A Poem A Day

[brokenclay]

All Goats

By Elizabeth J. Coatsworth

All goats have a wild-briar grace.

They are as elegant as thorns,

With little bells beneath their chins,

And pointed horns.

So quick are they upon their feet,

So light and gaily do they prance,

Their hoofs seem little castanets

To which they dance.

And as they raise sagacious heads

Disturbed by some crude passer-by

They look upon him with a most

Satiric eye.

Searched this morning for "goals", and got "goats". Probably just as well. I'm finding goal-setting difficult in the Time of Pandemic.

[brokenclay]

 

On the Birth of a Son

by Su Tung-Po

translated by Arthur Waley

 

Families when a child is born

Hope it will turn out intelligent.

I, through intelligence

Having wrecked my whole life,

Only hope that the baby will prove

Ignorant and stupid.

Then he'll be happy all his days

And grow into a cabinet minister.

[brokenclay]

The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm

By Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.

The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,

Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be

The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:

The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,

In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself

Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

[brokenclay]

For the penultimate day of July, poetic comfort food.

 

 

Sweet Afton

by Robert Burns

Flow gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,

Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;

My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,

Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro' the glen,

Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,

Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,

I charge you, disturb not my slumbering Fair.

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,

Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills;

There daily I wander as noon rises high,

My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,

Where, wild in the woodlands, the primroses blow;

There oft, as mild Ev'ning weeps over the lea,

The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,

And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;

How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,

As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,

Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;

My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,

Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

[brokenclay]

I'm going to wrap this up tomorrow, and move on to another discipline (not quite sure what it's going to be yet).

 

Here are some extra poems that I didn't squeeze in during the month:

 

Herbsttag

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr gross.

Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,

und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;

gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,

dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage

die letzte Süsse in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.

Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,

wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben

und wird in den Alleen hin und her

unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

Lord, it's time. The summer was grand.

Lay your shadow on the sundial,

Loose the wind over the fields.

Command the last fruits to ripen;

give them a few more southerly days,

bring them to completion and chase

the last sweetness into the heavy grapes.

Whoever has no home now, won't find one.

Whoever is alone now, stays alone,

wakes, reads, writes long letters,

wanders restlessly in the lanes

to and fro, as the leaves fall.

_________________________________

Language Lesson 1976

By Heather Mchugh

When Americans say a man

takes liberties, they mean

he’s gone too far. In Philadelphia today I saw

a kid on a leash look mom-ward

and announce his fondest wish: one

bicentennial burger, hold

the relish. Hold is forget,

in American.

On the courts of Philadelphia

the rich prepare

to serve, to fault. The language is a game as well,

in which love can mean nothing,

doubletalk mean lie. I’m saying

doubletalk with me. I’m saying

go so far the customs are untold.

Make nothing without words,

and let me be

the one you never hold.

_________________________________

Do You Speak Persian?

By Kaveh Akbar

Some days we can see Venus in mid-afternoon. Then at night, stars

separated by billions of miles, light travelling years

to die in the back of an eye.

Is there a vocabulary for this—one to make dailiness amplify

and not diminish wonder?

I have been so careless with the words I already have.

I don’t remember how to say home

in my first language, or lonely, or light.

I remember only

delam barat tang shodeh, I miss you,

and shab bekheir, goodnight.

How is school going, Kaveh-joon?

Delam barat tang shodeh.

Are you still drinking?

Shab bekheir.

For so long every step I’ve taken

has been from one tongue to another.

To order the world:

I need, you need, he/she/it needs.

The rest, left to a hungry jackal

in the back of my brain.

Right now our moon looks like a pale cabbage rose.

Delam barat tang shodeh.

We are forever folding into the night.

Shab bekheir.

_________________________________

The Borders Are Fluid Within Us

By Dan Vera

This is what is feared:

that flags do not nourish the blood,

that history is not glorious or truthful.

I sleep and dream in two languages.

I gain wisdom from more than one fountain.

I pass between borders

made to control what is owned.

The body cannot be owned.

The land cannot be owned,

only misunderstood or named by its knowing.

_________________________________

Here are some sites I used during this month:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

https://www.splitthisrock.org/

https://interestingliterature.com

https://www.readpoetry.com

https://www.poetryintranslation.com

https://poets.org

_________________________________

Edited July 30, 2020 by brokenclay

[brokenclay]

Last day of the month, last poem.

 

This is from the 1747 edition of Poor Richard's Almanac:

 

 

 

V Mon. July [1747] hath xxxi days.

By Benjamin Franklin

Men drop so fast, ere Life’s mid Stage we tread,

Few know so many Friends alive as dead;

Yet, as immortal, in our uphill Chace,

We press coy Fortune with unslacken’d Pace;

Our ardent Labours for the Toy we seek,

Join Night to Day, and Sunday to the Week,

Our very Joys are anxious, and expire

Between Satiety and fierce Desire.

Take care, everyone.

[Madeline]

What a grand run this has been~

 

Thank you! Thank you! for all these poems! Such grand company in these so uncertain times!

[txomsy]

Yep! My most sincere thanks for these poems. They made me feel, think and enjoy through these days. Thanks.

[brokenclay]

I'm so glad you enjoyed them.

 

I found the exercise very beneficial - I looked forward to it every day, and it cut out some of the doom-scrolling :-).

[Zookie]

And to think that I just found this thread.Oh well.

[brokenclay]

I'm resurrecting this - I've come back around to wanting to find something to write out every day for a while.

 

I'm not a Christian, but I love the O Antiphons of Advent, which start on December 17th. Since I'm two days late, here are the first three.

 

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

 

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

 

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

 

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

 

O radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

 

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

 

Pelikan M200, brown marble, stub nib by Custom Nib Studio.

[hh1990]

@brokenclay, is it okay if others join in on the fun? I saw this thread and thought it would be a great kick in the pants to start reading poetry more regularly. 

[Carrau]

  On 12/20/2020 at 4:03 AM, hh1990 said:

@brokenclayI saw this thread and thought it would be a great kick in the pants to start reading poetry more regularly. 

Expand  

I used to look forward each day to Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac on Public Radio-it was 5 minutes of diversion each morning, ending with a poem, that helped expand my experience with writing and poets I otherwise would never have found.  Alas, it hasn’t been on air for a few years, and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been resurrected by anyone new.  I believe the episodes have been archived and available for listening.  I’ve attached a link to an episode, to give anyone interested a taste of what it was like.

 

https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html

A link to the Archive:

https://www.writersalmanac.org/episodes/2017.html

 

[brokenclay]

  On 12/20/2020 at 4:03 AM, hh1990 said:

@brokenclay, is it okay if others join in on the fun? I saw this thread and thought it would be a great kick in the pants to start reading poetry more regularly. 

Expand  

 

Please do! Yes! A good starting point is https://www.poetryfoundation.org; I'll often either start reading with their poem of the day or just come up with a random (or not so random) search phrase and see where it leads me.

 

  On 12/20/2020 at 2:17 PM, Carrau said:

I used to look forward each day to Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac on Public Radio-it was 5 minutes of diversion each morning, ending with a poem, that helped expand my experience with writing and poets I otherwise would never have found.  Alas, it hasn’t been on air for a few years, and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been resurrected by anyone new.  I believe the episodes have been archived and available for listening.  I’ve attached a link to an episode, to give anyone interested a taste of what it was like.

 

https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html

A link to the Archive:

https://www.writersalmanac.org/episodes/2017.html

 

Expand  

 

Thanks for the reminder and link, I enjoyed the Writer's Almanac when it was being broadcast as well.

[Madeline]

O thank you, Brokenclay!!

 

Here in WI it's been gray for days and seeing poems again (in ink!) has brightened things considerably :-)

[brokenclay]

 

 

Poem for my Birthday

by Lisel Mueller

 

I have stopped being the heroine

of my bad dreams. The melodramas

of betrayal and narrow escapes

from which I wake up grateful

for an unexciting life

are starring my troubled young friend

or one of my daughters. I'm not the one

who swims too far out to sea;

I am the one who waves from shore

vainly and in despair.

Life is what happens to someone else;

I stand on the sidelines and wring my hands.

Strange, that my dreams should have accepted

the minor role I've been cast in

by stories since stories began.

Does that mean I have solved my life?

I'm still afraid in my dreams, but not for myself.

Fear gets rededicated

with a new stone that bears a needier name.

 

Pelikan P20 Twist Stars Pink with Akkerman SBRE Brown

[brokenclay]

 

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

 

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

 

Italix Parson's Essential, Broad Cursive, with Organics Studio Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Madeline]

Absolutely wonderful!  (now if only I could remember my dreams...)

 

Thank you!!!

 

[hh1990]

 

 

“Soneta 17” de Cien Sonetas de Amor

 

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio

o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:

te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,

secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

 

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva

dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,

y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo

el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

 

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,

te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:

así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

 

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,

tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,

tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

 

“Sonnet 17” from One Hundred Love Sonnets

 

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

 

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

[brokenclay]

Beautiful, @hh1990, thank you.