Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fear

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“Do one thing every day that scares you.” 

― Eleanor Roosevelt

“We are so scared of being  judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.” 
― Erica Jong, Seducing the Demon

“Fear is the mind-killer. 
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
 I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. ” 
― Frank Herbert, Dune

View through the Glass Floor of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada.

Midweek Motif ~ Fear

I had many days without fear as a child and fewer days during my work-for-income years.  Then, I developed a philosophy about fear and how I should welcome it as a guest and hear what it had to say.  Hearing did not mean heeding, of course. Fear now is more social than personal, as I try to prevent the new US of A President DT from Ruining Everything. 

Enough.  Let's get personal.

When is fear helpful, harmful, present, banished?  How do you know what to do with fear?

YOUR CHALLENGE:  In a new poem, unfold a truth you've learned about fear.

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Fear of Happiness

Related Poem Content Details

BY A. E. STALLINGS

Looking back, it’s something I’ve always had:

As a kid, it was a glass-floored elevator

I crouched at the bottom of, my eyes squinched tight,

Or staircase whose gaps I was afraid I’d slip through,

Though someone always said I’d be all right—

Just don’t look down or See, it’s not so bad

(The nothing rising underfoot). Then later

The high-dive at the pool, the tree-house perch,

Ferris wheels, balconies, cliffs, a penthouse view,

The merest thought of airplanes. You can call

It a fear of heights, a horror of the deep;

But it isn’t the unfathomable fall

That makes me giddy, makes my stomach lurch,

It’s that the ledge itself invents the leap.

Touched By An Angel

By Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives 

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity 

In the flush of love's light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

Batty

By Shel Silverstein

The baby bat

Screamed out in fright,

'Turn on the dark,

I'm afraid of the light. 

Child, Child
by Sara Teasdale

Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man,
Never fear though it break your heart -
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well
Though love be heaven or love be hell.

Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel -
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heaven.

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 ~

 A Woman's Day: Be Bold For Change)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Unity

http://www.unityproject.net/

 “We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business;

we are each other's magnitude and bond.”

― Gwendolyn Brooks

“Pit race against race, religion against religion,

prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer!

We must not let that happen here.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

“I felt knowledge and the unity of the world

circulate in me like my own blood.”

― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

 "Unity" Sculpture at Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Midweek Motif ~ Unity

Is there anything that doesn't work better with Unity?

As a principle of design, unity: "occurs when all of
the elements of a piece combine to make a balanced,

harmonious, complete whole. Unity is another of those

hard-to-describe art terms but, when it's present,

your eye and brain are pleased to see it."

 Versus:

Dis                 u

n

i                                                     ty

Your Challenge: In a new poem, bring diverse or disparate entities into unity.  

Excerpt from The Anti-Suffragists

BY CHARLOTTE ANNA PERKINS GILMAN

Fashionable women in luxurious homes,

With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills,

Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief;

Hostess or guest, and always so supplied

With graceful deference and courtesy;

Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, —

These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Successful women who have won their way

Alone, with strength of their unaided arm,

Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up

By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’;

Successful any way, and caring naught

For any other woman’s unsuccess, —

These tell us they have all the rights they want.

. . . .  (Read the rest of this amazing poem HERE.)

I Have Learned So Much

BY HAFITZ

I
haveLearned

So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

The Red Wheelbarrow

by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

#

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

( Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Change)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Unity

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“All for one and one for all.” 
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“Pit race against race, religion against religion, 
prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! 
We must not let that happen here.” 

― Eleanor Roosevelt

“If everyone helps to hold up the sky, 
then one person does not become tired.” 
― Askhari Johnson Hodari

Midweek Motif ~ Unity

How wonderful when it is true marriage (union); 

How stunning when it overcomes differences (accord);

How amazing when it is paradox  (oddly true). 

Your Challenge: Let your new poem reveal Unity.

Say I am You

     by Jelaluddin Rumi

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove, and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal.

Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,
and the falling away. What is, and what isn't.

You who know Jelaluddin, You the one in all,
say who I am. 

Say I am You.

The Building of the Ship

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"Build me straight, O worthy Master!

Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,

That shall laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"

The merchant's word

Delighted the Master heard;

For his heart was in his work, and the heart

Giveth grace unto every Art.

A quiet smile played round his lips,

As the eddies and dimples of the tide

Play round the bows of ships,

That steadily at anchor ride.

And with a voice that was full of glee,

He answered, "Erelong we will launch

A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch,

As ever weathered a wintry sea!"

And first with nicest skill and art,

Perfect and finished in every part,

A little model the Master wrought,

Which should be to the larger plan

What the child is to the man,

Its counterpart in miniature;

. . . . 

Read the rest of this magnificent poem

HERE at the Poetry Foundation.

For those who are new to Poets United: 

• Post your new Unity poem on your site, and then link it here.
• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here and visit and comment on our poems.

(Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be Acceptance.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Human Rights (Day)

"I call on States to honour their obligation 

to protect human rights every day of the year. 

I call on people to hold their governments to account."

~ UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Midweek Motif ~ 

Human Rights (Day)

Today is Human Rights Day. Have you read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?? I love #22. The document itself is an achievement.


Your Challenge: 

(1)Write a poem inspired by 

Ban Ki-Moon's challenge above.

OR:  

(2)Write a poem that answers 

one or more of these questions while staying within the "human rights" motif:

~ What is Human?

~ What are Rights?

~ What can/has uniting nations accomplished for human rights?

~ How do your dinner plans for tonight reflect Human rights?

HUMAN RIGHTS ACCORDING TO ELEANOR ROOSEVELT:

Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places, closes to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

― Eleanor Roosevelt

Remarks at the United Nations, March 27, 1958

“While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.” 
― Robert Burns, 
The Complete Works Of Robert Burns

For those who are new to Poets United:  

1. Post your new Human Rights 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.

(Next week's Midweek Motif will be the last one this year.  Our motif will be MUSIC in honor of Beethovan's birthday and the choral songs that arise around holidays and year's end ... )

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