An elephant never forgets.
I remember what Abraham Lincoln said: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved— I do not expect the house to fall— but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. I remember what Theodore Roosevelt said: Moreover, it cannot too often be pointed out that to strike with ignorant violence at the interests of one set of men almost inevitably endangers the interests of all. The fundamental rule in our national life— the rule which underlies all others— is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together. I remember what Ronald Reagan said: A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for…
Thomas’s £5 writing shed in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire courtesy of wardyboy400 under CC BY 2.0
“He has been called a pagan, a mystic, and a humanistic agnostic; his God has been identified with Nature, Sex, Love, Process, the Life Force, and with Thomas himself.” Dylan Thomas: The Poet and His Critics, R.B. Kershner Jr. as quoted in a Poetry Foundation bio HERE.
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wage
– Dylan Thomas
Excerpt from Death and Entrances (J.M.Dent, 2916)
Dylan Thomas’s writing shed in Laugharne, largely untouched since his death courtesy of Richard Knights under CC BY-SA 2.0 license
Dylan Thomas (1914 – 9 1953) was born in Swansea, Wales. He was a poet and writer whose works include the poems Do not go gentle into that good nightand And death shall have no dominion. He had a reputation for hard living, was popular in his lifetime and even after his early death in Manhattan in 1953.
Thomas left school at sixteen and for awhile worked as a journalist. His work was published while he was in his teens and and in 1934 of Light breaks where no sun shinescaught the attention of the literary world. He met and married (1937) Caitlin Macnamara when he was in London. The settled in the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne and riased three children there.
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“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.
Narcissus by Caravaggio depicts Narcissus gazing at his own reflection. / Public Domain Photo Reproduction
“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.” Frank O’Hara, Early Writing
It happened yesterday] [or maybe it was tomorrow
the days of narcissism rising when
trust was no longer a badge of honor
but an illusionary tool of demigods, those
surveilling who use identity as a weapon and
some simulacrum of joy as a pawn in the
stake-outs of a tech-pop culture that had lost
all rootedness in the old mythologies, replaced
poets and cats, history’s traditional witnesses,
with social networks, cameras, data collection,
even our cell phones became hostages to
the oligarchs and algorithms, and anyone who
was no one became the unknown known, ultimately
for terror – Maybe! – surely for merchandising
the sanctity of toys, six-pack abs, the manipulation
of values, the merging of religions and mammon
for the common unGood, nursing an underbelly of
spiritual poverty and maybe – Maybe! – we did
get the leadership we deserve, given our own
lack of caution – “I have nothing to hide.” – and
our rampant self-aggrandizement on Facebook,
Twitter and – Yes! – our iBlogs
Narcissism has been around since day one, but it is on rise? Is it more entrenched in culture? If so, how and why? Tell us in your poem/s and …
please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose
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, July 29 by 8 pm Pacific Daylight 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.
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* Five by Jamie Dedes, 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) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“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.
Old Shrewsbruy Market in Shropshire County courtesy of Snowmanradio / Public Domain
“I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.” A.E. Housman, Last Poems
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
– A.E. Housman
A. E. Housman by E. O. Hoppé from Google-hosted LIFE Photo Archive under the filename fd76be65c0baead9 / Public Domain
A. E. HOUSMAN (1859 – 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems, A Shropshire Lad. When I Was One and Twenty is a part of that collection. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems wistfully evoke the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside. Their beauty, simplicity and distinctive imagery appealed strongly to Edwardian taste, and to many early 20th-century English composers both before and after the First World War. Through their song-settings, the poems became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself.
Housman was one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars who ever lived. He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative.
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“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.
Dylan Thomas (1914 – 9 1953) was born in Swansea, Wales. He was a poet and writer whose works include the poems 
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 