Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Imaging A Poem

Worth repeating.


Making Peace

Denise Levertov


A voice from the dark called out,

‘The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. 

Peace, not only

the absence of war.’


But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can’t be imagined before it is made,

can’t be known except

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice,

syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.


A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, 

allowed long pauses . . .


A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza into the world,

each act of living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light - facets

of the forming crystal.

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

Some Poetry

"The number one hardest thing we have to do as humans in this world is be subjected to the evil, and remain good despite the bullshit we go through."

For me this doesn't land as "Men's Rights Now!" or any of the other crapola coming from the toxic snowflakes who can't admit they've had it pretty fuckin' good for a long fuckin' time, and want us to believe that somehow men are being unfairly attacked (and "oppressed"- WTAF?) by those horrible feminists, and their evil woke incantations.

None of that. This guy is trying to tell us there are good reasons for all this hyper-macho bullshit, and we can address it early if we can figure out how to look honestly at each other - and ourselves - as men, as friends, as fathers, and as partners.



Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Rhyming Out The Year


Today's Poem

Mary Oliver

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads. 

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

A Quote


Between what is said, and not meant -
and what is meant, but not said -
most of love is lost.
--Kahlil Gibran

Wednesday, July 06, 2022

A Poem

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep --Mary Elizabeth Frye

Saturday, June 04, 2022

Today's Poem


Peace to those who are scared
those who watch the news & wonder
what is going on in this country
& those who always knew
Those who feel less safe
& those who never felt safe
Those whose bodies hold memories
Whose DNA holds memories
Which tell us clearly
That never again
Is now.
Jessica Kantrowitz

Tuesday, March 08, 2022

A Poem



I'm a sunflower I grew in the pocket Of a soldier Who died Knowing not why Or who He was fighting He spoke Russian I heard him He wasn't a bad person Had family Was a son To a loving mother She cries now Alone I hear her He and I One Life gone For the boy With seeds In his pocket

Saturday, February 26, 2022

Black American History #26

Dr Clint Smith - Crash Course - Arts & Letters Of The Harlem Renaissance


What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore - and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
--Langston Hughes

Friday, February 04, 2022

Today's Poem

Meditations Before Kaddish, from the Mishkan T’filah

When I die give what’s left of me away
to children and old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
cry for your brother walking the street beside you.

And when you need me, put your arms around anyone
and give them what you need to give me.

I want to leave you something,
something better than words or sounds.

Look for me in the people I’ve known or loved,
and if you cannot give me away,
at least let me live in your eyes and not your mind.

You can love me best by letting hands touch hands,
and by letting go of children that need to be free.

Love doesn’t die, people do.
So, when all that’s left of me is love, give me away

hat tip = @BlueGal

Friday, September 10, 2021

Bounty


I hear there’s a bounty on my womb.
A high price in the currency
of power and control.
In the currency
of violence
and cowardice.

You want to make a home in this body.
Penetrate it with your power and lust
and demand I carry the seed you’ve planted
pretending to protect the sacred
when we both know
your concern is for birth
and not for life.
I’ve seen the way you watch
as young mouths go unfed
as young arms are torn from their mother’s embrace
as young bodies are raped and ravaged and locked away
in the land of the free
and home of the brave.

You read me ghost stories
from the good book
about purity
and innocence
and all the ways my body is wrong
and all the ways my body does not belong to me.
But I prefer different fairy tales.
The ones that were woven from an
ancient mother’s womb
whispered to her from deep in the earth.
The ones that teach me
that I am fire and water
that I am land and thunder
that I am holy and sacred
that I am the great creator and destroyer
that I belong to me
and only me
and I alone
will decide.

I hear there’s a bounty on my womb
but you seem to forget
that I am the huntress
and I can smell the fear
dripping from your cowardly words
and I dare you to try and hold my fire
in your bare, trembling hands.

-- Gina Puorro

Tuesday, June 01, 2021

Today's Quote

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

- Seamus Heaney

Sunday, May 02, 2021

A Poem


Feeding The Worms - from "Bonfire Opera"

Ever since I found out that earth worms have taste buds
all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies,
I pause dropping apples into the compost bin,
imagining the dark writhing ecstasy,
the sweetness of apples permeating their pores.
I offer beets and parsley,
avocado and melon,
and the feathery tops of carrots.

I'd always thought theirs a menial life,
eyeless and hidden,
almost vulgar - though now it seems,
they bear a pleasure so sublime, so decadent,
I want to contribute however I can,
forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Today's Today

Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen.
For well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
--Dorothy Parker


Click a pic















Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Today's Poem


Here's hoping we get to hear a lot more from this impressive young woman.

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Today's Today





More than a hundred years ago, and holy crap how things have not changed:

Father

 - 1881-1959

My father knows the proper way 
   The nation should be run; 
He tells us children every day 
   Just what should now be done. 
He knows the way to fix the trusts, 
   He has a simple plan; 
But if the furnace needs repairs, 
   We have to hire a man. 

My father, in a day or two 
   Could land big thieves in jail; 
There's nothing that he cannot do, 
   He knows no word like "fail." 
"Our confidence" he would restore, 
   Of that there is no doubt; 
But if there is a chair to mend, 
   We have to send it out. 

All public questions that arise, 
   He settles on the spot; 
He waits not till the tumult dies, 
   But grabs it while it's hot. 
In matters of finance he can 
   Tell Congress what to do; 
But, O, he finds it hard to meet 
   His bills as they fall due. 

It almost makes him sick to read 
   The things law-makers say; 
Why, father's just the man they need, 
   He never goes astray. 
All wars he'd very quickly end, 
   As fast as I can write it; 
But when a neighbor starts a fuss, 
   'Tis mother has to fight it. 

In conversation father can 
   Do many wondrous things; 
He's built upon a wiser plan 
   Than presidents or kings. 
He knows the ins and outs of each 
   And every deep transaction; 
We look to him for theories, 
   But look to ma for action.

Monday, May 04, 2020

COVID-19 Update


I don't have any great expectations that we'll do much of anything to "fix" what we all know is wrong with an economic system that's so totally dependent on Consumer Demand.

Still, there's always reason to hope.




Tuesday, March 24, 2020

A Poem

From a Twitterer called @HellBentVet

As the blood was drying 
On the hands of the few 
Who could have stopped him 
The fat orange demon laughed 
At their utter destruction 
Their blind love-drunk faith 
His greedy claws clutched the bank codes 
Of their billions 
And flew the family 
To their new old home In Saudi Arabia

Friday, January 10, 2020

This New Thing

...isn't new at all.


The Doomed
A Perfect Circle


Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word


And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude
"Good luck, you're on your own"


Blessed are the fornicates
May we bend down to be their whores
Blessed are the rich
May we labor, deliver them more


Blessed are the envious
Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain
Blessed are the gluttonous
May they feast us to famine and war


What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
All doomed
All doomed


Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word

And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude: "Good luck"


What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
What of the righteous? What of the charitable?
What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent?

Source: LyricFind

A Perfect Circle