Poem of the Day

January 26th, 2015-January 26th, 2016 Bridget L. Sellers Benjamin C. Liden

[poetry365days]

MY LEGACY My legacy -- What will it be? Flowers in spring, The cuckoo in summer, And the crimson maples Of autumn...

Taigu Ryokan

[poetry365days]

PRAYER 2 No one wants another paean to a rosy dawn, so it's good this one's bluish, baby-shade at the horizon, bleeding up into midnight like a botched dye job. And having enough of the old world—larks, crakes, nightingales, storks—this space is populated by one fly crabbing across a notebook page. He seems, like me, honey-slowed by winter's shortest days, clumsy and isolated. My love bought a black-and-white photo once, close-up of a birch trunk, fly crawling up the curled paper bark, marring the purity of the image. You don't notice the fly until you do, and then you can't stop. No one wants a fly in art, but there it is, elegantly framed. And we're over the epic, so here, first thing this morning, a pedestrian quarrel. Years ago, I flew across a mountain range in black coat and black boots to secretly meet him in the city. How many dawns did it take to arrive at this particular? At 9:30 the sky flares not like flame—a paper fan you buy in Chinatown for a dollar. A sudden breeze sways the Tibetan flags strung along the eaves. I never noticed how thin the fabric. You can see right through the printed prayers to the thermometer— five degrees—and beyond, birches leaning all to windward. Sun bleaches out the last mysterious. Now we pray to the real.                                                             —11.29.2012

Eva Saulitis

[poetry365days]

SONNET 55 Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. ’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.    So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

William Shakespeare

[poetry365days]

VERMEER As long as the woman from Rijksmuseum in painted silence and concentration day after day pours milk from the jug to the bowl, the World does not deserve the end of the world.

Wislawa Szymborska

[poetry365days]

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!” And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

[poetry365days]

BLIZZARD Snow: years of anger following hours that float idly down — the blizzard drifts its weight deeper and deeper for three days or sixty years, eh? Then the sun! a clutter of yellow and blue flakes — Hairy looking trees stand out in long alleys over a wild solitude. The man turns and there — his solitary track stretched out upon the world.

William Carlos Williams

[poetry365days]

SNOW DANCE FOR THE DEAD Dance, little children ... it is holy twilight . . . Have you hung paper flowers about the necks of the ikons? Dance soft . . . but very gaily ... on tip-toes like the snow. Spread your little pinafores And courtesy as the snow does . . . The snow that bends this way and that In silent salutation. Do not wait to warm your hands about the fires. Do not mind the rough licking of the wind. Dance forth into the shaggy night that shakes itself upon you. Dance beneath the Kremlin towers—golden In the royal Purple of the sky— But not there where the light is strongest . . . Bright hair is dazzling in the light. Dance in the dim violet places Where the snow throws out a faint lustre Like the lustre of dead faces . . . Snow downier than wild-geese feathers . . . Enough filling for five hundred pillows ... By the long deep trench of the dead. Bend, little children, To the rhythm of the snow That undulates this way and that In silver spirals. Cup your hands like tiny chalices . . . Let the flakes fill up the rosy Hollows of your palms And alight upon your hair, Like kisses that cling softly A moment and let go ... Like many kisses falling altogether . . . Quick . . . cool kisses.

Lola Ridge

[poetry365days]

I am Much Too Alone in this World I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone    enough to truly consecrate the hour. I am much too small in this world, yet not small    enough to be to you just object and thing, dark and smart. I want my free will and want it accompanying the path which leads to action; and want during times that beg questions, where something is up, to be among those in the know, or else be alone. I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection, never be blind or too old to uphold your weighty wavering reflection. I want to unfold. Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent; for there I would be dishonest, untrue. I want my conscience to be true before you; want to describe myself like a picture I observed for a long time, one close up, like a new word I learned and embraced, like the everyday jug, like my mother's face, like a ship that carried me along through the deadliest storm.

Rainer Maria Rilke

[poetry365days]

In this world we walk on the roof of hell, gazing at flowers.

Kobayashi Issa (translated by Robert Hass)

[poetry365days]

Take for example this: if to the colour of midnight to a more than darkness(which is myself and Paris and all things)the bright rain occurs deeply,beautifully and i(being at a window in this midnight)                      for no reason feel deeply completely conscious of the rain or rather Somebody who uses roofs and streets skilfully to make a possible and beautiful sound: if a(perhaps)clock strikes,in the alive coolness,very faintly and finally through altogether delicate gestures of rain a colour comes,which is morning,O do not wonder that (just at the edge of day)i surely make a millionth poem which will not wholly miss you;or if i certainly create,lady, one of the thousand selves who are your smile.

e.e. cummings

[poetry365days]

HAPPINESS So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy they aren't saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take each other's arm. It's early in the morning, and they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly. The sky is taking on light, though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute death and ambition, even love, doesn't enter into this. Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

Raymond Carver

[poetry365days]

ANSWERS I kept my answers small and kept them near; Big questions bruised my mind but still I let Small answers be a bullwark to my fear. The huge abstractions I kept from the light; Small things I handled and caressed and loved. I let the stars assume the whole of night. But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity Shouted to be acknowledged and believed. Even when all small answers build up to Protection of my spirit, still I hear Big answers striving for their overthrow. And all the great conclusions coming near.

Dame Edith Sitwell

[poetry365days]

DELERIUM The black snow runs down from the rooftops; A red finger dips into your brow; Blue snow flakes sink into the empty room, They are a lovers’ dying mirrors. Heavy and torn to pieces the mind muses, Follows the shadow in the mirror of blue snow flakes, The cold smile of a deceased harlot. The evening’s wind weeps in the scent of carnations.

Georg Trakl

[poetry365days]

WOMAN UNBORN I am not born as yet, five minutes before my birth.   I can still go back into my unbirth. Now it’s ten minutes before,   now, it’s one hour before birth.   I go back, I run into my minus life. I walk through my unbirth as in a tunnel   with bizarre perspectives. Ten years before, a hundred and fifty years before, I walk, my steps thump, a fantastic journey through epochs   in which there was no me. How long is my minus life, nonexistence so much resembles immortality. Here is Romanticism, where I could have been a spinster,   Here is the Renaissance, where I would have been an ugly and unloved wife of an evil husband, The Middle Ages, where I would have carried water in a tavern. I walk still further,   what an echo,   my steps thump through my minus life,   through the reverse of life.   I reach Adam and Eve, nothing is seen anymore, it’s dark. Now my nonexistence dies already with the trite death of mathematical fiction. As trite as the death of my existence would have been   had I been really born.

Anna Swir

[poetry365days]

JANUARY 1795 Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing, Lords in ermine, beggars freezing; Titled gluttons dainties carving, Genius in a garret starving. Lofty mansions, warm and spacious; Courtiers cringing and voracious; Misers scarce the wretched heeding; Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding. Wives who laugh at passive spouses; Theatres, and meeting-houses; Balls, where simp’ring misses languish; Hospitals, and groans of anguish. Arts and sciences bewailing; Commerce drooping, credit failing; Placemen mocking subjects loyal; Separations, weddings royal. Authors who can’t earn a dinner; Many a subtle rogue a winner; Fugitives for shelter seeking; Misers hoarding, tradesmen breaking. Taste and talents quite deserted; All the laws of truth perverted; Arrogance o’er merit soaring; Merit silently deploring. Ladies gambling night and morning; Fools the works of genius scorning; Ancient dames for girls mistaken, Youthful damsels quite forsaken. Some in luxury delighting; More in talking than in fighting; Lovers old, and beaux decrepid; Lordlings empty and insipid. Poets, painters, and musicians; Lawyers, doctors, politicians: Pamphlets, newspapers, and odes, Seeking fame by diff’rent roads. Gallant souls with empty purses; Gen’rals only fit for nurses; School-boys, smit with martial spirit, Taking place of vet’ran merit. Honest men who can’t get places, Knaves who shew unblushing faces; Ruin hasten’d, peace retarded; Candor spurn’d, and art rewarded.

Mary Robinson

[poetry365days]

SLEEP       I'm looking for a blue door,                    the knob palmed smooth, the rug             woven with an old woman's hair,                                            and in the corner something new      --a jar spilling cattail and wheat. Here our sleeps become confused                                            like moths in a room too full of light.                                                           What my palm dreams                               pours into your hip--your murmurings                                                             sap my shoulder                                                        until the arm is stiff                                            and gold all the way through. This drowse, our tongue       as soft and rasped as mulberries;                                              this sleep, a child's                                   hazed breath on the window,                                              her finger following                                                             the arc of her own name. I know what your body says in the raglush of morning:                                       it wants, and is owned by what it wants.                                       But here                                                  in this room of wan light and dream          there is a blue door opening,                         the body says palm, shoulder, yes.

Mary Crockett Hill

[poetry365days]

A JANUARY DANDELION All Nashville is a chill. And everywhere Like desert sand, when the winds blow, There is each moment sifted through the air, A powdered blast of January snow. O! thoughtless Dandelion, to be misled By a few warm days to leave thy natural bed, Was folly growth and blooming over soon. And yet, thou blasted yellow-coated gem, Full many a heart has but a common boon With thee, now freezing on thy slender stem. When the heart has bloomed by the touch of love’s warm breath Then left and chilling snow is sifted in, It still may beat but there is blast and death To all that blooming life that might have been.

George Marion McClellan