Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Neighbors

 

“….O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'’— W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening

IMPORTUNATE NEIGHBOUR: By William Holman Hunt

“I once asked a hermit in Italy how he could venture to live alone, in a single cottage, on the top of a mountain, a mile from any habitation. He replied, that Providence was his next door neighbor.”— Lawrence Stern

Midweek Motif ~ Neighbors

Everyone on this planet desperately needs a peaceful living. A good neighbor assures that. How well connected people are with those close by?

A few years ago a Spanish town granted cats and dogs rights as ‘non-human neighbors’. They definitely sought to dignify the lives of our furry friends.

A single date-palm tree was once my neighbor. It invited birds and even humans during winter mostly for its sugary juice. Then a day came. There was much hacking and chopping and it vanished.

I wonder if humans make good neighbors to all surrounding them?

Write a neighbor poem today:

Deep autumn

by Matsuo Basho

Deep autumn

My neighbor,

How does he live, I wonder

The People Upstairs

by Ogden Nash

The people upstairs all practise ballet

Their living room is a bowling alley

Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.

Their radio is louder than yours,

They celebrate week-ends all the week.

When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.

They try to get their parties to mix

By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,

And when their fun at last abates,

They go to the bathroom on roller skates.

I might love the people upstairs more

If only they lived on another floor.

Poem of the Neighbours

by Charles Tomlinson

Bird neighbours the rising tree,

Leaf neighbours the waiting soil,

Flesh, fish, foal, all-kingdom-kind

Neighbour the other, sun to stone.

Man neighbours the sun in life,

Man neighbours the horse in life,

Horse neighbours the trodden grass,

Oak neighbours untrodden sky;

That life shall know increase.

Cat neighbours the bird in death,

Lion neighbours the doe in death,

Snake neighbours the hidden toad,

Hidden toad neighbours the fly:

That life shall know increase.

Hello, How Are You?

by Charles Bukowski

this fear of being what they are:
dead. 

at least they are not out on the street, they
are careful to stay indoors, those
pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets,
their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter. 

their ideal neighborhood
of parked cars
of little green lawns
of little homes
the little doors that open and close
as their relatives visit
throughout the holidays
the doors closing
behind the dying who die so slowly
behind the dead who are still alive
in your quiet average neighborhood
of winding streets
of agony
of confusion
of horror
of fear
of ignorance. 

a dog standing behind a fence. 

a man silent at the window. 

       

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 ~ Empowerment)

        

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Of Poems

    “Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?” —  Spike Milligan, A Silly Poem

SOURCE

“it
takes
a lot of
desperation
dissatisfaction

and
di sillusion
to
write
a
few
good
p oems.
it's not
for
everybody
either to

write
it
or even to
read
it” — Charles Bukowski, Poetry

      Midweek Motif ~ Of Poems

Okay, poem a poem about poem this week J

           

For your inspiration here are a handful of poems J

Introduction To Poetry

by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means. 

Poetry

by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind. 

A Quiet Poem

by Frank O’Hara

When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move

and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.

The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine

that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls

like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker

as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,

slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand. 

Willow Poem

by William Carlos Williams

It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river --
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground. 

Million Man March Poem

by Maya Angelou

The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.

Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You've worn a badge of shame.

I say, the night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark
And the walls have been steep.

But today, voices of old spirit sound
Speak to us in words profound,
Across the years, across the centuries,
Across the oceans, and across the seas.
They say, draw near to one another,
Save your race.
You have been paid for in a distant place,
The old ones remind us that slavery's chains
Have paid for our freedom again and again.

The night has been long,
The pit has been deep,
The night has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.

The hells we have lived through and live through still,
Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish
Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise,
And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground,
I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love,
I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference,
Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts,
Let us come together and revise our spirits,
Let us come together and cleanse our souls,
Clap hands, let's leave the preening
And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,
Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation,
Courtesy into our bedrooms,
Gentleness into our kitchen,
Care into our nursery.

The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain
We are a going-on people who will rise again.

And still we rise. 

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 ~ National flag(s))

          

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Yoga

“Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind.” — Patanjali

SOURCE

“The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realization of yoga, of union; not on the side of the canvas where it is blank but on the side where the picture is being painted.”— Rabindranath Tagore

                        

                               Midweek Motif ~ Yoga

I was thinking if we could give a little thought to ‘Yoga’ in our poems on this International Day of Yoga which is celebrated annually on 21 June since its inception in 2015.

Yoga is ‘slower, fewer and deeper breath’; to the practitioners a panacea for modern, hectic life.

You may be contemplative, humorous or sarcastic. It would be lovely if you could include the word ‘yoga’ in your lines. You may even dwell on the literal meaning of the word ‘Yoga’ which is ‘Union’. And a personal experience would be an added bonus.

Here I am including excerpts of some poems that reflect the perfection, awareness, compassion, surrender etc that yoga intends to gift its devoted followers:

From WildGeese by Mary Oliver:

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

Love what it loves.”

From The laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski:

“your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission,

be on the watch.”

From Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye:

“Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between region of kindness”

From BlackwaterWoods by Mary Oliver:

“To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.”

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

            

                (Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ War & Peace)

                              

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Animation

 Midweek Motif ~ Animation

Today is  International Animation Day!

Animation is giving spirit or life.
To animate is an act.

Animation is an art.
Animation for children is a joy.

"Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski 

from Four Charles Bukowski Poems Animated

in Animation, Poetry| May 5th, 2014 )

Your Challenge: Write a new poem that is about animation or about a specific animation or a new poem that is animated or a new poem that would make a great animated film or a new poem that reacts to one of the visual images in this prompt. 

 Hahaha ... lots of choices!

An example of computer animation which is
produced in the "motion capture" technique

There's something about seeing this little inanimate object 
coming to life that's just very exciting.  ~Tim Burton

What do I mean when I say 'suspended animation'? It is the process by which animals de-animate, appear dead and then can wake up again without being harmed. OK, so here is the sort of big idea: If you look out at nature, you find that as you tend to see suspended animation, you tend to see immortality.  ~Mark Roth

Excerpt from 

A Lovers Call XXVII by Kahlil Gibran

. . . . 

Where are you, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping 
From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need? 
Do you know the greatness of my patience? 

Is there any spirit in the air capable of conveying 
To you the breath of this dying youth? Is there any 
Secret communication between angels that will carry to 
You my complaint? 

Where are you, my beautiful star? The obscurity of life 
Has cast me upon its bosom; sorrow has conquered me.
 
Sail your smile into the air; it will reach and enliven me! 
Breathe your fragrance into the air; it will sustain me! 

Where are you, me beloved? 
Oh, how great is Love! 
And how little am I!

(Read the long beginning of this poem HERE at Poetry Soup)

Excerpt from  I Ask You  By Billy Collins

What scene would I want to be enveloped in

more than this one,

an ordinary night at the kitchen table,

floral wallpaper pressing in,

white cabinets full of glass,

the telephone silent,

a pen tilted back in my hand?

. . . . 

So forgive me

if I lower my head now and listen

to the short bass candle as he takes a solo

while my heart

thrums under my shirt--

frog at the edge of a pond--

and my thoughts fly off to a province

made of one enormous sky

and about a million empty branches. 

(Read the rest HERE at Poem Hunter.)

source

*** *** ***

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 ~ Tranquility)

Poets United Mid week Motif ~ Boredom

source

Midweek Motif ~ Boredom

"Sir, you have two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both."-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart"-- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary"

"Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored"-- Lord Byron, Don Juan

"Boredom: the desire for the desires-- Leo Tolstoy"


Imagine sitting with a long face before the dreaded blank page and looking all around to lift the uninspired soul in vain. 

There is no one to give a push to kick start a writing session while all the poetry sites are urging to link up a poem of your own choice.

All on a sudden life seems to stand still turning everything utterly uninteresting. For wordsmiths this is a most unwelcome state.

What is the way out to make this phase sound exciting? 

I have chosen two poems of Charles Bukowski for today's topic Boredom.

These Things

by Charles Bukowski

these things that we support most well
have nothing to do with up,
and we do with them
out of boredom or fear or money
or cracked intelligence;
our circle and our candle of light
being small,
so small we cannot bear it,
we heave out with Idea
and lose the Center:
all wax without the wick,
and we see names that once meant
wisdom,
like signs into ghost towns,
and only the graves are real.

The American Writer

by Charles Bukowski

gone abroad
I sit under the tv lights
and am interviewed again
i am asked questions
I give answers
I make no attempt to be
brilliant.
to be truthful
I feel bored
and I almost never feel
bored.
"do you?..." they ask.
"oh, yeah, well I..."
"and what do you think of..."
"I don't think of it much. I
don't think too much..."
somehow it ends.

that evening somebody tells me
I'm on the news
we turn the set on.
there I am. I look pissed.
I wave people off.
I am bored.

how marvelous to be me without
trying.
it looks on tv
as if I knew exactly what I
was doing.

fooled them
again.

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

(Next week Rosemary Nissen Wade will be prompting with the topic "Let your song be delicate.")

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Role of Humor in Our Lives

“If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.” 

― Robert Frost

“And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much.  I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.” 

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“. . .  laughter is serious. More complicated, more serious than tears.” 

― Toni Morrison, Jazz

"Cycliing in Denmark" by Tomasz Sienicki (tsca, mail: tomasz.sienicki at gmail.com)

Should humor be explained?

~

Midweek Motif ~ 

The Role of Humor in Our Lives

Closer to prank or parody?  

Closer to joking or satire? 

Yours or someone else's?

Laughter or groans?

Your Challenge:  

Let your poem give us an experience of the role of humor in a life.  Be funny if you wish, but it is not required.

Jerry Seinfeld and Julia Louis-Dreyfus at the 1997 Emmy Awards

from Charles Bukowski's 

For The Foxes

. . . . 

don't feel sorry for me
because I am alone

for even 
at the most terrible
moments
humor
is my 
companion.

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at Hello Poetry dot Com.)        

The Laughter Of Women

                By  Lisel Mueller  

The laughter of women sets fire
to the Halls of Injustice
and the false evidence burns
to a beautiful white lightness

It rattles the Chambers of Congress
and forces the windows wide open
so the fatuous speeches can fly out

The laughter of women wipes the mist
from the spectacles of the old;
it infects them with a happy flu
and they laugh as if they were young again

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at Poem Hunter dot Com)

#

For those who are new to Poets United:  

1. Post your new humor poem on your site, and then link it here.
2. If you use a picture include its link.  
3. Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
4. Leave a comment here.
5. Visit and comment on our poems.

(Our next Midweek Motif is Cancer.)

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