Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Peace

"Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace." ~ Nhat Hanh

"There is no way to peace; peace is the way." ~ A. J. Muste

“I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; 
I was trying to disturb the war."
~ Joan Baez

wiki

Midweek Motif ~ Peace

I want a peace so large that I can not reach its boundaries.  I have experienced this a few times in retreats, more times alone.  But I want even more than personal peace.  I want social and political peace ~ and not just any peace ~ peace with justice. Yet until that comes, I won't scoff at personal peace.  It helps me through the life we have.  What about you?

Have you known peace?  What was it like?  How large a peace can you imagine?  How does that change when we imagine peace ~ or create peace ~ together? 

Please write and post a new poem, addressing how you know peace now. Make us feel it.

   

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. 
 ~ Black Elk

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I Many Times Thought Peace Had Come (739)

by Emily Dickinson

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away—
As Wrecked Men—deem they sight the Land—
At Centre of the Sea—

And struggle slacker—but to prove
As hopelessly as I—
How many the fictitious Shores—
Before the Harbor be— 

  

Peace           

by Sara Teasdale

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies--
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. ~ Jesus

"Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace." ~ Gautama Buddha

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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 ~ Plastic Bags. )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Conquest

 “Greater in battle than the man who would conquer a thousand-thousand men, is he who would conquer just one — himself."

― Gautama Buddha

“ 'When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand 
the good that we have done you by coming to your land 
by order of his Majesty the King of Spain.' ” 
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel

“There's no such thing as a limited victory. Every victory leaves another resentment, another defeated and humiliated people. 
Another place to guard and defend and fear.” 
― Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century

Midweek Motif ~ Conquest

As we leave August behind, we leave a month named in honor of the Roman Emperor Augustus because it was the time of year in which he conquered Egypt, et al. 

Conquest.

According to Wikipedia:

The right of conquest is the right of a conqueror to territory taken by force of arms. It was traditionally a principle of international law that has gradually given way in modern times until its proscription after World War II when the crime of war of aggression was first codified in the Nuremberg Principles and then finally, in 1974, as a United Nations resolution 3314.

Brief Cloud Biography

Your Challenge: Write a new narrative poem on a glorious, inglorious, or mixed conquest.

microwave

Related Poem Content Details

BY ANGÉLICA FREITAS

TRANSLATED BY TIFFANY HIGGINS

how to explain brazil to an extraterrestrial:

your face on a flag. they’d recognize

you as leader

and knock you off. dirty 

part of the conquest.

but it already happened, in another shape: aerial

view of the amazon,

a hundred-odd

hydroelectric plants

to fry your eggs in the microwave.

and they’d finish you off: just 

part of the conquest.

and what if they came

to tour the waterfalls?

or to be taught by the elite

how to make a democracy?

the spaceships cover the sky

completely.

. . . . 

Read the rest HERE.)

Toussaint L’Ouverture

Related Poem Content Details

BY HENRIETTA CORDELIA RAY

To those fair isles where crimson sunsets burn, 

We send a backward glance to gaze on thee, 

Brave Toussaint! thou was surely born to be 

A hero; thy proud spirit could but spurn 

Each outrage on the race. Couldst thou unlearn 

The lessons taught by instinct? Nay! and we 

Who share the zeal that would make all men free, 

Must e’en with pride unto thy life-work turn. 

Soul-dignity was thine and purest aim; 

And ah! how sad that thou wast left to mourn 

In chains ’neath alien skies. On him, shame! shame! 

That mighty conqueror who dared to claim 

The right to bind thee. Him we heap with scorn, 

And noble patriot! guard with love thy name.

Concord Hymn

Related Poem Content Details

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

   Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood 

   And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept; 

   Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 

And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

   Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

   We set today a votive stone; 

That memory may their deed redeem, 

   When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 

   To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 

   The shaft we raise to them and thee.

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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 ~ Blooms (noun) )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Song of a Single Word

“The road is a word, conceived elsewhere and laid across the country in the wound prepared for it: a word made concrete and thrust among us.” 
― Wendell Berry

“PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to... to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry.” 
― Emily Dickinson

“The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, 
whether through malice or through ignorance, 
remain branded in his memory, and 
sooner or later they burn his soul.” 
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” 
― Gautama Buddha, The Dhammapada

Midweek Motif ~ 

The Song of a Single Word

One day our Sumana sent me a song she translated, and said: 

I tried to translate it, but it's quite hard to do it in English. I lost all the cadences of the beautiful Sanskrit words which themselves are songs.

This made me wonder if any of my words~in English, German, Latin or any language at all~contain songs all by themselves. Or does a word spark a song?


Your challenge: Chose a word which sings to you. Write a poem from its lyrics ~ or write a lyrical poem in answer to it. Enjoy!

Verb

BY PABLO NERUDA  
Translated by T.M. Lauth

I’m going to wrinkle this word, 

I’m going to twist it, 

yes, 

it is much too flat

it is as if a great dog or great river

had passed its tongue or water over it

during many years.

I want that in the word

the roughness is seen

the iron salt

The de-fanged strength 

of the land,

the blood 

of those who have spoken and those who have not spoken. 

I want to see the thirst

Inside the syllables 

I want to touch the fire

in the sound:

I want to feel the darkness 

of the cry. I want

words as rough

as virgin rocks.

(Found HERE) 

I never hear the word “Escape” (144)

Related Poem Content Details

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I never hear the word “Escape” 

Without a quicker blood, 

A sudden expectation – 

A flying attitude! 

I never hear of prisons broad 

By soldiers battered down, 

But I tug childish at my bars 

Only to fail again!

Insha’Allah

Related Poem Content Details

BY DANUSHA LAMÉRIS

I don’t know when it slipped into my speech

that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”

Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.

The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.

Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.

So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled

easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.

Every language must have a word for this. A word

our grandmothers uttered under their breath

. . . . 

(Read the rest of this amazing poem HERE)

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 ~  Predator and Prey !   )