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  1. TopTop #2581
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Inquiry


    Is it wrong to be so in love with coffee?
    Is it wrong to add a shot of Irish Cream?
    Is it wrong to not return the drug store lip gloss
    that was already opened when I
    handed it to the checkout lady?
    I really didn’t see….
    Its slick pyramid smells
    of sickly sweet gardenia and as I
    slide its surface across my lips I
    imagine who might have torn the plastic wrapper:
    A homeless woman seeking
    just one ounce of glamor.
    A single mother scrambling
    to reach an interview.
    A clutch of laughing,
    purple-shadowed teens.


    Is it wrong to sit here,
    hail falling on gravel and skylight,
    my children absent, learning of biomes and ABCs,
    and absorb the stain of
    someone else’s invisible longing
    upon my fire- and spirit-warmed face?


    - Amy Elizabeth Robinson
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  3. TopTop #2582
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    If You are a Man

    If you are a man, and believe in the destiny of mankind
    then say to yourself: we will cease to care
    about property and money and mechanical devices,
    and open our consciousness to the deep, mysterious life
    that we are now cut off from.
    The machine shall be abolished from the earth again;
    it is a mistake that mankind has made;
    money shall cease to be, and property shall cease to perplex
    and we will find the way to immediate contact with life
    and with one another.
    To know the moon as we have never known
    yet she is knowable.
    To know a man as we have never known
    a man, as never yet a man was knowable, yet still shall be.


    - D.H. Lawrence
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  5. TopTop #2583
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Photograph


    my grandsons
    spinning in their joy
    universe
    keep them turning turning
    black blurs against the window
    of the world
    for they are beautiful
    and there is trouble coming
    round and round and round


    - Lucille Clifton
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  7. TopTop #2584
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Fisherman


    Although I can see him still.
    The freckled man who goes
    To a grey place on a hill
    In grey Connemara clothes
    At dawn to cast his flies,
    It's long since I began
    To call up to the eyes
    This wise and simple man.
    All day I'd looked in the face
    What I had hoped 'twould be
    To write for my own race
    And the reality;
    The living men that I hate,
    The dead man that I loved,
    The craven man in his seat,
    The insolent unreproved,
    And no knave brought to book
    Who has won a drunken cheer,
    The witty man and his joke
    Aimed at the commonest ear,
    The clever man who cries
    The catch-cries of the clown,
    The beating down of the wise
    And great Art beaten down.


    Maybe a twelvemonth since
    Suddenly I began,
    In scorn of this audience,
    Imagining a man,
    And his sun-freckled face,
    And grey Connemara cloth,
    Climbing up to a place
    Where stone is dark under froth,


    And the down-turn of his wrist
    When the flies drop in the stream;
    A man who does not exist,
    A man who is but a dream;
    And cried, 'Before I am old
    I shall have written him one
    poem maybe as cold
    And passionate as the dawn.'


    - William Butler Yeats
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  9. TopTop #2585
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Waving Goodbye


    A new suitcase in one hand,
    car keys in the other and finally
    off to college for the first time.

    Looking back past the walnut tree
    a last glance at the old house
    his family still waving good-bye
    good-bye from behind
    the screened-in porch.

    Shifting gears on Main Street,
    thinking of things left behind
    his old room and a medal from track
    closet full of memories and old clothes
    all still too good
    to give away.

    Homecoming for the thanksgiving feast
    stunned at the barrenness of his room
    just one change of socks and underwear remaining
    in the top right drawer of the otherwise
    empty chest.

    Staring down the hallway at Christmas,
    past the presents and the lighted tree
    he saw his room was gone
    the doorway and the door
    across from his brother’s room.

    At spring break under the walnut tree
    staring again at the screened-in porch
    he was certain
    the house was gone.

    Trying one last time in June
    the porch was gone
    the tree was gone
    Main Street no where
    to be found.

    Driving away past his disappearing high school
    he wondered was there a medal from track?
    Had he ever had a brother?

    Clutching the wheel in front
    he knew he must hurry
    his road disappearing
    his town disappearing
    and in the rear view mirror,
    was that his life?
    slowly waving
    good-bye, good-bye?

    - Doug von Koss
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  11. TopTop #2586
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Squirrels


    Something blurred, warmed
    in the eye’s corner, like woodsmoke
    becoming tears;
    but when you turned to look


    the stoop was still, the pumpkin
    and tacky mum pot wouldn’t talk —
    just a rattle
    at the gutter and a sense


    of curtains, somewhere, pulled.
    Five of   them later, scarfing the oak’s
    black bole,
    laying a dream of snakes.


    Needy and reticent
    at once, these squirrels in charred November
    recall, in Virgil,
    what it is to feel:


    moods, half-moods,
    swarming, then darting loose; obscure
    hunches that refuse
    to speak, but still expect


    in some flash of   luck
    to be revealed. The less you try
    to notice them,
    the more they will know of  you.


    - Nate Klug
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  13. TopTop #2587
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Otter and the Seaweed


    This is what you need to know:
    you need to know that otters wrap themselves
    in seaweed so they won’t,
    while sleeping at night, float out to sea . . .
    Are you imagining this?
    Can you see the otters actually doing this?
    Does it break your heart a little?
    Does it seduce you just a bit
    into loving more
    this odd hard world?
    Oh otters, wrap yourselves tight! And sleep,
    exactly like you do, floating but seaweed-held
    in our salty living waters! Oh otters,
    wrap yourselves tight! And you,
    the one who doesn’t, the one who doesn’t
    tether himself down right,
    we are with you as you float away,
    we are with you as you sleep
    and lose yourself in the night.


    - Teddy Macker
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  15. TopTop #2588
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Poem for the day:

    September

    Detaching myself this autumn day
    from world news, I turn to
    the ravens and finches for
    authentic reports. Walnuts drop,
    cracking open just enough
    for beaks to pry their meat
    or squirrels to glean and plant
    in their secret gardens.

    "Last days for baths
    in the fountain," broadcast the finches.
    Eating and drinking, everyday toil,
    I think how we share
    a similar life, except for wars,
    crime and generations of greed.

    From what book do they learn
    to sing? to roost each night
    on a favorite branch, or turn up
    half-way to the border, their annual
    winter circuit balancing each
    hemisphere with pinioned precision
    and plumed, imponderable grace?

    - Andrea English
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  17. TopTop #2589
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Repeating History


    In Krakow, on the hour
    A trumpeter recalls
    an interrupted call, warning invasion,
    The alarm arrested by an arrow
    piercing the psyche
    of a people. Repeat


    Everywhere, injuries
    enshrined, history felt
    Repeatedly, wounds
    remembered. The wounded,
    dead forgotten by the bowman,
    marksman, indifferent
    bomber. Forgotten by the one
    who ordered the arrow.


    We repeat, but cannot
    delete fear, erase blood.
    We repeat slights and stabs,
    rapes and rage of the ages.


    All of us are history
    Redacted, invented
    Stories of our innocence
    And their guilt.


    We carry our persistent culture,
    Our ignorance of a fragile
    Original root—a curious explorer
    Into darkness, into


    Separation from a whole
    Which held us. Hewing a
    Path toward more, a forked
    Road, we move


    Away from each other,
    Away from ourselves.


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

  19. TopTop #2590
    Mindful Negotiator
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Repeating History...
    Thanks for sharing this particularly beautiful, poignant, and haunting soft cry for the species to wake up. It moves me to register my discomfort and terror over the continued enshrining of 9-11 debris around the country. These memorials "am become death - the destroyer of worlds." They divide, condemn, justify the culture of bigotry-ridden permanent warfare.

    Forgive me, Larry if these comments are inappropriate for your poetry postings. But today's poem moved me deeply and touched a nerve, as one who walked through WTC daily for five years as a young man, and who now quakes at the horrors being wrought in the name of our loss and grief.
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  21. TopTop #2591
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Drought

    The fir tree points
    claw needles up
    imploring rain
    for greening
    dry branches display
    their prickle fingers
    thirsting for mist
    or thunder
    Here ,now,there
    brown spots appear
    and nesting birds
    peck up their beaks
    Cawing for worm and water
    Calling for nourishment
    The fir tree groans
    a stanza of its own
    Rooted to ground
    Beneath a cloudless sky
    Rain…please…rain
    Bless its sturdy stance
    from root to tip
    The fir stands
    Defiant in all climate
    every day is drier
    There is fire on the way

    - Maryann Schacht
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  23. TopTop #2592
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    No One Leaves Home


    no one leaves home unless
    home is the mouth of a shark
    you only run for the border
    when you see the whole city running as well
    your neighbors running faster than you
    breath bloody in their throats
    the boy you went to school with
    who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
    is holding a gun bigger than his body
    you only leave home
    when home won’t let you stay.
    no one leaves home unless home chases you
    fire under feet
    hot blood in your belly
    it’s not something you ever thought of doing
    until the blade burnt threats into
    your neck
    and even then you carried the anthem under
    your breath
    only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
    sobbing as each mouthful of paper
    made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
    you have to understand,
    that no one puts their children in a boat
    unless the water is safer than the land
    no one burns their palms
    under trains
    beneath carriages
    no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
    feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
    means something more than journey.
    no one crawls under fences
    no one wants to be beaten
    pitied
    no one chooses refugee camps
    or strip searches where your
    body is left aching
    or prison,
    because prison is safer
    than a city of fire
    and one prison guard
    in the night
    is better than a truckload
    of men who look like your father
    no one could take it
    no one could stomach it
    no one skin would be tough enough
    the
    go home blacks
    refugees
    dirty immigrants
    asylum seekers
    sucking our country dry
    niggers with their hands out
    they smell strange
    savage
    messed up their country and now they want
    to mess ours up
    how do the words
    the dirty looks
    roll off your backs
    maybe because the blow is softer
    than a limb torn off
    or the words are more tender
    than fourteen men between
    your legs
    or the insults are easier
    to swallow
    than rubble
    than bone
    than your child body
    in pieces.
    i want to go home,
    but home is the mouth of a shark
    home is the barrel of the gun
    and no one would leave home
    unless home chased you to the shore
    unless home told you
    to quicken your legs
    leave your clothes behind
    crawl through the desert
    wade through the oceans
    drown
    save
    be hunger
    beg
    forget pride
    your survival is more important
    no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
    saying-
    leave,
    run away from me now
    i dont know what i’ve become
    but i know that anywhere


    is safer than here


    - Warshan Shire


    Warsan Shire is a Kenyan-born Somali poet, writer and educator based in London. Born in 1988, Warsan has read her work extensively all over Britain and internationally – including recent readings in South Africa, Italy, Germany, Canada, North America and Kenya- and her début book, ‘TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH’ (flipped eye), was published in 2011. Her poems have been published in Wasafiri, Magma and Poetry Review and in the anthology ‘The Salt Book of Younger Poets’ (Salt, 2011). She is the current poetry editor at SPOOK magazine. In 2012 she represented Somalia at the Poetry Parnassus, the festival of the world poets at the Southbank, London. She is a Complete Works II poet. Her poetry has been translated into Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Warsan is also the unanimous winner of the 2013 Inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize.
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  25. TopTop #2593
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The New Colossus


    Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
    With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
    Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
    A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
    Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
    Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
    The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
    "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
    With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"




    - Emma Lazarus
    New York City, 1883
    (Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty)
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  27. TopTop #2594
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In Tribute to Etty Hillesum - Author of An Interrupted Life, Murdered at Auschwitz 10/30/43


    (1)
    There are enemies
    who want to make
    your world narrow
    and they say
    it’s not so bad, there are
    plenty of shops that serve your kind,

    but the fences tighten
    and each morning the boundary gets closer
    and there is no place left to go.

    Etty, wakes to learn
    the forest in her city
    is closed to Jews.

    The pleasure of a picnic
    has been stolen
    and to love life is a criminal transgression.

    The few trees outside the window,
    she writes
    must be a forest for us now.

    We must become full on meager
    scraps of God’s world
    trafficking illegal joy.


    (2)
    In 1942
    they loaded cattle cars with Jews.
    Etty said,
    “All right. So now I learn
    to travel light.

    She took the Bible and
    Letters to a Young Poet
    by Rainer Maria Rilke.

    She said
    “We’ll live
    until we’re dead,”
    and in the dark
    she sat and read.


    - Simone Denny
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  29. TopTop #2595
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Prayer


    Do you really think
    that God cares
    who wins the Super Bowl
    or the lottery or the war
    or who gets the parking place
    or the promotion?


    Don't waste your prayers
    asking for special favors
    of the One who has given
    us our days and our nights,
    our time on earth,
    sequoias and poppies,
    blue whales and blue herons
    and - even more - each other.


    Here is the only prayer I know
    worth the breath.
    Say it with me:
    Wow!
    Thank you!
    Amen!


    - Larry Robinson
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  30. TopTop #2596
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mystic

    They call all experience of the senses mystic, when the
    experience is considered.
    So an apple becomes mystic when I taste in it
    the summer and the snows, the wild welter of earth
    and the insistence of the sun.

    All of which things I can surely taste in a good apple.
    Though some apples taste preponderantly of water, wet and sour
    and some of too much sun, brackish sweet
    like lagoon-water, that has been too much sunned.

    If I say I taste these things in an apple, I am called mystic, which
    means a liar.
    The only way to eat an apple is to hog it down like a pig
    and taste nothing
    that is real.

    But if I eat an apple, I like to eat it with all my senses awake.
    Hogging it down like a pig I call the feeding of corpses.

    - D.H. Lawrence
    Last edited by Barry; 09-10-2015 at 03:31 PM.
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  32. TopTop #2597
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    School Prayer


    In the name of the daybreak
    and the eyelids of morning
    and the wayfaring moon

    and the night when it departs,

    I swear I will not dishonor
    my soul with hatred,
    but offer myself humbly
    as a guardian of nature,
    as a healer of misery,
    as a messenger of wonder,
    as an architect of peace.

    In the name of the sun and its mirrors
    and the day that embraces it
    and the cloud veils drawn over it
    and the uttermost night
    and the male and the female
    and the plants bursting with seed
    and the crowning seasons
    of the firefly and the apple,

    I will honor all life
    - wherever and in whatever form
    it may dwell - on Earth my home,

    and in the mansions of the stars.

    - Diane Ackerman
    Last edited by Barry; 09-11-2015 at 02:39 PM.
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  34. TopTop #2598
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    There, She is Gone! Here She Comes!


    I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side
    spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for
    the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, I
    stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck
    of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle
    with each other.

    Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone"!

    "Gone where"?

    Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
    mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side
    and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to
    her destined port.

    Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the
    moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"!
    there are other eyes watching her coming, and other
    voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes"!

    - Henry Van Dyke
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  36. TopTop #2599
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sent this to a friend who likes ships.
    Name:  For-Bill-Piercy.jpg
Views: 4132
Size:  129.9 KB

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    There, She is Gone! Here She Comes!

    I am standing upon the seashore....
    Last edited by Barry; 09-13-2015 at 05:39 PM.
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  38. TopTop #2600
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For Guy Davenport

    Within the circles of our lives
    we dance the circles of the years,
    we dance the circles of the seasons
    within the circles of the years,
    the cycles of the moon

    within the circles of the seasons,
    the circles of our reasons
    within the cycles of the moon.

    Again, again, we come and go,
    changed, changing. Hands
    join, unjoin in love and fear,
    grief and joy. The circles turn,
    each giving into each, into all.
    Only music keeps us here,

    each by all the others held.
    In the hold of hands and eyes
    we turn in pairs, that joining
    joining each to all again.

    And then we turn aside, alone
    out of the sunlight gone

    into the darker circles of return.

    - Wendell Berry
    Last edited by Barry; 09-13-2015 at 05:39 PM.
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  40. TopTop #2601
    Sara S's Avatar
    Sara S
    Auntie Wacco

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    (Sitin' on) The Dock of the Bay
    Song by Otis Redding


    Sittin' in the morning sun
    I'll be sittin' when the evening comes
    Watching the ships roll in
    Then I watch them roll away again, yeah
    I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
    Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
    I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
    Wastin' time

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    There, She is Gone! Here She Comes!

    I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side
    spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for
    the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, I
    stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck
    of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle
    with each other.

    Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone"!

    "Gone where"?

    Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
    mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side
    and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to
    her destined port.

    Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the
    moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"!
    there are other eyes watching her coming, and other
    voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes"!

    - Henry Van Dyke
    Last edited by Barry; 09-14-2015 at 12:47 PM.
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  42. TopTop #2602
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Pomegranates

    Hard pomegranates sundered

    By excess of your seeds,
    You make me think of mighty brows
    Aburst with their discoveries!

    If the suns you underwent,
    O pomegranates severed,
    Wrought your essence with the pride
    To rend your ruby segments,

    And if the dry gold of your shell
    At instance of a power
    Cracks in crimson gems of juice,

    This luminous eruption
    Sets a soul to dream upon
    Its secret architecture.

    - Paul Valéry


    Les Grenades

    Dures grenades entr'ouvertes
    Cédent à l'excès des vos grains,
    Je crois voir des fronts souverains
    Eclatés de leurs découvertes!

    Si les soleils par vous subis,
    O grenades entre-bâillées,
    Vous ont fait d'orgueil travaillées
    Craquer les cloisons de rubis,

    Et que si l'or sec de l'écorce
    A la demande d'une force
    Crève en gemmes rouges de jus,

    Cette lumineuse rupture
    Fait rÍver une âme que j'eus
    De sa secrète architecture.

    - Paul Valéry
    Last edited by Barry; 09-14-2015 at 04:04 PM.
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  43. TopTop #2603
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Fire On The Hills


    The deer were bounding like blown leaves
    Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire;
    I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
    Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
    Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned
    Down the black slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle
    Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine,
    Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders.
    He had come from far off for good hunting
    With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless
    Blue and the hills merciless black,
    The somber-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them.
    I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,
    The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.



    - Robinson Jeffers
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  44. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  45. TopTop #2604
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    the beauty of things :: robinson jeffers


    To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things—earth, stone and water,
    Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars—
    The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts, frenzies and passions,
    And unhuman nature its towering reality—
    For man’s half dream; man, you might say, is nature dreaming, but rock
    And water and sky are constant—to feel
    Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural
    Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
    The rest’s diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the intricate ideas,
    The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason.
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  47. TopTop #2605
    gardenmaniac's Avatar
    gardenmaniac
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    thanks, Larry ... Mr Jeffferson rocks.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    the beauty of things :: robinson jeffers...
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  48. TopTop #2606
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Tashlikh


    These are the days of awe -
    time of inventory
    and a new beginning
    when harvest of what we sowed
    comes in.
    (What have we sown
    of discord & terror?
    Where have we fallen short
    of justice?)

    The scales dip & teeter;
    there is so much
    to discard,
    so much to atone.

    When our temples stood
    we loaded a goat
    with our transgressions
    and sent it to the wild.
    Now we must search our pockets
    for crumbs of our trespasses,
    our sins to cast upon the rivers.
    The days are upon us
    to take stock of our hearts.
    It is time to dust
    the images of our household gods,
    our teraphim,
    our lares.

    - Rafael Jesús González
    Tashlij

    Estos son los días de temor -
    tiempo del inventario
    y un nuevo comienzo
    cuando la cosecha de lo que sembramos
    entra.
    (¿Qué hemos sembrado
    de discordia y terror?
    ¿Dónde hemos fallado
    en la justicia?)

    Las balanzas se inclinan y columpian;
    hay tanto de que deshacerse,
    tanto por lo cual expiar.

    Cuando estaban en pie nuestros templos
    cargábamos una cabra
    con nuestros pecados
    y la echábamos al desierto.
    Ahora tenemos que buscar en los bolsillos
    las migas de nuestras faltas,
    nuestros pecados para echarlos a los ríos.
    Están sobre nosotros los días
    para hacer inventario del corazón.
    Es tiempo de sacudir
    las imagines de nuestros dioses domésticos,
    nuestros térafim,
    nuestros lares.

    - Rafael Jesús González
    Last edited by Barry; 09-16-2015 at 03:55 PM.
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  49. Gratitude expressed by:

  50. TopTop #2607
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front


    Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
    vacation with pay. Want more
    of everything ready made. Be afraid
    to know your neighbors and to die.
    And you will have a window in your head.
    Not even your future will be a mystery
    any more. Your mind will be punched in a
    card
    and shut away in a little drawer.
    When they want you to buy somethin
    they will call you. When they wnat you
    to die for profit they will let you know.
    So, friends, every day do something
    that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
    Love the world. Work for nothing.
    Take all that you have and be poor.
    Love someone who does not deserve it.
    Denounce the government and embrace
    the flag. Hope to live in that free
    republic for which it stands.
    Give your approval to all you cannot
    understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
    has not encountered he has not destroyed.
    Ask the questions that have no answers.
    Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
    Say that your main crop is the forest
    that you did not plant,
    that you will not live to harvest.
    Say that the leaves are harvested
    when they have rotted into the mold.
    Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
    Put your faith in the two inches of humus
    that will build under the trees
    every thousand years.
    Listen to carrion - put your ear
    close, and hear the faint chattering
    of the songs that are to come.
    Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
    Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
    though you have considered all the facts.
    So long as women do not go cheap
    for power, please women more than men.
    Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
    a woman satisfied to bear a child?
    Will this disturb the sleep
    of a woman near to giving birth?
    Go with your love to the fields.
    Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
    in her lap. Swear allegiance
    to what is nighest your thoughts.
    As soon as the generals and the politicos
    can predict the motions of your mind,
    lose it. Leave it as a sign
    to mark the false trail, the way
    you didn’t go. Be like the fox
    who makes more tracks than necessary,
    some in the wrong direction.
    Practice resurrection.


    - Wendell Berry
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  51. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  52. TopTop #2608
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ode To Tomatoes


    The street
    filled with tomatoes
    midday,
    summer,
    light is
    halved
    like
    a
    tomato,
    its juice
    runs
    through the streets.
    In December,
    unabated,
    the tomato
    invades
    the kitchen,
    it enters at lunchtime,
    takes
    its ease
    on countertops,
    among glasses,
    butter dishes,
    blue saltcellars.
    It sheds
    its own light,
    benign majesty.
    Unfortunately, we must
    murder it:
    the knife
    sinks
    into living flesh,
    red
    viscera,
    a cool
    sun,
    profound,
    inexhausible,
    populates the salads
    of Chile,
    happily, it is wed
    to the clear onion,
    and to celebrate the union
    we
    pour
    oil,
    essential
    child of the olive,
    onto its halved hemispheres,
    pepper
    adds
    its fragrance,
    salt, its magnetism;
    it is the wedding
    of the day,
    parsley
    hoists
    its flag,
    potatoes
    bubble vigorously,
    the aroma
    of the roast
    knocks
    at the door,
    it's time!
    come on!
    and, on
    the table, at the midpoint
    of summer,
    the tomato,
    star of earth,
    recurrent
    and fertile
    star,
    displays
    its convolutions,
    its canals,
    its remarkable amplitude
    and abundance,
    no pit,
    no husk,
    no leaves or thorns,
    the tomato offers
    its gift
    of fiery color
    and cool completeness.


    - Pablo Neruda
    Last edited by Barry; 09-18-2015 at 04:51 PM.
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  53. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  54. TopTop #2609
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Where the still small voice lives


    Rosh Hashanah Poem 2015

    This past year, how many times have you said to yourself
    I knew it! I just KNEW it!!
    I knew I shouldn’t have done that (but you did it)
    I knew I should have done this (but you didn’t)
    Between this knowing and that inconsistent action
    Is noise
    The bantering, whimpering, cajoling, cantankerous and singsong
    Sound of our internal voices
    It’s a cacophony of conflicting desires, wants and needs
    That fills a giant internal tent
    A 3 (million) ring circus at its center
    Each act vying for our attention
    Some with very strong opinions

    Today one ring takes center stage and asks of us
    Only one thing
    Silence

    The still small voice lives in this silence
    The silence exists
    Where time meets space
    Where the void merges with eternity
    Where Adonai resides with Eloheinu
    This Silence with its answers and guidance
    Lives in the sigh of a baby as it drifts to sleep
    In the pause of breath in a passionate kiss
    In the inhale between grief-filled sobs

    The voice that speaks from this silence
    Is soundless with texture and temperature
    Or booms with flashing neon lights
    Or comes on silent owl wings

    This is the time of year to rejoice that another year
    Has come and lived us fully and completely
    In the noisy world of thought
    We contemplate our successes and regrets
    Our growth and losses

    In the silence that the New Year invites
    Is the chance to hear the Truth
    Of how we really lived our days
    To learn, or to regret?
    To forgive, or be forgiven?

    Between our knowing and our action
    Is where the still small voice lives
    This voice needs air
    Breath
    This voice needs space
    Be quiet, still yourself
    Pause
    Wait
    - Sally Churgel
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  55. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  56. TopTop #2610
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Summer’s End


    At 4:38 a.m. a mockingbird wakes to begin her concert. She prefers the topmost branches of the sycamore tree next door where she’s taken up residence. Throughout the day she entertains with a rapid succession of trills and chirps.

    Meanwhile, in the fig tree

    a blue jay wipes its beak

    against a branch


    From April to October the “national pastime” follows the long arc of the growing season. The highs and lows, wins and losses. Now, baseball is reaching its climax with the World Series and it too will soon go dormant.

    Game-ending error

    shortstop stares into his glove

    -- the crowd … stunned silent


    This afternoon entire trees are on fire. The liquidambars in the neighborhood proclaim the season with a spectacle of trees aglow in yellow, russet, and crimson.

    Falling maple leaf

    catches the sun’s failing light

    for the last time


    It’s time once again for the autumnal ritual of cleaning the gutters—another reminder that the road ahead is shorter than the one I’ve already traveled.

    - andrew zarrillo
    Last edited by Barry; 09-20-2015 at 04:24 PM.
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  57. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

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