Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Glory

“Age is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.”— Martha Graham

   

SOURCE

“Love of glory can only create a great hero; contempt of glory creates a great man.”— Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Midweek Motif ~ Glory

Paths of glory can be many. Which do you want to traverse?

The First World War poets well realized “that war is not glorious and the people they are fighting are not their enemy.”

You can either keep your focus on human theme; that is directing your poem towards the meaning ‘high renown or honor won by notable achievements’ or towards ‘magnificence or great beauty’.

Here are some ‘Glory’ poems:

Buddha In Glory

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead. 

Glory of Women

by Siegfried Sassoon

You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,

or wounded in a mentionable place.

You worship decorations; you believe

That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.

You make us shells. You listen with delight,

By tales of dirt and danger ardours while we fight,

And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.

You can’t believe that British troops “retire”

When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,

Trampling the terrible corpses-blind with blood.

O German mother dreaming by the fire,

While you are knitting socks to send your son

His face is trodden deeper in the mud.

Torn Down From Glory Daily

by Anne Sexton

All day we watched the gulls
striking the top of the sky
and riding the blown roller coaster.
Up there
godding the whole blue world
and shrieking at a snip of land.
Now, like children,
we climb down humps of rock
with a bag of dinner rolls,
left over,
and spread them gently on stone,
leaving six crusts for an early king.
A single watcher comes hawking in,
rides the current round its hunger
and hangs
carved in silk
until it throbs up suddenly,
out, and one inch over water;
to come again
smoothing over the slap tide.
To come bringing its flock, like a city
of wings that fall from the air.
They wait, each like a wooden decoy
or soft like a pigeon or
a sweet snug duck:
until one moves, moves that dart-beak
breaking over. It has the bread.
The world is full of them,
a world of beasts
thrusting for one rock.
Just four scoop out the bread
and go swinging over Gloucester
to the top of the sky.
Oh see how
they cushion their fishy bellies
with a brother's crumb. 

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(Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Literacy)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Almond Blossoms, by Vincent Van Gogh: An Ekphrastic Poem

 

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”— John W. Gardener

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“No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone”.— Oscar Wilde

Midweek Motif ~ Almond Blossoms, by Vincent Van Gogh: An Ekphrastic Poem

We want your literary response to a non-literary work this week. We have Vincent van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms as your motif today.

“Almond Blossoms is from a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy, southern France of blossoming almond trees. Flowering trees were special to van Gogh. They represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees.” Wikipedia

Sharing a couple of ekphrastic poems for your inspiration:

SOURCE

The Starry Night

by Anne Sexton

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. –Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

TWO MONKEYS by BRUEGHEL (1562)

Two Monkeys by Brueghel 
(trans. from the Polish by Magnus Kryski)

by Wislawa Szymborska

I keep dreaming of my graduation exam:
in a window sit two chained monkeys,
beyond the window floats the sky,
and the sea splashes.

I am taking an exam on the history of mankind:
I stammer and flounder.

One monkey, eyes fixed upon me, listens ironically,
the other seems to be dozing--
and when silence follows a question,
he prompts me
with a soft jingling of the chain.

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              (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Biodiversity)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Sunset

“The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.”— Roberto Bolaño, 2666

SOURCE

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky”— Rabindranath Tagore

          Midweek Motif ~ Sunset

The sunset is a short-lived period that begins in the evening and also ends there creating perhaps a moment of pause, a time for stress release. It definitely wipes out the cares of the day and assures a restful, calm night.

You are asked to captivate these fleeting golden moments.  

Your theme could be subjective or objective; literal or metaphorical:

Sunset

by E.E. Cummings

Great carnal mountains crouching in the cloud
That marrieth the young earth with a ring,
Yet still its thoughts builds heavenward, whence spring
Wee villages of vapor, sunset-proud.—
And to the meanest door hastes one pure-browed
White-fingered star, a little, childish thing,
The busy needle of her light to bring,
And stitch, and stitch, upon the dead day’s shroud.
Poises the sun upon his west, a spark
Superlative,—and dives beneath the world;
From the day’s fillets Night shakes out her locks;
List! One pure trembling drop of cadence purled—
“Summer!”—a meek thrush whispers to the dark.
Hark! the cold ripple sneering on the rocks!

Going

by Philip Larkin

There is an evening coming in
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamps.

Silken it seems at a distance, yet
When it is drawn up over the knees and breast
It brings no comfort.

Where has the tree gone, that locked
Earth to the sky? What is under my hands,
That I cannot feel?

What loads my hands down?

The Fury Of Sunset

by Anne sexton

Something 
cold is in the air, 
an aura of ice 
and phlegm. 
All day I've built 
a lifetime and now 
the sun sinks to 
undo it. 
The horizon bleeds 
and sucks its thumb. 
The little red thumb 
goes out of sight. 
And I wonder about 
this lifetime with myself, 
this dream I'm living. 
I could eat the sky 
like an apple 

but I'd rather 
ask the first star: 
why am I here? 
why do I live in this house? 
who's responsible? 
eh? 

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                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~Evidence / Clues)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Journey

   
    “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu

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“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”__ Anna Quindlin, How Reading Changed My Life

       Midweek Motif ~ Journey

Not a single atom in this universe is without a journey. Everything around you including yourself is a wayfarer. Each moment is a journey enriching us with experience.

Share with us those invaluable moments about your tour, trek, voyage, safari, pilgrimage or you might even recount your inner journey.

Even if you are a stay-at-home kind you might open your eyes to the exciting, adventurous, arduous and even traumatic journeys that are taking place all around us and write on any one of them.

A few poems for you:

Up-Hill

by Christina Rosetti

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? 

   Yes, to the very end. 

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? 

   From morn to night, my friend. 

But is there for the night a resting-place? 

   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 

May not the darkness hide it from my face? 

   You cannot miss that inn. 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? 

   Those who have gone before. 

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? 

   They will not keep you standing at that door. 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? 

   Of labour you shall find the sum. 

Will there be beds for me and all who seek? 

   Yea, beds for all who come.

The Addict

by Anne Sexton

Sleepmonger,

deathmonger,

with capsules in my palms each night,

eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles

I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.

I'm the queen of this condition.

I'm an expert on making the trip

and now they say I'm an addict.

Now they ask why.

WHY!       

Don't they know that I promised to die!

I'm keeping in practice.

I'm merely staying in shape.

The pills are a mother, but better,

every color and as good as sour balls.

I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit

it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-

blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,

hauled away by the pink, the orange,

the green and the white goodnights.

I'm becoming something of a chemical

mixture.

that's it!

My supply

of tablets

has got to last for years and years.

I like them more than I like me.

It's a kind of marriage.

It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside

of myself.

Yes

I try

to kill myself in small amounts,

an innocuous occupation.

Actually I'm hung up on it.

But remember I don't make too much noise.

And frankly no one has to lug me out

and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.

I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie

eating my eight loaves in a row

and in a certain order as in

the laying on of hands

or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony

but like any other sport

it's full of rules.

It's like a musical tennis match where

my mouth keeps catching the ball.

Then I lie on; my altar

elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is

with two pink, two orange,

two green, two white goodnights.

Fee-fi-fo-fum-

Now I'm borrowed.

Now I'm numb.

Provisions

by Margaret Atwood

What should we have taken

with us? We never could decide

on that; or what to wear,

or at what time of

year we should make the journey

So here we are in thin

raincoats and rubber boots

On the disastrous ice, the wind rising

Nothing in our pockets

But a pencil stub, two oranges

Four Toronto streetcar tickets

and an elastic band holding a bundle

of small white filing cards

printed with important facts.

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

               

Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~  Saints 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Music

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”—Plato

Source

               Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Music

“Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune, so no one will suspect I’m afraid…
And every single time,
the happiness in the tune convinces me that I’m not afraid.”

                 

This is how Rodgers and Hammerstein lyrics illustrate wonders of Music.

What is this life with no rhythm, melodies or harmonies?

Music itself is a universal language connecting all and Music is everywhere. We only need to lend our ears to SEE music!

Music is our motif today. You might also focus on any musical instrument, any special song or composer.

Music Swims Back To Me

By Anne Sexton

Wait Mister. Which way is home? 
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room, 
four ladies, over eighty, 
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better; 
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November; 
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way, 
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la, 
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister? 

I Know The Music

By Wilfred Owen

All sounds have been as music to my listening:
Pacific lamentations of slow bells,
The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening,
Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells:

Bugles that sadden all the evening air,
And country bells clamouring their last appeals
Before [the] music of the evening prayer;
Bridges, sonorous under carriage wheels.

Gurgle of sluicing surge through hollow rocks,
The gluttonous lapping of the waves on weeds,
Whisper of grass; the myriad-tinkling flocks,
The warbling drawl of flutes and shepherds' reeds.

The orchestral noises of October nights
Blowing ( ) symphonetic storms
Of startled clarions ( )
Drums, rumbling and rolling thunderous and ( ).

Thrilling of throstles in the keen blue dawn,
Bees fumbling and fuming over sainfoin-fields. 

 Music When Soft Voices Die

 By P. B. Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on. 

Music

By Rainer Maria Rilke

Take me by the hand;
it's so easy for you, Angel,
for you are the road
even while being immobile.

You see, I'm scared no one
here will look for me again;
I couldn't make use of
whatever was given,

so they abandoned me.
At first the solitude
charmed me like a prelude,
but so much music wounded me.


(Translated by A. Poulin) 

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

               ( Susan’s Midweek Motif on 01/04/2017 will be ~ Vision)