A poem by Charles Wright

 AFTER READING TU FU, I GO OUTSIDE TO THE DWARF GARDEN

                    by Charles Wright

East of me, west of me, full summer.
How deeper than elsewhere, the dusk is in your own yard.
Birds fly back and forth across the lawn
                                                                looking for home
As night drifts up like a little boat.
Day after day, I become of less use to myself.
Like this mockingbird,
                                    I flit from on thing to the next.
What do I have to look forward to at fifty-four?
Tomorrow is dark.
                                Day-after-tomorrow is darker still.
The sky dogs are whimpering.
Fireflies are dragging the hush of evening
                                                                    up from the damp grass.
Into the world's tumult, into the chaos of every day,
Go quietly, quietly.

from Chickamauga  

@1995 by Charles Wright

SUMMER AND LOVE

 

SONNET 18 by Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate;

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed:

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owes;

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

JUNE IS WEDDING MONTH

Here's a poem from my new book, Sunshine Has Its Limits, explaining marriage.

THE MOTHER OF THE BRIDE EXPLAINS THE FACTS

Think of marriage as a lavish

package you are given

on your wedding day.

It arrives, all radiant

gift-wrap and breath-taking

ribbons and bows,

and is so extravagantly

gorgeous you may wish

it would stay that way.

It takes some time to unwrap.

You’re meticulous in trying

to not pull it to pieces.

When you finally finish

with externals, you notice

some assembly is required.

The directions are in disarray

with too much left unsaid

or jumbled, with loose parts.

It’ll take a long while, maybe

a lifetime, to piece together

using the specific ingredients

you were given and very well

might not resemble what

you intended in the first place.

But remember it is a present,

bestowed with the best

intentions, as love always is.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

                                               Available from Kelsey Books and Amazon

MAY-FLOWERS

MAY-FLOWERS

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Pink, small and punctual,

Aromatic, low, 

Covert in April,

Candid in May,

Dear to the moss,

Known by the knoll,

Next to the robin

In every soul.

Bold little beauty,

Bedecked with thee,

Nature forswears

Antiquity.

Tunisian poet

I visited TUNISIA in late-March and April. While in the city of Tozeur, I met a fellow poet. Her name is SOUAD KHCHIM.

I'm pleased to share one of her poems, translated into English by Dr. Abdellatif Ben Halima:

LOVE

 

When you loved me,

trees had more leaves

and the morning dew appeared

with the light of the sun

and the light of the moon.

When you loved me,

every bird found for itself a nest

and every butterfly a flower.

Palaces found their

kings and life its meaning.

When you loved me,

my heart started to beat

and my lips had a fire in them

and my bosom yielded nothing

but tenderness.

It is your tenderness that gives more

life to my life

and that resurrects me into

an antelope that springs in the desert,

an ever-blossoming flower that knows

no other season but Spring!

 

Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 and died in 1616 on the same day in April as his birth.

He married Anne Hathaway in November of 1582. He was 18 and she was 26 and pregnant with their first child (Suzanna).  The average age of marriage for a woman was 26. William, being 18, was considered a minor and had to have Anne's father's consent to marry. Suzanna was born six months after the wedding. Three years later Anne gave birth to twins, Hamnet and Judith. Anne and William remained married  until his death.

His will of March 25, 1616, a month before he died, states that he left her the second-best bed (with its bedding and curtains).  This was not a slight. The second-best bed was the marriage bed, the best bed being reserved for guests. 

Here is Carol Anne Duffy's poem,"Anne Hathaway."

ANNE HATHAWAY

'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed...'

        (from Shakespeare's will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning word

of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas

where he would dive for pearls. My lover's words

were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses

on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme

to his, now echo, assonance; his touch

a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.

Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed

a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance

and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.

In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,

dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -

I hold him in the casket of my widow's head

as he held me upon that next best bed.

        by Carol Anne Duffy

        from The World's Wife (1999)

Carol Anne Duffy is former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.

MY NEW BOOK

My new book, Sunshine Has Its Limits is here! 

This collection of poems tells the story of a couple's journey, from the exhilaration of first attraction, through marriage and its daily rituals, to the final disenchantment. In the end, one partner accepts the other's estrangement and begins to triumph in self-awareness in this new world. 

Here are two of the poems from my book:

UNRULY ACCRUALS

The same month as the canister

vacuum cleaner dies, she claims

the refrigerator needs replacing.

His comeback is a mischievous grin

with "Does this marriage merit

a second generation of appliances?"

Her relaxed laugh and smile make plain

her disbelief that the usefulness of their

devices is what holds the two together.

Throughout those unruly accruals,

she can count on what persists,

their uncontrived delight in each other,

like some self-evident truth

that becomes its own affirmation.

        Lenny Lianne

        from Sunshine Has Its Limits (Kelsey Books, 2023)

NEITHER PERFECT NOR CONSTANT

Outside her window, a winter wind

batters bushes and leafless branches

of the silver oaks. In the sky,

the Little Dipper, that looked level

in autumn, appears on its side

as though knocked over, its contents gone.

                Who cares what's been lost,

                what's never our to keep?

she asks of no one

but the wordless universe

which, itself, is neither perfect

nor constant.                Like snow,

which overnight conceals

the hardened ground. Her world

it seems is changing clothes

and character. Each incidental

flake drops in the down-

draft, full of flight and fall,

while a chilly quietness grips the air,

like a familiar after shave. 

        Lenny Lianne

        from Sunshine Has Its Limits (Kelsay Books, 2023)

My book is available at

Kelsaybooks.com

    and

on Amazon.

 

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is considered one of Ireland's greatest poets. Born in Dublin, he spent much of his boyhood with his grandparents in County Sligo in western Ireland. In 1987 his family moved to London where he wrote poems, plays, novels and short stories. Much of what he wrote was about Ireland, its landscape and myths. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

One of his best loved poems is "The Lake of Innisfree." For Yeats, the image was what started a poem. He wrote that a window display in London triggered his famous poem:

"I had still the ambition formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill, and when walking through Fleet Street very homesick I heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop-window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. From this sudden remembrance came my poem Innisfree, my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music." 

THE LAKE AT INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and moon a purple glow,

And evening full of linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

        by Willian Butler Yeats

        from THE ROSE (1893)

    

AN IRISH POEM

As St. Patrick's Day is soon, I'm featuring a poem by an Irish poet, Vona Groake, one of the leading Irish poets of her generation.

Born in Mostrim in the Irish midlands in 1964, she's published eleven books of poetry. Groake is the former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. In 2012, Groake was elected a member of the Irish academy of the arts.

Here's her sonnet, FOLDEROL:

FOLDEROL

I have been walking by the harbour

where I see it’s recently sprayed

that Fred loves Freda, and Freda cops Fred.

Which reminds me of you, and the twenty-four

words for ‘nonsense’ I wrote on your thighs and back

(the night you came home from her house with some cock-

and-bull story of missed connections and loose ends)

with passion-fruit lipstick and mascara pens,

Including, for the record: blather, drivel, trash,

prattle, palaver, waffle, balderdash, gibberish, shit.

Thinking I had made a point of sorts, but not

so sure when I woke up to find my own flesh

covered with your smudged disgrace

while you, of course, had vanished without trace.

        by Vona Groake

        Other People's Houses, The Gallery Press

 

Another Love Poem

Here's an unusual love poem:

:

VALENTINE

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife. 

        by Carol Ann Duffy

        From New and Selected Poems 1984-2004 (Picador, 2004) 

Carol Ann Duffy is the former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom (2009-2019), the first female and first Scottish Poet Laureate in the role's 400-year history.

CONSIDER WRITING A LOVE POEM

Valentine's Day will be here before you know it so consider writing a love poem.

You may want to start off writing a short poem. Certainly Emily Dickinson's poems are concise.

It's all I have to bring today (26) 

It's all I have to bring today⎯
This, and my heart beside⎯

This, and my heart, and all the fields⎯

And all the meadows wide⎯

Be sure you count—should I forget

Some one the sum could tell⎯

This, and my heart, and all the Bees

Which in the Clover dwell.

            --Emily Dickinson

For a subject, consider writing about when you first met, describing how you felt and where you were. Or about one of your first dates. Don't forget to ground your poem with heartfelt messages.

One way to write a short poem is to construct it along the lines of a cinquain—but instead of counting syllables as in the traditional cinquain, use words. Jennifer Goode offers suggestions on how to write this short poem:

In line 1, use a noun (that also can be the poem's title)⎯1 word

line 2: a description⎯2 words

line 3: an action⎯3 words

line 4: a feeling (use a phrase)⎯4 words

line 5: a noun (either repeat line 1 or use a synonym) ⎯1 word

Here's what I wrote using Jennifer Goode's exercise:

YOUR KISSES

Kisses,

tasty cocktails,

intoxicate with touching

tenderness. I treasure each

embrace.

Another mode to use is to write an acrostic poem in which every line starts with a letter of a word that is displayed vertically:

    Y

    O

    U

    A

    R

    E

    M

    Y

    A

    L

    L 

Or you could use the letters of "I love you" vertically.

Or use your sweetie's name or a nickname you call him or her.

And finally for the last-minute love-poem writer, there's a website that let's you fill in the blanks (Remember MadLibs?):

www.links2love.com/poem_generator_.htm

💙💚💛💜💙💚💛💜💙💚💛💜

SNOW

For many, January is a time for snow. Some dislike and try to avoid it while others look forward to a good snow.

THE TIME I LIKE BEST

The time I like best is 6am

when the snow is 6 inches deep

which I'm yet to discover

'cause I'm under the covers

fast, fast asleep.

        Roger McGough 

THE SNOW MAN

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

        Wallace Stevens

LIGHT YEAR

The new year has arrived, when many of us take stock and make resolutions to change various aspects of our selves.

 

Light Year, by Gail Collins-Ranadive, asks us to participate in the process of being aware of the natural world and, rather than self-centered choices, to make earth-conscious and season-conscious choices.

"The ancient precept, 'Know thyself,' and the modern

                 precept 'Study nature,' become at last one maxim. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson  

In Light Year, which follows the seasons, Gail Collins-Ranadive asks stimulating questions, taking the reader deeper into their own feelings and attitudes in relation to planet Earth, "to pay attention to the seasonally-changing natural world beyond our ego selves." For each of us, especially writers, these questions become writing prompts.

During this era of climate change and climate crises, Light Year takes us away from feeling despair by giving us a map to action, to being present to Earth in mutually-beneficial ways.

Gail Collins-Ranadive's winning style is gentle and thought-provoking. Light Year is a tender and compassionate invitation to a yearlong journey toward an eco-centered and eco-friendly worldview.

Light Year, by Collins-Ranadive (Wayfarer Books, 2022) is available on Amazon and at wayfarerbooks.org.

The Giving Season

The holidays are all about giving. We give gifts and cards, give love and friendship, give laughter and good times.

Albertos Rios, the poet laureate of Arizona, has a wonderful poem about giving:

WHEN GIVING IS ALL WE HAVE

                                    One river gives 

                                    Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.

We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.

We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it.

We have been wounded by it--

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,

Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,

But we read this book, anyway, over and over again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,

Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.

Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have and I gave you

What I had to give--together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

Copyright 2014 Albertos Rios

in A Small Story About the Sky

Wishing you all the gifts of the season: peace, joy and friendship. 

                                                          

                   

 

THE WOMAN WITH NEWSPAPER SHOES by Penny Perry

My friend, Penny Perry, has a new book! 

The Woman with Newspaper Shoes is an exceptional book of poems by Penny Perry, an eight-time Pushcart nominee.  Set in Southern California, her second collection of poems is at once memoir, cultural and period snapshot and a volume of compelling and grace-filled poems. The 104 poems, all previously published, form a chronicle of struggle, desire, loss and acceptance.

ISBN-13: 978-1-7350556-5-7                        Publisher: Garden Oak Press

LCCN: 2022937588

$15

156 pages

paperback

Valerie Hastings, winner of the 2020 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, said this about The Woman with Newspaper Shoes: "These poems are pure gold. They sing of loss and love, of the dead we carry with us and the living we work to keep alive, of survival, memory, family and, most importantly, the joy of being in the here."

Here is one of the poems from Penny Perry's new book;

THE ORDER OF THINGS

Home from college, she climbs

in the car, squints at my hair.

Her father wants me to look

glamorous like his actress friends.

I wound my hair in sponge rollers

and combed it into a stiff helmet.

I wait for her to tell me

I look stupid. She has always

been my critic-in-residence.

Daughters denigrate their mothers

so they will have the courage

to leave. The order of things.

"I love your hair, Mom," she says.

The car reeks of too sweet hair spray.

Airport palms look like movie trees

on this bright December day.

I streak onto the wrong freeway.

Cars in the next lane zip past.

She sits forward. "We're lost."

Her words anxious puffs of air.

"I want to kill myself. Let's do it together."

She smiles in conspiracy.

"You're not that happy."

Like dove-gray kindling, my fear ignites.

I glance at myself in the car mirror,

a timid woman under a foreign helmet.

She leans against me,

the sweet small weight of her

an arrow in my bow.

I will become a warrior.

I don't know it yet.

Sunglasses hide my wet eyes.

I tell my first lie.

"I know the way home."

    by Penny Perry

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR

 IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR

When the temperatures cool down and the leaves have fallen, there's a mania that grips many people. Pumpkin spice this and pumpkin spice that. Some folks just can't get enough pumpkin spice.

Myself, I prefer it, as most likely it originally was meant to be, as a spice in pumpkin pie.

Here's a poem for this season:

Pumpkin Spice

As the summer heat abates, maturing into Autumn's chill,

Leaves of green change into gold and red and orange and brown.

Groves of apple trees create a crisp aroma that instills

A sense of changing and of cold, of closing, winding down.

I love the fragrances of Fall, the colors of this time of year,

The flavors and the way it feels, the quiet fading ebb.

The world decreases, woes grow small, the air itself becomes more clear,

And everything appears more real, from stars to spiderwebs.

A whiff of cinnamon and cloves, a breath of ginger and nutmeg:

The taste of Fall is in this spice, warm and rich and sweet,

Mulling wine upon the stove, in the oven baking bread;

Pile whipped cream upon a slice of pumpkin pie and eat.

    by Ester Spurrill-Jones

Ester Spurill-Jones is the author of several books of poems and a manual on how to write poems (available on Amazon). She describes herself as Poet, lover, thinker, human and says of herself: 

"I am not an open book although I wish I could be. A part of me is all you see--the rest is hidden deep inside. 

Words have always been my art. They dance for me and sing for me. They laugh for me and cry for me. That are my paint and brushes. They are my clay."

To see more of Ester's work go to:

https://sites.google.com/view/thewordartist/home

November and the waning of the year

November Night

   by Adelaide Crapsey (1878 - 1914)

Listen...
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.

The poem's central image is formed by two elements: the falling leaves and the steps of the ghosts. As in many of Crapsey's poems, she juxtaposes something small and ordinary (such as the leaves) with something large and timeless (here, death). The leaves become a momento mori and the simile that connects them to ghostly footsteps intensifies this.

November Night is in the chinquapin form invented by Adelaide Crapsey.  A cinquain is a five-line poem in which the first line has two syllables; the second, four syllables; the third, six syllables; the fourth, eight syllables and the fifth, and final, line goes back to two syllables.

Adelaide Crapsey's poems (her entire poetic output, less than one hundred poem) often speak of death and dying. Diagnosed with fatal tuberculosis of the lining of the brain in 1911, she began writing cinquains in the same year. These poems reflect her knowledge of her own impending death. The form itself (the gradual increase of syllables from lines one to four, followed by the short final line) is a metaphor for the life of this young woman -- a brief life, cut short.

Crapsey was born and raised in New York. A graduate of Vassar,  she taught briefly until tuberculosis left her bedridden. In addition to her poems, she produced a study of metrics, praised for its clarity. She was 36 when she died.

Here's one more poem by Crapsey:

Release

     by Adelaide Crapsey

With swift
Great sweep of her
Magnificent arm my pain
Clanged back the doors that shut my soul
From life.

And lastly, another November cinquain by Adelaide Craipsey:

Niagara

     Seen on a Night in November

How frail, 
Above the bulk
Of crashing water hangs,
Autumnal, evanescent, wan,
The moon.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  

As a little kid, I loved to dress up and pretend I was a different person.

Here I was a princess

and, here, a ballerina. 

(Both costumes were

sown by my grandmother.)

Even as an adult, I love taking on a different persona.

I'm dressed as Snow White

and holding my book,

The Gospel According to 

the Seven Dwarfs.

Here are two Halloween poems:

HALLOWEEN PARTY

We're having a Halloween party at school.

I'm dressed up like Dracula. Man, I look cool!

I dyed my hair black, and cut off my bangs.

I'm wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs.

I put on some makeup to paint my face white,

like creatures that only come out in the night.

My fingernails, too, are all pointed and red.

I look like I'm recently back from the dead.

Mom drops me off, and I run into school

and suddenly feel like the world's biggest fool.

The other kids stare like I'm some kind of freak-

the Halloween party is not till next week.

       by Kenn Nesbitt

        from his book, 

       When The Teacher Isn't Looking (2005)

 Fie fean I svarte helvete

    by Marsha Segerberg

The clutch on my broom

    is acting up

or maybe it's the carburetor.

    I'm not an expert

but the ride has become

    twitchy and

the backfires are giving me

    a headache.

When I'm crossing the moon

    it's the silhouette

that counts. I can't be looking

    like a drone

from Disneyland. It's dangerous

    out there.

The other night a missile

    went flying by.

I barely snagged it on re-entry but

    my hat blew off.

I had to drop down to pick it up

    and was late

for the gathering and they stirred

    the kettle without me!

Fie faen I svarte helvete!

(I'm told by the author that the title and last line are the worst thing one can say in Norwegian.)