Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Bittersweet

True Bittersweet: Solanum dulcamara, photo by Sten Porse

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. 
Bitter. Sweet. Alive.” 

― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.” 

― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Complete Poems

“Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.” 

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

From The Spruce: American Bittersweet Plants vs. Invasive Oriental Vines 

By DAVID BEAULIEU, Updated 10/17/17  

(Very Interesting Reading about 3 types of bittersweet!)

Midweek Motif ~ Bittersweet

I met the beautiful bittersweet in shades of orange on an oak tree while on a walk with my grandmother.  I gasped!   She said (perhaps erroneously), that it was a parasite, living on the life-blood of another.  I found the word parasite to be negative, and wondered at how something so pretty could have an ugly side.  Well, there you have it (! ) both noun and adjective: Bittersweet.  

Your Challenge: Write a brand new poem with a bittersweet mood and theme.  

Celastrus orbiculatus
Oriental Bittersweet

🍂

Consciousness

BY JOANIE MACKOWSKI

How it is fickle, leaving one alone to wander

the halls of the skull with the fluorescents

softly flickering. It rests on the head

like a bird nest, woven of twigs and tinsel

and awkward as soon as one stops to look.

That pile of fallen leaves drifting from

the brain to the fingertip burned on the stove, 

to the grooves in that man’s voice 

as he coos to his dog, blowing into the leaves 

of books with moonlit opossums

and Chevrolets easing down the roads 

of one’s bones. And now it plucks a single 

tulip from the pixelated blizzard: yet 

itself is a swarm, a pulse with no

indigenous form, the brain’s lunar halo. 

Our compacted galaxy, its constellations 

trembling like flies caught in a spider web, 

until we die, and then the flies

buzz away—while another accidental 

coherence counts to three to pass the time 

or notes the berries on the bittersweet vine

strewn in the spruces, red pebbles dropped

in the brain’s gray pool. How it folds itself 

like a map to fit in a pocket, how it unfolds 

a fraying map from the pocket of the day.

Source: Poetry (February 2012) and the Poetry Foundation
  (Posted with the poet's permission.)

Buried Love

by Sara Teasdale

I have come to bury Love
 Beneath a tree,
In the forest tall and black
 Where none can see.

I shall put no flowers at his head,
 Nor stone at his feet,
For the mouth I loved so much
 Was bittersweet.

I shall go no more to his grave,
 For the woods are cold.
I shall gather as much of joy
 As my hands can hold.

I shall stay all day in the sun
 Where the wide winds blow, --
But oh, I shall cry at night
 When none will know.

Bittersweet - Jalaluddin Rumi Poem read by Madonna - Lyrics

💮

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 Vanity / Narcissus. )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Energy, Vitality

“It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. 
It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.” 
― Susan Sontag

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms 

of energy, frequency and vibration.” 
― Nikola Tesla

“. . . I think love is that condition in the human spirit so profound, 
that it allows us to forgive, and it may be the energy 
which keeps the stars in the firmament,   I'm not sure. 
It may be the energy which keeps the blood 

running smoothly through our veins.” 

― Maya Angelou

Midweek Motif ~ Energy, Vitality

I'm thinking of the opposite of lethargy, when enthusiasm for living translates a certain possibility into physical expression.

Electricity can do that too.

Your Challenge:  Write a new poem about (and pumped full of) energy.

~~~

I Hear America Singing

BY WALT WHITMAN

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

I, Too

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Excerpt from To a Skylark

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

         Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

                Bird thou never wert,

         That from Heaven, or near it,

                Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

         Higher still and higher

                From the earth thou springest

         Like a cloud of fire;

                The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

~~~

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 Colors. )

Classic Poetry - "Music" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822

Today I revisited the Classic Poetry post from July 14, listening to Natalie Merchant's evocative musical interpretations of poems past. Inspiring. Encouraging. So many things. I then recalled this Shelley poem and knew it had to be shared here, now.

Enjoy, fellow poets. Enjoy.


Music
 
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

   Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Classic Poetry - (Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

We are back on track folks and happily bring this weeks classic Poem!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley


Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1972 - 8 July 1822)
He is Linked above to Wikepedia if you wish to know about this poet.

Poets United posts a classic poem once weekly. We want to do this to introduce classic poets and their poems to our members. It is also a way to display different styles, genres and approaches to poetry. Our intent is to further expand the world of poetry while educating ourselves.

If you have a classic poem or set of prose you are fond of please let us know by emailing it to us at poetsunited@ymail.com