I made the mistake of listening to the news first thing this a.m. Sigh! Silly me. So off I go to Gretchen’s blog for a bit of peace and sanity. Sharing it with you. Enjoy!
watercolor 11/2019
“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.”
…..Albert Einstein
He was the loom’s loom,
spinning the fiber of revelation;
offering songs of social injustice,
the sexual potency of nature,
and the blessedness of the lamb.
Patti Smith
Like in a rocking chair on the edge of time,
this painting an overture to freedom, a ladle of love,
a luminous nest of linking ladders. Each level going up united.
It’s for to cherish this visual calmness as Blake’s visionary glory.
While his poetic prophecy may seethe with crackling doubt and dissent,
revolutionary odes, contentious acts of history and deceit,
This, the first painting with his name spelled out.
Blake fondly calls these sweet colors “illuminated paintings”
where he lays out his revolutionary love in peopled play.
It’s as though we’re inside an urban subway station
looking up. With Blake, it’s always some kind of looking.
People and how they do what matter in Blake’s sight.
Here, people spread about touching everywhere
in the kind of gentle that cooperation brings.
Fallen warriors in medieval garb, nude woman pointing to this poem.
Women reading, consoling, kinding.
This poetic prophecy one of Blake’s cosmic mythologies:
Orc’s refulgent passion grazes Urizen’s linearity.
Blake charts a new course for mental liberation.
The newspaper-like headline compels because it hearkens
a linking, a jumping up above and caring down below.
The prophetic poem contains fierce strife among nations and type.
But this sweeping image unfolds sweet closeness.
A new, all American revolutionary delight.
As Blake writes: “the fair Moon rejoices
in the clear & cloudless night.” And what a new light!
How lovely the people together democratic,
concentrating in peace, as though Thomas Paine bathed them
in common sense, and faith, hope, and charity.
Aware of the novelty of cultural freedom, Blake affirms,
“Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open.
Like Walt Whitman, for Blake, the sacred “loom’s loom,” the center sphere,
this image affirms a new vision of democracy, of human affairs:
a belief that “For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.”
© 2019, Linda Chown
The other poems in Linda’s ongoing Blake-poem series:
I am delighted to let you know that Linda Chown’s Narrative Authority and Homeostasis in the Novels of Doris Lessing and Carmen Martín Gaite (Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction) is now available through Amazon in hardcover and Kindle. Linda tells me a budget-wise paperback edition will be available in six-to-eight months.
This study, originally published in 1990, assesses a shift in the presentation of self-consciousness in two pairs of novels by Doris Lessing and Carmen Martín Gaite: 1) Lessing’s The Summer Before the Dark(1973) and Martín Gaite’s Retahílas (1974) and 2) Lessing’s The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) and Martín Gaite’s The Back Room (1978). Three major structural divisions facilitate examining implications of the novels for 1) feminism 2) literary narrative and 3) the lives of people-at-large. / J.D.
Linda’s Amazon Page is HERE.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications: Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Womawords Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
Warning by Jenny Joseph
What’s it to me? …
A knotted and nasty old poet of introverted time
wearing five-dollar sweats
dressing in black on black like a fly
with silver earrings tinkling softly in the winter breeze
What’s it to me? …
A Madwoman, a Madonna, a Medusa
Traipsing neighborhood streets, city parks and country lanes
Nibbling on sharp yellow cheese and glossy red apples
Sitting down on some wayward curb to sigh in wonder at
noisy birds and children, wizened old men, whiskered grandmothers
Dogs walking their humans by the side of the road
Feral cats scratching out a living of pigeon stuffed with stale bread
Muttering, muttering, whispering, watching, writing
Writing long poems and short about what it was to be us
through clocked days trapped in pointless, punctilious youth
Enjoying now the wild, gnarly randomness of life
and the music of our dusty blue souls jingling as we walk …
What’s it to me? What’s it to this so lately untamable me?
© 2013, Jamie Dedes
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
Aging has its many downsides. We’re not going to explore them this week. Instead we’re going to explore the joys. For me this would be feeling free to honor my inner eccentric. How about YOU? What are the joys you find in aging? If you’re still young, use your imagination. Tell us about the joys of your aging in your poem/s.
PLEASE NOTE:
Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not 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, November 25 by 8 pm Pacific Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check The Time Zone Converter.
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.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications: Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Womawords Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
“Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry.” Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers [recommended reading]
This week we bring you poems of on the perfection in imperfection in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Wabi Sabi, November 13. This wasn’t an easy prompt because the philosophy was new to many.
“In traditional Japanese aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” . . . Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.” Wikipedia MORE
As always, all poets have come through beautifully for us, putting their own creative mark on Wabi Sabi.
Thanks for this collection go to: Gary W. Bowers, Anjum Wasim Dar, Urmila Mahajan, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Eric Nicholson, Pali Raj, and Leela Soma. Enjoy! and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to join in: novice, emerging, or pro.
wobbly sobby
on the potter’s wheel is an opportunity
to fail. the future potter rarely raises a cylinder
the first time, nor times two through ten.
getting good at wheel-throwing takes a
determination shared by marathoners
and golfers and ballroom dancers. meanwhile,
the future potter uses his wire tool
to cut heap after heap of wobbly, wet clay
from the wheelhead or the batt. when at last
a cylinder is up, there are almost always
many things wrong with it.
here is a still-future potter
and his new creation. it slumps
slightly. it wobbles
when the wheel is brought up
to trimming speed. the hat
drawn by dr. seuss for his cat
has a similar shape.
the still-future potter doesn’t care. he sobs,
but not out loud, for joy. he will never
feel as though raising a cylinder
is out of his reach. that it took
so many times, and wobbles, and sobs,
only reinforces the bedrock
of his foundation
of his becoming.
© 2019, Gary W. Bowers
Gary’s site is: One with Clay, Image and Text
A Perceptive Romance
crimson gold,shaded cool sunset
so deeply loved,fills empty souls
what hate prevails in daylight-
A perceptive romance
beloved sheep with precious wool
sheered to the skin, undressed
sacrificed goaded roasted
bleating is no music
water mirror like, ivory silver
smiled at, caressed , hated in
stagnant filthy swamps
its loss, mourned.
love the creative spirit in non
creativity, like lotus in muddy pond
tree valued green or brown-
body and soul, split in bond
embrace all,cool or hot
all here will be soon, gone
circle will come full circle
imperfection, – the mortal round
© 2019, Anjum Wasim Dar
Anjum-ji’s sites are:
Dewdrop
Every life is an intake of breath
in the corridors of humanity
The spirit of the past
unfolds within
A stirring that
churns the present
Every moment is splendid
with the awareness
that like a drop of dew
I can only be certain
I am here now
© 2019, Urmila Mahajan
Urmila’s site is: Drops of Dew
. skin imperfect.
some of you is gone, halfed,
precious skin.
the dress
hanging black
is photographed
as if you have no memory.
may be
more soothing,
than remembering.
touch the surface.
water.
© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher
:: mole hillls & broken plates ::
we discussed the hardness of the ground,
it is still quite cold. yet we found that moles
make soft places for planting.
dig up buried crocks for saving.
old photographs spur us on, to
care and treasure, to sweep and clean.
so wash and mend your broken plates
my friends, become a gentler way,
make a pleasant day.
look for mole hills, and old photographs.
© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher
Sonja’s sites are:
Days and days
Philip Larkin told us Days
bring the priest and doctor
running over the fields.
On this rainy day I’m pressed
into the Day’s four walls, the cold
seeping into my bones. Restless
I’m too aware the Day doesn’t fit me;
it’s like an oversized overcoat.
My brother texts me and I reply,
Winter isn’t my favourite time,
Ditto, he replies. Afterwards
I resist thinking of summer sun
and wish I could wear each day
like a well-tailored suit.
© 2019, Eric Nicholson
Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher and lives in the NE of England. Eric’s site is: https://erikleo.wordpress.com
For a long long time
I couldn’t figure it out
Who I am?
I went to school
Asked a teacher
She said, ‘I’ll talk to your father’.
I was a kid. A little kid.
I had to learn
How to kiss?
I returned to the book
Flipped about twenty pages
I kinda need help
For a long long time
I couldn’t figure it out
Who I am?
I went to a bar
Asked the bartender
He said, ‘I’ll make you cocktail’
I had a peg. A little peg.
I had to learn
How to introduce myself?
I took a sip.
Spoke a few English words.
Genius. Lover. Coward. Drinker.
I’m kinda happy whoever I am.
I was drunk.
For a long long time
I couldn’t figure it out
Who I am?
© 2019, Pali Raj
Nature’s music
Morning dew like jewels on spring green grass
crystals shimmering in the glow of a dawn sunrise,
drip, drip of tiny of raindrops, a soft chord
Or drizzle from heaven brushing soft on my eyelids
mist, layers of mist over rivers that flow ever so gently
Silver spray, sea foam caressing my ankle on the shore
Rippling, the swash, the crest white returning to the blue
trees swaying fiercely as autumn winds denude them
Music of orphaned leaves lying uncared for like
carpets of gold, brown and red over grey pavements
Scrunching sounds under foot, like a beat to
the hailstones falling on the roof tiles. Cold
frost and ice a chilling serape of winter hibernation
snow-sprinkled homes with a soft light in the window
nature’s notes, musical score, a beautiful symphony.
© 2019, Leela Soma
Leela’s site is: Leela Soma, Scottish Writer and Poet
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications: Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Woma Words Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 