Mirrors

Mirrors
by Tada Chimako

The mirror is always slightly taller than I
It laughs a moment after I laugh
Turning red as a boiled crab
I cut myself from the mirror with shears

*

When my lips draw close, the mirror clouds over
And I vanish behind my own sighs
Like an aristocrat hiding behind his crest
Or a gangster behind his tattoos

*

Oh traveler, go to Lacedaemon and say that in the mirror,
Graveyard of smiles, there is a single gravestone
Painted white, thick with makeup
Where the wind blows alone

This poem brings many different sentiments, times in history, images, and feelings all at once...A mirror is an interesting object to write about...it covers all manners of sins, doesn't it? It hides, conceals, covers, glosses over, magnifies, diminishes, and judges all at once...Very much a reflection of life in the full sense of the word, a true imitation of what's real.

Night Songs

Night Songs

by Thomas Kinsella

1

Now, as I sink in sleep,
My heart is cut down,
Nothing—poetry nor love—
Achieving.

*

Turns again in my room,
The crippled leopard.
Paw-pad, configured
Yellow light of his eyes,
Pass, repass, repass.
Quiet, my hand; he is tame.
Soon, while I dream, will step
And stir the sunken dawn.

2

Before I woke there entered in
A woman with a golden skin
That tangled with the light.
A tang of orchards climbed the stair
And dwindled in the waxen air,
Crisping the midnight,
And the white pillows of my bed
On apple-tasted darkness fed.
Weakened with appetite
Sleep broke like a dish wherein
A woman lay with golden skin.

We move on from our recurring summer theme to one that I like and think about quite frequently: dreams. Oddly enough, I also have a puzzle of a drawing/painting by this author, who I guess is also an artist? But I suppose that word covers all manners of sins of creativity, right? ;)

Part 1 seems to be when the author goes to sleep and begins the process of quieting his body and his mind. The 'hand' and 'leopard' refer to the author's constant need to write and compose during the day, which now at nighttime he must put to rest.

I suppose the 'woman with a golden skin' represents his wife or lover, someone to cause him to awake from his slumber. Or, it could be the 'golden' sun...rousing him from his sleepy state to again live in a world where his writing takes precedent before all other things. To begin the day is to begin the writing process; I think, ergo I write. Nighttime is for reflection, for free range of thoughts without control of the artist, the subconscious and creativity resting to begin another day...

Our Valley

Our Valley

by Philip Levine

We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.

You probably think I'm nuts saying the mountains
have no word for ocean, but if you live here
you begin to believe they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper and you can barely catch
your breath because you're thrilled and terrified.

You have to remember this isn't your land.
It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours. Remember the small boats
that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men
who carved a living from it only to find themselves
carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home,
so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,
wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

Summer continues to be a common theme these days...and no wonder! Many a poem are about the seasons, and especially in New England where the summer is so fleeting, we document it so often. But I'll take it!

Here the author expresses the power of the ocean's call - its voice, the breeze, the smell, the omnipotence of it all. A lot of people don't realize how magnificent the ocean really is - I am lucky enough to have lived in Massachusetts most of my life (except for college and studying abroad in Spain-yay!), so I guess sometimes I take the vastness and grandiose nature of the ocean for granted.

It also brings up the notion of the pilgrims and their first journey to the East Coast across the large Atlantic Ocean. They didn't realize the power of it, or the real trauma it can cause (e.g. Remember the small boat, that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men, who carved a living from it only to find themselves, carved down to nothing.) The ocean can encompass much more than just water and the creatures that inhabit within it - rather, it represents something larger than ourselves, a power of nature that we can't target or name or even overcome. The ocean will always be the ocean, and it will always have a hold over humans that we will never be able to match or grasp or really understand, no matter how far we develop technology or try to control Mother Earth as we like.

The Vision of Sir Launfal

from The Vision of Sir Launfal
by James Russell Lowell

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop over-fills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

This poem seems perfect for the occasion - Today, we were blessed with such a rare and pleasant summer New England day, which honestly we don't get too often. The perfect temperature, beautiful clouds, breathtaking sunset, clear skies, friendly people, happy children, ice cream cones aplenty, a calming breeze, flowers blooming, bees buzzing, grass swaying, buds ripening, the sun soaking everything in its path...

It's days like today that we begin to truly appreciate summer in all its splendor. Those cold bitter and harsh winter days leave us longing for times like these where we can have no worries and stay out late with the skies still bursting with purple, yellow, orange, pink, and blue...it's so calming and humbling and momentous all at once, sometimes I find myself feeling so small and insignificant in the world...after all, I'm just one creature on Earth, and days like these make me feel like it could swallow me whole in no time.

Bed in Summer

Bed in Summer

by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

I really like this poem - simple and sweet, just like summer. This season, especially in New England, goes by very fast and we often find ourselves staying up late when the light is still in the sky. The beautiful colors of summer (yellow, blue) make it hard to fall asleep when there's endless splendor all around us. The sun and the sky conjure the idea of everlasting peace and happiness here. Definitely makes me grateful for the lovely days on those cold winter nights...

Long live summer!! :)

Reprise

And day 3...

Reprise
by Deborah Brown

Better than a lover's heart, the immortality of a name.
Love versus Fama, the goddess, with her long purple nails,
her sweeping cloak, her memories of Caesar, Alexander,
the wolves on seven hills.

Even better than love, fame, for as long as there is illness.
I see that if I had discovered Cushing's disease,
I could have named it for myself.
It's hard to maintain desire, that's part of it.

But who first ate a grapefruit or tweezed a splinter
or waved across the pampas at someone else,
initiating the habit of the raised hand?
(If you don't wave two hands, there could still be a weapon.)

They're all forgotten, those heroes.
How much do we know of Cushing, or care?
What about Harvey, before whom our blood
traveled uncharted paths? Or so I was told
in seventh grade. I never wanted fame,
so back to love, the desire for love, the one
that costs everything, that shocks you
when someone else casts a shadow on the map
of the earth for the first time larger than your own.

This poem's a little tough to decipher today...it seems to me to have a couple different meanings. The poem appears to describe a journey of the author's main tenets in life that she sought - first love, then fame, then perhaps desire.

Illness and disease seem to be fairly prevalent in this poem...perhaps the author wishes to convey a sense of weakness to love and fame? To love is to let yourself be susceptible to rejection or hurt or loss; to have fame is fickle, to be constantly worrying about what others think of us and to save face...

Then the author touches on the aspect of names...this I believe is the main theme. A name survives longer than love, or fame, or desire, or diseases. She tells us that names are important clues to telling us about different times in life, different stories of those people for whom the disease or cloak or medical term was named after...The story is carefully hidden by the 'cloak' of the name, a simple yet opaque threshold one must cross to get to the deeper, truer, pure meaning of the word. Each name has a story behind it, and that is what ultimately lasts.

And as each name comes and goes, another is born - in essence, the cycle of life itself. After all, the title of the poem is 'Reprise', which in literature means 'the rewriting of another work', a return or recurrence. Names live forever, but can also be rewritten or repeated.

Mosul

Hi everyone, here's day 2:

Mosul by David Hernandez
The donkey. The donkey pulling the cart. The caravan of dust. The cart made of plywood, of crossbeam and junkyard tires. The donkey made of donkey. The long face. The long ears. The curled lashes. The obsidian eyes blinking in the dust. The cart rolling, cracking the knuckles of pebbles. The dust. The blanket over the cart. The hidden mortar shells. The veins of wires. The remote device. The red light. The donkey trotting. The blue sky. The rolling cart. The dust smudging the blue sky. The silent bell of the sun. The Humvee. The soldiers. The dust-colored uniforms. The boy from Montgomery, the boy from Little Falls. The donkey cart approaching. The dust. The laughter on their lips. The dust on their lips. The moment before the moment. The shockwave. The dust. The dust. The dust.

It seems like this poem is directed toward the war in Iraq/Middle East. The donkey in this case is a tired soldier, young in age but old in experience. The donkey is the man toiling in the desert sun and dust, trying to laugh with the boys and find some joy in the life they have in another foreign land, fighting. Joy and laughs in a world filled with hatred and fighting. A respite from the rough and tumble world.

The way he writes his poem - very muddled together and the sentences broken, botched and not organized any particular way, just going on and on...very similar to the style of a war and the people who fight it.

I like this poem - very relevant, well written, simple and easy to understand, yet complicated, full of heavy meaning and written in a style that mimics the man of war's experience. Well done.

Underworld

Today marks day 1 in my daily poetry chronicles called Poetry in Motion. Each day I will select one poem of the day and include my comments, thoughts, questions, ideas, and other such things about it below. I adore and encourage feedback, so please, comment away!

Underworld

The new and towering boy in outpatient
folds the lavish scaffold of himself
into a smallish chair as though

it were an ongoing task
to account for all his parts,
and he takes us in,

nods his smudge of beard
and smiles privately.
We've confirmed his expectations

—no malice or irony in it,
simply a kind of sweetness.
He's failed to kill himself

last weekend, and has landed
intact, marveling, interested,
his legs (I want to spell long

with two n's, as Milton spelled
dim with a double m
to intensify the gloom of hell)

craning into one another
then pushing his knees forward
into the speaking circle

where we weigh
ninety minutes
the tonnage of our shame,

the damage yours
only until exactly spoken.
Whose pain's not a common one?

And then the new man—
all of 22—stretches
his legs entirely forward

and catches my breath
with the name printed across
the tongues of his shoes:

OSIRIS, in bold letters,
maybe a brand too newly stylish
for me to have registered,

but the unlaced word prays
for us to just the right god:
Him torn to pieces,

each bit of His ruin picked up
each nearly unrecognizable
attended carried and mourned

and is it loved or willed
back into place: the man and boy's
body radiantly restored.

Or that's the hope he's poking
out at us, with his excellent shoes,
while we go on talking until lunchtime.

-Mark Doty

Here, we are taken into a world of one male, a reflection of his life, a slow and painful reliving process. The poem begins describing an old man in a wheelchair - he smiles at us, knowing that he tried and cannot die. As he smiles, he pushes his legs forward with his knees and extends his young, born-again legs, attached to shoes with the name 'Osiris' on them. This is very sly play on words, as that word is both a shoe brand and also the name of the Egyptian god of the afterlife and underworld, the very title of this poem. I believe the author is trying to tell us that man is made in God's image, he both lives and is reborn, touching but never truly entering the afterlife. It seems as though this author is telling us that we never really die no matter how much we try, for we seem to live on forever in some shape or form, in spirit and in body, in a literal and figurative sense. The timely feel of this poem suggests that life is short, as we look at this man and his life quickly, as it's over before lunchtime.

Take life by the horns, kids. Live it for it goes by in a blink of an eye.