From One Book Lover

I include for your considerations one of my favorite poems. Every time I read it, I feel like it reveals one more wonderful image previously unnoticed. And yes, I include it every year. I shall continue to do so if I wish. It, simply, is that deserving. Visit Hedgehog Lover to enjoy a poem every day during National Poetry Month; however, I will post poems from time to time From One Book Lover during April. Poetry is that deserving. Thank you for reading it! XIII (Dedications) I know you are reading this poem late, before leaving your office of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean on a gray day of early spring, faint flakes driven across the plains' enormous spaces around you. I know you are reading this poem in a room where too much has happened for you to bear where the bedclothes lie in sta...

The seder's order The songs we join in are beeswax candles burning with no smoke a clean fire licking at the evening our voices small flames quivering. The songs string us like beads on the hour. The ritual is its own melody that leads us where we have gone before and hope to go again, the comfort of year after year. Order: we must touch each base of the haggadah as we pass, blessing, handwashing, dipping this and that. Voices half harmonize on the brukhahs. Dear faces like a multitude of moons hang over the table and the truest brief blessing: affection and peace that we make. by Marge Piercy , from The Crooked Inheritance courtesy The Poetry Foundation  Stop by Hedgehog Lover to get a poem a day during National Poetry Month!

My Yoko Ono Moment for Nick Twemlow It’s annoying how much junk mail comes through the slot & accumulates at the foot of the stairs mostly menus from restaurants in the neighborhood endlessly coming through the slot despite the sign we put on the door: No Advertisements No Solicitors One night I scoop up the whole pile on my way out (as I do periodically) & dump it in the trash can on the corner of West Broadway & Spring just as Yoko Ono happens to be strolling through SoHo with a male companion She watches me toss the menus then turns to her friend & says, “I guess no one reads those.” by David Trinidad courtesy poets.org  ...

I hope you've popped over to Hedgehog Lover, my other blog, for a poem a day during National Poetry Month.  Here is a poem from 365 Days Subway: Poems by New Yorkers. Be sure to visit that website — it's amazing. An Unexpected Poem: Jeremy S 4/5 to 42nd Street from Fulton, Aug. 1st, 2013 My daughter pointed out that he was eating something strange. I could see a food book tucked behind him. What an enthusiastic and kind person — a social worker for World Trade Center workers who have become ill. An unexpected poem In the morning Eating the husk cherries I bought the day before. Reading a book Expecting no one to notice Tuning out the crowds A moment – or a few – Of imagined quiet. Who knows where this will go? An unexpected poem, A chance to think. Courtesy  365 Day Subway: Poems by New Yorkers Note: In 365 Days Subway: Poems by New Yorkers , the blogger Madeliene who, whenever she rides the subway, asks a str...

Poem in your Pocket Day is April 24 — are you ready? Here's a poem that will fit in your pocket — and start looking for others! Long Island Sound I see it as it looked one afternoon In August,—by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown. The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon, A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon. The shining waters with pale currents strewn, The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove, The semi-circle of its dark, green grove. The luminous grasses, and the merry sun In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide, Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide, Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon. All these fair sounds and sights I made my own. — Emma Lazarus  Courtesy poets.org

Click here to go to Brain Pickings , where, as Maria Popova writes: In this exquisite reading from New York’s 92Y , the great James Earl Jones brings his formidable dramatic prowess to sections 6, 7, 17, 18, and 19, breathing explosive new life into Whitman’s timeless verses.  "Song of Myself" begins grandly, sweepingly and famously: I celebrate myself; And what I assume you shall assume; For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my Soul; I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass. Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes; I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it; The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless; It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it; I will go ...

Poetry I, too, dislike it. *** Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in *** it, after all, a place for the genuine. by Marianne Moore This is one published version of this poem — the version she preferred . How did it begin its published life? Read the other publi shed version here next week!

Poem in Your P ocket Day is April 18. Get ready by reading this tidbit, my personal favorite po cket poem. What's yours? Let m e know ! Small Frogs Killed On The Highway Still, I would leap too Into the light, If I had the chance. It is everything, the wet green stalk of the field On the other side of the road. They crouch there, too, faltering in terror And take strange wing. Many Of the dead never moved, but many Of the dead are alive forever in the split second Auto headlights more sudden Than their drivers know. The drivers burrow backward into dank pools Where nothing begets Nothing. Across the road, tadpoles are dancing On the quarter thumbnail Of the moon. They can't see, Not yet. by James Wright courtesy of  Poetryconnection.net

Beauty Beauty is seen In the sunlight, The trees, the birds, Corn growing and people working Or dancing for their harvest. Beauty is heard In the night, Wind sighing, rain falling, Or a singer chanting Anything in earnest. Beauty is in yourself. Good deeds, happy thoughts That repeat themselves In your dreams, In your work, And even in your rest. by E-Yeh-Shure' Thanks to Karen for sharing!  Have you sent me your favorite poem yet? What are you waiting for?

from Poetry in Motion (PIM) Hey, P oetry Lover! Yes, I mean you.  Just the other day, you came across that poem that surprised you, touched you, made you think. You might not have e ven meant to read poet ry, but there i t was, and there you were — moved. You wanted to remember it, share it, make sure others could feel that same way.  Maybe you clipped it out to stick in your wallet, use d it as a bookmark , st uck it on the fridge, pinned it to Pinterest. Maybe it was a song lyric , and you've bookmarked that video so you can watch it over and over. Now do one more thing with t hat wonderful poem: share it with me . I am always looking for gre at poems to share (and not just for National Poetry Mont h in April!) . Yours could be the o ne that changes a life, changes a mind, changes an attitude — like it did with you. I don't have to tell people the poem came from you, especially if you have a rep you want to upho ld. (We all do.)  Plus, you neve...

Courtesy of The Cat is on the Table

Last summer, I challenged readers to write a " burning house " poem: if your people and pets were safe, what would you rescue from your burning house? This was Stacy's poem, and I'm privileged to share it with you.   Pondering the Question I. If I had to leave my home? Evacuate. Flee before the flames, Retreat from the advancing wildfire. To preserve my life, my loved one’s lives. What would I take? What would be important to me? Too important to leave? I have been pondering the question. Thinking. Not of ID and insurance, Titles, deeds and bank documents. What possessions do I need? What material goods? What objects? What things? What stuff do I need from my life to continue that life? Well, obviously, I will need my computer, my phone. How could my life as I know it continue if I lose all of my electronic information? What else would I have to take? Photograp...

" It isn't going to a bed with a man that proves you're in love with him; it's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts."  After a Noisy Night             The man I love enters the kitchen with a groan, he just woke up, his hair a Rorschach test. A minty kiss, a hand on my neck, coffee, two percent milk, microwave. He collapses on a chair, stunned with sleep, yawns, groans again, complains about his dry sinuses and crusted nose.             I want to tell him how much he slept, how well, the cacophony of his snoring pumping in long wheezes and throttles—the debacle of rhythm—hours erratic with staccato of pants and puffs, crescendi of gulps, chokes, pectoral sputters and spits.             But the m...