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  1. TopTop #2461
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Love Your Crazy Bones

    Even your odds and ends.
    I love your teeth, crazy bones,
    Madcap knees and elbows.
    Forearm and backhand
    Hair makes you animal.
    Rare among things.
    The small of your back could pool rain
    Into water a main might drink. Perfect,
    From the whirlpools your fingers print
    On everything you touch
    To the moons on the nails of all ten toes
    Rising and setting inside your shoes
    Wherever you go.

    - Barton Sutter
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-21-2015 at 02:45 PM.
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  3. TopTop #2462
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For The Courageous

    You
    who replants today despite unwelcoming soil
    so tomorrow can be worthy of the roots;
    Your children will grow up to be oak trees

    You
    who cracks lies
    until the grass finds enough spine
    to break concrete and taste rain
    for the first time;
    Your children will sing unconquered through hurricanes

    You
    who names the nameless
    and speaks of their suffering
    so we never forget the familiarity of their essence;
    Your children will be unashamed of their reflection

    You
    who pushes against the jagged perimeters
    thrusting your weight until you can mold freedom
    regardless of the danger;
    Your children will dance bravely through sorrow

    You
    who goes barefoot and empty handed
    despite the heavy boots and gun you’ve been given
    leaving destiny untouched;
    Your children will be prophets,
    have fate pressed against their eyes

    You
    who has been brave enough to move through the earthquakes of heart-break
    and carry love into ancestry with permanence
    Your children will forgive the ghosts that have haunted their nights
    and open the door for their departure in the morning

    - Alixa (of Climbing Poetree)
    Last edited by Barry; 05-22-2015 at 12:54 PM.
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  5. TopTop #2463
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Group Of Men At A Meeting Table

    In Imitation Of Tu Fu (712-770) As Translated By Carolyn Kizer

    They shift down in their seats or sit off-center.
    One leans forward.
    Another bows over to write notes in his journal.
    Like a good boy, that one sits, back-up, like a cadet.
    I have no idea how I sit.

    One speaks, then another.
    I consider how independently each of us dresses.
    Nothing beautiful. Nothing gaudy.
    Even my own red does not stand out.

    Outside, the dark is like a pearl.
    The parking lot well-lit. We wander to our cars.
    Scattering to get home. Discussions to-be-continued.
    A perfume fills the air. Some sweet tree in bloom
    smells like it has filled an entire world all day.

    - Bruce Moody
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-23-2015 at 01:58 PM.
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  7. TopTop #2464
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Kyrie
    Around midnight he took the oxycodone
    and listened to Arvo Pärt’s “I Am the True Vine”

    over and over, the snow falling harder now.
    He switched off the light and sat without dread

    of the coming hours, quietly singing along;
    he smoked any number of cigarettes without thinking

    once about the horrifying consequence;
    he was legibly told what to say and he wrote

    with mounting excitement and pleasure,
    and sent friendly e-mails to everyone, Lord

    I had such a good time and I don't regret anything —
    What happened to the prayer that goes like that?

    - Franz Wright
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-25-2015 at 12:48 PM.
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  9. TopTop #2465
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    FOR THOSE WHO HAVE DIED


    ELEH EZKERAH - These We Remember


    Tis a fearful thing

    To love
    What death can touch.
    To love, to hope, to dream,
    And oh, to lose.
    A thing for fools, this,
    Love,
    But a holy thing,
    To love what death can touch.


    For your life has lived in me;
    You laugh once lifted me;
    Your word was a gift to me.


    To remember this brings painful joy.


    Tis a human thing, love,
    A holy thing,
    To love
    What death can touch.

    - J u d a h H a l e v i
    (1 2 t h C e n t u r y )
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  11. TopTop #2466
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Atlantic low

    never to come by here again. And I do not know
    what it is all about and I do not care
    what it is all about, only that the sun comes
    and touches me sometimes and touches the stone
    and reminds me. There are trees
    on the southern slope, their needles shift in the cloud, shift
    under the mountain. Always there is cloud
    on the mountain. I dream of the sun,
    the sun which touches me when the river speaks,
    sun which soaks the stone white, dissolves
    the cloud, dissolves the mountain,
    dissolves me in it. To be dissolved.

    - Paul Kingnorth
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  13. TopTop #2467
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For our joy take from my palms
    a bit of sunlight and a bit of honey,
    as Persephone's bees would have us do.

    You can't unmoor a boat free floating,
    nor hear a shadow whispering in its furs,
    nor overcome the fear that burrows into life.

    All that is left for us is kisses,
    the downy ones like little bees
    that perish once they've left the hive.

    They rustle in the crystal labyrinth of night,
    their home it is the dense forest of Taigetos,
    their sustenance is cowslip, mint, and thyme.

    Accept then my wild gift of joy,
    this simple necklace made from withered bees
    that died while turning honey into sunlight.

    - Osip Mandelstam
    (translated by Marina Romani)
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-27-2015 at 01:54 PM.
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  14. TopTop #2468

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    below, a brief summary of the short, tragic life of Osip Mandlestram.
    "Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osip_Mandelstam


    Accept then my wild gift of joy,
    this simple necklace made from withered bees
    that died while turning honey into sunlight.

    - Osip Mandelstam
    (translated by Marina Romani)[/QUOTE]
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-27-2015 at 01:55 PM.
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  16. TopTop #2469
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Single Secret Word


    When geometric diagrams and digits
    Are no longer keys to living things,
    When people who about singing or kissing
    Know deeper truths than the great scholars,
    When society is returned once more
    To the unimprisoned life, and to the universe,
    And when light and darkness mate
    Once more and make something entirely transparent,
    and people see in poems and fairy tales
    The true history of the world,
    Then our entire twisted nature will turn
    And run when a single secret word is spoken.


    - Novalis (1800)
    (Translated by Robert Bly)
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  18. TopTop #2470
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For Adam

    Life is a magic trick --
    Appearing suddenly
    out of a black top hat.

    Newborns stare up, wide-eyed,
    at the colored patterns on the
    magician's tie.

    Each life is stretched, slowly, into adulthood,
    like knotted scarves pulled out of a pocket
    too small to contain them.

    Love pours out of an empty jar like water --
    it is emptied, then made full, emptied
    once again, then overflows.

    And POOF! A sudden finale,
    as the magician himself disappears
    up the shirtsleeve of God.

    - Lion Goodman
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-29-2015 at 02:10 PM.
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  19. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  20. TopTop #2471
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Breaking Surface

    Let no one keep you from your journey,
    no rabbi or priest, no mother
    who wants you to dig for treasures
    she misplaced, no father
    who won't let one life be enough,
    no lover who measures their worth
    by what you might give up,
    no voice that tells you in the night
    it can't be done.

    Let nothing dissuade you
    from seeing what you see
    or feeling the winds that make you
    want to dance alone
    or go where no one
    has yet to go.

    You are the only explorer.

    - Mark Nepo
    Last edited by thedaughter; 05-30-2015 at 01:56 PM.
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  21. TopTop #2472

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This guy is really good. Gets the "catalogue" of what not to be dissuaded by just right, imo.
    Printing out. Putting on our fridge.
    The ultimate compliment!
    Thanks, Larry. Thanks Mark.
    (Oops! Almost wrote "Thanks, Larry. Thanks, Moe. Thanks, Curly! )

    You are the only explorer.
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  22. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  23. TopTop #2473

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A two-fold good list:
    what not to allow from others, and
    what not to do to others.

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

    Let no one keep you from your journey,
    no rabbi or priest, no mother
    who wants you to dig for treasures
    she misplaced, no father
    who won't let one life be enough,
    no lover who measures their worth
    by what you might give up,
    no voice that tells you in the night
    it can't be done.

    Let nothing dissuade you
    from seeing what you see
    or feeling the winds that make you
    want to dance alone
    or go where no one
    has yet to go.

    You are the only explorer.

    - Mark Nepo
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  24. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  25. TopTop #2474
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Dear Human

    Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong.
    You didn’t come here to master unconditional love.
    That is where you came from and where you’ll return.
    You came here to learn personal love.
    Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love.
    Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love.
    Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling.
    Demonstrated through the beauty of…messing up. Often.
    You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are.
    You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous.
    And then to rise again into remembering.
    But unconditional love? Stop telling that story.
    Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives.
    It doesn’t require modifiers
    It doesn’t require the condition of perfection.
    It only asks that you show up. And do your best.
    That you stay present and feel fully.
    That you shine and fly and laugh and cry
    and hurt and heal and fall and get back up
    and play and work and live and die as YOU.
    It’s enough. It’s plenty.

    - Courtney Walsh
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 9 members:

  27. TopTop #2475

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thanks, Larry. I needed this today.

    Pretty much every day, but especially this day.

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

    Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong.
    You didn’t come here to master unconditional love.
    That is where you came from and where you’ll return.
    You came here to learn personal love.
    Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love.
    Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love.
    Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling.
    Demonstrated through the beauty of…messing up. Often.
    You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are.
    You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous.
    And then to rise again into remembering.
    But unconditional love? Stop telling that story.
    Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives.
    It doesn’t require modifiers
    It doesn’t require the condition of perfection.
    It only asks that you show up. And do your best.
    That you stay present and feel fully.
    That you shine and fly and laugh and cry
    and hurt and heal and fall and get back up
    and play and work and live and die as YOU.
    It’s enough. It’s plenty.

    - Courtney Walsh
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  28. TopTop #2476
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What the Dust Doesn’t Know

    Even this runt, dust-hugging
    cactus with nothing to commend
    its spiked flesh has a lover

    once a year when
    the red tent of a calyx,
    bursting from its crown of thorns,

    is ravished by a bee-like creature,
    which wallows in that bristling
    pollen cup, then staggers into air

    bearing a scrim of dust,
    dusting all its other crimson lovers
    on the slope, which swell

    with purpled fruit, also thorned--
    like Jesus on his tree, waiting
    for the two Marys to steal past

    the dozing Roman guards at midnight
    and pluck the tender fruit of his body
    from its bed of nails

    and consume it,
    then pass
    the nearly invisible seeds,

    which shall rise again
    from their fecal tombs. As Life--
    barbed and pug ugly

    nailed to its crucifix of matter.
    But, don’t forget, the nails
    are there to nail down

    something precious,
    however fleetingly
    it flowers, it fruits--

    something
    the dust does not
    know, this is what

    the lover knows.

    - Richard Schiffman
    Last edited by thedaughter; 06-01-2015 at 02:18 PM.
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  30. TopTop #2477
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Earth

    Let the day grow on you upward
    through your feet,
    the vegetal knuckles,

    to your knees of stone,
    until by evening you are a black tree;
    feel, with evening,

    the swifts thicken your hair,
    the new moon rising out of your forehead,
    and the moonlit veins of silver

    running from your armpits
    like rivulets under white leaves.
    Sleep, as ants

    cross over your eyelids.
    You have never possessed anything
    as deeply as this.

    This is all you have owned
    from the first outcry
    through forever;

    you can never be dispossessed.

    - Derek Walcott
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  32. TopTop #2478
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)


    Constantly risking absurdity
    and death
    whenever he performs
    above the heads
    of his audience
    the poet like an acrobat
    climbs on rime
    to a high wire of his own making
    and balancing on eyebeams
    above a sea of faces
    paces his way
    to the other side of day
    performing entrechats
    and sleight-of-foot tricks
    and other high theatrics
    and all without mistaking
    any thing
    for what it may not be


    For he's the super realist
    who must perforce perceive
    taut truth
    before the taking of each stance or step
    in his supposed advance
    toward that still higher perch
    where Beauty stands and waits
    with gravity
    to start her death-defying leap


    And he
    a little charleychaplin man
    who may or may not catch
    her fair eternal form
    spreadeagled in the empty air
    of existence
    - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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  33. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  34. TopTop #2479
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Respect Your Elders

    When you see me sitting quietly,
    Like a sack left on the shelf,
    Don’t think I need your chattering.
    I’m listening to myself.
    Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me! Hold!
    Stop your sympathy!
    Understanding if you’ve got it,
    Otherwise I’ll do without it!
    ...When you see me walking, stumbling,
    Don’t study and get it wrong.
    ‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy
    And every goodbye ain’t gone.
    I’m the same person I was back then,
    A little less hair, a little less chin,
    A lot less lungs, much less wind.
    But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in…

    - Maya Angelou
    Last edited by thedaughter; 06-04-2015 at 01:58 PM.
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  36. TopTop #2480
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Oh Mockingbird!

    now that leaves
    have obscured the branches
    you, too, are hidden
    and I am left with only your voice
    your continual presence

    - Fran Claggett
    Last edited by thedaughter; 06-05-2015 at 12:27 PM.
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  38. TopTop #2481
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Municipal Gallery Revisited


    I
    Arround me the images of thirty years:
    An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
    Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
    Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
    Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
    A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
    A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
    A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;

    II
    An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
    Blessing the Tricolour. 'This is not,' I say,
    'The dead Ireland of my youth, but an Ireland
    The poets have imagined, terrible and gay.'
    Before a woman's portrait suddenly I stand,
    Beautiful and gentle in her Venetian way.
    I met her all but fifty years ago
    For twenty minutes in some studio.

    III
    Heart-smitten with emotion I Sink down,
    My heart recovering with covered eyes;
    Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
    My permanent or impermanent images:
    Augusta Gregory's son; her sister's son,
    Hugh Lane, 'onlie begetter' of all these;
    Hazel Lavery living and dying, that tale
    As though some ballad-singer had sung it all;

    IV
    Mancini's portrait of Augusta Gregory,
    'Greatest since Rembrandt,' according to John Synge;
    A great ebullient portrait certainly;
    But where is the brush that could show anything
    Of all that pride and that humility?
    And I am in despair that time may bring
    Approved patterns of women or of men
    But not that selfsame excellence again.

    V
    My mediaeval knees lack health until they bend,
    But in that woman, in that household where
    Honour had lived so long, all lacking found.
    Childless I thought, 'My children may find here
    Deep-rooted things,' but never foresaw its end,
    And now that end has come I have not wept;
    No fox can foul the lair the badger swept --

    VI
    (An image out of Spenser and the common tongue).
    John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought
    All that we did, all that we said or sang
    Must come from contact with the soil, from that
    Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
    We three alone in modern times had brought
    Everything down to that sole test again,
    Dream of the noble and the beggar-man.

    VII
    And here's John Synge himself, that rooted man,
    'Forgetting human words,' a grave deep face.
    You that would judge me, do not judge alone
    This book or that, come to this hallowed place
    Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
    Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;
    Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
    And say my glory was I had such friends.

    - William Butler Yeats
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  39. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  40. TopTop #2482
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In the Evening

    The heads of roses begin to droop.
    The bee who has been hauling his gold
    all day finds a hexagon in which to rest.

    In the sky, traces of clouds,

    the last few darting birds,
    watercolors on the horizon.

    The white cat sits facing a wall.
    The horse in the field is asleep on its feet.

    I light a candle on the wood table.
    I take another sip of wine.
    I pick an onion and a knife.

    And the past and the future?
    Nothing but an only child with two different masks.

    - Billy Collins
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  41. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  42. TopTop #2483
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Song Weaver

    for Ronnie Gilbert

    "Good night, Irene,"
    she sang, "Good night, Irene,
    I'll see you in my dreams."
    & with her pals
    belted out other songs
    wishing for a hammer
    enough to scare a paranoid
    government to black-list them.
    Fear was not one of her fears -
    her sense of outrage at injustice
    was too great - & also was her hope.
    When she came on stage
    there was no doubt who filled it
    & her voice was strong for those
    who had none. When she was born,
    they say, she was put into a red diaper;
    perhaps it was that she turned into a flag
    to frighten the bulls that shat
    upon the tatters of what
    they called "our democracy."
    She was not to be taken in
    by "Freedom Acts" that tainted
    not a bit her unfettered laughter;
    she was too big for that as was her heart.

    So Long, dear friend, it's been good
    to know yuh & I know when you get
    to that other place you'll teach the angels
    some songs worth their singing.

    - Rafael Jesús González
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  43. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  44. TopTop #2484

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ah, such a large-hearted--and belted out--way to learn about the death of this great lady. Terrific title. (Not sure she'd have been a believer in angels, though.) Janet

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

    for Ronnie Gilbert

    "Good night, Irene,"
    she sang, "Good night, Irene,
    I'll see you in my dreams."
    & with her pals...
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  45. TopTop #2485
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World
    The morning air is all awash with angels…
    - Richard Wilbur

    The eyes open to a blue telephone
    In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.
    I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,
    Proctologist, urologist, or priest?
    Who is most among us and most deserves
    The first call? I choose my father because
    He’s astounded by bathroom telephones.
    I dial home. My mother answers. “Hey, Ma,
    I say, “Can I talk to Poppa?” She gasps,
    And then I remember that my father
    Has been dead for nearly a year. “Shit, Mom,”
    I say. “I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—
    How did I forget?” “It’s okay,” she says.
    “I made him a cup of instant coffee
    This morning and left it on the table—
    Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—
    And I didn’t realize my mistake
    Until this afternoon.” My mother laughs
    At the angels who wait for us to pause
    During the most ordinary of days
    And sing our praise to forgetfulness
    Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.
    Those angels burden and unbalance us.
    Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.
    Those angels, forever falling, snare us
    And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.
    - Sherman Alexie
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  47. TopTop #2486
    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
    Last edited by Barry; 06-10-2015 at 02:15 PM.
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  48. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  49. TopTop #2487
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Half-Mexican

    Odd to be a half-Mexican, let me put it this way

    I am Mexican + Mexican, then there’s the question of the half
    To say Mexican without the half, well it means another thing
    One could say only Mexican
    Then think of pyramids – obsidian flaw, flame etchings, goddesses with
    Flayed visages claw feet & skulls as belts – these are not Mexican
    They are existences, that is to say
    Slavery, sinew, hearts shredded sacrifices for the continuum
    Quarks & galaxies, the cosmic milk that flows into trees
    Then darkness
    What is the other – yes
    It is Mexican too, yet it is formless, it is speckled with particles
    European pieces? To say colony or power is incorrect
    Better to think of Kant in his tiny room
    Shuffling in his black socks seeking out the notion of time
    Or Einstein re-working the erroneous equation
    Concerning the way light bends – all this has to do with
    The half, the half-thing when you are a half-being
    Time
    Light
    How they stalk you & how you beseech them
    All this becomes your life-long project, that is
    You are Mexican. One half Mexican the other half
    Mexican, then the half against itself.

    - Juan Felipe Herrera

    Juan Felipe Herrera is America's new Poet Laureate
    Last edited by thedaughter; 06-11-2015 at 01:43 PM.
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  51. TopTop #2488
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Want To Write Different Words For You


    I want to write different words for you
    To invent a language for you alone
    To fit the size of your body
    And the size of my love.


    I want to travel away from the dictionary
    And to leave my lips
    I am tired of my mouth
    I want a different one
    Which can change
    Into a cherry tree or a match box,
    A mouth from which words can emerge
    Like nymphs from the sea,
    Like white chicks jumping from the magician’s hat.

    - Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998)
    (translated by Bassam K. Frangieh
    and Clementina R. Brown)
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  53. TopTop #2489
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Imaginary Dokusan: Perfume

    Crushed lime halves in the sink,

    a wood match's sweet-acrid strike...

    I keep looking for things with a beauty
    that's not incidental, but have found none.
    Because of this, the difference between sensuality

    and being fully awake in the moment
    is often unclear to me, for example

    the sun's smell of ripening
    even in things still immature—
    which of the two pleasure is that?

    - Chase Twichell
    Last edited by Barry; 06-13-2015 at 01:57 PM.
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  55. TopTop #2490
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

    My Soul, I summon to the winding ancient stair;
    Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
    Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
    Upon the breathless starlit air,
    "Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
    Fix every wandering thought upon
    That quarter where all thought is done:
    Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

    My Self, The consecretes blade upon my knees
    Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
    Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
    Unspotted by the centuries;
    That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
    From some court-lady's dress and round
    The wodden scabbard bound and wound
    Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

    My Soul, Why should the imagination of a man
    Long past his prime remember things that are
    Emblematical of love and war?
    Think of ancestral night that can,
    If but imagination scorn the earth
    And interllect is wandering
    To this and that and t'other thing,
    Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

    My Self, Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
    Five hundred years ago, about it lie
    Flowers from I know not what embroidery -
    Heart's purple - and all these I set
    For emblems of the day against the tower
    Emblematical of the night,
    And claim as by a soldier's right
    A charter to commit the crime once more.

    My Soul, Such fullness in that quarter overflows
    And falls into the basin of the mind
    That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
    For intellect no longer knows
    Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known -
    That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
    Only the dead can be forgiven;
    But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

    My Self, A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
    What matter if the ditches are impure?
    What matter if I live it all once more?
    Endure that toil of growing up;
    The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
    Of boyhood changing into man;
    The unfinished man and his pain
    Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;
    The finished man among his enemies? -
    How in the name of Heaven can he escape
    That defiling and disfigured shape
    The mirror of malicious eyes
    Casts upon his eyes until at last
    He thinks that shape must be his shape?
    And what's the good of an escape
    If honour find him in the wintry blast?
    I am content to live it all again
    And yet again, if it be life to pitch
    Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
    A blind man battering blind men;
    Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
    The folly that man does
    Or must suffer, if he woos
    A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
    I am content to follow to its source
    Every event in action or in thought;
    Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
    When such as I cast out remorse
    So great a sweetness flows into the breast
    We must laugh and we must sing,
    We are blest by everything,
    Everything we look upon is blest.

    - William Butler Yeats
    Last edited by thedaughter; 06-14-2015 at 12:22 PM.
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