May, 2013
Understand Understood
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 28, 2013
This jostling has warn me out
these are not really the things I have to share
these are but your expectations for your care
playing the puppet on the string
for your simplified enjoyment
searching for your sense of pity
I have been playing with you
there are deeper things I have to say on every matter
from the nature of the stars to collecting city litter
but I have been quiet on such subjects
owing to the opposition I might face
owing to the fact you never asked
I’ve spent a long time waiting
for these few moments when we can get down to the gist
and forget about all this foreplay I thought you’d miss
but I was trained to it you see
to think that coddling was the key
to arriving at some conclusion
Now I see it will never end
this gentle coaxing of your security to rid you of falsity
has turned into a lifetime occupational propensity
and I’ve been sapped to the bone
praying for an impossibility
to show what I need you to see
I am not who you’ve assumed
there is in me a reality deeper than you can measure
it offends me that I must be silent for your pleasure
and now it is my turn to speak
I see you for who you are
you are the same as me
Uncivilized
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 28, 2013
News of another lover
of unspecified gender
(a generational glitch
in the eclectic dreams
of ageless cappuccino debutantes
and aromatic swashbucklers)
and barely hidden terms
of rapturous agreements,
under the guise
of open-mindedness,
are dealt out over a table
in a double-handed tryst,
while nutmeg and cinnamon,
nestled together
in frothy delight,
conceal incantations
wafted into fetid air
of diametric oppositions,
and social commentary
acquires a neon glow,
reflected in panes
of hard-boiled silicon,
marking the outer limit
against the primitive fringe:out here,
where hands
beat drums
to frighten Pharoah,where tongues
chant prayers
to raise the dead,where feet
move dust
upon the earth.
Unromantic Love
POSTED IN classic poetry May 28, 2013
There is no stillness in this wood.The quiet of this clearing
Is the denial of my hearing
The sounds I should.There is no vision in this glade.
This tower of sun revealing
The timbered scaffoldage is stealing
Essence from shade.Only my love is love’s ideal.
The love I could discover
In these recesses knows no lover,
Is the unreal,The undefined, unanalysed,
Unabsolute many;
It is antithesis of any,
In none comprised.J. V. Cunningham
Sonnets from the Portuguese
POSTED IN translated English-Finnish May 19, 2013
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
| How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men might strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,–I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!–and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. |
Sua kuinka rakastan? Nyt kerron sen. Rakastan korkeuksiin, syvyyksiin, sieluni näkymättään yltämiin luo Olevan ja Armon äärien, auringon valossa ja lamppujen, rakastan sua arjen tarpeisiin, kuin oikeussoturit, vapaasti niin, ja kautta intohimon tekojen ja vanhoin murhein, lapsenukollain, rakkaudella, min melkein menetin kuin pyhimykseni. Hengittäin vain, elämän kaikin hymyin, kyynelin. Jos Luoja suo, paremmin kuoltuain. |
Finnish version by Magdalena Biela
Desiderata
POSTED IN classic poetry May 9, 2013
Words for life
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Max Ehrmann
The Macbeth Tree
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 8, 2013
The Macbeth TreeTallahatchie County, Mississippi
Lightning-struck
and prematurely twisted
in the middle of fallow land
with no camouflage
stands a Devil’s bargain,
its knobbed and threadbare
branches reaching up
a plea for deliverance.Naked and black-burnt
lesson in deformed
humility, with no safe
surface to carve initials
in a heart or rest a weary
back, these witch
branches left to smolder
in an open field,
a silent prayer of witness,
thin as a hag’s finger,
warning the sky.
(Crack the Spine, June 2013)
By TOBI COGSWELLUSA
Elegy For A Friend
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 5, 2013
The threads that join two loyal heartswill span an ocean of time,
from moments of forgotten art,
the echo of hearts’
rhyme transcends the avalanche of pain,
that severed threads beget,
as sure as golden leaves shall fall
this love shall not forget.
John Anstie
http://www.poemhunter.com/john-anstie/
How much you can tell about a person only by reading their words / thoughts / poems?
article in www.paper.li
Magdalena
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 2, 2013
MagdalenaShe brings all her talents to life’s path
mindful, shares with other souls she meets.
Like a lily who needs no adornmentthe beauty of words alight on sensitive
lips, her dark eyes scan a literary landscape.
An erudite scholar in the digital worldshe travels the planet, harvests beauty
in many different tongues, hungrily absorbs
other cultures. Her acute perceptionfree as a bird, she roams our globe, looks
for new tapers of inspiration to feed a flame
that burns deep in her linguistic soul.She enters the garden of each poet’s heart
finds truth in words to bridge a lexicon fence,
gifts poetry with new and exotic pearls.Unselfishly, she graces the literary scene.
May she discover many facets of her own beauty
in the secret garden of her translations.
by GAEL BAGE
UK
Sister J’s Home Cookin’ Helena, Arkansas
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 2, 2013
Sister J’s Home Cookin’ Helena, Arkansas
Sister J prayed constantly for remembrance,
said “What he want?” all too often. She worried
them all. Even when she smiled, said hello
to all the folk sittin’ at the tables, she worried them.
Eggs need salt only once.
Butter needs cuttin’ only once.
She made a finger-mark in flour to count it.
She could bake the pies, hand-memory
waltzing to years of dough and spice,
but her shirt, sweat-stained and ripe,
made her doctor furrow-browed with
concern when all he wanted was grits,
and coffee a warm brown caramel color
of the local river, not black-mud thick
ooze of its thirsty bank.
And so she prayed. With her grand-daughter
and her daughter’s grand-daughter. She
was gettin’ fuzzy-headed and tangled
as the Spanish Moss hanging off leafless
roadside trees, their branches husked
and waiting for the end of a long winter.
She feared even the echoes of her everyday
would not let her see the spring.
T’aint no memory for that.
by TOBI COGSWELL
USA
A poet’ s garden
POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 2, 2013
A poet’ s gardenIdeas grow and flourish as I walk
a wilderness garden; I plant new seeds
of inspiration and renewal, tread the dark
rich soil of fertile imagination. In moments
of paroxysmal madness, I return to source,a temple, gripped by roots of ancient
woodland; here I feel my way, expand
intuition that floods me in reddened waves.
I peer through vinacious mists of dawn,
drink tomorrow’s sun, capturedin drops of morning dew that hang
on natures tussie-mussie planting. I pick
a posie of words, on which each dew-drop
scintillates. I am a snake, the sun’s close
bosom friend, eyes of a predator,I uncurl, writhe in hunger for new
language to digest, slough off old skins
side-wind across a rainbow bridge that spans
uncharted land, here I transform,
in auditory form, become a wild exotic.
by Gael Bage
UK
