A Poem A Day

[brokenclay]

Thank you, @GlenV - I love Rosetti.

[brokenclay]

 

Solitude

by A. A. Milne

 

I have a house where I go
When there's too many people,
I have a house where I go
Where no one can be;
I have a house where I go,
Where nobody ever says "No";
Where no one says anything- so
There is no one but me.

[inkstainedruth]

Reminds me a bit of one of the Spider Robinson "Callahan's Bar" SF stories, where one of the characters says "I once bought an entire house just for breaking crockery in...." 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

 

Honeysuckle

by Karla K. Morton

 

It sprang up wild along the chain link fence—thick,

with glorious white

and yellow summer blooms, and green tips that we

pinched and pulled for one

 

perfect drop of gold honey. But Dad hated

it—hated its lack

of rows and containment, its disorder. Each

year, he dug, bulldozed,

 

and set fire to those determined vines. But each

year, they just grew back

stronger. Maybe that's why I felt the urge to

plant it that one day

in May, when cancer stepped onto my front porch

and rang the doorbell,

 

loose matches spilling out of its ugly fists.

[inkstainedruth]

Really like that one, brokenly!  Not familiar with the poet, but I suspect I will now be looking up other pieces by her.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

  On 12/1/2021 at 10:45 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Really like that one, brokenly!  Not familiar with the poet, but I suspect I will now be looking up other pieces by her.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Expand  

Both evocative and graphic, I thought.

[brokenclay]

 

Seven Haiku

by Winfield Townley Scott

 

MULTIPLE VENUS

Yachts under full sail

   speed-slant on the sun-shattered sea:

      nudes whiter than surf.

 

ONCE IN MEXICO

Strangers took me in.

   "Do not worry," they said. "Here

      you are in your house."

 

WEATHER-WISE

Rain all afternoon,

   By the window a house-finch

      riding bridal wreath.

 

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL

Yucca's cups of cream:

   which summer love was she I

      almost remember?

 

TIME

A clock of lilacs

   striking into green till

      it's stilled in noon sun.

 

LATE

Late, and leaves tarnish.

   I spend so carefully now

      what I once squandered.

 

LOVE

Star-dissolving moon,

   if you are all I'm to have

      am I thus emptied?

 

[brokenclay]

 

Beat! Beat! Drums!

by Walt Whitman

 

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!

Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,

Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,

Into the school where the scholar is studying,

Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,

Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,

So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.

 

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!

Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;

Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,

No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?

Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?

Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?

Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.

 

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!

Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,

Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,

Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,

Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,

Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,

So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.

[brokenclay]

 

Supplication

by John Wieners

 

O poetry, visit this house often,

imbue my life with success,

leave me not alone,

give me a wife and home.

 

Take this curse off

of early death and drugs,

make me a friend among peers,

lend me love, and timeliness.

 

Return me to the men who teach

and above all, cure the

hurts of wanting the impossible

through this suspended vacuum.

 

1969

[hh1990]

Former Lives - Carl Dennis

 

It can lead to the practice of tolerance, the notion
That the soul returns to earth more than once
And remembers at least a few faint glimmers
Of the life just prior to the one at hand.
It can prompt you to be more patient with a friend
Who’s linked her fate to the fate of a man
She knows is liable to wander off
Just when she needs him. Better this life,
You’ll hear her telling herself, than the dull
Fifty-year marriage she dimly recalls
To a husband too sluggish to go anywhere.

 

And think how much easier it will be
To put up with the spendthrift cousin of yours,
Who has to borrow from you most months
To pay his mortgage, if you can suppose
He recalls enough of his prior life
As a penny-pincher to make him decide
To err this time on the side of extravagance.
Better by far to be left with nothing, he reasons,
Than to die as he did the last time,
With the shame of an unspent hoard.

 

As for your cousin’s daughter, who plays the cello
As only a few can play it but who limits her audience
To herself and a few close friends,
No need for you to pity her for suffering
From the same self-doubt that may have thwarted
Her mother’s career as a performer,
Not if you can suppose she devoted
Her prior life to pleasing crowds
Of concertgoers on every continent
And is eager now for a life more private.

 

At last to focus on playing each piece
As she believes the composer would want to hear it.
How refreshing, it seems to her,
And how challenging, after playing for thousands,
To play for one.

[brokenclay]

  On 12/12/2021 at 1:02 AM, hh1990 said:

Former Lives - Carl Dennis

Expand  

Thank you for introducing me to this poet!

[hh1990]

  On 12/12/2021 at 1:30 AM, brokenclay said:

Thank you for introducing me to this poet!

Expand  

 

You are very welcome. He is new to me as well. I found the poem flipping through a recent issue of the New Yorker. 

[dftr]

 

written w/ Reform Calligraphy pen 2.3 using Diamine Seize the Night.

[brokenclay]

Thank you, @dftr.

 

 

Ich, der ich nichts mehr liebe

Bertolt Brecht

 

Ich, der ich nichts mehr liebe
Als die Unzufriedenheit mit dem Änderbaren
Hasse auch nichts mehr als
Die tiefe Unzufriedenheit mit dem Unveränderlichen.

 

I, who love nothing more

Than dissatisfaction with what can be changed

Also hate nothing more than

Deep dissatisfaction with what cannot be changed.

[hh1990]

An Echo From Willow-wood
by Christina Dante Rossetti

"O ye, all ye that walk in willow-wood." (D.G. Rossetti)

Two gazed into a pool, he gazed and she,
  Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,
  Pale and reluctant on the water's brink
As on the brink of parting which must be.
Each eyed the other's aspect, she and he,
  Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,
  Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,
There on the brink of life's dividing sea.
Lilies upon the surface, deep below
  Two wistful faces craving each for each,
    Resolute and reluctant without speech: —
A sudden ripple made the faces flow
  One moment joined, to vanish out of reach:
    So those hearts joined, and ah! were parted so.

 

 

[brokenclay]

 

As Winter Enters the Room

by Mary Mercier

 

It is not the long-distance light 
of the day.  Even the cat finds 
sufficient her small square of sun. 
 
Still less the cold 
that follows boxelders inside. 
But the days that diminish, 
subtracting themselves—theirs 
the voices too soft to ignore. 
 
Solstice the light 
that feels more like the dusk 
before dark. 
 
Every guest is sent into the night 
eventually.  And just when you thought 
you were home.

 

Solstice: 21 December 2021 15:59 UTC

[dftr]

 

"Song of Fairies robbing an Orchard" by Leigh Hunt.

A fun little poem.  Watch your apples, watch out for stolen kisses

Written w/ Aurora 88 italic w/ Diamine "Seize the Night"

[dftr]

 

written with Pelikan 120 and JHerbin Perle Noir.

[brokenclay]

 

The Boys of Barr na Sráide

 

Oh the town, it climbs the mountain and looks upon the sea
At sleeping time or waking, ’tis there I’d long to be
To walk again that kindly street, the place where life began
And the Boys of Barr na Sráide went hunting for the wren.

 

With cudgels stout they roamed about to hunt the dreólín
We searched for birds in every furze from Litir to Dooneen
We sang for joy beneath the sky, life held no print nor plan
And the Boys of Barr na Sráide went hunting for the wren.

 

And when the hills were bleeding and the rifles were aflame
To the rebel homes of Kerry the Saxon stranger came
But the men who dared the Auxies and to beat the Black-and-Tan
The Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

 

And here’s a toast to them tonight, the lads who laughed with me
By the groves of Carham river or the slope of Bean ‘a Tí
John Daly and Batt Andy and the Sheehans, Con and Dan
And the Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

 

And now they toil on foreign soil, for they have gone their way
Deep in the heart of London town or over in Broadway
And I am left to sing their deeds and praise them while I can
Those Boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren.

 

 

And when the wheel of life runs down and peace comes over me
Oh lay me down in that old town between the hills and sea
I’ll take my sleep in those green fields, the place my life began
Where those Boys of Barr na Sráide went hunting for the wren

 

Wren Day

 

 

[dftr]

 

Reform 2.3 Calligraphy Nib w/ Diamine Garland ink