"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Sunday, May 9, 2021

Stormy Weathers & Second Coming




‘Smooth between sea and land’ 
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)


Smooth between sea and land
Is laid the yellow sand,
And here through summer days
The seed of Adam plays.

Here the child comes to found
His unremaining mound,
And the grown lad to score
Two names upon the shore.

Here, on the level sand,
Between the sea and land,
What shall I build or write
Against the fall of night?

Tell me of runes to grave
That hold the bursting wave,
Or bastions to design
For longer date than mine.

Shall it be Troy or Rome
I fence against the foam,
Or my own name, to stay
When I depart for aye?

Nothing: too near at hand,
Planing the figure sand,
Effacing clean and fast
Cities not built to last
And charms devised in vain,
Pours the confounding main.


A. E. Housman
 author of A Shropshire Lad (1896)





A Thunderstorm
by Emily Dickenson


The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, -
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands.

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.


Emily Dickenson






"Full Fathom Five" by William Shakespeare




"Full Fathom Five"  
(from The Tempest)
by William Shakespeare


Full fathom five thy father lies; 
Of his bones are coral made; 
Those are pearls that were his eyes; 
Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: 
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.

William Shakespeare





V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides
Circumdederunt me inimici mei 1
by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42)


Who list his wealth and ease retain,
Himself let him unknown contain.
Press not too fast in at that gate
Where the return stands by disdain,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.2
The high mountains are blasted oft
When the low valley is mild and soft.
Fortune with Health stands at debate.
The fall is grievous from aloft.
And sure, circa Regna tonat.

These bloody days have broken my heart.
My lust, my youth did them depart,
And blind desire of estate.
Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.
Of truth, circa Regna tonat.

The bell tower showed me such sight
That in my head sticks day and night.
There did I learn out of a grate,
For all favour, glory, or might,
That yet circa Regna tonat.

By proof, I say, there did I learn:
Wit helpeth not defence too yerne,
Of innocency to plead or prate.
Bear low, therefore, give God the stern,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.


Sir Thomas Wyatt
an English poet of the Renaissance

1. The Latin title adapts Psalm 16.9: "My enemies surround my soul."
Wyatt's name ("Viat") in the title is surrounded by Innocence, Truth,
and Faith.

2. "It thunders through the realms," Seneca, Phaedra, 1.1140.
The first two stanzas paraphrase lines from that play.


[Note: It is generally thought Wyatt wrote this poem after witnessing
the execution of Anne Boleyn and her "accomplices" from the window
grate of his cell in the Bell Tower at the Tower of London.]





Stormy Sea
by Scarlet


I’m stuck in a stormy sea
wave after wave
crushing me
drowning me
each breath shorter than the last
I start to think I see a calm coming
but I was fooled
for it was a new storm coming in
wave after wave
they crash against me
barely giving me time to breath
I start to think that each breath might be my last
but then I think I see a calm coming
but once again I was fooled
for it was once again a storm coming in
I can see the calm
I know it will eventually reach me
but for now I’m trapped under these waves
wave after wave
breath after breath
I keep looking for that calm
searching for that calm
I see it
but as it moves towards me
it becomes a storm
as it gets closer it gets tougher
tougher to catch my breath
for the waves become rougher and rougher
wave by wave
I start to lose it
lose sight of that calm
for it just keeps moving back
moving away from me
leaving me trapped
trapped by wave after wave
stuck thinking that breath after breath
it could be my last
for I will soon sink in this stormy sea
for soon I will take my last breath
then I will sink
sink deeper and deeper
slowly reaching a calm
different calm
a permanent calm
maybe that is the only calm for me


Scarlet
Sunday, April 22, 2007






Amoretti: Sonnet LXXV
by Edmund Spenser


One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
‘Vain man,’ said she, ‘that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.’
‘Not so,’ (quod I); ‘let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.’

Edmund Spenser





The Thunder Mutters
by John Clare (1793-1864)


The thunder mutters louder & more loud
With quicker motion hay folks ply the rake
Ready to burst slow sails the pitch black cloud
& all the gang a bigger haycock make
To sit beneath—the woodland winds awake
The drops so large wet all thro’ in an hour
A tiney flood runs down the leaning rake
In the sweet hay yet dry the hay folks cower
& some beneath the waggon shun the shower.


John Clare
*Known as a Romantic, nature, and great English poet





Second Coming
by R.E. Slater


Tall wheat heads bend
    to hot wind's heavy breath
Rippling across golden fields.

Heads bending, stalks swaying,
    falling back, moving forward,
In unison, together.

Bent before the broad storm
   rumbling it's coming wake
Across croplands of waking hearts.

Shaking slumbering, ripe fields
    waking fell airs stirring alive
Unbowed author to life's deepest longings.


R.E. Slater
May 9, 2021
Rev. May 10, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved





Stormy 
(an Italian Sonnet)
by Gert Strydom


With pouring rain as many other days,
with clouds in the sky the sun seems dead,
as if for weeks from the earth it has fled
where of it there is not even a small trace,

yet radiant with smiling beauty are your face,
where very few words between us is said,
where against each other we lie in our bed
and with a own music the rain outside plays,

where here we are in a hot and happy home,
outside in the pine forest the wind does not rest,
while very turbulent is the surging of the deep,
where in tempest the ocean does break and foam,
with you right here hot and tender it seems best,
where our love and promises to each other we keep.


by Gert Strydom
Thursday, November 1, 2018

© Gert Strydom





Stormy Weather
by Sandra Feldman


There is no song for loneliness,
Just storming clouds of sadness,
The skies are gray, and lightning rays,
Illuminate the darkness.

There is no song for Love that's gone,
And you, you keep on caring,
Your heart becomes a jaded cage,
From then on all despairing.

Sandra Feldman
Saturday, April 19, 2014





The Waste Land Part V –
What the Thunder said
by T.S. Eliot


V. What the Thunder said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
– But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon – O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine ? la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih


T.S. Eliot

from Collected Poems 1909-1962 (Faber, 1974),
by permission of the publisher, Faber & Faber Ltd.







R.E. Slater - Fallen Beauty




Fallen Beauty

by R.E. Slater


At times I feel
a great sadness within
as if there is nothing
I can do; leaving me
helpless,
a bit wistful,
somewhat discouraged,
maybe frightened,
before wandering away.
Whether morning or evening,
it creeps in unawares
not staying long
just long enough to feel
it's pain
it's empty loss
it's grey presence
unlifted an hour of
morbid thought.
Then slips away to
some hidden time
in the stillness of day
or early waking hour
as if some hidden love
holds me... when not;
just a deep sadness
which cannot be shook
leaving all grey.
A sometimes unwanted
companion when all
seems gay and well;
or a foreboding which
carries deep care;
perceiving far-flung
worlds lost to grasp
which are, and are not,
till it's ache lets me go.
An utter helplessness,
unmet by love or hope,
a loss of fellowship
or an emptiness
unmet, if ever,
gripping my will
its hollow vacancy
before ebbing away
uncheered its absence.


R.E. Slater
May 9, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved



Tuesday, May 4, 2021

A Potpourris of Poems

  


What Can Happen in a Second
by Annie Valkema

I.

the perch closes its mouth on the worm
my hand jerks the pole
lungs swell quickly on a gasp
water wrinkles as fins protest heave
fish surrenders
guilt surfaces

II.

air pushed through open lips
a sigh, a puff of disappointment
or a clipped whistle
at the dog who ran
too far down shore

III.

there is a green aura
where the sun touches the water
on the horizon
we cannot help but call
out this science to strangers
all facing the fading heat
while waves break
and wind pushes
we anticipate the mystery
absorb it like humidity
on our goose-pimpled flesh
when it is over
in a second
we smile shyly at those
same strangers trudging
through sand
back to car campers
differently warm


by Annie Valkema
April 13, 20213



After Mary Oliver
by Travis West


Christmas morning came and went
and still our pond is peppered with geese,
the sky alternately filled with their
rusty-hinge wings and their incessant honks,
harsh and exciting.

If Mary Oliver was right, and their
south-bound invitation is simply to
love what you love, perhaps it’s okay to
love the north, the cold, and winter too.

The soft crunch of boot on snow.
The magic of visible breath.
The sudden pink-on-blue of morning.
The wild wind reminding you as urgently
and frantically as the geese that
you are, in fact, in this moment,
alive.


Travis West
April 27, 2021



The Hardest Part is Starting
by Travis West


The explosive flutter of quail taking flight;
the plastic twist of hummingbird gossip;
the frantic grate of a hummingbird warning
to a trespassing blue jay.

The sharp pain of exquisite beauty:
the sun rising as the moon sets;
the gentle embrace of verdant hills.

The slimy tracks of early-morning snail commutes
that silently call us from our sleeping tombs
to greet the day and face our fears once more.

But how can I do this
without community, without worship, without routine?
I am trapped in a cage of my own making:
excuses, rationalizations, fear.

And just like that a hummingbird brings me back to myself
to this moment
to the swirling sound of insect song
to the truth:

We have all we need.


Travis West
April 27, 2021



Liminal Space
by Linnea Scobey


“When you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer … the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed …” — Richard Rohr

It’s Sarah and Abraham, every dragging year
between the promise and the child.
It’s Israelites at the foot of the mountain
waiting for Moses’ return.
Leaving Eden, leaving Egypt;
Isaac bound upon the altar.
Joseph barred by prison doors,
Jonah crushed by whale ribs,
Hagar in the wilderness, withering.
Empty stomachs, hands, nets.
Every year hobbling through the desert;
every night water pummeled the ark.
Mary and Martha at the grave of their brother;
disciples hidden in a locked room; 
stone in the mouth of the tomb.

It’s the layover, the stoplight,
the waiting room. The era between tests
and results. The dark womb
of sky before the dawn. The interlude 
between chorus and verse, the space
between two bodies. The inhale
of each wave before 
it overtakes the shore. 
The time between blossom 
and berry, between a star’s birth 
and visible light.
It’s a dial tone, then ringing, before
there’s an answer. It’s standing at 
the knocked door, waiting
for it to open.


Linnea Scobey
April 20, 2021



Lovesongs
by Annie Valkema

I.

We go together
like Methodists and poker,
like bars and bad marriages.

II.

The goodness of spouses,
black coffee and confession
are underrated.

III.

I imagine receiving postcards
from the afterlife:
I don’t miss you but I’m waiting for you.
I’m counting the days
but I can’t tell you the number.
Your dad says hi. He’s playing softball.
I joined the choir.

IV.

Thick-ankled girls dance in cotton skirts
like cotton candy clouds,
Tilt-a-Whirl waltzes.
Dance with a Dutch girl
and your sleep will be easy.


Annie Valkema
April 13, 20212




Amaryllis
by Julia Spicher Kasdorf


He who plants the ear, shall he not hear?
- Psalm 94:6


Who set the heart like a bulb
in the chest, shall He not bless

the blade that tears brown
husks, parts dirt, thrusts

a green budded shaft
to blast this blossom

horn straining toward
the window’s bright pane,

transparent plain between
gaping scarlet and snow?

Oh, whoever lit this winter
sun must also love love.


Julia Spicher Kasdorf
April 6, 2021


Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Black Lives Matter - STAND UP!

 



Willie Spence, Stand UP
American Idol, April 19, 2021


STAND UP

November 7, 2018

Stand Up
and let your voice be heard 
Stand Up
for the rights you believe in 
Stand Up 
having a strong voice you will surely win
Stand Up
whites blacks all colors of the world 
Stand Up 
all of our people should come together 
Stand Up
break the cycle of division 
Stand Up
unity is what we strive for 
Stand Up
one clear mind we need it more and more 
Stand Up
don’t shut me out 
Stand Up
i’ll scream and shout
Stand Up
until you see that we are one 
STAND UP


In a country that has systematised the oppression of black lives from the institution of slavery to peonage, lynching, Jim Crow, segregation, mass incarceration and police brutality, #BLM provides the church an opportunity to proclaim the gospel that announces the end of oppression. | Image: Scott Olson / Getty Images



Poem About Standing Up For What Is Right

Hi, I am a thirteen-year-old girl who has been secretly writing poetry since fourth grade, and I'm really glad you came to read my poem! This poem that I wrote is called "United" because I wanted to write a poem that was inspiring and could mean something to everybody out there. Stand up for what you love and what you know is right because in the end that is what will matter. I hope "United" can inspire you, and I really hope you like it. Remember to follow your dreams! 
United

© Erica More By Erica
December 2017

Do we stay silent
Or raise our voices?
Do we give in
Or make our choices?

This is our chance.
This is our threat.
This is our choice.
And we're not finished yet.

We stand together
And await the light.
This is our chance,
This is our fight.

Here we're standing,
United and strong.
We're not giving this up.
We're not moving on.

This is our voice;
This is what we came to show.
This is our choice,
And we're not letting go.

This is our word.
You give what you get.
This is our world,
And we're not finished yet.

We stand beside you,
Ready to pay our debt
We stand united
Because we're not finished yet.

Children are born every day,
Waiting for someone to trust.
Dreams are dreamed every day
But left alone to rust.

Raise your voices; stand up tall.
You know this is unjust.
Make your choices; stand from the fall,
Because dreams are counting on us.

I know that you are scared to be strong.
You have every right to be.
Show the dreamers that you care.
Come and stand with me.

Think of our future; think of the truth.
Think of the lives we share.
Think of our beginnings; think of our youth.
We're all just a kid from somewhere.

Standing together, holding hands,
We all came from the same place.
Joined, we are forever;
We are running the same race.

Stand with me; we're not through yet.
We are getting what we gave.
Hand in hand with me, strongest together.
This can all be saved.

This is like our lifetimes;
This is more than just a game.
This is more than just the money,
More than ourselves, more than fame.

Speak up for what matters,
Because now it does; this love is caving.
Speak up before we shatter.
Think of all the dreams we're saving.

There are kids like us in Texas,
Out in Utah, up in Maine.
There are kids that are the future Crosby,
Skinner, Matthews, Kane.

From the mountains, valleys, cities,
Suburbs, hamlets and countryside,
There are the children of this future.
All around us they reside.

On the Pittsburgh Penguins, Boston Bruins,
The Canes and Minnesota Wild.
We often forget that before they were champions,
Each one was just a child

They once stood watching,
Dreaming with this light inside their eyes.
Together we can save that light,
And return it to more lives.

Here we're standing, grasping hands;
Here we're standing strong.
This time we're not giving in,
And we're not moving on.

THIS is our voice;
This is what we came to show.
This is our choice,
And we're not letting go.

This is the world we live in.
You must give what you get.
This is our word we're giving.             
We're not finished yet.

We stand together, united.
This is our chance to repay this debt.
We stand beside you all, united.
We're not finished yet.

 

Poem of the Week for: 2018-02-27
This week's Poem of the Week, "United", is particularly poignant as we respond to yet another mass shooting. Because, this time, something long thought impossible is happening. Young people across the country by joining together United are breaking cultural and political barriers and making their world a better place. Wishing all of us the inspiration to join together United to make positive change in our own worlds!

 

Stand Up by Cynthia Erivo


Lyrics

I been walkin'
With my face turned to the sun
Weight on my shoulders
A bullet in my gun
Oh, I got eyes in the back of my head
Just in case I have to run
I do what I can when I can while I can for my people
While the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night

That's when I'm gonna stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going
To a brand new home
Far across the river
Can you hear freedom calling?
Calling me to answer
Gonna keep on keepin' on
I can feel it in my bones

Early in the mornin'
Before the sun begins to shine
We're gonna start movin'
Towards that separating line
I'm wadin' through muddy waters
You know I got a made up mind
And I don't mind if I lose any blood on the way to salvation
And I'll fight with the strength that I got until I die

So I'm gonna stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going
To a brand new home
Far across the river
Can you hear freedom calling?
Calling me to answer
Gonna keep on keepin' on

And I know what's around the bend
Might be hard to face 'cause I'm alone
And I just might fail
But Lord knows I tried
Sure as stars fill up the sky

Stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going
To a brand new home
Far across the river
Can you hear freedom calling?
Calling me to answer
Gonna keep on keepin' on

I'm gonna stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going
To a brand new home
Far across the river
Do you hear freedom calling?
Calling me to answer
Gonna keep on keepin' on

I'm gonna stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going
To a brand new home
Far across the river
I hear freedom calling
Calling me to answer
Gonna keep on keepin' on
I can feel it in my bones

I go to prepare a place for you
I go to prepare a place for you
I go to prepare a place for you
I go to prepare a place for you




Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman didn't take no stuff
Wasn't scared of nothing neither
Didn't come in this world to be no slave
And wasn't going to stay one either

"Farewell!" she sang to her friends one night
She was mighty sad to leave 'em
But she ran away that dark, hot night
Ran looking for her freedom
She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods
With the slave catchers right behind her
And she kept on going till she got to the North
Where those mean men couldn't find her

Nineteen times she went back South
To get three hundred others
She ran for her freedom nineteen times
To save Black sisters and brothers
Harriet Tubman didn't take no stuff
Wasn't scared of nothing neither
Didn't come in this world to be no slave
And didn't stay one either

And didn't stay one either