Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Mirror

“Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror or the painter?” — Pablo Picasso

“All things that pass / Are wisdom’s looking glass.” — Christina Rossetti

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”—George Bernard Shaw

“There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‘That person I see is a savage monster;’ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.” — Noam Chomsky

           Midweek Motif ~Mirror 

A Mirror reflects. Does it tell us who we are?

Does it show appearance or reality?

What do you see or want to see when you look in the mirror?

What else do you think might work as a mirror too?

Mirror is our motif today. You might also write your lines from the perspective of a mirror.

Mirror

by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

The Other Side Of A Mirror

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

I sat before my glass one day, 

And conjured up a vision bare, 

Unlike the aspects glad and gay, 

That erst were found reflected there - 

The vision of a woman, wild 

With more than womanly despair.
 

Her hair stood back on either side 

A face bereft of loveliness.
 

It had no envy now to hide 

What once no man on earth could guess.
 

It formed the thorny aureole 

Of hard, unsanctified distress.
 

Her lips were open - not a sound 

Came though the parted lines of red, 

Whate'er it was, the hideous wound 

In silence and secret bled.
 

No sigh relieved her speechless woe, 

She had no voice to speak her dread.

And in her lurid eyes there shone 

The dying flame of life's desire, 

Made mad because its hope was gone, 

And kindled at the leaping fire 

Of jealousy and fierce revenge, 

And strength that could not change nor tire.

Shade of a shadow in the glass, 

O set the crystal surface free! 

Pass - as the fairer visions pass - 

Nor ever more return, to be 

The ghost of a distracted hour, 

That heard me whisper: - 'I am she!'

Mirror, Mirror

by Spike Milligan

A young spring-tender girl

combed her joyous hair

'You are very ugly' said the mirror.

But,

on her lips hung

a smile of dove-secret loveliness,

for only that morning had not

the blind boy said,

'You are beautiful’?

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 ~ Gender)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Food

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one"---Mother Teresa

"So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being."---Franz Kafka

"Animals are my friends.....and I don't eat my friends"---George Bernard Shaw

"Wine is bottled poetry"---Robert Louis Stevenson

source

Midweek Motif ~ Food

Today I want you to write about "Food" you like or even dislike.

You may deal with pure food items or recipes in your own way or spice it up with figures of speech, various poetic devices.

Have fun!

Here is some food for thought:

The Health-Food Diner

by Maya Angelou

The Health-Food Diner

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots

And Brussels in a cake,

Carrot straw and spinach raw,

(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw

Or mushrooms creamed on toast,

Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,

(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world

Are thinned by anxious zeal,

They look for help in sea food kelp

(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,

Zucchini by the ton,

Uncooked kale and bodies frail

Are sure to make me run

to

Loins of pork and chicken thighs

And standing rib, so prime,

Pork chops brown and fresh groundround

(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef

and hot dogs by the scores,

or any place that saves a space

For making carnivores.

Fame Is A Fickle Food

by Emily Dickinson

Fame is a fickle food

Upon a shifting plate

Whose table once a 

Guest but not

The second time is set

Whose crumbs the crows inspect

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the Farmer's corn--

Men eat of it and die.

Sonnet 75

by William Shakespeare

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet seasoned showers to the ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found:

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure;

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

And by and by clean starved for a look,

Possessing or pursuing no delight

Save what is had, or must from you be took.

      Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

      Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

Oysters

by Seamus Heaney

Our shells clacked on the plate.

My tongue was a filling estuary.

My palate hung with starlight:

As I tasted the salty Pleiades

Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated,

They lay on their bed of ice:

Bivalves: the split bulb

And philandering sigh of ocean

Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to that coast

Through flowers and limestone

And there we were, toasting friendship,

Laying down a perfect memory

In the cool of thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,

The Romans hauled their oysters south to Roam:

I saw damp panniers disgorge

The frond-lipped, brine-stung

Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose

In the clear light, like poetry or freedom

Leaning in from sea. I ate the day

Deliberately, that its tang

Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.

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 Mountain)

                                                   

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Glass(es).

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” 

~ Anton Chekhov

“One drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water.” 

~ Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

People are like stained - glass windows. 

They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, 

but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty 

is revealed only if there is a light from within.

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Glass: Transparent and opaque examples

Midweek Motif ~ Glass(es).

I see glass everywhere, which is odd as it is see-through and tries to be invisible.  Many sayings and proverbs exist.  Do you know others?

• People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
• Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses.
• Is your glass half empty or half full?
• A blind man will not thank you for a looking-glass.

Your challenge:  Expand on a proverb OR use one type of glass(es) as symbol in a Brand New Poem.  

Cropped still from Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925).

Sharp Glass

BY MINNIE BRUCE PRATT

Shattered glass in the street at Maryland and 10th:

smashed sand glittering on a beach of black asphalt.

You can think of it so: or as bits of broken kaleidoscope,

or as crystals spilled from the white throat of a geode.

You can use metaphor to move the glass as far as possible

. . . .  

( Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation.)

Sonnet   3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
    But if thou live rememb’red not to be,
    Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

1 Corinthians 13:12:  

"For now we see through a glass, darkly. . . " 

(http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/13-12.htm)

~

For those who are new to Poets United:  

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

(Our next Midweek Motif is Mother Tongues)

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