A Poem For This Moment

[apoemforthismoment]

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Wine is bottled poetry.

[apoemforthismoment]

I call it prayer

If I wanted to make a picture of it for myself, it would be a wet sheet turning and flapping in a lovely wind and drying and sweetening the white. What happens is right for me, whether or not it is good.

[apoemforthismoment]

[apoemforthismoment]

Я не люблю —Владимир Высоцкий

Я не люблю фатального исхода.

От жизни никогда не устаю.

Я не люблю любое время года,

Когда веселых песен не пою.

Я не люблю открытого цинизма,

В восторженность не верю, и еще,

Когда чужой мои читает письма,

Заглядывая мне через плечо.

Я не люблю, когда наполовину

Или когда прервали разговор.

Я не люблю, когда стреляют в спину,

Я также против выстрелов в упор.

Я ненавижу сплетни в виде версий,

Червей сомненья, почестей иглу,

Или, когда все время против шерсти,

Или, когда железом по стеклу.

Я не люблю уверенности сытой,

Уж лучше пусть откажут тормоза!

Досадно мне, что слово «честь» забыто,

И что в чести наветы за глаза.

Когда я вижу сломанные крылья,

Нет жалости во мне и неспроста —

Я не люблю насилье и бессилье,

Вот только жаль распятого Христа.

Я не люблю себя, когда я трушу,

Досадно мне, когда невинных бьют,

Я не люблю, когда мне лезут в душу,

Тем более, когда в нее плюют.

Я не люблю манежи и арены,

На них мильон меняют по рублю,

Пусть впереди большие перемены,

Я это никогда не полюблю.

[apoemforthismoment]

Валентин Гафт

Домик движется на лапках,

Вся спина в сплошных заплатках.

Как из норки, торчит шейка,

Вся в чешуйках, словно змейка.

В этом костяном жилете

Не так страшно жить на свете.

Как погладить черепашку

Через толстую рубашку?

Если рядом ходит слоник,

Замирает этот домик.

Если встретит она друга,

Будет ей не до испуга.

Там под тяжестью щита

Сердце есть и теплота.

Черепахи не торопятся -

Не спеша в них мудрость копится.

Очень медленно ползут,

Словно тяжести везут.

Не спеши, если забудешь:

Тише едешь - дальше будешь.

[apoemforthismoment]

LITTLE DIALOGUE WITH THE MUSE - Marlyn Nelson

Out of its context, does the Self exist? Or are we merely products of our time, history, culture: born to pantomime stock roles as minor members of the cast of someone else's drama? Are we dressed in uniqueness, or are we all the same, each of us tricked out in a meaningless name? Once we're erased, how long will we be missed? How long remembered? You resemble clouds drifting across the pale blue atmosphere. Does what we've done survive, in a half-life of infinite decrease, perfect or flawed? Your work writes on the wind, "Kilroy was here." The signature of a November leaf. 🍂

[theyuniversity]

“Anadiplosis” is a rhetorical device in which the last word of a preceding line begins the next line.

In the picture, part of the lyrics to The Wanted’s “Glad You Came,” we can see this in action. 👍

Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook

[apoemforthismoment]

- Charles Bukowski

you haven't lived until you've been in a flophouse,

with nothing but one light bulb and 56 men

squeezed together on cots with everybody snoring at once

and some of those snores so deep and gross and unbelievable—

dark

snotty gross subhuman wheezings from hell itself.

your mind almost breaks under those death-like sounds

and the intermingling odors: hard unwashed socks pissed and shitted underwear

and over it all slowly circulating air

much like that emanating from uncovered garbage cans.

and those bodies in the dark

fat and thin and bent

some legless armless

some mindless

and worst of all:

the total absence of hope

it shrouds them

covers them totally.

it's not bearable.

you get up

go out

walk the streets

up and down sidewalks

past buildings

around the corner

and back up the same street

thinking:

those men were all children

once

what has happened to them?

and what has happened to me?

it's dark and cold

out here.

[apoemforthismoment]

- Осип Мандельштaм

Возьми на радость из моих ладоней

Немного солнца и немного меда,

Как нам велели пчелы Персефоны.

Не отвязать неприкрепленной лодки,

Не услыхать в меха обутой тени,

Не превозмочь в дремучей жизни страха.

Нам остаются только поцелуи,

Мохнатые, как маленькие пчелы,

Что умирают, вылетев из улья.

Они шуршат в прозрачных дебрях ночи,

Их родина — дремучий лес Тайгета,

Их пища — время, медуница, мята.

Возьми ж на радость дикий мой подарок —

Невзрачное сухое ожерелье

Из мертвых пчел, мед превративших в солнце.

[trushe-and-poetry]

Quotes that made me cry 🥲

[daydreamers-serene-musings]

"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."

--Robert Frost

[apoemforthismoment]

Just Like Heaven — Robert Smith

Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick

The one that makes me scream", she said

"The one that makes me laugh", she said

And threw her arms around my neck

Show me how you do it

And I promise you, I promise that

I'll run away with you

I'll run away with you

Spinning on that dizzy edge

Kissed her face and kissed her head

Dreamed of all the different ways

I had to make her glow

"Why are you so far away?", she said

"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you

That I'm in love with you?"

You-Soft and only

You- Lost and lonely

You- Strange as angels

Dancing in the deepest oceans

Twisting in the water

You're just like a dream

Daylight licked me into shape

I must've been asleep for days

And moving lips to breathe her name

I opened up my eyes

And found myself alone, alone

Alone above a raging sea

That stole the only girl I loved

And drowned her deep inside of me

[apoemforthismoment]

XVII (I do not love you) -Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep

[incidentalcomics]

Poetry Comics Month, Day 23: Found Lost Poem by Guest Artist Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is a children’s book author and illustrator and the creator of The Yarn podcast. Travis’s most recent picture book is JUST ONE FLAKE, about the quest to catch a perfect snowflake. He also wrote BLUE FLOATS AWAY, which I had the honor to illustrate. In addition to being a dynamic storyteller, Travis is a connector in the kid lit community and an enthusiastic supporter of children’s literature. Listen to his podcast, follow his blog 100 Scope Notes, and find his books at your favorite library or bookstore.

[apoemforthismoment]

- Kurt Vonnegut

… the Universe does not look like a lot of bright little dots to the creatures from Tralfamadore. The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti. And Tralfamadorians don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, either. They see them as great millepedes—“with babies’ legs at one end and old people’s legs at the other,”…

To me it’s poetry

[apoemforthismoment]

[apoemforthismoment]

Good Bones —MAGGIE SMITH

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.