Hope - Emily Dickinson

My new hanging baskets

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My favorite pair of shoes...I'm dying to write on the lined one.

 "Weirdness is only weird if you fight it." ~ Tomlinson, Doc Ford book series by Randy Wayne White.  My favorite quote.

Candy Rose (custom Blythe doll) in her hippie outfit made by Florance Simpson (in Canada) Mizzfitzdolls at Etsy.  Miniature book by Lady Delaney (LDelaney at Etsy) in New Orleans, an amazing, beautiful miniaturist artist.

~×~×~×~×~×~

Hope is the thing with feathers - (314)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

~×~×~×~

Please say a prayer for me...I am so depressed, sad, broken & confused. xo

Got Them Transcendental Blues

Luna, a painting by my husband, Ray Murff.  Original by Oleg Zhivetin

Transcendental Blues 
(Steve Earle)

In the darkest hour of the longest night
If it was in my power I'd step into the light
Candles on the alter, penny in your shoe
Walk upon the water — transcendental blues

Happy ever after 'til the day you die
Careful what you ask for, you don't know 'til you try
Hands are in your pockets, starin' at your shoes
Wishin' you could stop it — transcendental blues

If I had it my way, everything would change
Out here on this highway the rules are still the same
Back roads never carry you where you want 'em to
They leave you standin' there with them ol' transcendental blues

~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Steve Earle singing this song:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=icaBLF2U9FI

Shade by Yada Chimako

Moonlady, tangled in trees...

Nashville Buddha

Tada Chimako (1930 - 2003) was one of the most important female poets of contemporary Japan.  During her life, she published eight volumes of essays and thirteen volumes of poetry.  She is also the author of one volume of poetry in English translation, "Moonstone Woman", compiled while she was poet-in-residence at Oakland University in 1986.  She died of cancer in early 2003.  Jeffrey Angles, (translator) recently completed his Ph.D. in modern Japanese literature and is currently working on a book of translations of Ms. Tada's poetry.



Shade
By Tada Chimako

A dark elephant
living in a dark forest
came to sip from a pond
as the Buddha watched

A dark elephant
from a dark forest
has come to the pond
and sipped
the trembling vision
of the Moon.

A dark deer
from a dark forest
also came to sip from the pond.

The deer has also sipped
the vision of the moon.

The Buddha leaned over
and scooped up the moon in his palm.

I too will sip
if it will illuminate my heart
just a little.

More than two thousand years
after the Buddha's death
His remains have been divided endlessly
only imaginary numbers can count
the tiles atop the reliquary pagodas
that stretch into the sky
three stories, five stories, seven stories...

As a person of brightness
living now in a town of light,
to which pond will you go
to sip when overcome by night?
When you scoop up the water
what vision of the moon
will you find in your palm?

I too will sip
if it will shade my heart
just a little.

**********************************

Dried Roses from my Rose garden...

Longing & Grief, A Paradox

Your heart was my home & you left, stealing my home---I grieve

~×~×~×~×~

Though I am in Kyoto

I long for Kyoto---

Song of the nightbird.

                                        ~Basho

~×~×~×~×~

Inessential Things by Brian Patten

My lap kitty, Garfield.

My only male cat left.  He's very protective of me.

Inessential Things

What do cats remember of days?
They remember the ways in from the cold,
The warmest spot, the place of food.
They remember the places of pain, their enemies,
the irritation of birds, the warm fumes of the soil,
the usefulness of dust.
They remember the creak of a bed, the sound
of their owner´s footsteps,
the taste of fish, the loveliness of cream.
Cats remember what is essential of days.
Letting all other memories go as of no worth
they sleep sounder than we,
whose hearts break remembering so many
inessential things. 

© Brian Patten

My beautiful Little Debbie, Garfield's sister.

Sweet Darkness By David Whyte

How can a year go by so swiftly? An ocean of tears, total aloneness, naked fear, unbearable loss, stress and constant pain.  Healing?  Not yet, maybe never.  Sweet darkness, indeed. 

An old collage I made in another lifetime ---

~×~×~×~×~

Sweet Darkness
By David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:

the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

From: "The House of Belonging" - page 23

Moonflower, my fragrant friend, fellow lover of darkness---

More Nikita Gill & Some Story People

"The cruelest thing that someone can do to you is first claim to love you more than anything in the world. That they have never seen anything as exquisite as you. That you are every star in the night sky, you have a love to give sweeter than any they have ever tasted. That they will never leave you, because my goodness, look at what all you have to give, they are c0ntent, they are content, they are content. And then one day, out of the blue they do.

The cruelest thing that someone can do to you is lull you into a false sense of security. Convince you that this, this is the forever love you have been looking for. This is the kind of love you needed all this time, the kind of love you have craved and let you get comfortable in it because it will last, it will last, it will last. And then, one day, they wrap all of their love into a bundle and walk away without a second glance back at you.

The cruelest thing someone can do is convince you that you will be enough for them. That there will never be another that makes them feel this way, play with their hair, tease them, make them coffee in the morning just the way they like it, you are a language that has become their mothertongue, and one cannot forget their mothertongue. And then, one day, they forget all about you, like you never existed and you are left with this language in your mouth that no one else speaks.

The cruelest thing someone can do is simply leave without warning after promising you a life together. They take this soft heart of yours and love it until it’s so full only to throw it to the ground and crush it into a million pieces. They take everything you built together and take a hammer to it like it is nothing but a glass house that is meant to be destroyed. This is the cruelest thing that someone can do to you. Disappear without a warning when they swore they would love you. " ~Nikita Gill 

From:  Story People by Brian Andreas

You Matter by Nikita Gill

You Matter
By Nikita Gill

You are not small.
You are not unworthy.
You are not insignificant.
The universe wove you from a constellation
just so, every atom, every fiber in you
comes from a different star.

Together,
you are bound by stardust,
altogether spectacularly created
from the energy of the universe itself.

And that, my darling
is the poetry of physics,
the poetry of you.

From:  "Your Soul is a River", page 12

What Are Poems by Marion Lawless

A collaged notebook I made years ago...

What Are Poems?
By Marion

Poems are things.  
Poems are living, breathing things with bloody, beating hearts.  
Poems are salvation, damnation, birth, death, loss, life, rebirth, love, and hate.  
Poems are endlessly ticking clocks, broken watches and treacherous friends.
Poems are why I'm alive, in this moment.
Poems take you out of a painful existence and give you peace and hope.  
Poems transcend and uplift.
Poems are fiercely burning desire and ashes of unrequited love.
Poems save us from ourselves, then destroy us with their power.
Poems gently hold our angst and carelessly hold our joy.
Poems are razor sharp knives and cloud-soft sighs.
Poems are destructive storm clouds and bright blue skies.
Poems are guns and bullets and bombs.
Poems are windows and doors and cracks in the walls.

Poems make love to us, then leave us, never bothering to call.
Poems take us out of ourselves and show us who we really are.
Poems tear our broken hearts out, then tenderly stitch them back together.
Poems are our teachers, friends, counselors, gurus, saviors.
Poems are.

~×~×~×~×~


Mugged By Poetry 
By Dorianne Laux

—for Tony Hoagland who sent me a handmade chapbook made from old postcards called OMIGOD POETRY with a whale breaching off the coast of New Jersey and seven of his favorite poems by various authors typed up, taped on, and tied together with a broken shoelace. 

Reading a good one makes me love the one who wrote it,
as well as the animal or element or planet or person
the poet wrote the poem for. I end up like I always do,
flat on my back like a drunk in the grass, loving the world.
Like right now, I'm reading a poem called "Summer"
by John Ashbery whose poems I never much cared for,
and suddenly, in the dead of winter, "There is that sound
like the wind/Forgetting in the branches that means 
something/Nobody can translate..." I fall in love 
with that line, can actually hear it (not the line 
but the wind) and it's summer again and I forget 
I don't like John Ashbery poems. So I light a cigarette 
and read another by Zbigniew Herbert, a poet 
I've always admired but haven't read enough of, called 
"To Marcus Aurelius" that begins "Good night Marcus
put out the light/and shut the book For overhead/is raised 
a gold alarm of stars..." First of all I suddenly love 
anyone with the name Zbigniew. Second of all I love 
anyone who speaks in all sincerity to the dead
and by doing so brings that personage back to life, 
plunging a hand through the past to flip off the light. 
The astral physics of it just floors me. Third of all 
is that "gold alarm of stars..." By now I'm a goner, 
and even though I have to get up tomorrow at 6 am 
I forge ahead and read "God's Justice" by Anne Carson, 
another whose poems I'm not overly fond of 
but don't actively disdain. I keep reading one line
over and over, hovering above it like a bird on a wire 
spying on the dragonfly with "turquoise dots all down its back 
like Lauren Bacall". Like Lauren Bacall!! Well hell, 
I could do this all night. I could be in love like this 
for the rest of my life, with everything in the expanding
universe and whatever else might be beyond it 
that we can't grind a lens big enough to see. I light up 
another smoke, maybe the one that will kill me, 
and go outside to listen to the moon scalding the iced trees. 
What, I ask you, will become of me?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I wish I'd written "Mugged by Poetry" because it perfectly describes how I feel when reading poetry.  I'll read one poem that will lead to another and well, it goes on all night.  I highly recommend all of Dorianne Laux's books.  Her poetry is awesome.  Also, read every poem she mentions  in her poem. 

I'm here for poetry.  I blog because I want people to love poetry and to give it a chance, to read it, write it, breathe it, drink it, buy it and support other poets.  I must joyfully confess, I've made hundreds of converts!!

I wish you all Love, Blessings & Poetry,

~*~Marion~*~


"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." ~Anaïs Nin

+++++++++++++

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." ~Anton Chekhov

~•~•~•~•~

Where Water Comes Together With Other Water by Raymond Carver

I love the rivers, lakes, bayous and creeks of Louisiana...

Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

by Raymond Carver

I love creeks and the music they make.
And rills, in glades and meadows, before
they have a chance to become creeks.
I may even love them best of all
for their secrecy. I almost forgot
to say something about the source!
Can anything be more wonderful than a spring?
But the big streams have my heart too.
And the places streams flow into rivers.
The open mouths of rivers where they join the sea.
The places where water comes together
with other water. Those places stand out
in my mind like holy places.
But these coastal rivers!
I love them the way some men love horses
or glamorous women. I have a thing
for this cold swift water.
Just looking at it makes my blood run
and my skin tingle. I could sit
and watch these rivers for hours.
Not one of them like any other.
I'm 45 years old today.
Would anyone believe it if I said
I was once 35?
My heart empty and sere at 35!
Five more years had to pass
before it began to flow again.
I'll take all the time I please this afternoon
before leaving my place alongside this river.
It pleases me, loving rivers.
Loving them all the way back
to their source.
Loving everything that increases me.

~•~•~•~•~•.

Little did Raymond Carver know, he'd be dead of lung cancer at the age of 50.