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

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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 ~ Children

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, 

and it is tiresome for children to be always 

and forever explaining things to them” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Midweek Motif ~ Children


Poems ABOUT children ~ NOT poems for children. 

I didn't mean to shout.  In the USA, Mothers Day is 5/11 and Fathers Day is next month, and so we naturally think about children ~ our own or other people's.  And each of us was a child once, a child we learn to cherish regardless of our histories.  Or not. Today's motif is CHILDREN: around us, in the past, in the news, in literature, visible and invisible.

Lichtenstein postcard

On the Seashore

BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds. . . . 

     (Read the rest at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174939)

Nursing You by Erica Jong

    On the first night
of the full moon,
the primeval sack of ocean
broke,
& I gave birth to you
little woman,
little carrot top,
little turned-up nose,
pushing you out of myself
as my mother
pushed
me out of herself,
as her mother did,
& her mother's mother before her,
all of us born
of woman.
. . . . 

(Read the rest at:  http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/erica_jong/poems/2855.html )

For more inspiration, see the POEM SAMPLER

Poems about Children and Parenting

Poems on the joys of parenting babies, toddlers, and teenagers.

at The Poetry Foundation

Please:  

1.      Post your poem about Children on your site, and then link it here.

2.      Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 

3.      Leave a comment here.

4.      Honor our community by visiting and commenting on others' poems.

(The next Midweek Motif is Bicycles)

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I Wish I'd Written This

At The Edge Of The Body

By Erica Jong

At the edge of the body
there is said to be
a flaming halo-
yellow, red, blue
or pure white,
taking its color
from the state
of the soul.

Cynics scoff.
Scientists make graphs
to refute it.
Editorial writers,
journalists, & even
certain poets,
claim it is only mirage,
trumped-up finery,
illusory feathers,
spiritual shenanigans,
humbug.

But in dreams
we see it,
& sometimes even waking.
If the spirit is a bride
about to be married to God,
this is her veil.

Do I believe it?
Do I squint
& regard the perimeter
of my lover's body,
searching for some sign
that his soul
is about to ignite
the sky?

Without squinting,
I almost see it.
An angry red aura
changing to white,
the color of peace.

I gaze at the place where he turns into air
& the flames of his skin
combine
with the flames of the sky,
proving
the existence
of both.

It had to be Erica Jong today, as she's just had her 72nd birthday. (Yes, this is a much younger photo!)  She's even better known, of course, as a feminist novelist, starting with her 1973 best-seller, Fear of Flying.  That was considered very daring, even groundbreaking, in its day, for its approach to female sexuality. She coined the term, "the zipless fuck," which became an immediate catch-phrase.

She went on to write a number of other works of fiction and non-fiction, but she was first a poet and has continued to publish volumes of poetry too. Her books are listed in the Wikipedia article at the link on her name, above, and on her own website. You can also find them at her Amazon pages, along with a concise literary biography of her life and work. And her poems are on the trusty PoemHunter site.

Her early poetry was also ground-breaking. It included such domestic topics as preparing food, which had not previously been considered sufficiently exalted to be the subject of poetry; and it often did so in plain, direct language. They could be deceptively simple; some were quite fanciful and startling when read closely.

The poem I've chosen, the title poem of her 1979 poetry book, is more overtly fanciful. The language is still very direct, but not exactly plain. Above all, I love the images she creates. At the same time, Jong's poetry can be subtly disturbing, and this one is no exception. (What is that "angry red aura" about?) An intellectual aspect to her writing is also typical — as in the closing lines here. And with what apparent effortlessness she creates such beautiful poetry!

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).

And a P.S. — for those who were eagerly awaiting Leigh Spencer's book, Tequila and Cookies, it's out! Here's the Amazon link (and you can get it at Amazon UK too).