A Poem Thread

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Angelus, Nov 9, 2002.

  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    "Sweetheart
    when you break thru
    you’ll find
    a poet here
    not quite what one would choose.

    I won’t promise
    you’ll never go hungry
    or that you won’t be sad
    on this gutted
    breaking
    globe

    but I can show you
    baby
    enough to love
    to break your heart
    forever"

    --Diane di Prima
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,608
    "I hope to define my life, whatever is left,
    by migrations, south and north with the birds
    and far from the metallic fever of clocks,
    the self staring at the clock saying, "I must do this."
    I can't tell the time on the tongue of the river
    in the cool morning air, the smell of the ferment
    of greenery, the dust off the canyon's rock walls,
    the swallows swooping above the scent of raw water."

    -- Jim Harrison
     
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    The Secret
    by Denise Levertov, 1964


    Two girls discover
    the secret of life
    in a sudden line of
    poetry.

    I who don’t know the
    secret wrote
    the line. They
    told me

    (through a third person)
    they had found it
    but not what it was
    not even

    what line it was. No doubt
    by now, more than a week
    later, they have forgotten
    the secret,

    the line, the name of
    the poem. I love them
    for finding what
    I can’t find,

    and for loving me
    for the line I wrote,
    and for forgetting it
    so that

    a thousand times, till death
    finds them, they may
    discover it again, in other
    lines

    in other
    happenings. And for
    wanting to know it,
    for

    assuming there is
    such a secret, yes,
    for that
    most of all.

     
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  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    GLOW

    "A star wrapped in skin,
    Clouded with fear.
    Embrace who you are,
    Feel the clouds clear.
    I am of you
    As you are of me;
    In closed eyes of faith,
    This truth can be seen.
    Blind your mind to the
    Facade of smiles,
    Face every lesson,
    Attend each trial,
    Then feel that love
    Spark up your soul.
    You're a star, holding night
    Just to feel your own glow."

    Heather Lea
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Odi et Amo
    by Joy Davidman, 1937


    I would have given you this flower or that,
    Tears for your pleasure, roses for your grief,
    Would bind my precious hair into a mat

    Before your feet, or bring a silken leaf
    To kiss your thirsty mouth away from dearth;
    Would bind my thoughts into a summer sheaf

    Of corn arisen from a barren earth
    To nourish you forever; and would bend
    This fire to sing contentment on your hearth.

    This little pleading image of your friend,
    This fabric knit and riveted for life,
    I would have brought you, careless of the end;

    A flare of laughter, and a fancy rife
    With spirits to inform the silver breath;
    All this for love; for this ungentle strife

    I shall find present ways to give you death.

     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
  12. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    "No matter how much of a shitshow
    the modern world turns into,
    there’s still an unbroken stillness
    out there by the waters at dawn.
    And the trees still whisp in the wind
    and the birds still flutter in the sky
    and the lilacs still rise from the soil
    of springtime meadows. Regardless of it all,
    there are still sacred places to escape
    to when the blood begins to falter.
    Go there. Often. Don’t become
    the majority."
    -- Poetic Outlaws
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    ~FORGIVE YOURSELF
    Forgive yourself
    For what you had to do to survive
    Forgive yourself, for who you were,
    before you knew better.

    Forgive yourself
    for being fallible, broken,
    and being less than perfect.

    Touch the earth
    in your small humanness
    Feel the dirt, beneath your feet, between your fingers
    and how your tears water the parched and
    cracked, soil.

    Forgive yourself
    For not being more, knowing more
    For having to learn through experience, or the hard way.

    For what you did to survive life's winters,
    over life's thin ice.

    For your mistakes.

    You survived.

    You are here.

    And in the forgiveness
    Let your hands reach down
    to soothe your broken heart
    and from there, the broken hearts of others.

    For we grow humble in our falls
    Compassionate through our imperfection,
    not our perfection.

    Forgive yourself
    Let the weight of these lessons hold you firmly
    in their dark wisdom
    to the earth.
    And from there, like a sky of shining lanterns~
    set your soul free.
    ~Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer)
    Midwives of the Soul
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2023
    wegs likes this.
  14. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    You don’t have to be spectacular.
    Be a shack.
    Fall apart.
    Learn the immense grace
    inside of humility.
    Be honest.
    Let parts of yourself go
    in the name of truthfulness
    and love.
    This life is a shell.
    We don’t need to decorate it
    with other people’s impressions.
    Grow inside it
    through the ongoing and simple
    commitment to kindness.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Author unknown
     
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  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    "Our educational system tells us
    that we can all be
    big-ass winners
    it hasn't told us
    about the gutters
    or the suicides
    or the terror of one person
    aching in one place
    alone
    untouched
    unspoken to
    watering a plant." ~Charles Bukowski
     
  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    In A Dark Time
    Theodore Roethke

    In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
    I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
    I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
    A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
    I live between the heron and the wren,
    Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

    What's madness but nobility of soul
    At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
    I know the purity of pure despair,
    My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
    That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
    Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

    A steady storm of correspondences!
    A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
    And in broad day the midnight come again!
    A man goes far to find out what he is--
    Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
    All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

    Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
    My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
    Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
    A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
    The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
    And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
     
  17. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,253
    Poem by Harryette Mullen

    You are a ukulele beyond my microphone
    You are a Yukon beyond my Micronesia
    You are a union beyond my meiosis
    You are a unicycle beyond my migration
    You are a universe beyond my mitochondria
    You are a Eucharist beyond my Miles Davis
    You are a euphony beyond my myocardiogram
    You are a unicorn beyond my Minotaur
    You are a eureka beyond my maitai
    You are a Yuletide beyond my minesweeper
    You are a euphemism beyond my myna bird



    I've just discovered this poet, and plan to check out her book of poetry, Sleeping with the Dictionary.
     
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  18. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    "I know that I have died before—
    once in November, once in June.
    How strange to choose June again,
    so concrete with its green breasts and bellies . . .
    New York City will not mind.
    At night the bats will beat on the trees,
    knowing it all,
    seeing what they sensed all day."
    --Anne Sexton
     
  19. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    “Kindness

    Before you know what kindness really is
    you must lose things,
    feel the future dissolve in a moment
    like salt in a weakened broth.
    What you held in your hand,
    what you counted and carefully saved,
    all this must go so you know
    how desolate the landscape can be
    between the regions of kindness.
    How you ride and ride
    thinking the bus will never stop,
    the passengers eating maize and chicken
    will stare out the window forever.

    Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
    you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
    lies dead by the side of the road.
    You must see how this could be you,
    how he too was someone
    who journeyed through the night with plans
    and the simple breath that kept him alive.

    Before you know kindness as the deepest thing
    inside,
    you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
    You must wake up with sorrow.
    You must speak to it till your voice
    catches the thread of all sorrows
    and you see the size of the cloth.

    Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
    only kindness that ties your shoes
    and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
    purchase bread,
    only kindness that raises its head
    from the crowd of the world to say
    It is I you have been looking for,
    and then goes with you everywhere
    like a shadow or a friend.”
    ― Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems
     
  20. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    "Social Security" by Terrence Winch

    "No one is safe. The streets are unsafe.
    Even in the safety zones, it’s not safe.
    Even safe sex is not safe.
    Even things you lock in a safe
    are not safe. Never deposit anything
    in a safe-deposit box, because it
    won’t be safe there. Nobody is safe
    at home during baseball games anymore.

    At night I go around in the dark
    locking everything, returning
    a few minutes later
    to make sure I locked
    everything. It’s not safe here.
    It’s not safe and they know it.
    People get hurt using safety pins.

    It was not always this way.
    Long ago, everyone felt safe. Aristotle
    never felt danger. Herodotus felt danger
    only when Xerxes was around. Young women
    were afraid of winged dragons, but felt
    relaxed otherwise. Timotheus, however,
    was terrified of storms until he played
    one on the flute. After that, everyone
    was more afraid of him than of the violent
    west wind, which was fine with Timotheus.
    Euclid, full of music himself, believed only
    that there was safety in numbers."
     
  21. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    “The adults forgot to tell the kids there isn't much to do,
    That all this free time is quite hard to get through.
    You can read a nice novel and paint something new,
    But those activities are actually pretty isolating too.
    That's why we glance over at red lights, curious if others feel it too.”
    ― Karl Kristian Flores, Can I Tell You Something?
     
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  23. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,253
    Using the ChatGPT site, my request was to ''create a poem about science.'' I didn't make any edits. It's a little clunky, but not bad.


    In the realm where wonders unfold,
    Where knowledge seeks, and truths are told,
    There lies a beacon burning bright,
    Guiding us through the depths of night.

    Science, the grand explorer's art,
    Unveils the secrets of every part,
    From atoms dancing in cosmic flight,
    To galaxies adrift in eternal light.

    Through lenses fine, we peer afar,
    To catch a glimpse of a distant star,
    With telescopes that pierce the veil,
    We unravel stories that stars regale.

    In laboratories, sparks ignite,
    A symphony of curiosity takes flight,
    Microscopes revealing worlds unseen,
    Unlocking mysteries, one by one, serene.

    Chemical reactions, they ignite,
    Like alchemists' dreams in dazzling light,
    Elements entwined, compounds enthrall,
    From humble matter, miracles do sprawl.

    Nature's patterns, so mesmerizing,
    Mathematics, their language harmonizing,
    Equations dance upon the page,
    Revealing truths from age to age.

    Through biology's intricate weave,
    Life's tapestry, a sight to perceive,
    From cells that pulse with vibrant breath,
    To ecosystems teeming, birthing death.

    Physics, the fundamental force,
    Unraveling laws with rigorous discourse,
    From gravity's pull to light's ballet,
    Unveiling nature's choreography, they say.

    And in the realm of human minds,
    Imagination intertwined,
    Science sparks the flame of invention,
    Giving life to progress and comprehension.

    Yet, with each discovery unfurled,
    Humility, a lesson for the world,
    For science thrives in humble awe,
    Acknowledging limits, seeking truth raw.

    So let us journey, hand in hand,
    Through the realm where science expands,
    For in its embrace, we truly find,
    The boundless wonders of humankind.
     

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