Category Archives: poetry

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[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

heart-192957_960_720i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

by e.e. cumming

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Expect Nothing by Alice Walker

big-snowstorm-pennsylvania

 

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

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Brrr!

Close Up of Ice Crystals

It’s a frigid -26 Celsius with ice crystals in the air so I thought I would post a winter poem 🙂

Edward Gates
From: Heart’s Cupboard

the wind beats snow
against my house

threads hang from the coat of a man
filling the cracks in his home

last night a man with black hair
drank beer by the well house

he laughed through a crack in the door
I put more wood on the stove

I am warm leaning back
on the legs of his old chair

by

The Bird by Patrick Lane

birdcage

The bird you captured is dead.
I told you it would die
but you would not learn
from my telling. You wanted
to cage a bird in your hands
and learn to fly.

Listen again.
You must not handle birds.
They cannot fly through your fingers.
You are not a nest
and a feather is
not made of blood and bone.

Only words
can fly for you like birds
on the wall of the sun.
A bird is a poem
that talks of the end of cages.

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I Wonder How Many People

nighttime-city

I Wonder How Many People in This City from “The Spice-Box of Earth” by Leonard Cohen

I wonder how many people in this city
Live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when i look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
Looking back at me
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.

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The Moment by Margaret Atwood

treesonhill

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

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Happy New Year!

happy-new-year-11

This traditional New Year’s anthem is based on an 18th century Scottish poem by Robert Burns.
‘Auld Lang Syne’
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu’d the gowans fine.
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Sin’ auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin’ auld lang syne,
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld ang syne.
We twa hae sported i’ the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Sin’ auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin’ auld lang syne.

And ther’s a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine;
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness

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Inspiration from Mary Oliver

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God –
 
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
 
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope
 
 
it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.
 
from Why I Wake Early (2004)
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Frayed Edges

strop

Glossy waxed floors
smooth as clean shaved skin
reflect everyday busyness.
A white stove and fridge stand stark
like your absence during the week.
The wooden table pushed in a corner
harbours nicks and scrapes
where noisy kids scramble in and out
with mouths still chewing as they leave.

Slippery floors mimic
sticky fingerprints on walls.
A shaving strop hangs by the phone
frayed from angry outbursts
that hone in on pink butts
sharpening fear and resentment
instead of blades.