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Poem of the Day

braggman
Steve Bragg
Dangerous Mind
United States 14awards
Joined 27th Dec 2011
Forum Posts: 1850

Today is Wednesday, June 13th, and the poem for the day is "The Perch" by Galway Kinnell. Thanks for jogging my memory Rachel.


The Perch

There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road, turned in at
the lane which a few weeks ago,
when the trees were almost empty
and the November snows had not yet come,
lay thickly covered in bright red
and yellow leaves, crossed the swamp,
passed the cellar hole holding
the remains of the 1850s farmhouse
that had slid down into it by stages
in the thirties and forties, followed
the overgrown logging road
and came to the trees. I climbed up
to the perch, and this time looked
not into the distance but at
the tree itself, its trunk
contorted by the terrible struggle
of that time when it had its hard time.
After the trauma it grows less solid.
It may be some such time now comes upon me.
It would have to do with the unaccomplished,
and with the attempted marriage
of solitude and happiness. Then a rifle
sounded, several times, quite loud,
from across the valley, percussions
of the custom of male mastery
over the earth — the most graceful,
most alert of the animals
being chosen to die. I looked
to see if my friend had heard,
but she was stepping about on her skis,
studying the trees, smiling to herself,
her lips still filled, for all
we had drained them, with hundreds
and thousands of kisses. Just then
she looked up — the way, from low
to high, the god blesses — and the blue
of her eyes shone out of the black
and white of bark and snow, as lovers
who are walking on a freezing day
touch icy cheek to icy cheek,
kiss, then shudder to discover
the heat waiting inside their mouths.

mjs211
MikeTheEngineer
Dangerous Mind
United States 20awards
Joined 22nd Aug 2010
Forum Posts: 1572

Today is Friday, June 22, and my poem is one by James Galvin.


                           To the Republic

                                                                           Past
fences the first sheepmen cast across the land, processions
of cringing pitch or cedar posts pulling into the vanishing
point like fretboards carrying barbed melodies, windharp
narratives, songs of place, I'm thinking of the long cowboy
ballads Ray taught me the beginnings of and would have taught
me the ends if he could have remembered them.
                                                                         But remembering
was years ago when Ray swamped for ranches at a dollar a day
and found, and played guitar in a Saturday night band, and now
he is dead and I'm remembering near the end when he just needed
a drink before he could tie his shoes.
                                                        We'd stay up all night
playing the beginnings of songs like Falling Leaf, about a
girl who died of grief, and Zebra Dun, about a horse that
pawed the light out of the moon.
                                                 Sometimes Ray would break
through and recall a few more verses before he'd drop a line
or scramble a rhyme or just go blank, and his workfat hands
would drop the chords and fall away in disbelief.
                                                                       Between
songs he'd pull on the rum or unleash coughing fits that
sounded like nails in a paper bag.
                                                  Done, he'd straighten and
say, My cough's not just right, I need another cigarette, and
light the Parliament he bit at an upward angle like Roosevelt
and play the start of another song.
                                                    Then, played out and
drunk enough to go home, he'd pick up his hat and case and
make it, usually on a second try, through the front gate
and gently list out into the early morning dark, beginning
again some song without end, yodeling his vote under spangles.

rayheinrich
Death Plane for Teddy
Tyrant of Words
Canada 32awards
Joined 4th Dec 2009
Forum Posts: 4409


 And seeing as how today is arrived yet again;
 here's a poem by Robert Hass (my favorite translator
 of Japanese Haiku into English ones):


  Heroic Simile
 
  When the swordsman fell in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai
  in the gray rain,
  in Cinemascope and the Tokugawa dynasty,
  he fell straight as a pine, he fell
  as Ajax fell in Homer
  in chanted dactyls and the tree was so huge
  the woodsman returned for two days
  to that lucky place before he was done with the sawing
  and on the third day he brought his uncle.
 
  They stacked logs in the resinous air,
  hacking the small limbs off,
  tying those bundles separately.
  The slabs near the root
  were quartered and still they were awkwardly large;
  the logs from midtree they halved:
  ten bundles and four great piles of fragrant wood,
  moons and quarter moons and half moons
  ridged by the saw's tooth.
 
  The woodsman and the old man his uncle
  are standing in midforest
  on a floor of pine silt and spring mud.
  They have stopped working
  because they are tired and because
  I have imagined no pack animal
  or primitive wagon. They are too canny
  to call in neighbors and come home
  with a few logs after three days' work.
  They are waiting for me to do something
  or for the overseer of the Great Lord
  to come and arrest them.
 
  How patient they are!
  The old man smokes a pipe and spits.
  The young man is thinking he would be rich
  if he were already rich and had a mule.
  Ten days of hauling
  and on the seventh day they'll probably
  be caught, go home empty-handed
  or worse. I don't know
  whether they're Japanese or Mycenaean
  and there's nothing I can do.
  The path from here to that village
  is not translated. A hero, dying,
  gives off stillness to the air.
  A man and a woman walk from the movies
  to the house in the silence of separate fidelities.
  There are limits to imagination.

- Robert Hass

more of his stuff here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-hass#about



rayheinrich
Death Plane for Teddy
Tyrant of Words
Canada 32awards
Joined 4th Dec 2009
Forum Posts: 4409

 These are for yesterday and the day before:[font=Verdana]


     Dear Joanne
                         - Lew Welsh
     
     Dear Joanne,
     
     Last night Magda dreamed that she,
     you, Jack, and I were driving around
     Italy.
     
     We parked in Florence and left
     our dog to guard the car.
     
     She was worried because he
     doesn't understand Italian.
     
     . . .
     
     




http://wordbiscuit.com/images/ringbone.jpg
     
                    I Saw Myself
                                        - Lew Welsh
                   
                    I saw myself
                    a ring of bone
                    in the clear stream
                    of all of it
                   
                    and vowed
                    always to be open to it
                    that all of it
                    might flow through
                   
                    and then heard
                    "ring of bone" where
                    ring is what a
                   
                    bell does
                   
                    . . .


[size=2]
Some Lew Welsh bio and poems and stuff:
http://fitzroydreaming.blogspot.com/2010/01/desolation-angels-3.html

The above is from a blog I like:
Desolation Angels
http://fitzroydreaming.blogspot.com/

also, wiki:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Welch


Magdalena
Spartalena
Tyrant of Words
Wales 62awards
Joined 21st Apr 2012
Forum Posts: 2993

My poem for today Tuesday the 7th of August is "The Invitation" by `Oriah`




It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Magdalena
Spartalena
Tyrant of Words
Wales 62awards
Joined 21st Apr 2012
Forum Posts: 2993

Today is Thursday 16th of August.


Title:     Ghosts
Author: Madison Julius Cawein       



Was it the strain of the waltz that, repeating
"Love," so bewitched me? or only the gleam
There of the lustres, that set my heart beating,
Feeling your presence as one feels a dream?

For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion,
Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace,
Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion,
You, my dead sweetheart, smiled up in my face.

Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting
Fragrance of women made amorous the air;
Born of these three and my thoughts you came drifting,
Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair.

There in the waltz, that followed the lancers,
Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold;
Far through the stir and the throng of the dancers
Onward I bore you as often of old.

Pale were your looks; and the rose in your tresses
Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost;--
"Who," then I said, "is it sees or who guesses,
Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost?"

Gone! And the dance and the music are ended.
Gone! And the rapture dies out of the skies.
And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid,
The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes.

Had I forgotten? and did you remember?--
You, who are dead, whom I cannot forget;
You, for whose sake all my heart is an ember
Covered with ashes of dreams and regret.






lepperochan
Craic-Dealer
Guardian of Shadows
Palestine 67awards
Joined 1st Apr 2011
Forum Posts: 14449

She walks in beauty -Lord Byron

 
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade more, one ray less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!




I sometimes fret over the over use of 'and in a poem. looking at this though kind of puts me a little more at ease.

rayheinrich
Death Plane for Teddy
Tyrant of Words
Canada 32awards
Joined 4th Dec 2009
Forum Posts: 4409

[font=Courier New][size=2]
 Poem of the day for November 17, 1957:

[font=Verdana][size=2]
       The Last Person on Earth Finds Guns Everywhere
       By Robert S. King
       
       
       Everywhere I look is a trigger for the same story.
        There are more guns than people.
        Many of the guns shot their owners.
       Not as popular but with a certain charm:
        I’ve also seen the bridges buckling
        from the weight of those
        whose long flight down
        hardly made a splash.
       But guns are always the partners of choice,
        and unlike a fall into oblivion,
        guns will remember you as fingerprints,
        as a lasting touch.
       I’ll leave these guns, these memorials then,
        lying in the streets, vacant lots and empty rooms.
        If only the fingerprints told their names, their stories.
       If only I knew why my story is still being told.



  More poems by Robert S. King:
  http://www.robertsking.com/poems.aspx

marielavoue
Gypsy Red
Tyrant of Words
United States 40awards
Joined 18th Aug 2011
Forum Posts: 905

lepperochan said:She walks in beauty -Lord Byron

 
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade more, one ray less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!




I sometimes fret over the over use of 'and in a poem. looking at this though kind of puts me a little more at ease.


one of my faves...

MrAlptraum
Mr A
Dangerous Mind
United Kingdom 17awards
Joined 24th Dec 2011
Forum Posts: 1878

The Only Day In Existence

The early sun is so pale and shadowy,
I could be looking up at a ghost
in the shape of a window,
a tall, rectangular spirit
looking down at me in bed,
about to demand that I avenge
the murder of my father.
But the morning light is only the first line
in the play of this day--
the only day in existence--
the opening chord of its long song,
or think of what is permeating
the thin bedroom curtains

as the beginning of a lecture
I will listen to until it is dark,
a curious student in a V-neck sweater,
angled into the wooden chair of his life,
ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,
quiet as a goldfish in winter,
serious as a compass at sea,
eager to absorb whatever lesson
this damp, overcast Tuesday
has to teach me,
here in the spacious classroom
of the world with its long walls of glass,
its heavy, low-hung ceiling.

-Billy Collins

MrAlptraum
Mr A
Dangerous Mind
United Kingdom 17awards
Joined 24th Dec 2011
Forum Posts: 1878

Survivor


Everyday,
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.

It helps
keep my mind off things.


-Roger McGough

rayheinrich
Death Plane for Teddy
Tyrant of Words
Canada 32awards
Joined 4th Dec 2009
Forum Posts: 4409

[font=Courier New][size=2]
A poem for the day of August 19, 1978:


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Fear and the Monkey
                    - William S. Burroughs

This text arranged in my New York loft, which is the converted locker room of an old YMCA. Guests have reported the presence of a ghost boy. So this is a Oui-Ja board poem taken from Dumb Instrument, a book of poems by Denton Welch, and spells and invocations from the Necronomicon, a highly secret magical text released in paperback. There is a pinch of Rimbaud, a dash of St-John Perse, an oblique reference to Toby Tyler with the Circus, and the death of his pet monkey.


Turgid itch and the perfume of death
On a whispering south wind
A smell of abyss and of nothingness
Dark Angel of the wanderers howls through the loft
With sick smelling sleep
Morning dream of a lost monkey
Born and muffled under old whimsies
With rose leaves in closed jars
Fear and the monkey
Sour taste of green fruit in the dawn
The air milky and spiced with the trade winds
White flesh was showing
His jeans were so old
Leg shadows by the sea
Morning light
On the sky light of a little shop
On the odor of cheap wine in the sailors’ quarter
On the fountain sobbing in the police courtyards
On the statue of moldy stone
On the little boy whistling to stray dogs.
Wanderers cling to their fading home
A lost train whistle wan and muffled
In the loft night taste of water
Morning light on milky flesh
Turgid itch ghost hand
Sad as the death of monkeys
Thy father a falling star
Crystal bone into thin air
Night sky
Dispersal and emptiness.

    - - -

link to more:
http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/2010/08/poetry-of-william-s-burroughs.html

MrAlptraum
Mr A
Dangerous Mind
United Kingdom 17awards
Joined 24th Dec 2011
Forum Posts: 1878

Burroughs is great, and the date isn't bad either.

braggman
Steve Bragg
Dangerous Mind
United States 14awards
Joined 27th Dec 2011
Forum Posts: 1850

Today is October 3 2012 and the poem of the day is America by Alan Ginsberg.


America


America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

poet Anonymous

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