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  1. TopTop #2041
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Poem: By The Wild-Haired Corn


    I don’t know
    if the sunflowers
    are angels always,
    but surely sometimes.
    Who, even in heaven,
    wouldn’t want to wear,
    for awhile,
    such a seed-face
    and brave spine,
    a coat of leaves
    with so many pockets—
    and who wouldn’t want
    to stand, for a summer day,
    in the hot fields,
    in the lonely country
    of the wild-haired corn?
    This much I know,
    when I see the bright
    stars of their faces,
    when I’m strolling nearby,
    I grow soft in my speech,
    and soft in my thoughts,
    and I remember how everything will be everything else,
    by and by.
    - Mary Oliver
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  3. TopTop #2042
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    en el solsticio veraniego/on the Summer Solstice

    (y a mis queridos cangrejos/& to my dear crabs)


    Cancer


    The crab longs,
    after the long day,
    to tear from the sky
    that coin of cold silver
    that is the moon.
    Its eyes are ruby beads
    & in its entrails
    it keeps a sensitive pearl
    which it longs to carry very deep,
    very deep
    to the cardinal point of the waters,
    the primordial depths of the sea.

    - Rafael Jesús González


    Cáncer

    El cangrejo anhela,
    después del largo día,
    arrancar del cielo
    esa moneda de plata fría
    que es la luna.
    Sus ojos son cuentas de rubí
    y en las entrañas
    guarda un perla sensitiva
    que anhela llevar muy hondo,
    muy hondo
    al punto cardinal del agua,
    al fondo primordial del mar.
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  5. TopTop #2043
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Toda Guerra es por Tierra


    All war is for land, though
    it knocks at our doors dressed
    in austere religious robes or cradling
    law books in the thoughtless
    crook of its arm.

    The Land is wordless, she welcomes
    lovers, rapists, pilgrims and psychopaths.
    She opens, accepts destiny
    Dependent on her children’s
    memory of the sweet root
    of suckle playing on their palates.

    Warriors, her children, bewildered
    and dumb look to the clerics,
    to politicians, poor substitutes
    for gods—perverted, cruel understudies
    to the One who holds them all.

    They seek Her without gazing
    beneath their heavy, brutal boots.

    She is patient, sorrowful,
    She is here.

    - Rebecca del Rio
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 06-23-2014 at 12:56 PM.
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  7. TopTop #2044
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Bird Dance

    Each morning I observe
    birds coming and going
    outside on my deck

    I sit out in the sun and sip my ginger tea
    and notice them tentative in the trees
    all around- maybe one or two stealthfully
    sneaking in quickly for a seed or two

    When I retreat to watch from inside,
    writing at my table gazing out
    through the double sliding glass doors,
    they eagerly arrive-
    Singles-usually a large blue scrubjay or
    a black and white red-capped woodpecker
    who chases everyone else away-the bullies
    The smaller ones- towhees, finches, chickadees
    and more mostly brown with a touch of orange or yellow
    come in pairs or trios or more.
    Now and then a hummingbird hovers circling around
    and sips at a nearby flower

    The winged adventurers are calling
    their family and friends to the party-
    Several on the ledge, a couple on the feeder,
    one at a time in the nearby hanging birdbath-
    a sip from the edge or a dunk plunging in and out,
    the water glistening on their flapping wings.
    They chirp and chatter calling to each other
    like welcome friends-

    I have my field guides at the ready trying
    to learn a few of their names-
    Why can’t they announce themselves on arrival?!
    Good morning giant lady, I’m a Red-breasted Nuthatch.
    Hello there, we’re Black-headed Grosbeaks.
    Hey, look out! I’m a Downy Woodpecker.

    Daily I stumble along, I would be an Audubon Society disgrace-
    I can’t seem to identify them and remember their names
    BUT I enjoy the life energy they bring and share
    Reminding me that
    Yes, I’m alive and grateful to be here.


    - Carla Musik
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  9. TopTop #2045
    julie bennion
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This poem touches me today since I am realizing that my birdfeeder, and the filling of it, is not in accord with nature's balance and God's creation of it. I am seeing how my desire to feed the birds is based on a selfish wish to see & enjoy (& so I feed) Certain birds ~ not the scrub jays, for example, but the house & gold finches, yes.

    So the birdfeeder I employ doesn't make room for jays & other large birds to get to the seeds. Then also, I am realizng, the birds squabble w/ each other, competing for placement on the feeder, whereas in trees and on grasses, there is Plenty Of Room for every one; No need to bicker & peck & chase each other away.

    I am feeling that my wish to enjoy the birds in this way is damaging to their otherwise perfectly harmonious life! Including, they become dependent on my feeding of them, morning after morning, perched, looking, waiting for the feeder to be filled... instead of finding seeds, worms, nats and others, God's creation offers all birds, in abundance.

    I appreciate this forum... a place to respond to the poems Larry abundantly offers us! Thank You,
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  11. TopTop #2046
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Name:  i-6c5b9bdd287a370ee994d4ebcc675c9b-birdfeed.jpg
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    To feed or not to feed ? …

    Should you feed the birds?

    It is a little ironic that all nature enthusiasts know that it is “bad” to feed the animals … they become dependent on the food, and in some cases will become a nuisance or dangerous, prying open cars or breaking into homes to get more food. Then the animal has to be put down or moved to a new habitat. But that sort of bad outcome is more common with, say, bears than it is with, say, chickadees. The irony here is that bird lovers, who are always nature enthusiasts, do not seem to balk at setting up bird feeders. In fact, approximately on half a million metric tons of seed is put out for the birds in the United States and the United Kingdom.

    This must have an effect on the birds, for better or worse. Two studies just published by the same research team address this issue.

    To read the article in full, go to https://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2...eed-the-birds/
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  12. TopTop #2047
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My Mother’s Lost Heart

    Loses her heart in life’s trials,
    Leaves behind her a closet of nightmares
    No one born of her declares
    The belly of her predator full.

    A loving funeral with naught a tear.
    Come Emily D. with your gravity,
    Lend words to capture the depravity
    Mother/daughter disbanded wear.

    Human beings are relentless.
    We demand heaven or fall into hell,
    Limbo for her stillborn no sell:
    That soul insult found her address.

    Her youngest lived the play for all to see,
    Shakespeare’s depth in that tragedy.
    From that one’s husband flowed the grief
    Full enough to embrace life’s thief.


    - Brian McSweeney
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  14. TopTop #2048
    julie bennion
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Ronaldo: View Post
    Name:  i-6c5b9bdd287a370ee994d4ebcc675c9b-birdfeed.jpg
Views: 1395
Size:  3.9 KB
    To feed or not to feed ? …

    Should you feed the birds?

    It is a little ironic that all nature enthusiasts know that it is “bad” to feed the animals … they become dependent on the food, and in some cases will become a nuisance or dangerous, prying open cars or breaking into homes to get more food. Then the animal has to be put down or moved to a new habitat. But that sort of bad outcome is more common with, say, bears than it is with, say, chickadees. The irony here is that bird lovers, who are always nature enthusiasts, do not seem to balk at setting up bird feeders. In fact, approximately on half a million metric tons of seed is put out for the birds in the United States and the United Kingdom.

    This must have an effect on the birds, for better or worse. Two studies just published by the same research team address this issue.

    To read the article in full, go to https://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2...eed-the-birds/
    For anyone who is following this conversation, perhaps you'll join me, listening to a seminar on Creating Loving Eco Systems, with AJ Miller (also known far & wide as Jesus) facilitating. I love & appreciate the understanding he brings to this equation -- https://youtu.be/ndtLmM20hH4

    Julie (who posted yesterday's response about feeding the birds), wow, the cumulus light of sky this morning!!
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  15. TopTop #2049
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Call
    (The first and last lines of the poem are from Tennyson’ s “Ulysses”)

    “Though much is taken, much abides,”
    speaks old Ulysses,
    home at last but yearning still
    for new adventures and a farther shore

    as I, becalmed
    in this airless city,
    yearn for mountains and sea,
    space and silence.

    Oh, a mad restlessness is on me!

    I will not be Penelope,
    unravelling
    the work of my days
    while awaiting – what? – revelation?

    Like the old man,
    (and at his age, too)
    I will count what still abides
    and plan my escape.

    I hear him shout
    from afar,
    as if through a shell held to my ear:
    “Tis not too late
    to seek a newer world!”

    - Nina Mermey Klippel
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  17. TopTop #2050
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    may alchemy spin pain into love
    in this moment
    may the love course through me
    weave fear into gratitude
    tendrils touching and being touched by others
    with this breath
    beaming
    brimming
    boundless cloth shimmering
    deep
    full
    unfurling with grace
    gossamer garden bed
    growing courage and kindness
    tucking us in with tenderness

    - Andrea Marquette
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  18. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  19. TopTop #2051
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Riprap



    Lay down these words
    Before your mind like rocks.
    placed solid, by hands
    In choice of place, set
    Before the body of the mind
    in space and time:
    Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
    riprap of things:
    Cobble of milky way,
    straying planets,
    These poems, people,
    lost ponies with
    Dragging saddles—
    and rocky sure-foot trails.
    The worlds like an endless
    four-dimensional
    Game of Go.
    ants and pebbles
    In the thin loam, each rock a word
    a creek-washed stone
    Granite: ingrained
    with torment of fire and weight
    Crystal and sediment linked hot
    all change, in thoughts,
    As well as things.


    - Gary Snyder
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  21. TopTop #2052
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Price of Experience


    What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?
    Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
    Of all that a man hath, his house , his wife, his children
    Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
    And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain


    It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun
    And in the vintage and to sing on the wagon loaded with corn


    It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
    To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer
    To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season
    When the red blood is filled with wine and with the marrow of lambs


    It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
    To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughterhouse moan;
    To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast
    To hear the sounds of love in the thunder storm
    that destroys our enemies' house;
    To rejoice in the blight that covers his field and the sickness
    that cuts off his children


    While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door
    and our children bring fruit and flowers


    Then the groan and dthe dolor are quite forgotten
    and the slave grinding at the mill
    And the captive in chains and the poor in the prison
    and the soldier in the field
    When the shattered bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead


    It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
    Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me


    - William Blake
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  23. TopTop #2053
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    As I Grew Older

    It was a long time ago.
    I have almost forgotten my dream.
    But it was there then,
    In front of me,
    Bright like a sun--
    My dream.
    And then the wall rose,
    Rose slowly,
    Slowly,
    Between me and my dream.
    Rose until it touched the sky--
    The wall.
    Shadow.
    I am black.
    I lie down in the shadow.
    No longer the light of my dream before me,
    Above me.
    Only the thick wall.
    Only the shadow.
    My hands!
    My dark hands!
    Break through the wall!
    Find my dream!
    Help me to shatter this darkness,
    To smash this night,
    To break this shadow
    Into a thousand lights of sun,
    Into a thousand whirling dreams
    Of sun!


    - Langston Hughes
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  25. TopTop #2054
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Dreamers


    Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
    Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
    In the great hour of destiny they stand,
    Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
    Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
    Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
    Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
    They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.


    I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
    And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
    Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
    And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
    Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
    And going to the office in the train.


    - Siegfried Sassoon
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  27. TopTop #2055
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns

    Imagine, not even or really ever tasting

    a peach until well over 50, not once

    sympathizing with Blake naked in his garden

    insisting on angels until getting off the table

    and coming home with my new heart. How absurd

    to still have a body in this rainbow-gored,

    crickety world and how ridiculous to be given one

    in the first place, to be an object

    like an orchid is an object, or a stone,

    so bruisable and plummeting, arms

    waving from the evening-ignited lake,

    heading singing in the furnace feral and sweet,

    tears that make the face grotesque,

    tears that make it pure. How easy

    it is now to get drunk on a single whiff

    like a hummingbird or ant, on the laughter

    of one woman and who knew how much I’d miss

    that inner light of snow now that I’m in Texas.


    - Dean Young
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  28. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  29. TopTop #2056
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Lime Tree


    On a spring day out at Harmony Farm,
    among some herbs and sorrel, we bought
    a Meyer lemon tree and a Bearss lime
    and planted them in urns on the new deck.
    And then, so quickly, you were ripped from life
    and I consigned to tend these things alone.
    Through a hard summer slowly the leaves
    of the lemon blackened. I called nurseries
    and tree farms. No one knew anything.
    Autumn rain left it shriveled and weeping.
    When I was out of town a strange cold snap
    raved away on the frozen deck,

    lemon leaves fell on the new red planks.
    The empty, tangled boughs were blighted gray
    and the lime too, stricken and it’s green leaves
    long gone by spring - I quit watering it.
    But a friend came by to help in the back.
    The place was a wreckage of my winter.
    When she watered it I said “don’t bother,
    that one is dead”, but she said “no, look”.
    A tiny green defiant speck had cracked
    the gray bark to speak a just command
    against the blue spring sky - like a barnacle
    attached to a world that had died.


    - Kevin Pryne
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  30. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  31. TopTop #2057
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Flag


    At our best
    we show our true colors,
    fly the flag that stands
    for our deepest, broadest
    allegiance to each other,
    to the Earth holy & diverse.


    These are my colors:


    red of my love that colors all
    & is the root & flower & fruit,
    the heart of my belief
    & what I know of truth.


    orange of my abandon, my surrender
    to my living, mindless of laws
    that would fetter the steps
    of my wildest dances.


    yellow of my joy that tastes
    of the sun, exultation in the
    wealth of the senses,
    root of my power & my love.


    green of my hopes that wing
    my desires & lend will
    to my acts, that inform
    even my opposition
    to outrage.


    blue of my memories
    that make my history of wings
    that soar to the mountains
    & drop to the ravines,
    complex topography of myself.


    purple of my sorrows, my remorse,
    my shame for betrayals of the heart,
    most often of omission,
    through weariness or fear.
    This is my flag;
    its colors run,
    diffuse at the edges,
    blend, shade
    into hues, half-tones
    difficult to name.


    The tongues that praise it
    are so many, so varied, & so sweet
    their chorus rivals the birds'
    & silences the angels in their flight.
    Known everywhere
    as sign of peace & joy,
    let this be our flag;
    its colors dance.


    - Rafael Jesús González
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  32. Gratitude expressed by:

  33. TopTop #2058
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What I visualize after reading Rafael Jesús González's poem:
    Name:  rainbow flag usa.jpg
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    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    The Flag


    At our best
    we show our true colors,
    fly the flag that stands
    for our deepest, broadest
    allegiance to each other,
    to the Earth holy & diverse.


    These are my colors:


    red of my love that colors all
    & is the root & flower & fruit,
    the heart of my belief
    & what I know of truth.


    orange of my abandon, my surrender
    to my living, mindless of laws
    that would fetter the steps
    of my wildest dances.


    yellow of my joy that tastes
    of the sun, exultation in the
    wealth of the senses,
    root of my power & my love.


    green of my hopes that wing
    my desires & lend will
    to my acts, that inform
    even my opposition
    to outrage.


    blue of my memories
    that make my history of wings
    that soar to the mountains
    & drop to the ravines,
    complex topography of myself.


    purple of my sorrows, my remorse,
    my shame for betrayals of the heart,
    most often of omission,
    through weariness or fear.
    This is my flag;
    its colors run,
    diffuse at the edges,
    blend, shade
    into hues, half-tones
    difficult to name.


    The tongues that praise it
    are so many, so varied, & so sweet
    their chorus rivals the birds'
    & silences the angels in their flight.
    Known everywhere
    as sign of peace & joy,
    let this be our flag;
    its colors dance.


    - Rafael Jesús González
    Last edited by Barry; 07-05-2014 at 11:53 AM.
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  34. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  35. TopTop #2059
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Water Shed


    The green expanse of duck weed
    Parts and there he sits,
    Proud - or so I imagine -
    In all his feathered irridescence,
    Shedding water with neither thought nor effort.


    The late Spring rains
    Fall on Sonoma Mountain and English Hill,
    Dancing down the Laguna and Atascadero Creek.
    So Wintergreen becomes Summergold.


    But where are the salmon, the steelhead,
    The pronghorn and the grizzly?


    There is so much for us to grieve now,
    So much lost that we will never see again.
    And yet so much still arising
    That we have only begun to dream.


    Can we shed despair
    As we shed our tears
    And see with clearer eyes
    The shining form just now emerging?


    - Larry Robinson
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  36. Gratitude expressed by 10 members:

  37. TopTop #2060
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Song


    The weight of the world
    is love.
    Under the burden
    of solitude,
    under the burden
    of dissatisfaction


    the weight,
    the weight we carry
    is love.


    Who can deny?
    In dreams
    it touches
    the body,
    in thought
    constructs
    a miracle,
    in imagination
    anguishes
    till born
    in human--
    looks out of the heart
    burning with purity -
    for the burden of life
    is love,


    but we carry the weight
    wearily,
    and so must rest
    in the arms of love
    at last,
    must rest in the arms
    of love.


    No rest
    without love,
    no sleep
    without dreams
    of love -
    be mad or chill
    obsessed with angels
    or machines,
    the final wish
    is love
    - cannot be bitter,
    cannot deny,
    cannot withhold
    if denied:


    the weight is too heavy


    - must give
    for no return
    as thought
    is given
    in solitude
    in all the excellence
    of its excess.


    The warm bodies
    shine together
    in the darkness,
    the hand moves
    to the center
    of the flesh,
    the skin trembles
    in happiness
    and the soul comes
    joyful to the eye -


    yes, yes,
    that's what
    I wanted,
    I always wanted,
    I always wanted,
    to return
    to the body
    where I was born.


    - Allan Ginsberg
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  39. TopTop #2061
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Marvelous Women

    All women speak two languages:
    the language of men
    and the language of silent suffering.
    Some women speak a third,
    the language of queens.
    They are marvelous
    and they are my friends.

    My friends give me poetry.
    If it were not for them
    I’d be a seamstress out of work.
    They send me their dresses
    and I sew together poems,
    enormous sails for ocean journeys.

    My marvelous friends, these women
    who are elegant and fix engines,
    who teach gynecology and literacy,
    and work in jails and sing and sculpt
    and paint the ninety-nine names,
    who keep each other’s secrets
    and pass on each other’s spirits
    like small packets of leavening,

    it is from you I fashion poetry.
    I scoop up, in handfuls, glittering
    sequins that fall from your bodies
    as you fall in love, marry, divorce,
    get custody, get cats, enter
    supreme courts of justice,
    argue with God.

    You rescuers on galloping steeds
    of the weak and the wounded–
    Creatures of beauty and passion,
    powerful workers in love–
    you are the poems.
    I am only your stenographer.
    I am the hungry transcriber
    of the conjuring recipes you hoard
    in the chests of your great-grandmothers.

    My marvelous friends–the women
    of brilliance in my life,
    who levitate my daughters,
    you are a coat of many colors
    in silk tie-dye so gossamer
    it can be crumpled in one hand.
    You houris, you mermaids, swimmers
    in dangerous waters, defiers of sharks–

    My marvelous friends,
    thirsty Hagars and laughing Sarahs,
    you eloquent radio Aishas,
    Marys drinking the secret
    milkshakes of heaven,
    slinky Zuleikas of desire,
    gay Walladas, Harriets
    parting the sea, Esthers in the palace,
    Penelopes of patient scheming,

    you are the last hope of the shrinking women.
    You are the last hand to the fallen knights
    You are the only epics left in the world

    Come with me, come with poetry
    Jump on this wild chariot, hurry –


    - Mohja Kahf
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  40. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  41. TopTop #2062
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Old Friends


    Sometimes I see things at the edge of light --
    small animals scurrying into shadow
    from the corner of my eye, sometimes a man
    shuffling off the road, disappearing
    between the trees, lit by headlights, then gone.
    And sometimes I hear things
    outside the sandy blur of my tinnitus --
    the yowl of the tom cat that’s been hanging around for months,
    unseen birds, whose presence I scrawl on the white page,
    what I think is a machine grinding in the distance, or voices,
    the mind’s mutterings, over and over saying – what?
    Sadness sadness sadness. There it is again,
    grief, guilt, love. My old friends,
    what can I do with your unsung laments,
    your impossible losses?
    Wind stirs the bamboo.
    Brazen at last, without its close coat, the lily
    blooms bright orange.
    Something rustles in the woods and disappears
    in the dry leaves at the edges of my life, small
    soft animals in the corner of my eye -- no, not ever really
    gone. For all our lives are intertwined, our songs
    caught in the golden throats of the lilies,
    there at the rim of the moment, in the half-light, the half-dark
    of the world, where all suffering has its place
    within the slightest breeze, the slow turn of petal in sunlight, each vein
    distinct amid the gathering density of one life twisting
    its strand with another in the great invisible braid
    of the hidden river that moves through all of us,
    here and after, ever after into mystery.

    - Elizabeth Carothers Herron
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  42. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  43. TopTop #2063
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Oral Tradition


    Read great poems and store them in your heart
    No external storage devices are needed
    When you begin to fathom the depths
    Of the Oral Tradition and start your trek
    Into the intricate wilderness of memory.
    Of course no one in this casual modern world
    Crisscrossed by information super highways
    Told you that your own mind is a net
    Trawling the seas of infinity,
    And the ports of memory you anchor in,
    Each one a place from which to disembark,
    To trek into vast unexplored mindscapes,
    And the synapses your mind weaves effortlessly
    While you toil in the fields of poetry husbandry
    Will simply surprise you endlessly.


    - Brian McSweeney
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  44. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  45. TopTop #2064
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Writing Unencumbered


    I wrote books I thought would please my masters.
    I wrote poems that were received as illumination
    while others balked at a complexity, too confounding.
    I wrote stories, long and short, from the inside out.
    first and second person, too often muddled by a
    vague and ambivalent author. Someday I hope to
    sit under an open sky and write until twilight, maybe
    beyond, when all the light is gone and whatever
    I am writing is no more than a part of the darkness.
    I will refuse a lamp and any revision by moonlight.
    And there sitting and merged in intimate dark, my
    mind smoothed out over the beckoning blank pages,
    I will feel the ease of the pages writing themselves
    with the pure natural invisibility of my hand.


    - Rich Meyers
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  46. TopTop #2065
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Makeweight

    Love is the weight of the world
    that we tote on our backs
    in spite of the weight
    longing to recognize
    the truth lost in thickets.

    Love is the light of the world
    that can blind us sometimes
    as it shines from behind
    a searchlight piercing the dark
    a signal to those searching love.

    Love is the wait of the world --
    that break in the music,
    that moment of doubt,
    it waits for all to catch up
    to find the rhythm again.

    Love is the way of the world
    that breaks our hearts
    then mends them again
    and, if we wait,
    brings weight and light to us all.


    - Don Edward Morris
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  47. TopTop #2066
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Their Bodies


    That gaunt old man came first, his hair as white
    As your scoured tables. Maybe you’ll recollect him
    By the scars of steelmill burns on the backs of his hands,
    On the nape of his neck, on his arms and sinewy legs,
    And her by the enduring innocence
    Of her face, as open to all of you in death
    As it would have been in life: she would memorize
    Your names and ages and pastimes and hometowns
    If she could, but she can’t now, so remember her.


    They believed in doctors, listened to their advice,
    And followed it faithfully. You should treat them
    One last time as they would have treated you.
    They had been kind to others all their lives
    And believed in being useful. Remember somewhere
    Their son is trying hard to believe you’ll learn
    As much as possible from them, as he did,
    And will do your best to learn politely and truly.


    They gave away the gift of those useful bodies
    Against his wish. (They had their own ways
    Of doing everything, always.) If you’re not certain
    Which ones are theirs, be gentle to everybody.


    - David Wagoner
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  49. TopTop #2067
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ode to the Tomato


    The street

    filled with tomatoes,
    midday,
    summer,
    the light
    splits
    in two halves
    of tomato,
    the juice
    runs
    through the streets.
    In June
    the tomato
    cuts loose,
    invades
    the kitchens,
    takes over lunches,
    sits down
    comfortably
    on sideboards,
    among the glasses,
    the butter dishes,
    the blue saltshakers.
    It has its own light,
    a benign majesty.
    Unfortunately, we have to
    assassinate it;
    the knife plunges
    into its living flesh,
    it is a red
    viscera,
    a cool,
    deep,
    inexhaustible
    sun
    fills the salads
    of Chile,
    is cheerfully married
    to the clear onion
    and to celebrate,
    oil lets itself
    fall,
    son and essence
    of the olive tree,
    onto the half-open hemispheres,
    pepper
    adds
    its fragrance,
    salt, its magnetism:
    it is the day's
    wedding,
    parsley
    raises
    little flags,
    potatoes
    vigorously boil,
    with its aroma
    the steak
    pounds
    on the door,
    it's time!
    let's go!


    - Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Mitchell


    Oda al tomate


    La calle
    se llenó de tomates,
    mediodía,
    verano,
    la luz
    se parte
    en dos
    mitades
    de tomate,
    corre
    por las calles
    el jugo.
    En diciembre
    se desata
    el tomate
    invade
    las concinas,
    entra por los almuerzos,
    se sienta
    reposado
    en los aparadores,
    entre los vasos,
    las mantequilleras,
    los saleros azules.
    Tiene
    luz propia,
    majestad benigna.
    Debemos, por desgracia
    asesinarlo;
    se hunde
    el cuchillo
    en su pulpa viviente,
    en una roja
    vícera,
    un sol
    fresco,
    profundo,
    inagotable,
    llena las ensalades
    de Chile,
    se casa alegremente
    con la clara cebolla,
    y para celebralo
    se deja
    caer
    aceite,
    hijo
    esencial del olivo,
    sobre sus hemisferios entreabiertos,
    agrega
    la pimienta
    su fragancia,
    la sal su magnetismo:
    son las bodas
    del día
    el perejil
    levanta
    banderines,
    las papas
    hierven vigorosamente,
    el asado
    golpea
    con su aroma
    en la puerta,
    es hora!
    vamos!


    - Pablo Neruda
    Last edited by Barry; 07-13-2014 at 01:50 PM.
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  50. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  51. TopTop #2068
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Living At The End Of Time


    There is so much sweetness in children’s voices,

    And so much discontent at the end of day,
    And so much satisfaction when a train goes by.


    I don’t know why the rooster keeps crying,
    Nor why elephants keep raising their trunks,
    Nor why Hawthorne kept hearing trains at night.


    A handsome child is a gift from God,
    And a friend is a vein in the back of the hand,
    And a wound is an inheritance from the wind.


    Some say we are living at the end of time,
    But I believe a thousand pagan ministers
    Will arrive tomorrow to baptize the wind.


    There’s nothing we need to do about John. The Baptist
    Has been laying his hands on earth for so long
    That the well water is sweet for a hundred miles.


    It’s all right if we don’t know what the rooster
    Is saying in the middle of the night, nor why we feel
    So much satisfaction when a train goes by.


    - Robert Bly
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  52. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  53. TopTop #2069
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Today


    When you're allowed

    To live
    When you might have not,
    You change forevermore


    Become at once
    Older
    And younger
    Than before


    Gingerly you try
    Your wings
    Find that you can
    Fly


    And horizons
    Of the nether world
    Bring light
    Back to your eyes


    What you'd gnashed
    With scorn and
    Spittle
    Only yesterday


    Gentles softly in your
    Gratitude
    To be alive
    Today.


    - Scott O'Brien
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  55. TopTop #2070
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Lines Written After the Funeral of a Holocaust Survivor


    In passing over to a brighter side
    a good man has left us spirit rich
    if body poor—

    I was privileged to heap one handful of earth upon his grave
    returning a favor

    he was never aware of in life— For no reason,
    in his gentle, forgiving way he smiled at me once— Although I cried
    to see his young daughter

    standing helpless over her cold father’s open grave, I knew her grief
    would salve her loss some day.



    But what of our loss? Who will give us a hand full of earth
    when we need it? We live in a culture of death and tattoos
    [no stanza break]






    without meaning, worthy of no respect— the way she looked
    two weeks before she died of typhus Anne Frank could sell cosmetics today— the numbers on her forearm
    could win you the lottery.



    Don’t take the chance.

    Instead, meet me at the cemetery and we will face the hereafter together,
    pay our respects holding hands until
    his family has passed by wreathed in mourning
    awake at last

    - Greg Hayes
    (1952-2014)
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