Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Winter

 

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”— Albert Camus

SOURCE

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

      Midweek Motif ~ Winter

Winter is not that much cold, bleak and depressing where I live. It rather sends off a vibe of joy and color. It’s a time for comfort and good food. Winter is sunny, bright with a nip in the air. Everyone is happy as the sweltering heat is no more.

It would be perfect if such winter story was true for all. For the poor and homeless winter is a more or less grim struggle as elsewhere.

For this week write a winter poem.

Sharing a few poems now:

Horses

by Pablo Neruda

From the window I saw the horses.

I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
had no light, the sky had no heaven.

The air was white like wet bread.

And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.

Suddenly driven out by a man,
ten horses surged through the mist.

Like waves of fire, they flared forward
and to my eyes filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.

Their rumps were worlds and oranges.

Their color was honey, amber, fire.

Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.

There, in silence, at mid-day,
in that dirty, disordered winter,
those intense horses were the blood
the rhythm, the inciting treasure of life.

I looked. I looked and was reborn:
for there, unknowing, was the fountain,
the dance of gold, heaven
and the fire that lives in beauty.

I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.

I will not forget the light of the horses.

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Not Only the Eskimos

by Lisel Mueller

Not only the Eskimos

 We have only one noun

 but as many different kinds:

                                         

 the grainy snow of the Puritans

 and snow of soft, fat flakes,

 guerrilla snow, which comes in the night

 and changes the world by morning,

 rabbinical snow, a permanent skullcap

 on the highest mountains,

 snow that blows in like the Lone Ranger,

 riding hard from out of the West,

 surreal snow in the Dakotas,

 when you can't find your house, your street,

 though you are not in a dream

 or a science-fiction movie,

 snow that tastes good to the sun

 when it licks black tree limbs,

 leaving us only one white stripe,

 a replica of a skunk,

 unbelievable snows:

 the blizzard that strikes on the tenth of April,

 the false snow before Indian summer,

 the Big Snow on Mozart's birthday,

 when Chicago became the Elysian Fields

 and strangers spoke to each other,

 paper snow, cut and taped,

 to the inside of grade-school windows,

 in an old tale, the snow

 that covers a nest of strawberries,

 small hearts, ripe and sweet,

 the special snow that goes with Christmas,

 whether it falls or not,

 the Russian snow we remember

 along with the warmth and smell of furs,

 though we have never traveled

 to Russia or worn furs,

 Villon's snows of yesteryear,

 lost with ladies gone out like matches,

 the snow in Joyce's "The Dead,"

 the silent, secret snow

 in a story by Conrad Aiken,

 which is the snow of first love,

 the snowfall between the child

 and the spacewoman on TV,

 snow as idea of whiteness,

 as in snowdrop, snow goose, snowball bush,

 the snow that puts stars in your hair,

 and your hair, which has turned to snow,

 the snow Elinor Wylie walked in

 in velvet shoes,

 the snow before her footprints

 and the snow after,

 the snow in the back of our heads,

 whiter than white, which has to do

 with childhood again each year.

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 ~ Awakening)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Light

 

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”— Edith Wharton

SOURCE

“If each day falls

inside each night,

there exists a well

where clarity is imprisoned.

We need to sit on the rim

of the well of darkness

and fish for fallen light

with patience.”— Pablo Neruda

        Midweek Motif ~ Light

Our words can create both darkness and light. For today stick to Light; whatever Light means to you. A compare and contrast will also do.

Choose any parts of speech you prefer your ‘Light’ to be in: noun, adjective, verb.

As I am writing this I am thinking of Helen Keller who preferred to walk with a friend in the dark than walking alone in light. 

Now, to share a few poems with you:

With The Light Of Eye

by Rabindranath Tagore

With the light of eye I’d seen what the world displayed.

          Today I look within when all light is erased.

Sight can’t arrest you   yet the heart is replete with you,

        Now in your own light I desire to gaze at you.

           In my play-room we had played together.

       In the ravaging storm toys have been shattered.

         Let’s end that mere play and souls’ union be made—

              Lute is broken, my heart string I strum.

     (Translated by Sumana Roy)

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

by Dylan Thomas

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts. 

Light Is More Important Than The Lantern

by Nizar Quabbani

Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
They are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty 
And my madness.

 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 ~ Peace)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Ode To Age

 

“….O! sweet to me the laughing hours,

When earth seemed gay, and heaven was fair;

When fancy culled her thornless flowers,

And pleasure reigned unknown to care....” — William B. Tappan

SOURCE

      “Why so scrawny, cat?

Starving for fat fish or mice….

Or backyard love?” — Basho

    Midweek Motif ~ Ode To Age

We are paying homage to Age.

In his essay “Of Youth and Age Francis Bacon says, “A man that is young in years may be old in ​hours, if he have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second.”

You may write about youth, old age or even about a distinct period of history or literature.

An eminent literary or historical figure in your poem is also most welcome.

Here is an ode to Age by Pablo Neruda:

Ode To Age

by Pablo Neruda

I don't believe in age.
All old people
carry
in their eyes,
a child,
and children,
at times
observe us with the

eyes of wise ancients.
Shall we measure
life
in meters or kilometers
or months?
How far since you were born?
How long

must you wander
until
like all men
instead of walking on its surface
we rest below the earth?
To the man, to the woman
who utilized their
energies, goodness, strength,
anger, love, tenderness,
to those who truly
alive
flowered,
and in their sensuality matured,
let us not apply
the measure
of a time
that may be
something else, a mineral
mantle, a solar

bird, a flower,
something, maybe,
but not a measure.
Time, metal
or bird, long
petiolate flower,
stretch
through
man's life,
shower him
with blossoms
and with
bright
water
or with hidden sun.
I proclaim you
road,
not shroud,
a pristine
ladder
with treads
of air,
a suit lovingly
renewed
through springtimes
around the world.
Now,
time, I roll you up,
I deposit you in my
bait box
and I am off to fish
with your long line
the fishes of the dawn!

translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden 

The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Alfred Tennyson

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

   Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

                       (The rest is here) 

London, 1802

by William Wordsworth

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

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 ~ Prayer.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Of Poems

    “Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?” —  Spike Milligan, A Silly Poem

SOURCE

“it
takes
a lot of
desperation
dissatisfaction

and
di sillusion
to
write
a
few
good
p oems.
it's not
for
everybody
either to

write
it
or even to
read
it” — Charles Bukowski, Poetry

      Midweek Motif ~ Of Poems

Okay, poem a poem about poem this week J

           

For your inspiration here are a handful of poems J

Introduction To Poetry

by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means. 

Poetry

by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind. 

A Quiet Poem

by Frank O’Hara

When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move

and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.

The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine

that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls

like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker

as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,

slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand. 

Willow Poem

by William Carlos Williams

It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river --
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground. 

Million Man March Poem

by Maya Angelou

The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.

Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You've worn a badge of shame.

I say, the night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark
And the walls have been steep.

But today, voices of old spirit sound
Speak to us in words profound,
Across the years, across the centuries,
Across the oceans, and across the seas.
They say, draw near to one another,
Save your race.
You have been paid for in a distant place,
The old ones remind us that slavery's chains
Have paid for our freedom again and again.

The night has been long,
The pit has been deep,
The night has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.

The hells we have lived through and live through still,
Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish
Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise,
And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground,
I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love,
I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference,
Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts,
Let us come together and revise our spirits,
Let us come together and cleanse our souls,
Clap hands, let's leave the preening
And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,
Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation,
Courtesy into our bedrooms,
Gentleness into our kitchen,
Care into our nursery.

The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain
We are a going-on people who will rise again.

And still we rise. 

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 ~ National flag(s))