Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Psyche / Soul

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1793) by Antonio Canova

". . .  the heart of the star as opposed to the shape of a star, let us say — exists in a mysterious, unmapped zone: not unconscious, not subconscious, but cautious." 
~ Mary Oliver

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”  
~ May Sarton

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Midweek Motif ~ Psyche / Soul

          Since Sumana made the last Midweek Motif  "poetry about the body," I thought poetry about psyche and soul logically followed: psychology and spirituality.   Are mind and soul synonymous?  Do either exist without body?

          Psyche is also the name of Cupid's love in Greek Mythology ~ a myth which is a very dramatic story on the order of "The Beauty and the Beast."

Your Challenge:  In today's new poem, turn your attention to themes of consciousness and unconsciousness, to soul or to Psyche herself.

The structure of the souls of plants, animals, and humans, 
according to Aristotle.

Psyche in Somerville

BY DENISE LEVERTOV

I am angry with X, with Y, with Z,

for not being you.

Enthusiasms jump at me,

wagging and barking. Go away.

Go home.

I am angry with my eyes for not seeing you,

they smart and ache and see the snow,

an insistent brilliance.

If I were Psyche how could I not

bring the lamp to our bedside?

I would have known in advance

all the travails my gazing

would bring, more than Psyche

ever imagined,

and even so, how could I not have raised

the amber flame to see

the human person I knew

was to be revealed.

She did not even know! She dreaded

a beast and discovered

a god. But I

know, and hunger

to witness again the form

of mortal love itself.
. . . . 
(Read the rest HERE.)

Eagle Bringing cup to Psyche, 
by Benjamin West, American, 1738–1820

Mind ? Body

BY GREGORY DJANIKIAN

How do they survive, riven   

as they are, the one undoing   

the other's desire?   

Tell the body to outrun   

the mind, and the mind smirks,   

whispering too loudly 

this way   this way,   

blocking all the exits.   

And the body, luxurious   

sensualist by pool side or in bed,   

doesn't it hear the mind's   

impatient machinery ticking 

it's time   it's time? 

. . . . 

(Read the rest here.)

Greek letter 'psi', a symbol for psychology

A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body

BY ANDREW MARVELL

SOUL 

O who shall, from this dungeon, raise 

A soul enslav’d so many ways? 

With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands 

In feet, and manacled in hands; 

Here blinded with an eye, and there 

Deaf with the drumming of an ear; 

A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains 

Of nerves, and arteries, and veins; 

Tortur’d, besides each other part, 

In a vain head, and double heart. 

BODY 

O who shall me deliver whole 

From bonds of this tyrannic soul? 

Which, stretch’d upright, impales me so 

That mine own precipice I go; 

And warms and moves this needless frame, 

(A fever could but do the same) 

And, wanting where its spite to try, 

Has made me live to let me die. 

A body that could never rest, 

Since this ill spirit it possest. 

. . . . 

(Read the rest of this amazing poem HERE.)

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 ~ Weapon.)