Write one. A left poem, a center or middle poem or a right poem. Left Out to Dry. Stuck in the middle. Right Kind of Wrong. You know where to take it and make it sing.
PICKLED IN THE MIDDLEDrinking to excess
is not considered a success
if you can still stand,
or still stand still.
The difference between
falling and staying erect,
is just failing at being erect.
In the middle you're suspended
until you're upended.
Then the drink's on you!
(C) Walter J Wojtanik
Marie will be in the middle of nowhere this week as she and hubby Keith embark on their annual trek to their personal Mecca, the cabin in Hocking Hills. She may join us, internet connection permitting. Her escape is well deserved.
Well, I will have hit the road to head up to the North country to spend Thanksgiving with my daughter and son-in-law and his family. Haven’t been up in over a year and a half. So the car will be loaded up and I’ll be traveling.
Think of a mode of transportation and write it into a poem. Planes, trains and automobiles. Snow shoes, roller blades. Covered wagon (if you’ve got one). Head to your destination and tell us about it poetically. Even a garden cart to the back yard is going somewhere. Give us a view!
Four-wheeling across the state,
the slate is clear. I am here
steering this starship, hip
to the restrictions in place
to keep the world safe
from miniscule bacterium,
people staving I'm
with a smile hidden behind a mask.
The task not taken in 18 months.
Up to the Great White North
to spend Thanksgiving with
my daughter and her family.
Giving thanks for this gift!
It seems the paintings and works of artist Edward Hopper are great fodder to inspire other artists in their endeavors. We as poets have come across this from time to time. Many an Ekphrastic poem has sprung from these offerings. Some show the desolation of the human condition, or the interaction of the same.
Today I offer three such works for your poetic interpretation:
“Room in New York” by Edward Hopper
“Hotel By a Railroad” by Edward Hopper
“Sunday” by Edward Hopper
Each painting expresses something and it’s your job to relate what it says to you. Choose one and tell us what you see!
The man had many hang ups,
and this one will have him hung over
all day. Another Sunday with nary
a prayer on his lips, but plenty of
Jack Daniel’s on his breath.
He curses God for his lack of strength
in battling his demons, for they’ve
cost him his job and his family.
Responsibility was never his,
and he wasn’t laying claim to this.
On any given Sunday you’ll find him
pissing his life away; he thinks
he’s keeping his demons at bay.
Autumn is upon us and as the season takes hold we take comfort wherever we find it. It could be from a bowl of hot soup, it might be a warm blanket or a seat next to a warm fire. What is your comfort? We’re writing a comfort poem!
This week, the tables have been turned. Instead of me introducing you to new works by a previously lesser known poet, I have been taken to school on Wallace Stevens. I thank Daniel Paicopulos for steering us in Mr. Stevens direction.
More than any other modern poet, Stevens was concerned with the transformative power of the imagination. Composing poems on his way to and from the office and in the evenings, Stevens continued to spend his days behind a desk at the office, and led a quiet, uneventful life.
Though now considered one of the major American poets of the century, he did not receive widespread recognition until the publication of his Collected Poems, just a year before his death.
Stevens died in Hartford, Connecticut, on August 2, 1955.
Wallace Stevens – 1879-1955
THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
I chose this piece by Stevens for its study of a single simple subject. Keep this thought in mind as we near the next Sunday Seed! 😉 Walt.
Around these parts, today marks the first day of the new school year. And no more appropriate time to introduce a “School” poem and another obscure poet.
John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings, as well as his 1866 book Snow-Bound.
John Greenleaf Whittier – 1807-1892
IN SCHOOL-DAYS
By John Greenleaf WhittierStill sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sleeping;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry-vines are creeping.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep-scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!
Long years ago, a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.
For near it stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled;
His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and shame were mingled.
Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he lingered; ---
As restlessly her tiny hands
The blue-checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.
"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because,"---the brown eyes lower fell, ---
"Because, you see, I love you!"
Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her, because they love him.
Jack Kerouac, (1922-1969), was an American novelist, poet, and leader of the Beat movement. Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac. His most famous book, On the Road (1957), broadly influenced cultural perceptions before it was recognized for its literary merits. On the Road celebrated the spirit of its era.
While enrolled at Columbia University, Kerouac met two writers who would become lifelong friends: Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Together with Kerouac, they linked to the literary movement known as Beat, inspired by Herbert Huncke, a Times Square drifter. (Read: junkie, petty thief, hustler, and writer). It expressed a feeling of being “down-and-out”. Also, there is a sense of being beat down and therefore signified the bottom of the barrel (from a financial and an emotional point of view), but as well the utmost spiritual high.
Jack Kerouac was severely beaten in a drunken brawl and later died from the internal injuries suffered in the altercation.
Today, we vilify technology. We found some new gadgets made our lives better. But some were like opening Pandora’s Box. Think of some technological wonder of this modern age and then consider its predecessor. We want that poem. Write of an old technology as it was or as we remember it. Lift it up or paint it with a dour brush. Your cell phone is your old land line (still have one). A cassette or CD was your music player. We’re getting anachronistic of you. Today, everything old is still old but we’re resurrecting the idea of them. Write a new poem about an old thing!
MARIE’S OLD DAYS:
Milk Delivery
Back in the days of house-to-house milk delivery, Uncle Ray had the greatest technology: a horse-driven, refrigerated milk cart. The horse knew what she was doing. She would take Uncle Ray to the first home on the route. He would grab enough ice-cold milk from the cart for the next several homes. She would walk the cart to the spot where he would need to grab more milk, and wait there for him. Then along came even newer and greater technology: refrigerated delivery trucks. Unfortunately, Uncle Ray was not permitted to turn down the newer technology. Not only did it make his job harder, but he lost a dear friend and coworker.
Often new knowhow’s know how is negligible or nearly inept.
Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour.
Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s; he did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33.
Perhaps Cohen’s most famous song, “Hallelujah” was first released on his studio album Various Positions in 1984.
—***—
HEY THAT’S NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it’s come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.
I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time, walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me, it’s just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,
but let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.
Be it, the Heart of the Matter, or artichoke hearts. The heart as a vital organ, or a heart felt expression of something. I hope you ❤ this prompt. You’re not necessarily writing a “love” poem, but if that’s what’s in your heart, by all means, go for it. I ❤ Poetry!
MARIE’S HEART:
THE HEART OF AN OLYMPIAN
Dreams held within resist all hindrances, As though an iron breastplate shelters it. Equating fear and doubt as hidden sins, It will not recognize them, nor admit
Susceptibility may lie inside. It soundly strikes a metronome-like beat That pulses toward the goal that it has eyed, Where grueling pain and utter joy may meet.
But when a running water hose crimps tight, The urgent fix outweighs the aim at hand. The crimp must be relaxed … And this despite Whatever lofty plan was in demand.
Olympic hearts are human, in the end. They’ve earned soft hands to hold them as they mend.
The heart expresses all that its eyes can see; it is a voice that’s clear and speaks to all who wish to hear. So, do not close your mind to what is possible. It can be that a heart so blind will make love disappear. But pens that stroke in broad and heartfelt hues, will yield a master work in the words you choose.
