MEN'S VOICES: THE STATE OF THE WORLD AND THE STATE OF OUR HEARTS

Today we are listening to the men in our community, as they share their poems and thoughts on the state of the world, how it weighs on our hearts, and what keeps us going in spite of it all. Definitely topics we can relate to; as poets, we seem keenly aware of, not just the beauty of the world, but its darkness. Perhaps our poems can shed a little light into the dark corners and lighten the way just a little. We can hope. Let's listen to Bjorn Rudberg, Ollie the Tired Monk, Michael (grapeling), and Marcoantonio, whose words run in counterpoint to the daily news.

ONLY THE LIVING CAN FEAR

The taste of fear is open, pure and red —

a lump of meat, its poppies lost and flown

from cries in mud, in trenches darkly bled.

We harvested our fear from fields we’d sown

with honey dripping from our leaders’ tongue.

The scent of fear is blood and broken bones.

We fought with tears and cried with broken lungs,

we bulwarked, starved, believed it’s more than right,

to maim our foes, the newborns and their young.

The sound of fear is sweat of starlit nights,

we waited as the forest grew inside,

it spread with rotting hands and ropes wound tight

   around our necks the night we lost our pride

   when life was soiled and all we knew had died.

This sonnet is one that I have been working with through several different versions. The original version was written for Real Toads as a sonnet challenge, and when we started our form project at dVerse. In this particular one, I worked with Terza Rima rhyme scheme inside a Shakespearean sonnet. The idea on the poem is a subject on the evil in every one of us; lately I have watched many documentaries about the big wars in Europe and I fear that war will come back one day. I think the war itself is less interesting but more how human being changes, how ordinary men can do the most horrific things, and how war, fear and hatred will make humans do things we would not be capable of during peace.

Sherry: I suppose if soldiers thought of the other side as being human, they could not fight at all. I am most struck by the lines "when life was soiled and all we knew had died." It is no wonder soldiers come home with inner wounds. They have experienced hell. Thank you for this thoughtful poem, Bjorn.

Michael recently wrote a poem that offers us a positive reflection, amidst all the gloom of wars, climate change, crazed leaders, and despairing refugees. We need his words of hope!

The World Is Not Going

the world is not going
to hell anymore
than the sun is burning
out: tomorrow
will burn just the same as today.

I’ve neglected the garden;
it hasn’t missed me. Dirt accepts
wet or dry equally, it’s only living
things that notice the difference
but still, I noticed today’s rain

continually high-fiving the Meyer lemon
which bowed in return, as though smiling,
yellow rind glistening like an old man’s stained teeth
or mine in the window.
What is a half century

if fifty revolutions is a myth:
the entire solar system swirling
in spirals around a star racing through space
so maybe the world is going
after all

Sherry: We live in hope! Mother Earth tries her best, in spite of our mistreatment, to carry out her cycles. What gives me comfort is that she can heal, if we give her half a chance. Where did this poem come from, Michael?

Michael: My impending half century at the time was the foundation. 

This poem was posted in reply to Grace's prompt at toads about David Huerta, and having now revisited it, I see that in the poems she highlighted he wrote of fruit. I suspect his lemon, coupled with the scrawny Meyer bush outside my then-bedroom window, inspired the one here. Perhaps I had witnessed a then-rare rain buffet the winter rind.

Rereading Grace's notes, she observed that Huerta's poetry invites the reader to participate in constructing the meaning of the poem, a precept I admire - after all, it could be that. 

I've always been curious about the concept of time, relativity, space, and how we feeble humans so often insist there are great cycles, but how cosmology shows us we spin through space and time without ever really tracing the same path again.

Or maybe it was none of that, just idle musings. Spinning into another year older makes the mind wander, doesn't it?

Sherry: It certainly does. Thank you so much, Michael.

I always love it when Ollie, the Tired Monk (and one of our first members at Poets United) pops up on the blogroll. No matter what is happening on earth, the Tired Monk can be seen in his tattered robes, sweeping, shoveling, chopping wood, with his temple dog beside him. That gives me great comfort.

scattered bits n'fragments

i)

tired
deep temple dog tired
tired of wars
...words
n' wars on words

tired of fighting
pushing on the last few
fading monks
to move
just move

ii)

coffee pot
bottom burned black
       needs scrubbing
morning of wet monk
sleeves

iii)

energy drink cans
scattered up the ditches
or squashed flat
and paved over
in the pre-frost rush

iii)

this violin
is a fiddle in these hands
sawing  - mingling
with Americana chords
lifting n'healing
yer broken heart

         *****     *****

Sherry: I, too, feel that bone-deep weariness. Regular people are so tired of all the sparring, the rhetoric, the damage that is being done. I love the tune you play to help heal all the broken hearts, my friend. Heaven knows we can use a good tune!

     *****    *****

A Question  

you really the tired monk?

yeah
bone weary tired

beat burdened
but still ready
to serve

propped up
by temple dog walks
a few warm holy songs
maybe a slug of highland healing
bit of Drambuie warding
off this winter cough

yep
held up by these monk robes

...just

source

Sherry: This strikes a chord, as I see hard-won gains being stripped away, injustice everywhere, climate change melting the planet....I try to hang on to optimism and hope. But some days ... just.

Ollie: Being a monk these days is such a blessing.  There is much work to be done, and many to serve.  Some days my more human parts break down.  This piece is a meditation on what keeps me moving forward in this world: a little music, my temple dogs, and maybe a nip of single malt.  Today I felt like the only thing holding me up were my old battered monk robes.  

Sherry: I have those days, too, without the support of monk robes. But my cane helps! Thank you for this poem, Ollie. Your poems always make me smile. I can see the Tired Monk, bravely battling the snowdrifts in eastern Canada.

Marcoantonio, another early member at Poets United, wrote a very perceptive poem on these topics, which I am happy he agreed to share with us. Let's take a look:

Fire and Storms

devastation of storms and floods appear 
then come the hell of fires and words are
said from a tongue of sharpen blades not for 
the sake of pain for loss or sorrow but for the sake
of their own tomorrow 

the flower does not blame the wind
for its loss of petals, the rain for
their wilting, the sun for being parched
with too much heat or for the night
stealing the day

in selfishness and greed there is
no good that comes but a sadness
and lament avails for the souls departed
and all who is left are the lonely and  
the cold hearted

source

Marco: My piece reflects the present conditions of how our country, the U.S.A., is being devastated by Hurricanes and Forest fires, and how our present resident of the White House has little empathy for the specific states affected - either because one is basically 'brown' people, and the other, because it was and is a state that is not supportive of his continued 'megalomania', narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, self-serving ego.

Sherry: Plain words, Marco, and I share your frustration at the widespread social injustices that are occurring. In your poem, I am most struck by the line "the flower does not blame the wind for its loss of petals." That is very beautiful.

Thank you so much, gentlemen, for your poems, which illuminate so well the state of our hearts at the present state of the world. Shall we overcome? I hope so, for the sake of the young.

Do come back, my friends, and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS OF PEACE: BY BJORN, TONI AND PAUL

Today, my friends, the day before September 11th, a day when the world we knew toppled around our ears 17  years ago, we are contemplating peace, in poems written by Bjorn Rudberg, of  Bjorn Rudberg's Writings,  Toni Spencer,  known to us as Kanzen Sakura, and Paul Scribbles,  who writes at his blog of the same name. Peace being even more elusive these days, I thought it would be nice to contemplate the topic, in all of its colors and possible locations. We hope they speak to you.

source

WHAT'S THE COLOR OF PEACE?

It must be a color less like the soil
not ochre, sienna or brown
reminding of trenches or graves;
it cannot be red
as the rage of revenge,
the color of wounds.

It cannot be blue as depression of death.
nor green as the battlefield grass;
not grey as the ashes of seamen
tossed to the waves;
not black like a dress for a widow
not yellow of gangrene
or corpses left in the sun.

The color of peace has to be white
white as the carrier pigeons
      bringing back letters to home,
white as the paper of unwritten poems
white as the canvas for painters
white as daylight in spring;
white as the hope of armistice,
white as the mother of rainbows,
white as beginnings and ends,
white as the new fallen snow,
white is the color of peace.

source

Sherry: White is such a peaceful color, the color of doves. I love the idea there is a mother of rainbows.

Bjorn: I wrote this poem for a prompt on peace. If I remember correctly the prompt was originally more in the terms of a peaceful place, but I think that any place can be peaceful if you find peace in yourself.

I actually started my poem by asking myself what color I could associate with peace, and when I thought awhile I found it easier to dismiss most colors because of their association with war and death. Of course white could also have association to death, but I thought that the best part of white is that of opportunities in a blank sheet of paper or a painter’s canvas. That peace always means to start anew, by hinting at from the white we can reclaim every color again (as the mother of rainbows). I was actually stuck when I wrote this poem, but it incorporates some of the elements that can be used when writing about something as abstract as peace:

• Tie it to something you can feel with your senses (sight, scent, sound or touch)
• Remember also the opposite… describing peace in opposite to war.
• Lists are always effective when you get stuck.

As this poem was a very rough sketch, I think that it could be worked on a little bit more, like using some of the nuance of color rather than the primary colors. I think it might benefit from making some of the descriptions more specific, like writing trenches of Somme instead of just trenches. I don’t think any poem is ever finished… and most ideas could be worked on using our poetic toolbox. 

Sherry: Thank you, Bjorn, for your poem and for some cool tips on writing. We so appreciate that!

Toni had a very definite perspective on the color of peace. Let's take a look.

RED IS THE COLOR OF PEACE

Peace comes in many colors – like the rainbow,
like us humans or animals or flowers.
You may not think so, but red is the color of peace –
the tomato plucked from the bounty of my backyard garden
and handed over the short fence to the neighbor next door –
red of holly berries nestled among dark green clusters
of leaves hidden deep in the forest, with white snow
softly falling or the cardinal perched on the branch –
The red of maple leaves preparing for winter sleep
or the red of the rose given to a beloved.
Long blondeblackbrownred braids tied at the ends
with perky red bows.
Red is the color of peace – of units of blood donated
for someone about to undergo life saving surgery
for the child with cancer
or the service person needing
emergency treatment.
The wild apples are red and hang down far enough
a herd of deer can satisfy their hunger.
Red are the azaleas planted by my father years ago
that continue to bloom after all this time.
Strawberries from my garden are rich and red and sweet.
Red is also the color in the jars of preserves
I make and give out as gifts to anyone.
Red is my generations old flowering quince
blooming in a freezing snow.
The heart your child drew and the words “I Love You”
hangs with pride on your refrigerator door
photographed and posted on Facebook so everyone would know
– drawn with a bright red crayon.
Peace is what we make it and it is colored by our souls,
our hearts our words and actions.
If our words and actions do not speak of peace and hope
how can we be peace and hope to a world
sadly in need of both?
You may not think so, but red is the color of peace.

copyright kanzensakura

Sherry: I believe it is. I can see that red tomato, handed over the fence to a neighbor. 

Toni: People often think of the color red as being a color of aggression. Because I volunteer at the local Food Bank, cooking or delivering food, I have learned people miss fresh produce the most. So I began planting extra produce to share, especially luscious red tomatoes. One of my elderly people, Miss Pearl, particularly loved summer tomatoes but had not had a garden for years and could rarely afford a fresh tomato. Last year I shared my first tomato with her. Her yes grew big and full of tears as she cradled it against her cheek. I realized then that the color red was the color of love and peace. I began working on this poem, pulling out all the positives I could find about red. Red was also my mother's favorite color, so it is also the color of happiness to me.

Sherry: How I love the story of that tomato! I can see Miss Pearl's eyes, and am so happy you make sure she enjoys fresh tomatoes. Working with the Food Bank must be very rewarding. Good for you, doing what you can to ease peoples' struggle.

Let's wind up by reflecting on Paul's poem about peace. It is a beauty!

PEACE

Peace comes easy in the glade

birdsong soothing every moment

Peace comes easy in the forest

trees whispering songs of the ancients

Peace comes easy in the cabin

time moving so slowly it is stopping

but how do I find Peace in the broken

how do i find Peace in the war zones

how do i find peace with my own troubles

how do i find Peace when so many cannot

it is there

in the breath of the life i engage with

in the simple knowledge of being alive

in the  ever present eternal now

in the understanding that Peace is presence

and in the acceptance

that i can only be responsible

for my own

Sherry Marr photo

Sherry: You have summed it up perfectly, Paul. The only place we can truly find peace is within. Your glade sounds very beautiful, and must contribute greatly to your peacefulness.

Paul: I have often pondered the concept and practice of locating peace when others cannot. Can I truly have peace knowing others suffer? Can I find peace in the midst of my own suffering? In the poem, I lead with thoughts on how easy peace can come in nature. How it just drapes itself about our being.

However, what happens when thoughts arise that link us to situations that are not peaceful? Where do we go with that? My answer is to drop into being....into full presence...into the breath.....it works....and it perhaps allows us to accept that which we cannot change, allowing our own sense of peaceto remain alongside a compassionate heart for the suffering of others.

Sherry: Paul, you have expressed it to perfection. I have had to re-learn this truth personally this summer,  working to preserve my peacefulness in a situation where my response was all I could control. Thank you for saying this so well.

Thank you, dear poets, for your wonderful contemplation of peace. We do hope our readers enjoyed them as much as we did. Do come back, friends, and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

Moonlight Musings

Why is it so difficult to write erotica?

And if it isn't, please tell me your secret!

Sometimes I envy the graphic artists, who don't need words. Rodin's The Kiss – here shown in the large marble version rather than the small bronze often photographed – was considered scandalous in its day for being so, well, graphic.

I'm not at all inhibited in my speech, and I firmly believe no subject should be taboo to a writer, but if I try to put sex scenes on the page, I can't figure out how to do it without sounding either crude or ridiculous.

I'm better at it in verse than prose, I must admit. It's easier when I can use metaphor.  For example this one (a notorious poem in its day, which I'm still proud of – but a rarity for me).

I actually belong to a facebook group called Erotic Haiku, though I post there fairly seldom because I don't often write anything applicable. Many of the others who post there are quite explicit. Personally, I don't always find this a turn-on, but rather stating the obvious. Judging by comments, plenty of others do think the explicit is hot. My efforts tend more to the subtle and understated. Such as these. There are probably readers who would not find anything so restrained a turn-on.

So I can manage it now and  then, in my own way, but I'd never be able to make a career out of it – unlike one of my friends, who used to write porn fiction for a living. 'Just create a couple of characters,' she says, 'put them in a location and a situation, think about things you like in bed – and away you go.' She makes it sound so easy! Doesn't work for me. I do know how to fantasise. My difficulty is putting it into words which adequately convey the thoughts. 

I'm not the only one. These musings came about because I recently edited a whole book of erotic love poems by a woman who wanted to celebrate the passionate love between herself and her lover. The trouble was that she was not only trying to depict the sexuality but simultaneously to put into words their transcendent love. She ended up using abstracts to try and describe the ineffable. The writing tended to tell, not show. It neither moved nor aroused this reader.

I think the only way one can write of the ineffable – something which, by definition, is inexpressible in words – is to ground it in sensual imagery. Shakespeare talks of a summer's day – of the flowers, and the strength of the wind. Byron writes of the night and the stars; Burns of 'a red, red rose' and 'a melody that's sweetly sung in tune'.

Those famous examples, however, are more romantic than erotic. One present-day poet whom I think brilliant at erotica is Mary Grace Guevara from the dVerse team, writing as Scarlet at her blog Scarlet Verses. I am in awe of the way she writes poem after poem on sexual love, and manages to make each one not only truly erotic, but new. She does use metaphors; also lots of references to actual human bodies and their interactions – always hot but never crude.

Our own Sanaa (blogging at A Dash of Sunny) with her love of lush, sensual, musical words, is wonderful at poems which are both romantic and passionate. Bjorn is another who creates amazing poems of love and desire (as well as amazing poems on all sorts of other topics) at Bjorn Rudberg's Writings. Another who comes to mind is the fabulous Magaly Guerrero, at her blog of the same name, who manages to say the most lubricious things without a trace of obscenity (as in four-letter words) – but lots of heat.

I know that many more of you, my fellow-poets at Poets United, can write erotica. I recently read and enjoyed your 'Lust' poems for Midweek Motif. (I myself cheated and wrote of a different kind of lust.) 

So how do you tackle such topics? Is metaphor best? Do you prefer the subtle or the bold? Do you too find it challenging? If not – or even more, perhaps, if you do – what advice would you give to an aspiring writer of erotica?


The photo of the Rodin is in the Public Domain.

POEMS OF THE WEEK - MEN'S VOICES: ERIC, BJORN, AND NICHOLAS

This week, let's listen to the voices of some of the men in our community. We selected poems by Eric, of Erbiage, Bjorn, of Bjorn Rudberg's Writings, and Nicholas V., of  intelliblog. Take a break, pour yourself a cup of tea, and settle in. We hope you enjoy.

BRICK HOUSE

there is a me in here
…                         (somewhere)
between the mind, the ego, the inner child
those are the bricks. i’m looking for the house

                    *****               *****

Sherry: I was very taken by this poem, Eric, recognizing that you are on the seeker's journey. I love, "i'm looking for the house." I suspect it is close by, behind a few bushes. Smiles.

Eric: There has been so much growth in my life in the last two years, and it really has been wonderful and a tremendous blessing.  One of the difficult pieces of this though is I'm really not liking who I was.  I used to have an opinion of myself that was not shared by very many people. This was painful to realize but it does explain a great deal.  It’s so easy to get lost in that. 

My wife's counseling practice incorporates a Mind-Body-Spirit framework, but all these things, they are just elements.  The self includes all of these things, that little voice in my head that says I'm not good enough etc., but the self is more than the sum of these parts, the way a pile of bricks becomes a house.

This is probably way too much for a tiny little poem, it came out kind of stream-of-consciousness.  

Sherry: I love your explanation. We all have that voice in our heads that says we aren't good enough. Our life's work is to silence it. Thank you for sharing, Eric. 

Sherry: Bjorn recently wrote a poem that seems to answer Eric's first poem rather beautifully. Let’s take a peek.

Moccasins

You crave a house;
a garden with a stately oak,
a library
a place to rest.

Walls you build with thoughts,
and windows form from dreams,
the roof is tiled with friendship;
so keep your gates unlocked.

In winter you need warmth
that only love can give.
while summers could be
sea-breezed far away.

But if your fancy is
for mansions, moats and turrets
you have to leach the land,
cut the trees,
dredge the bluffs
and crush the dreams of others.

Your house should wear its moccasins —
never boots. 


Bjorn: I wrote this poem based on a prompt on houses. I often try to find another meaning than what’s obvious at first. I see “developments” of housing, how we as humans absorb nature and expanding. The area per person is constantly increasing, and fills out our small properties. I feel that there are no limits to the needs of humans for space, and we do not mind trampling the toes of others.

At the same time a house is a wonderful place. We need it for warmth and company, we need it to meet our guests. I dream of houses that blend and are part of nature. I want houses that invites nature in summer, and shuts the cold wind out in winter.  

I also feel that we need houses that we are ready to leave. We should not grow roots unless it’s needed. Maybe houses should have the soft soles of Moccasins rather than making deep footprints like the boots of mansions. 

Sherry: I so agree about the heavy footprint monster houses leave on the landscape. I much prefer small cabins and cottages, tucked among the trees, not set on a scraped-clean lot - enough space, no need for thousands of square feet. I love this poem, Bjorn. Thank you so much.

A short while ago, Nicholas wrote a bittersweet poem we enjoyed very much. Let's read:

SWEET BITTERNESS

The wine you offered, Love,

Was ruby-red, sweet muscat;

A fine vintage with a rich bouquet,

A velvet taste that lingered on the palate,

But the aftertaste, so bitter!

The kiss I took from you, Love,

Was fragrant, fruity, dulcet:

From lips so red, and smiling,

A kiss so freely given, remembered evermore,

And yet the aftertaste, so bitter!

Your softly-spoken words, Love,

Honeyed, soothing, like balsam!

My ears unstopped, to hear, to listen,

Words full of harmony, like music

But their echoes, a cacophony.

The soft caresses, Love,

We gave each other liberally,

Cloud-soft, candied, pleasant,

Soothed away all pain, healed all wounds;

And yet, they left deep aching scars in their wake.

You are a sweet bitterness, Love,

You enchain us all with gossamer,

You wound with feathers and you heal with thorns;

You nourish us with mellow poison

And we starve when we have surfeit of it.

Love, you’re contrary, and your steadfastedness

Betrays all trust, punctures all boats of hope;

You lift us up to heaven, only to dash us down to Tartarus,

You give us strength, only with silken threads

To captivate and weaken us, making of us in our death, immortals.

Sherry: Love does all of those things, brings us the sweetest of joys, and the depths of sorrow. But we wouldn't be without it! This poem resonates with me, Nicholas.

Nicholas: My poem “Sweet Bitterness” looks at the contrariness that love is: Feelings pleasant and heady and heavenly mixed as it were with those of melancholy, disconsolation and hellishness. If one is in love, there is the sweetness of honey, but also the sting of the bee. Love raises us up to the sky but in the same instant may cast us down into the darkest of abysses.

Sherry: That it does. Thank you for sharing it. 

There we have it, folks: houses, moccasins and the bittersweetness of love. And us, enjoying it all. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!