Poetry Pantry #384

Times Square New Year's Eve Ball

Greetings, Friends!  Here we are back in Poetry Pantry again on the last day of 2017.  What I want to know is.....where did the year go?

Our routine in the New Year will remain the same.  Mondays belong to Sherry.  Always be sure to stop in and read who or what she is featuring!  Wednesday is always Midweek Motif, and you will be challenged to write to prompts of either Susan or Sumana.  Friday Rosemary always shares something thought provoking for us to ponder.  Smiles.

This coming Wednesday's Midweek Motif Prompt is "Doorway(s)."  Susan definitely chose a good prompt for this time of year!

I hope you will have time to share a poem with us today.  Link your poem below.  Say hello to us in the comments, and then visit the links of other poets who have shared their work.  I look forward to meeting you on the trail!

Happy Holidays!

Mary, Sherry, Susan,

Sumana and Rosemary

wish you a happy holiday season,

whichever celebration

or tradition you observe.

We are taking a break

through the holidays.

But we will be back New Year's Eve 

with the Poetry Pantry,

ready for a brand new year 

of inspiration, 

and the writing and sharing

of poetry.

We wish to thank you

for your loyalty and participation

at Poets United through the years.

We would not be here

without you.

Poetry Pantry #383

Crater Lake, Utah, in winter

Good Sunday morning to everyone!  We are nearing the shortest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere; and I don't know about you, but I am always glad to have passed that milestone and noticing the days inching longer again.

Thanks to all of you who have participated in Poets United in some way this past week.  And more than that, thank you to each of you who has participated in Poets United this past year.

This past week Sumana provided an inspirational prompt for this time of year - Celebration.  We all have something we can celebrate, and this prompt was very timely.  On Friday Rosemary shared a poem of Eleanor Farjeon - "In a Far Land Upon a Day" which is a timely read, I think. 

We thank Sherry for her wonderful Monday features.  We thank Susan and Sumana for the excellent Midweek Motif prompts they provide each week.  We thank Rosemary for her I Wish I'd Written This, The Living Dead, and Thought Provokers features she shares with us week after week.  We thank each of you poets for your participation here, for your comments on our features, and the visits you make to the poems of other poets. 

Poets United will be taking a holiday break.  After this Poetry Pantry we will have about two weeks off to give us all a bit of a break.  Smiles.  We will resume again on December 31 with a Poetry Pantry on the last day of the year, for those who are interested in ending the year with a sharing of poetry!

With no further delay, let's share poetry!  Link your one poem below.  Stop in the comments and say hello! And visit the poems of those who link.  I look forward to seeing you on the trail.  And, of course, happy holidays!

The Living Dead

~ Honouring our poetic ancestors ~

In A Far Land Upon A Day

In a far land upon a day,
Where never snow did fall,
Three kings went riding on the way
Bearing presents all.

And one wore red, and one wore gold,
And one was clad in green,
And one was young, and one was old,
And one was in between.

The middle one had human sense,
The young had loving eyes,
The old had much experience,
And all of them were wise.

Choosing no guide by eve and morn
But heaven's starry drifts,
They rode to find the Newly-Born
For whom they carried gifts.

Oh, far away in time they rode
Upon their wanderings,
And still in story goes abroad
The riding of the Kings.

So wise, that in their chosen hour,
As through the world they filed,
They sought not wealth or place or power,
But rode to find a child. 

– Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965)

I've featured Eleanor Farjeon a couple of times already in the last few months (here and here, if you missed them) and in the course of researching her I came across this poem, which I thought would be great to save and share with you near Christmas.

Even for those of us who are not church-going Christians, it's a wondrous story with deep meaning, and I like the way it is told here (by one who was a believer).

Her writing often includes her delight in the natural world; her appreciation of folk tales and mythology, which she subtly reworks to make her own, adding a new dimension; and her wisdom about human nature. Here, too, you may find those things. But she was, above all, a lovely story-teller – or a teller of lovely stories – and this, also, you can see in this piece.

The ballad rhythm (a loosely metrical pattern of alternating 4-beat and 3-beat lines) can gallop inappropriately in the hands of an inexperienced poet. She avoids that trap, slowing the lines with commas, multi-syllabic words, extra syllables in some bars, and long vowels – just enough of them to do the work unobtrusively. I also like the naturalness of the rhymes – except in the first verse, where they seem a bit forced to contemporary ears; but when Farjeon began writing, inverted syntax for the sake of rhyme was an accepted convention. And it does rather fit the understated grandeur she achieves in simple, straightforward, yet artfully chosen words.

Enjoy!

Image from Public Domain

Material shared in 'The Living Dead' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may be out of copyright).

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Celebration

      “Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.”— Plautus

SOURCE

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration.  Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.  Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.  To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle. . . . Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Midweek Motif ~ Celebration

Celebrations compel all to look forward to it, to have fun, to enjoy, to de-stress.

There’s no dearth of celebrations in this world. From the tiniest particle to the cosmos is in a mood of celebration.

For people everywhere there are funny, bizarre, interesting, solemn, traditional, religious celebrations.

Celebrations are part of our lives bestowing a sense of belonging, recognizing, strengthening and honoring relationships & also adding a purpose to life.

Life itself can be celebrated too, in a breath of gratitude.

Now it’s time for Celebration. It’s your choice how you connect your poems to it.

Sunbeam

by Anna Akhmatova

I pray to the sunbeam from the window-

It is pale, thin, straight.

Since morning I have been silent,

And my heart - is split.

The copper on my washstand

Has turned green,

But the sunbeam plays on it

So charmingly.

How innocent it is, and simple,

In the evening calm,

But to me in this deserted temple

It’s like a golden celebration,

And a consolation.

I Love You Sweetheart

by Thomas Lux

A man risked his life to write the words.

A man hung upside down (an idiot friend

holding his legs?) with spray paint

to write the words on a girder fifty feet above

a highway.
 And his beloved,

the next morning driving to work.
.
.
?

His words are not (meant to be) so unique.

Does she recognize his handwriting?

Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before

of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?

And did he call her at work

expecting her to faint with delight

at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?

She will know I love her now,

the world will know my love for her!

A man risked his life to write the world.

Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love

is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb

and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,

regardless, no exceptions,

always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

                

       

 When The New Year

by Rg Gregory

when the new year

came out of nowhere

and peeped into rooms

it was so flattered to find

all the tv's drinking its health

praising its innocent appearance

it responded with its warm

dark smile and went round

filling people's dry hearts

with joy   

over the coming weeks though

those same tv's attacked it

criticising its puerile style

its sickly contemptible face

one year is the same as another

(they said) for the doom

time belabours us with

it took the year all

its length to discover

that the celebration

so welcoming its birth

just happened to be

where the beer was

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

          Susan’s Midweek Motif on 3/01/2018 will be ~ Doorway(s)

BLOG OF THE WEEK ~ AN UPDATE WITH EILEEN O'NEILL

Today, my friends, we are catching up with   one of Poets United's very first members, Eileen O'Neill, who writes at My Poetic Parlance. Eileen lives across the pond in Cheshire, England, a very beautiful landscape. Pour yourself a cup of Earl Grey tea, draw your chairs in close, and let's find out what Eileen has been up to recently.

Sherry: Eileen, we are so happy to be catching up with you. Our newer members will be most pleased to know more about you.  We so appreciate your loyalty all these years, Eileen. You are a very valued member of Poets United.

Eileen: Thank you so much, Sherry, for this wonderful opportunity to refresh my connection with Poets United.

I have been a member from the  formation of Poets United by Robert Lloyd, back in 2010. It was a most welcoming community of Poets back then, and still has that warmth of welcome today.

Sherry: Yes, I owe a great deal to Robb Lloyd for welcoming me to Poets United in 2010. What a journey it has been since then. Poets United opened the world of online poetry to me. Would you bring us up to date with your life since we last spoke?  I gather you have done some traveling. And I have been watching your adorable grandson growing up on facebook. Tell us about him, too, won’t you? 

Sherry, since my last interview in 2012, many things have changed. My original writing blog, Words and Thoughts, is now sadly dormant,  due to the infringement of my blog site by an unscrupulous marketing company. My posted poems were stolen and relocated to their marketing site. It was a very bad experience, which caused me to start my present poetry blog: My Poetic Parlance

Sherry: I remember when that happened. It was horrifying, and frightening. 

Eileen: During that time, I also set up a Twitter account @Eileenton and found the idea of writing brief poems at a poetry interest site very rewarding. Having to contain a poem within 140 characters encouraged me to develop an extra style of poetic formation. My previous poetry compositions were of varying lengths and, generally, a non-rhyming style.

My world has also changed so much, as I am grandmother to Michael, who is now six years old. He is the darling of our family and has so many joys to bring to us with every visit.

Michael has an amazing personality and endears himself to everyone he meets. A little philosopher, artist, guitar player, singer, footballer, lover of cars and a true adventurer of life.

His creative spirit is very much to the fore and it rarely rests.

Sherry: He is adorable, Eileen - such a bright spirit! How he must brighten your lives.

Would you tell us a bit about growing up in Belfast? I know your heart is always with what is going on there. Have you been back in recent years? 

Botanic Gardens, Belfast

Eileen: I grew up in the south of Belfast city, where the university is situated. It was a most wonderful area and, luckily, escaped the worst of the situations which happened during that dreadful period of time, known as The Troubles. It was still a time which destroyed many opportunities, taken for granted in other places, unaffected by daily disturbances to freedom, quality of life and the many ravages of murder and  mayhem. It forever be in my mind, but does not dominate my thinking, especially since moving away from Belfast, to live elsewhere over twenty years ago.

Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland

Sherry: Ireland is very lovely, for sure. You live in a very beautiful area now, in Cheshire, England. I always love your photos. Would you tell us a bit about your life there?

Eileen: I have been living in Macclesfield , Cheshire for over twenty-three years. It has become my very settled home, since leaving Belfast.

Macclesfield is a market town and was home to the silk weaving industry, back in previous times. It is situated in east Cheshire and is accessible to so many other areas of England, within a couple of hours.  Manchester, Buxton, Sheffield, Liverpool, Chester, Birmingham and London. Manchester International airport serves almost any world destination, thirty minutes from my home.

Macclesfield Canal and Clarence Mill

I am surrounded by the most beautiful scenery in the world, as I live on the edge of The Peak District National Park. An area swaddled by hills, plains, rivers and miles of walking, rambling and sightseeing. Outstanding beauty is a fitting description.

In some ways Sherry, it seems to have much of the beauty and the wildness of your home area in British Columbia, Canada.

The Peak District, Cheshire

As a poet, inspiration abounds all around me here and in beautiful Derbyshire, which adjoins Cheshire, ten minutes from my door.

Sherry: We poets are fortunate when we live in such beautiful landscapes. I believe the scenery informs many of our poems.

Would you like to share three of your poems with us?

Eileen: The first poem I shall share here is called Wishful Thinking. I have chosen it for its upbeat and encouraging time, as a novice poet back in 2009.

Wishful Thinking ...

What a wishful idea

To write a book

With a novelty aspect

And facetious fun

Destined to bring

Enjoyment and pleasure

Relief from burdens

And stresses in life

Vitality and vivacity

Overflowing from words

With roguish parlance

And a comedic fervor

Dripping with witticism

And hilarious laughter

Delivered sublimely

Through a poetic tongue

Simply a fleeting notion

So wistfully far-flung.

My second choice is:

Calmly Composed....

Within the stillness of the night,

There is less to stress the thoughts.

Calmly evolving and presenting as notions,

Enjoying the freedom of the silence.

Tasting that sense of accomplishment.

From the first twinkle of clear thought,

My soundless, silent soliloquy.

Patiently composed and assembled

Created in the stilly hours of darkness,

Emerging later towards fruition,

The morning light and warmth of words,

Lauding the gift of this day of life itself.

Third poem……

If I Were…. Childlike….

Country roses would still garland the doorways,

Crisp cotton dresses would still look neat and cool.

Every day another dreamy adventure just arrived,

Summer evenings allowed playtime to never end.

Imagination was a best friend who never argued,

Simplicity enjoyed Christmas and birthdays better.

The give-me-now had not been invented back then,

Enjoyment was easily purchased and appreciated.

Yet childhood shielded so much of harsh reality,

Mayhem and murder were foreign and very far away.

The radio told the stories which could be moderated,

No images to upset or to impact on the idyll of life.

Belief saw only goodness while looking with childish eyes,

The truth hid its nasty words spat behind silent whispers.

Love always hugged everyone with relative frequency,

The foibles and the cracks were not glimpsed at first.

Realisation hits hard with its eventual unfeigned impact,

Naivety wrapped and sheltered within childlike innocence.

Sherry: Thank you, Eileen, for sharing these very beautiful poems with us. I love the photo of Michael on that big old turtle.

available here

available here

You have two books out and are working on a third, I understand.  How is it coming along?

Eileen: My third book is slowly coming together and will hopefully have a release date in Spring 2018. It is going to be a very different style and is an interesting project at the moment.

Sherry: That sounds very intriguing! We look forward to its publication. I know you have traveled to some wonderful places. Would you like to tell us about a trip that was extra special?

Eileen: I have been so lucky to have spent most of the past ten years travelling to destinations in the United States of America and Europe.

In San Francisco

Without a doubt, California is my most favourite US state.  I don't believe it would ever be possible to grow bored in the midst of that state, and its Pacific coastline.

I also fell in love with the island of Nantucket, after a visit to Boston..and Chicago. My favourite music sounds so much better in the city of the Blues and the Kingston Mines Club.

In France, Switzerland and Spain, I have found many inspirational corners where it's possible to escape busy life for an awe inspiring hideaway...

Andalusia, Spain

Sherry: You have been to some wondrous places. You had a birthday recently and your husband surprised you with a little trip. Would you like to tell us where he swept you off to?

Eileen: I had a birthday a few weeks ago and had a lovely unexpected stay in the city of Sheffield, not far from my home. The nature of the surprise  was wonderful and fitted within our busy schedules at the moment.

Sherry: So lovely to be surprised on one's birthday.

Eileen: I am planning a holiday abroad in the spring of 2018, to find sunshine!

Sherry: That sounds wonderful! When you aren’t writing, what other activities do you enjoy, Eileen?

Eileen: I enjoy reading, music, my garden, extensive travelling and precious time with my children and grandson.

Sherry: Is there anything you’d like to say to Poets United?

Eileen: Poets United has been a most wonderful home for me and my poems since 2010. I am indebted to the commitment of Mary, Susan, Rosemary, Sumana, and you, Sherry, for having kept the good ethos and spirit of Poets United alive and thriving from those very first days. It always feels like a place of familiarity. You can have been absent; yet return as though ever-present.

Sherry: Yes, our little boat chugs along so reliably. We take joy in supporting the love of poetry.

Eileen: Thank you so much, Sherry. It has been a delight to talk with you today.

Sherry: Thank you, Eileen, for graciously allowing us to catch up with you, in the middle of your busy, happy life.

Wasn't this a lovely visit, my friends? Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

Poetry Pantry #382

Vaalannkurkku Railway Bridge - Finland

Greetings, Friends.   I found the photo above on Wikimedia Commons.  I thought it was beautiful and suggested this wintry time of year.

We had another interesting week at Poets United.  Many of you wrote for Susan's Narcissism / Vanity prompt. This coming week Sumana will be prompting us to write to the prompt - Celebration.

Friday Rosemary shared the poem "Afterthought" by the Australian poet Tony Foley!  It really is a meaningful poem, one I think many can identify with.

Don't miss Sherry's feature on Monday.  She is featuring one of the original poets of Poets United.  It is great to see her back once again sharing her poetry.

Just a heads up to everyone:  Poets United will be taking a holiday break in December.  We will have a Poetry Pantry next Sunday,  December 17.  Then we will have about two weeks off to give us all a bit of a break.  Smiles.  We will resume again on December 31, the last day of the year, for those who are interested in ending the year with a sharing of poetry!

With no further delay, let's share poetry!  Link your poem below.  Stop in the comments and say hello! And visit the poems of those who link.  I look forward to seeing you on the trail.

I Wish I'd Written This

Afterthought

No poem is capable of expressing life,
no lyrical phrases adequate to the task,
no bleak aphorisms suited to the tears,
no adjectives alive to expressions of joy,
no metric rhythm sufficient.

So we have to try another angle,
weep like babes torn from a mother,
laugh like kids playing hopscotch in the street,
frown like scholars pondering Sartre,
make love as if death is ruffling your sheets.

See how simple it becomes?
Love and Death dance around
autumn blown leaves,
soft lips brush your cheek
as doors close on starlings.

But, and there's always a but,
you peer around the corner of
desire and find only mist,
then touch the stars and cry
for lost words.

– Tony Foley

Tony Foley is an Australian poet, a friend of mine, and married to another friend I've known even longer, poet and musician Whitefeather Light. They live in Melbourne (where I once lived too) and we keep in touch on facebook.

The bio at his blog says:

I've knocked around with lots of different jobs from cab driver to forklift driver, postal clerk to pollster, but since 1989 have worked in an academic library. I've performed in plays - mostly in character roles with a Russian theatre company. In performance poetry I've been feature reader at many venues around Melbourne including The Perseverance Hotel, La Mama Poetica, Montsalvat Poetry Festival, Victorian Writers' Centre, Dan O'Connell Hotel, Westword, and even been a wandering poet at the Melbourne Wine and Food festival (that was one weird gig). I've had few poems published here and there but don't really care much about chasing publication, mostly I've contributed a piece when invited. I've been filmed for community television and been interviewed on community radio. Oh, I love reading, but that's pretty normal for a librarian.

As a book lover and former librarian, I'd have to agree with that last! 

(The places he mentions are among the most notable poetry performance venues in Melbourne.)

I think most of us must have known those times he talks about, when the words seem inadequate to express the richness and depth of life itself. Of course, he does a wonderful job, here, of expressing that dilemma (smile) and creating a beautiful poem while he's at it. May all our poems 'fail' so successfully!

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.