Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Everyday Living

“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”— Khalil Gibran

SOURCE

“Sit in a room and read- -and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

    Midweek Motif ~Everyday Living

As individual lifestyles vary everyday living may be different for different people. For some it’s exciting and for others it’s very mundane and routine life.

Once Rainer Maria Rilke said, “If your life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator there is no poverty”.

There are always two ways of looking at an object. Is the glass half empty or half full?

Let’s listen to what you have to say.

Here is a list of links to some amazing poems about everyday living and human existence:

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky

August 1953 by David Wojahn

Daily Life by Susan Wood

Little Night Prayer by Péter Kántor 

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 ~ The Food We Eat)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Morning Poem

“A monk sips morning tea,
it's quiet,
the chrysanthemum's flowering.”— Matsuo Basho

SOURCE

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”— Khalil Gibran

   Midweek Motif ~ Morning Poem

Capture the time in your lines when the day is new and you are out of your slumber.

Isn’t it always a good morning whether it’s bright, gray, cloudy or rainy? Or is it not?

A few lines from Langston Hughes:

Bad Morning

Here I sit
With my shoes mismated.
Lawdy-mercy!
I's frustrated! 

Today’s motif is Morning Poem. Let’s see where the morning takes you J

Morning Poem

by Mary Oliver

(here)

300

by Emily Dickinson

'Morning'—means 'Milking'—to the Farmer—
Dawn—to the Teneriffe—
Dice—to the Maid—
Morning means just Risk—to the Lover—
Just revelation—to the Beloved—

Epicures—date a Breakfast—by it—
Brides—an Apocalypse—
Worlds—a Flood—
Faint-going Lives—Their Lapse from Sighing—
Faith—The Experiment of Our Lord 

One O’Clock In The Morning

by Charles Baudelaire

Alone, at last! Not a sound to be heard but the rumbling of some belated and decrepit cabs. For a few hours 
we shall have silence, if not repose. At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and I myself shall be the 
only cause of my sufferings.
At last, then, I am allowed to refresh myself in a bath of darkness! First of all, a double turn of the lock. It 
seems to me that this twist of the key will increase my solitude and fortify the barricades which at this instant 
separate me from the world.
Horrible life! Horrible town! Let us recapitulate the day: seen several men of letters, one of whom asked me 
whether one could go to Russia by a land route (no doubt he took Russia to be an island); disputed generously with the editor of a review, who, to each of my objections, replied: 'We represent the cause of decent people,' which 
implies that all the other newspapers are edited by scoundrels; greeted some twenty persons, with fifteen of whom I am not acquainted; distributed handshakes in the same proportion, and this without having taken the precaution of 
buying gloves; to kill time, during a shower, went to see an acrobat, who asked me to design for her the costume of a 
Venustra; paid court to the director of a theatre, who, while dismissing me, said to me: 'Perhaps you would do well to 
apply to Z------; he is the clumsiest, the stupidest and the most celebrated of my authors; together with him, perhaps, 
you would get somewhere. Go to see him, and after that we'll see;' boasted (why?) of several vile actions which I
have never committed, and faint-heartedly denied some other misdeeds which I accomplished with joy, an error of
bravado, an offence against human respect; refused a friend an easy service, and gave a written recommendation to a
perfect clown; oh, isn't that enough?
Discontented with everyone and discontented with myself, I would gladly redeem myself and elate myself a
little in the silence and solitude of night. Souls of those I have loved, souls of those I have sung, strengthen me,
support me, rid me of lies and the corrupting vapours of the world; and you, O Lord God, grant me the grace to
produce a few good verses, which shall prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to
those whom I despise. 

Morning

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The mist has left the greening plain,
The dew-drops shine like fairy rain,
The coquette rose awakes again
Her lovely self adorning.

The Wind is hiding in the trees,
A sighing, soothing, laughing tease,
Until the rose says "Kiss me, please,"
'Tis morning, 'tis morning.

With staff in hand and careless-free,
The wanderer fares right jauntily,
For towns and houses are, thinks he,
For scorning, for scorning.
My soul is swift upon the wing,
And in its deeps a song I bring;
Come, Love, and we together sing,
"'Tis morning, 'tis morning." 

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 ~ Surprise!)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Identity

source


Midweek Motif ~ Identity

Meaning of identity according to dictionary is "who or what somebody/something is". Very simple. But aren't there numerous ways to identify who we are? Our sense of self develops from our own principles, values, community and culture. Quite a patchwork quilt we are and complex.

Moreover we tend to change with shifting situations.

Some interesting quotes:

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passion a quotation."---Oscar Wilde

"My friend I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear -- a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain forever more, unperceived, unapproachable."---Khalil Gibran, The Madman

"I am not one and simple, but complex and many"---Virginia Woolf, The waves

"I believe that true identity is found....in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself. Woman can best re-find herself in some kind of creative activity of her own."---Anne Morrow Lindberg

So today let's unfold our own story, our "Identity".


A few poems for inspiration:

If

by E.E.Cummings

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and lies weren't a lie,
Life would be delight,--
But things couldn't go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn't be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I'd be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You would't be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,--
Yet they'd all despair
For if here was there
We wouldn't be we.

As I Grew Older

by Langston Hughes

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

by Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!


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 The Inanimate & The Non-Human)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Colors

source

"Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways."---Oscar Wilde

"Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow."---Khalil Gibran

"I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart--the best brain."---Robert Ingersoll

                                                      Midweek Motif ~ Colors


Who wants a drab life or a colorless world? Imagine a monochromatic rainbow! We thank the sun all our life for the light, warmth and colors it brings to us. It's so sad that there are so many souls deprived of this gift of light and colors from birth.

Psychologists believe that in northern countries there is a large number of people who commit suicide simply because there is a prolonged absence of light and color due to the cold dark winter.

Sometimes our skin colors can become big issues even in today's world triggering discrimination.

Color may be synonymous to happiness. People paint their homes in happy colors to keep depression at bay.

Writers frequently use colors and its shades as symbols.

Nature displays Her colors magnificently throughout the seasons reminding us of birth, growth, decay and death.

What about the poets? Let's check out a few:

Domination of Black

by Wallace Stevens

At night, by the fire,

The colors of the bushes

And of the fallen leaves,

Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.

Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding.

And I remember the cry of the peacocks. 

The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.

They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.

I heard them cry -- the peacocks.

Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
Turning as the flames
Turned in the fire,
Turning as the tails of the peacocks
Turned in the loud fire,
Loud as the hemlocks
Full of the cry of the peacocks?
Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?

Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.

I saw how the night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.

And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

Letter in November

by Sylvia Plath

Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns color.
The streetlight
Splits through the rat's tail
Pods of laburnum at nine in the morning.

It is the Arctic,

This little black
Circle, with its tawn silk grasses - babies hair.

There is a green in the air,
Soft, delectable.

It cushions me lovingly.

I am flushed and warm.

I think it may be enormous,
I am so stupidly happy,
My Wellingtons
Squelching and squelching through the beautiful red.

This is my property.

Two times a day
I pace it, sniffing
The barbarous holly with its viridian
Scallops, pure iron,

And the wall of the odd corpses.

I love them.

I love them like history.

The apples are golden
Imagine it----

My seventy trees
Holding their gold-ruddy balls
In a thick grey death-soup,
Their million
Gold leaves metal and breathless.

O love, o celibate.

Nobody but me
Walks the waist high wet.

Golds bleed and deepen, the mouths of Thermopylae.


Write a poem with "colors" today.

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 ~ Design)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ River

source

Midweek Motif ~ River

"For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one."--Khalil Gibran

"No man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he is not the same man."--Heraclitus

"Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid"--Francis Bacon


River is the lifeline of all ancient civilizations. It is the silent witness of the rise and fall of empires and races. Though not breathing river lives. No wonder it has become a powerful symbol in mythologies of so many cultures.

River has been personified as being that is worshiped, feared, revered. It has been treated as metaphors for life, fertility and time too. Its birth, its journey with twists and turns and its final transformation is awe inspiring.

Our dear poet friend Sherry Blue Sky's poem flows like this:

Mother Ocean / Small Stream
by Sherry Marr


Small stream, as you gambol down rocky cliffs,
burble and babble in swirling pools,
chuckle in the afternoon sunlight,
you meet obstacles
on your journey to the sea.

Drought dries up your stream bed for a time'
or logs crash down and clog your passage
with mud and debris
it might take aeons to dislodge,
before you can flow freely
once again.

And yet you persevere,
with confidence,
with courage, with determination,
with gaiety,
because forward is the only direction you know,
and your life's work is
to finally reach the sea.

You stay serene and focused,
because you know that,
whatever may befall you as you travel,
still, you are water,
each drop of you as necessary
to the cycle of life as the next.
You know, one day you will merge
with Mother Ocean,
will become one with her,
will immerse yourself in her immensity
for all time.
Already, even at such a distance,
you are one,
for, still and always
you are water.


I may add another voice in our river song today and that's of  Wang Wei's (699AD-761Ad) who was a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman. He was one of the most renowned men of arts and letters of his time.

A Green Stream
by Wang Wei

I have sailed the river of yellow flowers,
Borne by the channel of a green stream,
Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains
On a journey of less than thirty miles.

Rapids hum over heaped rocks;
But where light grows dim in the thick pines,
The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns
And weeds are lush along the banks.

Down in my heart I have always been as pure
As this limpid water is.
Oh, to remain on a broad flat rock
And to cast a fishing-line forever!


Another poem for today's theme is Emily Dickinson's My River runs to thee.

My River runs to thee
by Emily Dickinson

My river runs to thee
Blue sea! Wilt welcome me?
My River wait reply
Oh sea-- look graciously
I'll fetch thee Brooks
From spotted nooks
Say--Sea--Take me!


So how does river sing to you? Today I would like you to be inspired by Rivers and write your lines.

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 ~ Mercy. )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Beauty

source

                                                Midweek Motif ~ Beauty

"Ugly is just a word", I said, "Like beauty. They mean different things to different people....." This quote is taken from a short story, Most Beautiful by Ruskin Bond. Strange it is! How come a thing truly beautiful is not so to another person?

The narrator of the said story assumes that 'Beauty' is a relative term.

And the more I ponder over the word the more layered it becomes.

The poem Beauty XXV by Khalil Gibran says:

The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us."
And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."

Beauty then seems to be hidden everywhere and in everything. Only the eye of the beholder finds it.

Poets are seers. Through your eyes we shall look at Beauty today.

A couple of poems to get inspirations from:

Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright

by William Blake

Sleep! sleep!  Beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er the joys of night;
Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet Babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart does rest.

O! the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep.
When thy little heart does wake
Then the dreadful lightnings break.

From thy cheek and from thy eye,
O'er the youthful harvests nigh.
Infant wiles and infant smiles
Heaven and Earth of peace beguiles.

Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things--
  For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced-- fold, fallow, and plough;
       An all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled(who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; a dazzle dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                                                Praise him.

Next week's Midweek Motif will be "Silence."


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

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Time

source

Midweek Motif ~ Time

From time immemorial humans have endeavored to bind the omnipotent, eternal immeasurable Time.

Science and Arts do that in their unique way. While the Rotation of the Earth from east to west, the Earth's Revolution around the Sun, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum and the beat of a heart act as the alphabets to read the language of Time, colors and lines of artists and words of poets aspire to tease and go beyond Time.

We cannot deny the ambiguous nature of Time. While Time is truly a measurable entity it is both instantaneous and eternal.

Are we all fixed to a time frame?

What sayest thou?

A few quotes and a couple of poems for inspiration:

"Hide nothing, for time, which sees all, exposes all."---Sophocles

"How did it get so less so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?"---Dr. Seuss

"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."---Vincent Van Gogh

"Now five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old"...Wang Lung ---Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth

To His Coy Mistress 

By Andrew Marvell 

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love's day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges' side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain.

   I would

Love you ten years before the Flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

                            (The rest is here)

Time Xxi

By Khalil Gibran


And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?"

And he answered:

You would measure time the measureless and immeasurable

You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.

Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,

And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.

And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.

Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?

And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?

And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?

But if you thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all other seasons,

And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

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 Fathers)

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Auto-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

The Living Dead

Honouring our poetic ancestors 

Beauty 
By Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)

And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty. 


And he answered:
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? 


And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? 



The aggrieved and the injured say, 'Beauty is kind and gentle. 
' Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.'
And the passionate say, 'Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. 

 
'Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.' 



The tired and the weary say, 'Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. 

 
'Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.' 


But the restless say, 'We have heard her shouting among the mountains, 

 
'And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.'

At night the watchmen of the city say, 'Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.'
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, 'we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.'



In winter say the snow-bound, 'She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.'
And in the summer heat the reapers say, 'We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.' 



All these things have you said of beauty. 


Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, 


And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.


It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, 


But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, 


But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, 


But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. 



People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. 

But you are life and you are the veil. 


Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. 


But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

 From 'The Prophet'

Of course I wish I were capable of writing that whole book, The Prophet, Gibran's masterpiece. I choose this section to share with you because Gibran imagines it being addressed to a poet, and because it may not be quite so familiar to you as those sections more frequently quoted, e.g. Children, Joy and Sorrow, Marriage.

Gibran was born in Lebanon, and migrated to the USA with his mother and siblings when he was still a schoolboy. 

(It was due to a school error that his first name is sometimes given as Kahlil; indeed he is so widely known by that version that Google will accept either and direct you accurately.)

I was surprised, when researching this post, to find he died as young as 48, and as long ago as 1931. The Prophet has never gone out of print and its message has not dated. Wikipedia tells us it was translated into more than 40 languages and was the best-selling book in the United States in the 20th Century. Deservedly so, I think. I find the wisdom unarguable and its expression perfect.

Wikipedia describes it as a book of philosophical essays, and also as prose poems, and even as a work of fiction. It is indeed all of these, impossible to separate; yet I always see it primarily as poetry. We are also told that Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, after Shakespeare and Lao Tzu! He wrote in both English and Arabic, and Wikipedia further notes:

In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero.

He was also known as an artist, having studied art as a schoolboy in Boston, and later in Paris. Realism was the coming vogue, but in his art as in his writing, he preferred a romantic style. Some of his own pictures illustrate The Prophet. These too seem perfect for the purpose.

So where did he get his deep insights? Talent of that degree may be random and mysterious — inherent — but how is such wisdom acquired?

Brought up Christian, he also studied Islam, particularly Sufism, as well as Judaism and theosophy. We are also told he had strong ties to the Baha'i faith. He was evidently on a spiritual quest, and it seems he may well have been naturally mystical in his outlook.

Five pages of his poems are available to read at PoemHunter — and when I got up to 11 pages of books by and about him on Amazon, I stopped counting. The Amazon list certainly includes several editions of The Prophet, but that was by no means his only book (just the one widely considered the best and most moving). His influence was vast, and it continues without an end in sight.

Verse First ~ MOVE

Welcome to Verse First, where simple notions prompt amazing poems.

Today's notion?

MOVE

... because after 20 years in the same community, that's exactly what I'm doing; and by next week I hope to be ensconced in a new, albeit temporary, studio space wherein I can resume my writing and painting routines. I can't wait. I miss you people!
Now, consider Khalil Gibran's words of wisdom below, and then write.  Only rule ~ no more than 20 lines. After you post your work on your website, use Mr. Linky to share it here. Leave a comment below if you like, and remember to support fellow poets by visiting and commenting on their work.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.

~ Khalil Gibran

I look forward to reading your unflinchingly pared-down poems. ~ Kim

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Auto-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.