“Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.” Friedrich Nietzsche
January Is On the Wane
after Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz
January is on the wane leaving behind early dark
and champagne hopes for the genus Rosa.
Garden roses want pruning now, solicitous cultivation.
Layer shorter under taller, drape on trellises
and over pergolas, the promise of color and scent,
climbers retelling their stories in a ballet up stone walls,
an heirloom lace of tea roses, a voluptuous panorama
rhymed with shrubs and rock roses in poetic repetition.
Feminine pulchritude: their majesties in royal reds
or sometimes subdued in pink or purple gentility,
a cadmium-yellow civil sensibility, their haute couture.
Is it the thorny rose we love or the way it mirrors us
in our own beauty and barbarism, our flow into decrepitude?
They remind of our mortality with blooms, ebbs, and bows
to destiny. A noble life, by fate transformed in season.
Divinely fulsome, that genus Rosa, sun-lighted, reflexed. And January? January is ever on the wane.
A Una Rosa
Rosa divina que en gentil cultura
eres, con tu fragrante sutileza,
magisterio purpureo en la belleza,
enseñanza nevada a la hermosura.
Amago de la humana arquitectura,
ejemplo de la vana gentileza,
en cuyo ser unió naturaleza
la cuna alegre y triste sepultura.
¡Cuán altiva en tu pompa, presumida,
soberbia, el riesgo de morir desdeñas,
y luego desmayada y encogida
de tu caduco ser das mustias señas,
con que con docta muerte y necia vida,
viviendo engañas y muriendo enseñas!
– Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz (Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana)
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
I thought we’d do something a bit different this week. I hope it’s something everyone will enjoy. Instead of a theme, write a poem in the spirit of one that you love and was written by someone else. Put your poem in the comments section and reference the poem you’re working off of.
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
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Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.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, September 23 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 BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.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. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
nights with ghosts . dear samueri, my friend i will never see you again; maybe i will. but i shall not know until father finds us a new address , addresses! we have none anymore. we are of no address. . now that i have written this letter, where do i post it to? shall i say, samueri, care of the next rubble harare?
—child’s poem This poem was included in an article by American poet Karen Margolisin the now defunct Poetry of Solidarity. You can read the backstory on this poem HERE.
Here we are at Tuesday again, the day when we share poems submitted in response the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Some Mothers’ Hearts Have Stopped, September 18, which brought attention to the hearts of mothers who have lost their children to war. I know people didn’t like the photo I put up with it, but I felt that the reality needs to be faced. We may not like to look at it, but it is the what some people in some places face everyday. Often they have never known another way of life.
This compassionate collection is courtesy of Anjum Wasim Dar, Sheila Jacob, Urmila Mahajan, and Sonja Benskin Mesher. Today we introduce and warmly welcome Benedicta Boamah with her poem Flaws. Benedicta also made her debut in this month’s issue of The BeZine.
Enjoy! and do join us for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt, which will post tomorrow morning.
Flaws
An indelible wound
Shaded in taking sides
Stabbing ruins of fierce restraints
Obvious bruises that shadows pains of the past
In the middle of questioned thoughts
A gaze and a stare
With events of civil unrest
The peculiar cry of the heart
Fights with unending demands
Voices of grief
Engraved in words
Penetrating struggles for peace and freedom
A protest in waiting
BENEDICTA BOAMAH is a skilled emergency nurse in Ghana who writes poetry during her leisure periods. I was born in Bloemfontein, Free State though a Ghanaian and completed my degree program as a professional nurse in Garden City University College in Kumasi, Ghana.I’m the fourth and last child and as it stands my parents are retired lecturers. Currently, I have a personal blog on WordPress and a partner organisation that deals in emergency courses and live webinars. I have an inner passion to write daily from the heart in making a difference as a poet in an outstanding literary world.
A Tragedy For The Mother Alone
Innocent child smiling laughing
with the front teeth missing
running wild with open arms
happiness flooding with a toy
oblivious of time trial or suffering
death or exhaustion-
just a colorful world of fun and joy
of toffees chocolates and ice creams
of sound sleep and sweet dreams
But hark! Stillness creeps, Look Out!
speeding trucks, shells and bomb blasts
cruel and wild, dashing falling fast-
bubbling laughter turned to screams
twisted iron and ripped seams-
A light extinguished
A silenced home
A love lost
A shattered dream’
Many more put to sleep
in the vicious scheme-
people stood and looked
stared and stared,no one shared
no one could share
the shock the grief the pain-
the invisible cutting chain
can a child be called, ‘my own?’
how the soft warm heart turns
into a hard feeling less, stone-
the silent perpetual moan is
For The Mother Alone-
For The Mother Alone
and I wonder,I wait-
whose turn would it be
which country which people
after the Kashmiri?
and like many other on other
lands, ruled by hate and race
as if each one came first
all is mine no matter what-
what possessiveness strong
resides in man, making him blind
what to say with guns and pellets
no traditions no laws no bonds
distances, absences, missing sons
and husbands, walls and fences
‘grieving hearts in survivor bodies’
how to move on in fear and blood
no more would there be the music
of the pipe- what good to follow hence
we wait for -then The One Man who
will come, help guide comfort and
make all the difference-
white is natural and so is black
but for black white would not be-
in darkness stars are the light
by day it is the sun
variegated colors of the world
in deserts yellow in fields green
in people dark and pale
in animals spots and lines
in wars, red with blood
covered or uncovered
heads are round –
bullets guns missiles
are the same, all kill
in oceans or mountains
on land and sea-
nothing matters when
hate comes in –
‘Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul’ and
sings the tune without words
and never stops-at all-‘
despair reigns in camps
isolated parched famished-
can an emoji reflect captivity
curfew torture rape or death ?
Hark ! I believe I hear the Piper’s Call
May the Good Lord help us all Amen.
“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
When I Asked My Mother About War
She said she wasn’t afraid.
Just got on with things,
everyone did, they had no choice.
Yet there were nights when Heinkels
droned across the sky.
Bombs fell like leaden birds
and roofs collapsed
in clouds of rubble.
Wasn’t she afraid her house
might be hit?
Didn’t she have nightmares
of Nazi troops landing on the coast:
of tanks rumbling through local streets
and grinding past the sweet shop,
grocers and Parkfield Café?
She turned eighteen
the month war was declared
and knew it wasn’t a game;
worked in a factory during the week
and discussed with other girls
whether or not to join the ATS.
She went to the pictures
on Saturday afternoons
and spent Sunday mornings at church;
prayed for the King and Queen,
her Dad, sister, elder brothers
stationed “somewhere in England”
and whispered an extra Our Father
for her Mom who held down
two jobs, queued for rationed meat
and conjured tasty meals from scraps.
She insisted she didn’t dwell on death
and perhaps she didn’t.
Perhaps fear was the shadow
at her heels some evenings
as she waved her Mom off to work,
heard sirens wail in the distance
and closed the blackout curtains.
Perhaps she hurried
to the kitchen’s warmth,
sat with hands clenched
and white-knuckled
around a mug of strong tea.
To purchase her little gem of a volume, Through My Father’s Eyes (review, interview, and a sampling of poems HERE), contact Sheila directly at she1jac@yahoo.com
War and Peace
Let’s talk about war
humanity sunk to
new levels of the old
salivating avaricious
degrading everything
precious
hovering over a fate
that ordains one must
watch others die
before succumbing
let’s not talk about clouds
of chickens in a poultry pen
like a company of pigs
awaiting the sticking knife
icing a throat to end appeals
in a universal language
we’ve reserved the fanfare
of war for ourselves
life’s a fistful of rupees at
the local bazaar
awash with the lilies of
heated haggling to hide
the smells of fear and pain
carnage unleashes in
daily forms on warm
families of bodies huddled
under less privileged names
knife wielding peace
makes little sense
to the other side
hovering over a fate
that ordains one must
watch others die
before succumbing
double edged slaughter
stains severing hands
beasts of war will be nourished
until life is viewed in entirety
and impresses both
sides of the coin
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.)
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.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. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
“no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark … Warsan Shire, Home
Lost the family traditions, the familiar grounds, the
Old home place, the neighbors and neighborhoods
Left behind in the great leap to safety, hope dreamed
But not found through forced marches across the
Desert or sailing the brutal sea in boats that shed
Them, so much flotsam, drifting and nameless,
Leaving grieving hearts in their survivor bodies
Stories shared, commiseration with strangers, now
Tents dot hectares of campgrounds, like so many
Emojis of despair and anger, leaving their stain
And soon or late, count on it, the piper will call
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.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. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Bible for Thomas Butts (series) c. 1805 pen and gray ink with watercolor over graphite
“The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known.” Viktor Shklovsky
“Everything can go wild within the fierce symmetry of Blake’s art.” Laura Cumming
“Good and evil may well have the same face or physique in Blake’s conceit.” Laura Cumming
Brown bears in Yosemite, the rangers said in the heat, beware.
In all the splendor of this gray stone, thick smells of money over-
whelm the perfumed shorts of the extra-tanned tourists.
These bears they said could jump and strike, so be safe, they said. It was almost like someone
had struck a match and turned safety upside
down. Made the dawn-to-dusk-already-insecurity-of
our-flimsy-poor- man’s-Camp-Curry-life more unfamiliar
and fearful. Made daily life big and soupy, defamiliarized.
Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky once urged artists to make
old things new by turning them strange and unfamiliar. All these people saying unfamiliar things I muttered soft over their saying.
William Blake, he takes these extremities
and clashes them closer.
Mashes them into themselves.
When I look hard at these bold colored shapes:
that huge monster dragon, the woman pressed dainty upon a yellow sun-heart,
I don’t know if I’m seeing juxtaposition or sameness. Or know what he’d hope I’d see. They kind of collapse together curiously, peaceful and disturbed: different and bound.
In fact they meet strangely and fill space up almost as a voracious bundle.
I had almost missed their looking, that hot frozen attention,
examining each other inside like a scientist counting cells
What stuns when I look more is that they are so big,
so nearly eye to eye.
They stare hard it seems to preserve
the astonishment of this wordless moment
Just like the always strangeness of the way William Blake kisses our eyes,
daring our looking more in the fervent struggle to see it his way.
He takes emotions on a life ride, much like life in Yosemite
he rides us far into our fear of bears and awe of the stone and then that woman
oddly “clothed,” nearly buried in the sun who flaunts her looking
at the dragon, daring him with coy looking like a Victorian lady would.
Blake collided good and evil like this, he welded and wedded them,
Close and ineffable. Astride and authentic.
His heart-life on the side of the woman and goodness
But he would keep it whole and near, keep it together.
Laura Cummings surmised that good and evil may well have the same face or physique in Blake’s conceit.
White and dirty, big and small.
Good and evil. Innocence and experience.
Those basics which we differentiate too soon.
Blake’s wild and immaculate art helps look deeply beyond that division,
To see it not as something finished, tamed and pretty
But its naked contrasts raked and real, agitated, and spun
In a sea/see of magnificents like they are, in all of this fixed looking.
Master Blake puts on his canvas what he knows when he sees it, not after.
LINDA E. CHOWN grew up in Berkeley, Ca. in the days of action. Civil Rights arrests at Sheraton Palace and Auto Row. BA UC Berkeley Intellectual History; MA Creative Writing SFSU; PHd Comparative Literature University of Washington. Four books of poetry. Many poems published on line at Numero Cinq, Empty Mirror, The Bezine, Dura, Poet Head and others. Many articles on Oliver Sachs, Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Twenty years in Spain with friends who lived through the worst of Franco. I was in Spain (Granada, Conil and Cádiz) during Franco’s rule, there the day of his death when people took to the streets in celebration. Interviewed nine major Spanish Women Novelists, including Ana María Matute and Carmen Laforet and Carmen Martín Gaite.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.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. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
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. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
BENEDICTA BOAMAH is a skilled emergency nurse in Ghana who writes poetry during her leisure periods. I was born in Bloemfontein, Free State though a Ghanaian and completed my degree program as a professional nurse in Garden City University College in Kumasi, Ghana.I’m the fourth and last child and as it stands my parents are retired lecturers. Currently, I have a personal blog on WordPress and a partner organisation that deals in emergency courses and live webinars. I have an inner passion to write daily from the heart in making a difference as a poet in an outstanding literary world.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 