“Pilgrimage” by Keith Polette

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A Poem by Rumi

I called through your door.
“The mystics are gathering
in the street. Come out!”

“Leave me alone.
I’m sick.”

“I don’t care if you’re dead!
Jesus is here, and he wants
to resurrect somebody!”

Rumi, 12 c. Sufi mystic
(trans. Coleman Barks)

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“I Never Call Your Name” by Dulce Maria Loynaz

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Tea Light Candle

KAIROS Literary Magazine

by Ben von Jagow

The flame dances,
beckons like a siren.
Come tomorrow,
the moth’s final motive
can be found
fossilized in the wax.

---

Ben von Jagow is a writer and poet from Ottawa, Canada currently living in Denmark. His work has appeared in such literary journals as The Mindful Word, Maudlin House, and The Literary Review of Canada. For more of Ben’s work visit benvj.com or follow him on Instagram: @aquacondor.

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A Pledge

Mugilan Raju

I will clench onto her hands, like a lost child who has been found.

I will gaze at her face so intently till a crimson colour seeps into her veins, and races towards her cheeks.

I will draw that other half of her smile, the one she once lost among a sea of strangers.

I will fold my hands and turn it into a boat when she drowns.

I will draw a sun on days they don’t shine for her.

I will always be at the corner of her mind having a smoke puffing its wisps blurring out every other stranger trying to seduce her.

I will kiss her tears and promise to be her guardian angel for eternity.

I will hold her hand and play Hide & Seek with her demons till they are afraid of my light.

I will keep painting her into existence with my raw words…

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Farther #Poetry #AmWriting

Poems for Warriors

The farther we go
The harder it is
To rewrite the past

© 2018 Jason A. Muckley

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10 of the Best Simon Armitage Poems Everyone Should Read

… poems by the extraordinary Simon Armitage …

Interesting Literature

The best poems by Simon Armitage

Since his debut collection, Zoom!, appeared in 1989 when he was still in his mid-twenties, Simon Armitage has become one of the most feted, read, and studied contemporary English poets. His work combines wry colloquialism and humour with frequent poignancy, treating such perennial subjects as death, violence, and lost love with directness and wit. Below we’ve chosen ten of Simon Armitage’s best poems, though of course, any list is bound to be subjective to an extent. We’ve also been restricted a little by what Armitage poems have already been reproduced online elsewhere. But the ten poems below are all well worth reading, we maintain.

‘Poem’. People are complicated, and are often jumbles of contradictions, mixing good and bad elements. This is the essence of this understated poem by Armitage – understated to the point that it has a sort of ‘anti-title’…

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Cotton Nero A.x

Cotton_Nero_Ax_EBook

The works of the Pearl-Poet,
re-transcribed, re-traced, re-believed,
consisting of the following poems:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (David Hadbawnik)

Pearl (Daniel C. Remein)

Tidy (Chris Piuma)

Patience (Lisa Ampleman)

 

 

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Thoughts on Diamonds

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Agnus Dei: Lines from “Pearl”

Delit þe Lombe for to deuise

Wyth much meruayle in mynde went

Best wat3 he blyþest and moste to pryse

Þat euer I herde of speche spent

So worþly whyt wern wede3 hys

His loke3 symple, hymself so gent

Bot a wounde ful wyde and weete con wyse

Anende hys hert þur3 hyde torente

Of his quyte syde his blod outsprent

Alas, þo3t I, who did þat spyt

Ani breste for bale a3t haf forbrent

Er he þerto hade had delyt

To devise such delight the Lamb

went with much marvel in mind.

Best was he, happiest, and most to praise,

that ever I heard of in speech that was spent.

So worthily white were his clothes –

his looks simple, himself so noble.

But a very wide and wet wound could be seen

near his heart, torn through his skin.

From his white side his blood sprayed out.[i]

Alas, I thought, who did that spiteful deed?[ii]

Any breast for sorrow ought to have broken

before he had any delight from that.

(trans. Jane Beal)

[i]  This wound has its direct parallel in the piercing of Christ’s side on the cross.

[ii] It is significant that the Dreamer phrases this line as a question.  According to the gospels, historically, Christ’s side was pierced by a Roman soldier, but spiritually, according to Church doctrine, Christ’s sufferings on the Cross were caused by the sinful deeds of all humanity.

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Still Point

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“Ash Wednesday” by T.S. Eliot

THE POETRY PLACE

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the…

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“The Tree of Your Life” by Jane Beal

Deep roots, high branches

SANCTUARY POET

 My poem, “The Tree of Your Life,” now appears in Midwifery Today 120 (Winter 2016), 4.

POEM: 

The tree of your life
has deep roots in the earth
and branches sky-high:

like a mother’s placenta
imprinted dark red
on a white piece of paper –
like da Vinci’s Renaissance drawings of man:
a microcosm in the macrocosm
of the universe –
like an ancient parable of a mustard seed
that springs up into eternity
where souls, like birds, find their home.

Every green leaf of your tree
holds the veins of memory,
open and thriving with sap:

so that even when the leaf ages in autumn,
turns red, then golden, then brown,
and falls, crackling under careless feet,
a powerful wind comes and carries away
the precious molecules of your tree-dust,
in which every cell holds the DNA
of the past that fertilizes the future
and the new seeds, the…

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From the archives – Beyond All Bearing by Susan Delaney Spear

Beautiful in winter

Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY

Beyond All Bearing

In winter, when pines weary,
When aligned limbs quiver with longing,
And the ground moans under gravity’s weight,
It’s then, through the northern night
That concentric silver circles radiate
Like wind-borne waves racing shoreward,
Beautiful beyond all bearing.
. . . . . . . .Swifter still—
God speeds across the cosmos
Earthward, arms open wide.

from Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY, December 7, 2015 — by Susan Delaney Spear

photo by Christine Klocek-Lim

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“The Ladder of Contemplation” by Jane Beal

SANCTUARY POET

My poem, “The Ladder of Contemplation,” now appears in Literature Today 5 (2016), 27.

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! Genesis 28:12

---

THE LADDER OF CONTEMPLATION

Sometimes the total madness of being human
makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Like that acrobat-girl I saw on a Cirque du Soleil stage
in San Francisco: surrounded by smiling performers,
she could not pretend.

The ladders on that stage reached into the heights
of the circus tent, and men and women climbed them,
only to jump down, dancing in mid-air,
or bicycling upside down, or flipping and spinning
and landing, feet-first, on the trampoline

and bouncing back, reaching out to catch the ropes
swinging above their heads, like angels

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Poems by Daniel Kerdin

How Can It Be?

How can it be that you are there
Quiet, hidden and at peace
In the long still silence of the monastery cell
And then, joyful and clamorous
In the eternal songs
Of thunder, waterfall and fire?

How can it be
That, from the first beginnings and beyond,
Your gentle love
Fills to teeming fullness and repletion
The atom and the universe, unceasingly?

How can it be that you gaze
Upon my frailty
Only to love
So deeply what you see?

Daniel Kerdin
Of Poetry and God (2016)

L’Angélus de Millet

Conveyed there by an artist’s hand
In peasant garb, at harvest time,
A couple in the twilight stand
As church bells, in the distance, chime
And ring out to remind the pair
And others who are at their toil
That here and now is time for prayer
And time to leave the busy soil
And so the tools of work are laid
Aside, while labour turns to rest,
And there the Angelus is prayed
Her hands are joined, his cap is pressed
Against his breast, their heads are bowed
The sun sets silent as they say
The reverential words aloud
Which they repeat, this hour, each day:
An angel’s pledge do they avow?
Or does some grief inflame their prayer?
The basket holds its secret now
The unseen coffin, hidden there.

Daniel Kerdin
Of Poetry and God (2016)

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Seeing Things

The Brillantina Project

I see things
no one else sees:

seven seagulls swooping in a circle
over a city street –
the silhouette of rock dove landing on a rooftop
outlined on a plaster wall by the morning sunlight –
a truly tiny hummingbird holding still
in a pomelo tree under a canopy of green leaves.

I hear things
no one else hears:

like the sound of an unknown bird,
startled and crying, when my dog
dashes beyond the fence, searching,
and I can’t explain this moment
any more than I can stop myself from crying
for every man killed in Orlando last week.

Illuminate the eyes of my heart, O God,
and open the ears of my spirit.

---

Jane Beal, PhD

Jane Beal, PhD is the creator many poetry collections, including Sanctuary and Rising, as well as three recording projects: Songs from the Secret Life, Love-Song, and The Jazz Bird

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“He ido marcando” by Pablo Neruda

He ido marcando con cruces de fuego
el atlas blanco de tu cuerpo.
Mi boca era una araña que cruzaba escondiéndose.
En ti, detrás de ti, temerosa, sedienta.

Historias que contarte a la orilla del crepúsculo,
muñeca triste y dulce, para que no estuvieras triste.
Un cisne, un árbol, algo lejano y alegre.
El tiempo de las uvas, el tiempo maduro y frutal.

Yo que viví en un puerto desde donde te amaba.
La soledad cruzada de sueño y de silencio.
Acorralado entre el mar y la tristeza.
Callado, delirante, entre dos gondoleros inmóviles.

Entre los labios y la voz, algo se va muriendo.
Algo con alas de pájaro, algo de angustia y de olvido.
Así como las redes no retienen el agua.
Muñeca mía, apenas quedan gotas temblando.
Sin embargo, algo canta entre estas palabras fugaces.
Algo canta, algo sube hasta mi ávida boca.
Oh poder celebrarte con todas las palabras de alegría.
Cantar, arder, huir, como un campanario en las manos de un loco.
Triste ternura mía, qué te haces de repente?
Cuando he llegado al vértice más atrevido y frío
mi corazón se cierra como una flor nocturna.

Pablo Neruda

Lee todo en: Poema XIII de Pablo Neruda – He ido marcando con cruces de fuego… http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/poema-13.htm#ixzz4F4FUKyL0

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SAY III

BIRD-WATCHER'S DIARY

SPIRITUAL AVIARY
for the Year
Vol. III

June 2016

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“Ruth” by Thomas Hood

She stood breast high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripened; such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veiled a light,
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:

Sure, I said, heaven did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.

Thomas Hood

Marc Chagall
The Book of Ruth

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“Here is Love” by William Rees and William Williams

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting,
Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only
And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shalt be my glory,
Nothing in the world I see.
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me,
Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me
By Thy Spirit through Thy Word;
And Thy grace my need is meeting,
As I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring
Thy great love and power on me,
Without measure, full and boundless,
Drawing out my heart to Thee.

William Rees and William Williams
trans. William Edwards (19th c.)

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“The New Rule” by Rumi

It’s the old rule that drunks have to argue
and get into fights.
The lover is just as bad: he falls into a hole.
But down in that hole he finds something shining,
worth more than any amount of money or power.

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing,
falling up into the bowl of sky.
The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere.
Nothing else to do.

Here’s the new rule: break the wineglass,
and fall toward the Glassblower’s breath.

Rumi
Open Secret: Versions of Rumi
trans. John Moyne and Coleman Barks

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“Your Face in the Mirror” by Nika Fadul

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“I Want to Die While You Love Me” by Georgia Douglas Johnson

I want to die while you love me,  
  While yet you hold me fair,  
While laughter lies upon my lips  
  And lights are in my hair.  
  
I want to die while you love me,         
  And bear to that still bed,  
Your kisses turbulent, unspent  
  To warm me when I’m dead.  
  
I want to die while you love me  
  Oh, who would care to live         
Till love has nothing more to ask  
  And nothing more to give?  
  
I want to die while you love me  
  And never, never see  
The glory of this perfect day       
  Grow dim or cease to be!

Georgia Douglas Johnson

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