Rod McKuen

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Rod McKuen
And God gave me hope,
His presence, His guiding nudge,
help when I had none
a well of deep inner peace
reason enough to share Him.
.
D W Eldred
For Radnóti
(I wrote this poem for one of my favorite poet Miklós Radnóti. He was a Hungarian poet and wrote poems even in camps and on death marches. In 1944, at just age 35, too weak to continue, he was shot by Hungarian guards.His final verses, found in his pocket, remain among the most haunting in literature.)
Death kept circling around you,
such magnificent poems.
Your postcards reached me.
and yet you kept writing
I know they were not meant for me,
but—
I can hear it—the sounds of artillery coming from Bulgaria.
Even in this chaos, the one you were thinking of—
was it the same one
you wrote about in your poem, “In Your Arms”?
I can see myself among those burning houses and haystacks,
on the edge of that field, smoking pipe,
That little shepherd girl
who steps into the lake, making the water tremble;
those sheep gathered in the water;
the blood hanging from the oxen’s snouts;
the corpse beside which you lie fallen.
Der springt noch auf—
these words I hear clearly.
The blood has dried on my ear.
Was that fourth postcard truly your last poem?
Hungary—your home,
where, far away, the world of your childhood
still sways.
Are you still somewhere deep
among those silent stones?
I too do not know where the poet Mihály Vörösmarty lived.
I have not read a single one of his poems.
I cannot know.
But I can see—
locusts, oxen, church spires, gentle soft fields,
a trembling laborer afraid of his work,
forests, gardens filled with songs, vineyards, cemeteries,
and a small, very old woman
weeping as she walks among the graves.
Below, a lineman’s hut;
in the machine shed’s enclosure, a dog
rolling and playing.
I can feel the scorching air,
the house wall that has collapsed,
the plum tree that has broken.
You too were a poet.
Is that why they killed you?
Are you still composing poems down among the roots?
No rude devil can steal your poems and melodies
You are the poet everyone needs.
I want to write like you,
yet I will never be able to write like you.
Under the shadow of your poems,
I lie at night with my right hand beneath my head.
Tonight the moon is full in the sky.
Get up,my friend,
I am calling you.
Will you rise and walk again?
Maggie Smith
Diane M LeDuc
Day 30
Broken Kaleidoscope
Shards of glass
every where I turn
ghosts hover in the grey veil
memories race
reflections in a hall of mirrors
your profile caught in the edge
I see you there
and there
and there
everywhere
a single strand of hair caught in the fern
only visible in the sunlight of a January afternoon
snared in the corner of my eye
turning
turning
not finding you there
when will I quit bleeding
from a thousand cuts
of the memories of you
a broken kaleidoscope
scattered
across the floor
S-
……
Robert Yagley
but things i didn’t say,
they rotted inside me,
turned into poems.
i never wrote answers i never gave
versions of myself i buried alive;
because when i look into her eyes-hollows,
i would rather be misunderstood than deprived of drowning of them.
I would rather die in my gentleness than live always in your rage,
you don’t forget the first time your voice shakes and no one listens,
the first time you speak and someone calls ot too much,
or worse..
nothing at all.
The Creation
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely—
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!
Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That's good!
Then God himself stepped down—
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas—
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed—
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled—
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good!
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.
Then God sat down—
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.
James Weldon Johnson
Partterns
I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whale-bone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the splashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon—
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.
Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
“Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday sen’night.”
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
“Any answer, Madam,” said my footman.
“No,” l told him.
“See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer.”
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.
In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.”
Now he is dead.
In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?
Amy Lowell
Sorrow Shared Our Goodbyes
Sorrow shared our goodbyes that day then shed a tear and slowly walked away and you, you had somewhere else to be in a distant place far far away from me so you silently vanished into the mist hiding those eyes I had so often kissed the wind spoke of secrets I failed to learn then sadly whispered, she will not return I solemnly gazed at now darkening skies swearing love, flowers and everything dies I heard a sigh, yes sorrow was returning imploring me not to walk on bridges burning
As I flip through the pages,
That hold my memories of past,
I search through lines,
For I'm lost somewhere there,
I wonder to myslef,
If I'm looking at the right place,
But then I see it,
Your essence lingers every line,
In the margins and at the bottom,
From your name to your laughs,
From your shames to your crys,
And it took me a moment,
To understand that,
I flippers throught to pages,
That's hold my memories of past,
Searching for you.
I admit openly that I am tired, that often the world passes without my notice, that my ink has turned invisible, my language a mere desperate vying for sound; I admit that, somewhere, I hear the waves of unknown oceans break on shorelines I will never see. That I recognize what is impossible in my life: Dreams, travel, love’s bright-star. I can say that I bear it, this knowing, and that I recognize it briefly, from time to time, as a stranger amongst Loveless faces does. And that I do this because I must. I want to be real. And then not. Here, another twilight, absent of ceremony, passes as the wind does. Siteless and like a phantom, I am carved from my own wish for reaching.
Provoke Joy
the poet proposes
creative conundrums
suggests unorthodox
hypotheses & theories
asks indirect questions
that hit between the eyes
a visual arrow intended
to pierce critical targets
challenge the status quo
ask us to think differently
understand perspectives
unknown and unfamiliar
explore personal biases
reasons that we might
need to simply listen
stop all the noise
and let the art
speak aloud
provoke
joy
☆☆☆☆☆
©️ @followcb ☆ June 7, 2025