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  1. TopTop #3001
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mary

    Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ashes
    You're covered in rain
    You're covered in babies, you're covered in slashes
    You're covered in wilderness, you're covered in stains
    You cast aside the sheet, you cast aside the shroud
    Of another man, who served the world proud
    You greet another son, you lose another one
    On some sunny day and always stay, Mary

    Jesus says Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
    Fly's right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
    While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
    Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

    Mary she moves behind me
    She leaves her fingerprints everywhere
    Every time the snow drifts, every time the sand shifts
    Even when the night lifts, she's always there

    Jesus said Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
    Fly's right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
    While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
    Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

    Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ruin
    you're covered in secrets
    You're covered in treetops, you're covered in birds
    who can sing a million songs without any words
    You cast aside the sheets, you cast aside the shroud
    of another man, who served the world proud
    You greet another son, you lose another one
    on some sunny day and always stay
    Mary, Mary, Mary

    - Andrea Bertolini
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  3. TopTop #3002
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    All the Road Signs

    Are in people's eyes,
    The driver said after
    Winning at Chicken.
    The passenger terrified
    Wonders at narrow streets
    Designed for walking
    Clogged with cars,
    Men, backs bent under bundles
    Women, baskets top their heads
    Not teetering, but gliding
    As the women do.

    In a world
    Where Fate rules,
    No worries.
    My time or yours
    Who yields
    Who moves forward
    The road signs
    In our eyes.

    - Rebecca del Rio
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  5. TopTop #3003
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Timbered Choir

    Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
    for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
    of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
    Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.

    I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
    at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
    where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
    toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
    the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
    I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.
    I saw the passages worn by the unnumbered
    footfalls of those whose eyes were fixed upon the objective.

    Their passing had obliterated the graves and the monuments
    of those who had died in pursuit of the objective
    and who had long ago forever been forgotten, according
    to the inevitable rule that those who have forgotten forget
    that they have forgotten. Men, women, and children now pursued the objective
    as if nobody ever had pursued it before.

    The races and the sexes now intermingled perfectly in pursuit of the objective.
    the once-enslaved, the once-oppressed were now free
    to sell themselves to the highest bidder
    and to enter the best paying prisons
    in pursuit of the objective, which was the destruction of all enemies,
    which was the destruction of all obstacles, which was the destruction of all objects,
    which was to clear the way to victory, which was to clear the way to promotion, to salvation, to progress,
    to the completed sale, to the signature
    on the contract, which was to clear the way
    to self-realization, to self-creation, from which nobody who ever wanted to go home
    would ever get there now, for every remembered place
    had been displaced; the signposts had been bent to the ground and covered over.

    Every place had been displaced, every love
    unloved, every vow unsworn, every word unmeant
    to make way for the passage of the crowd
    of the individuated, the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless
    with their many eyes opened toward the objective
    which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,
    having never known where they were going,
    having never known where they came from.

    - Wendell Berry
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  7. TopTop #3004
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mother Drum

    The new day opens in truck rumble
    and a scatter of chickadee song
    Clusters of fruit sing at my window
    lemony airs in the Key of Light
    sun waking the leaves
    sweeping long shadows from the grass
    igniting each parched blade

    Each blade is a beat of the Mother drum
    pulsing her rhythms of birth and rebirth
    the earth, the water, the light, the air
    pulsing morning, pulsing mourning
    for a four-year old, for her mother
    as murder moves on

    And everywhere, in this world on fire
    the missing beats … the lost wing tribes
    the wild fur tribes
    so certain, so silent, so pouncing swift
    the bee tribes lost to the honey-bloom

    Still the living pulse calls … and calls
    and I don’t know if trust is Grace
    or a chord the heart hears
    a galaxy chord of dust and stars,
    of miracle rains and warm breath

    My friend Alan tells me nobody apprehends
    that the We can know and the I can not

    I think he must mean the legacy I
    Europe’s conqueror, lonely, angry I
    locked into self serving selves
    feeding the fires of violence
    grave over grave
    families grieving
    refugee storm clouds flashing

    And I ask you, what is left us now
    but to trust the We, the knowing We
    to enter each day holding hands
    singing in the Key of Praise
    singing care for all Being
    singing for equality and kindness
    singing forgiveness and mercy
    singing the harmonies that bind us

    - Cynthia Poten
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  8. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  9. TopTop #3005
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For the Anniversary of My Death

    Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
    When the last fires will wave to me
    And the silence will set out
    Tireless traveler
    Like the beam of a lightless star

    Then I will no longer
    Find myself in life as in a strange garment
    Surprised at the earth
    And the love of one woman
    And the shamelessness of men
    As today writing after three days of rain
    Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
    And bowing not knowing to what

    - W. S. Merwin
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  10. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  11. TopTop #3006
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Day is Coming

    A day is coming
    in which misery will end.
    A day is coming
    in which poverty
    will open bank accounts
    in every nation.
    A day is coming.
    I hear it coming.
    A day is coming
    in which the
    campesino
    will gather his children a green spring
    and go on vacations.
    I believe it.
    I see it.
    A day is coming
    in which a soldier will be
    decorated
    for helping
    instead of killing
    his poor brother.
    A day is coming
    in which lovers
    will serve themselves from large bowls
    warm love and faithfulness.
    A day is coming
    in which the Christ who returns
    is the Christ who never left.
    A day is coming
    in which the father will ask the son
    for friendship
    instead of respect.
    A day is coming
    in which the student
    and a poor laborer
    will be half and half.
    A day is coming
    in which the prisoners
    come out
    running in the fields and shouting
    about their freedom.
    A day is coming,
    I see it coming.

    - Lalo Delgado
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  12. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  13. TopTop #3007
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Nothing But

    your smiling face on the frig
    your little boy laughing there too
    and the one curious eye of your girl
    just a moment in time
    am I missing it?
    closest living relative
    a shutter clicks inside
    what’s been chasing me all evening
    gash of sadness, siren wailing in my belly
    four foods later, still gnawing
    sleep dances away yet again

    almost like a daughter
    which makes me not a mother
    mine told me too much
    so i’m only wishing i could
    tell you the whole story
    open like the sky and pour
    the whole truth down
    but another fire calls
    your name into the night
    and my fuzzy-headed prayer
    floats up and gently follows

    you still have time and
    the chance to connect the dots
    the faces, the hearts
    dangling in your field
    while mine are moving
    surely and quietly away
    like the rapidly expanding
    universe, i simply let go
    surf the waves of uncertainty
    pray for your future
    and theirs

    - Fran Carbonaro
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  14. Gratitude expressed by:

  15. TopTop #3008
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Early August Evening

    This time of year the grass
    on these gentle uplands
    is already dry
    except for the green swale
    bordered by blackberry and wild rose.

    We're picking Gravensteins now
    and the redwoods are beginning
    to shed last year's needles
    though the tomatoes are only
    beginning to ripen.

    On the savannah below
    shadows lengthen
    over the green carpet
    beneath the valley oaks.
    The main channel of the Laguna
    carves a green meander lined
    with tule and willow.

    The fog is rolling in off the ocean
    through the Petaluma gap
    and circling north around
    Sonoma Mountain and Sugar Loaf.

    The small family of deer -
    mother and two yearlings -
    picks its way through cockleburrs
    to the water's edge.

    The egrets are making their evening commute
    back to the pines on HIgh Street
    to roost for the night.

    I make my way up the swale
    through pennyroyal,
    ryegrass and spiders
    to the source of all this
    life-giving moisture:
    the air conditioning unit
    behind the hospital
    condensing the vapor
    of ten thousand breaths.

    - Larry Robinson
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 9 members:

  17. TopTop #3009
    joybird's Avatar
    joybird
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Too funny.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Early August Evening

    This time of year the grass
    on these gentle uplands
    is already dry
    except for the green swale
    bordered by blackberry and wild rose.

    We're picking Gravensteins now
    and the redwoods are beginning
    to shed last year's needles
    though the tomatoes are only
    beginning to ripen.

    On the savannah below
    shadows lengthen
    over the green carpet
    beneath the valley oaks.
    The main channel of the Laguna
    carves a green meander lined
    with tule and willow.

    The fog is rolling in off the ocean
    through the Petaluma gap
    and circling north around
    Sonoma Mountain and Sugar Loaf.

    The small family of deer -
    mother and two yearlings -
    picks its way through cockleburrs
    to the water's edge.

    The egrets are making their evening commute
    back to the pines on HIgh Street
    to roost for the night.

    I make my way up the swale
    through pennyroyal,
    ryegrass and spiders
    to the source of all this
    life-giving moisture:
    the air conditioning unit
    behind the hospital
    condensing the vapor
    of ten thousand breaths.

    - Larry Robinson
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  18. TopTop #3010
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    It Is Surely Late August


    It is surely late August and –
    The leaves on the seedless concord grapevines
    turned a bright yellow and lurid magenta
    almost over night, or so it seems,
    all grapes long since eaten one by one
    by my daughter each day till only a few green stems remain.
    A few leaves on the plum trees have turned bright yellow,
    again it seems just over night and are ready to leave their perch,
    the anise stalks have long since turned a dusty brown
    with yellow seed heads full formed with seeds to fly here and there
    on the first strong afternoon gusts.
    The hills long since turned brown or golden
    depending on preference or ideology.
    and now crown of thorns are everywhere,
    making progress across desiccated fields all too painful,
    Flocks of Canada Geese pass loudly, heading south
    each night and each day in more or less perfect ‘v’s
    in formations of six, or eight or twelve.

    The nights are just a bit colder,
    these later summer days a bit less warm,
    yet I know there will still be warm spells,
    the strong heat of summer not relaxing its grip all at once
    and there will be days to keep the fans turning all day,
    keeping doors and windows tight shut
    after the morning has advanced but a little.
    Yet signs of autumn are to be heard and seen and felt -
    only stand and listen,
    only stand and see,
    only stand and taste the breeze.

    - Sam Doctors
    Last edited by Barry; 08-26-2016 at 01:11 PM.
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  19. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  20. TopTop #3011
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For Women Who are Difficult to Love

    you are a horse running alone
    and he tries to tame you
    compares you to an impossible highway
    to a burning house
    says you are blinding him
    that he could never leave you
    forget you
    want anything but you
    you dizzy him, you are unbearable
    every woman before or after you
    is doused in your name
    you fill his mouth
    his teeth ache with memory of taste
    his body just a long shadow seeking yours
    but you are always too intense
    frightening in the way you want him
    unashamed and sacrificial
    he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
    lives in your head
    and you tried to change didn't you?
    closed your mouth more
    tried to be softer
    prettier
    less volatile, less awake
    but even when sleeping you could feel
    him travelling away from you in his dreams
    so what did you want to do, love
    split his head open?
    you can't make homes out of human beings
    someone should have already told you that
    and if he wants to leave
    then let him leave
    you are terrifying
    and strange and beautiful
    something not everyone knows how to love.

    - Warsaw Shire
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  21. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  22. TopTop #3012
    Roland Jacopetti's Avatar
    Roland Jacopetti
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Dump Him!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    For Women Who are Difficult to Love

    ...he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
    lives in your head
    and you tried to change didn't you?
    closed your mouth more
    tried to be softer
    prettier
    less volatile, less awake
    but even when sleeping you could feel
    him travelling away from you in his dreams
    so what did you want to do, love
    split his head open?
    ...
    Last edited by Barry; 08-27-2016 at 05:52 PM.
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  24. TopTop #3013
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sonoma

    On the path to the studio
    tarweed sticks to my shoes
    and in the warmth of late afternoon
    releases its musky scent.
    It is the smell of dry brown hills,
    of horses sweet with sweat,
    of dried manure and valley oak,
    the bouquet of my childhood.

    By the creek, nearly dry
    from summer's drought,
    the blue heron searches
    for a small fish swimming
    in the trickle that remains.
    Hawks circle above,
    wings carving the dry hot sky,
    and a garden snake basks languorously
    against the stone wall.

    Once I was 12, then 20, now 60
    And still the parched land binds me
    to a distant history
    of grasses blowing brown
    in hot summer wind,
    of cracked earth and lizards' skin
    and the memory of my cheek
    against the horse's warm neck
    as I inhale her damp perfume.

    - Emily Axelrod
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  25. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  26. TopTop #3014
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Iraqi Nights


    In Iraq,
    after a thousand and one nights,
    someone will talk to someone else.

    Markets will open
    for regular customers.

    Small feet will tickle
    the giant feet of the Tigris.

    Gulls will spread their wings
    and no one will fire at them.

    Women will walk the streets
    without looking back in fear.

    Men will give their real names
    without putting their lives at risk.

    Children will go to school
    and come home again.

    Chickens in the villages
    won’t peck at human flesh
    on the grass.

    Disputes will take place
    without any explosives.

    A cloud will pass over cars
    heading to work as usual.

    A hand will wave
    to someone leaving
    or returning.

    The sunrise will be the same
    for those who wake
    and those who never will.

    And every moment
    something ordinary
    will happen
    under the sun.

    - Dunya Mikhail
    (translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid)
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  27. Gratitude expressed by 8 members:

  28. TopTop #3015
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Ritual to Read to Each OtherRelated Poem Content Details

    If you don't know the kind of person I am
    and I don't know the kind of person you are
    a pattern that others made may prevail in the
    world
    and following the wrong god home we may miss
    our star.

    For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
    a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
    sending with shouts the horrible errors of
    childhood
    storming out to play through the broken dike.

    And as elephants parade holding each
    elephant's tail,
    but if one wanders the circus won't find the
    park,
    I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
    to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

    And so I appeal to a voice, to something
    shadowy,
    a remote important region in all who talk:
    though we could fool each other, we should
    consider -
    lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the
    dark.

    For it is important that awake people be awake,
    or a breaking line may discourage them back to
    sleep;
    the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe -
    should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

    - William Stafford
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  30. TopTop #3016
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sacred Wine

    Sit with the pain in your heart, he said.
    Hold it like a sacred wine in a golden cup.
    The wine may break you and if it does, let it.
    To be human is to be broken,
    and only from brokenness can
    one be healed.
    The ancestors say:
    the world is full of pain,
    and each is allotted a portion.
    If you do not carry your share,
    then others are forced to carry it for you,
    And the suffering you bring to the world is your sin,
    But the suffering you bring to yourself will be your hell.
    Sit with the pain in your heart, he said.
    Hold it there like a sacred wine in a golden cup.

    - Greg Kimura
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  32. TopTop #3017
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    So, You Must Talk to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones

    When a fish swims up to you with a barrel and rifle already attached, sometimes it almost feels wrong to go out of your way to shoot it. Nonetheless:

    So it has come to this.
    You must speak to the woman who is wearing headphones.
    I am so, so sorry.
    You must pray that she is single and looking and will wish to hear your words.
    It is not enough for her to be single
    She must also be looking, or there is no hope for you.

    But you already know this.
    You have seen what happened to the other men who tried to speak.
    The whole Panera is littered with what remains of the men who came before you.
    They tried to speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones.
    They failed.
    Remember the training and you may yet survive.
    Remember what they told you.
    You must be confident, relaxed and easygoing.
    You must show no fear.
    If you show fear, she will strike.
    Speak calmly, they said.
    Show confidence.
    Do not blink.
    If you blink, she will know.
    If you blink, she will move from 1 to 1.5 meters away to much closer, so close that you can hear the whisper of what is in her headphones.
    That is much too close.

    You have no choice.
    These are your instructions.

    You can talk to anyone, you tell yourself.
    It is only a woman, you tell yourself.
    But you know that it is not.
    Women were something different.
    Your comrade made the awful mistake of talking to the Woman Who Is Reading A Book On The Subway. You watched it happen.
    He made her look up from the book and her basilisk eyes fell on him, unblinking, and he melted.
    You still remember the screams.
    They were so horrible that the city lay awake for days trying to forget them.

    You do not know how it happened.
    But the women who stood there politely and were receptacles for your words are gone.
    They once smiled politely and they laughed even and sometimes they would make a spark with you.
    But something changed in the air or perhaps the water and the women do not stand there and listen any longer.
    The city is full of men who have been turned to stone.
    You opened the door to your neighbor’s apartment and there was a startled deer standing inside wearing a college sweatshirt. You think it used to be your neighbor but you are not certain.
    You have changed your route to work so that you do not have to pass the stone men with their open, screaming mouths.

    Yesterday half your comrades were ordered to shout “Smile!” at the Woman Who Is Walking.
    And the woman did. Too wide.
    So wide that her mouth engulfed the street and became a vast cavern.
    Six of your friends were devoured.
    You could hear the unladylike slurping sounds from blocks away as you beat a hasty retreat between the Scylla of the Woman Who Has Put Her Bag Next To Her On A Bar Stool and the Charybdis of the Woman Who Is Just Jogging.
    You did not attempt to speak to either of them.
    They passed you.
    You were left unscathed.

    But that was before they came to your apartment and gave you the orders.

    So here you are.
    It has come to this.

    You are about to talk to the Woman in Headphones.
    My God, I pity you.
    You are close now. Almost in range.
    Before The Woman and behind her the ground is littered with shoes and hats and pick-up manuals and AXE body spray.
    She sits patiently gnawing on a thigh bone.
    You do not think she is single or looking.
    You cannot make out the words she is listening to.

    You know how this will go.
    You know what the headphones mean.
    You know what will happen when you ask her to remove the headphones.


    - Alexandra Petri
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  33. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  34. TopTop #3018

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    'bout says it, I think.
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  36. TopTop #3019
    JayS
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What a bizarre 'poem'. What is the meaning of this?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    So, You Must Talk to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones

    When a fish swims up to you with a barrel and rifle already attached, ...
    Last edited by Barry; 09-02-2016 at 03:29 PM.
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  38. TopTop #3020
    JayS
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    'bout says what???

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by REALnothings: View Post
    'bout says it, I think.
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  39. TopTop #3021
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Scotland


    It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet
    when larks rose on long thin strings of singing
    and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.

    Greenness entered the body. The grasses
    shivered with presences and sunlight
    stayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.
    Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,
    the woman from the fish-shop. 'What a day it is!'
    cried I, like a sunstruck madman.

    And what did she have to say for it?
    Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their graves
    as she spoke with their ancient misery:

    'We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!'

    - Alastair Reid
    Last edited by Barry; 09-02-2016 at 03:33 PM.
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  40. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  41. TopTop #3022
    kpage9's Avatar
    kpage9
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    um....finding this woman is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel??

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by JayS: View Post
    What a bizarre 'poem'. What is the meaning of this?
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  43. TopTop #3023
    wisewomn's Avatar
    wisewomn
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    OR Don't presume you can approach just any woman who takes your fancy and expect to be welcomed.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by kpage9: View Post
    um....finding this woman is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel??
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  44. Gratitude expressed by:

  45. TopTop #3024
    Roland Jacopetti's Avatar
    Roland Jacopetti
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    God, what a wonder of a poem!

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


    It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet
    when larks rose on long thin strings of singing
    and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.

    Greenness entered the body. The grasses
    shivered with presences and sunlight
    stayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.
    Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,
    the woman from the fish-shop. 'What a day it is!'
    cried I, like a sunstruck madman.

    And what did she have to say for it?
    Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their graves
    as she spoke with their ancient misery:

    'We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!'

    - Alastair Reid
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  46. Gratitude expressed by:

  47. TopTop #3025
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Every Riven Thing

    God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
    sings his being simply by being
    the thing it is:
    stone and tree and sky,
    man who sees and sings and wonders why
    God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
    means a storm of peace.
    Think of the atoms inside the stone.
    Think of the man who sits alone
    trying to will himself into a stillness where
    God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
    there is given one shade
    shaped exactly to the thing itself:
    under the tree a darker tree;
    under the man the only man to see
    God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
    the things that bring him near,
    made the mind that makes him go.
    A part of what man knows,
    apart from what man knows,
    God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.

    - Christian Wiman
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  48. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  49. TopTop #3026
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    AH

    I want to love as deeply
    As love allows
    I want to fall into the center
    Of a rose and see
    And smell as much as I can
    See and smell
    I want to be trusted
    My life at stake
    Should I break loyalty
    I want to dance
    As high and rhythmically as
    My body allows
    I want to embrace
    I want to sing
    I want to find joy
    In each moment
    Something good to say
    About the smallest thing
    Gracias por la vida
    Thank you for life
    And breath
    And the smile on my face

    - Corlene Van Sluizer
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  50. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  51. TopTop #3027
    Roland Jacopetti's Avatar
    Roland Jacopetti
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Just doesn't get better than that.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Every Riven Thing

    God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
    sings his being simply by being
    the thing it is:
    stone and tree and sky,
    man who sees and sings and wonders why
    God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
    means a storm of peace.
    Think of the atoms inside the stone.
    Think of the man who sits alone
    trying to will himself into a stillness where
    God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
    there is given one shade
    shaped exactly to the thing itself:
    under the tree a darker tree;
    under the man the only man to see
    God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
    the things that bring him near,
    made the mind that makes him go.
    A part of what man knows,
    apart from what man knows,
    God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.

    - Christian Wiman
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  52. Gratitude expressed by:

  53. TopTop #3028
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Joy of Writing

    Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
    For a drink of written water from a spring
    whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
    Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
    Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
    she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
    Silence - this word also rustles across the page
    and parts the boughs
    that have sprouted from the word "woods."

    Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
    are letters up to no good,
    clutches of clauses so subordinate
    they'll never let her get away.

    Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
    of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
    prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
    surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

    They forget that what's here isn't life.
    Other laws, black on white, obtain.
    The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
    and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
    full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
    Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
    Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
    not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

    Is there then a world
    where I rule absolutely on fate?
    A time I bind with chains of signs?
    An existence become endless at my bidding?

    The joy of writing.
    The power of preserving.
    Revenge of a mortal hand.

    - Wislawa Szymborska
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  55. TopTop #3029
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Big Heart

    ‘Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.’ - W. B. Yeats

    Big heart,
    wide as a watermelon,
    but wise as birth,
    there is so much abundance
    in the people I have:
    Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,
    Joan, Marie, Dawn,
    Arlene, Father Dunne,
    and all in their short lives
    give to me repeatedly,
    in the way the sea
    places its many fingers on the shore,
    again and again
    and they know me,
    they help me unravel,
    they listen with ears made of conch shells,
    they speak back with the wine of the best region.
    They are my staff.
    They comfort me.

    They hear how
    the artery of my soul has been severed
    and soul is spurting out upon them,
    bleeding on them,
    messing up their clothes,
    dirtying their shoes.
    And God is filling me,
    though there are times of doubt
    as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
    still God is filling me.
    He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
    the spider in its intricate web,
    the sun
    in all its amazement,
    and a slain ram
    that is the glory,
    the mystery of great cost,
    and my heart,
    which is very big,
    I promise it is very large,
    a monster of sorts,
    takes it all in—
    all in comes the fury of love.

    - Anne Sexton
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  56. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  57. TopTop #3030
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Traveling Onion: A Poem

    “It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was
    an object of worship —why I haven't been able to find out. From Egypt
    the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.”
    —Better Living Cookbook
    When I think how far the onion has traveled
    just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise
    all small forgotten miracles,
    crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
    pearly layers in smooth agreement,
    the way the knife enters onion
    and onion falls apart on the chopping block,
    a history revealed.
    And I would never scold the onion
    for causing tears.
    It is right that tears fall
    for something small and forgotten.
    How at meal, we sit to eat,
    commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma
    but never on the translucence of onion,
    now limp, now divided,
    or its traditionally honorable career:
    For the sake of others,
    disappear.

    - Naomi Shihab Nye
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  58. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

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