Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Peace

"Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace." ~ Nhat Hanh

"There is no way to peace; peace is the way." ~ A. J. Muste

“I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; 
I was trying to disturb the war."
~ Joan Baez

wiki

Midweek Motif ~ Peace

I want a peace so large that I can not reach its boundaries.  I have experienced this a few times in retreats, more times alone.  But I want even more than personal peace.  I want social and political peace ~ and not just any peace ~ peace with justice. Yet until that comes, I won't scoff at personal peace.  It helps me through the life we have.  What about you?

Have you known peace?  What was it like?  How large a peace can you imagine?  How does that change when we imagine peace ~ or create peace ~ together? 

Please write and post a new poem, addressing how you know peace now. Make us feel it.

   

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. 
 ~ Black Elk

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I Many Times Thought Peace Had Come (739)

by Emily Dickinson

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away—
As Wrecked Men—deem they sight the Land—
At Centre of the Sea—

And struggle slacker—but to prove
As hopelessly as I—
How many the fictitious Shores—
Before the Harbor be— 

  

Peace           

by Sara Teasdale

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies--
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. ~ Jesus

"Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace." ~ Gautama Buddha

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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 ~ Plastic Bags. )

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 prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structureof the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” — Andrew Wyeth

         Midweek Motif ~ Winter

Shakespeare says, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind / Thou art not so unkind / As man's ingratitude;”.

What about you? What does the season weave in your head?

In the place where I live winter’s brief entry is most welcome. That nip in the air, its misty breath, the lazy sun, arrival of migratory birds, fragrance of new harvest etc. etc. bring about a strange joy. But this is not so with the cold countries.

How do you look at Winter?

Winter Garden

by Matsuo Basho

Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.

A Winter Bluejay

by Sara Teasdale

Crisply the bright snow whispered, 
Crunching beneath our feet; 
Behind us as we walked along the parkway, 
Our shadows danced, 
Fantastic shapes in vivid blue. 
Across the lake the skaters 
Flew to and fro, 
With sharp turns weaving 
A frail invisible net. 
In ecstacy the earth 
Drank the silver sunlight; 
In ecstacy the skaters 
Drank the wine of speed; 
In ecstacy we laughed 
Drinking the wine of love. 

Had not the music of our joy
Sounded its highest note?
But no,
For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
"Oh look!"
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty? 

The Farm Woman’s Winter

by Thomas Hardy

I

If seasons all were summers, 
And leaves would never fall, 
And hopping casement-comers 
Were foodless not at all, 
And fragile folk might be here 
That white winds bid depart; 
Then one I used to see here 
Would warm my wasted heart!

II

One frail, who, bravely tilling 
Long hours in gripping gusts, 
Was mastered by their chilling, 

And now his ploughshare rusts.
So savage winter catches
The breath of limber things,
And what I love he snatches,
And what I love not, brings. 

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 ~ Money (for World Savings/Thrift Day).)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Barter/Trade

3 ways to Barter: Wiki-How

"The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another … is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals."

~Adam Smith

"They stoop to pick up golden apples dropped from the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honour for traffic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits."  ~Karl Marx

“In a basic agricultural society, it's easy enough to swap five chickens for a new dress or to pay a schoolteacher with a goat and three sacks of rice. Barter works less well in a more advanced economy. The logistical challenges of using chickens to buy books Ilanon Amazon.com would be formidable.” 
~ Charles Wheelan

"This is intimacy: the trading of stories in the dark." 
~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Wikicommons / Imbre / Shutterstock / Paul Spella / The Atlantic

•              ILANA E. STRAUSS
 
•  FEB 26, 2016 Atlantic

"The Myth of the Barter Economy"

Midweek Motif ~  Barter/Trade

          In the article above, "The Myth of a Barter Economy," Strauss says that money did not grow from barter, but barter grew from money ~ and  the idea of immediate  exchange dismantled what was more likely a "gift" economy ~ "I give you what you need now and you'll come through for me later" ~ an economy based on intimacy and shared well-being.            
          It made me think of what I have to trade ~ whether as gift or barter.  Poems, editing, teaching communication skills, cooking, sewing ...  back in the day, massage.  Once you start thinking about it, we each have lots of things that we could exchange for something we need.  As Wikipedia puts it: 

Barter is a system of exchange where goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is distinguishable from gift economies in many ways; one of them is that the reciprocal exchange is immediate and not delayed in time.

Your Challenge: Write a new poem in which you depict a real or imagined barter / trade that you see as "a very good deal." 

Source
(Let me know if this is a copywright violation. If it is, I will remove it.)

Barter

BY SARA TEASDALE

Life has loveliness to sell,

     All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

     Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

     Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

     Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

     Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

     Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Had I The Choice

by Walt Whitman

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards, 

To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors--Hector, Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakespeare's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello--Tennyson's fair ladies,
Meter or wit the best, or choice conceit to weild in perfect rhyme, delight of singers;
These, these, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter,
Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer,
Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
And leave its odor there. 

 1962 JELL-O baseball trading card promotion

. . . . 

This is an excerpt from the Stanley Moss poem.
(Read the rest 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 ~ Water)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Money

Cabaret ~ Money

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“There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.” ― Oscar Wilde

“Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.”  ― Thornton Wilder

“Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.” 

― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Fiddler on the Roof ~ If I Were a Rich Man

Midweek Motif ~ Money

It's Women's History Month, so feel free to link women's history and money in your poem if you wish.  I think poets of all genders would do  marvelous and beautiful things with money.

What do you think?   

Your Challenge:  Wend ideas of money throughout your new poem. What does money do? What did it do? What can it do?  

ABBA  ~ Money Money Money 

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Riches 

by Sara Teasdale

I have no riches but my thoughts,

Yet these are wealth enough for me;

My thoughts of you are golden coins

Stamped in the mint of memory;

And I must spend them all in song,
For thoughts, as well as gold, must be
Left on the hither side of death
To gain their immortality. 

YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY ~ BEATLES COLLABORATION

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.

But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Prince & The New Power Generation ~ Money Don't Matter 2 Night ..







From Sonnets Uncorseted




BY MAXINE KUMIN




. . . . 



 9



We didn’t merely saunter decade by
decade.

We swept on past de Beauvoir and
Friedan,

and took courage from Carolyn Kizer’s
knife-blade

Pro Femina: I will speak about
women

of letters for I’m in the racket, urging,

Stand up and be hated, and swear not
to sleep with editors.



If a woman is to write, Virginia Woolf

has Mary Beton declare, she has to have

five hundred a year and a room with a
lock on the door,

a sacred space where Shakespeare’s
sister Judith

might have equaled his prodigious gift

or not. She might have simply floated
there,

set loose in the privilege of privacy,
her self

unwritten, under no one else’s eyes…

 . . . . 


                           (Read the rest HERE.)

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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 ~ Scream)

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

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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 Vanity / Narcissus. )