A Poem A Day

[txomsy]

Wow!

[brokenclay]

5 hours ago, txomsy said:

Wow!

 

(Assuming this is about the Rossetti poem...) What's notable about this poem (besides the fact the Rossetti was 19 when she wrote this) is that she was turning the Victorian death cult on its head: "don't remember me if it's going to make you miserable".

[txomsy]

Yeah, it was. A truly remarkable poem.

[brokenclay]

 

despecho hour at the casa azul restaurante y cantina

by José Olivarez

 

despecho rhymes with espejo—

translation: my sibs could be

my twins if

they weren’t so feos.

remix: if i weren’t so ugly

i wouldn’t look so much like mis hermanos.

 

let me try again:

this one goes out to my fam

posted at the bar pouring shots

until the ceiling falls apart & reveals

the moon. i’m sorry to break

the news: you can sing all you want,

comadre, you can get Chente himself

to sing on your behalf—she’s gone.

translation: all that’s left to do

llorar y llorar.

 

one more time

for those who haven’t caught on:

it’s that time of night where all you have

is your biggest ache & all its nicknames.

our bartender is from Guatemala.

he tells us Spanish is his second language.

his first language is Ixil.

in the entire state of  Iowa

how many people speak Ixil?

question:

is despecho the music he plays

when he cleans the drunks up from the bar

& is despecho what it sounds like

when you cross one strange country

just to land in another & discover

all your words for love are strange & unfamiliar?

 

despecho: spitefulness, in spite of

espejo: mirror

feo: ugly

mis hermanos: my brothers

comadre: co-mother/godmother

Chente: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Fernández

llorar: cry

Ixil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixil_language

 

 

 

[brokenclay]

Identity

by W.S. Merwin

 

When Hans Hofmann became a hedgehog

somewhere in a Germany that has

vanished with its forests and hedgerows

Shakespeare would have been a young actor

starting out in a country that was

only a word to Hans who had learned

from those who had painted animals

only from hearing tales about them

without ever setting eyes on them

or from corpses with the lingering

light mute and deathly still forever

held fast in the fur or the feathers

hanging or lying on a table

and he had learned from others who had

arranged the corpses of animals

as though they were still alive in full

flight or on their way but this hedgehog

was there in the same life as his own

looking around at him with his brush

of camel hair and his stretched parchment

of sheepskin as he turned to each sharp

particular quill and every black

whisker on the long live snout and those

flat clawed feet made only for trundling

and for feeling along the dark undersides

of stones and as Hans took them in he

turned into the Hans that we would see

 

 

[brokenclay]

 

The Season of Phantasmal Peace

by Derek Walcott

 

Then all the nations of birds lifted together

the huge net of the shadows of this earth

in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,

stitching and crossing it. They lifted up

the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes,

the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,

the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill—

the net rising soundless as night, the birds' cries soundless, until

there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather,

only this passage of phantasmal light

that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.

 

And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew,

what the ospreys trailed behind them in silvery ropes

that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear

battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries,

bearing the net higher, covering this world

like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing

the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes

of a child fluttering to sleep;

                                                     it was the light

that you will see at evening on the side of a hill

in yellow October, and no one hearing knew

what change had brought into the raven's cawing,

the killdeer's screech, the ember-circling chough

such an immense, soundless, and high concern

for the fields and cities where the birds belong,

except it was their seasonal passing, Love,

made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth,

something brighter than pity for the wingless ones

below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses,

and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices

above all change, betrayals of falling suns,

and this season lasted one moment, like the pause

between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,

but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.

 

[inkstainedruth]

22 hours ago, brokenclay said:

Identity

by W.S. Merwin

 

When Hans Hofmann became a hedgehog

somewhere in a Germany that has

vanished with its forests and hedgerows

Shakespeare would have been a young actor

starting out in a country that was

only a word to Hans who had learned

from those who had painted animals

only from hearing tales about them

without ever setting eyes on them

or from corpses with the lingering

light mute and deathly still forever

held fast in the fur or the feathers

hanging or lying on a table

and he had learned from others who had

arranged the corpses of animals

as though they were still alive in full

flight or on their way but this hedgehog

was there in the same life as his own

looking around at him with his brush

of camel hair and his stretched parchment

of sheepskin as he turned to each sharp

particular quill and every black

whisker on the long live snout and those

flat clawed feet made only for trundling

and for feeling along the dark undersides

of stones and as Hans took them in he

turned into the Hans that we would see

 

 

Love the artwork with this one!  

My initial guess from the style would be Albrecht Dürer, one of my favorite artists of all time -- I just wish I had a fraction of his talent as a draftsman.  Either him or Leonardo da Vinci (because he was also interested in all sorts of science-y things like zoology, although I don't know if they would have called it such back then).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

This is seriously one of the best things I've ever seen.

 

 

The whole thing here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58216/howl-56d23c64cce20

 

And if you don't already know it, you'll need this: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl

[brokenclay]

 

Wild Oranges

by Marjorie Meeker

 

Still with awed inner sight I see that tree

    Bending beneath its secret flower and fruit

In the wild lonely marsh-land, strange to see

    An enchanted tree of fairy root.

 

Forever shall the small bright orange burn

    Unplucked upon the bough, the bloom unbroken

Be loud with bees, forever these return

    To grieve me like a lovely word unspoken

 

Till I go back, for bitter sorrow's wake

    And touch the shining bloom and taste the wine

Of the wild acid orange, and so make

    Part of its strict and lonely meaning mine.

[brokenclay]

Unfortunately due to excessive gardening (i.e., weeding) over the last couple of days (there's a reason the nuns at All Saints Sisters of the Poor called bindweed "sin weed"), I will not be handwriting today's poem.

 

An Exchange between the Fingers and the Toes

by John Fuller

 

Fingers:

Cramped, you are hardly anything but fidgets.

We, active, differentiate the digits:

Whilst you are merely little toe and big

(Or, in the nursery, some futile pig)

Through vital use as pincers there has come

Distinction of the finger and the thumb;

Lacking a knuckle you have sadly missed

Our meaningful translation to a fist;

And only by the curling of that joint

Could the firm index come to have a point.

You cannot punch or demonstrate or hold

And therefore cannot write or pluck or mould:

Indeed, it seems deficiency in art

Alone would prove you the inferior part.

 

   Toes:

Not so, my friends. Our clumsy innocence

And your deft sin is the main difference

Between the body’s near extremities.

Please do not think that we intend to please:

Shut in the dark, we once were free like you.

Though you enslaved us, are you not slaves, too?

Our early balance caused your later guilt,

Erect, of finding out how we were built.

Your murders and discoveries compile

A history of the crime of being agile,

And we it is who save you when you fight

Against the odds: you cannot take to flight.

Despite your fabrications and your cunning,

The deepest instinct is expressed in running.

[brokenclay]

 

They Dance Through Granelli's

by Pat Emile

 

He finds her near the stack

of green plastic baskets waiting to be filled

and circles her waist with his left arm,

entwines her fingers in his, pulls her toward him,

Muzak from the ceiling shedding a flashy Salsa,

and as they begin to move, she lets

her head fall back, fine hair swinging

a beat behind as they follow

their own music—a waltz—past the peaches

bursting with ripeness in their wicker baskets,

the prawns curled into each other

behind cold glass, a woman in a turquoise sari,

her dark eyes averted. They twirl twice

before the imported cheeses, fresh mozzarella

in its milky liquid, goat cheese sent down

from some green mountain, then glide past

ranks of breads, seeds spread across brown crusts,

bottles of red wine nested together on their sides.

He reaches behind her, slides a bouquet

of cut flowers from a galvanized bucket, tosses

a twenty to the teenaged boy leaning

on the wooden counter, and they whirl

out the door, the blue sky a sudden surprise.

[inkstainedruth]

Wow.  You find the coolest poetry.  This newest one is an interesting take on the concept of flash mob performances.  Thanks for posting!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

12 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

This newest one is an interesting take on the concept of flash mob performances.

Ooh, nice observation! I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right.

[Detman101]

 

"The Hearts Catch"
My heart is beating
I cannot eat
I cannot sit still
I shift in my seat
I find no pleasure...in my life today
The only thought I have...is with her, far away
I cannot be there...it's another world
I feel so stupid...I think I might hurl
I'm happy...then sad...then I cry
And for the life of me...I can't understand why
Unrequited love...
it's suffering of the most sublime
It's life in a dream-state...
and feels like a crime
It's a pain of the heart...
and torture of the mind
A sweeter suffering...you will not find
It's the type you run to
And from which you cannot abstain
A loving lovely pain
Nothing can surpass....nothing can match
The sweet sublime torture of...
The Hearts Catch

[inkstainedruth]

49 minutes ago, brokenclay said:

Ooh, nice observation! I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right.

Well, I've seen some really cool videos on You Tube (including opera singers in a wholesale food market in Philadelphia.  My choir director had found some and it gave her the idea for us to do a "flash mob" piece of our own at something a few years ago.  Don't remember what the piece was, but it was something that is in our standard repertoire, IIRC.  I think at the time one of the basses suggested Orlando di Lasso's "Carmina Chromatica" but the rest of us sort of stomped on him....  (It's a cool piece from an audience's point of view -- but from the point of view of someone trying to learn a piece where the notes just seem sort of random jumps...).    It would be a really impressive piece to do as a flashmob, but having to relearn it well enough to be able to carry it off, in less than ideal acoustics, and when I can't hear anyone else singing my part?  The optimal phrase would be "Oh no H*LL no!"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

In honour of the day (at least in the US):

 

To Her Father with Some Verses

by Anne Bradstreet

 

Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,

If worth in me or ought I do appear,

Who can of right better demand the same

Than may your worthy self from whom it came?

The principal might yield a greater sum,

Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb;

My stock's so small I know not how to pay,

My bond remains in force unto this day;

Yet for part payment take this simple mite,

Where nothing's to be had, kings loose their right.

Such is my debt I may not say forgive,

But as I can, I'll pay it while I live;

Such is my bond, none can discharge but I,

Yet paying is not paid until I die.

[GlenV]

Nice poem for today   
here is one although not a Father’s Day sentiment...

 

 

[brokenclay]

5 hours ago, GlenV said:

here is one although not a Father’s Day sentiment...

I like it! Not a poem I know. Here the oppressive heat wave broke today and a few raindrops tried to fall.

[Detman101]

15 hours ago, GlenV said:

Nice poem for today   
here is one although not a Father’s Day sentiment...

 

 

Oh my....that's beautiful!

[brokenclay]

2 hours ago, Detman101 said:

Oh my....that's beautiful!

It is, isn't it?

 

In keeping with the rain theme:

 

 

Summer Rain

by Jim Waters

 

Rain-woman,

Gray-haired,

Impatient,

You didn't stay long

With your cloud-herd

And your silver shawl.

You went toward the East,

Flashing your whip

And thundering orders.

Perhaps a thirsty corn-field

Was calling you.