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A Lover from Palestine, poem by Mahmoud Darwish

Palestinian Poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1931-2008)

“I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a
single word: Home.”  Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

Your eyes are a thorn in my heart
Inflicting pain, yet I cherish that thorn
And shield it from the wind.
I sheathe it in my flesh, I sheathe it, protecting it from night and agony,
And its wound lights the lanterns,
Its tomorrow makes my present
Dearer to me than my soul.
And soon I forget, as eye meets eye,
That once, behind the doors, there were two of us.

Your words were a song
And I tried to sing, too,
But agony encircled the lips of spring.
And like the swallow, your words took wing,
The door of our home and the autumnal threshold migrated,
To follow you wherever led by longing
Our mirrors were shattered,
And sorrow was multiplied a thousand fold.
And we gathered the splinters of sound,
Mastering only the elegy of our homeland!
Together were will plant it in the heart of a lyre,
And on the rooftops of our tragedy we’ll play it
To mutilated moons and to stones.
But I have forgotten, you of the unknown voice:
Was it your departure that rushed the lyre or was it my silence?

Yesterday I saw you in the port,
A long voyager without provisions,
Like an orphan I ran to you,
Asking the wisdom of our forefathers:
How can the ever-verdant orange grove be dragged
To prison, to exile, to a port,
And despite all her travels,
Despite the scent of salt and longing,
Remain evergreen?
I write in my diary:
I love oranges and hate the port
And I write further:
On the dock
I stood, and saw the world through Witter’s eyes
Only the orange peel is ours, and behind me lay the desert.

In the briar-covered mountains I saw you,
A shepherdess without sheep,
Pursued among the ruins.
You were my garden, and I a stranger,
Knocking at the door, my heart,
For upon my heart stand firm
The door and windows, the cement and stones.

I have seen you in casks of water, in granaries,
Broken, I have seen you a maid in night clubs,
I have seen you in the gleam of tears and in wounds.
You are the other lung in my chest;
You are the sound on my lips;
You are water; you are fire.

I saw you at the mouth of the cave, at the cavern,
Hanging your orphans’ rags on the wash line.
In the stoves, in the streets I have seen you.
In the barns and in the sun’s blood.
In the songs of the orphaned and the wretched I have seen you.
I have seen you in the salt of the sea and in the sand.
Yours was the beauty of the earth, of children and of Arabian jasmine.

And I have vowed
To fashion from my eyelashes a kerchief,
And upon it to embroider verses for your eyes,
And a name, when watered by a heart that dissolves in chanting,
Will make the sylvan arbours grow.
I shall write a phrase more precious than honey and kisses:
‘Palestinian she was and still is’.

On a night of storms, I opened the door and the window
To see the hardened moon of our nights.
I said to the night: Run out,
Beyond the darkness and the wall;
I have a promise to keep with words and light.
You are my virgin garden
As long as our songs
Are swords when we draw them.
And you are as faithful as grain
So long as our songs
Keep alive the fertile soil when we plant them.
You are like a palm tree in the mind:
Neither storm nor woodsman’s ax can fell it.
Its braids uncut
By the beasts of desert and forest
But I am the exiled one behind wall and door,
Shelter me in the warmth of your gaze.

Take me, wherever you are,
Take me, however you are.
To be restored to the warmth of face and body,
To the light of heart and eye,
To the salt of bread and song,
To the taste of earth and homeland.
Shelter me in the warmth of your gaze,
Take me, a panel of almond wood, in the cottage of sorrows,
Take me, a verse from the book of my tragedy,
Take me, a plaything or a stone from the house,
So that our next generation may recall
The path of return to our home.

Her eyes and the tattoo on her hands are Palestinian,
Her name, Palestinian,
Her dreams, and sorrow, Palestinian,
Her Kerchief, her feet and body, Palestinian,
Her words and her silence, Palestinian,
Her voice, Palestinian,
Her birth and her death, Palestinian,
I have carried you in my old notebooks
As the fire of my verses,
The sustenance for my journeys.
In your name, my voice rang in the valleys:
I have seen Byzantium’s horses
Even though the battle be different.
Beware, oh beware

The lightning struck by my song in the granite.
I am the flower of youth and the knight of knights!
I am the smasher of idols.
I plant the Levantine borders
With poems that set eagles free.
And in your name I have shouted at the enemy:
Worms, feed on my flesh if ever I slumber,
For the eggs of ants cannot hatch eagles,
And the shell of the adder’s egg
Holds but a snake!
I have seen Byzantium’s horses,
And before it all, I know
That I am the flower of youth and the knight of knights!

© Mahmoud Darwish estate; sorry I don’t know to whom I should credit the translation; photo credit, Mahmoud Darwish at university of Betlehem courtesy of Amer Shomali under CC BY-SA 3.0

Mahmoud Darwish (Arabic: محمود درويش‎, translit. maḥmūd darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.He has been described as incarnating and reflecting “the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry.” He also served as an editor for several literary magazines in Israel. MORE [Wikipedia]

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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Opportunity Knocks: Calls for Submissions and Competitions

We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven of
your eyes
which has no speech
― William Carlos Williams, Paterson

Notes:

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

CARVE MAGAZINE publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Submissions are free if you are a subscriber. Details HERE.

CHRONICLE BOOKS publishes children’s books and adult trade: cookbooks, fine art, design, photography, pop culture, craft, fashion, beauty, home décor, relationships, lifestyle, and interactive journals, kits, decks, and stationery. No fiction or poetry.  Details HERE on submitting proposals.

PELICAN PUBLISHING publishes an average of seventy titles a year and has about 1500 currently in print. Its catalog includes “art/architecture books, cooking/cookbooks, motivational, popular history (especially Louisiana/regional), children’s books (illustrated and otherwise), and social commentary.” It seeks “writers on the cutting edge of ideas who do not write in cliches, or take the old, tired, unimaginative way of foul language and sex scenes to pad a poor writing effort. We strongly urge writers to be aware of ideas gaining currency. We believe ideas have consequences. One of the consequences is that they lead to best-selling books.”  Guidelines HERE.

SALT HILL JOURNAL, open to submissions from new and emerging as well as established writers and artists, publishes a biannual literary journal that includes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and art. Reading periods fiction and poetry for 2019/2020 are July 1 through September 30, 2019 and January 1 through March 31, 2020.  Nonfiction submissions are currently open through April 1. No submission fees. No payment. Submission guidelines HERE.

COMPETITIONS

NARRATIVE magazine’s Winter Story Contest is open to all writers, and all entries will be considered for publication. $2,500 First Prize; $1,000 Second Prize; $500 Third Prize; Up to ten finalists receive $100 each. See the guidelines. Read prior winners, and view recent awards won by Narrative authors.

THE MASTERS REVIEW ANTHOLOGY VII Final Weeks to Enter! $5000 Awarded – Ten Writers Recognized “Just over two weeks left to enter our anthology, a collection of ten stories and essays written by the best emerging authors. The ten winners are nationally distributed in a printed book with their stories and essays exposed to top agents, editors, and authors across the country. We are thrilled to have guest judge, Kate Bernheimer, selecting the ten stories that will make up Anthology VIII.” Closes on March 31.
.
SEQUESTRUM REPRINT AWARDS for previously published fiction and nonfiction close on April 30, 2019. Entry fee. Cash awards and publication. Details HERE.

SIXFOLD.org is accepting contest entries through April 23; $5 to enter | $1000 Fiction and Poetry Prize Sixfold’s process is unique:  Entries are voted on by other writers.  Visit the site to find details on how it works and to enter your writing. Sixfold.org

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The Poet by Day is always available online with poems, poets and writers, news and information.

The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, online every week (except for vacation) and all are invited to take part no matter the stage of career or status. Poems related to the challenge of the week (always theme based not form based) are published here on the following Tuesday.

THE BeZINE, Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be – always online HERE.  

Beguine Again, daily inspiration and spiritual practice  – always online HERE.  Beguine Again is the sister site to The BeZine.

Often information is just that–information– and not necessarily recommendation. I haven’t worked with all the publications or other organizations featured in Opportunity Knocks (previously Sunday Announcements) or other announcements shared on this site. Awards and contests are often (generally) a means to generate income, publicity and marketing mailing lists for the host organizations, some of which are more reputable than others. Disabled and homebound, I never attend events anymore and have no recent experience of them. Caveat Emptor: Please be sure to verify information for yourself before submitting work, buying products, paying fees or attending events et al.

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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Where the Wisteria Grows, a poem … and your next Wednesday Writing Prompt

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

At the flower market this morning
I thought of us and our naked lives
Did you notice the star lilies bowing
and the whirling cups of green calyxes?

A painter’s pallette of color there
fretting in terra-cotta, feral and windblown
A fabulous fusion of scent and form,
forests of nectar-pots on knobby stems,
the stuff of heaven for the anthophilous
In just a day or two, they’ll be gone

I couldn’t help but think that these
yes! … these are our human days
our days to sow or steal our human joys
Another day will inevitably transform us
The moon will stew us in a sofrito
of tulips and night-blooming jasmine

At dawn on the day I decide to die,
we’ll sip oolong at the Tudor Rose,
but I won’t be there, I promise I won’t
You’ll eat orchids to celebrate our love
and our long walks in kempt gardens

Once you picked forget-me-nots –
meant as the soul of our redemption
When their colors fade and leaves wither,
it will be time to look for me …
Look for me where the wisteria grows
With subtle euphony my blue-violet tendrils will
call you, weaving and binding you in love again

© 2017, poem, Jamie Dedes; Photograph courtesy of Geoff Doggett, Public Domain Pictures.net

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

If our spirits are allowed to hang out anywhere they want, mine would hang out with flowers and use them to wrap my family with love. Where do you think your spirit would like hang out and what will you be doing?  Tell us in poem/s and …

Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them. All poems on theme will be published on the first Tuesday following this post. (Please no oddly laid-out poems.)

 No poems submitted through email or Facebook will be published. 

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, March 18 by 8 pm Pacific Standard Time.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

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Jamie

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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An Homage to Our Critter-Friends in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Bob Seger Dedes

The sweetness of dogs (fifteen)

What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. Full tonight.
So we go

and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit,

I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up into
my face. As though I were
his perfect moon.”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems [Recommended]

So many funny, sweet and poignant poems, well-considered and finally wrought, an homage to our critter friends in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Practical Cat on Cinco de Mayo, March 6, 2019.

Thanks to Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Irene Emanuel, Jen Goldie, Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar for this touching collection. Special thanks also to Irma, Jen, and Anujum Ji for sharing their delightful illustrations. Grab a tissue and enjoy another stellar collection from our intrepid reader-poets … and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to participate.

Apologies for the lateness of this post. Big tech issues. Sigh!  

The Gift

A small dark shape on kitchen tile
stared over by our cat,

Move closer. it is a sparrow bairn,
whose chest balloons out as my sigh releases.

Scooped up, as I take it out to the garden.
It stands on the plastic lip.

Over the fence our neighbour stands in hunched
dark tears “My mam won’t be coming out of hospital”

My breath caught.
The sparrow flies away.

From Paul’s second forthcoming pamphlet to be published in England probably later this year

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Coincidence

Every morning our tabby
sits beside the grave
beside the wall
of her black predecessor
Our lass and I joke
she is speaking
to her ‘grandma’

My Nana hates cats
who leave “messages”
in her garden
Don’t know how
people can live
with cat hair…

disgusting how people
let them walk
on surfaces.
She never visits us.

Cat and Nana never meet.
Their senses fail
at the same time.
Eyes, ears, mouth.

Something tells me
not long after our cat
goes Nana will too.

Arrivee from work
our cat rigor mortis stiff
across her armchair.

Three days later
I get a phone call
Nana has fallen.
I sit beside her
hospital bedside.

Arrive home to find
a new tabby cat
who asks me
to stroke her
in the way our
black cat did.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

My rough

tongue licks my sharp claws
as i see warm flesh canter up hill.

Haunches heavy with meat,
back heavy with rider.

I leap at the horses backside
claws gain purchase.

Rider crashes, hot meal gallops away.
I snarl at the dismounted man.

Human can be good meat.
He challenges me with metal.

My claws taste his blood,
again and again. He rushes

toward a spired house of stone.
Tries the locked door.

I am in the porch with him.
He a trapped animal like me.

We press on each other.
Neither tamed, die together.

Based on the local legend of “The Cat And Man”

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

I Found Kittens In Our Settee

I had to trash
vintage settee

we’d just got
of off that thief Mavis.

We’d lost our fat cat.
Couldn’t find her for love nor…

Settee were making noises.
Used kitchen knife.

Found cat and new kittens
sat on £350.

Mavis hadn’t stolen it
after all. I’ll buy her some cheap wine.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Barrage

You hear a blackbird trill,
stroked by a gentle wisp.
You inhale seeds and grass
and suddenly know why

your Grandad spent time
out of the house in the garden
away from the barrage,
snipes and aggro of his wife.

And as you weed the bricked path
to the front door your black cat complains
to be let in and you quietly advise
that he has a perfectly serviceable
cat flap at the back, until

your wife opens the front door
and let’s him in and scowls at you
as she shuts it.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

As Abandoned

black kitten lobbed out of joyrider’s car window
top of our street, always had bare patch
on her upper thigh, could not get enough
strokes, hugs, Daddy’s girl.

in her moving owner’s back garden for months,
new owner could not keep her
due to his chickens and dog, always her small
paws catch your clothes as you pass.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

If Only My Dead Dears

deliberately hid away

like our new kitten who disappears
so we cannot hear her bell,
her purrs.

We open cupboards, look under,
into, around
and sigh they’ve gone for good
this time

then smile.

And it is as if she says
he, he, couldn’t find me.

No matter how hard we look
we only find the dead in our heads.

And sometimes smile
as we remember them in a place
we had not thought to find them
for some time.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

  • Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE
  • Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE

More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

Sunning the Queen – a Nonet

Plump
Meow
Lick lick purrrr
Rumble grumble
Lazy eyes open
Head languidly turning
Anything interesting?
Oh no – just you – scratch my head now
The sun makes me sleepy. Time to eat?

This nonet was written for Jamie’s Wednesday Writing Prompt to write a poem about an animal companion. The original title for this poem was “Fat Cat in the Sun”, for indeed, Kassidy was a chubby wubby kitty cat, but she was also ruler of our home. My parents would do anything for Kassidy – come home early to feed her, go to a different grocery store to buy her special food, made sure she had several special beds to lie around the house. In return, she always greeted you at the door so you could scratch her head the minute you came in before you even got a chance to put down your keys. Kassidy died about 3 years ago yet she always will hold a place in our hearts.

© 2019, photo and words, Irma Do (I Do Run – And I do a few other things)

THE JUDGE 

My file was open on my desk,
I left it there a while;
I did not know a judge was close
and watching with a smile.

I started work on something new,
my file was out of sight;
the noise I heard alerted me,
I turned and got a fright.

The judge was sitting near my file,
his back was hunched and tense;
he threw-up on my poetry,
with careful negligence.

My poems must have turned his lunch,
he really was in pain;
that blasted cat disliked my work
and vomited again.

It seems my poetry is deficient,
I’ll watch TV instead;
but if that cat sits on my lap,
I’ll smack his furry head.

© 2019, Irene Emanuel

 

catpicture

 

This morning death was on

my doorstep, no one died

no one particularly,

 

Someone’s cat, someone’s

Dog, a birdie possibly,

Sadness overwhelmed me

 

So, I had my morning tea

As all those old memories

Flooded over me, my heart

 

began to ache and the new

days sun washed over me.

With pleasant memories.

 

I still can’t draw a cat.

© 2019, poem and drawing, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional Cat)

On the day of……….

as we prepared for….

as I prepared for.

 

You looked at me inquisitivly

 

 I had no answer….

for you this time.

what are

the tears for?

Where are

we going?

So many questions

Keep going

I took the day

so we

could

spend

time

together……………….

One

……….

Last

……….

Moment

………….

in

time………..

together.

In loving memory of Simon. Devoted, loving, steadfast, trusting and true. I’ll never forget you. ❤😔

© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional


The Day the Cat Stood Still

This is a story as told by me, that no fat

or otherwise cool Cat could deny. The

Day the Cat Stood Still was a catastrophe,

she made a cat’s paw of me, decidedly

deciding I’d not cat’ch on to her curiosity,

Where could the cat be, a cat’ch phrase

we all know constantly. She was playing cat

and mouse with me, no caterwauling, no

hell Cat catapulting, no cat nabbing at hand,

I calmly considered, there’s more than one way

to skin a cat, we’ll see which way the cat jumps.

And So, I with ears perked

roamed the room stealthily, when suddenly

I hear a meow, and there she was Kitty

cornered in a drawer, looking like the cat

that got the cream, cool cat on my cat pajamas,

kitty whiskers teasing me.

Cat got your tongue?

© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional Cat)

cat_profileside

As always dedicated to my dearly departed friends of the four legged feline kind. 💗💕

.little dog gone.

oh you were so very small

hash tag

not a proper dog

was said.

oh you were good company

hash tag

not like a human

was said.

oh boy on a good day how you

would run.

hash tag.

more like scampering

was said and overheard.

little dog gone.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

West Wind

Raanana, August 3, 2013

Her spirit rushes over the waving grasses
And the jittery tree leaves
Like the West Wind
Racing to fetch the stick
I’ve thrown so high and far
But the stick lies still
Where it has fallen.

© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)

Tears and Toys

Raanana, January 31, 2013

A poem is sometimes like a joke
Except instead of being funny
It’s so sad your heart leaps out of your chest
And you look around to see whether anyone else saw that
But they never do.
I once read a poem about my dead dog Chewy
How I buried her with my tears and her toys
Only I didn’t say her name or that she was a dog.
Some people came up to me afterward, a man and a woman,
And she told me how they appreciated my poem
Because they had buried their daughter too
With their tears and her toys.
Then I told them the punch-line
That my poem was about my dog Chewy
(I loved her so)
Because honesty’s the best policy.
The woman winced once, I think,
And then a curtain came down
Hiding their faces from me.
Now and then I hear laughter
And I look around
But don’t see any joke being told.
He seems to slap his knees at our sorrows.
Sometimes I get all mixed up about
Who’s God
And who’s the poet
And who’s burying their dead love
With their tears and her toys.

© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)

Worry

Raanana, June 21, 2013

What if they don’t come home?
I’ve been standing on the couch
I don’t know how long
Looking out the window …
What if they don’t come home?
Their cars aren’t there,
The black one or the brown one,
What if they don’t …?
It’s quiet and I’m so lonely –
What if …?
Nobody will give me water
And nobody will give me food
And nobody will love me
And nobody will come.
Don’t they know what could happen
When they say goodbye to me?
What if they don’t come home?
I’ll lie down to sleep
I don’t know how long.
At least I won’t think about
What if they don’t come home,
But I can’t sleep because
What if they don’t come home?
Don’t they know what I think?
Don’t they care?
If they only knew
How impossible it is to think like this
They’d never leave me.
What if they don’t come home?
Please come back … now.
What if they don’t come home?

© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)

The Service Revolver

Raanana, May 22, 2009

Sixty-six pounds of snarling anger
In the only path to safety
For six pounds of cold fear.
A chain squeezes suddenly around the honey-colored throat
And the anger moves on,
At first reluctantly, and then
Loping along at a goodly pace
Wet nostrils flared and quivering,
Ready to sift and scoop up
Anything of taste or interest
Along the dark and lamp-lit way.
Walking my dog Daisy
Whose name belies her vigor and strength
Barely controlled by a pact initialed
But never formally ratified,
She leads me through the valley of my loneliness
Which I measure in the scrape and echo
Of footsteps having no place to go.
Walking under an archway of sparse leaved bracken
And thick limbs of eucalyptus
Thoughts swarm around us
In no particular rhyme or meter,
Like the personal black hole
Pulling me towards an eventual horizon
In gossamer strands of infinity,
And another: at what point in our lives
Does it become reasonable
To contemplate suicide,
To feel the coolness and weight of one’s service revolver
Against the weight of continuing to be?

(c) 2009, Mike Stone (The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone)

Chewy

Raanana, February 4, 2007

I have a riddle for you:
‘When is a house empty, even though it’s full of people?’
She had more names than God Himself.
We should have called her Uhuru—
Freedom was the one thing she loved more than us
And finally she’s escaped the soft clutches of our love.
In our eagerness and innocence
We brought her home too soon
To be weaned from her mother,
A frightened little thing
No bigger than my fist.
She grew to love us though,
As fiercely as we loved her.
Some people were scared of her
But we’d give anything
For her to warm herself against us.
Last night her little heart burst its bounds
And she escaped her life
Running free at last through open fields
Photographed by death.
This morning when we buried her,
It rained cats and dogs.

(c) 2009, Mike Stone (The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone)

Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.

Dreaming Guard

cat1

More grey than white she was,
sensuously stirring,
if otherwise
sleeping or pretending
to sleep,
what attracted her, to peep
through the glass
then back down and pass
to the side to laze as if
in a drunken daze

daily visit , a long quiet look
then off to the nook,
satisfied with one ,
deep open eyed glance,
set her in the love trance,
no desire to roll or prance,
contentment replete, in form n fur,
silent breath, silent purr,
guarding the door, on barren floor,
profound faith, defying death_
my love have seen , no desire for more
to heaven I’ve been.
now oblivious of dogfights,rat races
she sleeps or pretends to sleep
snuggled cozily on the metallic bonnet
musing warmly on composing a sonnet
perhaps dreaming of a beloved  felidae.

© 2019, poem (English and Urdu, below) and Illustrations, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

بلی کے امور

خوابوں میں  ڈوبی یا سویؑ  ھویؑ ،

سفیدی مایل ،رنگ ھلکے کی زیادہ وہ لگتی تھی ،
جھوٹ موٹ دکھاوے کے لیؑے سویؑ ھویؑ بلی رانی

کس کی کشش  کھینچ لایؑ اسے کھڑکی تلے
نظر بھر کے دیکھا ، مسکرایؑ نشے میں ڈوبی ھویؑ

وہ روز روز آنا دوڑتے ھوےؑ  آنا، اک نظر کی تسلی
وہ دوستی نبھایؑ، سب پا لیا تو کرنے آرام وہ لیٹی

انوکھا پیار انوکھا کھیل قدرت کا میل کویؑ میاوؑن نہیں
محبت میں بھیگی خر خراتی ھویؑ ، ھے چوکیدار بنی

پرواہ نہیں موت کی نہ چوھوں کی چاہت و  خواھش
دنیا کرے جنگ یہ خوابوں میں کھویؑ سوچے اپنی شاعری

“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL” Anjum Wasim Dar

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Jamie

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton