Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Life: Paradox And / Or Balance

 

“Every exit is an entry somewhere.”— Tom Stoppard

SOURCE

“Life is strong and fragile. It’s a paradox…..It’s both things, like quantum physics: it’s a particle and a wave at the same time. It all exists all together.”— Joan Jett

Midweek Motif ~ Paradox And / Or Balance

Our life is a hybrid of opposites and we struggle to strike a balance between the two forces.

In this whirlpool of apathy and care, brutality and kindness, faith and doubt, pleasure and pain human life shines in its perfect balance.

Explore the opposites and let all merge together in a harmony that life is.

Or you might either write about the antithesis that life is or an impossible balance that life is:

Tis Opposites – Entice

by Emily Dickinson

'Tis Opposites -- entice --

Deformed Men -- ponder Grace --

Bright fires -- the Blanketless --

The Lost -- Day's face --

The Blind -- esteem it be

Enough Estate -- to see --

The Captive -- strangles new --

For deeming -- Beggars -- play --

To lack -- enamor Thee --

Tho' the Divinity --

Be only

Me --

Balance

by Alice B. Fogel

(Here)

Anyone Lived In A Pretty How Town

by e.e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)

cared for anyone not at all

they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same

sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew

autumn winter spring summer)

that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy she cried his grief

bird by snow and stir by still

anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones

laughed their cryings and did their dance

(sleep wake hope and then)they

said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin to explain

how children are apt to forget to remember

with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess

(and noone stooped to kiss his face)

busy folk buried them side by side

little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep

and more by more they dream their sleep

noone and anyone earth by april

wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars rain

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 ~ Climate Change)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ What if . . . ?

“Every novel begins with the speculative question, 

What if "X" happened? That's how you start.” 

― Tom Clancy

Erin Hanson Poetry

Midweek Motif ~ What it . . . ?

"What if  . . . ?" is a wondering question.  It could be speculation,  anticipation or regret.

On the one hand, it leads me to science fiction and fantasy.  On the other, it leads me to strategize like a chess player, a teacher or a writer.

Where does it lead you?

Your Challenge: Write a new poem that poses "What if" questions.  You need not use the exact words.  You need not provide answers.

"What if "- Reba McEntire

what if a much of a which of a wind

by e.e.cummings

what if a much of a which of a wind

gives the truth to summer’s lie;

bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun

and yanks immortal stars awry?

Blow king to beggar and queen to seem

(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)

—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,

the single secret will still be man

what if a keen of a lean wind flays

screaming hills with sleet and snow:

strangles valleys by ropes of thing

and stifles forests in white ago?

Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind

(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)

—whose hearts are mountains,roots are trees,

it’s they shall cry hello to the spring

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream

bites this universe in two,

peels forever out of his grave

and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?

Blow soon to never and never to twice

(blow life to isn’t:blow death to was)

—all nothing’s only our hugest home;

the most who die,the more we live

If You Knew

by Ellen Bass

What if you knew you’d be the last

to touch someone?

If you were taking tickets, for example,

at the theater, tearing them,

giving back the ragged stubs,

you might take care to touch that palm,

brush your fingertips

along the life line’s crease.

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase

too slowly through the airport, when

the car in front of me doesn’t signal,

when the clerk at the pharmacy

won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember

they’re going to die.

A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.

They’d just had lunch and the waiter,

a young gay man with plum black eyes,

joked as he served the coffee, kissed

her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.

Then they walked half a block and her aunt

dropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon’s spume

have to come? How wide does the crack

in heaven have to split?

What would people look like

if we could see them as they are,

soaked in honey, stung and swollen,

reckless, pinned against time?

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 ~ Charity.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

THREE THINGS HAPPY PEOPLE DO By Chanda Temple

(Image by Emergency Brake via Flickr/Creative Commons.)

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.” 
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” 
― Robert Frost

“What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again.” 
― Anaïs Nin, Henry & June

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” 
― C.S. Lewis

source

Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

Happiness is a balm. Some say that kindness amplifies it for giver and receiver. I've been surprised to learn this year that happiness helps when caring for friends and family in crisis. 

Happiness!

Your Challenge:  In a new poem, describe an instant and/or duration of happiness.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

A Birthday by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

“i thank You God for most this amazing”

by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Source

Happiness by Louise Gluck

A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.
I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth--
At the window ledge,
once, twice,
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
fills with his breath.

I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.

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 ~  A Tribute Poem.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Door

Jesus said, "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."  (John 10:9)

Source

“A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein

“A very little key will open a very heavy door.” 
― Charles Dickens, Hunted Down

“Listen, there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.”—e.e.cummings

             Midweek Motif ~ The Door

 Moving in or out, in between we have The Door. Once in, whether it is a safe haven or a dungeon the door remains a guard.

Nevertheless the door encourages seeking change by opening it.

It is like a thriller with its ‘what-lies-beyond’ quotient.

Moreover one may be out of doors, be at death’s door, behind closed doors, be on the door, be through the back door; one may even darken someone’s door, keep the wolf from the door and also leave The Door open.

So…Use the motif The Door in your poem today.

The Door

By Miroslav Holub

Go and open the door. Maybe outside there’s a tree, or a wood, a garden, or a magic city.

Go and open the door. Maybe a dog’s rummaging. Maybe you’ll see a face, or an eye, or the picture of a picture.

Go and open the door. If there’s a fog it will clear.

Go and open the door. Even if there’s only the darkness ticking, even if there’s only the hollow wind, even if nothing is there, go and open the door.

At least there’ll be a draught.

The Lockless Door 

by Robert Frost

It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I though of the door
With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again.
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.

Back over the sill
I bade a 'Come in'
To whatever the knock
At the door may have been.

So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.

Doors

By Carl sandBurg

An open door says, “Come in.”

A shut door says, “Who are you?”

Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.

If a door is shut and you want it shut,

     why open it?

If a door is open and you want it open,

     why shut it?

Doors forget but only doors know what it is

     doors forget. 

  The Listeners

By Walter De La Mare

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone. 

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 ~ Unity)