Poet Tom Andrews and a Farewell to Marilyn French

I'm introducing you to the poet, Tom Andrews, today. I love his poetry. In this second wise and passionate book, "The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle", Tom Andrews explores illness as a major theme, avoiding sentimentality without being merely confessional. He advances his considerable talent with great strength and forcefulness. The poems are buoyant with humor and mindful of larger mysteries even as they investigate very personal issues. There is an urgency that is compelling; the work is immersed in the private grief of the speaker without excluding the reader. There is real and hard-won wisdom and intelligence in the poems, offering genuine surprises and delight; their attractive humility is not a pose..."


AT BURT LAKE

By Tom Andrews

To disappear into the right words
and to be their meanings...

October dusk.
Pink scraps of clouds, a plum-colored sky.
The sycamore tree spills a few leaves.
The cold focuses like a lens...

Now night falls, its hair
caught in the lake's eye.
Such clarity of things. Already
I've said too much...

Lord,
language must happen to you
the way this black pane of water,
chipped and blistered with stars,
happens to me.

From: "The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle"





I learned late last week that one of my favorite authors from the 1970's died: Marilyn French. Her book, "The Women's Room" was life changing for me when I read it at the tender age of 23. I'd never before read a novel by a woman which so eloquently described the life of a suburban housewife of the 50's and her friends and their journey to Feminism. If you haven't read this book, then do yourself a favor and find it. It was a ground-breaking book in it's day and is still relevant today.

Favorite Poem Friday - Lucille Clifton and a Haiku by Me

I went out late yesterday afternoon to water my flowers and strawberries and saw a dead leaf on my trash tree. I went to pluck it off and realized that it wasn't a leaf at all, but a beautiful surprise from Mother Nature. I used to pray a prayer I'd read years ago daily: "Lord, let me see something today which I've never seen before..." and seeing this moth made me recall it. Now I'm back at it. I've taken spectacular pictures of the pink Sphinx Moth and the brown Tobacco Moth which are attracted to my Moonflowers, but I'd never, ever seen this beautiful species (which I'm still researching for her true name) of moth. I even wrote her a Haiku, after much trial and error and counting of words.

I share the photos below. Isn't she beautiful????



A leaf from last year
Floating on the Spring breeze----no!
Yellow and brown moth.

The picture below is when I first spotted her, camoflaged perfectly as a dead leaf next to my windchimes. I highly recommend that you always keep your camera in your pocket when walking around your yard. You never know what you'll see!

The photo below I took from her underside with the setting sun shining on her wings. I was amazed at the perfect symmetry on both sides of her wings.

And lastly, I share this favorite poem by Lucille Clifton. It's a keeper.

Blessings, ~*~Marion~*~

SORROWS
by Lucille Clifton


who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be

beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals

that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin

sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking

their bony fingers
they have heard me beseeching

as i whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again

but who can distinguish
one human voice

amid such choruses
of desire

Flowers, Poetry of Mother Earth

Tiny, new Pink Knockout Rose wet with the morning dew.

The first burst of yellow in the form of my showy Yellow Canna, first Canna to bloom this year. I also have red ones and peach ones. They're very easy to grow and spread like wildfire.

My daughter and I love magnetic poetry. I gave her a small nature set and this is a 12 year old boy's idea of what to do with magnetic poetry----make a robot monster, of course! We don't all think alike or create alike, thank God! I respect the individuality in all people.

My first red rose from one of six bushes that my sweet husband bought for me this year. It's called "Oklahoma" and is an everyblooming hybrid tea rose with large, fragrant red blooms. We had a small shower and the rose was still rain-kissed when I took her photograph. Isn't she beautiful?

Blessings and Love,

~Marion

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are. ~Osho

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.... People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

Monday's Extraordinary Poet: Grace Cavalieri

I can't recall how I discovered the amazing Ms. Cavalieri, but I was half-assed cleaning my office desk last night in a futile attempt to get organized and I found a crumpled, worn copy of her poem, "The Protest" that I had printed out to read and re-read. I read it through yet again and remembered how profoundly it affected me, having grown up surrounded by alcoholics---then I related the first poem to the many wasted years of painful 'not creating' that I went through when someone cruelly dissed my poetry. That's what I love about poetry. It feeds your heart just the way YOU need it to. I'm feeling blah today but thought this poem wanted to be here, so here it is along with a sister-poem by this profoundly talented poet.

Blessings from Marion on this cloudy, dreary, warm day in swampy Louisiana.......



"Grace Cavalieri, born in 1932, is the author of 14 books of poetry and 20 staged plays. She's produced "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio, which entered its 30th year in 2007, now from the Library of Congress. Grace holds the Allen Ginsberg Award for Poetry, the Pen Fiction Award for story, and the CPB Silver Medal for Broadcasting."




YOU CAN'T START THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY UNTIL YOU HAVE A BROKEN HEART


By Grace Cavalieri

Take the edge of the past,
not the whole
just the edge,
the way the art teacher
said You Blink Too Much,
the way the English teacher said
Your Father Must Have Written This-
It's Too Good . . .
This must be why
God started talking to me
in my own voice with
thoughts of
consequence and
ideas I never knew,
in my own voice,
even though I thought
a better one surely
should be found,
and certainly could be found-
It sounded at first
like a fiery sun
and a silk moon
spinning through me,
in tongues
and languages
I finally understood
but fast- so fast-
by the time I got the pen
it was gone.



===========================================




THE PROTEST


By Grace Cavalieri

I was supposed to make a five minute speech
so l took a tranquilizer
but the speech was cancelled,


I was to give another speech but
this too was cancelled,


As you can imagine, I stayed
tranquilized my whole life without speaking,


When the fire and blood came up
in thin spouts through
the kitchen floor
I called the manager
but it is never his fault
if we are speechless and in exile,


He said the problem in the floor
comes from being too emotional,


I had another chance to speak once
but the mashed potatoes lay thick
on my tongue and my indignation
sounded less than noble,


All the audience learned that night
is how anger sounds
through mashed potatoes,


"The physical is spiritual"
I said hotly, but
other people's impressions
had already brushed off on me,


By the time the audience left
I was a widow in a nightgown
and I had not told what
I'd come here to say.



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

Grace Cavalieri's Poetry:


Anna Nicole : poems (CreateSpace, 2008).

Bliss (H. Roberts Publishing, 1986).

Body fluids (Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 1976).

Cuffed frays and other works (Argonne Press, 2001).

Greatest hits, 1975-2000 (Pudding House Press, 2002).

Heart on a leash (Red Dragon Press, 1998).

Migrations : poems with Mary Ellen Long (Book Distribution, In Support, 1995).

Pinecrest rest haven (Word Works, 1998).

Sit down, says love (Argonne Hotel Press, 1999).

Stealthy days (with Robert Sargent and Grace Cavalieri) (Forest Woods Media, 1998).

Swan research (Word Works, 1979).

Trenton (Belle Mead Press, 1990).

Water on the sun: Acqua sul sole (translated by Maria Enrico) (Bordighera, Inc., 2006).

What I would do for love (Jacaranda Press, 2004.

Why I cannot take a lover (Washington Writers Publishing House, 1975).

Poet, Li Po, Master of Imaginary Landscapes

I think it was Dr. Bloom, an Internet friend of mine (one of my many "imaginary friends" as my children and husband call them), who turned me on to the magnificently eloquent, but wine-loving, Li-Po. Either that or I stumbled across his writings in my study of the Tao. Either way, I'm so glad to have found him and his beautiful, inspiring "imaginary landscapes". Enjoy! ~~Marion, enjoying Saturday

Here's a bit of a bio to introduce you to the honorable Mr. Po: "Li Po was born in what is now Sichuan Province. At 19 he left home and lived with a Taoist hermit. After a time of wandering, he married and lived with his wife's family. Then he lived briefly as a poet at the Tang court in Chang'an. He decided to return to a life of Taoist study and poetry writing.

During his wanderings in 744 he met Tu Fu, another famous poet of the period. In 756Li Po became an unofficial poet laureate to Prince Lin. The prince was soon accused of intending to set up an independent kingdom and was executed. Li Po was arrested and imprisoned, but a high official looked into Li Po's case. The high official had Li Po released and made him a staff secretary. In the summer of 758, the charges were revived. Li Po was banished to Yeh-lang.

Li Po frequently celebrated the joy of drinking. According to legend, Li Po drowned while drunkenly leaning from a boat to embrace the moon's reflection on the water. Most scholars believe he died from cirrhosis of the liver or from mercury poisoning due to Taoist longevity elixirs.

Most of Li Po's works are lost, but almost 2000 poems were collected in 1080. Li Po is best known for his pieces describing voyages through imaginary landscapes. He prefers older poetic forms such as songs or ballads. Some themes expressed in Li Po's works are the sorrows of those separated by the demands of duty and the relief found in wine. He also wrote about friendship, solitude, the passage of time, and the joys of nature." ---from famouspoetsandpoems.com


DRINKING ALONE
BY Li-Po

I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.

But the moon doesn't drink,
and my shadow silently follows.

I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.

When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

We share life's joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.

Constant friends, although we wander,
we'll meet again in the Milky Way.

Li T'ai-po

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

PARTING AT A WINE SHOP IN NAN-KING

A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it.
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend's love!

Li Po

====================================================

GOOD OLD MOON


When I was a boy I called the moon a
white plate of jade, sometimes it looked
like a great mirror hanging in the sky,
first came the two legs of the fairy
and the cassia tree, but for whom the rabbit
kept on pounding medical herbs, I
just could not guess. Now the moon is being
swallowed by the toad and the light
flickers out leaving darkness all around;
I hear that when nine of the burning suns out
of the ten were ordered to be shot down by
the Emperor Yao, all has since been quiet
and peaceful both for heaven and man,
but this eating up of the moon is for me
a truly ugly scene filling me with forebodings
wondering what will come out of it.

Li Po

Katie Wirsing, Poet with Soul

My Mentor, Edna St. Vincent Millay

I had to devote an entire post to the poet who gave me the gift of poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay. If you've ever loved even one of her poems, then I recommend the amazing, moving biography, "Savage Beauty" by Nancy Milford. I read it once, then turned around and read it again. It broke my heart to learn of the harshness of Ms. Millay's later life and the pain she suffered. (But as it broke my heart, I also felt a kinship with her at the same time). Her free spirit enthralled me as did her wild life. It's most definitely NOT one of those dull and boring biographies, but reads more like a fascinating, riveting novel. I came away from it with a fresh admiration for both her and her amazing poetry. She lived her life as few women have before her or since.

I share below a few of my favorite poems which I first read almost 40 years ago. They're as fresh and inspiring to me today as they were then.

Blessings & Love,

~*~Marion~*~

You can find the enitre poem, Renascence, here: http://www.bartleby.com/131/1.html

RENASCENCE (First and Last Stanzas)

ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;

And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

GOD'S WORLD

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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

SPRING

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Celebrate Mother Earth Today with Poet, Mary Oliver

I had to post a poem by poet Mary Oliver today because she is so eloquent at describing the majestic beauty of the Earth. In my opinion, she has no equal when writing about the magnificance of Mother Earth.

Plant a flower today, or at least look out your window and thank a tree for it's wonderful shade.

Blessings, ~~~Marion


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


MORNING POEM

Every morning
the world
is created. Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies. If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere. And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---
there is still somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly, every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Mary Oliver

Poets David Whyte, Anne Michaels & Others...

The book of poems shown is one of my favorite anthologies. If you're new to poetry, then anthologies are the way to go because they're like having a sumptuous feast of poems instead of just a meager snack. I highly recommend the poetry books of both David Whyte and Anne Michaels. I own several by both poets and they're amazing! I have the audio CD, "Midlife and the Great Unknown" by David Whyte and I listen to it often. He has a beautiful, soothing voice and to hear him read his own shimmering, healing poetry is like a waking dream.

I've chosen a few poems that are not in this book, but most are from "Staying Alive, Real Poems for Unreal Times". The quotes below are also from the book. ENJOY!!!!!!!

"Poetry has to do with the non-rational parts of man. For a poet, a human being is a mystery . . . this is a religious feeling." ---Czeslaw Milosz

"Poetry is what makes the invisible appear." ---Nathalie Sarraute


"If I knew where poems came from, I'd go there." Michael Longley

"Spend the day with yourself
Let nothing distress you
A person emerges so young and so old
You can't know how long it has lived in you." ---Sophia De Mello Breyner, "Day"


"Poetry can tell us what human beings are. In can tell us why we stumble and fall and how, miraculously, we can stand up." ---Maya Angelou

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Because the moon feels loved, she lets our eyes
follow her across the field, stepping
from her clothes, strewn silk
glinting in furrows. Feeling loved, the moon loves
to be looked at . . .

Her sister, memory, browses the closet
for clothes carrying someone's shape.
She wipes her hands on an apron
stained with childhood.

From: “Skin Divers” by Anne Michaels


<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


The Lightest Touch

Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then like a hand in the dark
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.
In the silence that follows a great line
you can feel Lazarus
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

-- David Whyte, from Everything is Waiting for You


========================================================


"i shall paint my nails red"

by carole satyamurti

because a bit of a color is a public service
because I am proud of my hands.
because it will remind me I'm a woman.
because I will look like a survivor.
because I can admire them in traffic jams
because my daughter will say ugh.
because my lover will be surprised.
because it is quicker than dying my hair.
because it is a ten-minute moratorium.
because it is reversible.



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


The Opening of Eyes

That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.

　　-- David Whyte, from Songs for Coming Home



@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
　

“There are nights in the forest of words
when I panic, every step into thicker darkness,
the only way out to write myself into a clearing,
which is silence.” ---From, “What the Light Teaches” by Anne Michaels



#################################################

Lost

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.



---An old Native American elder story rendered into modern English by David Whyte



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What to Remember When Waking


In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

---David Whyte

Moody Monday Poems: Sharon Olds and More Dorianne Laux

I went into the living room yesterday to peruse my poetry books and look what I found: FAIRIES!!! I guess they're poetry fairies since they were playing in the poems.......

I can't get enough of the poetry of the down-to-earth Madam of Poetry, Sharon Olds.

The Promise
by Sharon Olds

With the second drink, at the restaurant,

holding hands on the bare table,

we are at it again, renewing our promise

to kill each other. You are drinking gin,

night-blue juniper berry

dissolving in your body, I am drinking Fumé,

chewing its fragrant dirt and smoke, we are

taking on earth, we are part soil already,

and wherever we are, we are also in our

bed, fitted, naked, closely

along each other, half passed out,

after love, drifting back

and forth across the border of consciousness,

our bodies buoyant, clasped. Your hand

tightens on the table. You’re a little afraid

I’ll chicken out. What you do not want

is to lie in a hospital bed for a year

after a stroke, without being able

to think or die, you do not want

to be tied to a chair like your prim grandmother,

cursing. The room is dim around us,

ivory globes, pink curtains

bound at the waist—and outside,

a weightless, luminous, lifted-up

summer twilight. I tell you you do not

know me if you think I will not

kill you. Think how we have floated together

eye to eye, nipple to nipple,

sex to sex, the halves of a creature

drifting up to the lip of matter

and over it—you know me from the bright, blood-

flecked delivery room, if a lion

had you in its jaws I would attack it, if the ropes

binding your soul are your own wrists, I will cut them.

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

Blessings for a Happy Week!

~*~Marion~*~

Oops, I found another one! Kelly, you'll appreciate the puzzle in this poem by Dorianne Laux:

Break

By Dorianne Laux

We put the puzzle together piece

by piece, loving how one curved

notch fits so sweetly with another.

A yellow smudge becomes

the brush of a broom, and two blue arms

fill in the last of the sky.

We patch together porch swings and autumn

trees, matching gold to gold. We hold

the eyes of deer in our palms, a pair

of brown shoes. We do this as the child

circles her room, impatient

with her blossoming, tired

of the neat house, the made bed,

the good food. We let her brood

as we shuffle through the pieces,

setting each one into place with a satisfied

tap, our backs turned for a few hours

to a world that is crumbling, a sky

that is falling, the pieces

we are required to return to.

from Awake, 2001 University of Arkansas Press