Category: Something Wise

Hope

Home / Something Wise / Hope
by gerryadmin

I’m not a fan of Emily Dickinson, but here you go:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Forgetfulness

Home / Something Wise / Forgetfulness
by gerryadmin

Continuing our poetic adventures of an uplifting nature, consider this on the perils of aging:

Forgetfulness

Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

 

The Mower

Home / Something Wise / The Mower
by gerryadmin

The Mower

Philip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,

Killed.  It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world

Unmendably.  Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind

While there is still time

Listen!

Home / Something Wise / Listen!
by gerryadmin

Listen!

Vladimir Mayakovsky 1914



Listen, 
if stars are lit

it means – there is someone who needs it.


It means – someone wants them to be,

that someone deems those specks of spit


magnificent.

And overwrought,


in the swirls of afternoon dust,


he bursts in on God,
 afraid he might be already late.

In tears,

he kisses God’s sinewy hand

and begs him to guarantee


that there will definitely be a star.

He swears


he won’t be able to stand that starless ordeal.


Later,

He wanders around, worried,


but outwardly calm.


And to everyone else, he says:

‘Now,

it’s all right.


You are no longer afraid,

are you?

‘
Listen,


if stars are lit,


it means – there is someone who needs it.

It means it is essential


that every evening 
at least one star should ascend


over the crest of the building.

 

Funeral Blues

Home / Something Wise / Funeral Blues
by gerryadmin

Funeral Blues

W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

For Life

Home / Something Wise / For Life
by gerryadmin

For life, larger music

    wilder laughter

       louder drums

  greater struggles

       shorter sorrows

    deeper passions

       stranger dreams

For freedom, brighter magic

    stronger witches

        endless nights

  unknown allies

        slower dances

    grand delusions

        deadly fights

For blood, more mysteries

    crueler tyrants

        harder choices

  faster rhythms

        higher voices

And if you’re like me, choose what remains,

    more fear

        deeper danger

  and death as the truest advisor.

Willis Eschenbach

Dane-geld

Home / Something Wise / Dane-geld
by gerryadmin

Let’s try some poetry of an uplifting nature this month.

Dane-geld

Rudyard Kipling

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,

    To call upon a neighbour and to say:—

“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,

    Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

    And the people who ask it explain

That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld

    And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,

    To puff and look important and to say:—

“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.

    We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

    But we’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

    You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

    For fear they should succumb and go astray,

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

    You will find it better policy to say:—

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

    No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

    And the nation that plays it is lost!”