsior members,
    followed by Triple, Double and Single Platinum members,
    followed by Gold and Silver Card members,
    followed by Pearl and Coral Club members.
    Military personnel in uniform may also board at this time.

    Thank you for waiting. We now invite
    Bronze Alliance members and passengers enrolled
    in our Rare Earth Metals Points and Reward Scheme
    to come forward, and thank you for waiting.

    Thank you for waiting. Accredited Beautiful People
    may now board, plus any gentleman carrying a copy
    of this month's Cigar Aficionado magazine, plus subscribers
    to our Red Diamond, Black Opal or Blue Garnet promotion.
    We also welcome Sapphire, Ruby and Emerald members
    at this time, followed by Amethyst, Onyx, Obsidian, Jet,
    Topaz, and Quartz members. Priority Lane customers,
    Fast Track customers, Chosen Elite customers,
    Preferred Access customers, and First Among Equals customers
    may also now board.

    On production of a valid receipt travelers of elegance and style
    wearing designer and/or hand-tailored clothing
    to a minimum value of ten thousand U.S. dollars may now board;
    passengers in possession of items of jewelry
    (including wristwatches) with a retail purchase price
    greater than the average annual salary
    of a mid-career high school teacher are also welcome to board.
    Also welcome at this time are passengers talking loudly
    into cellphone headsets about recently completed share deals,
    property acquisitions, and aggressive takeovers,
    plus hedge fund managers with proven track records
    in the undermining of small-to-medium-sized ambitions.
    Passengers in classes Loam, Chalk, Marl, and Clay
    may also board. Customers who have purchased
    our Dignity or Morning Orchid packages
    may now collect their sanitized shell suits prior to boarding.

    Thank you for waiting.
    Mediocre passengers are now invited to board,
    followed by passengers lacking business acumen
    or genuine leadership potential, followed by people
    of little or no consequence, followed by people
    operating at a net fiscal loss as people.
    Those holding tickets for zones Rust, Mulch, Cardboard,
    Puddle, and Sand might now want to begin gathering
    their tissues and crumbs prior to embarkation.

    Passengers either partially or wholly dependent on welfare
    or kindness: please have your travel coupons validated
    at the Quarantine Desk.

    Sweat, Dust, Shoddy, Scurf, Feces, Chaff, Remnant,
    Ash, Pus, Sludge, Clinker, Splinter, and Soot:
    all you people are now free to board.

    - Simon Armitage
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  13. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  14. TopTop #3758
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    When Death Comes

    When death comes
    like the hungry bear in autumn;
    when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

    to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
    when death comes
    like the measle-pox;

    when death comes
    like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

    I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
    what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

    And therefore I look upon everything
    as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
    and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
    and I consider eternity as another possibility,

    and I think of each life as a flower, as common
    as a field daisy, and as singular,

    and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
    tending, as all music does, toward silence,

    and each body a lion of courage, and something
    precious to the earth.

    When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
    I was a bride married to amazement.
    I was the , taking the world into my arms.

    When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
    if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
    I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
    or full of argument.

    I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

    - Mary Oliver
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  15. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  16. TopTop #3759
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Bad Old Days

    The summer of nineteen eighteen
    I read The Jungle and The
    Research Magnificent. That fall
    My father died and my aunt
    Took me to Chicago to live.
    The first thing I did was to take
    A streetcar to the stockyards.
    In the winter afternoon,
    Gritty and fetid, I walked
    Through the filthy snow, through the
    Squalid streets, looking shyly
    Into the people’s faces,
    Those who were home in the daytime.
    Debauched and exhausted faces,
    Starved and looted brains, faces
    Like the faces in the senile
    And insane wards of charity
    Hospitals. Predatory
    Faces of little children.
    Then as the soiled twilight darkened,
    Under the green gas lamps, and the
    Sputtering purple arc lamps,
    The faces of the men coming
    Home from work, some still alive with
    The last pulse of hope or courage,
    Some sly and bitter, some smart and
    Silly, most of them already
    Broken and empty, no life,
    Only blinding tiredness, worse
    Than any tired animal.
    The sour smells of a thousand
    Suppers of fried potatoes and
    Fried cabbage bled into the street.
    I was giddy and sick, and out
    Of my misery I felt rising
    A terrible anger and out
    Of the anger, an absolute vow.
    Today the evil is clean
    And prosperous, but it is
    Everywhere, you don’t have to
    Take a streetcar to find it,
    And it is the same evil.
    And the misery, and the
    Anger, and the vow are the same.

    - Kenneth Rexroth
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  18. TopTop #3760
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Invisible Work

    Because no one could ever praise me enough,
    because I don't mean these poems only
    but the unseen
    unbelievable effort it takes to live
    the life that goes on between them,
    I think all the time about invisible work.
    About the young mother on Welfare
    I interviewed years ago,
    who said, "It's hard.
    You bring him to the park,
    run rings around yourself keeping him safe,
    cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner,
    and there's no one
    to say what a good job you're doing,
    how you were patient and loving
    for the thousandth time even though you had a headache."
    And I, who am used to feeling sorry for myself
    because I am lonely,
    when all the while,
    as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried
    by great winds across the sky,
    thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,
    the slow, unglamorous work of healing,
    the way worms in the garden
    tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe
    and bees ransack this world into being,
    while owls and poets stalk shadows,
    our loneliest labors under the moon.

    There are mothers
    for everything, and the sea
    is a mother too,
    whispering and whispering to us
    long after we have stopped listening.
    I stopped and let myself lean
    a moment, against the blue
    shoulder of the air. The work
    of my heart
    is the work of the world's heart.
    There is no other art.

    - Alison Luterman
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  19. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  20. TopTop #3761

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Great one. Thanks!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Invisible Work...
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  21. TopTop #3762

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This is one of those poems in which I feel the author was able to seize a moment when the jugular vein pulse of the world he saw "spoke" to him and confessed all...and he dutifully put it all down. One of those moments any writer wants to be able to have EVERY moment!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    The Bad Old Days

    The summer of nineteen eighteen
    I read The Jungle and The
    Research Magnificent. That fall
    My father died and my aunt
    Took me to Chicago to live.
    The first thing I did was to take
    A streetcar to the stockyards.
    In the winter afternoon,
    Gritty and fetid, I walked
    Through the filthy snow, through the
    Squalid streets, looking shyly
    Into the people’s faces,
    Those who were home in the daytime.
    Debauched and exhausted faces,
    Starved and looted brains, faces
    Like the faces in the senile
    And insane wards of charity
    Hospitals. Predatory
    Faces of little children.
    Then as the soiled twilight darkened,
    Under the green gas lamps, and the
    Sputtering purple arc lamps,
    The faces of the men coming
    Home from work, some still alive with
    The last pulse of hope or courage,
    Some sly and bitter, some smart and
    Silly, most of them already
    Broken and empty, no life,
    Only blinding tiredness, worse
    Than any tired animal.
    The sour smells of a thousand
    Suppers of fried potatoes and
    Fried cabbage bled into the street.
    I was giddy and sick, and out
    Of my misery I felt rising
    A terrible anger and out
    Of the anger, an absolute vow.
    Today the evil is clean
    And prosperous, but it is
    Everywhere, you don’t have to
    Take a streetcar to find it,
    And it is the same evil.
    And the misery, and the
    Anger, and the vow are the same.

    - Kenneth Rexroth
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  22. TopTop #3763
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Lanyard

    The other day I was ricocheting slowly
    off the blue walls of this room,
    moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
    from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
    when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
    where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

    No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
    could send one into the past more suddenly—
    a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
    by a deep Adirondack lake
    learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
    into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

    I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
    or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
    but that did not keep me from crossing
    strand over strand again and again
    until I had made a boxy
    red and white lanyard for my mother.

    She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
    and I gave her a lanyard.
    She nursed me in many a sick room,
    lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
    laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
    and then led me out into the airy light

    and taught me to walk and swim,
    and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
    Here are thousands of meals, she said,
    and here is clothing and a good education.
    And here is your lanyard, I replied,
    which I made with a little help from a counselor.

    Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
    strong legs, bones and teeth,
    and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
    and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
    And here, I wish to say to her now,
    is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

    that you can never repay your mother,
    but the rueful admission that when she took
    the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
    I was as sure as a boy could be
    that this useless, worthless thing I wove
    out of boredom would be enough to make us even.



    - Billy Collins
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  24. TopTop #3764
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Photograph of my mother sitting on the steps

    My mother who isn't anyone's
    just her own intact and yearning
    self complete as a birch tree
    sits on the tenement steps.

    She is awkwardly lovely, her face
    pure as a single trill perfectly
    prolonged on a violin, yet she
    knows the camera sees her

    and she arranges her body
    like a flower in a vase to be
    displayed, admired she hopes.
    She longs to be luminous

    and visible, to shine in the eyes
    of it must be a handsome man,
    who will carry her away--and he
    will into poverty and an abortion

    but not yet. Now she drapes
    her best, her only good dress
    inherited from her sister who dances
    on the stage, around her legs

    that she does not like
    and leans a little forward
    because she does like her breasts.
    How she wants love to bathe

    her in honeyed light lifting her
    up through smoky clouds clamped
    on the Pittsburgh slum. Blessed
    are we who cannot know

    what will come to us,
    our upturned faces following
    through the sky
    the sun of love.

    - Marge Piercy
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  25. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  26. TopTop #3765
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Come From There

    I come from there and I have memories
    Born as mortals are, I have a mother
    And a house with many windows,
    I have brothers, friends,
    And a prison cell with a cold window.
    Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
    I have my own view,
    And an extra blade of grass.
    Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
    And the bounty of birds,
    And the immortal olive tree.
    I walked this land before the swords
    Turned its living body into a laden table.


    I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
    When the sky weeps for her mother.
    And I weep to make myself known
    To a returning cloud.
    I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
    So that I could break the rule.
    I learnt all the words and broke them up
    To make a single word: Homeland...

    - Mahmoud Darwish
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  27. TopTop #3766
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Half-and-Half

    You can't be, says a Palestinian Christian
    on the first feast day after Ramadan.
    So, half-and-half and half-and-half.
    He sells glass. He knows about broken bits,
    chips. If you love Jesus you can't love
    anyone else. Says he.

    At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa,
    he's sweeping. The rubbed stones
    feel holy. Dusting of powdered sugar
    across face, of date-stuffed' mamool.

    This morning we lit the slim white candles
    which bend over at the waist by noon.
    For once the priests weren't fighting
    in the church for the best spots to stand.
    As a boy, my father listened to them fight.
    This is partly why he prays in no language
    but his own. Why I press my lips
    to every exception.

    A woman opens a window -- here and here and here
    placing a vase of blue flowers,
    on an orange cloth. I follow her.
    She is making a soup from what she had left
    in the bowl, the shriveled garlic and bent bean.
    She is leaving nothing out.

    - Naomi Shihab Nye
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  28. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  29. TopTop #3767
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Earth Prayer

    O Endless Creator, Force of Life, Seat of the Unconscious, Dharma,
    Atman, Ra, Qalb, Dear Center of our Love, Christlight, Yahweh, Allah,
    Mawu, Mother of the Universe…

    Let us, when swimming with the stream, become the stream…
    Let us, when moving with the music, become the music…
    Let us, when rocking the wounded, become the suffering..

    Let us live deep enough till there is only one direction…
    and slow enough till there is only the beginning of time…
    and loud enough in our hearts till there is no need to speak…

    Let us live for the grace beneath all we want,
    let us see it in everything and everyone,
    till we admit to the mystery that when I look deep enough into you,
    I find me,
    and when you dare to hear my fear in the recess of your heart,
    you recognize it as your secret, which you thought no one else knew…

    O let us embrace that unexpected moment of unity as the atom of God…
    Let us have the courage to hold each other when we break and worship what unfolds…

    O nameless spirit that is not done with us,
    let us love without a net beyond the fear of death
    until the speck of peace we guard so well becomes the world…

    - Mark Nepo
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  30. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  31. TopTop #3768
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace

    I like to think (and
    the sooner the better!)
    of a cybernetic meadow
    where mammals and computers
    live together in mutually
    programming harmony
    like pure water
    touching clear sky.

    I like to think
    (right now, please!)
    of a cybernetic forest
    filled with pines and electronics
    where deer stroll peacefully
    past computers
    as if they were flowers
    with spinning blossoms.

    I like to think
    (it has to be!)
    of a cybernetic ecology
    where we are free of our labors
    and joined back to nature,
    returned to our mammal
    brothers and sisters,
    and all watched over
    by machines of loving grace.

    - Richard Brautigan
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  32. Gratitude expressed by:

  33. TopTop #3769
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Written in 1967!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace...
    Last edited by Barry; 05-19-2018 at 11:37 AM.
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  34. TopTop #3770
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Remember

    Remember the sky that you were born under,
    know each of the star's stories.
    Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
    in a bar once in Iowa City.
    Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
    strongest point of time. Remember sundown
    and the giving away to night.
    Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
    to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
    her life, and her mother's, and hers.
    Remember your father. He is your life also.
    Remember the earth whose skin you are:
    red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
    brown earth, we are earth.
    Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
    tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
    listen to them. They are alive poems.
    Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
    origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war
    dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.
    Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.
    Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.
    Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.
    Remember that language comes from this.
    Remember the dance that language is, that life is.
    Remember.

    - Joy Harjo
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  36. TopTop #3771
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    New Life


    Open the gate less gate
    look inside and call your name
    welcome whoever answers
    leave outside any blame.


    Remember, you are never the same
    differences make the day, it falls in the grain
    it’s all love . . . no shame — no gambit, no fray
    no giants or monsters to tame
    wear your smile
    you’ll like this new game.


    Get over the buzz and follow
    a continuous natural flow
    new weave, tight mesh
    new form this exploration
    experience all generations
    different understanding of equations
    the cleansing of aberrations.


    Enter . . . join the celebration
    relax and hang with trend
    it’s a something that goes forever
    new life — every cycle
    no beginning, no end


    - jayro dyer
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  38. TopTop #3772
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    How She Works
    for Donna


    She is Persephone with no
    Demeter to rescue her. Above
    is always winter. Inside the cave
    she calls her office,
    she is a schizophrenic talking
    to the voices that enter her head.
    Disembodied voices chatter in her ears,
    she chats to the bodiless. Her disembodied
    voice climbs into their ears wherever
    they might be in their caves
    they call offices.


    She is hungry for more
    than pomegrantes, craves poetry,
    oysters and ripe stuffed olives.


    At night she dreams
    if she sleeps.
    She dreams of something she cannot
    imagine and so it has no name.
    Tight ripe buds push like crowning
    babies birthing into bright, electric air.
    Thin shoots of palest green
    wiggle and thrust through dark, amazed
    earth. Because she is blind
    she cannot name the colors. There are
    so many, no one could name them.


    She dreams of Spring.
    She dreams of breathing.
    She dreams her mother is searching for her.


    - Rebecca del Rio
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  39. Gratitude expressed by:

  40. TopTop #3773
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    More than the Morning

    It’s more than the morning we must wake up to
    The birds have been singing for hours in our dreams.
    Let us not be too sleepy to remember the countless blessings
    Waiting to unfold in a day remembered with Grace.


    Let us not forget to love,
    To smile, to breathe the simple truth
    That all life’s precious configurations
    Are designed to guide us to our awakening.


    What a paradox that we must sleep to dream
    And awaken to fulfill our dreams.
    What a paradox that we must die to full live,
    Give to receive, and empty to fill up again.


    Even our longing is a blessing,
    For it carries the wind across the sea;
    And stirs the ocean of the soul
    Into the creative matrix of wonder.

    - Anodea Judith
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  41. Gratitude expressed by:

  42. TopTop #3774
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What Women Are Made Of


    We are all ventricle, spine, lung, larynx, and gut.

    Clavicle and nape, what lies forked in an open palm;

    we are follicle and temple. We are ankle, arch,

    sole. Pore and rib, pelvis and root

    and tongue. We are wishbone and gland and molar

    and lobe. We are hippocampus and exposed nerve

    and cornea. Areola, pigment, melanin, and nails.

    Varicose. Cellulite. Divining rod. Sinew and tissue,

    saliva and silt. We are blood and salt, clay and aquifer.

    We are breath and flame and stratosphere. Palimpsest

    and bibelot and cloisonné fine lines. Marigold, hydrangea,

    and dimple. Nightlight, satellite, and stubble. We are

    pinnacle, plummet, dark circles, and dark matter.

    A constellation of freckles and specters and miracles

    and lashes. Both bent and erect, we are all give

    and give back. We are volta and girder. Make an incision

    in our nectary and Painted Ladies sail forth, riding the back

    of a warm wind, plumed with love and things like love.

    Crack us down to the marrow, and you may find us full

    of cicada husks and sand dollars and salted maple taffy

    weary of welding together our daydreams. All sweet tea,

    razor blades, carbon, and patchwork quilts of Good God!

    and Lord have mercy! Our hands remember how to turn

    the earth before we do. Our intestinal fortitude? Cumulonimbus

    streaked with saffron light. Our foundation? Not in our limbs

    or hips; this comes first as an amen, a hallelujah, a suckling,

    swaddled psalm sung at the cosmos’s breast. You want to

    know what women are made of? Open wide and find out.


    - Bianca Lynne Springs
    Last edited by Barry; 05-24-2018 at 10:16 AM.
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  43. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  44. TopTop #3775
    dominus's Avatar
    dominus
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson


    "swaddled psalm sung at the cosmos's breast"....some wordsmith!
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  45. TopTop #3776
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Hmm To Time


    Time says “Let there be”
    every moment and instantly
    there is space and the radiance
    of each bright galaxy.


    And eyes beholding radiance.
    And the gnats’ flickering dance.
    And the seas’ expanse.
    And death, and chance.


    Time makes room
    for going and coming home
    and in time’s womb
    begins all ending.


    Time is being and being
    time, it is all one thing,
    the shining, the seeing,
    the dark abounding.


    - Ursula K. Le Guin
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  46. Gratitude expressed by:

  47. TopTop #3777
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    “Never Apologize, Never Explain"


    On the contrary, always apologize and explain,
    in the terror-white veracity, down to the essence bone,
    tenaciously follow the long road. Be
    capable and Voltairean, discreet of form and substance, tell it
    like it is, don't gloss over
    in silent splendor.


    Give the unattractive facts. But they won't be
    that insipid (arrears of heavenly bodies).
    And if you have to polish up
    the contemptible gaff, give it all you've got—seriously,
    don't swindle and pretend the sky
    didn't fall in.


    But dole out the mathematics, saviors of the gut.
    Inching without propaganda the longhand
    of dream. Even insult the host who
    just wanted to play the game. Apologize in sample color,
    if you loved something, say it. If kept
    under your hat,


    let the fallacies represent you.
    From whatever Acropolis of stress, bat with
    that genuine non-expurgation, the angel of bottomless pits.
    Versatility and science; right the wrongs you know,
    and do it with wholeheartedness. In fundamentals
    so brash, or like a glass


    of water.


    - Jane Mayhall
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  48. Gratitude expressed by:

  49. TopTop #3778
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Counting on Sunday

    He didn't have his
    Heart in his sermon.
    If he did, it didn't
    Show up in any enthusiasm
    In his voice.
    And I didn't have
    My restless soul
    In church.
    If I did, I wouldn't
    Have counted
    The 823 bricks
    On the wall.
    Outside one
    Of the 48
    Window panes
    Behind the 16
    White shutters
    That helped shade
    The sunlight
    Off the 11 crosses,
    2brass, 4 on cloth,
    1 on a plaque that's nailed
    To the rail that leads
    To the wooden one
    That's carved on the altar
    Just left of the
    Wooden one that holds
    The page numbers
    That face
    The one in concrete
    On the baptismal font
    That stands beside
    The organist
    Who is married
    To the preacher who
    Has a silver one
    Hanging around his neck
    As he speaks to
    10 women, 8 men
    And 4 children
    Who sit in
    21pews
    That hold 161
    Hymn books
    Under 78 electric candles
    That shine on
    5 doorknobs
    And 2 flags
    That stand
    Over 11 eyeglasses,
    7 necklaces,
    2 flower arrangements,
    1 hair bow,
    1 bow tie,
    1 silver barrette,
    And a sermon
    In a pear tree.


    - Margaret Vaughn

    (poet laureate of Tennessee)
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  50. TopTop #3779
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Singularity


    (after Stephen Hawking)
    Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
    we once were?

    so compact nobody
    needed a bed, or food or money —

    nobody hiding in the school bathroom
    or home alone

    pulling open the drawer
    where the pills are kept.

    For every atom belonging to me as good
    Belongs to you.
    Remember?

    There was no Nature. No
    them. No tests

    to determine if the elephant
    grieves her calf or if

    the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
    oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

    would that we could wake up to what we were
    — when we were ocean and before that

    to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
    liquid and stars were space and space was not

    at all — nothing
    before we came to believe humans were so important
    before this awful loneliness.

    Can molecules recall it?
    what once was? before anything happened?

    No I, no We, no one. No was
    No verb no noun
    only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

    is is is is is
    All everything home

    - Marie Howe


    Last edited by Barry; 05-28-2018 at 12:18 PM.
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  51. Gratitude expressed by:

  52. TopTop #3780
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Optimism

    More and more I have come to admire resilience.
    Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
    returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
    tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
    it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
    But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
    mitochondria, figs — all this resinous, unretractable earth.

    - Jane Hirshfield



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