The Slow Mind The Sleeping Mind
THE SLOW MIND THE SLEEPING MIND
The slow mind the sleeping mind
The mind that cannot move
Resists itself in these words.
But the desired poem
The true thing
Can it be made in this way?
When one goes away for a long time
Even from oneself
The return is difficult and awkward.
I have been away from Poetry
For only one long holiday day
And yet
It seems now a distant land
I am barely beginning to see.
These lines
Are another poem
About writing poetry
Which do not know
Whether they are real or not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wanted A Poem/But There Was No Poetry In Me
I WANTED A POEM/ BUT THERE WAS NO POETRY IN ME
I wanted a poem
But there was no poetry in me
I said to myself from outside,
‘Write the feeling of a song'
But I had no song within me-
Poetry did not flow
No music moved me
I was alone with a Mind
That had no heart or song-
And then I writing
Simply tried to listen to myself
And what I heard
Was these awkward non- poetic lines
That make a poem
Which is not true poetry
And yet here now
proclaims its own rhythm as this page.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Only A Poem Can Save Me Tonight
ONLY A POEM CAN SAVE ME TONIGHT
Only a poem can save me tonight
The heat has been too much
Also the feeling of illness.
I cannot move my mind very much
But a few lines I can write.
Are they a poem?
Is this a poem?
Long ago I began to hear the words which came from within me
As poetry.
They had a real music of their own
Even now I suppose I can hear them
I write to make my life meaningful
Is this a poem?
The heat and the feeling of illness do not matter-
I am writing this down
As if it were Poetry.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Is No Poem To Begin The Week With
THERE IS NO POEM TO BEGIN THE WEEK WITH
There is no poem to begin the week with
Emptiness is the beginning
I try to think
I try to listen to some internal rhythm
I write words down
My thoughts are simple and self- referential
The green- yellow light is there outside my window
The world is moving
Am I writing a poem or simply writing whatever sentences come into my mind?
I sometimes think poetry never stops being written within me
At other times I believe I am just ambitious and pretentious
Today this is the beginning
These lines these words
A poem to begin the week with?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem Is Restless In Me
THE POEM IS RESTLESS IN ME
The poem is restless in me-
It waits to be heard-
Now that it comes
It does not feel especially happy about itself.
It knows it is not real-
It is not much-
Just because it is called a poem by me
Does not make it a poem -
The mind has its own place-
My mind also -
I am always thinking poems are with me,
And poems waiting to come-
But who am I and what do I know?
These lines are written in the still of the morning
When the light outside still brings hope
That a new day is possible.
But so many poems have been written in the early morning
And I am so old from hearing them said to me by myself-
And what does it all mean anyway in the end when God is the Only One?
And who am I to know what God is, or invoke the name of God
In such a small thing as my own poetry?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Journey Of A Poet
A journey begins with
A thought in our mind
Words are chosen and formed.
Lines of poem
Well Written with meanings
With words of emotions and expressions
A poet starts with
An inspiration of mind,
An aspiration in soul mind
With reflection
On our life experience
We start to
Compose some
Wonderful poetry
Expressing our innermost thoughts
With deep contemplation
To put them in poetry words
A journey begins when
A poet takes his imagination
To a place where
No one ever dream or imagine before.
A poet's journey ends by
Writing another lovely poem
And deep reflection
A poet remains
As a poet
When he or she
Continue to
Write and Share
lovely poems with the world.
poem by Lawrence Hiung
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I Have The Mind And Mood Of Poetry
I HAVE THE MIND AND MOOD OF POETRY
I have the mind and mood of poetry,
But I have no poem-
And all I can do is wait
And hear the words come
And wonder whether their strength
Is in my own inner quiet
Which loves the words
And loves the poem
And loves the light from my window
And the flowers on the balcony
And all I see and feel and breathe now-
Because Love makes the universe resound
Even when there is only a small poor poem to add to it.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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At A Loss For Words
Some time had passed since a verse had come to mind
a mental blockage I have had, nothing seemed to rhyme.
No words of creation the supply had gone
no thoughts, or imagination, nothing, not a one.
The source had stopped for some strange reason,
as though there was a break in the poetry season.
I tried and I tried, but nothing would come together,
not even with a change in the weather.
In the early hours I woke up and had to pick up a pen,
for some strange reason I began writing again.
It is quite odd and I’ll never get to know
why periods of poetry come and go.
But I’m thankful when words and lines come to me
it is as though they are sent telepathically.
It doesn’t matter if the poem is incorrect or good
or if it’s taken as silly, or is misunderstood.
As long as it relays that moment’s thought
an instinctive message that cannot be taught.
To me it doesn’t matter if its only two lines long,
or whether it has many verses, or even sounds wrong.
When thoughts of words or sentences come to mind
I have to write them down no matter the place or time.
If I don’t record the thought on paper right away
they become lost forever in the space of night and day.
poem by Orlando Belo
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Poetry Has A Rhythm Of Its Own
POETRY HAS A RHYTHM OF ITS OWN
Poetry has a rhythm of its own
I have lost it
I have words
I have sentences
But I have no rhythm-
I have flat lines
One after the blank other
A mind without depth
A sense of lack
But no real way
Of making a music of poetry
All my efforts now
Are like these lines
Without resonance
Simple and single in meaning
Not what a poem at its best
Should be.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Thought To Begin The Day With A Poem
I THOUGHT TO BEGIN THE DAY WITH A POEM
I thought to begin the day with a poem
But inside myself I hear only my own slow emptiness
Word by word I try to hear
And there is some small motion now
But still
A real poem
A poem of beauty
A poem of light
A poem of love
A poem that makes the dreamer long to dream-
And the lover long to love-
A poem that moves-
Well it is very very dark outside
And the world straining to give
Small rain to a dry land
Seems to say,
‘There may be a poem today
But it is not the poem you dream
Not the poem others will love
As you have loved
True poetry.’
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Man Became Addicted To Poetry
A MAN BECAME ADDICTED TO POETRY
A man became addicted to poetry-
Wherever he went he read or wrote a few lines-
Poetry became much of what he did-
Poetry and poetry and poetry-
As if that alone could give meaning and pleasure to his life.
A man became addicted to poetry
And so lost at times
What true poetry is –
Now he writes without knowing
Whether he is truly writing
Or merely using the ‘idea and world of poetry’
For his own peace of mind.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Was A Poem Long Ago
THERE WAS A POEM LONG AGO
There was a poem long ago
A poem of youth and hope
Now there are other poems
Poems of age and sorrow.
There was a poem once
Of love – and happiness in love
Now there is a poem of lovelessness
And sadness.
There was a poem once
Of the long and distant open road
Now there is a poem of the dead end.
There was a poem once
That believed in Poetry
Now there is a poem that knows
Even the most beautiful worlds of words
End in dust
There was a poem once – long ago.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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On Poetry
1
poetry can be
like a sky filled with wrangling clouds
or as a sky without a wisp
2
in poetry there are no
clichés in thought and phrase;
and what is left there is
the resplendent and the living
3
poetry leaves one
rich inside
and ordinary outside
4
the fool defines poetry
and poetry defies all definitions
5
poetry entertains, inspires;
poetry tickles, distracts, and shapes and frees -
but its true intent, no one knows
6
many lines, and countless lines
many pages, and thick volumes
don’t make poetry
7
if one had no coins
one cannot buy bread;
but not all the world’s wealth
can bring you poetry
8
Oh no!
Not another love poem!
Oh no!
Not another poem about oneself!
9
rhyme, technique and meter
and tricks of prosody
don’t make poetry: passion does
poem by Raj Arumugam
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A Poem Mood
A POEM MOOD
The thin clear ordinary mind
Is not for Poetry-
One needs a Deep Doubleness within-
A certain kind of Ironic Longing-
A calling out for Meaning
That knows it cannot ever Define itself completely-
A Poem Mood
Is a different kind of Being.
One can sometimes make it come-
One can sometimes respond to it,
And make the Poem with it.
But is not so simple
And not so easy.
I have the Mind and Mood of a Poem now-
But how many would – be poetic lines have I written
Including these perhaps
Without it?
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Poetry Has Its Own Music
POETRY HAS ITS OWN MUSIC
Poetry has its own music-
A mind empty of it
Wonders where it is.
Poetry has a rhythm of its own
Without that rhythm
Dead words dead lines dead pages.
Seeking the rhythm the music of poetry
Flat lines come
And the poem is a parody
Of true poetry.
How many flat and false poems
Have I written
In order
To help me try
To come alive?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Cannot Write/ Is The Poem Beyond My Own Poetry
THE POEM I CANNOT WRITE/ IS THE POEM BEYOND MY OWN POETRY
The poem I cannot write
Is the poem beyond my own poetry -
It is greater than what I am capable of -
It surprises in ways my awkward phrases cannot
It is complex beyond my simple simplicity
It has an infectious beauty
That demands to be recited again and again -
It lingers in the mind and memory
As a strange new beauty beyond anything done by anyone else before.
The poem I cannot write
Has been written will be written
By those greater than myself-
I have the great blessing
Of being able to read them
But I cannot join them
Despite a lifetime of trying.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Poet Became His Own Poetry
A POET BECAME HIS OWN POETRY
A poet became his own poetry
And all he could be
Was lines and lines and lines
Inside and outside
Lines and more lines
Off- rhymes
Finding a phrase
A metaphor
Hearing listening
To sounds
His own mind made.
A poet became his own poetry
And went into the long sleep
Of being only what he wrote.
No one can know how
Reading these lines now
The poet and the poetry live
without themselves.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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No Poem Is An Original
No poem is an original
everyone who writes
poetry thinks their poem
was an original, it just so
happens that their poem just
surfaced to the top
of their mind first, so they
were able to write it.
Everyone has love, hate
compassion buried deep
in their soul.
Poets are able to bring
all of this to the surface,
to construct, add the words,
but it is not an original
idea, for the poet because
they wrote it now, it
becomes an original for them.
Who has not heard a song,
read a poem, story or book,
seen a movie and said,
to themselves, hey I had
that same idea.
Only thing is, someone else
brought it to the surface
of the mind, and wrote it first.
Even this poem I'm writing
now is not an original
someone out there
has this idea buried
deep in their soul.
So if you have an idea
for a poem, get busy
write it, don't wait,
or you won't write an original
start today,
don't delay.
wrote 2-2-07
Wait For The Poem
WAIT FOR THE POEM
Wait for the poem-
Wait-
Let the Breeze go through you
The heat of these past days has been long.
Wait
Let your mind
Begin to move
With the wind.
Lines
More lines
A poem?
Writing now
The breeze.
Thank God
For the Breeze
For the Poem
For Now.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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This Poem
THIS POEM
This poem
This first poem
This last poem
This poem that invented Poetry
This one and only one poem
This fictional poem
This ideal poem
This perfect poem
This would – be holy poem
This unreal poem
This poem which is not a poem
This poem which is the essence of all poetry
This poem
And that poem
And my poem
And your poem
And all poems
Poem poem poem poem poem
This poem
Mine and yours
This one small poem of so so many
And not such a good poem at all.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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