Poets, Poetry, News, Reviews, Readings, Resources & Opportunities for Poets and Writers
Month: December 2019
Thank you, Mbizo Chirasha, for making mine the featured profile of the year and for including the work of so many of my dear friends and other worthy poets who pound the keyboard for peace, justice, and human rights including Anjum Wasim Dar and Michael Dickel. / J.D.
Originally posted on Miombo Publishing: December dribbles her signature dance towards January, shaking off jackets of Christmas fever welcoming 2020 flipping pages into another millennium. We are capping this year of diversity with a blessing of global poetry. This journal celebrates the power in togetherness and the vintage of diversity .Poets and poems featured in…
Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’… Alfred Lord Tennyson
I’m putting The Poet by Day on hiatus as of today for the holy season and New Year. I’ll be back on Wednesday, January 8 with the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
♥ BEST WISHES FOR THE HOLIDAYS AND FOR 2010! ♥
All thanks to writer, crafter, photographer Karen Fayeth (Oh Fair New Mexico), for this:
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic express, and human rights.
Link HERE for Free Human Rights eCourse designed and delivered by United For Human Rights, Making Human Rights a Fact
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
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Oh lovely chance, what can I do To give my gratefulness to you? You rise between myself and me With a wise persistency; I would have broken body and soul, But by your grace, still I am whole. Many a thing you did to save me, Many a holy gift you gave me, Music and friends and happy love More than my dearest dreaming of; And now in this wide twilight hour With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower, In a humble mood I bless You wisdom– your waywardness. You brought me even here, where I Live on a hill against the sky And look on mountains and the sea And a thin white moon in the pepper tree. Sara Teasdale,The Collected Poems
Note: I am putting The Poet by Day on hiatus starting tomorrow for the holy days. I’ll return on January 8, 2010 with the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
♥ Wishing you much joy in the year end festivities. ♥
♥ Best wishes for the 2020! ♥
element
if the rust stained bones in my frame
where to ever get a chance again
to glide across the universe
look into Pandora’s jet white eyes
and smell the lighted stars
like people sniff the roses
my soul to keep i’d give away
to plug the holes
and pave new ways
for dusk to kiss the lonely hearts
for dawn to inter the bitter crop
from where my old roots are rotted
i’d be a renegade of love again
with bombs of ear drums
i would fight
to give a spot to everyone
in God’s angelic choir
if the sacred morning dew
can forgive me
for not being wide awake
in baptizing my sinful state
in the worldly river of life
reason being i was up all night
marching behind my sisters and brothers
blinded by the poisoned dark
with intent to guide them out
of their imposed upon madness
or if the maidens of the light
would prefer to bring me back
i would want to be
a lightning bolt
looking to correct
the wicked negatives of the cold hard ground
with the positives in the celestial clouds
to quench the crops of kindness
that are drying out
yet in all honesty
i’d be more than content
to come back as a rainbow colored bubble
making some kid laugh
“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
I Guess
I guess it’s too late
To live in Nashville
and become a star
I guess it’s too late
To sing on the You
Can Be a Star show
Since it officially
ended in 1989.
I guess it’s too late
for that demo tape
To be found like
Lost treasure and fall
into the right hands
I guess it’s too late
To record another
Gospel tune for
my listening
Audience to hear
But it sure would
have been fun to
Be on that TV show
after my demo tape
Was accepted
I guess it’s too late
To live in Nashville
and become a star
She would have been a wild child
Wind-blown without temperance
She would have held her truth
high like a flag, running
Her feet scraped raw
Her words etched into never-ending
Wonder. She would have gulped life
Ever-thirsty Her heart, the drum of Earth
River-blood in her veins
She would never stop
Until she flew wings
Cutting gravity. Each slice pushing
Her higher. Lungs becoming sky
So vast and blue she would not know
Ending, She would have been
Free
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
Tantrums, and cries
Capture hearts
So let it be
A bolt from blue
Say “Hi”
Well, you have got “Nothing” to say ….yeah
Then you tell me that
You don’t tell us “Sorry”
Join in our circle of friends
Let’s talk ….yeah
Let sags of your face rise and fall
More and more
Say “Hi”
Well, brace yourself to love
And make it a plan but little sense ….yeah
Smile
More and more
If you get another chance
Tantrums, and cries
Capture hearts
So let it be
A bolt from blue
Say “Hi”
O, that moment of imminent action
When a confluence of worlds intersect
All is possible
Like The Death of Socrates
As he reaches for his hemlock
Iconic cup of forced suicide
What will he do? Recant?
It would change history
But the speechifying continues
Outcome clear
“Don’t!” I shout to the painting
As if there is no known conclusion
Might as well scream at the hero of a horror flick
“Don’t go down the cellar/up the attic/outside to the shed”
And now, in modern times
I find myself screaming at the dumb teenager:
“Charge your phone!”
O that special moment
Time etched on canvas in paint
And the Universe holds its breath
As I hesitate
And then say, “Sure, we might as well get married”
Maybe not as important as Hector
About to be murdered by Achilles
Can he surrender and live to fight
Another day?
And why do I
Focus on marriage?
Surely I regret giving up
Guitar, writing, tarot
Perhaps it’s just feeling Blue
During this Red, Green and Gold holiday
But junctures appear, innocently beckoning
And I so wish there had been
A painting depicting that imminent action
Something I could have studied and thought about
Before opening my mouth
And just maybe
Unlike Socrates and Hector
That moment could have been deflected
A lone laser point harmlessly careening
Into endless space…
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Link HERE for Free Human Rights eCourse designed and delivered by United For Human Rights, Making Human Rights a Fact
FEEL THE BURN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Senator Bernie Sanders
The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie for President.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Cassandra by Evelyn Pickering (1855-1919) / public domain UK/US
Apollo, Apollo! God of all ways, but only Death’s to me, Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named, Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!
Aeschylus’ Agamemnon
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic express, and human rights.
Link HERE for Free Human Rights eCourse designed and delivered by United For Human Rights, Making Human Rights a Fact
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.