Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Celebration

      “Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.”— Plautus

SOURCE

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration.  Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.  Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.  To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle. . . . Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Midweek Motif ~ Celebration

Celebrations compel all to look forward to it, to have fun, to enjoy, to de-stress.

There’s no dearth of celebrations in this world. From the tiniest particle to the cosmos is in a mood of celebration.

For people everywhere there are funny, bizarre, interesting, solemn, traditional, religious celebrations.

Celebrations are part of our lives bestowing a sense of belonging, recognizing, strengthening and honoring relationships & also adding a purpose to life.

Life itself can be celebrated too, in a breath of gratitude.

Now it’s time for Celebration. It’s your choice how you connect your poems to it.

Sunbeam

by Anna Akhmatova

I pray to the sunbeam from the window-

It is pale, thin, straight.

Since morning I have been silent,

And my heart - is split.

The copper on my washstand

Has turned green,

But the sunbeam plays on it

So charmingly.

How innocent it is, and simple,

In the evening calm,

But to me in this deserted temple

It’s like a golden celebration,

And a consolation.

I Love You Sweetheart

by Thomas Lux

A man risked his life to write the words.

A man hung upside down (an idiot friend

holding his legs?) with spray paint

to write the words on a girder fifty feet above

a highway.
 And his beloved,

the next morning driving to work.
.
.
?

His words are not (meant to be) so unique.

Does she recognize his handwriting?

Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before

of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?

And did he call her at work

expecting her to faint with delight

at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?

She will know I love her now,

the world will know my love for her!

A man risked his life to write the world.

Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love

is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb

and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,

regardless, no exceptions,

always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

                

       

 When The New Year

by Rg Gregory

when the new year

came out of nowhere

and peeped into rooms

it was so flattered to find

all the tv's drinking its health

praising its innocent appearance

it responded with its warm

dark smile and went round

filling people's dry hearts

with joy   

over the coming weeks though

those same tv's attacked it

criticising its puerile style

its sickly contemptible face

one year is the same as another

(they said) for the doom

time belabours us with

it took the year all

its length to discover

that the celebration

so welcoming its birth

just happened to be

where the beer was

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

          Susan’s Midweek Motif on 3/01/2018 will be ~ Doorway(s)

I Wish I'd Written This

Political/Socially Conscious poems can be difficult.  Mr. Lux makes it look easy in this amazing piece.

The People of the Other Village

By Thomas Lux 

hate the people of this village 

and would nail our hats

to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them

or staple our hands to our foreheads   

for refusing to salute them

if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,

mix their flour at night with broken glass.

We do this, they do that.

They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.

We devein one of their sisters.

The quicksand pits they built were good.

Our amputation teams were better.

We trained some birds to steal their wheat.

They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.

They do this, we do that.

We canceled our sheep imports.   

They no longer bought our blankets.   

We mocked their greatest poet   

and when that had no effect   

we parodied the way they dance

which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God

was leprous, hairless.

We do this, they do that.

Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand

(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

“The People of the Other Village” from New and Selected Poems: 1975-1995.

Click on the title to go to poetryfoundation.org's posting of The People of the Other Village.  Click on the poet's name to learn more about Thomas Lux.