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  1. TopTop #3841
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Introduction to Poetry

    I ask them to take a poem
    and hold it up to the light
    like a color slide

    or press an ear against its hive.

    I say drop a mouse into a poem
    and watch him probe his way out,

    or walk inside the poem's room
    and feel the walls for a light switch.

    I want them to waterski
    across the surface of a poem
    waving at the author's name on the shore.

    But all they want to do
    is tie the poem to a chair with rope
    and torture a confession out of it.

    They begin beating it with a hose
    to find out what it really means.

    - Billy Collins
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  3. TopTop #3842
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Watching the Jet Planes Dive

    We must go back and find a trail on the ground
    back of the forest and mountain on the slow land;
    we must begin to circle on the intricate sod.
    By such wild beginnings without help we may find
    the small trail on through the buffalo-bean vines.

    We must go back with noses and the palms of our hands,
    and climb over the map in far places, everywhere,
    and lie down whenever there is doubt and sleep there.
    If roads are unconnected we must make a path,
    no matter how far it is, or how lowly we arrive.

    We must find something forgotten by everyone alive,
    and make some fabulous gesture when the sun goes down
    as they do by custom in little Mexican towns
    where they crawl for some ritual up a rocky steep.
    The jet planes dive; we must travel on our knees.


    - William Stafford
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  4. TopTop #3843
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    We

    (After June Jordan’s – “A Poem for South African Women”)


    “We are the ones we been waiting for”

    Just listen to yourselves and we will wait no more

    No need for another Malcolm or Martin

    When you stand ready at the door of greatness

    Seeds sewn by Sojourner have now sprouted in her likeness as true

    New answers to old questions now lie in the hands of youth

    Man or woman in the mirror now serves as your proof

    that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for

    Challenge is to realize your worth

    But not before we understand our birthright to the throne

    Our fate is our own

    We are the clones of pharaohs and queens

    We do not stand alone

    We are the people

    To end WAR

    We Are Responsible

    To conclude the long WAIT

    We Acknowledge It’s Time - Now

    Yes we are the ones we’ve been waiting for you

    A community of self

    Individuality the wealth that makes the collective unique

    New reality that we hold the answers we seek

    We need not lean on the crunch

    Our government too much overrated

    Our concerns too often debated and debated and debated and debated

    Yes we are the one we’ve been waiting for

    Just listen to yourself and we will wait no more

    No need for another Malcolm or Martin

    when you stand ready at the door of greatness

    Seeds sewn by Sojourner have now sprouted in her likeness as truth

    New answers to old questions now lie in the hands of youth

    Man or woman in the mirror now serves as your proof

    that we are the ones we've been waiting for


    – Nathan M. Richardson
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  6. TopTop #3844
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Zen of Housework
    I look over my own shoulder
    down my arms
    to where they disappear under water
    into hands inside pink rubber gloves
    moiling among dinner dishes.

    My hands lift a wine glass,
    holding it by the stem and under the bowl.
    It breaks the surface
    like a chalice
    rising from a medieval lake.

    Full of the grey wine
    of domesticity, the glass floats
    to the level of my eyes.
    Behind it, through the window
    above the sink, the sun, among
    a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches,
    is setting in Western America.

    I can see thousands of droplets
    of steam -- each a tiny spectrum -- rising
    from my goblet of grey wine.
    They sway, changing directions
    constantly -- like a school of playful fish,
    or like the sheer curtain
    on the window to another world.

    Ah, grey sacrament of the mundane!

    - Al Zolynas
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  7. TopTop #3845
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Punishment


    They used books as weapons.
    This is not a metaphor.
    Because there were no blankets and they were cold,
    the men in cell block L threw books
    with intent to do bodily harm.
    They rained down from above.
    Rained down from the cells.
    Guards shielded themselves
    with dinner trays and mop buckets.
    The men tossed entire libraries. A rage of books.
    Lobbed in high arcs like footballs,
    or pitched overhand like grenades.
    Hardcovers shattered on cheekbones
    or exploded on the back of someone’s head.
    Paperbacks spiraled down, loose pages fluttering.
    Thin ones skipped across the shiny tile like stones on water.
    There was mayhem. There was blood.
    Words littered the floor. Guards ran for their lives.
    The men had spent years collecting—
    biographies, mysteries, histories, science fiction,
    even poetry books, their spines fine and reedy,
    or thick with free verse.
    One man threw his grandmother’s leather Bible.
    Inside the front cover in elegant script
    she’d noted the date and time of his birth.
    Now it lay face down, back broken.
    Another man hurled his family album.
    It fell from the third floor, the photos scattering
    on impact. His wife, his son, his daughter
    smiled up from the chaos.

    - Nancy Miller Gomez
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  9. TopTop #3846
    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 the 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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  11. TopTop #3847
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Back Up Quick, They’re Hippies

    That was the year we drove
    into the commune in Cornwall.
    “Jesus Jim,” mam said,
    “back up quick they’re hippies.”

    Through the car window,
    tents, row after row, flaps open,
    long-haired men and women
    curled around each other like babies

    and the babies themselves
    wandered naked across the grass.

    I reached for the handle, ready, almost,
    to open the door, drop out and away
    from my sister’s aggressive thighs,
    Daddy’s slapping hands.

    Back home in the Dandelion Market
    I unlearnt the steps my mother taught,
    bought a headband, an afghan coat,
    a fringed skirt — leather skin.

    Barefoot on common grass I lay down with kin.

    - Lani O’Hanlon
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  13. TopTop #3848
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Pine Tree Ode

    I was sitting on the top stones of a wall—can you
    get even closer to the tree, he said, so I went
    inches from the trunk of the tallest of the ones
    we'd been standing among like small children
    among the legs of the grown-ups.
    Now, the side of my face was almost
    against the bark, intimate,
    I could see where its growing had pulled its surface
    open, into wooden lozenges, like
    stretch marks, I could not feel it breathe
    but I felt it alive beside me, a huge
    ant running down, and stopping, and turning
    its feelers, in the air, between us, and then
    walking so fast it seemed to be pouring back
    up. Then I looked, up, along
    the branchless stem, into the canopy,
    to the needles fanning out in bunches
    eating the sun. And the length of it seemed like
    bravery, like strong will,
    a single, whole, note, like a tenor's
    cry, sustained, as if a tree were
    a spurt from the earth, a heart's gush.
    And the ants flowed from ground to sky,
    sky to ground. I don't know where the ants
    had been, or their ancestors had been, the noon
    the tornado came through, wall of water
    a hundred and thirty miles an hour,
    solid ferocious grey static.
    The tree stood. And now I sat up straight
    beside it, feeling my way back
    through species, and species, toward the pine, and toward
    the ones we both descended from, the
    fern, the green cell—the sun,
    the star-stuff we are made of.

    - Sharon Olds
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  15. TopTop #3849
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Anything but Standard

    It was the two of us, wasn't it, on those steamy nights
    circling the low-slung museum across the street
    and lingering by the pond behind the chapel.

    It's how the southern clouds passed slowly
    overhead, season after season, year after year,

    as you followed a low intricate scent
    across the stately lit lawn,
    and studied the squirrels in the live oaks,
    and waded into the brown reflecting pool
    with the broken obelisk.

    You were a descendent of water dogs
    and anything but standard
    when you materialized out of the sticky heat
    with your dripping black forehead
    and delinquent grin, a growl unmuzzled.

    It was your Russian face that steadied me
    as I sat on a battered wooden bench,
    lost in a night that wouldn't end,
    and you lay down - calm, poised, watchful -
    and stirred beside me on the simmering grass.

    Let's get up and go.
    Trot ahead of me, old friend,
    and shake off the watery darkness.

    - Edward Hirsch
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  17. TopTop #3850
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Beginners

    Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

    “From too much love of living,
    Hope and desire set free,
    Even the weariest river
    Winds somewhere to the sea -“

    But we have only begun
    To love the earth.

    We have only begun
    To imagine the fullness of life.

    How could we tire of hope?
    - so much is in bud.

    How can desire fail?
    - we have only begun

    to imagine justice and mercy,
    only begun to envision

    how it might be
    to live as siblings with beast and flower,
    not as oppressors.

    Surely our river
    cannot already be hastening
    into the sea of nonbeing?

    Surely it cannot
    drag, in the silt,
    all that is innocent?

    Not yet, not yet -
    there is too much broken
    that must be mended,

    too much hurt we have done to each other
    that cannot yet be forgiven.

    We have only begun to know
    the power that is in us if we would join
    our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

    So much is unfolding that must
    complete its gesture,

    so much is in bud.

    - Denise Levertov
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  18. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  19. TopTop #3851
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Full Count

    Very late watching recorded baseball
    It’s still hot here but not as hot as in Phoenix
    where this Giants and Diamondbacks game
    was played earlier during triple digit weather

    Don’t yet know who won and lost
    Desert sun unfelt on the field
    Roof was closed Something feels wrong
    with this indoor artificially cooled baseball

    Dictator plays something like airconditioned golf
    While a child named Pablo cries Papa
    Over and over and over again and
    Again as I watch recorded baseball to forget

    - Ed Coletti
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  21. TopTop #3852
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Man Talking To His House

    I say that no one in this caravan is awake
    and that while you sleep, a thief is stealing

    the signs and symbols of what you thought
    was your life. Now you're angry with me for

    telling you this! Pay attention to those who
    hurt your feelings telling you the truth.

    Giving and absorbing compliments is like
    trying to paint on water, that insubstantial.

    Here is how a man once talked with his house,
    “Please, if you're ever about to collapse,

    let me know.” One night without a word the
    house fell. “What happened to our agreement?”

    The house answered, “Day and night I've been
    telling you with cracks and broken boards and

    holes appearing like mouths opening. But you
    kept patching and filling those with mud, so

    proud of your stopgap masonry. You didn't
    listen.” This house is your body always

    saying, I'm leaving; I'm going soon. Don't
    hide from one who knows the secret. Drink

    the wine of turning toward God. Don't examine
    your urine. Examine instead how you praise,

    what you wish for, this longing we've been
    given. Fall turns pale yellow light wanting

    spring and spring arrives! Trees blossom.
    Come to the orchard and see what comes to

    you, a silent conversation with your soul.

    - Jelalludin Rumi
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  22. Gratitude expressed by 8 members:

  23. TopTop #3853
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mt Kailash, Nepal in the background.

    Name:  House-Talk-mt-Kailish.jpg
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  24. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  25. TopTop #3854
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Corfu: Olives Myths and Words

    Barely shadowing my parcel of sunlight overlooking the Ionian Sea with
    her placid azure waters are silvery green counterpoints, two
    diminutive olive trees, bent like an aged couple facing off,
    gnarled and twisted, roots exposed, pock marked and struggling.

    Who plants trees knowing they will bear no fruit for a dozen years?

    Eons pass and Menelaus’s kidnapped wife Helen launches a thousand
    ships, kings and warriors battle for a decade, Paris, Achilles and thousands
    more die. Another decade unfolds, this drama an underworld of sirens and
    sea monsters as the Odyssey bears its narrative fruit for generations.

    What Olympian storytelling gods orchestrate such a drama where myth
    and history embrace as do the olive, and the tree that births it?

    In our time the British authors Lawrence and Gerald Durrell descend into the
    waters of Kalami bay for future readers and scholars hungry to partake of word
    and verse. They had no titles, guarantees, or even prospects.

    What beings plant such seedlings for fruits only to be gathered posthumously?

    Knowing how fruitless would be the self-indulgent grasping.
    Knowing that creating and even nurturing can reap no instant reward.
    Knowing that with olives, myths and words, there is all the time in the world.

    - Bruce Silverman
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  27. TopTop #3855
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Age Sixty-nine

    I keep waiting without knowing
    what I'm waiting for.
    I saw the setting moon at dawn
    roll over the mountain
    and perhaps into the dragon's mouth
    until tomorrow evening.

    There is this circle I walk
    that I have learned to love.
    I hope one day to be a spiral
    but to the birds I'm a circle.

    A thousand Spaniards died looking
    for gold in a swamp when it was
    in the mountains in clear sight beyond.

    Here, though, on local earth my heart
    is at rest as a groundling, letting
    my mind take flight as it will,
    no longer waiting for good or bad news.

    Often, lately, the night is a cold maw
    and stars the scattered white teeth of the gods,
    which spare none of us. At dawn I have birds,
    clearly divine messengers that I don't understand
    yet day by day feel the grace of their intentions.

    - Jim Harrison
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  28. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  29. TopTop #3856
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Idée Fixe

    No woman wants to be low-hanging fruit,
    my glamorous girlfriend says, but I’m indiscriminate
    and love all fruit, I’m tempted to list each kind
    right here, in and out of season,
    because even just saying the names gives me pleasure,
    as does saying your name.
    I’m not alone with my passion — my whole family,
    we’re a little off in this regard,
    we can spend hours talking about cantaloupe
    or arguing over how many flats to buy
    when it’s Peach-O-Rama at the Metropolitan.
    Once I even drove half a day to get to Pence Orchards
    where I met and took photos of Bert Pence,
    who sold me three boxes of peaches at wholesale prices.
    He was so good to me, as was the late-summer freestone
    I picked as I walked back through the orchard
    in the August heat to the entrance gates,
    which were nothing like the Gates of Hell.
    On the contrary, I was in heaven there in Yakima.
    I can still smell that single peach, which was profusely
    low-hanging, it was the definition of low-hanging,
    it fell into my hands, as you did — 
    or perhaps as I did into yours — 
    but that was months ago.
    When I walked past the stands yesterday,
    on what should have been the first day of spring,
    all produce had been covered with heavy blankets
    to keep it warm, to mitigate harm.
    Today the temperature dropped so low
    someone thought to remove the fruit entirely and stash it away.
    With this strange weather we’re having, will I see you again?
    I can’t help myself.

    - Catherine Barnett
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  30. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  31. TopTop #3857
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Spiritual Journey

    And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
    no matter how long,
    but only by a spiritual journey,
    a journey of one inch,
    very arduous and humbling and joyful,
    by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
    and learn to be at home.

    - Wendell Berry
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  32. Gratitude expressed by 9 members:

  33. TopTop #3858
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Holy As A Day Is Spent

    Holy is the dish and drain
    The soap and sink, the cup and plate
    And the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile
    Showerheads and good dry towels

    And frying eggs sound like psalms
    With a bit of salt measured in my palm
    It’s all a part of a sacrament
    As holy as a day is spent

    Holy is the busy street
    And cars that boom with passion’s beat
    And the check out girl, Counting change
    And the hands that shook my hands today

    Hymns of geese fly overhead
    And stretch their wings like their parents did
    Blessed be the dog
    That runs in her sleep
    To catch that wild and elusive thing

    Holy is a familiar room and the quiet moments in the afternoon
    And folding sheets like folding hands
    To pray as only laundry can

    I’m letting go of all I fear
    Like autumn leaves of earth and air
    For summer came and summer went
    As holy as a day is spent

    Holy is the place I stand
    To give whatever small good I can
    The empty page, the open book
    Redemption everywhere I look

    Unknowingly we slow our pace
    In the shade of unexpected grace
    With grateful smiles and sad lament
    As holy as a day is spent

    And morning light sings “providence”
    As holy as a day is spent

    - Carrie Newcomer
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  34. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  35. TopTop #3859
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What is Lady Liberty Doing?


    Guiding, guarding, illuminating, welcoming

    She lifts her lamp beside the golden door

    A beacon in the dark, a lighthouse for the world

    But like any woman worth her salt, she is multi-tasking

    We look up to Lady Liberty when we ought to look down

    She has feet, you know,
    Not legs, but feet.
    She has neatly clipped toenails
    And a sturdy pair of traveling sandals.

    Why?

    Because she is in motion, striding forward,
    Her right foot flexed, pushing off,
    Her left foot firmly planted ahead.

    It cost Bartholdi precious time and expensive materials to carve those feet.
    He could have hidden them under her robe.
    He could have had her standing still, with just her toes peeping out,
    But he made her a woman of action.

    Because you cannot embody Liberty standing still.

    Now, you cannot see her left foot unless you are airborne
    Which is why so many people don’t know
    That it is trampling, and breaking, a chain -
    By the side, a broken shackle.
    Lady Liberty has been a slave, her feet bound,
    And now, liberated,
    She is taking her first full step into a future of freedom.

    Look down and see the story.
    She holds the torch to light her own way
    As well as ours.
    She invites us not to end our journey but to begin it.

    - Gail M. Burns
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  36. Gratitude expressed by 9 members:

  37. TopTop #3860
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Messages From The Chair

    What if the dental chair and reaming of roots were Buddhist trainers?
    What if the scent of grinding bone spoke to you softly saying you are blessed beyond measure?
    What if the Dylan songs sifting through layers of nitrous
    sparked your truthful and rarely contacted conscious self
    and allowed your total forgiveness of two ancient lovers?

    What if a rarefied Wonder Woman
    snatched away your self image of Doubts
    and gifted you with deeper wisdom?

    What if that wisdom set you in a new colorful chair
    where acceptance and compassion replace
    the older guides of struggle and striving?

    What if Life after the dental chair brought us all to deep knowing
    that no matter what is happening we are living our dreams
    and those dreams wake us up feeling happy and blessed forever?

    - Carole Watanabe
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  39. TopTop #3861
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ode to a Hat


    It was down in the hold of the ship:
    I crocheted in the half light
    of crew arguments and the stomach-bending
    pitch of the vessel,
    While far away my mother wondered if I still loved her.

    It was calico--and I realize now I must have borrowed the yarn
    (after all, I didn't board with any--thank you, Angela!).
    And its birth insulated me from where I was,
    And from whom I had been.

    Afterwards, I did mail it to her...my mother.
    Then, much later, it appeared in photographs:
    Scenes of her spending her mornings
    studying Chinese or piano or some such--
    those cold Northern California days, half-lit.
    Always that special covering, though rarely mentioned...

    Well...

    then...

    "The Fire":

    The fire took the hat.
    The fire
    took most everything--even the piano I learned on.

    Plus...

    ...that silly bit of spindly
    cheap poly-thread covering
    which Most likely had believed itself safe.
    Yes, it did:
    Safe in a box
    where it had been deliberately placed so as not to be worn to death.
    Safe where it might continue--as all love hopes to.
    Safe, where, when the flames finally found it,
    It told them it had already served a greater purpose.

    Greater than all its adversaries possessed, even them.

    Can you imagine how it spoke truth to flame?

    Addressing the smoke and ash:

    "I've mattered more in this world than you could ever ever possibly

    Hope to.

    I have done my work.

    Now take me home.”

    - Ladd Holroyd
    Last edited by Barry; 08-13-2018 at 01:39 PM.
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  41. TopTop #3862

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Made me cry...

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Ode to a Hat...
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  42. TopTop #3863
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My Proteins

    They have discovered, they say,
    the protein of itch—
    natriuretic polypeptide b—
    and that it travels its own distinct pathway
    inside my spine.
    As do pain, pleasure, and heat.

    A body it seems is a highway,
    a cloverleaf crossing
    well built, well traversed.
    Some of me going north, some going south.

    Ninety percent of my cells, they have discovered,
    are not my own person,
    they are other beings inside me.

    As ninety-six percent of my life is not my life.

    Yet I, they say, am they—
    my bacteria and yeasts,
    my father and mother,
    grandparents, lovers,
    my drivers talking on cell phones,
    my subways and bridges,
    my thieves, my police
    who chase my self night and day.

    My proteins, apparently also me,
    fold the shirts.

    I find in this crowded metropolis
    a quiet corner,
    where I build of not-me Lego blocks
    a bench,
    pigeons, a sandwich
    of rye bread, mustard, and cheese.

    It is me and is not,
    the hunger
    that makes the sandwich good.

    It is not me then is,
    the sandwich—
    a mystery neither of us
    can fold, unfold, or consume.

    - Jane Hirshfield
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  43. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  44. TopTop #3864
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In Context: Mekong Delta


    Somewhere, in a place entirely unlike
    this one, the crown of the Mekong fissures
    Earth’s tallest granite, thrust skyward

    by the collision of continents that might
    as well be gods in a myth we made,
    so we could nod, say ah this is how

    this came to be. The Mekong does not
    know it is destined to lose itself
    in the South China Sea, does not know

    it is a river. For now it is only a melting
    out of silence, a shifting from static
    into motion. In the Himalayas

    streams blossom with the trees,
    glitter their own little Shangri-las
    from every cliff and crag and crevice,

    until the season avalanches into a tumult
    of rapids, ripping new canyons through hills
    that only look like they are standing still.

    Land of a million elephants, land of smiles,
    kingdoms, pagodas, wars working their way
    through the salt mines of unwon minds.

    When foothills spill into killing fields,
    the Mekong yawns wide enough to live
    on, to buy and sell on. To be sold on.

    Whatever language it has gathered in its rushing
    over stones, under bridges, in its lugging
    of the dropped, the drowned, the used,

    it will lose. Every second it is different
    water whispering never again never
    again. If we could ride it like a many-headed

    serpent as it splays into the sea, for a while
    it would remain its own current, but eventually
    whatever body it’s become in its loose holding,

    whatever sound it has become in its one yearning
    toward exactly this disappearing, is replaced
    by whatever the sea says when it forgets

    the chant it repeats on every beach,
    the one we mistranslate ash to ash,
    dust to dust.


    - Erin Rodoni
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  45. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  46. TopTop #3865
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Petaluma Moment

    Unhurried the heron walks, long skinny legs
    across the Petaluma mud
    Stands beside the slow-moving river
    His long pointy beak preens long blue feathers
    Then stares long long long at the rippling water

    Long has the heron known
    A fish will come
    The water will flow
    The moon will rise
    And he will fly and die and fly again
    Long has the heron known

    - Doug von Koss
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  47. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  48. TopTop #3866
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Everybody Loves Trader Joe's


    Lost My Job
    3 Children
    Please Help

    He saw the sign,
    the woman's face blocked
    by a scarf.
    He parked, five dollars in hand,
    locked the car, walked a few steps,
    returned, looked in the glove compartment.
    Maybe he had a ten—no, just a twenty...too much.
    He shopped at Trader Joe's to save money.
    Gave her the bill, said “good luck.”
    “God Bless You,” she said.
    She looked foreign...from India, Pakistan,
    like a gypsy or something.
    Actually he didn't want to get blessed.
    He went through TJ's— rye bread, bananas, butter, milk, eggs, frozen peas, frozen chicken breast, cottage cheese, almonds.
    That was it.
    But if he wanted, he could get anything.
    Heading back to his car, he passed her again.
    He caught her eye.
    She gave a slight nod, a certain elegance, a grace.

    somehow
    he felt diminished


    - Jean Wong
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  49. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  50. TopTop #3867
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Fire

    Natural as a stream, a breeze
    Hot and insistent in
    Summer. Like puma, creosote
    Or coyote, fire has its own life.

    Our species invades homes
    Of bobcat, deer and rabbit.
    We invade the home of
    Fire, who like us,
    Takes all—our worthy adversary.

    - Rebecca del Rio
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  51. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  52. TopTop #3868
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Rabbits and Fire

    Everything’s been said
    But one last thing about the desert,
    And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert,
    Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great,
    Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months,
    The longest months,
    The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July—
    During these summer fires, jackrabbits—
    Jackrabbits and everything else
    That lives in the brush of the rolling hills,
    But jackrabbits especially—
    Jackrabbits can get caught in the flames,
    No matter how fast and big and strong and sleek they are.
    And when they’re caught,
    Cornered in and against the thick
    Trunks and thin spines of the cactus,
    When they can’t back up any more,
    When they can’t move, the flame—
    It touches them,
    And their fur catches fire.
    Of course, they run away from the flame,
    Finding movement even when there is none to be found,
    Jumping big and high over the wave of fire, or backing
    Even harder through the impenetrable
    Tangle of hardened saguaro
    And prickly pear and cholla and barrel,
    But whichever way they find,
    What happens is what happens: They catch fire
    And then bring the fire with them when they run.
    They don’t know they’re on fire at first,
    Running so fast as to make the fire
    Shoot like rocket engines and smoke behind them,
    But then the rabbits tire
    And the fire catches up,
    Stuck onto them like the needles of the cactus,
    Which at first must be what they think they feel on their skins.
    They’ve felt this before, every rabbit.
    But this time the feeling keeps on.
    And of course, they ignite the brush and dried weeds
    All over again, making more fire, all around them.
    I’m sorry for the rabbits.
    And I’m sorry for us
    To know this.

    - Alberto Ríos
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  53. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

    Dre, M/M
  54. TopTop #3869
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Miracle Prayer

    Mistress of Miracles, come to us now,
    Out of the darkness, out of the earth.
    Mistress of Miracles, we offer our vow,
    To awaken the tides of our nation’s rebirth.

    As the snow-topped peaks melt in rivers and streams,
    As the grasses and flowers poke up from the land,
    As the baby emerges from the womb’s land of dreams,
    May the lies be revealed, may the truth take a stand.

    As the rainbow emerges from storms in the sky,
    As the eagle sees all with his wide roving eye,
    As our deep wounds can heal, as the heart’s wings can fly,
    May the old ways of power now wither and die.

    May the ways of oppression now move to the past.
    May all that is sacred be protected at last.
    May wars wrought from killing for power and greed
    Be replaced with compassion, that all may be freed.

    May our leaders reflect the hopes that we share
    For a world ruled in balance, by a people who care.
    May the poor be rewarded, may the land be preserved,
    May those who exploit get what they deserve.

    Mistress of Magic, come out of your cave
    Come aid in our efforts, there’s a world to be saved.
    We need a miracle, of that we are sure
    Save us from madness, bring us a cure.

    - Anodea Judith
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  55. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  56. TopTop #3870
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Another Poetic Argument For Grief

    Have you cried enough
    in this lifetime?

    Take your grief seriously

    Become the ash urn
    for the vanishing wilderness

    Despair for the Dolphins

    Make your own salt water
    for the disappearing marshes

    The silent Earth is listening

    Be called to outrageous acts of despair

    And then,

    Every now and again

    In the face of splendor

    Turn toward it.

    - Kristy Hellums
    Last edited by Barry; 08-21-2018 at 01:14 PM.
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  57. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

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