The Poetry Playground

Self-Portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace,
even the gods speak of God.

~ David Whyte

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

~ Stanley Kunitz

Fox Trot Fridays

Thank the stars there’s a day
each week to tuck in

the grief, lift your pearls, and
stride brush stride

quick-quick with a
heel-ball-toe. Smooth

as Nat King Cole’s
slow satin smile,

easy as taking
one day at a time:

one man and
one woman,

rib to rib,
with no heartbreak in sight –

just the sweep of Paradise
and the space of a song

to count all the wonders in it.

~ Rita Dove

Bent Orbit

I wind my way across a black donut hole
and space that clunks.
Once I saw on a stage,
as if at the bottom of a mineshaft,
the precise footwork
of some mechanical ballet.
It was like looking into the brain
of a cuckoo clock and it carried
some part of me away forever.
No one knows when they first see a thing,
how long its after image will last.
Proust could stare at the symptom of a face
for years, while Frank O’Hara, like anyone with a job,
was always looking at his watch.
My favorite way of remembering is to forget.
Please start the record of the sea over again.
Call up a shadow below the pendulum of a gull’s wing.
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.

~ Elaine Equi

Saint Francis and the Birds

When Francis preached love to the birds
They listened, fluttered, throttled up
Into the blue like a flock of words

Released for fun from his holy lips.
Then wheeled back, whirred about his head,
Pirouetted on brothers’ capes,

Danced on the wing, for sheer joy played

And sang, like images took flight.
Which was the best poem Francis made,

His argument true, his tone light.

~ Seamus Heaney

Guantanamera

I am a truthful man
From where the palm tree grows
And before dying I want
To set free the poetry in my soul

My verse is light green
And it is flaming red
My verse is a wounded stag
Who seeks refuge on the mountain

I grow a white rose
In July just as in January
For the honest friend
Who gives me his open hand

With the poor people of the earth
I want to cast my lot
The brook of the mountains
Gives me more pleasure than the sea

~ Jose Marti

The Blessing

Barefoot daringto walk
amidthe thrashing eye-glitterof what remains
when the tideretreatswe ask ourselveswhy did it matterso muchto have the lastword?Or anyword?
Here, please–take what remains,
It is yours.
~ Joyce Carol Oates

Come. And Be My Baby
The highway is full of big carsgoing nowhere fastAnd folks is smoking anything that’ll burnSome people wrap their lives around a cocktail glassAnd you sit wonderingwhere you’re going to turn.I got it.Come. And be my baby.
Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrowBut others say we’ve got a week or twoThe paper is full of every kind of blooming horrorAnd you sit wonderingWhat you’re gonna do.I got it.Come. And be my baby.
~ Maya Angelou

Poems
I am hardly ever ableto sort through my memoriesand come away wholeor untroubled.It is difficultto sift through the stones,the weighty moments and knowwhich is rare gem,which raw coal,which worthless shale or slate.So, one by one,I drag them across the pageand when one cuts into the white,leaves a trail of blood,no matter how narrow the stream,then I knowI’ve found the real thing,the diamond,one of the priceless gemsmy pain produced.”There! There,” I say,”is a memory worth keeping.”
~ Nikki Grimes

Being Boring
“May you live in interesting times.”           – Chinese Curse
If you ask me “What’s new?”, I have nothing to sayExcept that the garden is growing.I had a slight cold but it’s better today.I’m content with the way things are going.Yes, he is the same as he usually is.Still eating and sleeping and snoring.I get on with my work. He gets on with his.I know this is all very boring.
There was drama enough in my turbulent past:Tears and passion — I’ve used up a tankful.No news is good news, and long may it last,If nothing much happens, I’m thankful.A happier cabbage you never did see,My vegetable spirits are soaring.If you’re after excitement, steer well clear of me.I want to go on being boring.
I don’t go to parties. Well, what are they for,If you don’t need to find a new lover?You drink and you listen and drink a bit moreAnd you take the next day to recover.Someone to stay home with was all my desireAnd, now I’ve found a safe mooring,I’ve just one ambition in life: I aspireTo go on and on being boring.
~ Wendy Cope