Posted in Nina Alvarez, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 04/18/2010| 1 Comment »
What were we saying
when the plane hit
It was air
that whoosh
We had to trade in things
insert words
We had to hear what we
didn’t want to hear
I have trouble
these days
Its dawning on me
How little all this means
The current catches up and
All those pretty stones gone
There was a pause, when the plane hit
And since then we’ve been unsure
What were we saying?
We had decided to
go somewhere. Do something. But
The whoosh. We didn’t.
-Nina Alvarez
Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Whitman, words, Write, Writer, writing on 04/09/2010| 2 Comments »
Come, said my Soul
Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chants resuming,
(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)
Ever with pleas’d smiles I may keep on,
Ever and ever yet the verses owning – as, first, I here and now,
Singing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,
Walt Whitman
-Walt Whitman
Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 04/04/2010| 1 Comment »
A Shropshire Lad, II
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
-A. E. Housman
Happy Easter, from Nina
Posted in chaos of fatwa, hissa hilal, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing, tagged middle east on 03/28/2010| 5 Comments »
Hissa Hilal, woman poet and master of bedouin dialect poetry, rocked the Arab world (and my world) by winning the Million’s Poet competition aired on Abu Dhabi state television.
She has since received death threats for the words of this poem. I think the real power is in her voice. And in the incredibly brave stance she is taking. Read more about the story at Times Online.
The Chaos of Fatwas
I have seen evil from the eyes of the subversive fatwas
in a time when what is lawful is confused with what is not lawful;
When I unveil the truth, a monster appears from his hiding place;
barbaric in thinking and action, angry and blind;
wearing death as a dress and covering it with a belt
He speaks from an official, powerful platform,
terrorizing people and preying on everyone seeking peace;
the voice of courage ran away and the truth is cornered and silent,
when self-interest prevented one from speaking the truth.
-Hissa Hilal
Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Whitman, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/19/2010| 2 Comments »
I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.
–Walt Whitman
Left as a comment by Karen 5.0.
Thank you, Karen. Whitman always does it for me.
Posted in marlowe, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/12/2010| 2 Comments »
from “Tamburlaine the Great” (Part 1, Act V, 160-173)
What is beauty, saith my sufferings, then?
If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feelings of their masters’ thoughts
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
Their minds and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit —
If these had made one poem’s period
And all combined in beauty’s worthiness,
Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.
-Christopher Marlowe
Posted in joris, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 03/08/2010| 1 Comment »
I
The book lies open
in all the hallways
in all the oases
in all the dreams
around every corner
behind every sand dune
in this dream too
you have to add a line
your place is between
the already written
& the unwritten,
in the white empty space.
In this dream
Stalin smiled, & Heidegger too
in this dream
cockroaches
scuttled from the book–but it had to be written in, despite
the smiles.
A dream of a book
a dream of a desert in a book
a dream of a desert that runs from the book
a dream of a book and a desert
a dream of sand through fingers
a dream of white
a dream of mica
a dream of fennecs
a dream of a desert spilling from the book
into and through the hallway and out the door
And a voice said
write the book
& you will be healed
A voice said a voice said
my middle my voice my will
write in the book
write the desert
the dream
write the sand the white write the running
dream the book.
-Pierre Joris, from H.J.R.
Posted in Hopkins, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 02/26/2010| 3 Comments »
Spring and Fall
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
Posted in corso, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 02/20/2010| 1 Comment »
Posted in d.h. lawrence, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 02/16/2010| 3 Comments »
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
-D.H. Lawrence
Poem of the Month 