Day 282: Bubbles

 

Well today is the last day of #NaPoWriMo, the National Poetry Writing Month and I'm glad to say I have 30 poems under my belt and loved every minute of it. Or, another way to put it - I've been surrounded by glorious bubbles all month, like Don Paterson says -

Poem - Don Paterson 

I want neither glory

nor that, in the memory

of men, my songs survive;

but still... those subtle worlds,

those weightless mother-of-pearl

soap-bubbles of mine... I just love

the way they set off, all tarted up

in sunburst and scarlet, hover

low in the blue sky, quiver,

then suddenly pop

Day 281: Do Not Go Gentle

 

Here's a poem with fighting spirit. You may remember it from the film 'Dangerous Minds' in which Michelle Pfeiffer, a high school teacher, wins over her tough-talking and  living class with Dylan Thomas' spirited words of resistance to all kinds of death - 'rage, rage, against they dying of the light.'

Do Not Go Gentle - Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 


And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377#sthash.6BRvzzdr.dpuf

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377#sthash.6BRvzzdr.dpuf

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377#sthash.6BRvzzdr.dpuf

Day 280: Away and See

 

Away and see what the world holds... Go on!


Away and See - Carol Ann Duffy

Away and see an ocean suck at a boiled sun
and say to someone things I’d blush even to dream.
Slip off your dress in a high room over the harbour.
Write to me soon.

New fruits sing on the flipside of night in a market
of language, light, a tune from the chapel nearby
stopping you dead, the peach in your palm respiring.
Taste it for me.

Away and see the things that words give a name to, the flight
of syllables, wingspan stretching a noun. Test words
wherever they live; listen and touch, smell, believe.
Spell them with love.

Skedaddle. Somebody chaps at the door at a year’s end, hopeful.
Away and see who it is. Let in the new, the vivid,
horror and pity, passion, the stranger holding the future.
Ask him his name.

Nothing’s the same as anything else. Away and see
for yourself. Walk. Fly. Take a boat till land reappears,
altered forever, ringing its bells, alive. Go on. G’on. Gon.
Away and see.

Day 279: Death in Life

 

Not a fan of suburbia living (ie not living) - Charles Bukowski:

hello, how are you? - Charles Bukowski

this fear of being what they are:
dead.

at least they are not out on the street, they
are careful to stay indoors, those
pasty mad who sit alone before their TV sets,
their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.

their ideal neighborhood
of parked cars
of little green lawns
of little homes
the little doors that open and close
as their relatives visit
throughout the holidays
the doors closing
behind the dying who die so slowly
behind the dead who are still alive
in your quiet average neighborhood
of winding streets
of agony
of confusion
of horror
of fear
of ignorance.

a dog standing behind a fence.

a man silent at the window.

Day 298: Lines for Fortune Cookies

 

A fun Friday feel-good poem! (I personally like the one about the croissant factory, hmmm...)
 


Lines for Fortune Cookies - Frank O' Hara

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you - even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU - there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.

Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.

Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.

Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.

You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you're legendary!

Your walk has a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.

You will eat cake.

Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?

You think your life is like Pirandello, but it's really like O'Neill.

A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.

That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

I realize you've lived in France, but that doesn't mean you know EVERYTHING!

You should wear white more often - it becomes you.

The next person to speak to you will have a very intriguing proposal to make.

A lot of people in this room wish they were you.

Have you been to Mike Goldberg's show? Al Leslie's? Lee Krasner's?

At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.

Now that the election's over, what are you going to do with yourself?

You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.

You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?

Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.

You too could be Premier of France, if only ... if only... 

Day 297: Pink Moon

Tonight, the Pink Moon, the name given to April's full moon. And who better to express everything it means than Mary Oliver:


Pink Moon - The Pond - Mary Oliver

You think it will never happen again.
Then, one night in April,
the tribes wake trilling.
You walk down to the shore.
Your coming stills them,
but little by little the silence lifts
until song is everywhere
and your soul rises from your bones
and strides out over the water.
It is a crazy thing to do -
for no one can live like that,
floating around in the darkness
over the gauzy water.
Left on the shore your bones
keep shouting come back!
But your soul won't listen;
in the distance it is sparkling
like hot wires. So,
like a good friend,
you decide to follow.
You step off the shore
and plummet to your knees -
you slog forward to your thighs
and sink to your cheekbones -
and now you are caught
by the cold chains of the water -
you are vanishing while around you
the frogs continue to sing, driving
their music upward through your own throat,
not even noticing
you are someone else.
And that's when it happens -
you see everything
through their eyes,
their joy, their necessity;
you wear their webbed fingers;
your throat swells.
And thats when you know
you will live whether you will or not,
one way or another,
because everything is everything else,
one long muscle.
Its no more mysterious than that.
So you relax, you dont fight it anymore,
the darkness coming down
called water,
called spring,
called the green leaf, called
a woman's body
as it turns into mud and leaves,
as it betas in its cage of water,
as it turns like a lonely spindle
in the moonlight, as it says
yes.

Day 296: Truce

Take a well-known over-used cliché. Add a subversion. And voilá - the meaning changes completley and strikes home with a powerful blow.

In this case, a hatchet blow...



Truce - Isobel Dixon

You bear the hatchet.
I'll bury my heart.

Day 295: April Showers Misery

 

Damn rainy days in the midst of sunny ones. It's always a shock, always disheartening. 

Especially if you equate the rain with other things like Jack Gilbert does here - other things like misery and despair and the terrible lack of joy that comes from missing someone.

 

Rain - Jack Gilbert

Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
and the browns gone gray
and yellow
a terrible amber.
In the cold streets
your warm body.
In whatever room
your warm body.
Among all the people
your absence.
The people who are always
not you.

I have been easy with trees
too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
suddenly
this rain.

Day 294: Quicksand Years

 

What I love about Walt Whitman is his unparalleled focus and exalting of the Self. 

Here he makes a very valid point: 'One's-self must never give way - that is the final substance - that out of all is/ sure...' Amidst all the goings-on in the world, and those 'quicksand years' that threaten to drag us down, we must never give ourselves away. 

(Note how 'sure' rests on its own to highlight it, almost like a firm self standing strong in a vague universe...)

 

Quicksand Years - Walt Whitman

Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail-lines give way-substances mock and elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess'd soul, eludes not,
One's-self must never give way - that is the final substance - that out of all is
     sure,
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?
When shows break up, what but One's-Self is sure?

Day 293: Blindfolds

Yes, we're all wearing a blindfold of some sort. If only to see through them. Imagine what the world would look like then. 

 
In Cold Spring Air - Reginald Gibbons

In cold
          spring air the
white wisp-
          visible
breath of
          a blackbird
singing—
          we don’t know
to un-
          wrap these blind-
folds we
          keep thinking
we are
          seeing through

Day 292: Aliens

What's not to love about Bukowski? His rebellious rock'n'roll persona, his free-spirited individual/lost soul Vs the world?

But most of all, his truth. His ability to tell it like he sees it. 


The Aliens - Charles Bukowski

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.
you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.
but I am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one
of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them
but they are
there
and I am
here.

 

Day 291: You're Beautiful Because...

Here's original language if ever I saw it! And a real understanding of what the word 'beautiful' really means...


You’re Beautiful - Simon Armitage 

You’re Beautiful because you’re classically trained. 
I’m ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation.

You’re beautiful because you stop to read the cards in newsagents’ windows about lost cats and missing dogs.
I’m ugly because of what I did to that jellyfish with a lolly-stick and a big stone. 

You’re beautiful because for you, politeness is instinctive, not a marketing campaign.
I’m ugly because desperation is impossible to hide. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars. 

You’re beautiful because you believe in coincidence and the power of thought.
I’m ugly because I proved God to be a mathematical impossibility.

You’re beautiful because you prefer home-made soup to the packet stuff.
I’m ugly because once, at a dinner party, I defended the aristocracy and wasn’t even drunk.

You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control.
I’m ugly because of satellite television and twenty-four hour rolling news. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars. 

You’re beautiful because you cry at weddings as well as funerals.
I’m ugly because I think of children as another species from a different world.

You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour including red.
I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the acquisition of material goods.

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet.
I’m ugly for saying ‘love at first sight’ is another form of mistaken identity and that the most human of all responses is to gloat. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars. 

You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a car-wash.
I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt.

You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third world.
I’m ugly because I remember the telephone numbers of ex-girlfriends and the year Schubert was born.

You’re beautiful because you sponsored a parrot in a zoo.
I’m ugly because when I sigh it’s like the slow collapse of a circus tent. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars. 

You’re beautiful because you can point at a man in a uniform and laugh.
I’m ugly because I was a police informer in a previous life.

You’re beautiful because you drink a litre of water and eat three pieces of fruit a day.
I’m ugly for taking the line that a meal without meat is a beautiful woman with one eye.

You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition and you know how to lose.
I’m ugly because I kissed the FA Cup then held it up to the crowd. 

You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top buttonhole of your cardigan.
I’m ugly because I said the World’s Strongest Woman was a muscleman in a dress.  

You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.
I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb, so when they look up, the captains of vessels in distress see the ears of a rabbit, or the eye of a fox, or the legs of a galloping black horse. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.

Day 290: At Grass

 

More horses today...

At Grass - Philip Larkin

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances sufficed
To fable them: faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -

Silks at the start: against the sky
Numbers and parasols: outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies:
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come. 

Day 289: Horses at Midnight (A Hope)

One of the fundamentals of living: just because we can't see a thing, doesn't mean it's not there. And especially a good thing, in times of bad. 

In other words, it doesn't have to be obvious or known yet, to be known by us.  

 

Horses at Midnight without a Moon - Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

Day 288: It Is Dangerous to Read Newspapers

This poem came into my head after hearing the news about the explosions in Boston last night. 

I think it demonstrates how we can't stick our heads in the sand when it comes to all the cruel happenings in life. And how poetry doesn't let us ignore them either.

It Is Dangerous to Read Newspapers - Margaret Atwood

While I was building neat
castles in the sandbox,
the hasty pits were
filling with bulldozed corpses
and as I walked to the school
washed and combed, my feet
stepping on the cracks in the cement
detonated red bombs.

Now I am grownup
and literate, and I sit in my chair
as quietly as a fuse

and the jungles are flaming, the under-
brush is charged with soldiers,
the names on the difficult
maps go up in smoke.

I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical
toys, my body
is a deadly gadget,
I reach out in love, my hands are guns,
my good intentions are completely lethal.

Even my
passive eyes transmute
everything I look at to the pocked
black and white of a war photo,
how
can I stop myself

It is dangerous to read newspapers.

Each time I hit a key
on my electric typewriter,
talking of peaceful trees

another village explodes.

Day 287: Sweet Spring is Love Time!

'and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)...'

What better way to start the week than with ee cummings? (And note how he uses so many ing words and adverbs in his poems - a frowned-upon faux-pas in poetry - but look what he's done with them - made a living breathing head-over-heel wheeling poem that dances on the page!)


sweet spring is your - ee cummings

"sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love"

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoringly shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

"sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovertime
and viva sweet love"

Day 286: April Woe

Ah, Shakespeare, the mighty maestro of the English language.

Don't let the vernacular put you off; Shakespeare's sonnets are among the most beautifully written love poems in the language (and offer a full disclosure of what unrequited love is all about). Here he explains how even though it is 'proud-pied' April and Spring, it is winter to him, who is pining for  his love.


Sonnet 98 - William Shakespeare

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
    Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
    As with your shadow I with these did play. 

Day 285: Love, Light & Avocado Salad

 

Yes, 'the mere presence' of love 'changes everything like a chemical dropped on paper...' and that feeling is only 'intensified by breathing'. Yes, here's to love and Frank O' Hara's enthused random verse.


Poem - Frank O' Hara

Light   clarity   avocado salad in the morning
after all the terrible things I do how amazing it is
to find forgiveness and love, not even forgiveness
since what is done is done and forgiveness isn't love
and love is love nothing can ever go wrong
though things can get irritating boring and dispensable
(in the imagination) but not really for love
though a block away you feel distant the mere presence
changes everything like a chemical dropped on a paper
and all thoughts disappear in a strange quiet excitement
I am sure of nothing but this, intensified by breathing

Day 284: Cut Off an Arm For You

A love poem with genuine feeling -  from a common cliché (I'd cut off an arm for you) to a caring, tender declaration of truth.  There, how does this sound? -


Let Me Put It This Way - Simon Armitage 

Let me put it this way:
if you came to lay

your sleeping head
against my arm or sleeve,

and if my arm went dead,
or if I had to take my leave

at midnight, I should rather
cleave it from the joint or seam

than make a scene
or bring you round.

There,
how does that sound?
                

Day 283: Simple Things

Somedays, you can fall in love with the world all over again, through the simplest of things. Here, let this poem help you:



The Patience of Ordinary Things - Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window? 

Day 282: O Me! O Life!

 

What is the  point of life anyway? What's it all about? And what part do I have in it, little  old me?

Surely, a fundamental of all poems. But none of them provide an answer to these questions quite as directly and powerfully as this one from America's wisest bard, Walt Whitman. 

(And if you've heard this before - most likely it was from the film Dead Poets Society, when Robin Williams, as the English teacher Mr Keating, reads it in class like a hushed secret being told. A secret that once known, can't be easily forgotten.)

O Me! O Life! - Walt Whitman

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Day 281: On Inhabiting an Orange

 

I was first struck by the title of this poem, how cool, and then its message: yes, everything is circular in this world, curved and curled, and full of detours.

 
On Inhabiting an Orange - Josephine Miles
 

All our roads go nowhere.

Maps are curled

To keep the pavement definitely

On the world.

All our footsteps, set to make

Metric advance,

Lapse into arcs in deference

To circumstance.

All our journeys nearing Space

Skirt it with care,

Shying at the distances

Present in air.

Blithely travel-stained and worn,

Erect and sure,

All our travels go forth,

Making down the roads of Earth

Endless detour.

 

Day 280: Because it's Spring

Some more Spring magic! -


because it's - ee cummings
    
because it's

Spring
thingS

dare to do people

(& not
the other way

round)because it

's A
pril

Lives lead their own

persons(in
stead

of everybodyelse's)but

what's wholly
marvellous my

Darling

is that you &
i are more than you

& i(be

ca
us

e It's we)

Day 279: The Kookaburras

 

'In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.
In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting
to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings...'

Regret with one, freedom and love with the other - which would you rather be?


The Kookaburras - Mary Oliver

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.
In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting
to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings.
The kookaburras, pressed against the edge of their cage,
asked me to open the door.
Years later I remember how I didn't do it,
how instead I walked away.
They had the brown eyes of soft-hearted dogs.
They didn't want to do anything so extraordinary, only to fly
home to their river.
By now I suppose the great darkness has covered them.
As for myself, I am not yet a god of even the palest flowers.
Nothing else has changed either.
Someone tosses their white bones to the dung-heap.
The sun shines on the latch of their cage.
I lie in the dark, my heart pounding.

Day 278: Lean Back Into It

to lean back into it - Charles Bukowski

like in a chair the color of the sun
as you listen to lazy piano music
and the aircraft overhead are not
at war.
where the last drink is as good as
the first
and you realize that the promises
you made yourself were
kept.
that's plenty.
that last: about the promises:
what's not so good is that the few
friends you had are
dead and they seem
irreplacable.
as for women, you didn't know enough
early enough
and you knew enough
too late.
and if more self-analysis is allowed: it's
nice that you turned out well-
honed,
that you arrived late
and remained generally
capable.
outside of that, not much to say
except you can leave without
regret.
until then, a bit more amusement,
a bit more endurance,
leaning back
into it.
like the dog who got across
the busy street:
not all of it was good
luck.

Day 277: Nobody Can Make it Alone

A poem from Maya Angelou today, as she was the grand old age of 85 yesterday. Happy Birthday Maya Angelou!

Here she is in her characteristic wise wit and verve:

Alone - Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone. 

Day 276: Love is a place

I love this short poem from ee cummings explaining a truthful revelation - that love is all places, and in its world, a world of yes, 'live (skilfully curled) all worlds.'  Ah.


love is a place - ee cummings 

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

Day 275: Birthday

 

 

I dare say Billy Collins is becoming one of my favourite poets! He's so droll and blasé, but at the same time, able to make the most profound and illuminating revelations.

 

So since today is my birthday, I thought I'd indulge in this little birthday musing from him (unlike the greeting card messages - it really makes you think!). A day, which he links to New Year's Day, our 'second' birthday, and one in which you rightly celebrate your 'presence here on earth', 'the joyous anniversary of my existence'. 

 

And  - live it up, before we meet our 'death' day - 'an X drawn through a number in a square on some kitchen calendar of the future,' 'the day when each of us is thrown off the train of time', which will put all those birthdays in perspective. Yes, makes you think...



New Year's Day - Billy Collins

Everyone has two birthdays
according to the English essayist Charles Lamb,
the day you were born and New Year’s Day -

a droll observation to mull over
as I wait for the tea water to boil in a kitchen
that is being transformed by the morning light
into one of those brilliant rooms of Matisse.

“No one ever regarded the First of January
with indifference,” writes Lamb,
for unlike Groundhog Day or the feast of the Annunciation,

New Year’s marks nothing but the pure passage of time,
I realized, as I lowered a tin diving bell
of tea leaves into a little ocean of roiling water.

I like to regard my own birthday
as the joyous anniversary of my existence,
probably because I was, and remain
to this day in late December, an only child.

And as an only child -
a tea-sipping, toast-nibbling only child
in a bright, colorful room -
I would welcome an extra birthday,
one more opportunity to stop what we are doing
for a moment and celebrate my presence here on earth.

And would it not also be a small consolation
to us all for having to face a death-day, too,
an X drawn through a number
in a square on some kitchen calendar of the future,

the day when each of us is thrown off the train of time
by a burly, heartless conductor
as it roars through the months and years,

party hats, candles, confetti, and horoscopes
billowing up in the turbulent storm of its wake.

Day 274: April Girl

So many poets are in love with April! What is it? Because it's the month when real Spring comes along? The sun starts to show itself again? And the flowers too? The loveliest of all the months?

 

In this poem though, I think Ogden Nash captures the character of the fiery innocent Aries, as well as just April in describing this 'April girl' - the changing temperament - from flowery to angry, 'gracious to cruel, tender to rowdy', but ever true, like the diamond birthstone for the month.

Always Marry an April Girl - Ogden Nash

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true -
I love April, I love you.       

Day 273: It's April! Yes, April!

 

'it's april (yes,april;my darling)it's spring! '  

Yes, April at last!: pink and yellow Springtime-in-full month, green-light-go month...and hopefully, sunny days month! (sigh, swoon, smile! :)

Here's another bigtime April fan, ee cummings:

when faces called flowers float out of the ground - ee cummings

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having -
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
- it's april (yes,april;my darling)it's spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving -
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
- alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living -
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
- it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)