Click Banner For More Info See All Sponsors

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

This site is now closed permanently to new posts.
We recommend you use the new Townsy Cafe!

Click anywhere but the link to dismiss overlay!

Page 39 of 162 FirstFirst ... 29 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 49 89 139 ... LastLast
Results 1,141 to 1,170 of 4857

  • Share this thread on:
  • Follow: No Email   
  • Thread Tools
  1. TopTop #1141
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For Freedom
    As a bird soars high
    In the free holding of the wind,
    Clear of the certainty of ground,
    Opening the imagination of wings
    Into the grace of emptiness
    To fulfill new voyagings,
    May your life awaken
    To the call of its freedom.
    As the ocean absolves itself
    Of the expectation of land,
    Approaching only
    In the form of waves
    That fill and pleat and fall
    With such gradual elegance
    As to make of the limit
    A sonorous threshold
    Whose music echoes back among
    The give and strain of memory,
    Thus may your heart know the patience
    That can draw infinity from limitation.
    As the embrace of the earth
    Welcomes all we call death,
    Taking deep into itself
    The right solitude of a seed,
    Allowing it time
    To shed the grip of former form
    And give way to a deeper generosity
    That will one day send it forth,
    A tree into springtime,
    May all that holds you
    Fall from its hungry ledge
    Into the fecund surge of your heart.

    - John O'Donohue
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  2. TopTop #1142
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Ghost of Heaven

    Sleep to sleep through thirty years of night,
    a child herself with child,
    for whom we searched

    through here, or there, amidst
    bones still sleeved and trousered,
    a spine picked clean, a paint can,
    a skull with hair


    Sewn into the hem of memory:
    Fire.
    God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,
    God not
    of philosophers or scholars. God not of poets.


    Night to night:
    child walking toward me through burning maize
    over the clean bones of those whose flesh
    was lifted by zopilotes into heaven.

    So that is how we ascend!
    In the clawed feet of fallen angels.
    To be assembled again
    in the work rooms of clouds.


    She rose from where they found her lying
    not far from a water urn, leaving
    herself behind on the ground
    where they found her, holding her arms
    before her as if she were asleep.

    That is how she appears to me: a ghost in heaven.
    Carrying her arms in her arms.


    Blue smoke from corn cribs, flap of wings.
    On the walls of the city streets a plague of initials.


    Walking through a fire-lit river
    to a burning house: dead Singer
    sewing machine and piece of dress.

    Outside a cashew tree wept
    blackened cashews over lamina.

    Outside paper fireflies rose to the stars.


    Bring penicillin if you can, surgical tape, a whetstone,
    mosquito repellent but not the aerosol kind.
    Especially bring a syringe for sucking phlegm,
    a knife, wooden sticks, a surgical clamp, and plastic bags.

    You will need a bottle of cloud
    for anesthesia.

    Like the flight of a crane
    through colorless dreams.


    When a leech opens your flesh it leaves a small volcano.
    Always pour turpentine over your hair before going to sleep.


    Such experiences as these are forgotten
    before memory intrudes.

    The girl was found (don’t say this)
    with a man’s severed head stuffed
    into her where a child would have been.
    No one knew who the man was.
    Another of the dead.
    So they had not, after all,
    killed a pregnant girl.
    This was a relief to them.


    That sound in the brush?
    A settling of wind in sorghum.

    If they capture you, talk.
    Talk. Please yes. You heard me
    right the first time.

    You will be asked who you are.
    Eventually, we are all asked who we are.

    All who come
    All who come into the world
    All who come into the world are sent.
    Open your curtain of spirit.


    - Carolyn Forché

    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  3. TopTop #1143
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Autumn Quince
    How sad they are,
    the promises we never return to.
    They stay in our mouths,
    roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.
    Houses built and unwittingly lived in;
    a succession of milk bottles brought to the door
    every morning and taken inside.
    And which one is real?
    The music in the composer's ear
    or the lapsed piece the orchestra plays?
    The world is a blurred version of itself --
    marred, lovely, and flawed.
    It is enough.

    - Jane Hirshfield
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  4. Gratitude expressed by:

  5. TopTop #1144
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Gift
    Just when you seem to yourself
    nothing but a flimsy web
    of questions, you are given
    the questions of others to hold
    in the emptiness of your hands,
    songbird eggs that can still hatch
    if you keep them warm,
    butterflies opening and closing themselves
    in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
    their scintillant fur, their dust.
    You are given the questions of others
    as if they were answers
    to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
    this gift is your answer.

    - Denise Levertov
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  6. Gratitude expressed by:

  7. TopTop #1145
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Colds and Other Departures

    are tagged as any number of states
    in the psycho-biological index of disease:
    blocked energy
    germ invasion
    immune mechanisms out of gas
    or in high gear
    a daisy chain of self evasion
    old grief insisting yet upon its due

    whatever these theorized tags
    those of us aching with fever,
    and blowing our flooded nostrils

    know illness for what it really is:
    an abject altered state
    all things lovely and familiar in abeyance
    work, gusto, high purpose
    bursts of creation
    the intricate tangle of sensing and thought --
    gone, just plain gone
    as life flows on
    a ship we can’t see
    sailing along in an ocean
    far beyond a tabled horizon
    cluttered with bottles and tissues
    and steaming cups of tea

    - Cynthia Poten
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  8. TopTop #1146
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Winter Solstice

    Perhaps
    for a
    moment
    the typewriters will
    stop clicking,
    the wheels stop
    rolling,Winter Solstice


    Perhaps
    for a
    moment
    the typewriters will
    stop clicking,
    the wheels stop
    rolling,
    the computers desist
    computing,
    and a hush will fall
    over the city.


    For an instant, in
    the stillness,
    the chiming of the
    celestial spheres will be heard
    as earth hangs
    poised
    in the crystalline
    darkness, and then
    gracefully
    tilts.


    Let there be a
    season
    when holiness is
    heard, and
    the splendor of
    living is revealed.


    Stunned to stillness
    by beauty
    we remember who we
    are and why we are here.


    There are
    inexplicable mysteries.


    We are not
    alone.


    In the universe there
    moves a Wild One
    whose gestures alter
    earth's axis
    toward
    love.


    In the immense
    darkness
    everything spins with
    joy.


    The cosmos enfolds
    us.


    We are caught in a
    web of stars,
    cradled in a swaying
    embrace,
    rocked by the holy
    night,
    babes of the
    universe.


    Let this be the
    time
    we wake to
    life,
    like spring wakes, in
    the moment
    of winter
    solstice.


    - Rebecca Parker
    the computers desist
    computing,
    and a hush will fall
    over the city.


    For an instant, in
    the stillness,
    the chiming of the
    celestial spheres will be heard
    as earth hangs
    poised
    in the crystalline
    darkness, and then
    gracefully
    tilts.


    Let ehre be a
    season
    when holiness is
    hear, and
    the splendor of
    living is revealed.


    Stunned to stillness
    by beauty
    we remember who we
    are and why we are here.


    There are
    inexplicable mysteries.


    We are not
    alone.


    In the universe there
    moves a Wild One
    whose gestures alter
    earth's axis
    toward
    love.


    In the immense
    darkness
    everything spins with
    joy.


    The cosmos enfolds
    us.


    We are caught in a
    web of stars,
    cradled in a swaying
    embrace,
    rocked by the holy
    night,
    babes of the
    universe.


    Let this be the
    time
    we wake to
    life,
    like spring wakes, in
    the moment
    of winter
    solstice.


    - Rebecca Parker
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  9. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  10. TopTop #1147
    zenekar's Avatar
    zenekar
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thank you, Rebecca Parker, for sharing your insight, and Larry for sharing the poem (twice : ). There is nothing to do in this moment but be still and feel the earth move in two directons.
    ...

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

    Perhaps
    for a
    moment
    the typewriters will
    stop clicking,
    the wheels stop
    rolling,Winter Solstice


    Perhaps....
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  11. Gratitude expressed by:

  12. TopTop #1148
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Testimony

    (for my daughters)

    I want to tell you that the world
    is still beautiful.
    I tell you that despite
    children raped on city streets,
    shot down in school rooms,
    despite the slow poisons seeping
    from old and hidden sins
    into our air, soil, water,
    despite the thinning film
    that encloses our aching world.
    Despite my own terror and despair.

    I want you to know that spring
    is no small thing, that
    the tender grasses curling
    like a baby's fine hairs around
    your fingers are a recurring
    miracle. I want to tell you
    that the river rocks shine
    like God, that the crisp
    voices of the orange and gold
    October leaves are laughing at death,

    I want to remind you to look
    beneath the grass, to note
    the fragile hieroglyphs
    of ant, snail, beetle. I want
    you to understand that you
    are no more and no less necessary
    than the brown recluse, the ruby-
    throated hummingbird, the humpback
    whale, the profligate mimosa.
    I want to say, like Neruda,
    that I am waiting for
    "a great and common tenderness",
    that I still believe
    we are capable of attention,
    that anyone who notices the world
    must want to save it.

    - Rebecca Baggett
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  13. Gratitude expressed by:

  14. TopTop #1149
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    If You Knew


    What if you knew you’d be the last
    to touch someone?
    If you were taking tickets, for example,
    at the theater, tearing them,
    giving back the ragged stubs,
    you might take care to touch that palm,
    brush your fingertips
    along the life line’s crease.

    When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
    too slowly through the airport, when
    the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
    when the clerk at the pharmacy
    won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
    they’re going to die.

    A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
    They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
    a young gay man with plum black eyes,
    joked as he served the coffee, kissed
    her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
    Then they walked half a block and her aunt
    dropped dead on the sidewalk.

    How close does the dragon’s spume
    have to come? How wide does the crack
    in heaven have to split?
    What would people look like
    if we could see them as they are,
    soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
    reckless, pinned against time?

    - Ellen Bass
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  15. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  16. TopTop #1150
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Follow Her Down


    She treads with slow footfalls,
    Deliberate and careful,
    Her breath the same.
    This is her way.
    This is familiar terrain,
    The journey repeated.
    Always saying farewell.
    Always turning away.


    Because we deny our mortality
    The one who moves between the worlds
    Walks for us.
    The day will come
    When each of us will follow her down.
    It is to her that we will go.


    Safe journey, then, traveler.
    My heart holds you as
    I hope your does me -
    Willingly,
    Willingly.


    - Maya Spector
    (from The Persephone Cycle)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  17. Gratitude expressed by:

  18. TopTop #1151
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Christmas


    This year
    I let Christmas in.


    And it occurs to me that
    every year
    the spirit of Christmas goes wandering
    looking for room at the inn
    of my heart


    turned aside
    by the hurry of business
    the demands of desires
    the walls of grudge, bitterness


    but when at last
    a door of willingness opens
    there comes inside
    each year
    a newborn spirit


    of hope
    joy of this life
    the courage of kindness
    the warm embrace of forgiveness


    so powerful,
    it draws shepherds,
    wise ones, some who hold sway in this world,
    even humble animals respond,
    look up to the silent chorus
    of shimmering angels
    among the stars, bending
    low, to welcome again this
    simple


    overwhelming
    grace.


    - Scott O'Brien
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  19. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  20. TopTop #1152
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Winter's Cloak
    This year I do not want
    the dark to leave me.
    I need its wrap
    of silent stillness,
    its cloak
    of long lasting embrace.
    Too much light
    has pulled me away
    from the chamber
    of gestation.

    Let the dawns
    come late,
    let the sunsets
    arrive early,
    let the evenings
    extend themselves
    while I lean into
    the abyss of my being.

    Let me lie in the cave
    of my soul,
    for too much light
    blinds me,
    steals the source
    of revelation.

    Let me seek solace
    in the empty places
    of winter's passage,
    those vast dark nights
    that never fail to shelter me.
    - Joyce Rupp
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  21. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  22. TopTop #1153
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In the Chapel at Monserrat


    In this place, a holy place
    Not because someone said it was
    But because it is, we created
    Stories, histories and art to tell us
    Why. The stories, the histories,
    The art are not needed.
    Like ancient ash, they bury
    The holy of the holiest.


    Here in this chapel, we arrive
    After touching the Holy Hand,
    The dark, blessed hand that holds
    The universe. We descend, enter
    A room of relics, where in the quiet
    Of not-knowing, a man photographs
    His wife, dark as the Mother of God,
    Whose night dark hand holds


    Everything. She, the wife, smiles shyly,
    Too aware of our presence.
    She stands at the altar, a blessed place made beautiful
    By her self-conscious smile,
    Not knowing
    That the vision, the visage, the holy
    Image is her. Holy for being,
    For being here, her face,
    The darkness of God's Mother's face.


    - Rebecca del Rio
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  23. TopTop #1154
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    An Old Man's Winter Night

    All out of doors looked darkly in at him
    Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
    That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
    What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
    Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
    What kept him from remembering what it was
    That brought him to that creaking room was age.
    He stood with barrels round him--at a loss.
    And having scared the cellar under him
    In clomping there, he scared it once again
    In clomping off; - and scared the outer night,
    Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
    Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
    But nothing so like beating on a box.
    A light he was to no one but himself
    Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
    A quiet light, and then not even that.
    He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
    So late-arising, to the broken moon
    As better than the sun in any case
    For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
    His icicles along the wall to keep;
    And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
    Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
    And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
    One aged man - one man - can't fill a house,
    A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
    It's thus he does it of a winter night.

    - Robert Frost
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  24. TopTop #1155
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    how light

    the body burns


    how light
    cannot take
    the body


    how the body cannot
    lay me down
    how it cannot rise or rest


    how the body
    cannot take
    the burns


    how burns
    cannot take
    the body


    lovers in beds of straw
    blessed
    with brand or fire


    how carefully at first, then hard
    they take
    what the body gambles

    - Thaisa Frank
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  25. TopTop #1156
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mulled Wine

    It begins where the smoke
    Hits your eyes: smouldering peat,
    Mutton stew on a broad iron hook,
    Deep snow: how can it ever
    Have been summer? Applies wrinkling
    And mice in the barley:
    With so much to fear, thank the gods
    For company! We'll tell our tales,
    Remember how we passed the cold
    Last year, and last, and those
    Who couldn't. The grape leans across
    The seasons, clasps the hand of summer's
    Dried rind, dreaming the new fruit,
    Calling the sun back
    World without end amen.
    - Mark Green
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  26. TopTop #1157
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    New Year’s Dawn, 1947


    Two morning stars, Venus and Jupiter,
    Walk in the pale and liquid light
    Above the color of these dawns; and as the tide of light
    Rises higher the great planet vanishes
    While the nearer still shines. The yellow wave of light
    In the east and south reddens, the opaque ocean
    Becomes pale purple: Oh the delicate
    Earnestness of dawn, the fervor and the pallor.
    —Stubbornly I think again: The state is a blackmailer,
    Honest or not, with whom we make (within reason)
    Our accommodations. There is no valid authority
    In church or state, custom, scripture nor creed,
    But only in one’s own conscience and the beauty of things.
    Doggedly I think again: One’s own conscience is a trick oracle,
    Worked by parents and nurse-maids, the pressure of people,
    And the delusions of dead prophets: trust it not.
    Wash it clean to receive the transhuman beauty: then trust it.
    - Robinson Jeffers
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  27. Gratitude expressed by:

  28. TopTop #1158
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Morning Praise


    There is nothing more to be said
    but still it must be said.
    This yellow pen has words it wants to speak
    and would cry out
    and shake the house down
    were it retired and put away.

    For, yes, the words that must be said
    have already been said.
    My masters have said them. But
    God did not bid them to be silent
    any more than He said to the trees,
    “You have made enough leaves.”

    No. So I sit here in the swirl of all
    my masters’ words. I smile at
    the foolish necessity of poems.

    But let me tell you, I am alive now,
    so it’s my turn to praise God.
    The sequoias of my masters live beyond me,
    true, but if you look in these woods
    and look hard, you will see me too,
    the primordial sapling of praise,
    a bigger joy than shade can drown.

    Why should the morning not be honored then?
    I, who have nothing memorized,
    not Koran nor scripture, know only this
    by heart: to bend my neck back and sing.


    - Bruce Moody
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  29. TopTop #1159
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Restaurant


    A dimly lit alleyway, noiseless and clean
    A few hanging lights and one sign, barely seen
    With anticipation we stand at the door
    Dressed to the nines, not quite sure what's in store


    A table is reserved, it's simple and spare
    We're cheerfully welcomed and escorted there
    Two slender candles, a single carnation
    Intimately suited for food allocation
    We take to our seats and then jointly espouse
    That ours might well be the best seats in the house


    With a sense of tradition, we share the belief
    That our evening should start with an aperitif
    The bartender's famous for drinks smooth as satin
    An old fashioned perhaps? Or a bourbon manhattan?
    Before we endeavor to make a selection
    The waiter appears and imparts a suggestion
    He weaves us a tale of a vintage that's flown
    In barrels direct from the Valleé du Rhône
    The finest discovered by the sommelier
    And he pours a small glass with no further delay
    We agree it's divine and without competition
    Who cares if it costs more than Harvard's tuition
    It's like riding a magic carpet that cruises
    On winds from the land of ten thousand masseuses
    We order two bottles, since two is more fun
    And the having of fun has just barely begun


    The menu is made up of several small courses
    A dozen at least, and from regional sources
    Each taste is designed to improve on the last
    Modern art for your mouth, with a nod to the past
    The first course is served, then more start to come, steady
    Yet leisurely paced so the palette is ready


    Nantucket Bay Scallops In Two Preparations
    Crudo and served with assorted crustaceans


    Summer squash blossoms with veal marrow bones
    Endive and watercress, locally grown


    Oregon coast razor clams in the shell
    Sautéed Foie Gras with fig and chanterelle


    Creole inspired spotted sea trout fillets in
    A pecan meuniere sauce with chardonnay raisins


    Farm-raised suckling pig braised in bourbon molasses
    Fed from organically grown native grasses


    Provençal bouillabaisse, piled high and teaming
    With mussels and langoustine, smoking and steaming


    Slow roasted shoulder of blue wildebeest
    From Kenyan ranch land that was blessed by a priest


    Citrus basil sorbet, castelmagno soufflé,
    Pan steamed blue crab from the Chesapeake Bay


    Hog island oysters in goose island beer
    Caramelized starfruit with melted gruyere


    Sweet mixed with sour, then bitter with salt
    Each paring sublime, not one place to find fault
    The flavors so good that we chirp like canaries
    To describe them in full would take twelve dictionaries
    And a lake of black ink, and a pen ten feet tall
    With which to record the pure joy of it all


    And somehow, at some point, without noticing when
    The room starts to feel like an opium den
    The walls disappear, crystal air fills my lungs
    The skies open up, you are speaking in tongues
    Angels start dancing round white crystal fountains
    That spout liquid gold beneath snowy white mountains
    We're flying, propelled by invisible jets
    Swinging about, human marionettes


    And quick as it came the show draws to a close
    Familiar sights start to superimpose
    I return to my body and survey the scene
    My plate's in my hands, and I'm licking it clean
    With my cheeks getting hot, I look over at you
    And discover with joy that you're doing it too
    We both start to laugh, we fall out of our chairs
    Tears roll from our eyes, though we earn some cruel stares


    And eventually as we feel more subdued
    And it seems like the night is about to conclude
    We're struck with amazement by one last surprise
    A four decker double wide cheese cart arrives
    Hard ones and soft ones and others that smell
    Like spoiled eggs soaked in the rivers of hell
    Though there's no doubt the flavor is simply divine
    Particularly when pared with the right wine
    Wedges of gold with the texture of peach
    And a little back story provided for each


    The rest of the meal is a glorified blur
    The details of which I am mostly unsure
    It appears that dessert involves further elation
    But I'm lost in a state of entranced mastication
    And as we float home I cannot understand it
    Was this real or a dream? Just the way the chef planned it?
    Is there some other answer for what came to pass?
    Did they slip us hard drugs? Was the room filled with gas?
    We may never know, and maybe that's best
    And there's no single theory that I could suggest
    For now I'm consumed with one earthly concern
    And it's counting the days until we may return


    - Max Spector
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  30. TopTop #1160
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Pond in a Bowl, Five Poems


    1) In old age I'm back to childhood pleasures.
    A bowl in the ground - Just add water- it's a pool!
    Throughout the night frogs croaked til it dawned
    as they did when I fished as a child at Feng-k'ou.


    2) Who says you can't make a pond out of a bowl?
    The lotus sprig I planted not long ago has already grown full size.
    Don't forget, if it rains stop in for a visit.
    Together we'll listen to raindrops splash on all the green leaves.


    3) Come morning, the water brightens as if by magic.
    One moment alive with thousands of bugs too small to have names,
    Next moment they're gone, leaving no trace,
    Only the small fish, this way and that, swim in formations.


    4) Does the bowl in the garden mock nature
    when night after night green frogs gather to prove it's a pool?
    If you choose to come and keep me company need you fill
    the dark with noise and endless squabble like husband and wife?


    5) Say the bright pond mirrors the sky, both blue.
    If I pour water, the pond brims.
    Let night deepen --the moon go---
    how many stars shine back from the water!


    - Han Yu, (768-824)
    (translator unknown)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  31. Gratitude expressed by:

  32. TopTop #1161
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    From Underneath

    A giant sea turtle saved the life of a 52 year-old woman lost at sea
    for two days after a shipwreck in the Southern Phillipines. She rode on the turtle's back.
    –Syracuse Post-Standard




    When her arms were no longer

    strong enough to tread water

    it came up beneath her, hard
    and immense, and she thought

    this is how death comes,

    something large between your legs

    and then the plunge.

    She dived off instinctively,

    but it got beneath her again

    and when she realized what it was
    she soiled herself, held on.

    God would have sent something winged,

    she thought. This came from beneath,

    a piece of hell that killed a turtle

    on the way and took its shape.

    How many hours passed?

    She didn't know, but it was night

    and the waves were higher.

    The thing swam easily in the dark.


    She swooned into sleep.

    When she woke in the morning,

    the sea calm, her strange raft

    still moving. She noticed the elaborate

    pattern of its shell, map-like,

    the leathery neck and head

    as if she'd come up behind

    an old longshoreman
    in a hard-backed chair.

    She wanted and was afraid to touch

    the head – one finger
    just above the eyes –

    the way she would touch her cat

    and make it hers.
    The more it swam a steady course

    the more she spoke to it

    the jibberish of the lost.

    And then the laughter

    located at the bottom
    of oneself, unstoppable.

    The call went from sailor to sailor

    on the fishing boat: A woman

    riding an "oil drum"

    off the starboard side.

    But the turtle was already swimming

    toward the prow

    with its hysterical, foreign cargo

    and when it came up alongside

    it stopped
    until she could be hoisted off.

    Then it circled three times

    and went down.

    The woman was beyond all language,

    the captain reported:

    the crew was afraid of her

    for a long, long time.


    - Stephen Dunn
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  33. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  34. TopTop #1162
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Acid


    In Jakarata
    among the venders
    of flowers and soft drinks
    I saw a child
    with a hideous mouth,
    begging,
    and I knew the wound was made
    for a way to stay alive.
    What he gave me
    from the brown coin
    of his face
    was a look of cunning.
    I carry it
    like a bead of acid
    to remember how,
    once in a while,
    you can creep out of your own life
    and become someone else--
    an explosion
    in that nest of wires
    we call the imagination.
    I will never see him
    again, I suppose.
    But what of this rag,
    this shadow
    flung like a boy's body
    into the walls
    of my mind, bleeding
    their sour taste--
    insult and anger
    the great movers?


    - Mary Oliver
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  35. TopTop #1163
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    TURTLE DREAM

    Why can't a turtle fly? Really!
    Like it did last night.

    Flying and gliding above
    the crowed ballroom floor
    we swooped over the startled dancers
    far below as they pointed up
    with their jeweled fingers
    to my flying turtle
    with it's glistening
    cloisonné carapace.

    Clinging to his geometric back
    the shell grew hot
    as we moved lower,
    gliding in slow tilting circles
    to the marbled inlaid floor.

    Calmly and deliberate
    he blew out his turtle breath
    turtle breath of sea green clouds
    smelling of burning sage.

    It was so easy then
    to roll off his glowing back
    and walk gracefully in the mist
    just above the dancers
    now sleeping quietly
    in the seaweed
    and the grass.

    - Doug von Koss
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  36. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  37. TopTop #1164
    RexCasteel
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I remember being so perplexed the first time I heard the phrase "turtle power."

    That is NOT a sexy totem animal.

    I now have a different perspective...

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

    Why can't a turtle fly? Really!
    Like it did last night.

    - Doug von Koss
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  38. TopTop #1165
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To World War Two


    Early on you introduced me to young women in bars
    You were large, and with a large hand
    You presented them in different cities,
    Made me in San Luis Obispo, drunk
    On French seventy-fives, in Los Angeles, on pousse-cafe's.
    It was a time of general confusion
    Of being a body hurled at a wall.
    I didn't do much fighting. I sat, rather I stood, in a foxhole.
    I stood while the typhoon splashed us into morning.
    It felt unusual
    Even if for a good cause
    To be part of a destructive force
    With my rifle in my hands
    And in my head
    My serial number
    The entire object of my existence
    To eliminate Japanese soldiers
    By killing them
    With a rifle or with a grenade
    And then, many years after that,
    I could write poetry
    Fall in love
    And have a daughter
    And think about these things
    From a great distance
    If I survived
    I was "paying my debt
    To society" a paid
    Killer. It wasn't
    like anything I'd done
    Before, on the paved
    Streets of Cincinatti
    Or on the ballroom floor
    At Mr. Vathe's dancing class
    What would Anne Marie Goldsmith
    Have thought of me
    If instead of asking her to dance
    I had put my BAR to my shoulder
    And shot her in the face
    I thought about her in my foxhole--
    One, in a foxhole near me, has his throat cut during the night
    We take precautions but it is night and it is you.
    The typhoon continues and so do you.
    "I can't be killed--because of my poetry. I have to live on in order to write
    it."
    I thought--even crazier thought, or just as crazy--
    "If I'm killed while thinking of lines, it will be too corny
    When it's reported" (I imagined it would be reported!)
    So I kept thinking of lines of poetry. One that came to me on the beach on
    Leyte
    Was "The surf comes in like masochistic lions."
    I loved this terrible line. It was keeping me alive. My Uncle Leo wrote to me,
    "You won't believe this, but some day you may wish
    You were footloose and twenty on Leyte again." I have never wanted
    To be on Leyte again,
    With you, whispering into my ear,
    "Go on and win me! Tomorrow you might not be alive,
    So do it today!" How could anyone win you?
    You were too much for me, though I
    Was older than you were and in camouflage. But for you
    Who threw everything together, and had all the systems
    Working for you all the time, this was trivial. If you could use me
    You'd use me, and then forget. How else
    Did I think you'd behave?
    I'm glad you ended. I'm glad I didn't die. Or lose my mind.
    As machines make ice
    We made dead enemy soldiers, in
    Dark jungle alleys, with weapons in our hands
    That produced fire and kept going straight through
    I was carrying one,
    I who had gone about for years as a child
    Praying God don't let there be another war
    Or if there is, don't let me be in it. Well, I was in you.
    All you cared about was existing and being won.
    You died of a bomb blast in Nagasaki, and there were parades.
    - Kenneth Koch
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  39. Gratitude expressed by:

  40. TopTop #1166
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket


    I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
    My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
    I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
    I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

    Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—
    Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
    So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,
    Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

    Come, let us vote against our human nature,
    Crying to God in all the polling places
    To heal our everlasting sinfulness
    And make us sages with transfigured faces.
    - Vachel Lindsay
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  41. Gratitude expressed by:

  42. TopTop #1167
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Toward Bethlehem
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
    W. B. Yeats

    Yes, I know.
    This is the time
    of the second coming.
    The great beast lurking,
    the savage heart
    beating once again.

    Somewhere in the desert, yes,
    that blank and pitiless stare.
    The haunches moving.
    The stealthy advance.

    Shall we watch in horror and dismay?
    Do we turn away
    or witness in silence and despair?.

    The vision falters,
    the image fades again.
    That distant struggle
    in the clouds of dust--
    is this the specter
    we ourselves have made,
    created from our inner dreamscape
    of grasping and desire?
    Are we ourselves
    the approaching shape
    of darkness drawing near?

    - Dorothy Walters
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  43. Gratitude expressed by:

  44. TopTop #1168
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal


    After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,

    I heard the announcement:

    If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any

    Arabic,

    Please come to the gate immediately.


    Well -- one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own

    gate. I went there.

    An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,

    Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor,

    wailing loudly.

    Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her.

    What is her

    Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four

    hours late and she

    Did this.


    I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.

    Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway,

    min fadlick,

    Sho bit se-wee?



    The minute she heard any words she knew -- however

    poorly used -

    She stopped crying.



    She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely.

    She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical

    treatment the

    Following day. I said no, no, we're fine, you'll get

    there, just late,



    Who is picking you up? Let's call him and tell him.

    We called her son and I spoke with him in English.

    I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on

    the plane and

    Would ride next to her -- southwest.



    She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just

    for the fun of it.



    Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while

    in Arabic and

    Found out of course they had ten shared friends.



    Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call

    some Palestinian

    Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took

    up about 2 hours.



    She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her

    life. Answering

    Questions.



    She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies --

    little powdered

    Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts --

    out of her bag --

    And was offering them to all the women at the gate.



    To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It

    was like a

    Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler

    from California,

    The lovely woman from Laredo -- we were all covered

    with the same

    Powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better

    cookies.



    And then the airline broke out the free beverages from

    huge coolers --

    Non-alcoholic -- and the two little girls for our

    flight, one African

    American, one Mexican American -- ran around serving

    us all apple juice

    And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar

    too.



    And I noticed my new best friend -- by now we were

    holding hands --

    Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some

    medicinal thing,



    With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling

    tradition. Always

    Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.



    And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones

    and thought,

    This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.



    Not a single person in this gate -- once the crying of

    confusion stopped

    -- has seemed apprehensive about any other person.



    They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other

    women too.

    This can still happen anywhere.


    - Naomi Shihab Nye
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  45. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  46. TopTop #1169
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Winter Solitude


    Winter solitude--
    in a world of one color
    the sound of wind.






    When The Winter Chrysanthemums Go


    When the winter chrysanthemums go,
    there's nothing to write about
    but radishes.


    - Matsuo Basho
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  47. Gratitude expressed by:

  48. TopTop #1170
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Practice

    Not the high mountain monastery
    I had hoped for, the real
    face of my spiritual practice
    is this:
    the sweat that pearls on my cheek
    when I tell you the truth, my silent
    cry in the night when I think
    I’m alone, the trembling
    in my own hand as I reach out
    through the years of overcoming
    to touch what I had hoped
    I would never need again.


    - Kim Rosen
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  49. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

Similar Threads

  1. Thank you Larry Robinson
    By JandA in forum WaccoReader
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 12-11-2009, 02:36 PM
  2. Poem of the day from Larry Robinson
    By Larry Robinson in forum Poetry and Prose
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 05-20-2008, 09:33 AM
  3. Poems from Larry Robinson
    By Larry Robinson in forum Poetry and Prose
    Replies: 34
    Last Post: 01-07-2007, 08:45 AM
  4. Measure F Precinct Walk with Larry Robinson
    By Portia in forum General Community
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-06-2006, 02:46 PM

Bookmarks