From Severe Sorrow He Almost Went Mad
(after Robert Ranke Graves)
From severe sorrow he almost went mad
when he suddenly saw some strange things
in nature and the universe
and maybe it came from to much sorrow;
he noticed small things like falling leaves,
the smallest white flower slowly opening,
the first tiny whistle of a small bird,
thunder hitting far in the distance
even rocks glistening with black metal,
he even saw wings of birds fluttering,
the movement of every small snake,
but between life and death he could not reach
and he could not look at his buried wife
or living go to that other kingdom.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Lost Love (English Sonnet)
Sheer grief did drive him almost off his mind
and suddenly some strange things he can see
and odd things that no other man can find
becomes clear, but this is not sympathy
and he can see tiny flowers growing,
their buds opening petal by small petal
every bird's wing in motion fluttering
rocks glimmering with their inner metal
and amplified sound comes to his ear,
the wind rushing along in the distance
the chirping of some small finches in fear
and though almost godlike the hindrance
between him and his beloved dear wife
he cannot pass, enter that place alive.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Perhaps Especially In Old Age/How Happiness Comes Suddenly From Such Small Things
PERHAPS ESPECIALLY IN OLD AGE/HOW HAPPINESS COMES SUDDENLY FROM SUCH SMALL THINGS
Perhaps especially in old age,
How happiness comes suddenly from such small things-
The surprising sight of glistening leaves,
A shaft of sunlight on a cold morning,
The sky opening up after the rain-
Small perceptions and deep feelings
Happiness from such small things
even in old age.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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What if a hummingbird could emerge from a cocoon?
What if a hummingbird could emerge from a cocoon
fully formed
and clingling
to a vanilla plant
its wet body slowly opening
in the heat of the flower garden?
And has anyone noticed
that birds as they depart
their flapping sounds
almost like a paper bag being opened?
The hummingbird clearly, though,
sounds like a hum
whose tiny wings
pressed together at 25 beats per second
is blessed by being the only bird to be able to fly backwards
and one that could be
the smallest fan in the world
The humidity of the weather
evaporates the head notes of her perfume
leaving the heart note to open next
she considers all this
including the world's smallest fan
and believes that if it hovered around her neckline
close to her
the strange bird would have wings
cooling to her
and misty to the bird
as it paddled the air
and was covered so slightly
in the scent of Japanese Eau de Parfum
not to mention
vanilla
poem by Eli Spivakovsky
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A Question
O bird with heart of wassail,
That toss the Bacchic branch,
And slip your shaken music,
An elfin avalanche;
Come tell me, O tell me,
My poet of the blue!
What's YOUR thought of me, Sweet?--
Here's MY thought of you.
A small thing, a wee thing,
A brown fleck of nought;
With winging and singing
That who could have thought?
A small thing, a wee thing,
A brown amaze withal,
That fly a pitch more azure
Because you're so small.
Bird, I'm a small thing--
My angel descries;
With winging and singing
That who could surmise?
Ah, small things, ah, wee things,
Are the poets all,
Whose tour's the more azure
Because they're so small.
The angels hang watching
The tiny men-things:-
'The dear speck of flesh, see,
With such daring wings!
'Come, tell us, O tell us,
Thou strange mortality!
What's THY thought of us, Dear?--
Here's OUR thought of thee.'
'Alack! you tall angels,
I can't think so high!
I can't think what it feels like
Not to be I.'
Come tell me, O tell me,
My poet of the blue!
What's YOUR thought of me, Sweet?--
Here's MY thought of you.
poem by Francis Thompson
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The Smallest Things
the small print
of a cat's paw on
your trembling lips,
stopped the tears,
and the roar of hunger
in the tiny bud opening.
the tongue that gropes
for a dropp of rain...
seed wrapped in dirt,
that sunlight,
and turning set free.
the smallest things,
bring form to shadow.
it is in the smallest things
that we find the immortal!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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I Am Only One Small Name In A Universe
I AM ONLY ONE SMALL NAME IN A UNIVERSE
I am only one small name in a universe,
Of billions of names-
I am only one small bodily being
Where there are billions of billions-
I am a beginning and an end,
As all living things-
A speck in vast spaces whose specks are uncountable-
No one or nothing need save me
No one or nothing need remember me
No one or nothing billions of years hence
Need smile because I was here.
I am so small I need never to have existed-
I am not even here now,
Whoever is writing this
Lost me a long time ago.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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One Small Step
So many people
Need to go so many miles
How do we move them
To where the answer lies
Reach out to the ocean
Beyond the stars that shine
Weve got to take one small step in time
If we are the dreamers
Then the world must be the dream
Driven to question
All the things weve never seen
We search the horizon
Looking for a sign
Weve got to take one small step in time
One step beyond
All our hopes and our passion
There is the light of the universe flashin
All that it takes is one leap of faith
One small step, (one small step)
One small step in time
Deep in the darkness
(deep in the blackness)
Theres a wind that never dies
(theres a wind that never dies)
Out in the vastness
(out in the vastness)
Theres a road across the sky
(a road across the sky)
Out there is the reason
That we were meant to find
Weve got to take one small step in time
Weve got to take one small step in time
(one small step, one small step)
One small step in time
(one small step, one small step)
One small step in time
(one small step, one small step)
song performed by by Cher
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Improvisations: Light And Snow: 08
Many things perplex me and leave me troubled,
Many things are locked away in the white book of stars
Never to be opened by me.
The starr’d leaves are silently turned,
And the mooned leaves;
And as they are turned, fall the shadows of life and death.
Perplexed and troubled,
I light a small light in a small room,
The lighted walls come closer to me,
The familiar pictures are clear.
I sit in my favourite chair and turn in my mind
The tiny pages of my own life, whereon so little is written,
And hear at the eastern window the pressure of a long wind, coming
From I know not where.
How many times have I sat here,
How many times will I sit here again,
Thinking these same things over and over in solitude
As a child says over and over
The first word he has learned to say.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Strange Attraction
it started with a dedication
'lost in admiration - happy birthday -
i'm forever yours - BLOSSOM'
fared red inside a tiny book of butterflies
i smiled surprised at how when flickered through
the wings flew by spelled out my name
six months went by the summer lost
obsessively the letters dropped into my life
the same soft blood smooth flowing hand
'please try to understand - I have to see you - have to feel you -
tell you all the ways I need you - yours forever in love...'
strange attraction spreads its wings
it varies but the smallest things
you never know how anything will change
strange attraction spreads its wings
and alters but the smallest things
you never know how anything will fade
the year grew old incessantly she wrote to me
she'd started smoking poetry!
i laughed in recognition of a favorite phrase
she'd pulled me in...
i answered her
a christmas card in sepia
arranging when and where
and how the two of us should meet...
her opening so well prepared
a nervous smile
i couldn't take my eyes from her
she whispered
'can I use some of your lipstick?'
it was perfect so believable
i couldn't help but feel that it was real
and kissing crimson fell into her waiting arms
strange attraction spreads its wings
it varies but the smallest things
you never know how anything will change
strange attraction spreads its wings
and alters but the smallest things
you never know how anything will fade
so alone into the cold new year without another wo
i wrote to ask if we could maybe meet again before
but weeks went by with no reply untill once more m
and with it my surprise but this time nothing was
'i'm sorry - blame infatuation - blame imagination
i was sure you'd be the one but I was wrong -
it seems reality destroys our dreams - I won't for
fared red inside a tiny book of all goodbyes...
strange attraction spreads its wings
it varies but the smallest things
you never know how anything will change
strange attraction spreads its wings
and alters but the smallest things
you never know how anything will fade
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If... (Death Knocks!)
if indeed death knocks,
i cannot answer the door.
there are logs to split,
and bricks to lay....
a fire to tend,
and flowers to plant.
broken wings to heal,
centipedes to liberate....
small things to do,
small words to speak...
for i am not yet done with living,
and living's not done with me!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Tiny Planet
Its a small world
Just a tiny planet
Its a small small world
Ever since the earth began
Its been a small world
Heres the message, heed it
Its a small small world
Youve got to give where its
Most needed
Look at the children
Dont it almost break your heart?
Reach out and touch one
Reach out and help one
Make a brand new start
Its a small world
Just a tiny planet
Its a small small world
Ever since the earth began
Its been a small world
Heres the message, heed it
Its a small small worlds
Youve got to give where its
Most needed
Take a look at what youve got
Compare it to your neighbour
And the little that you need to give
Is going to be that saviour
Its a small world
Just a tiny planet
Its a small small world
Ever since the earth began
Its been a small world
Heres the message, heed it
Its a small small worlds
Youve got to give where its
Most needed
song performed by by Cliff Richard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Baby Tortoise
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird,
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Continually the red weaver gambols
Continually the red weaver gambols around,
when the dove continually sings in sorrow
and he lands frolicking on the wet ground,
before it takes insects to its chicks
that twitter, jump up and down in the nest,
and at night when the moon rises silver-white,
when small sounds pierce through everything
then I hear a joyous song and then I hear him
tell about life, about every small thing,
when that small bird sings with caring affection.
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Bird that lives forever
A geless and deathless Paliel vulture
One of African vulture species that
Lives in jonglei region of Sudan
Lives beyond any bird life span
When it bird life span finish
It stops to eat and drink
It plumes plummeted naturally
Until it come skinny
It start to metamorphoses
The beak, the legs grow soft fleshy
The body transform into battled slender creature
The two legs become small soft tails
The two wings become small fins
It gradually become an African youngest cobra
And again goes on living as snake beyond
Any snake lifespan in jonglei region.
When it become old, aile and about to die
It stops to eat and drink
It flake it dry scally-skin off
And become skinny
If fang fallen off
It two fins, tails project wings and legs
It grow plumes and feathers
It gradually grow until it
Become bird and fly up again
Paleil, dodge death by
Oldness in bird to youngness in snake
Oldness in snake to youngness bird
The catchyphrase!
Paleil lives forever in recuryring metamorphosis
poem by David Aoloch Bion
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This Is My World That Is Your World
This is my world, small as it is,
It is a planet by itself with very
Small moons, and tiny stars,
And so tiny, you cannot just
See me there, I am hiding,
But I still live here just the same,
Breathing atomic air, and drinking
Molecular waters, so you see,
How tiny I could be, how tiny
I could get, but this is my
Small happy world, my smile
My laughter so tiny, that you
Cannot hear, you cannot feel,
And that is your world as big
As the sun, with comets and
Meteors, and so big and so
Wide, with oceans and rivers,
And continents, and gigantic
Arctics, and snowy lands, and
We are then so different, and
With me, there is no problem,
I, in my small world, can fit
In yours, but you, you cannot
Fit in mine, that we must
Accept, I am a small world,
And you are a space still expanding,
Now, do you understand,
why I hide?
why I shy away from you?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Twenty
This is my world, small as it is,
It is a planet by itself with very
Small moons, and tiny stars,
And so tiny, you cannot just
See me there, I am hiding,
But I still live here just the same,
Breathing atomic air, and drinking
Molecular waters, so you see,
How tiny I could be, how tiny
I could get, but this is my
Small happy world, my smile
My laughter so tiny, that you
Cannot hear, you cannot feel,
And that is your world as big
As the sun, with comets and
Meteors, and so big and so
Wide, with oceans and rivers,
And continents, and gigantic
Arctics, and snowy lands, and
We are then so different, and
With me, there is no problem,
I, in my small world, can fit
In yours, but you, you cannot
Fit in mine, that we must
Accept, I am a small world,
And you are a space still expanding,
Now, do you understand,
why I hide?
why I shy away from you?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Forever (cavatina sequence)
Forever in and out the waves roll on,
poplars quiver
as the breeze time and again rushes through them,
the small river
is slowly flowing twisting to the sea
birds deliver
worms, seed and fruit chirping to new hatchlings,
cheerful they sing and fly and slap their wings.
It feels as if all the time in the world
we still have got
when you give me a small token as a
forget-me-not;
time suddenly gets wings and I love you
more than a lot;
the sun rises and again it does descend
while all of life feels as it has no end.
poem by Gert Strydom
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On Another's Sorrow
Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,
And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast;
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant’s tear;
And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
O, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
He doth give His joy to all;
He becomes an infant small;
He becomes a man of woe;
He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.
O! He gives to us His joy
That our grief he may destroy;
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan.
poem by William Blake from Songs of Innocence (1789)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Things at A Time Were Simple
Things at a time were simple, small things are full of danger
everywhere I walk into your things, as if you are here
while time passes much too slowly,
your things fill the whole garage
and I wonder when a relationship ends?
Outside children ride past on bicycles and life goes on
and everything feels muddled,
when the church bell in the distance rings off the time,
things at a time were simple.
How our relationship ended is disputable
but it remains a fact that I have got to accept,
I am wet with sweat while I am hitting of a tennis ball,
standing ready for the next one,
almost staring at the women with the short skirt,
things at a time were simple.
poem by Gert Strydom
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I Want To Go Back To The Veldt Again (Rondel Prime)
I want to go back to the veldt again
to watch nature to see little things,
to hear how pretty small red weavers sing,
to on my skin feel the summer’s cool rain
to live with harmony without some pain,
to get of God a clear understanding.
I want to go back to the veldt again
to watch nature to see little things,
and away from the city to remain,
to see flowers rise in the months of spring
opening and life slowly awakening,
I want to go back to the veldt again
to watch nature to see little things.
poem by Gert Strydom
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