A Poem A Day

[hh1990]

The cry of the cicada

Gives us no sign

That presently it will die.

 

- Matsuo Basho

[brokenclay]

 

6.

by e.e. cummings

 

in

 

Spring comes (no

one 

asks his name)

 

a mender

of things

 

with eager 

fingers (with

patient 

eyes) re

 

-new-

 

-ing remaking what

other

-wise we should

have thrown a-

 

way (and whose

 

brook

-bright flower-

soft bird

-quick voice loves

 

children

and sunlight and

 

mountains)in april(but

if he should

Smile)comes

 

nobody'll know

 

[jandrew]

[jchch1950]

waiting for the end

with only my soul

time to go home

where is home?

[brokenclay]

Thanks, @jandrew and @jchch1950!

 

 

 

Famous

by Naomi Shihab Nye

 

The river is famous to the fish.

 

The loud voice is famous to silence,   

which knew it would inherit the earth   

before anybody said so.   

 

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   

watching him from the birdhouse.   

 

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

 

The idea you carry close to your bosom   

is famous to your bosom.   

 

The boot is famous to the earth,   

more famous than the dress shoe,   

which is famous only to floors.

 

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

 

I want to be famous to shuffling men   

who smile while crossing streets,   

sticky children in grocery lines,   

famous as the one who smiled back.

 

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   

but because it never forgot what it could do.

[hh1990]

 

Another Spring - Denise Levertov

 

In the gold mouth of a flower

the black smell of spring earth.

No more skulls on our desks

 

but the pervasive

testing of death—as if we had need

of new ways of dying? No,

 

we have no need

of new ways of dying.

Death in us goes on

 

testing the wild

chance of living,

as Adam chanced it.

 

Golden-mouth, the tilted smile

of the moon westering

is at the black window,

 

Calavera of Spring.

Do you mistake me?

I am speaking of living

 

of moving from one moment into

the next, and into the

one after, breathing

 

death in the spring air, knowing

air also means

music to sing to.

[brokenclay]

 

"Do you have any advice for those of us just starting out?"

by Ron Koertge

 

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave

your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

 

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap

one is best, with pages the color of weak tea

and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

 

Avoid any enclosed space where more than

three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware

any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks

across the muffled tennis courts.

 

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.

And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle

where a child a year or two old is playing as his

mother browses the ranks of the dead.

 

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.

The title, the author's name, the brooding photo

on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray

book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher

it gets, the wider he grins.

 

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower

falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody

in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

 

Then start again.

 

[brokenclay]

 

A Sprig of Dill

by Howard Nemerov

 

Small fragrant, green, a stalk splits at the top

And rays out a hemisphere of twenty stems

That split in their turn and ray out twenty more

In hemispheres of twenty yellow stars

Targeted white, sprays mothered of spray

Displaying their tripled oneness alla t once,

Radiant and delicate and loosely exact

As the cosmos in The Comedy, or as

The Copernican system on an orrery,

The quiet flowerworks of the mind of God

In an Age of Reason—that's in here. Out there,

The formless furnaces in Andromeda,

Hydra, The Veil, Orion's nightmare head.

[BigBlot]

I never see my preacher's eyes,

He hides their light divine.

For when he prays he closes his,

And when he preaches, mine.

- Author unknown.

[Madeline]

Oh how quickly the winter winds itself out while I read your poems!  Thank you, all.  I especially loved and keep thinking about "Famous" (by Naomi Shihab Nye).  Oh, for that kind of simplicity of intention!

[mzwasp]

On 12/20/2020 at 3:44 PM, brokenclay said:

 

 

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

Thank you for finding & sharing this poem - it so captures the feeling of a certain period of life.

 

[mzwasp]

On 1/31/2021 at 11:27 PM, brokenclay said:

 

A Sprig of Dill

by Howard Nemerov

 

Small fragrant, green, a stalk splits at the top

And rays out a hemisphere of twenty stems

That split in their turn and ray out twenty more

In hemispheres of twenty yellow stars

Targeted white, sprays mothered of spray

Displaying their tripled oneness alla t once,

Radiant and delicate and loosely exact

As the cosmos in The Comedy, or as

The Copernican system on an orrery,

The quiet flowerworks of the mind of God

In an Age of Reason—that's in here. Out there,

The formless furnaces in Andromeda,

Hydra, The Veil, Orion's nightmare head.

Oh this is lovely - thank you.

[mzwasp]

Rain Light

 
All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
 

by W.S. Merwin

 

My photo lighting skills, among others, still need some work ...

[brokenclay]

22 minutes ago, mzwasp said:

 

 

My photo lighting skills, among others, still need some work ...

 

 

Thank you for this poem! I'm struggling with photo skills, too 🙂

 

 

Song

by Louise Bogan

 

Love me because I am lost;

Love me that I am undone.

That is brave,—no man has wished it,

Not one.

 

Be strong, to look on my heart

As others look on my face.

Love me,—I tell you that it is a ravaged

Terrible place.

[mzwasp]

14 hours ago, brokenclay said:

 

Thank you for this poem! I'm struggling with photo skills, too 🙂

 

 

Song

by Louise Bogan

 

Love me because I am lost;

Love me that I am undone.

That is brave,—no man has wished it,

Not one.

 

Be strong, to look on my heart

As others look on my face.

Love me,—I tell you that it is a ravaged

Terrible place.

What a beautiful, powerful, terrifying poem.

[Doulton]

I love this topic and was thrilled to see Nemerov.  He was the brother of Diane Arbus.  I always like Merlin and Ron Koertge is new to me.  I will look up his work.  Thank you, everyone.

[inkstainedruth]

That's interesting.  I wasn't really familiar with Nemerov or his work.

When I was taking a History of Photography class in college (I was required to take 12 hours of Art History for the art degree "core" courses) we had to write a paper comparing two photos by different photographers.  I chose one by Diane Arbus from her "circus" series of a woman who was a sword swallower and compared it to one by the early 20th C. New Orleans portrait photographer E. J. Bellocq (much of whose work were portraits of the women working in the red-light district.  I chose one of his where the woman is clearly not shying away from her, um profession (even though it's a formal portrait, and she's dressed in her Sunday best, she's still is very assertive in her posture).  In both cases, the subjects were clearly representing themselves as, "Yeah, I'm outside the norm of 'polite society' -- so what?  Get over yourself!" which I found fascinating.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[mzwasp]

A Man may make a Remark (952)

by Emily Dickinson

 

A Man may make a Remark -

In itself - a quiet thing

That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark

In dormant nature - lain -

Let us divide - with skill -

Let us discourse - with care -

Powder exists in Charcoal -

Before it exists in Fire -  

[brokenclay]

I want to thank everyone for both handwriting out your chosen poems (I love seeing everyone's handwriting and there's something beautiful about a handwritten poem) and for also providing the text, as it makes it possible to search the thread for particular poems and poets.

[mzwasp]

On 2/7/2021 at 5:04 PM, brokenclay said:

I want to thank everyone for both handwriting out your chosen poems (I love seeing everyone's handwriting and there's something beautiful about a handwritten poem) and for also providing the text, as it makes it possible to search the thread for particular poems and poets.

Well, your handwriting is much more beautiful than mine but I'm grateful for your inspiration, both in terms of poetry & pen use. And I love reading everyone's contributions!