Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Bicycles, Tricycles or Unicycles

Girl on a Bicycle  (1987), by British sculptor Sydney Harpley 
in Singapore Botanic Gardens

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live". 

~Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.” 

― Susan B. Anthony

"The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart." 

~Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. 

~H.G. Wells

Photo credit: Ken Looi, Adventure Unicyclist

Midweek Motif  ~ Bicycles, 

Tricycles or Unicycles 

This year is the 200th anniversary of the bicycle, introduced in  Germany in 1817.  The unicycle is a few decades newer and the tricycle is a few years older.  And, it may be International Bike Week or Month--or I may have the date wrong--but the idea of the event is to promote sustainable urban transportation.  For transport, for sport and for play--do you feel the push and pull of cycling?  

source

Your Challenge: There are far fewer poems with a cycling motif than  

there should be.  

Let's fix that!

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Ode to Bicycles

by Pablo Neruda

. . . . 

A few bicycles
passed
me by,
the only
insects
in
that dry
moment of summer,
silent,
swift,
translucent;
they
barely stirred
the air.

Workers and girls
were riding to their
factories,
giving
their eyes
to summer,
their heads to the sky,
sitting on the
hard
beetle backs
of the whirling
bicycles
that whirred as they rode by
bridges, rosebushes, brambles
and midday.

source

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE.)

Dio Ed Io

Related Poem Content Details

BY CHARLES WRIGHT

. . . . 

There is a picture of Yves Klein leaping out of a window   

Above a cobblestone Paris street.   

A man on a bicycle peddles away toward the distance.   

One of them's you, the other is me.   

Cut out of the doctored photograph, however, the mesh net   

Right under the swan-diving body.   

Cut out of another print, the black-capped, ever-distancing cyclist, as well as the mesh net.   

Hmm . . . And there you have it, two-fingered sleight-of-hand man.   

One loses one's center in the air, trying to stay afloat,   

Doesn't one? Snowfalling metaphors.   

Unbidden tears, the off-size of small apples. Unshed.   

And unshedable.   

Such heaviness. The world has come and lies between us.   

Such distance. Ungraspable.   

Ash and its disappearance—   

Unbearable absence of being,   

                                           Tonto, then taken back.

(Read the rest HERE.)

Livingston Taylor - Bicycle - Green Bike in Hereford

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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 ~ Flowers.)

🚲 🚲 🚲

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ April

Tuesday, April 04, 2017 04:41PM  HARPURSVILLE, N.Y.

April the Giraffe is  . . . ready to give birth at any moment! 

❤ ❤ ❤

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” 

― William Shakespeare, Sonnet XCVIII

"The first of April is the day we remember what 
we are the other 364 days of the year."
 ― Mark Twain

“April is the cruelest month, breeding

lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

memory and desire, stirring

dull roots with spring rain.”

― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

A Year on Planet Earth (4 Seasons)

Midweek Motif ~ April

Where I live in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is arriving in bulbs and budding trees, somewhat less abundant due to late frost.  Where Poets United's Rosemary lives, Fall approaches with lots and lots of rain.  Thanks to Rosemary, I include two April poems from Australia.

I always look forward to April!

❤ ❤ ❤

Your Challenge:  Write a new poem capturing the details of an outdoor scene or day in April.  

April flowers: Daisy and Sweet Pea

April 

by Sara Teasdale

The roofs are shining from the rain.
The sparrows tritter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me. 

Song of a Second April

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

APRIL this year, not otherwise

Than April of a year ago

Is full of whispers, full of sighs,

Dazzling mud and dingy snow;

Hepaticas that pleased you so

Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,

And shingles lie about the doors;

From orchards near and far away

The gray wood-pecker taps and bores,

And men are merry at their chores,

And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep;

Noisy and swift the small brooks run.

Among the mullein stalks the sheep

Go up the hillside in the sun

Pensively; only you are gone,

You that alone I cared to keep. 

Autumn leaves observed in Centennial Park, Sydney.

April Rains

     by Allan Lake

Somewhere a small flood gate opens:

Rainstorm as a goddess

sings Garden in the Rain.

I lose tears throughout,

unable to dam the flow.

This is new, like those flowers

just outside my window,

not the ones near the door

that have given their best.

Their time, my time, the season.

Full moon last night,

its twin on the still lake.

We walked in silence knowing

what we were walking towards

but going forward because

that's all we can do

while walking hand in hand 

or alone.

Winter warms to spring;

summer sighs into autumn,

alias fall. I fell, as was my fate.

Mist, mushrooms, musts happen.

A petal, a leaf, a belief –

hosts of smallish wonders

bloom and pass and possibly

circle round again,

nudging the journey

of every sentient spore.

1st published in Poetry Matters 2016, then Poetica Christi Anthology 2017.

Used with permission of the poet. 

The Small Poem in Autumn

     © Rosemary Nissen 1990

The small poem of green leaves

and yellow leaves and red leaves

and green leaves turning yellow

and red leaves turning brown.

The small poem of green grass

and grey grass and silver grass

and black grass under shadow

and grasses beige and fawn.

The poem of the magpie’s song

rippling and gurgling in eloquent bursts

between perfect intervals of silence

each finished phrase a variation

extending the one before.

The small poem notes these down

in a half hour between sleep and work

before the clouds change and the sun moves

and the grey grass turns deep brown

and the magpie stops and leaves fall.

from Small Poems of April, Abalone Press (Three Bridges, Vic.) 1990
Used with the poet’s permission.

❤❤❤

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 ~ Books )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Acceptance

Source

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."---Lao Tzu

"I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think."---Rumi

"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval."---Mark Twain

""Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in the God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."---Dr. Paul Ohliger

Midweek Motif ~ Acceptance

Wikipedia says: Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest.

I feel Acceptance is a better word than tolerance. The word has a kinder heart; intelligence, open mind and free spirit. The word is also brave enough to embrace 'change'.

In today's world however accepting others as they are is yet an issue. People seem to forget that 'Acceptance' is key to happiness.

We are writing on Acceptance today.

Let's take a look at these wonderful poems on the theme:

Acceptance

by Robert Frost

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night bee too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'

Acceptance

by Langston Hughes

God in his infinite wisdom
Did not make me very wise -
So when my actions are stupid
They hardly take God by surprise.

The Weed

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A weed is but an unloved flower! 
    Go dig, and prune, and guide, and wait, 
    Until it learns its high estate, 
    And glorifies some bower. 
A weed is but an unloved flower!

All sin is virtue unevolved, 
    Release the angel from the clod-- 
    Go love thy brother up to God. 
Behold each problem solved. 
    All sin is virtue unevolved.

If

by E.E.Cummings

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’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 wouldn’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.

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 Song of a Single Word)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Courage

source: Morguefile

Midweek Motif ~ Courage

"Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love Known?"---William Shakespeare

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."---Mark Twain

"Courage without conscience is a wild beast"---Robert Green Ingersoll

"Courage is grace under pressure."---Ernest Hemmingway


We are all capable of controlling fear while facing danger, pain or even opposition with courage. Every one of us responds to adversity in some part of our life. That's what makes us a conscious being. We could not have survived without this virtue that gives us the strength to begin, continue and end this life journey.

Many find courage in the smallest thing of daily life and many feel that courage is a measure of our self-esteem and will.

And definitely it takes courage to be 'yourself'!

Now let's see how Anne Sexton marches her readers through the stages of life with courage:

Courage

by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it only with a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
                                           (The rest is here)



More 'courage' poems for today's inspiration:

The Survivor

by Primo Levi

I am twenty-four
led to slaughter
I survived.

The following are empty synonyms:
man and beast
love and hate
friend and foe
darkness and light.

The way of killing men and beasts is the same
I've seen it:
truckfuls of chopped up men
who will not be saved.

Ideas are mere words:
virtue and crime
truth and lies
beauty and ugliness
courage and cowardice.

Virtue and crime weigh the same
I've seen it:
in a man who has both
criminal and virtuous.

I seek a teacher and a master
may he restore my sight hearing and speech
may he again name objects and ideas
may he separate darkness from light.

I am twenty-four
led to slaughter
I survived.

Symptoms of Love

by Robert Graves

Love is universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares-
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

Write a poem on the theme "Courage"

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

             (Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be ~ Identity)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

Two film-makers speak about happiness:  

Alfred Hitchcock (above) 

and Markus Imhoof (below).

Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

Happiness grounds my life despite pain from the physical ailments of aging, from distorted relationships between homo sapiens and the rest of life, and from empathy with people facing environmental disaster, violence, starvation, disease and racial injustice.  It took a long time to find this ground, but I hope to stand on it for the rest of my life!

• Do you now or did you ever possess happiness? 
• Will you know happiness when/if you see it?

Your challenge:  Help us to see, feel or anticipate happiness through a poem in any form that makes you happy.

Three Quotes to consider:

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, 

trees, people.  I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.” 

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” 
― Mark Twain

“No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.”― Colette

And One Poem:

                            Nikki-Rosa

BY NIKKI GIOVANNI

childhood remembrances are always a drag   if you’re Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no inside toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have
your mother
all to yourself and
how good the water felt when you got your bath
from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
. . . . 

 (Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation)

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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 Weeds or Weediness.)

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Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Foolishness

“Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!” 
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

“Children and fools always speak the truth.” 
            ― Mark Twain, On the Decay of the Art of Lying

source

Midweek Motif ~ Foolishness

I skipped this theme during the USA April Fool's Day which seems more cruel than kind to me with its pranks and practical joking. But the motif is a good one for us humans who can look or act like fools or be "fools for" something.   

Challenge: 
Write a poem on human foolishness.  

A Coat

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I made my song a coat 

Covered with embroideries 

Out of old mythologies 

From heel to throat; 

But the fools caught it, 

Wore it in the world’s eyes 

As though they’d wrought it. 

Song, let them take it

For there’s more enterprise 

In walking naked.

Nightclub 

BY BILLY COLLINS

You are so beautiful and I am a fool

 to be in love with you

 is a theme that keeps coming up

 in songs and poems. 

There seems to be no room for variation. 

I have never heard anyone sing

 I am so beautifu

l and you are a fool to be in love with me

, even though this notion has surely

 crossed the minds of women and men alike. 

You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool 

is another one you don't hear. 

Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful. 

. . . .  

(Read the rest HERE)

  

you are sucha fool

by ntozake shange

you are sucha fool/ i haveta love you 
you decide to give me a poem/ intent on it/ actually 
you pull/ kiss me from 125th to 72nd street/ on 
the east side/ no less 
you are sucha fool/ you gonna give me/ the poet/ 
the poem 
insistin on proletarian images/ we buy okra/ 
3 lbs for $1/ & a pair of 98 cent shoes 
we kiss 
we wrestle 
you make sure at east 110 street/ we have cognac 
no beer all day 
you are sucha fool/ you fall over my day like 
a wash of azure

. . . . 

 (Read the rest HERE)

~

For those who are new to Poets United: 

• Post your enlightenment 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.

(Our next Midweek Motif is "earthiness" or "our planet"--4/22 is Earth Day.)

Good luck to all of you who are writing a poem a day during April.  I am using prompts from Poetic Asides, NaPoWriMo, Magaly Guerrero  and Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.  We'd love to know if you are attempting the challenge.  Please share links to the sites you are using for prompts and community during the challenge.   

Thanks!  ~Susan for Poets United

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