Magpie, My Keeper, Is Flying - Upon Freeing the Gift of Creativity Turned Inward
.
for Elaine Bellezza, Beloved Anima-as-Fate
'There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one's gift to those one loves most...The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.' - May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
This afternoon while still somewhat hungover from last night's rich meal and several glasses of strong red wine, I stumbled as one does when hungover, only today without feet but with eyes, upon the above quote by May Sarton. I had awakened this morning with fragments of a dream, repetitive of other dreams the past few months, where I am carrying something precious and just cannot put it down in any old place or upon just any available surface. I cannot put it down until I find the right surface and location.
These dreams are full of torrential flood waters, or backed up, stagnant water, toilets full of filth and pungent bright orange dark urine days old and fermenting. I cannot unhand the burden even though the urge to pee or flee or drive a car away or into flood waters is strong. I must not put down the burden odd as it is; it is my laptop carrying case made of canvas. It is large enough to carry not only my laptop but also many books with which I cannot, will not be parted from as they are the must-have-with-me-always 'bread', my staple and stability in a given to me world out of balance.
I have understood the dreams only a little - something within the psyche is flooding up, over-spilling or has already, has not been adequately canalized, channeled, streamed and guided, shaped and formed. Or flushed. I knew that eventually, as dreams do when one sits consciously, patiently, persistently with them, they would yield their messages to me, and upon revelation these must be obeyed, brought out into the world, Carl Jung having said that one has a moral responsibility to dreams once they are kenned and must be conscientiously acted upon in the outer world. Just dreaming is not enough. Everyone dreams but not very many know to dream them out into the world, to let their messages unfurl, flood and flow to bring forth new consciousness, to reshape old forms no longer adequate to self, place and time into symbol and their sense, usually not literal.
And thus, only just now, upon opening up haphazardly in a book about Dostoevsky and his struggle with addictions which mirror the profound compulsion to create at any cost perhaps beyond one's capacities to renew oneself, I find May Sarton's quote and suddenly the dreams clarify and sharpen into focus; I understand them as the burden of creativity too long turned inward, the burden of writing, the burden of poetry which I have carried heavily for most of my life since middle school when I was 11 or 12 years old when books became my lifeline, my link to existence that I could live on in spite of not wanting to do so. Written words, books, kept me from disappearing though I was and remain a mostly invisible word.
And thus the floods. One cannot ignore them. Alphabets tumble and roil. One dare not ignore them. One must see them without a choice to not see them. In them I am suddenly made visible, bright orange p*ss pots and all. I am both appalled and pleased. My burden is upon my knees.
The backed up water, the urine, is creativity. A somewhat odd symbol of creativity, there is more than enough evidence that urination is symbolic of self expression which is creativity. In ancient Rome the highly valued dirt from the urinals of boys' schools was collected to be used as a cosmetic in order to restore youthful energy and looks. A young boy, or puer in Latin, is an archetypal symbol of ongoing creativity and inspiration, the puer aeternas, the eternal youth, well springs of ongoing creativity still imaged in solid fountains of the world where eternal waters flow from the peni of cherubic youth.
I have struggled my entire life with a strong urge to create, to write, to express in words that creative daemon within which torments no matter the completion of a poem or essay, a lecture, a psalm. And now my dreams have had me consciously, urgently seeking a place to put the burden down, to perhaps come to it anew. I imagine that landing the burden means bringing it down to earth, manifesting creativity all the more by bringing my efforts to others for the strongest part of the compulsive urge in my creativity has been to contribute one good thing, one good poem or piece of writing which in some way might further the culture even if only by a flea's leg length.
The dreams urge me to let the urine flow, to let the flood waters indeed flood over, to be less self conscious of what I write and say but to have at it all and to say my say. And to let whatever waves there are crest and break upon ever receptive banks and shores whose duty it is to allow what may come from motion without complaint, the more compliant toward as yet to be fully formed purposes as yet to be scored.
Synchronistically, a few days ago I listened to a lecture by poet Allen Ginsberg about Walt Whitman and his imitators, those who were goodly influenced by his effulgent, self indulgent style, his garrulous poems which presumed to express the very expansiveness of the North American continent over-flooded by a plague of itinerant, persistent poachers and prophets from Europe to Eastern disembarkation and then inland and Westward, compelled to overtake land and native peoples in their possessed, pushed wake. Ginsberg imagined himself to be a timely extension of this unruly school, as savage as the projected upon land and justly-resistant, resident humanity stretched beyond known bounds and sounds. Blood drowned and pounded the god-hounded land even now is flooded by unleashed mighty rivers seeking, if rivers seek at all, to undo and renew in horse shoe and other shapes the crimes of consciousness compelled to overtake while leaving it up to human souls to repent and repair, to prepare for more powerful insurgencies of land and Self ever seeking new and nower expressions of dirt and deity. There's enough history beneath layers to support the scarp and scrape of momentary yet monumental motions finally given mouths to utter what lies both beneath and within the heaping huzzahs of here here here full and deep. As in my dream, it is hard to steer in such surpassing tides and currents. Still, I am searching for holy campground that I may lay my burden down.
I have no wish to imitate Whitman nor Ginsberg - though both are easily imitated since they did so themselves, an occupational hazard for writers - but only to be obedient to the daemon, that urgent, emergent, creative force within. It rushes within and against me. No matter whether derived of the grandiose American continent and the even more grandiose sky or not, I have all too successfully braced against it in fear of failure, reprisal or, worse, complete indifference from others. My dreams now urge floods and resultant coagulations, they bring creative splurges to ground from hand to the hard world. And Nature, too, is indifferent but begs none the less and all the more to be given utterance and response.
Respondeo ergo sum. I respond, therefore I am. I respond, therefore the other, earth, all her ants, is as long as there are eyes, ears, and scanning minds to acknowledge and touch, wrestle, caress, shape - some in scansions - outer from inner, inner from outer, landscapes to be all too quickly discarded in time for what is sung just ahead. And seen. Or hoped, all praise to telescopes. We would be they, so addicted to horizons, to bring them close.
Something there is needs completion via coagulation, forming, shaping, and sharing with whomever may be open to clods delivered. If not, rivers will, as they will without reason, continue to overrun their banks and insist upon covering designated previous cultivations. Let then excess of creativity have its say, play out, and leave the critical post-considerations to others. I will surely sit and ponder spent what spills forth, to shape, to edit, to discard. And watch my little yard sink beneath needed and needy floods.
I will have done with deprivation and bring myself, what I have shaped and misshapen, to the world. These things, this burden, have I most loved and felt responsible for, have born the shame of. I have fought and have failed utterly again and again though my attempts have been, and still are, sincere though not blameless. Fear has been my encampment, a longing beneath knowing feet in secret cellars just beyond reach of contracted hands forever spelling hunger. I know open bastion doors and windows to now fling beyond embankments what has been wrung out of my floes and woes though hands wither from too much turning against and inward. What a relief to burst beyond boundaries too long successfully restraining.
I recently wrote a poem about much too too solid bastions of self, of forceful puer energy ramming through and over and into long buried storms and petrified forms, of passion mangling the delusion of 'norms' ignoring too sensitive alarms. Given May Sarton's May revelation this morning I now understand that the poem is about more than eros, it is about that powerful creative/destructive force, the daemon/tyro that ever urges outward intent on making and staking Self in new land and at least one aging man wrenched and rendered from dried and calcified encrustations. I am, to borrow from the insistent dream image, beginning to leak. And to break open.
Archeology - What The Stele Says 'Upon Taking A Much Younger Lover'
That this old ground yields to plow stuns.
What begins to be, earth swell, breaks
root-room open to blood means.
Old skeins tear upon what is new terrain,
hunger worn, long appended. There is
no blame for pain is the blessing.
All hurt now stings twilight quaked into being.
Your breath falls upon me now, taut, sinew,
bruising hand, purple inside flares warrior nerves
to unknotting surprise.
I am uncovered, thin, bared upon thinner sheets the man-
ripped to many images, torn into, landscaped to former curves.
No longer do I grieve enclosure, touching only myself,
delivered from layers.
Magpie dances.
Lines, veins, strung between Pole Star
and First River Mouth, an embedded ruin uncovered in milk floods.
Touch gently first what has been too long concealed.
Hard touch congeals once was telling mud remolded into
'Not again. Not yet the bleeding Centurion.'
Wield roughly then through gates too long shut.
When I cry out, do not mind. Blindly ram. Do not stop.
Magpie, my keeper, is flying.
poem by Warren Falcon

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Archeology - What The Stele Says 'Upon Taking A Much Younger Lover
That this old ground yields to plow stuns.
What begins to be, earth swell, breaks
root-room open to blood means.
Old skeins tear upon what is new terrain,
hunger worn, long appended. There is
no blame for pain is the blessing.
All hurt now stings twilight quaked into being.
Your breath falls upon me now, taut, sinew,
bruising hand, purple inside flares warrior nerves
to unknotting surprise.
I am uncovered, thin, bared upon thinner sheets the man-
ripped to many images, torn into, landscaped to former curves.
No longer do I grieve enclosure, touching only myself,
delivered from layers.
Magpie dances.
Lines, veins, strung between Pole Star
and First River Mouth, an embedded ruin uncovered in milk floods.
Touch gently first what has been too long concealed.
Hard touch congeals once was telling mud remolded into
'Not again. Not yet the bleeding Centurion.'
Wield roughly then through gates too long shut.
When I cry out, do not mind. Blindly ram. Do not stop.
Magpie, my keeper, is flying.
poem by Warren Falcon

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A river bears a burden
A river bears a burden
It carries far downstream,
And no man's eyes will see it
Or fathom what it means.
A river bears a burden
Beneath it's swirling toil.
It's rippling edges teasing
The sodden, silent soil.
A river bears a burden
Beneath our nightly dreams,
Our temporal excursions
Along it's watered seams.
A river bears a burden
Of many dreaming feet,
Searching all it's alleys
To a dreamer's slow heartbeat.
A river bears a burden;
It will not wake our sleep,
But carries us forever
Our roaming souls, to meet.
poem by Patti Masterman

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
See and Understand
I want you to see and understand
The burden on my heart and brain
The burden which weigh more than my body
The burden which weigh more than the mountains
The burden that no one else can feel, except me
The burden which vague everything, even me
But
Everything is invisible and hidden behind so many curtains
Whenever I try, something stops me to be open in front of this world
May be this world don't care and don't want to see, what's inside
Thoughts and tears are my biggest treasure
The treasure no one can steal
Because no one wants to be under that burden
I want you to see and understand my silence as well
Because this silence wants to reveal a lot of things
This silence wants to be heard and fell
It is killing me, it's want to be free and this silence wants to fly in the sky
This silence which is getting rebellious now
This silence don't want to be controlled
It's making me helpless and weak
It wants to be broken now, like a mirror
And every shattered piece of that mirror will be unique
Understand my silence
poem by Talat Jehan

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Dream Of I
so peaceful and quite the endless sky
the burden i carry how did it come by after
all i did was a dream to fly
A dream so navie so hug to die
so helpless and weak a dream like it
the world is to big for a dream like mine
to busy with the life's that pass it by
farwell my dream, today i shall die
no longer am i a dreamer 'causes dreams are for the weak
for now a days i wish to dream another dream
'cause forever you seek and question why
so many dreams like you have to die
farwell my dream, THE DREAM OF I! ! ! ! !
Song
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.
poem by Allen Ginsberg

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Voice Of The Heart
(j.t.stanley/john bettis/b.roberts)
Sometimes when your world seems so big and real
You may run to the shelter of walls
Sometimes you may wish
You could be like your shadow
It fits wherever it falls
Whenever the nights too deep to find
And the morning is too far away
Wherever you are
Theres always a star to guide the way
There to guide the way
If you listen long enough
If you dream it strong enough
A door inside will open
And a light will flood the dark
Like a song too long unsung
Or a soul forever young
We all will find an answer
In the voice of the heart
Tonight if a dream should come to your sleep
With a picture you dont wanna see
Go where it leads, from secret to secret
You are what you want to be
Whenever the sun refuses to shine
And you cant chase the storm clouds away
Wherever you are theres always a star to guide the way
There to guide the way
If you listen long enough
If you dream it strong enough
A door inside will open
And a light will flood the dark
Like a song too long unsung
Or a soul forever young
We all will find an answer
In the voice of the heart
Living in a private world
There are times when its hard to break through
So dont give up
Each time you hurt youve got nothing to lose
Theres a voice inside of you
If you listen long enough
If you dream it strong enough
A door inside will open
And a light will flood the dark
Like a song too long unsung
Or a soul forever young
We all will find an answer
In the voice of the heart
If you listen long enough
(listen)
If you dream it strong enough
(dream it)
A door inside will open
And a light will flood the dark
Like a song too long unsung
Or a soul forever young
We will find the answer
In the voice of the heart
If you listen long enough
(long enough)
If you dream it strong enough
(strong enough)
A door inside will open
And a light will flood the dark
Like a song too long unsung
Or a soul forever young
We will find an answer
In the voice of the heart
If you listen long enough
If you dream it strong enough
In the voice
In the voice of the heart
We will find the answer
Like a song too long unsung
song performed by by Diana Ross

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
My Discovery of Poetry! ! !
I used to write poetry for the fame, attention and exposure
So people can say “CJ the Young Phenomenon such an honor”
But now I see that poetry is nothing to prove but show true art
As I shown my creative ways of I see in this world soul purpose
From down beneath the soil of my life and planting a seed of change
For my children to be surrounded by different sights of art forms
Visual, vocal and hearing each one will open a gate of creativity
With a visual he can see his future and his visual images of faith
With vocal she can speak her fluid words of her masterpiece thesis
And finally with their hearing echoing to the world’s cries for savior
They’ll be the one to stand for the change and revolutionized lifestyles
To live better and to express imagination and creativity for all to see
You’ll see them as scholars, freedom writers, or even saviors to all
But I’ll called them my sons and daughters, my blessings to the world
My children of poetry for all to see and follow and elevate to the highest
As the generation of poetry will excel as the beliefs of poetry are believable
As to keep poetry alive is to express it deeply, truthful and creatively as possible
poem by Compton Wright

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Even So
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Days go by
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
. . . . .
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.
quote by Allen Ginsberg

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Repetitive Of A Nostalgia, A Moment Ago
there is no poem that can stop
this mess
this furniture of the room are not in place
the table is under the rain
outside
the chairs are crumpled like paper
in the drain
the books are opening their pages to the skies
the pens are shooting like
arrows in the air
no one can stop the dead
not this poem that only counts
those who want to be buried
no one can stop the grief
not this poem, not that poem
no poem can stop the flood of all emotions
no poem can resist
the burden of carrying all these
like a carriage like a coffin.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
There Is No Poem
there is no poem that can stop
this mess
this furniture of the room are not in place
the table is under the rain
outside
the chairs are crumpled like paper
in the drain
the books are opening their pages to the skies
the pens are shooting like
arrows in the air
no one can stop the dead
not this poem that only counts
those who want to be buried
no one can stop the grief
not this poem, not that poem
no poem can stop the flood of all emotions
no poem can resist
the burden of carrying all these
like a carriage like a coffin.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Doing is the pleasure
Energy, time and money and a lot
Have been spent to get a book published.
It went unread. Yet the author gets
Rewarded with the pleasure of his act
That released him from the burden of his act,
and from the burden of his desire and urge.
The conceived child must be delivered
The conceived thought should be delivered.
26.10.2002, Trichur
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Orphaned Land - The Storm Still Rages Inside
The rain keeps on falling
Filling the dried land
It drinks the purity of life
(The) land starts to grow
It must be a sign
A message from God's hand
Like tears from the sky
Water begins its flow
Left alone, deserted so long ago
The storm still rages inside
Before the dawn rises I cannot see the light
This land's ground grows weak
Shall we find the path ?
The preacher's words were right
I can't see anyway to (the outer world)
Tears do flow, yet can't conceal
This land is barren, it does not feel
Our self-made slaughter
By our own hands
Here lies the orphaned land...
Suddenly lightning strikes the earth
It marks the sign of my rebirth
Seeds of love from myself evolve
This cannot be living - without (your) safety
The storm still rages inside...
Invisible rays penetrate the ground
This land to die is surely bound
Suffer but doesn't scream
Can this be a hopeless dream ?
song performed by by Orphaned Land

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Lay It All Down
Written by bob welch.
Let me retell
A story of old
About a man named moses
Who lived long ago
He prophicied good
He prophicied bad
And now that prophecys
Coming to pass
Let all your sons, and your daughters
Of the golden calf
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay it all down, for paradise here on earth
A whole lot of people, including myself
Thought the story of moses was just a tall tale
But all of the things that we see going on
Are just what moses set down
Let all your sons, and your daughters
Of the golden-yeah
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay it all down, for paradise here on earth
Let me retell
A story I know
About a man named moses
Who lived long ago
He prophicied good
He prophicied bad
And now that prophecys
Coming to pass
Let all your sons, and your daughters
Of the golden-yeah
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
I just cant imagine a reason for sorrow
Just cant imagine the hurt
Youve got to lay it down
Youve got to lay it down
Youve got to lay it down
Youve got to lay it down
I said lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Theres just no reason to hurt
Youve got to lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
I said
Lay it all down, for paradise here on earth
song performed by by Fleetwood Mac

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
After All The Endless Longing To Be Who We Are
IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE
In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.
Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.
We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were
I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.
God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.
THE REAL POETS
The real poets are few in number and largely known by name
The rest of us are endless frustration in aspiration
Words upon words upon words
Dreams upon dreams upon dreams
Getting and going nowhere forever unheard
The real poets find their anthologized place
And we know them over and over and over again
The rest of us just appear this only once
If we appear at all
And our words and our hearts and our minds
Do not encompass and inspire the endless rereadings
Time and Time’s Wounds make again and again and again
We are once only always forever losts
Nothing will save us
These words too coming in the wake of a long night’s reading
Of the poems of others
Cannot sustain and redeem
Cannot be what they would be
Cannot help and cannot save
Me or you or anyone we love
Even as poetry.
God Who Knows All
And in the End Decides on Everything
Has made us smaller even than the Angels
And our place in the Divine Song
Is not as far as we know
Anywhere heard at all.
Goodbye world
We are going
We have done what we could
We have written and written and written
Oxymandias’ poet will remain
And we will not
The lone and desert sands will stretch away
When we are not even a single grain.
THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH THE ENDLESS SILENCE OF THINGS
The world is filled with the endless silence of things
Dreams in old age are not the dreams of youth – and will never be
Old pain in old bodies stirs the imagination to anger at itself
The history of the universe begins somewhere long before we were born
And when Time ends more Time will not begin elsewhere
Parallel universes pose mathematical riddles to an evidence- hungry horde of physicists who live by supposition alone
And yet underneath it all we are biological beings – brains of our own misperceptions
Clamoring clamoring while on the other side of the moon
The cold goes deeper in us than all the distances we will never reach
Mites and Bites and Little Strings Digital waves and wiry wise things
We are all more than a cave painting with buffalo music beating in the fire
Under the darkness once
When we hunted with small eyes the body’s animal prey
Our spirit said mocking melodies of great and good sounds
Let the Maker of All be One in Love
And less than us may there never be new
The world we love and the people we trust
And the endless game of the transitions
This is a hell of a way to be who we are
And yet some say we are dust more than stars
And under the end of the forever we feel
Only our Names will remain not quite real.
AFTER ALL THE ENDLESS LONGING TO BE WHO WE ARE
After all the endless longing to be who we are
We come in old age to know what we dared never dream
That we as we are are less than we will forever be
And all that we have made is nothing beside
What God alone may make us should God have decided
That we are worth more than the interval here of our own small being
Dust is not enough
And will never be
For what we dream
For those we most love
Bones interred and epitaphs made righteous in stone
Cannot replace the vital thing of each breathing being
So so long ago
I knew when my grandmother died that she Bessie Zeibert- Peshie really- had so much love and goodness she should never be gone
Lost in her very last moments seeking a stolen sweater no one had ever taken
A sixteen year old girl in steerage with her first child who would never marry and live only to help his nephews and niece
God of Love
What are we
So many have died
So many good people
And I here officially an old man yet young enough to begin and thrive again in words
Questioning as I did then and knowing more and no more
We are the end and the beginning of the universe humanbeings kind or unkind
Light too is another name for death when it is forever too strong
I see I feel I know
We are what we are
And You will take us home
In a way we cannot dream now
Something so good as many of us have been
Must never die
And You Alone know how
We will survive
In the endless Infinite Eternity which no one who has ever lived can describe
Or truly understand.
poem by Shalom Freedman

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Like A Tattoo
He told me sweet lies of sweet loves
Heavy with the burden of the truth
And he spoke of his dreams
Broken by the burden
Broken by the burden of his youth
Fourteen years he said
I couldn't look into the sun
She saw him laying at the end of my gun
Hungry for life
And thirsty for the distant river
I remember his hands
And the way the mountains looked
The light shot diamonds from his eyes
Hungry for life
And thirsty for the distant river
Like the scar of age
Written all over my face
The war is still raging inside of me
I still feel the chill
As I reveal my shame to you
I wear it like a tattoo
I wear it like a tattoo
I wear it like a tattoo
song performed by by Sade

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Nice to dream
It is nice to have dreams and admire
Must not remain joke and subject to satire
Beautiful heart is meant to beat faster
Seeing upon a beauty must burst in laughter
Yes there may be lovely lady
Who in turn may be ready?
Life may soon prove as boom
There is every possibility and has spacious room
It is not the beauty only to be pursued and find
Nature may also appeal and should be kept in mind
Lot many people may opt for service to motherland
Everyone is alike to them and considered as friend
World is not limited and has larger meaning
Love has its first start and good beginning
It is gift from heaven and we may flow in it
We get spontaneous urge when inspire to greet
The world revolves around good feelings
It is always voluntary and almost willing
It comes from within and with some message
It may happen at any time and with any age
Love to last till the end of the road
Don’t carry so much burden or load
It is matter and thing for self satisfaction
Act and behavior itself is reflection or indication
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Returning to Jerusalem
Once we could be justly proud
Our place marked in the human maze
By devotion to the sacred books
And diligence of prayer, upon
Steady accretion of analysis
Once we could be satisfied
To live by what we understood to be
Identities the Lord bestowed
Upon our humble lives, our lines
Measured by the centuries
Once we were made wise
By sufferings in wide variety
Borne in reverence for His Name
Consolations of our family embrace
And the long perspectives gained
Once we almost were content
To speak the name Jerusalem
A love beyond reproach and reach
To which we would compose our songs
Of praises and mythology
And once then we were slaughtered
Not sporadically, but by an awesome
Purpose and intent. Surviving,
Many could not make from this
A tolerable weight, the burden
Of our anguished discontent
And a God we never met. And now
With final knowledge of the hate
The world can bring, we will accept no more
To live at any distance from our dreams.
So strong we have become
Dealing in death and pain
Sanctioned by some authority unnamed.
And yet there are survivors still who hold
A Liberation Ball each year, saying
We'll dance as long as we are here
While others shout in bold
With land and borders to defend
No longer free to know who they once were.
I hope we can return with song
To praise Jerusalem
When time to claim our history has come
When we have sadly learned to see
That what we think is strong
Grows frail, as if to fall eventually.
poem by Frank Bana

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Comet Strike Creativity
no time like a comet
stealing in impacts
with flame tremendous
velocity into our sea
of diverse life creativity
instantly evaporating
all waters of old creativity
of would have been not
written recedes back
into dark matter
never been never
known never been
a glorious burst
of wonder igniting
souls into explosive
bursts of sudden
bliss awesome
appreciation
contributing to new
seas of creativity
poem by Terence George Craddock

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!