Category: poetry

The museum of my heart

Twisted feet can still walk if we can bear the pain

I’ve got just one letter
written in your hand
One short letter
I understand,
One is as infinity
compared to having naught.
I’ll keep this letter
In the museum of my heart.
’ve only got  one photograph
and that is  very old
but to me this photograph
is more valuable than gold
Time has thundered by.
Is it now too late?
But may there be a second chance?
Let’s not  accept  love’s fate.
No matter how we falter,
No matter how we fail
Can we still forgive ourselves,
and rewrite this  sad tale.
One more letter,
One more   heartfelt smile,
That will be sufficient
To rebirth a love grown frail.
For once this love was stronger
Once this love was true;
So now we are wondering
If we may create our love anew

Consummated with a kiss.

Sacred the  love the rose dwells in;
Thorns protect what lies within.
Precious flower designed for bliss
Consummated with a kiss.

Eternity is one moment
When chattering minds are each silent.
The warp and weft of life  itself
Has value more than human wealth.

 
So passive be, with patience blessed
Focus wide and all relaxed
We wait like this  with music ‘joyed
So quietly played, all hurt’s destroyed.

The rose by nature of design
Gives peace to both the heart and mind.
And so it is with this  green world
Of   blossom,  bush,  and petals curled.

In a storm  small  butterflies
Dance  in spaces small yet blithe.
Between the hailstones they will  live
And of themselves entirely give.

We too  find our sacred space
When with nature we embrace.
We  like flowers must grow and die.
We fall to dust and thus shall fly.

In the sunlight dust motes dance
As if by brightness full entranced.
We, like them ,do not compete
For  that love which us completes

For as we’re nothing,we are free
For God made you and God made me.
As we have no pride or will
We trust in One   who will fulfil.

 

Note:self abandonment ,which is a practice of the mystics .is abandonment to God.This desire for self abandonment can be used by totalitarian regimes to make the crowd do their will.Like other of our desires it has to be directed rightly.So we move between this passivity and active thought and will which guides us rightly.We musy not abandon ourselves to governments or politicians and leaders,not even  the Pope or other religious leaders.

 

 

 

My lover, it is I.

My pink cat is so beautiful.
His name is Coloured Cat.
He lives inside my dreaming head,
He is both round and flat.
My lover rides a bicycle
He comes round here for tea.
He loves to eat my chocolate cake
And he also loveth me!
My children dwell in other parts,
I cannot see them now.
They dwell with angels singing high.
Their shape is called The Plough.
They plough the  entire universe
I see them in the sky.
My pink cat rides my bicycle.
My lover, it is I.

I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom,

7985150_f260.jpgAmerican Life in Poetry: Column 574

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREAFacebook Like Button

When I was a boy, because of the song, I thought there really was an Easter parade, but the Easters came and went without one. But here’s a glimpse of just a little piece of a parade by Kim Dower, who lives in Los Angeles. Her forthcoming book is Last Train to the Missing Planet, Red Hen Press, 2016.

I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom,

breezy, floral, dancing with color
soft, silky, flows as I walk
Easter Sunday and you always liked
to get dressed, go for brunch, “maybe
there’s a good movie playing somewhere?”
Wrong religion, we were not church-goers,
but New Yorkers who understood the value
of a parade down 5th Avenue, bonnets
in lavender, powder blues, pinks, hues
of spring, the hope it would bring.
We had no religion but we did have
noodle kugel, grandparents, dads
who could fix fans, reach the china
on the top shelf, carve the turkey.
That time has passed. You were the last
to go, mom, and I still feel bad I never
got dressed up for you like you wanted me to.
I had things, things to do. But today in L.A.—
hot the way you liked it—those little birds
you loved to see flitting from tree to tree—
just saw one, a twig in its mouth, preparing
a bed for its baby—might still be an egg,
I wish you were here. I’ve got a closet filled
with dresses I need to show you.

The trees are calm for they have grown deep roots

 

When of the world of doctors,I am sick.
When diagnosis is not any aid
When from the choices given, I cannot pick
Although I feel my deepest debts were paid.

Then off from thinking I must take my mind
To gaze upon the beauty of the woods
And feel the sun not fiery, even kind.
It warms and heartens even my cold blood.

The trees are calm for they have grown deep roots
Though storms may strike their trunks and branches too
breaking off new tender green tipped shoots
They sway and take it without much to do.

Strength needs flexibility and give;
With no such, the brittle shall not live

An old poem

IMG_0056.JPG

In London town,I saw the moon.
It looked  so darned impressive.
So I lay down upon my coat
Where I could write this missive.

After lying staring up,
I began to feel  so lazy.
I thought I saw the Pope go by.
Do you think I’m going crazy?

He was in a large white car
Wrapped up  well in tartan.
I know you won’t believe me but
I felt almost certain.

I went to a free soup kitchen,
As I’m a homeless person.
I saw ten angels looking down,
So I called  to them “Stop staring”

I went inside a shop doorway
To get an hour of sleep.
I dreamed I dwelt in the old U K
It nearly made me weep.

If I really was in old England
I ‘d have the N.H.S.
I’d have a some benefits to spend
And a  warm  red  Xmas dress

Liminal and long

After nine months comes the crisis feared;

Acknowledgement of total,long feared loss.

With grievous pain ,the soul and heart are seared,

As we feel inside us all it’s cost,

 

The threshold of  this world   and of the new

A place to linger, liminal and long

We cannot see  new  landscapes in one view.

Without perception we may well  go wrong.

 

We wonder as we reach the point of choice

Who will guide us when we  must decide?

Shall we hear an inner,wiser voice

Or walk  with indecision by our side?

 

Loss brings   grief;evasion  does not heal.
Lonely ,we must eat this final meal

 

 

Till you feel the same

Her beauty was incongruous with her mind
For men who saw her  curls were not amused.
Her conversation with them seemed  unkind.
Or possibly their own brains were confused.

She should have been beheaded or beqeathed
To someone who could enjoy all  that she had.
Alas she was by clever men deceived
Until at last she became raving mad.

Think what you like,she cares no more
For men’s opinions change ten times an hour.
And if  her lover shows her his  front door
She’ll ask the king to send him to the Tower.

Does this  life have meaning  is it a  pain?
Do not answer till you feel the same.

 

 

Then we shall learn the limits of our will

When soft winds blow and air strokes our bare skin.
When days are long like melodies of youth,
when light wakes up the soul from out her sin
Then shall we know when this sweet life is truth?

When flowers droop and leaves are dried and brown;
When water’s short and all  plants are forlorn’
Then do not meet disaster with a frown,
For out of heartfelt sorrow new life’s born.

When winter’s here and all is quiet and still
And nothing seems to move or grow or speak
Then we shall learn the limits of our will
for through the soil the first green shoots will break.

For seasons change and actors come and go.
Yet through such changes, life is what we know

Last train to Moscow

Elena,a baby wrapped in woollen clothes.
On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,
[ change Niegoreloje.]
1939.Father,mother,brother
You passed through the Arctic Wastes of life.
Still as if travelling on a train
To an impossibly far destination.
As you left the German Army crashed into Poland
Lost,your aunts
Your cousins.
Your culture.
How does God select the damned?
You had your own baby,here in England,
Not lost like all those others.
Your father died by his own hand,
The hand of history;
The fingers twitching,
Not sure where to point.
Then settling into frozen grief
A sculpture only your mother saw.
You saw too,Elena.
You always saw,though you can’t remember;
The long journey,your mother’s breast,
Your father’s silence.
Only the dead know that silence.
Only the dead weep
With the rocks and stones .
And the ice in each eye
Fell like snow down your cheeks
As you held your own infant.
Warsaw to Moscow,
Moscow to Jerusalem.
Always journeying
Looking for what they can never find:
The home they left behind
The presence of the dead
Lying in gaunt heaps
Like rubbish
Your aunts, Elena.
Your cousins.
You never knew them.
But there’s a hole in your mind
Through which the Polish wind blows forever.

I shall know when you are gone

I have loved you and I’ve held you.
Many years,you have been mine;
If the time has come for parting

Let us embrace for one last time.
I know you have to leave me,
Though you desire a longer stay.
Let me hold you in my arms now
For just tonight and perhaps one day

Then I’ll watch you travel on now.
We take this last step all alone.
I’ll be here beside you always..
I shall feel when you are gone.

May you accept,may you surrender.
May you reach the promised land.
Into this earth my tears will fall, love,
As I recall your tender hands.

To let the life within us start to flow.

 

Now speaks the earth of spring and all its joys.
Now flowers and blossom soothe our  lonely eyes.
So happy are the lovers,girls and boys;
As in the  daisied meadows they may lie.

 

Now speaks the sun and makes us  want to grow
To open like the flowers for his love
Too heart and mind and soul to show

With  blessings sent down to us  from above.

Now every part of nature is in flood
Fresh leaves point down from trees to holy nests.
The birds are active in this little wood;And dwelling on the tree branch, breast to breast.

So. let’s not waste time brooding on our thoughts.
For we may miss the joy which spring has brought

The music of you

The music of

your voice

I shall never hear.

I shall never

play a duo with you.

Would we harmonize?

Or find some compromise?

Does one need to hear

the sound of someone's heart,

transposed into verbal music..

Or can we manage without it?

Ideolect

Sociolect.

Circumspect?

Words reveal the lost soul.

But not the whole story.

Play it again

But this time

Speak it.

I want to hear the music

Of you.

Loving kindness

Is desire for love incongruous  with my age,
As faces show the signs of  burdens born?
And if it is then shall I vent my rage
Or turn my mind to create  poetic form?

In Eden,which was in our mother’s arms,
We felt  warm skin and heard her beating heart.
But now when we begin to lose our charms
Must we for the cemetery depart?

I know now it’s our spirit which attracts
And keeps our friends and lovers close at hand.
Misery and rages will detract’
Make a lover kind feel quite unmanned.

 

We have no human right to love demand;
But  loving  kindness brings more  friends to hand.

I see more clearly where my comfort lie

When death and loss and grief fill up my heart
And behind an icy wall I am entrapped
Where should my work of holy healing start
Where is the hidden place where loss is mapped?
As on the earth I walk amongst the trees
And on the grass I lay my sleeping head
I make my friends from stinging wasps and bees
Who comfort me on this my own deathbed.
Yet do not sun and moon still shine as bright?
Do not men and women tender lie.
Does not this small glowworm give me light?
Do not courting tom cats saunter by?
With wider vision spreading from my eyes
I see more clearly where my comfort lie

Love me like a tea of finest brew



Oh,take me hold me,love me like you do

With kisses sweet, commend me  to your heart

Love me like  a tea of finest brew.

Love me like a coxes pippin tart.

oh,dance  me,swing  me, let me feel alive.

And let me feel your melody anew.

We get what we desire yet don’t deserve.

When one  is made from  love between the two.

Oh. lend me your  maths textbooks for   a while

I love  irrational numbers like a child.

and transcendental  pies do me beguile

i  feel tonight  my numbers dancing wild.

So ambiguous is  my attitude to men

I wave and then I particle again


	


	



			
				


			

			
The nasturtiums
		
	
	

		
Stems of  long nasturtiums  catch my foot;


For from the red brick path I let it slip.


And spiders  fill the long neglected hut.


I peer though windows and regain my grip.


 


The yellow flowers are eaten with the leaves.


Mixed with oil and lemon they taste good.


Yet  a maternal gardener in me grieves


For I have watched them since they were in bud.


 


The truth that I evade again explodes


That little buds and flowers  will  have to  die.


And even as these flowers  grow more bold


They’re still a crop, and so with grief I cry.


 


Yet life is process and goes on and on….


Even when particular loves are gone

	


	



			
				


			

			
Love is clear to me  now like the face of a new born daisy
		
	
	

		















What was so wrong about asking




































About your absence from this world

And trying to grab you back

holding onto your coat tail

Eternity’s long enough already

We don’t need your vapour trails.

Was it a wicked thing to do

As you floated so far away

To reach out to touch you once more

I admit I never knew you kept score.

When I beat you at chess so long ago

Were you already packing bags

to throw out the door?

I knew it was the real thing

But some men never do.

You have your expectations

And your tests and rules

But we never learned those

In our higher math schools.

We learned rigour and icy vision

We learned definition and precision.

But what use are they in loving

I didn’t know how to steer with no maps

You were off anyhow.

The orchestra stoped playing

When they saw the gap.

You can’t fly forever

But I do be leaving you.

In the circumstances

What else does a woman like me do.

You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight

Suck in those cheeks and hide your love.

What’s coming after you’s an eagle or a crow

Not a dove…it’s black I know

When you toss it all away then

Seems like it’s long past time

and emotion to call it a day.

Come again…..you must be crazy


Go tell it to a new born daisy.











































	


	



			
				


			

			
“To See a World…”
		
	
	

		


This is like Hamlet… full of quotations.In other words much of it has passed into common language


William Blake




“To See a World…”


(Fragments from “Auguries of Innocence”


To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.

He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song 
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.  


	


	



			
				


			

			
You are gone
		
	
	

		


 


In the sunlit bare twigs


brown and golden


like my hair


blackbirds make a flurry


wings stuttering as they hover.


.Here in the spring garden


I feel your presence


You are just behind me


But if I turn


You are gone


You never speak


Except


through the whispering branches


and the nodding bluebells


Old honesty heads agree


As the seeds are glimpsed


through the papery dead heads


Wonder if they will ever fall to earth

	


	



			
				


			

			
My Pretty Rose Tree – Poem by William Blake
		
	
	

		




A flower was offered to me,

Such a flower as May never bore;

But I said ‘I’ve a pretty rose tree,’

And I passed the sweet flower o’er.


Then I went to my pretty rose tree,

To tend her by day and by night;

But my rose turned away with jealousy,

And her thorns were my only delight.



	


	



			
				


			

			
The Sick Rose
		
	
	

		












O Rose thou art sick.


The invisible worm,


That flies in the night


In the howling storm:


Has found out thy bed


Of crimson joy:


And his dark secret love


Does thy life destroy.








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Discover this poem’s context and related poetry, articles, and media.


POETWilliam Blake 1757–1827


POET’S REGIONEngland


SCHOOL / PERIODRomantic


SUBJECTSDeath, Trees & Flowers, Relationships, Nature, Love, Living, Classic Love, Desire, Break-ups & Vexed Love, Heartache & Loss


POETIC TERMS Rhymed Stanza








More about this poem











	


	



			
				


			

			
The spirit freed by man
		
	
	

		
Ariel, the spirit freed by man,


From  Tempest  to the work of Sylvia Plath


Made famous as a horse on which she ran


In such bitter, suicidal wrath.


 


Or was this  a rebirth that never came


The risk she took,  a gamble,  careless,wry.


For death of body is no children’s game


And from a  husband  brings a hellish sigh.


 


Was this a test to see if we survive;


As madmen  may stick knives into their hearts


To see the blood is real and so derive


A knowledge that they live and are a part?


 


The test we make to see if we’re not dead


May kill us and so end  the work of God.

	


	



			
				


			

			
Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
		
	
	

		
How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose










Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.

Their intricate petals form a shield

Yet bees with striped force shall make them yield.


Appearances,both natural and contrived,

Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.

As, knowing not, we pluck the apple rare

And bite its flesh,with teeth we have to bare.


We too deceive the innocent who pass

Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.

The windows break,the deep earth quakes;

Seized is the maiden ,he  her virtue takes.


Beneath the surface,force and fierceness thrive.

What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives?









	


	



			
				


			

			
And cultivate my hatred with my tears?
		
	
	

		
Shall I give home to grievance and  to woe


And cultivate my hatred with my tears?


Shall I remember  carefully each blow?


And add this sorrow to my anxious fear.


 


I  thought by hating you I would have peace


And surely I had reason without doubt.


Yet  rumination  gave me no  release..


For wisdom and compassion it did flout


 


I remembered then  past love and  shared sweet words


I gave  them freedom in my anguished heart.


I did it for your sake, yet then occurred


A sweetness, joy and gladness in all parts.


 


To  forgive,repent and  let go of such grief


Helps us more than hatred’s legal briefs


 


 

	


	



			
				


			

			
Deer Descending
		
	
	

		
7321081_ddc4f0581d_m-300x225




From American Life in Poetry: Column 573


BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE














Philip Terman is a Pennsylvania poet who, with his family, lives in a former one-room schoolhouse. And whenever there’s a one-room schoolhouse you can count on just a little wilderness around it. This is from his new and selected poems, Our Portion, from Autumn House Press.






Deer Descending 


Perhaps she came down for the apples,


or was flushed out by the saws powering


the far woods, or was simply lost,


or was crossing one open space for another.


She was a figure approaching, a presence


outside a kitchen window, framed


by the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes,


the after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky,


a shape only narrow bones could hold,


turning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak.


I want my life back.


Morning settles around her like a silver coat.


Rustling branches, hooves in flight









	


	



			
				


			

			
No form,no freedom
		
	
	

		


























There is form and therefore there is free verse.


Without form there is no freedom.


Without craft,there is no Art.


Without self forgetting there is no  new creation.


“Trying” is always a mistake.


Without silence there is no speech..


Without song,there is no silence.

















	


	



			
				


			

			
Words float like water
		
	
	

		


 


Words float like water in a stream,

Reflected gently by sunbeams.

This stream flows swiftly to my heart

And through these words your love is caught.


The space inside my heart is clear,

Your love will find its right home here.

Your words are treasures in my night,

And in the dark, they glow with light.


Oh,let me read your notes of bliss,

And seal them with a loving kiss.

I hope this stream will always go

Where living waters softly flow.


For love is kind, and love is true.

Connections form from me to you.

And love creates an open heart,

From which all other feelings start.


Yet love is free, and does not bind.

Love is glad,and not unkind.

So if my love displeases you,

Then you can find a lover new.


I have life inside my heart

Which will sustain me if we part.

I shall wish you happiness…

And know my grief will one day pass.


But for today,let’s laugh and play.

Let’s make love inside the hay.

It’s summer and we like the heat.

Let’s celebrate with kisses sweet.

	


	



			
				


			

			
The flower
		
	
	

		
The butterfly is like a flower


which moves its station every hour.


Oh,happy is he on the wing.


The vision makes me quick to sing.


The flower is open in the sun,


And to its heart, true love shall come.


The bees shall feast and fly replete


With nectar they are now full sweet.


I sing of colour and of love;


Blessings that rain down from above.


I wish to be a flower too.


Ah,that the bee could but be you.


Copyright

	


	



			
				


			

			
No handkerchief shall I boil e’er again
		
	
	

		
When tasks and labour wear us into shreds

And burning sun does shrivel up the skin

Shall we like lovers leap into our beds

And see how rapidly we can now sin?


When vests and Y fronts decorate the halls

when trousers seem to multiply at speed

With thermal undies ready for a ball

And bras converse with panties as they breed.


Then shall I throw the whole lot in the trash.

As sorting and disposing invokes wrath.

We’ll wear nothing but watercolour wash

Until in winter we all sneeze and cough,


No handkerchief shall I boil e’er again

To signify my fresh revolt from men.

	


	



			
				


			

			
Life is what we know
		
	
	

		










When soft winds blow and air strokes our bare skin.

When days are long like melodies of youth,

when light wakes up the soul from out her sin

Then shall we know when this sweet life is truth?


When flowers droop and leaves are dried and brown;

When water’s short and all  the ground’s forlorn

Then do not meet disaster with a frown,

For out of heartfelt sorrow new life’s born.


When winter’s here and all is quiet and still

And nothing seems to move or grow or speak

Then we shall learn the limits of our will

When through the soil the first green shoots will break.


For seasons change and actors come and go.

Yet through such changes, life is what we know..