In between the blackest and the bright, Graded shades of grey and lilac lie. These variegated colours give delight. And from my soul, I hear a gentle sigh. As we live, we dwell in mysteries; Must take decisions based on various views. And unknown memories from our history Bring out the old , so misperceive the new. For true perception, we must humble be. Not for moral reasons but for sight. The emptiness lets flood creative seas. And allows in rays of guiding golden light. We need to know we do not know at all. And, trembling, hold the doors of vision wide. So gentle should be judgements when we fail. Then errors we’ll appreciate, not hide. We will deal with life unknown, unclear; Perception is a better guide than fear
Category: poetry
Reality’s too little or too much
Between the wish for changlessness and thrill,
We seldom will be satisfied for long.
Neither is controlled by human will.
As into stormy life, we all are flung
We seldom will be satisfied for long.
Neither is controlled by human will.
As into stormy life, we all are flung
Self-deception shields us from our doubts
We choose to pre-select what we will see.
Pretend to know what our life’s all about
In our little boats on stormy seas.
We choose to pre-select what we will see.
Pretend to know what our life’s all about
In our little boats on stormy seas.
Then later we choose danger for its spice
And with daring climb the mountain with no ropes
We resist the offer of advice
Till ,with broken bones, we sadly mope.
And with daring climb the mountain with no ropes
We resist the offer of advice
Till ,with broken bones, we sadly mope.
Reality’s too little or too much
So ,on our path, our hearts will surely lurch
So ,on our path, our hearts will surely lurch
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Across our mother’s universal face
The worst of wars occur within the home
The earth’s a mother whom we treat with scorn.
Although on foreign trips we gormless roam
We care not how our holy mother’s torn.
The planes’ emissions do not disappear
Our waste is thrown to devastate all space.
The universe is bounded like a sphere
The noxious decorates with thoughtless trace.
The condoms and the women’s bloody cloths
The petrol fumes, the plastic bags, the base
Are scattered like a demon’s tortured wrath
Across our mother’s universal face
Can we avert the death of earth, this fate?
Will we dawdle till it is too late?
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Religion and extended metaphors
Quote:
Reading poetry has since restored my faith in metaphor and how it can extend deeply and cleanly over individual poems, sequences and collections. While writing ‘The Recurrency of Peter Body’, I was interested in exploring the connection between the fallibility yet constancy of the human body and representations of Peter the Apostle. Fortunately for the poem, this connection struck me as obvious. And as I researched – returning to the King James Bible, reading the frescos of Masaccio and paintings of Caravaggio – the resonances revealed themselves, as if inevitably.
However metaphor is not an end in itself. I’m with Derrida in the belief that metaphor is “a basic way of knowing”. It’s active in pressing towards definition – through comparison – and hence towards understanding. So in the poem, for example, I’m also interested in where, in a secular society, we locate our ‘church’. If, as the poem suggests, we locate it with the individual – in the body – then what are the implications of this? It might suggest individualism, egotism maybe, hubris… which is kind-of
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My dreams and love, like dying sparks.
When first I saw your soulful face,
I wished to dwell in your embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.
I wished to dwell in your embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.
To find a home for love without;
To fold my dreams all round about;
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.
To fold my dreams all round about;
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.
I found my dreams were cast aside;
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled
As I lie sleepless in my bed.
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled
As I lie sleepless in my bed.
What is the world when unadorned
With all that in my heart I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace.
As in a mother’s empty face.
With all that in my heart I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace.
As in a mother’s empty face.
On these grey rocks. my path is hard.
From paradise, my self is barred.
To struggle or to grief succumb,
When this dark day of mourning’s done?
From paradise, my self is barred.
To struggle or to grief succumb,
When this dark day of mourning’s done?
Into His dazzling darkness dart
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery so fair.
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery so fair.
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.
Thus my dreams will be transformed
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope,I’ll take an oath:
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope,I’ll take an oath:
“That nothing in my life is waste;
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live again until we die”
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live again until we die”
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What is poetry?
We have the Open University here and I find they have a lot of free courses.I think I will do one as we get into winter.There is a big range of topics/
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With each image ,still your dreaming heart
To write a poem will take our entire heart
Our mind and soul, our body and our dreams.
With trepidation,take a pen and start
Let preconceptions , though well meant, depart
Creative work evades such plans and schemes
To write a poem will shake the entire heart
We travel lands unknown without a chart
With our courage, trust the dark unseen
For inspiration,take our pens and write
We bite the apple,bitter, hard and tart
Knowledge enters in its dream -like streams
To write a poem will move each living heart
No logic,reasoning, signs, however wrought
Will bring to life the holy pattern’s themes
With each image ,still your dreaming heart
The earth ,the oceans, seas, the sacred scenes
Where humans live out daily what life means
To write a poem , we need a mystic’s heart
In emptiness, we fill our pens,we start
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It’s poetry.Gooooood heavens.
Poems are shorter
Shorter than a novel is.
Still – no one reads them.
Except for the ones
Written inside Birthday cards.
Sentiment’s valued.
And we remember
That poor lady of Shallot
Peeling onions.
And also repeat
Nursery rhymes and stories
For little children.
You see thy don’t know
It’s poetry,.Goood heavens.
That is not for me.
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We Manage Most When We Manage Small
What things are steadfast? Not the birds. Not the bride and groom who hurry in their brevity to reach one another. The stars do not blow away as we do. The heavenly things ignite and freeze. But not as my hair falls before you. Fragile and momentary, we continue. Fearing madness in all things huge and their requiring. Managing as thin light on water. Managing only greetings and farewells. We love a little, as the mice huddle, as the goat leans against my hand. As the lovers quickening, riding time. Making safety in the moment. This touching home goes far. This fishing in the air.
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Oh, brilliant leaves
Oh, brilliant leaves are now turned duller red.
The first day of our Brexit winter time.
From the sun bright colour had been bled.
What seemed innate was stolen then instead
As life is taken when we pass our prime
The shimmering leaves are now turned brownish red
Oh,sadly know the leaves face sudden death
Torn from branches where boys used to climb
All the foliage flies in one last breath
Mystics hear the still small voice of God
When all is lost and meaning ‘s but a line
Those high leaves for tramps shall make a bed
When we had it,what was it we had?
We hear the Word when we have paid the fine
Once lovely leaves are now turned dull and dead
For only sun expressed what had been fed.
Continue reading “Oh, brilliant leaves”
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What I thought concealed
We may reveal more than we know when we talk about the weather and other safe topics
When I cannot tell you how I feel
When I want to see you ,not to speak,
I talk about the weather like a fool
Sometimes when I’m tired I feel unreal
Or life seems lost and meaning seems to leak
Then I can not tell you how I feel.
Some months have their winds to make misrule
Others throttle throats and freeze the cheeks
I talk about the weather ,as its cool.
We must keep moving or our blood congeals
So sheep must on moorland frosty, bleak
I don’t want to lie for life is real
When winter mocks our age I find it cruel
Yet you are old and for amusement look
I talk about the sunshine like a fool
Oh,happy snowfalls keeping us from school
As on the ice we tumbled with loud shrieks
When I cannor tell you how I feel
The weather stands for what I have concealed
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Almost good
The last time that he fell he broke our lamp;
The lamp which we had bought on honeymoon
I often sketched it, to my brain it clamped
Enduring sleepless nights in cardiac room.
The canula had torn my vein unseen.
I never knew my sheets filled up with blood;
Saturated by the god,morphine;
Had I died, such end felt almost good
Though why go to such lengths to get a high?
A paralysing pain ran down my neck.
I can rise just staring at the sky.
Without enduring such a savage wreck
The lamp is broken,shade propped up by wall
A painful memory of his fatal fall.
The lamp reminds me of his humorous love
Now my bony hands wear his dear gloves
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The dream poet
Someone said that in our dreams we write plays like Shakespeare which we can’t do in real life.I think dreams are like poetry.They use images,metaphors, and puns.
I dreamed my husband has bought me a house in Ealing [Healing?].And even if we don’t remember them they go on in their hidden life sorting out our daily impressions and excitements.Making play with them.
And sometimes those who write poems will have an experience where there is more in their poem than they knew when they wrote it.Because the act of writing makes images come up from the dark fertile earth of our minds.I didn’t consciously think about the meaning of sleeping on winter leaves before I wrote the poem below.
I have sifted earth
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The cello has a tender singing voice
The cello has a tender singing voice
Allows the feelings which we cannot say.
Among composers, Bach would be my choice
The cello sings rich lyrics with her voice.
Rostropovich , Prague,he wept of course.
Soviet armies marched, the Czechs were flayed.
The cello has a sorrowing truthful voice;
Speaks our feelings when we cannot pray.
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That in this world there is an empty space,
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Underneath the weight of knowledge learned For a moment, we may often ask That in this world there is an empty space, I feel inert like marble on a beach |
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I miss the self
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss your gaze as broad as any hawk’s
I miss your words that were with love imbued
I miss your heart and all our loving new
I miss your humor and your potent thought
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss the words we fashioned from our view
The new ideas by which truths were taught
I miss your words that were with love imbued
I miss the imitations you could do.
Politicians were with laughter caught
I miss the self that I became with you
So much more, the more our knowing grew
As the depths new understanding brought
I miss your words that were with love imbued
Context,frame,perspective all made new
From the flesh a tenderness was lit.
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss your words that made our love anew
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Life is a film and love’s the bond.
I saw you look,I saw you stare
You liked the colour of my hair.
I heard you speak,I felt less bleak
Now I sit near where you were.
I held your hand, on Southwold sands
Your hand was warm,who understands?
Your time was up,you won the lot.
I gave your grace to those forgot.
I rode my bike,St Giles was dark
A car hit me and I saw sparks.
You knew my name, we were the same
I saw real stars, when shot by car.
I saw a hand turn in the sand
Life is a film and love’s the bond.
Your trust complete,I was your sweet
The end is here; it’s no defeat.
For life’s a tale we won’t bewail
You write along the hidden trail.
Your narrative can no more live
You were yourself.,no more to give.
We knit the fabric for the young
And with this gift our song is sung
The melody, sonorous be
For life is good and love is free
And yet I weep whilst I’m asleep
I wish to be with you so deep
Come back again,we’ll live the pain
We’ll weep till we become the rain.
For fire burns and stomachs churn
We may not get what we have earned
Who is the judge,who keeps the ledge
Who will be when love’s alleged?
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In time to the music of the words
http://www.poetryarchive.org/glossary/metre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamb_(poetry)
“Like the rhythm in a piece of music, the metre is an underlying structure. Poets often slip in extra feet, or remove them, or change stress patterns around to prevent monotony, like playing rubato. (Sometimes a poem seems to be exploring how far a line can be pushed without losing all connection with the underlying metre.) This means that the discovery of a foot other than an iamb in the middle of what is otherwise iambic, say, does not stop the poem from being iambic; rather the attention ends up lingering at that point, so the word on the different foot ends up more powerful as it has the attention longer. An example of this can be found in Peter Dale’s ‘Half-Light’; he writes “I’m trying not to give another glance. / Lit window thirty years back up that path.” The first line is a perfectly regular iambic pentameter, but the second introduces an extra stress on “Lit”, so that what the speaker’s trying not to be drawn to seems more powerful, perhaps helping us empathise with him when he does look back and “catch her eye an instant””
Note on the word:iamb
An iamb /ˈaɪæm/ or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in “delay”).
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No woman
No woman ever can be what he dreams Nor can they give comfort,not a goad Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes. And rarely does he ever go abroad. No food he eats will satisfy his tongue. The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk. He grumbles and will not admit to wrong. I‘ve known more men than him of this same ilk. No bed can be the right one for his sleep. No sheets and pillows suit his wary skin. He often has made gentle maidens weep Crying out they’re too fat or boney thin.’ Beware the man who never can adapt For in own lone wishes he is trapped
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The best villanelles of all time
http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Villanelles.htm
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop wrote a small handful of truly great poems such as “One Art,” “The Fish” and “The Armadillo,” and can probably be considered a major poet for those poems alone. “One Art” bends a few rules here and there, with good results, and manages to be both clever and moving at the same time: a considerable accomplishment.
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Parting
You then revealed the face within your face
Tender,gentle, vulnerable and kind
Yet rarely do you feel secure or safe
Outside the sacred space of your own mind.
The look eludes the words that might describe
So rare to let another see our soul.
And when we ask, the vulnerable defy
Sacred is the place and high the toll
With pathos in your eyes, you went away
I was standing on the platform by the train.
Unmoving,still, I stood in silent prayer
As if you were near death and all was vain.
We hide ourselves in fear of wounds too deep,
Yet, all alone, the price may be too steep
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A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent
You revealed the face within your face
Human,lonely,humbler than the ant
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The other face, phlegmatic, has no grace
With it ,you appear quite confident.
Yet you revealed to me your hidden face
I know now of the suffering of your days
A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The Lord says you’re his lamb and gives you grace.
Yet you must hide from men intolerant
You revealed the face within your face
Like Jesus, you were scourged and in disgrace
You wandered feebly like itinerants
The pathos in your eyes makes sad my days
If God exists then would he not embrace
The lost, the lonely, even the vagrant?
You revealed the face within your face
The pathos in your eyes made men seem base.
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Give me your hands
I can’t love you
without loving the whole world too.
I can’t open my heart
unless everyone can be part
Wait for me.
I’m not afraid.
Wait for me.
I may be delayed.
I see you in my mind
Smiling, sad and kind.
I can’t love you
Unless I love the lost too.
Give me your hands
Outstretched across the strands
We’re all one.
Life has begun
I’m not afraid.
Wait for me.
I may be delayed.
I see you in my mind
Smiling, sad and kind.
I can’t love you
Unless I love the lost too.
Give me your hands
Outstretched across the strands
We’re all one.
Life has begun
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I have seen the face within your face
I have seen the face within your face
Humbled ,showing pain which rent my heart
I have felt the ache of your disgrace
You felt worthless like a worm misplaced
Your heart was struck too keenly by sharp darts
I have seen lthe face within your face
A child whom no one even once embraced
Your reticence and silence played its part
I have shared the ache of your disgrace
A bullied child who came last in the race
I condemn men blind , who had no heart
I have seen the pain hid deep inside your face
Then your mask slid into its old place
You caught the train and re-lived this same hurt
I have shared the ache of your disgrace
I hate the people proud but, to me ,base.
Who made your soul and all your being smart
I have seen the face within your face
I have known the ache of your disgrace
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I will taste divine
Make my heart into a cottage pie.
Already it is minced and lies estranged
My enemies insult me with their lies
And my last will and testament is made.
Already it is minced and lies estranged
My enemies insult me with their lies
And my last will and testament is made.
An onion and a carrot chopped up fine,
Saute with these my heart till all are gold
With herbs and spices, I will taste divine
A mashed potato will a rooftop mould.
Do not forget my blood to use as sauce
Though now it’s cold, with garlic make it boil.
For what is gravy but the blood of choice
With sliced onion in ethereal olive oil?
O foes and devils eat me and you’ll be
Transformed into this self, your enemy
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A straightforward demonstration on how to write poetry
We don’t meet
We do not see new people as they are
We clothe them in the dress of people past
Freud gave names to this and more bizarre
We still do not see people as they are
But “recognise” in them who we look for
Reality will have them soon declassed
We do not see new people as they are
We embed in them the love of people past.
This love unreal will soon give way to hate
They ought to be whom we wish them to be.
Then down on them, we bring the hand of fate
This love unreal will soon give way to hate
We do not even think it’s our mistake
Nor that from our desires they should be free
All love unreal will then become our fate
They ought to be our longed for fantasy.
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He hung on me the clothes of his desire
I love him but he does not love me
Although he did seduce me with his art
His complex face I still may wish to see
I love him so but he does not love me.
I puzzle over this anomaly
And wish the grief of lies to leave my heart
I love him but he does not love me
Although he did seduce me ,broke my heart
I detest him yet for I was then unknown
He hung on me the clothes of his desire
And when I called him once on his i phone
He labelled me a whore and quite unknown
His fantasy was not one I could own
Tried,judged ,condemned to perish in his fire
I detest him hate him for I was then known
And knowing me, he sent me to my pyre
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Images odious or pure
This odious slander pains my heart
Commodious, strangled ,sore we part.
Invented words and meanings seen
Where my heart has never been.
When evil is conceived to spite
In the darkness with no light
I’d like to tell you,save your breath
The vision ‘s created by your wrath.
Children fear those faces seen
In flowered wallpaper and in dreams
Some see monsters,some see elves
All conceived by their own self.
If imagined demons writhe
In the corners of the mind
Hard indeed to be secure,
To wrest from fantasy its power.
And to feel that others lie
When your image they defy.
Yet to a mountain, lions are nought
A gazelle in fear is caught.
Images odious or pure
Must be shared by human viewers
Like awakening from a dream
We realise we need not scream.
Though sometimes Pollyana’s ways
Must to anxious fear give way.
Life is good and life is bad
Double vision is not sad
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Together we can play the music
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Fish nudge me with big grins and teeth white
I’m in deep now,never been this deep before The world’s hollow like a shell and I’m out its door. In so deep, the ocean has its own startled floor. I’m down,down.down.never been so dark , so more I can’t rightly tell how I got where I am I think I had an accident,fell over, then I swam. Sometimes it’s a loss, be times it’s a man. I guess I only do it cos I know some folk can. I don’t know if the joy is worth the pain Would I choose to relive if, I was born again? The deep joy is the amazing gain. But the sorrow is damn sad, let’s admit it plain. I’m in deep and it’s over my head What was I thinking of,when I fell out of that bed? I look up and the sea’s so turquoise like that mist is red When we get good and mad and wish some loon was dead. At first, it was all just black,black pain But from the bottom of the well, I looked up with awed love again. That’s when I recalled,feelings are deep and sane Joy is much greater when we’re in the deep,deep zone. I dunno if I’m ever comin’ out. We can’t control it,ain’t that what life’s all about? I’ll never love with innocence again,nor not feel doubt. But I’m no teapot and the devil ain’t got my spout. I’m swimming and the ocean’s so mysteriously bright Down here we don’t have no day nor no night Fish nudge me with big grins and teeth white Sea flowers fondle me and whisper,turn off that light
How my heart speaks 