Click Banner For More Info See All Sponsors

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

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

Click anywhere but the link to dismiss overlay!

Page 3 of 162 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 53 103 ... LastLast
Results 61 to 90 of 4857

  • Share this thread on:
  • Follow: No Email   
  • Thread Tools
  1. TopTop #61
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Moon Fishing
    When the moon was full they came to the water.
    some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
    some with sieves and ladles,
    and one with a silver cup.

    And they fished til a traveler passed them and said,
    "Fools,
    to catch the moon you must let your women
    spread their hair on the water --
    even the wily moon will leap to that bobbing
    net of shimmering threads,
    gasp and flop till its silver scales
    lie black and still at your feet."

    And they fished with the hair of their women
    till a traveler passed them and said,
    "Fools,
    do you think the moon is caught lightly,
    with glitter and silk threads?
    You must cut out your hearts and bait your hooks
    with those dark animals;
    what matter you lose your hearts to reel in your dream?"

    And they fished with their tight, hot hearts
    till a traveler passed them and said,
    "Fools,
    what good is the moon to a heartless man?
    Put back your hearts and get on your knees
    and drink as you never have,
    until your throats are coated with silver
    and your voices ring like bells."

    And they fished with their lips and tongues
    until the water was gone
    and the moon had slipped away
    in the soft, bottomless mud.

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

  2. TopTop #62
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Final Poem

    Bread Loaf, late August, the chemistry
    of a New England fall already
    inviting the swamp maples to flare.

    Magisterial in the white wicker rocker
    Robert Frost at rest after giving
    a savage reading

    holding nothing back, his rage
    at dying, not yet, as he barged
    his chair forth, then back, don't sit

    there mumbling in the shadows, call
    yourselves poets? All
    but a handful scattered. Fate

    rearranged us happy few at his feet.
    He rocked us until midnight.
    I took away these close-lipped dicta. Look

    up from the page. Pause between poems.
    Say something about the next one.
    Otherwise the audience

    will coast, they can't take in
    half of what you're giving them.
    Reaching for the knob of his cane

    he rose, and flung this exit line:
    Make every poem your final poem.

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

  3. TopTop #63
    RexCasteel
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    The Final Poem

    They can't take in half of what you're giving them...
    Reminds me of that Rumi night that I so look forward to every year.

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

  4. TopTop #64
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
    I want to free what waits within me
    so that what no one has dared to wish for

    may for once spring clear
    without my contriving.

    If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
    but this is what I need to say.
    May what I do flow from me like a river,
    no forcing and no holding back,
    the way it is with children.

    Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
    these deepening tides moving out, returning,
    I will sing you as no one ever has,

    streaming through widening channels
    into the open sea.

    - Ranier Maria Rilke
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  5. TopTop #65
    RexCasteel
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
    I want to free what waits within me...

    I will sing you as no one ever has,

    streaming through widening channels
    into the open sea.

    - Ranier Maria Rilke
    Rilke always REALLY gets me. I guess I should buy a book or something...

    Thanks, Larry.

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

  6. TopTop #66
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Story
    Sad is the man who is asked for a story
    and can't come up with one.

    His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
    Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
    The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.

    In a room full of books in a world
    of stories, he can recall
    not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
    will give up on his father.

    Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
    the day this boy will go. Don't go!
    Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
    You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
    Let me tell it!

    But the boy is packing his shirts,
    he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
    the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
    Am I a god that I should never disappoint?

    But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
    It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
    an earthly rather than heavenly one,
    which posits that a boy's supplications
    and a father's love add up to silence.
    - Li-Young Lee
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  7. TopTop #67
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Am a Madman

    My thatched cottage stands
    just west of Thousand Mile Bridge

    this Hundred Flower Stream
    would please a hermit fisherman

    bamboo sways in the wind
    graceful as any court beauty

    rain makes the lotus flower
    even more red and fragrant

    but I no longer hear from friends
    who live on princely salaries

    my children are always hungry
    with pale and famished faces

    does a madman grow more happy
    before he dies in the gutter?

    I laugh at myself -- a madman
    growing older, growing madder.

    - Du Fu (712 - 770)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  8. TopTop #68
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Come to Hiroshima

    to those who with no shame condone
    annihilation of whole cities or nations
    please come to Hiroshima
    come in early August when the heat is worst
    make sure you're there on the sixth
    when the sweat running down your back
    somehow feels appropriate
    see the museum - learn what you can
    imagine as deeply as possible what happened
    and try to understand - why

    to those who think we need atomic bombs
    newer better more useable ones
    as certain leaders now claim
    please come to Hiroshima
    walk through Peace Park
    this epicenter - cemetery of ironic serenity
    contemplate - meditate - try to understand
    would we have done this to whites - dear Christians
    here by the riverside thousands staggered to water
    "mizu! mizu!" some couldn't even ask
    for what could possibly relieve the burning

    to those who think that war is still okay
    sleepy as people used to be about slavery
    come see the shattered wrecked dome
    left in jagged shambles to remind us
    see at sunset the paper lanterns
    red blue and gold - inscribed with dreams
    people lovingly made in the park all day
    watch them float downstream candles aglow
    like thousands of vanished souls
    or beautiful hopes - for what might be possible
    please come to Hiroshima
    and bring pictures of your loved ones

    - Ron Hertz

    2008 Nagasaki-Hiroshima Remembrance
    2 Events at the Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa

    Saturday, August 9th, Reception at 6pm, Program at 7pm
    BUILDING TOWARD A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD

    Speakers: Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, Nagasaki survivor
    Sabina Peres, Int’l People’s Coalition against Military Pollution
    Adrian Drummon-Cole, Tri Valley Cares
    Shepherd Bliss, SSU teacher & writer
    Sonoma County Taiko
    Children’s Chorus with Heather Collins
    Elliot Kallen, Japanese shakuhachi flute
    Jeff Edelheit, Gong


    Under the Mushroom Cloud, Mayors for Peace Exhibit
    July 26 - August 24, Sunday - Friday, 10am - 4pm
    The exhibit of photographs & drawings bring together the realities of the atomic bombings
    and the present status of nuclear issues. The exhibit was assembled by the Mayors for Peace which was founded by the Mayors of Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1982, in the hope of arousing international sentiment towards nuclear weapons abolition.

    Cosponsors: Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Sonoma Chapter Japanese American Citizens League, Department of Peace, Sonoma County.
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  9. TopTop #69
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Target, 8 AM

    The floors so clean and shiny
    I can see my face.
    The elves of the night
    have done their job well.
    Every speck of litter
    has been swept away,
    every trash bin emptied,
    each scattered piece
    of merchandise guided
    back to the proper shelf or rack,
    reunited with its own kind.

    A new day at Target,
    cleansed as a beach
    washed overnight
    by fresh tides,

    a beach
    where all the world’s product
    has washed up neat and orderly,
    arranged for us, a cornucopia
    for the kings and queens of Creation
    as we stroll these Eden aisles.

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

  10. TopTop #70
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

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

  11. TopTop #71
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    an old man's view of a young war
    and its promise for the future

    at least in this new one there'll
    be advanced technologies at our disposal,
    we've storehouses of antibiotics,
    not just penicillin to treat the suffering maimed,
    up-to-date research on the effects of radiation
    along with our own preemptive
    stockpile of weapons of mass destruction,
    nuclear and biological,
    an early warning system against cruise missiles
    and a promise of star war interceptions,
    of course helicopters to evacuate the wounded
    and we'll have satellite photo evidence
    not just a good pair of binoculars
    to help blast whole villages into oblivion,
    certainly enough air delivered fire power
    to make Dresden memories a recollection picnic
    and how about our Homeland Securities
    to give us comfort on sleepless nights
    knowing that terrorist lookalikes are
    impounded out of reach of law and order.
    I'm looking backward at the sorry state of
    old war technology which so many survived,
    and forward to the right envisioned
    right employment
    right destruction
    right annihilation of...
    of...of...of...
    hell, you ain't seen nothing yet!

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

  12. TopTop #72
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Rapture

    All summer
    I wandered the fields
    that were thickening
    every morning,

    every rainfall,
    with weeds and blossoms,
    with the long loops
    of the shimmering, and the extravagant-

    pale as flames they rose
    and fell back,
    replete and beautiful-
    that was all there was-

    and I too
    once or twice, at least,
    felt myself rising,
    my boots

    touching suddenly the tops of the weeds,
    the blue and silky air-
    listen,
    passion did it,

    called me forth,
    addled me,
    stripped me clean
    then covered me with the cloth of happiness-

    I think there is no other prize,
    only rapture the gleaming,
    rapture the illogical the weightless-

    whether it be for the perfect shapeliness
    of something you love-
    like an old German song-
    or of someone-

    or the dark floss of the earth itself,
    heavy and electric.
    At the edge of sweet sanity open
    such wild, blind wings.

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

  13. TopTop #73
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Twin Sheep

    My new neighbor
    was wheeled in late last night
    babbling and unwell

    He turned the TV on.
    I fumed and cursed.
    A nurse gave me some plugs

    How we snored!
    Like two grizzled old sheep
    bedded in a pen

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

  14. TopTop #74
    Diana
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Just found this site and my eyes wandered through a few of your poems. Wanted to say thanks and hope to read some more.

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

  15. TopTop #75
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Passport

    They did not recognize me in the shadows
    That suck away my color in this Passport
    And to them my wound was an exhibit
    For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
    They did not recognize me,
    Ah . . . Don't leave
    The palm of my hand without the sun
    Because the trees recognize me
    All the songs of the rain recognize me
    Dont' leave me pale like the moon!

    All the birds that followed my palm
    To the door of the distant airport
    All the wheatfields
    All the prisons
    All the white tombstones
    All the barbed boundaries
    All the waving handkerchiefs
    All the eyes
    were with me,
    But they dropped them from my passport

    Stripped of my name and identity?
    On a soil I nourished with my own hands?
    Today Job cried out
    Filling the sky:
    Don't make an example of me again!
    Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
    Don't ask the trees for their names
    Don't ask the valleys who their mother is
    From my forehead bursts the sword of light
    And from my hand springs the water of the river
    All the hearts of the people are my identity
    So take away my passport!

    - Mahmoud Darwish
    (1941 - 2008)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  16. TopTop #76
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    SELF-PORTRAIT

    It doesn't interest me if there is one God
    or many gods.
    I want to know if you belong or feel
    abandoned.
    If you know despair or can see it in others.
    I want to know
    if you are prepared to live in the world
    with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
    with firm eyes
    saying this is where I stand. I want to know
    if you know
    how to melt into that fierce heat of living
    falling toward
    the center of your longing. I want to know
    if you are willing
    to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
    and the bitter
    unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

    I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
    the gods speak of God.

    - David Whyte
    Last edited by Larry Robinson; 08-15-2008 at 07:56 AM.
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  17. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  18. TopTop #77
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Love Comes Quietly

    Love comes quietly,
    Finally drops around me,
    On me, in the old way.

    What did I know,
    Thinking myself able to go alone
    All the way?

    - Robert Creely

    I must apologize for the numerous typos in yesterday's poem. Here is the correct version.
    Larry

    SELF-PORTRAIT

    It doesn't interest me if there is one God
    or many gods.
    I want to know if you belong or feel
    abandoned.
    If you know despair or can see it in others.
    I want to know
    if you are prepared to live in the world
    with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
    with firm eyes
    saying this is where I stand. I want to know
    if you know
    how to melt into that fierce heat of living
    falling toward
    the center of your longing. I want to know
    if you are willing
    to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
    and the bitter
    unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

    I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
    the gods speak of God.

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

  19. TopTop #78
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Democracy
    It's coming through a hole in the air,
    from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
    It's coming from the feel
    that it ain't exactly real,
    or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
    From the wars against disorder,
    from the sirens night and day,
    from the fires of the homeless,
    from the ashes of the gay:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
    It's coming through a crack in the wall,
    on a visionary flood of alcohol;
    from the staggering account
    of the Sermon on the Mount
    which I don't pretend to understand at all.
    It's coming from the silence
    on the dock of the bay,
    from the brave, the bold, the battered
    heart of Chevrolet:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
    It's coming from the sorrow on the street
    the holy places where the races meet;
    from the homicidal bitchin'
    that goes down in every kitchen
    to determine who will serve and who will eat.
    From the wells of disappointment
    where the women kneel to pray
    for the grace of G-d in the desert here
    and the desert far away:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
    Sail on, sail on
    o mighty Ship of State!
    To the Shores of Need
    past the Reefs of Greed
    through the Squalls of Hate
    Sail on, sail on
    It's coming to America first,
    the cradle of the best and the worst.
    It's here they got the range
    and the machinery for change
    and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
    It's here the family's broken
    and it's here the lonely say
    that the heart has got to open
    in a fundamental way:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
    It's coming from the women and the men.
    O baby, we'll be making love again.
    We'll be going down so deep
    that the river's going to weep,
    and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
    It's coming to the tidal flood
    beneath the lunar sway,
    imperial, mysterious
    in amorous array:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
    Sail on, sail on
    o mighty Ship of State!
    To the Shores of Need
    past the Reefs of Greed
    through the Squalls of Hate
    Sail on, sail on
    I'm sentimental if you know what I mean:
    I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
    And I'm neither left or right
    I'm just staying home tonight,
    getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
    But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
    that Time cannot decay,
    I'm junk but I'm still holding up
    this little wild bouquet:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
    - Leonard Cohen
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  20. TopTop #79
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    When a country obtains great power,
    it becomes like the sea:
    all streams run downward into it.
    The more powerful it grows,
    the greater the need for humility.
    Humility means trusting the Tao,
    thus never needing to be defensive.

    A great nation is like a great man:
    When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
    Having realized it, he admits it.
    Having admitted it, he corrects it.
    He considers those who point out his faults
    as his most benevolent teachers.
    He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

    If a nation is centered in the Tao,
    if it nourishes its own people
    and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
    it will be a light to all nations in the world..

    - Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
    (Stephen Mitchell translation)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  21. TopTop #80
    Sara S's Avatar
    Sara S
    Auntie Wacco

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The superior man:
    When he sees good in others, he imitates it; when he finds faults in himself, he rids himself of them.

    I Ching



    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    When a country obtains great power,
    it becomes like the sea:
    all streams run downward into it.
    The more powerful it grows,
    the greater the need for humility.
    Humility means trusting the Tao,
    thus never needing to be defensive.

    A great nation is like a great man:
    When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
    Having realized it, he admits it.
    Having admitted it, he corrects it.
    He considers those who point out his faults
    as his most benevolent teachers.
    He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

    If a nation is centered in the Tao,
    if it nourishes its own people
    and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
    it will be a light to all nations in the world..

    - Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
    (Stephen Mitchell translation)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  22. TopTop #81
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Come From There

    I come from there and I have memories
    Born as mortals are, I have a mother
    And a house with many windows,
    I have brothers, friends,
    And a prison cell with a cold window.
    Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
    I have my own view,
    And an extra blade of grass.
    Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
    And the bounty of birds,
    And the immortal olive tree.
    I walked this land before the swords
    Turned its living body into a laden table.

    ***

    I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
    When the sky weeps for her mother.
    And I weep to make myself known
    To a returning cloud.
    I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
    So that I could break the rule.
    I learnt all the words and broke them up
    To make a single word: Homeland...

    - Mahmoud Darwish

    Mahmoud Darwish died on August 9 after a heart surgery at a US hospital. He was often called the Palestinian “national poet”. In his poems, he used Palestine as “a metaphor -- for the loss of Eden, for the sorrows of dispossession and exile, for the declining power of the Arab world in its dealings with the West.”

    Darwish's official website is at:
    https://www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/index.htm Some of his poems can be found online at:
    https://www.dhfaf.com/poetry.php?nam...p=lsq&diwid=17
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  23. TopTop #82
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Seers

    Suddenly it springs forth,
    the slanted shadow over the nose,
    the observant eyes,
    lilac lips set,
    throat full and resolute,
    cast, features,
    prominences and declivities,
    mirror image of what is.

    And then it folds back
    and becomes
    something no longer clear:
    eyes peering from wrinkled flesh of bark,
    crumbling ancient mask,
    the space where a crow once hunched and waited.

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

  24. TopTop #83
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Speed Of Light
    So gradual in those summers was the going
    of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
    when the stars faded over the mountains were not
    leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
    glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
    opening into the sky was something of ours
    to have and keep and that the brightness we could not touch
    and the air we could not hold had come to be there all the time
    for us and would never be gone and that the axle
    we did not hear was not turning when the ancient car
    coughed in the roofer's barn and rolled out echoing
    first thing into the lane and the only tractor
    in the village rumbled and went into its rusty
    mutterings before heading out of its lean-to
    into the cow pats and the shadow of the lime tree
    we did not see that the swallows flashing and the sparks
    of their cries were fast in the spokes of the hollow
    wheel that was turning and turning us taking us
    all away as one with the tires of the baker's van
    where the wheels of bread were stacked like days in calendars
    coming and going all at once we did not hear
    the rim of the hour in whatever we were saying
    or touching all day we thought it was there and would stay
    it was only as the afternoon lengthened on its
    dial and the shadows reached out farther and farther
    from everything that we began to listen for what
    might be escaping us and we heard high voices ringing
    the village at sundown calling their animals home
    and then the bats after dark and the silence on its road
    - W. S. Merwin
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  25. TopTop #84
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Great Explosion

    The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.
    It is expanding, the farthest nebulae
    Rush with the speed of light into empty space.
    It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,
    dust clouds and nebulae
    Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one
    harbor, they stick in one lump
    And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no
    way to express that explosion; all that exists
    Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each
    other into all the sky, new universes
    Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae
    like charging spearmen again
    Invade emptiness.
    No wonder we are so fascinated with
    fireworks
    And our huge bombs: it is a kind of homesickness perhaps for
    the howling fireblast that we were born from.

    But the whole sum of the energies
    That made and contain the giant atom survives. It will
    gather again and pile up, the power and the glory--
    And no doubt it will burst again; diastole and systole: the
    whole universe beats like a heart.
    Peace in our time was never one of God's promises; but back
    and forth, live and die, burn and be damned,
    The great heart beating, pumping into our arteries His
    terrible life.
    He is beautiful beyond belief.
    And we, God's apes--or tragic children--share in the beauty.
    We see it above our torment, that's what life's for.
    He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's
    Florence, no anthropoid God
    Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care
    and will never cease. Look at the seas there
    Flashing against this rock in the darkness--look at the
    tide-stream stars--and the fall of nations--and dawn
    Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to
    meet the sea. These are real and we see their beauty.
    The great explosion is probably only a metaphor--I know not
    --of faceless violence, the root of all things.

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

  26. TopTop #85
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Snake
    A snake came to my water-trough
    On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
    To drink there.
    In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
    I came down the steps with my pitcher
    And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
    me.

    He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
    And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
    the stone trough
    And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
    And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
    He sipped with his straight mouth,
    Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
    Silently.

    Someone was before me at my water-trough,
    And I, like a second comer, waiting.

    He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
    And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
    And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
    And stooped and drank a little more,
    Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
    On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
    The voice of my education said to me
    He must be killed,
    For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

    And voices in me said, If you were a man
    You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

    But must I confess how I liked him,
    How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
    And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
    Into the burning bowels of this earth?

    Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
    I felt so honoured.

    And yet those voices:
    If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

    And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
    That he should seek my hospitality
    From out the dark door of the secret earth.

    He drank enough
    And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
    And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
    Seeming to lick his lips,
    And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
    And slowly turned his head,
    And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
    Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
    And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

    And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
    And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
    A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
    Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
    Overcame me now his back was turned.

    I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
    I picked up a clumsy log
    And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

    I think it did not hit him,
    But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
    Writhed like lightning, and was gone
    Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
    At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

    And immediately I regretted it.
    I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
    I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

    And I thought of the albatross
    And I wished he would come back, my snake.

    For he seemed to me again like a king,
    Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
    Now due to be crowned again.

    And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
    Of life.
    And I have something to expiate:
    A pettiness.
    - D.H. Lawrence

    Taormina, 1923
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  27. TopTop #86
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Two Longings

    Late August snowmelt,
    Dropping down from the Crystal Range,
    Feeding penstemon, pussypaw and lupine
    Fills Barrett Lake, then cascades to a quiet pool.

    The sudden arc
    Of a rainbow trout, drawn upward, drawn homeward
    By a call it may not refuse and cannot fulfill,
    Catches the eye, catches the heart, catches the imagination.

    And the water,
    Answering a summons of its own,
    Supporting the trout even in its defeat,
    Reaches down to the American River, the Delta,
    through the Golden Gate... home.

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

  28. TopTop #87
    RexCasteel
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Yeah, it's nice to see a Larry Robinson poem every once in awhile in this "Poem For The Day..."

    Thanks!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    The Two Longings

    By a call it may not refuse and cannot fulfill...

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

  29. TopTop #88
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Atlas

    Extreme exertion
    isolates a person
    from help,
    discovered Atlas.
    Once a certain
    shoulder-to-burden
    ratio collapses,
    there is so little
    others can do:
    they can't
    lend a hand
    with Brazil
    and not stand
    on Peru.

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

  30. TopTop #89
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ripeness
    *
    Ripeness is
    what falls away with ease.
    Not only the heavy apple,
    the pear,
    but also the dried brown strands
    of autumn iris from their core.
    *
    To let your body
    love this world
    that gave itself to your care
    in all of its ripeness,
    with ease,
    and will take itself from you
    in equal ripeness and ease,
    is also harvest.
    *
    And however sharply
    you are tested --
    this sorrow, that great love --
    it too will leave on that clean knife.
    *
    - Jane Hirshfield
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  31. TopTop #90
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Invitation

    Oh do you have time
    to linger
    for just a little while
    out of your busy

    and very important day
    for the goldfinches
    that have gathered
    in a field of thistles

    for a musical battle,
    to see who can sing
    the highest note,
    or the lowest,

    or the most expressive of mirth,
    or the most tender?
    Their strong blunt beaks
    drink the air

    as they strive
    melodiously
    not for your sake
    and not for mine

    and not for the sake of winning
    but for sheer delight and gratitude–
    believe us, they say,
    it is a serious thing

    just to be alive
    on this fresh morning
    in this broken world.
    I beg of you,

    do not walk by
    without pausing
    to attend to this
    rather ridiculous performance.

    It could mean something.
    It could mean everything.
    It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
    You must change your life.

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

Similar Threads

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

Bookmarks