FreeVerse ~ Paul Farley

The past weekend was spent attending our middle child's college graduation. In between packing up her apartment and other activities we found time to visit a used book store. The poetry section was small, but I did find a couple of books that looked interesting including The Ice Age by British poet Paul Farley. The following poem is taken from that collection.



Diary Moon

You are the plainest moon. Forget all others:
shivering in pools, or spoken to when drunk,
that great Romantic gaze of youth; shed all
sonatas, harvests, Junes, and think instead
of how your phases turn here in a diary:
stripped of sunlight, surface noise and seas
you move unnoticed through the months, a bare limn
achieving ink blackness, emptying again.

You who turned inside the week-to-view
my father carried round each year, past crosses
that symbolized pay days, final demands;
in girlfriends', where red novae marked the dates
they were 'due on', and I shouldn't've been looking;
who even showed in weighty Filofaxes,
peeping through the clouds of missed appointments,
arrivals and departures, names and numbers.

On nights like these, which of us needs reminding
to set an eel-trap, open up the bomb doors
or sail out of the harbour on a spring-tide?
What sway do you hold over our affairs?
Although for some you're all that's there, printed
across the white weeks until New Year;
moving towards windows that will not frame us,
into the evenings of our sons and daughters.


(FreeVerse is hosted by Cara at Ooh...Books!)

Musical FreeVerse with Edgar Allan Poe

One of my favorite albums is Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe by The Alan Parsons Project. It's the debut album from the group which was formed in the mid-70s. At that time it was popular for prog rock groups to put out what were known as "concept albums" in which a central theme would be explored though music. Rick Wakeman from Yes had some good ones and Alan Parsons followed this one with several more. I've always been a fan of Poe and that's what led me to take a chance on the album.

I've chosen two of the poems featured on the album for my FreeVerse entry today. Click here to find more FreeVerse selections at Cara's place, Ooh...Books!


To One In Paradise

Thou wast all that to me, love,

For which my soul did pine-
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!" - but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! me
The light of Life is o'er!
"no more- no more- no more-"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where they grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.


A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
Your are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

FreeVerse - Haiku for Mother's Day

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What a pleasant surprise to find out I had the winning entry at Cara's! I don't claim to be a poet, but I really enjoy Haiku and have tried my hand at writing it a few times. You can see samples here, here, and again here.

In memory of my mother and my aunt, I've attempted a series of Haiku for this week's FreeVerse. To give some background, my mother died when I was seventeen and one of my father's sisters stepped in to try and fill the void. Some of these may not work that well individually, but I hope as a grouping they convey some of the emotions surrounding these events.


I was seventeen
When she departed this world
I still needed her

Taken far too soon
Thirty-four years have gone by
Time eases the pain

No kids of her own
She only wanted to help
I pushed her away

She is gone now, too
I hope she knew in the end
How much I loved her

It wasn't until
I had children of my own
That I understood

Each one leaves the nest
Taking with them as they fly
A piece of my heart

FreeVerse ~ Carmen Tafolla

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Carmen Tafolla was the guest speaker at a ceremony I recently attended and I was amazed by the depth and passion of her performance. Her poems and stories are so heartfelt it's almost impossible not to be moved by them. The poem I've shared here is from her Sonnets and Salsa collection. My apologies for once again not getting the indentions correct thus detracting somewhat from the visual beauty of her work.

Marked

Never write with pencil,
m'ija.
It is for those
who would
erase.
Make your mark proud
and open,
Brave,
beauty folded into
its imperfection,
Like a piece of turquoise
marked.

Never write
with pencil,
m'ija.
Write with ink
or mud,
or berries grown in
gardens never owned,
or, sometimes,
if necessary,
blood.

FreeVerse - The Goops

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I featured this poem a few years ago on my 360 blog. It's one of my childhood favorites so I thought I'd share it again for FreeVerse this week. It's taken from my 1955 edition of The Illustrated Treasury of Children's Literature.

THE GOOPS
Gelett Burgess

The Goops they lick their fingers,
And the Goops they lick their knives;
They spill their broth on the tablecloth-
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
The Goops they talk while eating,
And loud and fast they chew;
And that is why I'm glad that I
Am not a Goop - are you?

FreeVerse ~ Income Tax Day

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I shared a prayer/poem from Walter Brueggemann in an earlier post. Although not a poet in the traditional sense, his prayers read like poetry. Considering tomorrow is "tax day" in the US, I am using Brueggemann's "Income Tax Day" prayer from his book Prayers for a Privileged People as my FreeVerse entry this week. Although I can't get the indentions visually correct, the words still retain the beauty.

Income Tax Day

On this day of internal revenue
some of us are paid up,
some of us owe,
some of us await a refund,
some of us have no income to tax.

But all of us are taxed,
by war,
by violence,
by anxiety,
by deathliness.

And Caesar never gives any deep tax relief.

We render to Caesar...
to some it feels like a grab,
to some it is clearly a war tax,
to some - some few -
it is a way to contribute to the common good.

In any case we are haunted
by what we render to Caesar,
by what we might render to you,
by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
when what you ask is an "easy yoke":
to do justice
to love mercy
to walk humbly with you.

Give us courage for your easy burden, so to live untaxed lives.

FreeVerse ~ Linda Pastan

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I can thank Marion for introducing me to Linda Pastan's Carnival Evening . She featured the collection on her blog last summer in a post which included one of my favorite Pastan poems, The Bookstall. I followed with an entry of my own in the fall, sharing two more of her poems.

Here's another wonderful selection from Carnival Evening:

Egg

In this kingdom
the sun never sets;
under the pale oval
of the sky
there seems no way in
or out,
and though there is a sea here
there is no tide.

For the egg itself
is a moon
glowing faintly
in the galaxy of the barn,
safe but for the spoon's
ominous thunder,
the first delicate crack
of lightning.

Mark A. Noll

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Seasons of Grace by Mark A. Noll, which I mentioned in an earlier entry, contains some lovely poetry. I felt this short verse would be appropriate for Holy Week.

Christ's Crown

The leaves emerge - a growing
garland lying lightly on his head.
The dance of spring, of resurrection,
quicks his feet; from all directions
caper those he'll call his own.
The sun shines warming down upon
the dancers 'round their pivot. Only those
up close can smell or see the thick
black-red the flowers nurse upon.

FreeVerse ~ Natasha Trethewey

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Natasha Trethewey is another poet Ted Kooser recommended in the workshop I attended. This poem is taken from her collection entitled Native Guard.

Graveyard Blues

It rained the whole time we were laying her down;
Rained from church to grave when we put her down,
The suck of mud at our feet was a hollow sound.

When the preacher called out I held up my hand;
When he called for a witness I raised my hand -
Death stops the body's work, the soul's a journeyman.

The sun came out when I turned to walk away,
Glared down on me as I turned and walked away -
My back to my mother, leaving her where she lay.

The road going home was pocked with holes,
That home-going road's always full of holes;
Though we slow down, time's wheel still rolls.

I wander now among names of the dead:
My mother's name, stone pillow for my head.

FreeVerse ~ John Updike

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I took Esther, our 10-year old Rottweiler, to the vet on Monday to see about a problem. Two of the vets examined her then did a needle aspiration. It doesn't look very promising.

My FreeVerse choice for this week fits my mood.

Dog's Death

John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

FreeVerse - Claudia Emerson

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Claudia Emerson is one of the poets Ted Kooser recommended in the workshop I attended. Her Pulitzer Prize winning Late Wife collection is wonderful. The majority of the book is divided into three sections, "Divorce Epistles", "Breaking up the House", and "Late Wife: Letters to Kent". I've featured one from each section.

Metaphor

We didn't know what woke us - just
cold moving, lighter than our breathing.

The world bound by an icy ligature,
our house was to the bat a warmer

hollowness that now it could not
leave. I screamed for you to do something.

So you killed it with the broom,
cursing, sweeping the air. I wanted

you to do it - until you did.


Breaking Up the House

Every time I go back home, my mother
tells me I should begin to think now about
what I will and will not want - before
something happens and I have to. Each time

I refuse, as though somehow this is an argument
we're having. After all, she and my father are still
keeping the house they've kept for half a century.
But I do know why she insists. She has

already done a harder thing than I will
have to do. She was only eighteen -
her mother and father both dead - when it fell
to her to break up the house, reduce

familiar rooms to a last order, a world
boxed and sealed. And while I know she would,
she cannot keep me from the house emptied
but for the pale ovals and rectangles

still nailed fast - cleaved to the walls where mirrors,
Portraits had hung - persistent, sourceless shadows.


Driving Glove

I was unloading groceries from the trunk
of what had been her car, when the glove floated
up from underneath the shifting junk -
a crippled umbrella, the jack, ragged
maps. I knew it was not one of yours,
this more delicate, soft, made from the hide
of a kid or lamb. It still remembered
her hand, the creases where her fingers

had bent to hold the wheel, the turn
of her palm, Smaller than mine. There was
nothing else to do but return it -
let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water
to rest on the bottom where I have not
forgotten it remains - persistent in its loss.

Jane Kenyon

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I read my first Jane Kenyon poem, Let Evening Come, during National Poetry Month last year. Since then, I've shared two other Kenyon poems here, Full Moon in Winter and my favorite, The Pear. (As a bonus, the link to The Pear includes a Ted Kooser poem.) It was tough narrowing down which Jane Kenyon to post today. Maybe I can share more in future FreeVerse entries.

Ice Out

As late as yesterday ice preoccupied
the pond -- dark, half-melted, waterlogged.
Then it sank in the night, one piece,
taking winter with it. And afterward
everything seems simple and good.

All afternoon I lifted oak leaves
from the flowerbeds, and greeted
like friends the green-white crowns
of perennials. They have the tender,
unnerving beauty of a baby's head.

How I hated to come in! I've left
the windows open to hear the peepers'
wildly disproportionate cries.
Dinner is over, no one stirs. The dog
sighs, sneezes, and closes his eyes.

Hope Anita Smith

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My sister discovered this poet about a year ago and treated me to a copy of her book Mother Poems. All the poems in the collection revolve around a central theme: the death of a parent. Some are written from the viewpoint of a child, others as an adult thinking back on what was or could have been. All are heart-breakingly poignant.

Duped, which my sister featured on her blog last April, is my favorite. The one I've included here runs a close second.

Constructing Trees

Hope Anita Smith

I could feel it coming.

Like wild horses galloping toward water,

I could feel Christmas coming to me.

My mom and I would bring it

up from the basement.

Ornaments, holiday decorations, and

our tree,

lying dead in its coffin,

its epitaph on the lid.

No "R.I.P." here;

instead

"A.R.,"

"Assembly Required."

We grew our tree,

my mother and I,

from the base to the tree topper.

We raised the tall pole, and I held it

with two hands

while my mother wrestled

the green-tipped branches

into the green ring around the base,

and then we worked our way up,

matching the color tips to the ring colors

around the pole:

red, yellow, blue, black, brown, orange, white,

and another color that had long since

disappeared.

If we counted the rings,

our tree was nine years old.

It took some time, making a tree.

Every year, it got a little harder.

The colors became fainter.

But we didn't care.

I marveled that we were doing a thing

only God could do.

We were making a tree.

We dressed it in colored lights, ornaments,

and silver strands of tinsel.

When we were through,

we would stand back and admire it.

And right before our eyes,

like Geppetto's Pinocchio,

it became real.

I build trees all the time now.

Memory trees.

I start at the base,

my earliest memory,

and work my way up.

Hang moments with my mom in my mind.

Some of them real, some imagined.

All of them shining.

John Leax

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One of the fun things about participating in Cara's FreeVerse is getting to revisit poets and poems I've already shared, either here or on my previous blog.

I wrote about John Leax and his Tabloid News collection last April. You can click here to read a little more about both. Tabloid News is a very unusual book. The poems take several readings to appreciate and even then, probably don't appeal to some. I like to think that's the point of this exercise, though... introducing others to poetry they might never have experienced otherwise. Try this one on for size:

Baby Born with Antlers

John Leax

Might we assume that he is a he?
Perhaps not. The antlered whitetail
familiar to our autumn woods
is a buck, but the reindeer doe
is antlered into spring.
There is no absolute in nature
on which to ground our thought.

We may, however, assume the mother bore
her child in pain. Look at those things!
Eight points, a rack for Boone and Crockett.
Let's hope the antlers were soft
and malleable, floating like golden locks
during the passage down the dark canal,
only hardening at the shock of air.
Or perhaps the birth was breech.
Either way, we may assume the child
cried at the slap of birth. There's nothing
new in that, nothing to report. But did
the mother cry? What did she think
when the midwife placed the child,
wet and wriggling, in her arms?
Did she scream, blurt out, "Monster!"
and push the double-natured thing away?

I think not. I think she recognized
her image in its flesh and loved him,
though she'd no warning of how,
when she nursed, she'd have to guard
her eyes from the sudden lifting
of his head. I think, when she first
held him, tenderly exploring his small
body, her hand touched a tiny hoof-
a baby born with antlers
would have, at least, two hooves-
and she thought, almost absently,
that she would purchase him a flute.

FreeVerse - Ted Kooser

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A couple of years ago we were fortunate to have Ted Kooser, former U.S Poet Laureate, visit our town's community college as a guest speaker. The real bonus was a free poetry workshop with Mr. Kooser held earlier that day. A friend and I arrived early, anticipating a crowd. Unbelievably only ten other people showed up! We were embarassed at the turnout, but it ended up being to our advantage in that we enjoyed a more relaxed, informal workshop.

I love Ted Kooser's poetry and have several of his books. Here are a couple of my favorite poems from his Delights & Shadows collection.

A Jacquard Shawl

A pattern of curly acanthus leaves,
and woven into one corner
in blue block letters half an inch tall:
MADE FROM WOOL FROM SHEEP
KILLED BY DOGS. 1778.
As it is with jacquards,
the design reverses to gray on blue
when you turn it over,
and the words run backward
into the past. The rest of the story
lies somewhere between one side
and the other, woven into
the plane where the colors reverse:
the circling dogs, the terrified sheep,
the meadow stippled with blood,
and the weaver by lamplight
feeding what wool she was able to save
into the faintly bleating, barking loom.

Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement -
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart - is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on the chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Pam's Poetry

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Today I would like to share a few poems from my favorite poet, Pam Patterson. Her heartfelt writing is drawn from personal experience and never fails to speak to me. Could this be because she is my sister? Perhaps, but I prefer to think it's because she's an incredibly talented person. Judge for yourself with these selections from her chapbook Passages, published through Shadow Poetry.

Circles

Tomorrow my daughter turns nineteen.
A neophyte in the circles of women,
she advances with no pause or turn
to grasp for receding circles of childhood.
She did that last year.

This morning my brother announced
the birth of his second girl child.
I spoke to my six-year-old niece
who had wished for a sister.
One brother was more than enough.
Now she wants bunk beds, a toy box that locks.
She senses the price tags thumb tacked to wishes.

Over lunch, over the phone, my sister shared
the latest day smile and night tempest of her daughter,
three months old, the first child.
When my mother died my daughter was seven,
my sister only seventeen.
Her circles colliding, she turned around a woman
standing in a link where the child should have been.

Tonight I learn of a close friend's miscarriage,
of her brush with death during delicate surgery.
Mother and child, their circles colliding,
were linked for a heartbeat
while passing through twilight sleep.

I look out at the moon
drawn by the sway
as the circle flows into and out of itself.

Passages

As we lose the pieces of our past,

person by person,

as we cut the cords,

one by one,

of our invulnerability,

we are left to wobble

uncertainly

in the vast realization of our own mortality.

Unfinished Business

(For my mother)

I don't think you realized
the force of your words,
the power of negative thinking
that carried you through
until fate granted your wish.

The day the call came
saying you'd slipped away
I'd been watching sparrows
dive into the reflected world
of my windows,
stunned by the force of reality.
After Daddy died
you curled up inside him,
left us, except for your youngest,
her graduation your expiration date.

What of my son, first grandchild,
the one you clutched as your own,
who crept under the wing you spread?
He curled up in silence
when I told him you were gone.

What of the grandchildren who will know you
by photos and secondhand memories?
Three months ago I stood in for you,
held your youngest's first child
through her first night at home,
the warmth of new life against my cheek.
Feeling the tiny wings of her heartbeat
I thought of the sparrows
on the day of your death.

When the phone rang
I knew you were gone,
my sister's graduation
only days in the past.
How many times had your wish sliced our hearts?

The Cancer that severed Daddy
so suddenly from our lives
chewed up your body,
organ by organ,
spit you out of our world
right on schedule.

In that moment before flight
did you turn to confront the love
that couldn't hold you here?
When you severed the ties,
slipped out of your pain,
did you briefly pass through ours?

Dragonfly's Poetry and Prolixity

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I was in my 40s before I truly appreciated poetry. I always liked what my sister wrote, but that was because I could relate personally to her subject matter. It was through an online writing site she encouraged me to join that I discovered other poets whose writing I enjoyed. A few of these have become my friends and I would like to acknowledge one in particular.

Marion is passionate about poetry. Not only does she love poetry, she wants everyone else to love it, too! Her blog is a wonderful mixture of photographs, quotes and poems, poems, poems. She posts informative entries featuring her favorite poets and occasionally treats us to her own work, which is outstanding in its own right.

In honor of Cara's weekly FreeVerse (click on the FreeVerse button above to visit her site), check out Marion's blog for a delightful poetry experience.

Dragonfly's Poetry and Prolixity

FreeVerse at Ooh...Books!

Thanks to Petty Witter I discovered Cara over at Ooh...Books! She has an interesting post each Wednesday in which she shares poetry and invites others to do the same. Click here to read her introduction to FreeVerse.

I may not participate every week, but I think it's a great idea and will join in when I can. Check it out if you like poetry. Hey, check it out even if you don't... you never know when you might develop a taste for it!