Saturday Verse: "Snowshoe to Otter Creek" - Stacie Cassarino

                                             love lasts by not lasting

                            - Jack Gilbert

I’m mapping this new year’s vanishings:    

lover, yellow house, the knowledge of surfaces.

This is not a story of return.

There are times I wish I could erase

the mind’s lucidity, the difficulty of Sundays,

my fervor to be touched

by a woman two Februarys gone. What brings the body

back, grieved and cloven, tromping these woods

with nothing to confide in? New snow reassumes

the circleting trees, the bridge above the creek

where I stand like a stranger to my life.

There is no single moment of loss, there is

an amassing. The disbeliever sleeps at an angle

in the bed. The orchard is a graveyard.

Is this the real end? Someone shoveling her way out

with cold intention? Someone naming her missing?

A Poem: "The Birthday of the World" - Marge Piercy

12-28-2018

The birthday of the world

BY MARGE PIERCY

On the birthday of the world

I begin to contemplate

what I have done and left

undone, but this year

not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged

psyche, shoring up eroding

friendships, digging out

stumps of old resentments

that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call

myself to task for what

I have done and not done

for peace. How much have

I dared in opposition?

How much have I put

on the line for freedom?

For mine and others?

As these freedoms are pared,

sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who

have I tried to move? In

this holy season, I stand

self-convicted of sloth

in a time when lies choke

the mind and rhetoric

bends reason to slithering

choking pythons. Here

I stand before the gates

opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach

what judges me, I judge

myself. Give me weapons

of minute destruction. Let

my words turn into sparks.

Saturday Verse: Nikki Giovanni - "What It Is"

4-23-2017

WHAT IT IS 

if it's a trail we can hike it
if it has two wheels we can bike it 

if it's an allergy we can sneeze it
if it's a pimple we can squeeze it 

if it's dew it "covers Dixie"
if it's Tinker Bell it's a pixie 

if it's a breeze it can blow us
if it's the sun it can know us 

if it's a song we can sing it
if it flies we can wing it 

if it's soda pop then it's drinkable
it might be X-Rated but that's unthinkable 

if it's a boat we can sail it
if it's a letter we can mail it 

if it's a star we can let it shine
if it's the moon it can make you mine 

if it's grass we can rake it
if it's free why not take it 

if it's a tide it can ebb
if it's a spider it can web 

if it's chocolate we can dip it
if it's a golf ball we can chip it 

if it's gum we can chew it
I hope it's love so we can do it

Saturday Verse: Excerpt from The Lost Son: "5. It was beginning winter"

2/21/2017

  

5. IT WAS BEGINNING WINTER 

It was beginning winter,
An in-between time,
The landscape still partly brown:
The bones of words kept swinging in the wind,
Above the blue snow, 

It was beginning winter,
The light moved slowly over the frozen field,
Over the dry seed-crowns,
The beautiful surviving bones
Swinging in the wind. 

Light traveled over the wide field;
Stayed.
The weeds stopped swinging.
The mind moved, not alone,
Through the clear air, in the silence. 

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still? 

A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

                                          - Theodore Roethke 

Saturday Verse: "After a great pain, a formal feeling comes - " - Emily Dickinson

3/25/2017

AFTER A GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL FEELING COMES 

After a great pain, a formal feeling comes -
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before? 

The Feet mechanical go round -
Of Ground, or Air or Ought -
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone -  

This is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the snow -
First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go - 

                                                                          - Emily Dickinson 

Saturday Verse: "Perfection Wasted" - John Updike

3-24-2017

PERFECTION WASTED

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market -
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

                                               - John Updike

Saturday Verse: "When Death Comes" - Mary Oliver

2/5/1987

WHEN DEATH COMES 

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse 

to buy me, snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox 

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility, 

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,  

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence, 

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to earth. 

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real 

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument. 

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. 

                                                                           - Mary Oliver 

Saturday Verse: Nikki Giovanni - "Mothers"

MOTHERS 

the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm
comforting silence around
us and read separate books 

i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room
apartment on burns avenue 

mommy alway sat in the dark
i don't know how I knew that but she did 

that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i've always been
a night person or perhaps because I had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through tiny window panes
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth
and very black 

i'm sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady 

she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by
"come here" she said "i'll teach you
a poem: I see the moon
              the moon sees me
              god bless the moon
              and god bless me
i taught that to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must learn
to bear the pleasures
as we have born the pains

Saturday Verse: "The Bean Eaters" - Gwendolyn Brooks

3/12/2017

THE BEAN EATERS 

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.  

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
and putting things away. 

And remembering...
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths.
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes. 

                                                                - Gwendolyn Brooks

Saturday Verse: "Verses from My Room" - Susanna Tomalin

3/27/2017

VERSES FROM MY ROOM 

When you come looking for me I'll be gone.
Time is laid waste where waiting has been done.
Though you might find forever and to spare
And bring it to me, I will not be there.  

I heard you call me once, so calm and clear,
As children call each other by their names.
Adults avoid such touching, telling games
And only say what everyone may hear.  

Listening is lonely only in the dark;
People and business and the day obscure
Persistent shadows, if they cannot cure
Creases where thought and word have left their mark. 

Flatten your nose against the window-pane.
Knock at the door, then open it with care.
You'll find a book left open on a chair,
Thrown on the bed my coat still wet with rain, 

Some shoes piled in the corner, and a pen,
Dropped from a pocket, lying on the floor.
Maybe a photo in an open drawer
Will catch you eye, and make you smile, and then 

Perhaps you'll speak, although it is absurd
To ask a question of such emptiness,
You'll make your invitation and address
A place as pointless as a voiceless word. 

When you come looking I'll be far away.
Will you be puzzled? What, I wonder, say
In your bewilderment? Will you know why
I went and didn't wait to say goodbye?

                                                             - Susana Tomalin 

Saturday Verse: "The Song of Wandering Aegnus" - W.B. Yeats

3/24/2017

THE SONG OF WANDERING AEGNUS 

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout. 

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air. 

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

               
                                                         - W.B. Yeats 

Saturday Verse: "To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train" - Frances Cornford

3/24/2017

TO A FAT LADY SEEN FROM THE TRAIN 

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
         Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
         Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
         And shivering-sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
         Missing so much and so much?

                                                          - Frances Cornford

Saturday Verse: "Isn't That Something" - Rumi

3/17/2017

ISN'T THAT SOMETHING 

I 

like when

the music happens like this: 

Something in His eye grabs hold of a

tambourine in

me, 

then I turn and lift a violin in someone else,

and they turn, and this turning

continues; 

it has

reached you now. Isn't that 

something?

                                                                                                     - Rumi 

Saturday Verse: "Exceptions and Melancholies" - Ralph Angel

The Banquet, Rene Magritte 

EXCEPTIONS AND MELANCHOLIES 

Never before
had we been so thin and so clear
and arranged always
and in the same way going and listening
over the rooftops
to tin cans of flowers and strange
music. For an hour or more
I turned the same corner
and felt like a criminal farther and farther out to sea
among the racks of shoes and old clothes
but now looking
back I should never have
unpacked. A street
crowned with chestnut trees
ends at the sewer. You go to a theatre
and find yourself a house
outside the city
and walk the shore
forever. I don't have much
talent for poetry. When I see a wrecking ball
dangling from a crane I mean it
literally. I mean
I don't mean the world's fallen apart
or that the wrecking ball
symbolizes the eye my world-weary sister
couldn't know to turn away
from. The hospital's
exhausted. the little church is boarded up.
We leaned against the limestone
and liked the fact that tea
sweetens gradually
and the wildflowers
beneath the shad of trees gone shivering
have really livened up the cemetery
and that the tall grass and the garbage
and especially the piled-up
newspapers and the rooftop pool
fit right in among
these windowless buildings
having gathered
as we are in the flesh again
and leading another life
altogether.

                                       - Ralph Angel 

Saturday Verse: "New Year" - Langston Hughes

LEAVES 

The years
Fall like dry leaves
From the top-less tree
Of eternity.
Does it matter
That another leaf has fallen?

                                              - Langston Hughes

Saturday Verse: "Winter Field" - Ellen Bryant Voigt

WINTER FIELD 

The winter field is not
the field of summer lost in snow: it is
another thing, a different thing. 

"We shouted, we shook you," you tell me,
but there was no sound, no face, no fear, only
oblivion— why shouldn't it be so? 

After they'd pierced a vein and fished me up,
after they'd reeled me back they packed me under
blanket on top of blanket, I trembled so. 

The summer field, sun-fed, mutable,
has its many tasks; the winter field
becomes its adjective.
                                   For those hours
I was some other thing, and my body,
which you have long loved well,
did not love you.

                                                         - Ellen Bryant Voigt 

Saturday Verse: Jo'lene Dailey - "What I Want to do Most of the Time"

11-12-2016

WHAT I WANT TO DO MOST OF THE TIME 

It feels like I need
To go to my dad's house
And when I'm at my dad's house
I want to go to my mom's house
I want to be at both houses 

                             - Jo'lene Dailey

Saturday Verse: 'Untitled" - James Baldwin

11-02-16

UNTITLED 

Lord,
          when you send the rain
          think about it, please
          a little?
Do
          not get carried away
          by the sound of falling water,
          the marvelous light
          on the falling water.
I
          am beneath that water.
          It falls with great force
          and the light
Blinds
          me to the light.

                                                      - James Baldwin 

Saturday Verse: "Mad Girl's Love Song" - Sylvia Plath

Happy Halloweekend

10-29-2016

MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The starts go waltzing our in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

                                                        - Sylvia Plath

Who needs to wander a spook alley when we are all walking haunted houses?

Saturday Verse: "Housekeeping" - Natasha Trethewey

9-28-2016

HOUSEKEEPING

We mourn the broken things, chair legs
wrenched from their seats, chipped plates,
the threadbare clothes. We work the magic
of glue, drive the nails, mend the holes.
We save what we can, melt small pieces
of soap, gather fallen pecans, keep neck bones
for soup. Beating rugs against the house,
we watch dust, lit like stars, spreading
across the yard. Late afternoon, we draw
the blinds to cool the rooms,  drive the bugs
out. My mother irons, singing, lost in reverie.
I mark the pages of a mail-order catalog,
listen for passing cars. All day we watch
for the mail, some news from a distant place. 

                                                       - Natasha Trethewey