This Poem

 

This poem squats in a desert place.

This poem perches upon your chamber door;

This poem sings, your face your face your face

This poem is merely this and nothing more.

This poem is a traveler from an antique land.

This poem is what you find in the windmills of your mind.

This poem is the lone and level sand. 

This poem is old anarchy to the horizon line.

This poem sees the best minds of your generation.

This poem says, let us go then, you and I.

This poem is tearful lamentations

This poem has a silent lifting mind.

I sing myself and celebrate myself

and that, dear lady, were no crime;

if life is over there--behind a shelf

there you'll find these poems--in one of mine.

________

A bit of doggerel for What's Going On? "Poetry Is..."

I have referenced:

Stephen Crane "In A Desert Place"

E.A. Poe "The Raven"

Ewan MacColl "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ozymandias"

Alan and Marilyn Bergman "The Windmills of Your Mind" (English lyrics)

Sylvia Plath "The Colossus"

Allen Ginsberg "Howl" (altered)

t.s. eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Francesco Petrarch "The Triumph of Death"

John Gillespie Magee Jr. "High Flight"

Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"

Andrew Marvell "To His Coy Mistress" (altered)

Emily Dickinson "I Cannot Live With You"

Emmeline in Trefoils

 

birdsfoot trefoils

Emmeline by dawn light

borrows roses from your bed

Emmeline by moonlight

brings back petit fours instead.

Italy had its masters

who loved Emmeline with their oils

touched by God in Trinity

and Emmeline in trefoils.

Emmeline in summer

reads your letters until the fall

then she wades into the water

to the boatmen's barcarolle.

______

for Word Garden Word List--Tenderness. 

I have broken my own rule and only used 2 of the List words (Italy and summer.) I had used several others but they all ended up on the cutting room floor. I decided to keep and post the poem anyway because I think it speaks to the source material(s), which was my aim. 

This is the fourth of my Emmeline poems. The previous three:

Emmeline By Evening (2009)

Emmeline By Wolf-Light (2016)

Emmeline In November (2021)

Word Garden Word List--Tenderness

 Hello my little bookhounds, and welcome to yet another Word Garden Word List poetry prompt! 

In my 20's, a friend told me that she thought my writing resembled that of D.H. Lawrence. It didn't, but her saying that put me on to a writer who became an immediate favorite, and one of his books in particular blew me off my chair and out the window I found it so wise and so amazing. That book was Lady Chatterly's Lover. Not that many books have fundamentally changed how I view life, but this was one that did. One line I especially loved was when Constance tells Mellors that he has the courage of his own tenderness. I never forgot that.

And so that brings us to this week's source, Tenderness  by Alison MacLeod. In it, she tells the story of Lawrence in exile, trying desperately to finish this book in the time he has left. He knows it won't be published, that it is too honest and speaks too clearly of things that were not spoken of in respectable literature of the time. She then tells the story of none other than Jackie Kennedy, and her efforts to see the book--which she greatly admired--escape the censors and be published for everyone to read. 

There is nothing remotely obscene about Lady Chatterly's Lover.  In fact, it may be the most beautiful book I have ever read. And now there is Tenderness.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others if you are able, and then follow your heart. This prompt remains active through Saturday. 

And now, your List:

affair

art

book

broken

cows

daisies

Italy

lens

madness

memo

orchids

page

spirit

spying

stone

summer

tenderness

umbrellas

vulnerable

worldly

Consultation at the Hospital

 

The doctor said,

"This is what I found

inside her."

An orange

a white horse with one hoof up

Roberta Flack 'First Take' on vinyl

A river, rushing over smooth stones

and a knitting needle

through her heart.

The family sagged to one side a little

like a tent in wind.

The father said,

"You're talking nonsense."

The mother said nothing.

The husband said,

"Are you sure you had the right patient?

   I could sue."

The best friend said,

"Of course you did." 

"Where is the orange?" 

the mother asked.

"I ate the orange."

"There was no horse,"

insisted the father.

"There was a herd."

The best friend smiled 

but was silent.

The husband looked at his watch.

The mother added,

"If there was a knitting needle

through her heart,

she must have put it there herself."

The father waved his hand

and walked away.

The husband said,

"I wonder what all this will cost?."

The best friend asked

if she could see her.

The mother leaned on her husband

and walked away 

carrying her purse

and her bag of knitting.

____________

for Dverse Meeting the Bar. "Magical Realism" 

Music: Roberta Flack No Way To Say Goodbye

A Cautionary Tale For Young Gardeners

 

There was a seed lying on the ground.

She picked it up when nobody was around.

She turned it over, lifted to the light.

It turned her fingers an upsetting sickly white.

"Little seed,

(she said)

Imma plant ya in the yard.

Imma plant ya

(she said)

where the ground is wicked hard."

Next day--

a big, black, dangerous-looking vine.

it say,

"Feed me skittering bugs and water me with wine.

Sleep with me at night

until you start to lose your sight.

Whisper me your mind

until you've gone all white-eyed blind.'

What happened to Dakota?

She went outside without a coat-a.

Found a seed from a devil weed

and down the wicked Styx she float-a. 

______

for What's Going On? -- "seed"

Music: Grace Potter & the Nocturnals White Rabbit

A Sequence of Bells

 

Where is the bell that was ringing?

it is in your throat

waiting for Sunday.

Where is the bell that has not yet rung?

it is in the ring

shrugging and feinting. 

Where is the tongue

with which the bell will speak?

The cat took it

and left it on the porch rail.

What does the ringing bell signify?

That the priest's hand

is strong and able. 

The boxer delivers his sermon.

You speak, and a shiver goes through me.

The cat is a night cat

and goes before me, always.

___________

Talking Monkey

 

I am a talking monkey--

I know this,

wearing the heavy suit of the corporeal. 

Please,

sit on the rocks of the ruin with me.

The stones have a warmth

left by the sun

 like a garland

around a young girl's head. 

Speaking as a glorified simian,

I love the pretty yellow

of the banana,

the seeded red of the strawberry,

and the deep rich purple

 of the plum.

Ill health, blood, bruises--

these bear the hues of these fruits

but theirs is a bitter course.

I am a talking monkey--

talking all the more, and most tediously

now that my tire

 stays still.

I used to swing on it, wildly!

like a chimp in a capsule

NASA's baby

headed for the stars!

Ah well, little pitchers have big ears--

never tell them the rotten truth

 about the circus

or the old hero peddling for the gawking crowd.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--

Music: The Rolling Stones Monkey Man