Tightrope walking – Poetry Friday

Over the last few months I have felt like the ‘Man on the wire’, anyone who has children will know how hard it is when they are adults and we can’t convince them that their actions will cause them unhappiness and pain.  This poem is supposed to be about romantic love (I think ) and was possibly meant to be taken literally but it describes how I feel about my children and my partner so I thought I would share.

Passion by Sue May

What does passion know?

Passion knows nothing

It is red and blind

And plays the congas

With the accuracy of a brain

surgeon.

Passion lives in the heat

It is Irish and confused

It wears a sodden shirt

And plays the double bass

With the fingers of an angel.

Passion speaks in gibberish

It is lost an lonely

It wears broken shoes

And plays the saxophone

With water streaming down its face.

Passion is clever

It is full up and hearty

It wears a leather belt

And sings like a face full of Sun

Passion knows everything.

Taken from ‘Dancing the Tightrope’.

On the other hand it may just describe the menopause.

Poetry Friday, in memorium

Merce Cunningham April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009, see here for more about this legendary choreographer http://www.merce.org/index-content.html

The Light of Life

Put out that Light,

Put out that bright Light,

Let darkness fall.

Put out that Day,

It is the time for nightfall.

Stevie Smith

Poetry FridayX2

 

 

I wasn’t around last week so didn’t post a poem, so this week I’ll post 2!! the first of which you should have got last week is by Walt Whitman and called Song of Myself, this is the first verse, its a celebration of being an American, but could be applied to anyone. I should post it on 4th of July but I’ll be in Indianapolis celebrating with Americans.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 
And what I assume you shall assume, 
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my soul, 
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, 
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their 
parents the same, 
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, 
Hoping to cease not till death. 

Creeds and schools in abeyance, 
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, 
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, 
Nature without check with original energy. 

 

Waltman age 37 when he wrote the poem. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the 2nd poem is by John Dunne, you can hear Richard Burton read it here.

http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/013194_harp_01_ITH.au
The Relic
When my grave is broke up again

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn’d that woman head,

To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

Will he not let’us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their souls, at the last busy day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then he, that digs us up, will bring

Us to the bishop, and the king,

To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I

A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;

And since at such time miracles are sought,

I would have that age by this paper taught

What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First, we lov’d well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what we lov’d, nor why;

Difference of sex no more we knew

Than our guardian angels do;

Coming and going, we

Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;

Our hands ne’er touch’d the seals

Which nature, injur’d by late law, sets free;

These miracles we did, but now alas,

All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was.

 

This reminds me of of Side by Side by Philip Larkin. Are they both about enduring/undying love?

Poetry Friday

I have decided to take part in ‘Poetry Friday’, I don’t know whether anyone can join, it may be a closed club but what can they do?

Here is my first poem which I downloaded from the Poetry Archive, if you are interested in poetry this is a good site, it has recordings too.

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do   

Marigold by Vicki Feaver

Not the flowers men give women-

delicately scented freesias,

stiff red roses, carnations

the shades of bridemaids’ dresses,

almost sapless flowers,

drying and fading – but flowers

that wilt as soon as their stems 

are cut, leaves blackening

as if blighted by the enzymes

in our breath, rotting to a slime

we have to scour from the rims

of vases; flowers that burst

from tight, explosive buds, rayed

 

like the sun, that lit the path

up the Thracian mountain, that we wound

 

into our hair, stamped on

in ecstatic dance, that remind us

we are killers, can tear the heads

off men’s shoulders;

flowers we still bring

secretly and shamefully

into the house, stroking

our arms and breasts and legs

with their hot orange fringes,

the smell of arousal.

I’ve chosen this because I have some marigold seedlings waiting to be planted. Also because the poet talks about how women fade like flowers and I’m feeling a little faded just now. But I also like marigolds and orange, they make me think of July, the beginning of summer.D