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  1. TopTop #4081
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Repetition, Evolved


    The salmon unzip their bodies at last:
    stomach, liver, intestine spilling forth
    into an ocean of egg possibilities.


    Upstream, the river warns with trembling, leafy fingers
    as the fish turn blind sight and scale
    towards yet another phase of moon. But such is the way
    of arousal: a path, attractive by its own resistance,
    whether bushwhack, gradient, or peak-flows.
    And so, journeying evolves.


    Given that supernovas hold hematite and carbon
    in their fires, absently, as if mid-dream,
    and given that feeling is a long cord between mind and slip,
    this current that breathes the salmon’s flaming fins
    is of course mapped out to them by stars,
    some of whose light takes so long to get here
    it arrives fallen, extinguished. But the salmon know this,
    a sister electric storm holds their minds
    to rapt attention, neurons flaring the dark spaces
    of backwaters recalled into being.


    And so, a young girl returns to her village
    where she, a wife, a mother of two,
    died seven years before. Her fingers trace
    the kitchen cups, her husband's cheeks,
    the faucet that ran out of water every morning,
    emitting the weak roar of the salmon people.
    Mahaseer, she whispers, and means the clothes


    that clung to her hip-deep, adult body of the past,
    immersed in clear waters where she filled pitchers
    of stainless steel, watched the massive fish
    tumbling in from the sea like ready, pregnant clouds.


    - Maya Khosla
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  3. TopTop #4082
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    On Having Two Hands

    My right hand is in its early seventies,

    maybe older. It is very smart.
    My left hand has existed outside of time
    all these years.

    I feel my way through the world
    with my responsible right hand,
    but the left, trailing behind,
    remembers where I've been.

    The right hand holds the reins,
    but the left, flamboyant,
    celebrates the wild bucking.

    When I touch you with my right hand,
    I deliver to you all that hand has learned.
    The left one, awkward and honest,
    gives me away.

    - Rita S. Losch
    Last edited by Barry; 03-08-2019 at 11:16 AM.
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  5. TopTop #4083
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Knew a Woman


    I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
    When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
    Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
    The shapes a bright container can contain!
    Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
    Or English poets who grew up on Greek
    (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).


    How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
    She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
    She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
    I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
    She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
    Coming behind her for her pretty sake
    (But what prodigious mowing we did make).


    Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
    Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
    She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
    My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
    Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
    Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
    (She moved in circles, and those circles moved).


    Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
    I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
    What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
    I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
    But who would count eternity in days?
    These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
    (I measure time by how a body sways).


    - Theodore Roethke
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  7. TopTop #4084
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Earth Changes

    what response
    can I give
    to the universe

    for all the mistakes
    this mind
    and body commit

    when I watch
    water skippers
    on the surface

    I am entranced
    by all the circles
    not just one

    - Joyce Pointe
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  9. TopTop #4085
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    United

    When sleepless, it’s helpful to meditate on mottoes of the states.
    South Carolina, “While I breathe I hope.” Perhaps this could be
    the new flag on the empty flagpole.
    Or “I Direct” from Maine—why?
    Because Maine gets the first sunrise? How bossy, Maine!
    Kansas, “To the Stars through Difficulties”—
    clackety wagon wheels, long, long land
    and the droning press of heat—cool stars, relief.
    In Arkansas, “The People Rule”—lucky you.
    Idaho, “Let It Be Perpetual”—now this is strange.
    Idaho, what is your “it”?
    Who chose these lines?
    How many contenders?
    What would my motto be tonight, in tangled sheets?
    Texas—“Friendship”—now boasts the Open Carry law.
    Wisconsin, where my mother’s parents are buried,
    chose “Forward.”
    New Mexico, “It Grows As It Goes”—now this is scary.
    Two dangling its. This does not represent that glorious place.
    West Virginia, “Mountaineers Are Always Free”—really?
    Washington, you’re wise.
    What could be better than “By and By”?
    Oklahoma must be tired—“Labor Conquers all Things.”
    Oklahoma, get together with Nevada, who chose only
    “Industry” as motto. I think of Nevada as a playground
    or mostly empty. How wrong we are about one another.
    For Alaska to pick “North to the Future”
    seems odd. Where else are they going?

    - Naomi Shihab Nye
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  11. TopTop #4086
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    If It Were Sound

    What can compare with the magic
    of sunlight on a tree,
    edging the leaves
    With liquid gold?
    Comes a breeze,
    they ripple
    in a way that,
    if it were sound,
    would be like tinkling bells
    singing the world awake.

    - Nina Mermey Klippe
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  13. TopTop #4087
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mistral in the Bastille

    Censers swing like pendulums, near madam’s barred window.
    Cinnamon and vanilla waft through shutters, blown apart by a strong mistral.
    A magpie scouts for items to primp his nest, during mating season.
    The sweet incense lures him onto madam’s cluttered vanity:
    A tortoise shell brush tangled with strands of chestnut curls,
    a silver tube of lipstick, gems and ornate broaches,
    surround a small bouquet of gilded petals.
    “May our lives be like flowers in the sight of God.”
    Her distant lover wrote on a forget-me-not note
    ribboned around the waist of crystal vase.
    The mistral whistles a solemn tune, through the crack beneath her door.
    The magpie lands in a hollowed tree,
    Ribbons a bed to entice and protect
    his soon-to-come mate
    from the mistral that threatens to keep her away.

    Madam laces her boots,
    ties back her untamable locks,
    clings to the knap of creviced rocks,
    climbing up the mountain’s unmarked trail.
    High above the thatched-roofed village, dotted with flickering flames
    wood fires are stoked, not for the sake of heat or something to eat,
    but for the daily rhythm of ritual itself.
    Fishermen paddle the length of lake, farmers shake the soils from tools
    and the rheumy eyed elders sit upon three legged stools,
    while mothers comb through rows of the natty headed kids,
    who chew then spit the cud of canes,
    into the white coal flames.
    Beneath a rocky outcrop, comes the swish and swagger of crocodile.
    Monkeys scurry and scream, spring and snarl,
    to dodge the open jaws, hunting for it’s next meal.

    Madam feels the pangs from a love torn asunder;
    sharp as a reptile’s hunger
    vacant as the eyes of a motherless child.
    An overbearing wind grows stronger, day by day.
    Yet the needy gnaw on her heart and suck every last morsel of care.
    It keeps her in this bastille of beggars, hooked on handouts.
    Boys, able as oxen, seduced by street candy and tossed coins.
    Girls, graceful as gazelles, sedate as zoo animals.
    Both have learned to cower from the wilds.

    The mistral carries seeds and scraps onto the far shores of tomorrow,
    where Fisherkings and Flamingos sort precious pinks from borrowed blues.

    Everyday the strong and feeble help each other
    carry the burden of their grinding stone,
    by sharing the unexpected generosity of a smile.

    Madam hears a message more friendly than fierce,
    “Who will help?, Who will help?”, the magpie screeches.
    She hears the question that pumps the muscle of care.

    Brilliant bougainvialla, perky pansies and fragrant frangipani,
    flourish in red clay soils, fields of dry grass and rotting canoes.

    The rhythm of ritual, the lapping of lake,
    the lightening that splits a ten ton boulder in two,
    the 800 year old Baobab burnt beyond recognition in moments.

    Over sahara sands and ocean waves the mistral howls,
    “GO!, GO!, before time snaps its jagged jaw.”

    The magpie croons for his mate,
    “Love’s the root of desire.
    Love’s the scent that remains,
    long after blossoms have waned.”

    Madam’s feels no division or distinction from the love of the one above,
    who carries her away on a strong north-westerly wind.

    Tonight, her lover will wear her frangipani perfume
    and a vase of sunflowers will brighten their room.

    A forget-me-not note is tied to their hearts;
    “Love’s the promise and prayer
    for a world that has known
    too much hunger and despair.”

    - Emily Marie Bording
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  14. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

    Dre, M/M
  15. TopTop #4088
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    How do you make peace with a bad ending?

    How do you make peace with a bad ending?
    When all you fought for is going south
    And domination tramples
    What was that old saw?
    The rich get richer….
    Who says he wasn’t a visionary?

    When bad ideas are taken as guidance
    The sacredness, the preciousness
    Of lives lived
    Is preferred less than
    Killing those who don’t believe
    Or are in my way
    Or with whom I don’t agree

    When the bewitching of minds
    The creation of false desires
    Is even more successful
    Battered into alignment with bad tv
    Stupid and petty desire making
    Cultures that are not cultures--
    Just masking the profit machine
    The buffoon Mussolinis arising
    Like pins on a Mercator projection

    And the consequences are obvious
    Planet as we don’t know it
    Nuclear run by idiots
    Put in power--as if there can be any trust
    Or insulation from their wills.

    It should have been obvious
    A great victory at hand--
    Domination and discrimination
    Of all sorts
    Creates only more misery and fractured
    Dismembered lives and spirits
    Or simply obliterates those in the way.

    How can it only be obvious to some?
    It seems so clear.
    Aggression, hate, rebounds
    Read Shantideva.
    Study the Bodhicaryāvatāra,
    Feel the cost of your own anger and aggression.
    If you know it
    you can know your own misery and aggressiveness
    Work it out
    Or let it go
    Move on.
    Treasure your own clarity and
    Spread it by example.
    Humbly
    Recognizing
    Truly how stupid
    I can be—at times

    However bad it is out there
    I am still capable of independence
    And examination
    Of an ethical life
    Of love and fun
    Of nurturance and sharing.
    This belongs to me!

    Remember Mandela surviving
    Robin Island
    Emerging with compassion
    Integrity
    And guts.
    Admire those who are admirable--
    Accepting that we all have
    Some clay in our feet.

    Please pardon my wistfulness--
    I still hope for the bad ending
    To turn
    To let me turn to mold
    As happy manure
    Feeding another generation
    And wishing them well
    My son, my friends.
    All the great good ones
    Trying to figure out how to live
    Loving, thoughtful lives
    Respecting others
    And having fun while
    Marching and misbehaving.
    Breaking the rotten eggs
    Militant for what is now
    And will always be true.
    We are connected
    And we can do a lot with knowing that.

    Happy Trails!

    - Phil Wolfson
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

    Dre, M/M
  17. TopTop #4089
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Tree of Life Grandparents

    Our olive tree when I was growing up:
    an icon in our Jewish neighborhood,
    easily a hundred years old,
    with rough-barked branches shading the entire yard.

    Women in modest dress
    stopped to harvest the olives,*
    not so much to save money
    as to remind them of home.

    Under this tree of life
    passed my Jewish grandparents
    when each came to visit.

    Ida was old country,
    her parents from Poland,
    her old smells and
    old Yiddish expressions
    foreign to my growing interest in
    The Twist,
    Mr. Tambourine Man,
    a*nd protests against The War.

    Edna and Irv had left their heritage behind,
    hosting us on Christmas,
    not Hanukkah,
    and wearing hippie beads to
    a “happening” in the park.

    One morning I walked the family dog
    past a neighbor’s lawn.
    A cross had been burned
    into the grass the night before.
    It stared at me every day
    until new seeds grew in the spaces.

    Soon after, I sat under our olive tree
    filling out a college application
    that asked my religion.

    “Should I mark ‘none’?”
    I asked my mother.

    “You have to put ‘Jewish’,”
    she said.

    “Put Jewish, or else
    people will think you are
    trying to hide it.”


    - Matt Witt
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  19. TopTop #4090
    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
    September 30, 1927 - March 15, 2019
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  21. TopTop #4091
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    An Elegy To Dispel Gloom
    (After the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone
    and Supervisor Harvey Milk in San Francisco, November 1978)


    Let us not sit upon the ground

    and tell sad stories
    of the death of sanity.
    Two humans made of flesh
    are meshed in death
    and no more need be said.
    It is pure vanity
    to think that all humanity
    be bathed in red
    because one young mad man
    one so bad man
    lost his head.
    The force that through the red fuze
    drove the bullet
    does not drive everyone
    through the City of Saint Francis
    where there's a breathless hush
    in the air today
    a hush at City Hall
    and a hush at the Hall of Justice
    a hush in Saint Francis Wood
    where no bird tries to sing
    a hush on the Great Highway
    and in the great harbor
    upon the great ships
    and on the Embarcadero
    from the Mission Rock
    to the Eagle Cafe
    a hush on the great red bridge
    a hush in the Outer Mission
    and at Hunter's Point
    a hush at a hot potato stand on Pier 39
    and a hush at the People's Temple
    tries its wings
    a hush and a weeping
    at the Convent of the Sacred Heart
    on Upper Broadway
    a hush upon the fleshpots
    of Lower Broadway
    a pall upon the punk rock
    at Mabuhay Gardens
    and upon the cafes and bookstores
    of old North Beach
    a hush upon the landscape
    of the still wild West
    where two sweet dudes are dead
    and no more need be said.
    Do not sit upon the ground and speak
    of other senseless murderings
    or worse disasters waiting
    in the wings.
    Do not sit upon the ground and talk
    of the death of things beyond
    these sad sad happenings.
    Such men as these do rise above
    our worst imaginings.

    - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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  23. TopTop #4092
    M/M's Avatar
    M/M
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Last edited by Barry; 03-17-2019 at 10:59 PM.
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  25. TopTop #4093
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ferlinghetti 1981:

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  27. TopTop #4094
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I have shared this poem by Seamus Heaney before but, given all that is going on in the world right now, it seems that we can all use some of this good medicine. He wrote this in Northern Ireland in the 1970s during “The Troubles,” a civil war whose end few others could imagine at the time.

    The Cure At Troy


    Human beings suffer,
    They torture one another,
    They get hurt and get hard.
    No poem or play or song
    Can fully right a wrong
    Inflicted and endured.


    The innocent in gaols
    Beat on their bars together.
    A hunger-striker's father
    Stands in the graveyard dumb.
    The police widow in veils
    Faints at the funeral home.


    History says, don't hope
    On this side of the grave.
    But then, once in a lifetime
    The longed-for tidal wave
    Of justice can rise up,
    And hope and history rhyme.


    So hope for a great sea-change
    On the far side of revenge.
    Believe that further shore
    Is reachable from here.
    Believe in miracle
    And cures and healing wells.


    Call miracle self-healing:
    The utter, self-revealing
    Double-take of feeling.
    If there's fire on the mountain
    Or lightning and storm
    And a god speaks from the sky


    That means someone is hearing
    The outcry and the birth-cry
    Of new life at its term.


    - Seamus Heaney’s translation of
    "The Philoctetes," by Sophocles
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  29. TopTop #4095
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ordinary Decency

    Now he was old and used a cane most of the time; on public transportation young and old
    would offer him a seat. At first, the pride of his physical strength from when he was a younger
    man which had remained with him would not allow him to accept these kindly gestures. Gradually
    he began to let it go; from time to time he took a seat unless there was a welcomed day when the
    strength would return. This grew into an acceptance, a gratitude, and an admiration for the ordinary
    people whose simple acts of kindness just sprung naturally.

    - Marvin Blaustein
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  31. TopTop #4096
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    America, I Sing Back

    for Phil Young, my father, Robert Hedge Coke, Whitman, and Hughes

    America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
    Sing back the moment you cherished breath.
    Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.

    Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
    held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
    My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
    held her severed cord beautifully beaded.

    My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,

    nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.
    My song comforted her as she battled my reason

    broke my long held footing sure, as any child might do.

    Lo, as she pushed herself away, forced me to remove myself,
    as I cried this country, my song grew roses in each tear’s fall.

    My blood veined rivers, painted pipestone quarries
    circled canyons, while she made herself maiden fine.

    Oh, but here I am, here I am, here, I remain high on each and every peak,
    carefully rumbling her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing—

    and sing again I will, as I have always done.

    Never silenced unless in the company of strangers, singing

    the stoic face, polite repose, polite, while dancing deep inside, polite
    Mother of her world. Sister of myself.

    When my song sings aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.
    Call her to peer into waters, to behold herself in dark and light,

    day and night, call her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision—

    Then, she will make herself over. My song will make it so

    When she grows far past her self-considered purpose,
    I will sing her back, sing her back. I will sing. Oh, I will—I do.

    America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.

    - Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
    Last edited by Barry; 03-20-2019 at 02:08 PM.
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  33. TopTop #4097
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Blessing

    Just off the Highway to Rochester, Minnesota
    Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
    And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
    Darken with kindness.
    They have come gladly out of the willows
    To welcome my friend and me.
    We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
    Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
    They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their
    happiness
    That we have come.
    They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
    There is no loneliness like theirs.
    At home once more,
    They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the
    darkness.
    I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
    For she has walked over to me
    And nuzzled my left hand.
    She is black and white,
    Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
    And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
    That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
    Suddenly I realize
    That if I stepped out of my body I would break
    Into blossom.

    - James Wright
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  34. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  35. TopTop #4098
    eddierosenthal's Avatar
    eddierosenthal
    Supporting Member

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    this is another by James Wright

    Lying in a Hamock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

    Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
    Asleep on the black trunk,
    Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
    Down the ravine behind the empty house,
    The cowbells follow one another
    Into the distances of the afternoon.
    To my right,
    In a field of sunlight between two pines,
    The droppings of last year's horses
    Blaze up into golden stones.
    I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
    A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
    I have wasted my life.
    --James Wright
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  37. TopTop #4099
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Am Waiting


    I am waiting for my case to come up
    and I am waiting
    for a rebirth of wonder
    and I am waiting for someone
    to really discover America
    and wail
    and I am waiting
    for the discovery
    of a new symbolic western frontier
    and I am waiting
    for the American Eagle
    to really spread its wings
    and straighten up and fly right
    and I am waiting
    for the Age of Anxiety
    to drop dead
    and I am waiting
    for the war to be fought
    which will make the world safe
    for anarchy
    and I am waiting
    for the final withering away
    of all governments
    and I am perpetually awaiting
    a rebirth of wonder


    I am waiting for the Second Coming
    and I am waiting
    for a religious revival
    to sweep thru the state of Arizona
    and I am waiting
    for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
    and I am waiting
    for them to prove
    that God is really American
    and I am waiting
    to see God on television
    piped onto church altars
    if only they can find
    the right channel
    to tune in on
    and I am waiting
    for the Last Supper to be served again
    with a strange new appetizer
    and I am perpetually awaiting
    a rebirth of wonder


    I am waiting for my number to be called
    and I am waiting
    for the Salvation Army to take over
    and I am waiting
    for the meek to be blessed
    and inherit the earth
    without taxes
    and I am waiting
    for forests and animals
    to reclaim the earth as theirs
    and I am waiting
    for a way to be devised
    to destroy all nationalisms
    without killing anybody
    and I am waiting
    for linnets and planets to fall like rain
    and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
    to lie down together again
    in a new rebirth of wonder


    I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
    and I am anxiously waiting
    for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
    by an obscure general practitioner
    and I am waiting
    for the storms of life
    to be over
    and I am waiting
    to set sail for happiness
    and I am waiting
    for a reconstructed Mayflower
    to reach America
    with its picture story and tv rights
    sold in advance to the natives
    and I am waiting
    for the lost music to sound again
    in the Lost Continent
    in a new rebirth of wonder


    I am waiting for the day
    that maketh all things clear
    and I am awaiting retribution
    for what America did
    to Tom Sawyer
    and I am waiting
    for Alice in Wonderland
    to retransmit to me
    her total dream of innocence
    and I am waiting
    for Childe Roland to come
    to the final darkest tower
    and I am waiting
    for Aphrodite
    to grow live arms
    at a final disarmament conference
    in a new rebirth of wonder


    I am waiting
    to get some intimations
    of immortality
    by recollecting my early childhood
    and I am waiting
    for the green mornings to come again
    youth’s dumb green fields come back again
    and I am waiting
    for some strains of unpremeditated art
    to shake my typewriter
    and I am waiting to write
    the great indelible poem
    and I am waiting
    for the last long careless rapture
    and I am perpetually waiting
    for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
    to catch each other up at last
    and embrace
    and I am awaiting
    perpetually and forever
    a renaissance of wonder


    - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  39. TopTop #4100
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Downhill Side

    In my dream
    I am a mountain
    With high priced homes
    Newly constructed
    On my breasts
    And a strip mall pouring over
    On my hips and thighs

    And on my downhill side
    Someone’s abandoned garden
    Fruit trees whose best seasons
    Are long past
    Thorny vines gone wild
    The dried skeletons
    Of vegetables not nurtured
    Or picked
    Overgrown grasses
    Nobody wants

    Even so
    After the rains
    It will try again
    Sprouts will come forward
    Like young, idealistic volunteers
    They will compete with the wild overgrowth
    Staking out their plots
    Choosing their weapons

    Relentless optimism
    Virtuous and mighty

    - Erin Riley
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  40. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  41. TopTop #4101
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson



    Fire Owl


    Small feathered beacon in the sand
    A ring of flame glowing orange on the water’s surface
    The heat held barely at bay, as everything beneath the water rolls tighter in the shell
    while the fire lays waste to the hillside and moves south

    Singed in the flurry upwards, the tempest striking like an unseen match
    The owl stares down at a world on fire
    flesh beneath feather flaring red the ground shifting
    as it melts down to rivers of steel and glass

    The landmarks gone
    Birds of prey and scavengers alike are wiped from the sky
    There is only the rolling black smoke and scorching wind
    the crackling, licking flames below swallowing the landscape whole

    Then you spot a jagged migration
    dropping like a single arrow through the wall of flame
    Horses plummeting down a rock strewn canyon
    leaving a wayward funnel of dust in their wake

    Humans and animals cascading to the sea.
    The air off the ocean blowing cool and fine;
    a curtain of respite from the hell fire

    The sand rises to meet you
    as you drop with the prevailing current
    your ears flapping in frenzy
    while the sun drops through the smoke smoldering gold
    and horses thunder onto the beach

    Above, the fire hurtles to the highway,
    taking everything in its path,
    behind it, a long trail of embers rising to the tree line
    as you take it all in with an unflinching gaze

    An owl’s trauma
    To have seen, to have nearly been seared from the sky,
    To now be wary while waiting for loft.

    To find the way back
    to a life now gone.

    To forever be reminded of the sand.

    - Jane Carpenter

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  42. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  43. TopTop #4102
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    There’s More


    It is enough to know
    There’s More.
    A universe of galaxies resplendent with creative power,
    There’s More.
    A rainbow reconciling every ecstasy of color,
    There’s More.
    A meal that satisfies the need of every living being,
    There’s More.
    A work that binds up shattered limbs and lives,
    There’s More.
    A mind that numbers every star and grain of sand,
    There’s More.
    A tree whose limbs are birds, whose roots are fingers of divinity.
    There’s More.
    A love that pours its hope through steep ravines of grief.
    There’s More.
    A life completed in the mercy of our finitude.
    Yes, There’s More.
    “There’s more,” the subtle body spoke,
    and then became the More.


    - Bill Everett
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  44. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  45. TopTop #4103
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Things That Return

    I've been down this road a time or two. I've seen the green
    grass the green grass and the rabbits running and the deer
    coming down from the hills to eat the last of the garden's harvest.
    I've trained my eyes to catch the gold of sunset,
    the silver moon rising, (the silver moon) rising over dry grass
    the dry grasses and the leaves that swirl in gusts of surprise
    when the tired stars open their eyes wide and dream in 4/4 time.
    I've seen the frost slip in without so much as a peep
    and leave us wondering where the warm days have fled,
    where the warm nights have hunkered down beneath the earth.
    Beneath the earth to wait out another winter.
    I have closed my eyes and wondered too where the days have gone,
    how the days and the nights and the stars of my dreams have blinked out
    and left me standing here before that night as black
    as the waiting shadow of death - inscrutable as my lover's eyes
    the day he said he needed to leave because it was just too hard.
    I've waited thinking everything comes around, everything
    revolves like the sun and the moon and the tiny round seeds
    of the dandelion that rise each spring in my morning garden.
    But some things go and never come back.
    My darling children's rooms stand empty still.
    Empty of them and their yarn tied braids and their lithe
    moon spirit bodies shining in their beds at midnight.
    And no turnings of the moon's bright face smiling through
    veiled windows bring back the tiny fingers and toes,
    the endless songs of honeyed childhood soprano.
    My love has not returned, not come round through the eternal
    revolving door of love's spring scent blossoming pink on cherry boughs.
    The things that return it seems are the truths that ring round our cabin doors
    ring round our frost-pained windows with each new season of life.
    Not the personal grasping for yesterday's love that lies darkening
    the fallen leaf, but fresh new petals, a different shade of rose,
    a silver hand opening that leads fall toward winter -
    that sometimes startles with its clarity as the crisp cold descends,
    as the bright leaves flee before it toward their dark beds.

    - Diane LaRae Bodach
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  47. TopTop #4104
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Concerto of Spice

    The subtle hint of spice, a symphony in the air
    A crescendo of turmeric against mustard, sharp notes
    The melodious harmony of cardamom and cinnamon wafting, a waltz
    The passion and tang of citrus as fluid as a ballad’s flute,
    Ginger as strong as the strum of a bass
    The crisp presence of mint like the presence of my mother, the conductor of the
    ensemble
    She taught me that the perfect hint of lemongrass orchestrates the soothing simplicity of
    balance
    The heat of paprika strong as the heat of attraction
    Tart zest of lemon sharp as the power of speech
    The crackle of dried peppers as loud as the laughter of my childhood
    The smell mingles about now, I hear it
    Her presence dissolving in the wind
    Her frail hands stirring the pot, and her voice
    Commanding, soothing
    Echoing in the shadows of my mind
    Her voice calling me into a simpler life
    I smell it, and in the silence
    The silence, she dissolves into the air around me.


    - Zoya Ahmed
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  48. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  49. TopTop #4105
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Wrong Kids
    Are they back yet, are they back?

    Back, who's back?
    The children...

    Children? What Children?
    The Ones at the Border...

    Which ones, which border?
    The Mexican border, the children—are they back—back to their parents?

    Someone said some---not all—but some.
    That's too long...children can't wait that long. How can that be?

    ID...they didn't have IDS.
    But surely they had bracelets...in hospitals you always wear IDS.

    They didn't know.
    Who?

    The guards—they didn't know. When the orders came, they said children had to go in another room. No one said anything about IDS.
    Where? Where did they take them?

    Away. No one knows. There are places. The buildings are not marked.
    How could they do this. This is not right.

    Don't ask me...there's nothing that can be done.
    I will write. Do you know where to write?

    No, no one knows these things.
    I will write. I will write the Department of Justice.

    Better check online...it's tricky...I tried to write...
    You did? What happened?

    Said it was the wrong address. It was Juvenile Hall...said I got the wrong kids.


    - Jean Wong
    Last edited by Barry; 03-28-2019 at 12:08 PM.
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  50. Gratitude expressed by:

  51. TopTop #4106
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Plums Failing Well


    So what if plums fall
    out of the tree, to lie
    squashed and decomposing
    on the earth? So what if
    the only attention they receive
    is from the ants and birds
    who find something in them
    to feed from still,
    all spayed and color changed?
    If they could breathe,
    do you think they would say
    more than so what?
    This is good, to live
    to the end as something
    to get taken. What was
    the ripeness for anyhow?
    Why should chromosomes blink
    and twitch inside the seed,
    the pit at the middle, the vast
    earth-shaped center of all
    of this? So what if we lie
    here or there as pith
    in the cold night where the owl
    hoots at the stirring that will
    compute into the dark color
    of that calling and the ground
    we leak into,
    small piece by small piece.


    - Linda Gregg
    (September 9, 1942 - March 20, 2019)
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  52. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  53. TopTop #4107
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    hieroglyphic stairway

    it’s 3:23 in the morning
    and I’m awake
    because my great great grandchildren
    won’t let me sleep
    my great great grandchildren
    ask me in dreams
    what did you do while the planet was plundered?
    what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

    surely you did something
    when the seasons started failing?

    as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

    did you fill the streets with protest
    when democracy was stolen?

    what did you do
    once
    you
    knew?

    I’m riding home on the Colma train
    I’ve got the voice of the milky way in my dreams

    I have teams of scientists
    feeding me data daily
    and pleading I immediately
    turn it into poetry

    I want just this consciousness reached
    by people in range of secret frequencies
    contained in my speech

    I am the desirous earth
    equidistant to the underworld
    and the flesh of the stars

    I am everything already lost

    the moment the universe turns transparent
    and all the light shoots through the cosmos

    I use words to instigate silence

    I’m a hieroglyphic stairway
    in a buried Mayan city
    suddenly exposed by a hurricane

    a satellite circling earth
    finding dinosaur bones
    in the Gobi desert
    I am telescopes that see back in time

    I am the precession of the equinoxes,
    the magnetism of the spiraling sea

    I’m riding home on the Colma train
    with the voice of the milky way in my dreams

    I am myths where violets blossom from blood
    like dying and rising gods

    I’m the boundary of time
    soul encountering soul
    and tongues of fire

    it’s 3:23 in the morning
    and I can’t sleep
    because my great great grandchildren
    ask me in dreams
    what did you do while the earth was unraveling?

    I want just this consciousness reached
    by people in range of secret frequencies
    contained in my speech

    - Drew Dellinger
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

    Dre, M/M
  55. TopTop #4108
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Coal Shovel

    My effortless touch of the wall device
    then the whoosh of the furnace’s start
    brought my father close this morning
    No thermostat or gas heat for him


    His was a coal burning hot air gravity furnace
    a behemoth in the center of the basement
    an octopus with its many asbestos
    arms clinging to the basement ceiling


    Winter mornings from bedroom to cellar
    Dad trudged down worn wooden steps
    always hopeful for some remaining fire
    in the beast’s hungry gut


    A look through the little window
    then he’d swing open the sometimes hot
    often cold cast iron door
    the screech and clang our first hint of morning


    Then rattle and shake the massive grate
    white ash falling like heavy snow
    to the tray below then ah-hah
    there a glowing coal from last night’s feeding


    Now the massive coal shovel scraped the cement floor
    and the sound of that scrape, abrasive and shrill
    leaped up the steps and every cold morning
    woke us all, young and old


    The inferno now safely raging
    Dad closed the furnace door with a bang
    that bang Mom’s signal to pour his coffee
    that clang our last wake up bell


    Our call to hot oat meal and flannel shirts
    mackinaw jackets and hockey caps
    four buckle overshoes and hand knit mittens
    and maybe, just maybe enough snow


    Enough dry snow for a Saturday morning thrill
    sliding and screaming down the neighbor’s hill
    on Donnie’s Flexible Flyer sled
    with steel runners that curved up the back


    If we had the snow but no Donnie
    as sometimes happened - flying hell bent
    with no control the scoop shovel
    found a new life with my brother and I


    For a few moments on cold winter mornings
    free for a time from my dad’s strong hands
    and away from the inferno that started all our days
    that battered shovel was the fastest thing in Iowa


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

  57. TopTop #4109
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    There Are Those Who Love To Get Dirty


    There are those who love to get dirty
    and fix things.
    They drink coffee at dawn,
    beer after work,


    And those who stay clean,
    just appreciate things,
    At breakfast they have milk
    and juice at night.


    There are those who do both,
    they drink tea.


    - Gary Snyder
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  58. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  59. TopTop #4110
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Jewish Cemetery In Germany


    On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery,
    a Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs,
    abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer
    nor the voice of lamentation is heard there
    for the dead praise not the Lord.
    Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves
    and cheering
    each time they find one--like mushrooms in the forest, like
    wild strawberries.
    Here's another grave! There's the name of my mother's
    mothers, and a name from the last century. And here's a name,
    and there! And as I was about to brush the moss from the name--
    Look! an open hand engraved on the tombstone, the grave
    of a kohen,
    his fingers splayed in a spasm of holiness and blessing,
    and here's a grave concealed by a thicket of berries
    that has to be brushed aside like a shock of hair
    from the face of a beautiful beloved woman.


    - Yehuda Amichai
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  60. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

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