THE BOOKS ARE WHISPERING:
FREE VERSE ABOUT TEACHING


1

Academies packed with scholars writing papers
have no clue what fortitude is required––what patience!––
to walk into an eighth-grade class and teach.
Matt Flynn in row one, seat one, sprawls his gangly height
as he slouches like a vacationer in his desk chair.
He waves a blank sheet in my face, smiles and says
defiantly for the benefit of his chick and the other chicks,
It’s all I have to bring today.

2

Objective: students will demonstrate their facility
with compositional work. Procedure: Write a story…
Remember as you pre-write, it is important to
love a life whose plot is simple.
Get to the point. Make your characters seem real.
Create a problem your antagonist must solve.
When I check out Janet’s “notes,” she hides them
under her textbook, blushes, bites down on her lip.

3

Write about your favorite comic book hero,
Deer staring at the first winter snow,
A dragon slayer who falls in love with a dragon.
Procedure: ask students to read their first sentences.
Strong enough? Attention getting? Focused?
Mat Flynn pantomimes a hunter using binoculars.
Good, Matt, I tell him, now write about it!
Eddy Morales socks his cousin Diego in the arm.

4

Work is love made visible
Anywhere in the world perhaps, but not
In this classroom with open windows
And spring interjecting its magic and pollen
While my students sniffle and sneeze
And Flynn wants to make it perfectly clear
Why he’s sitting there swatting imaginary flies:
All words hate his guts.

5

Objective: Have students work on their first drafts
beyond the opening sentence. Adequate details?
Clear description? Believable dialogue?
We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel
The satisfaction that comes with their discoveries.
Teachers with their lanterns leading the lost.
Perhaps a mind will open in this world
Of the classroom, I think a bit sarcastically.

6

Procedure: Read the class a poem by Whitman.
Discuss free verse. Ask about word choice.
Janet in the last seat, last row, asks if the poet
Is related to the people who make the candy
And is it really true some verses are free.
I tell them poems contain little galaxies.
They are serious teachers these poems.
Ain’t one teacher in the room enough? Asks Flynn.

7

A hand goes up. Georgette wants to read a poem,
Not Whitman’s. Hers. I will not refuse her.
The poem is all about looking forward to better days.
Georgette’s had a tough life. Her parents gave her up.
And I say to myself: That’s true, hope needs to be
Everybody’s poem. After she reads it, she gives it to me.
Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes.
Walt Whitman would be proud to hear this girl’s song!


8

Assignment: Write a poem of your own. Be original.
Don’t surf the net for somebody else’s or steal Georgette’s.
Let all your poems speak to us, let them all be
singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Matt Flynn raises his hand. You want music with that poem?
Even Morales finds that ridiculous. The class laughs.
Can I write the poem and strum my guitar? Flynn wants to know.
Again Morales: You need two hands to write poems!

9

Objective: Discuss the difference between science fiction
And fantasy. How are they similar? Where is the magic?
What opens the door to another world out there?
Procedure: Ask the students to talk about a movie
That might have been one or the other.
Dawn of the Dead, someone calls out. Hostel.
Thankful for some feedback, I welcome it
And I know somehow all will turn out well and I will
grow old though pleased with my memories.

10

Objective: To close the year with readings
From the class poetry and story anthology.
Even Matt Flynn has a good poem in the book
Though he laughs about it as he reads it,
I listen to them all. They make me proud
And deeply fill my heart with peace.
The books are whispering,
I tell them. Flynn holds the book against his ear.

#
© 2008 Salvatore Buttaci

Great poem, Salvatore!

For Those Who Came Before: A Cento

Black cat that will bring you luck,
aphrodisiac you’d love to suck.
I am a black woman, tall as a cypress, strong, beyond all definition
I am so perfect, so divine, so ethereal, so surreal
and
Nobody ever stops to think about my side of it.
So,
Remembering with twinkling and twinges
I stand up
Tell her glories with a faithful tongue
This woman, wet with wandering,
Reviving the beauty of forests and winds.
My grandmothers were strong;
They have many clean words to say.
Make room for me to lead you
beyond this rage of poetry.

Thanks to the wonderful work of poets Nikki Giovanni, Mari Evans, Lucille Clifton, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Phillis Wheatley, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, and Jessica Care Moore

Poetry of Heaven

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
The hillside’s dew-pearled
Lovely, lonesome, cool and green

Continuous as the stars shine
On chaliced flowers that lies;
While like the eagle free
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers

I listened motionless and still
Never saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.



Lord Byron, Robert Browning, Sir Walter Scott, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Allan Cunningham, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe

“In the greyness and drizzle of one despondent
dawn unstirred by harbingersof sunbreak,
“While I pondered, weak and weary, over many a
Quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
“Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore—
“The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
“And I will luve thee still, my dear,
“But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
“With no response to a friendly hail
In the silent hush of the twilight pale
“Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

“Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
“TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
“Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
“One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake...
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:
“If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

“And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve.

Many thanks to the following Poets in specific reference to their works (in order of appearance):
- 'Vultures' by Chinua Achebe
- 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe
- from 'Sonnets from the Portuguese', VI by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- '[The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy]' by Queen Elizabeth I
- 'A Red, Red Rose' by Robert Burns
- 'The Unknown Shore' by Elizabeth Clark Hardy
- 'Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey' by William Wordsworth
- 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost
- 'Do not go gentle' by Dylan Thomas
- 'Expostulation and Reply' by William Wordsworth
- 'If-' by Rudyard Kupling

And for my Attempt I present for you wonderment...

A Spider, an Old Gumbie Cat and Beautiful Soup

Will you walk into my parlour?
I have a Gumbie Cat in mind,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?

If you'll step in one moment, dear
Will you rest upon my little bed
And when all the family's in bed and asleep
With a purpose in life and a good deed to do
On whom well-ordered households depend, it appears

Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again.

Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?


An adaption from: The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt
The Old Gumbie Cat by T. S. Eliot
Beautiful Soup by Lewis Carrol

Remember 9-11

So God lifted His protective hand and let Satan have his way.
The evil fell from the skies and many thousands died that day.
As Satan watched his army strike, he couldn't help but laugh.
He'd horrified America and stopped the country in its path.

On a cool Tuesday morning a sleeping giant awoke
As the world's best-known towers went up in smoke.
Then without any warning, they came tumbling down,
The financial world had lost it's crown.

Still another of our landmarks was under attack.
One wing of the five spewing smoke thick and black.
Then panic set in from the east coast to the west.
Could we handle this incredible mess?

As the plane disappeared below floor 105,
The shake that ensued threw me down.
Explosions and screams broke the morning calm
These were foreign and unwelcome sounds.

Then outside my window on floor 105
A ball of fire blazed by in a flash.
My office went dark as black smoke filled the air
Then reality hit me at last

His plan seemed nearly perfect; the USA was on her knees.
Satan bellowed "No!" as America prayed, "God, help us, please."

Thank God for the willing
Freely choosing to serve
Proudly wearing the colors
Of America’s best
Thank God for the willing
Walking into harm’s way
Putting country over self
Standing up to the test

Unfortunately for the terrorists, their evil plan has sealed their own fate.
For they’ve slapped the face of freedom, and insulted us all with their hate.
We have come together like never before, with one goal that we must complete.
To eradicate terror all over the world, we will not allow freedom’s defeat.
This goal must be kept in our sights at all times, on our list it must be number one.
Because evil will fight all the way to the end, with no caring of how the job’s done.
America is united, and that way it must stay for as long as it takes to get through.
The world will soon know what true freedom is; true freedom is red, white and blue.


I skipped straight to the Cento from my own writings. These come from a few I wrote the week after the 911 attack on our nation.

Thine Eyes

The night has a thousand eyes
And will not let you sleep.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
For Fate with jealous eyes does see
To that fair hand that dried thy blubbered eyes,
I now remain, and all I see.

Laurie K.

I Was Wrong

About suffering they were never wrong,
mixing memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee.
From this day to the ending of the world,
Nothing will seem surprised or sad again

I don't like such things 'twixt those that love.
Two that don't love can't live together without them.
But two that do can't live together with them.
we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
Confluences come when they will and they go away.
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

Nancy Posey

Tears of God

It’s dark for the angels who inhabit this town
But God returns them on foot, light as the breeze
Darkly circled, a swan-like form
They are mute, each sequestered in hate
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space.

The river has started to freeze
All of the night is quite barred out
Except, feeling out of sight
The mad wind’s night-work
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes
Hunting wild with swiftness of the tigress
Where no wounds were and no blood reached
Shedding white rings of tumult, fraying strands
In the nightmare of the dark, sadder than waning moon
The stars are not wanted now; they crack like macadam
Put out every one – nothing now can ever come to good.

Those who court catastrophes, out of battle escaped
The dead dream clogged their chariot wheels
With miles to go and promises to keep
Chill from rippling rest, confused weeds and wounding tides
Nihilistic words in head, by mourning tongues
They stop dying in the little ways
Climbing their pain, one rung at a time
Pity war distilled; tear it from its roots
Though they go mad, they shall be sane.

S.E.Ingraham

We Real?

We real cool-zero at the bone,
bouncing from typewriter to piano.

Many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
encourages the writing of more poetry.

Brillig, and the slithy toves
to find out what it really means.

“Pipe a song about a lamb.”--
Fancy unto fancy, like shining into shook foil.

“Every Q needs a U,”
Quoth the Milwaukee-talkie.

Poetry fills me with joy,
and that has made all the difference.

The poets I used (in order) are Gwendolyn Brooks, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Edgar Allen Poe, Billy Collins, Lewis Carroll, Billy Collins, William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, Gerard Manley Hopkins,Ogden Nash, Edgar Allen Poe, Ogden Nash, Billy Collins, and Robert Frost.

Me and My Dad - A Cento

A drunken, vainglorious lout
Cruelty has a human heart
For miserable aims that end with self

Surprised with darkness
The girl has taken to cry a lot at night
From the second she opens her eyes
a shout and a cry
And the cold weight press wholly
The pulse that chokes from within
The heart stops
Too deeply to tell
I know I can’t be free
a broken-winged bird that cannot fly
The cry at the mouth of morn

Then on his hynt legs he says, ‘I bes walk tall Im No. 1 now’
I am the last word
Remember that I have done thee worthy service

Oh! hear a pensive prisoner’s prayer
Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me
That I may nod, my eyes glittering with dreams

She finally left her luxurious home; it was on a moonlit night
Praying and saying wild farewells
From Hell unto a high estate within the utmost Heaven
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free
love, sweetness, goodness
In the deserts of the heart let the healing fountain start

Returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood and tears
(Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in)

Daddy, I have had to kill you – you died before I had time

--------
Robert, this was grueling and incredibly satisfying. Some grief; letting go of a line meant letting go of the poet who birthed it. I used a different poet for almost every single line, and they are, in order, truly angels:

W.B. Yeats, Wm. Blake, TS Eliot, Wordsworth, Richard Brautigan. Kipling, Louise Bogan, Julia Ward Howe, Mary Jo Bang, Lord Byron, Johnny Cash, Langston Hughes, Joseph Campbell, Russell Hoban, Carl Sandberg, Shakespeare, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Psalms 4:1b (David), Paul Eldridge, Don Marquis, Robert Service, Poe, Wordsworth, John Milton, W.H. Auden, Allan Ginsberg, R. Frost, Sylvia Plath

My poem will also be reprinted on my blog,
http://poetmomskas.blogspot.com

Come over and please, please comment, all critiques welcome!

Beautiful uses of Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Cool," everyone. She was the only poet I love whom I could not find a place for.

Carla, sensual and fascinating. You are a powerful woman.

Nancy, your Auden was a lovely ending.

Mattos, thx for the complete references, and for good work.

Earl, I say this with love and respect, I hope your heart has mended; that intense anger reveal in your poem a big load to bear over many years.

Finally, Salvatore wins the Homeric Prize!!!!! Epic, a mighty work.

The poets I used and their work are as follows:
Anne Sexton:"Locked Doors","The Evil Seekers","Doctors","The Children","The Wall","The Fish that Walked" and, "The God-Monger".
Leonard Cohen:"Light as a Breeze"
John Greenleaf Whittier:"Snow-Bound:A Winter Idyl"
Ralph Waldo Emerson:"The Snow-Storm",and, "Days.
W.H.Auden:"In Memory of W.B.Yeats",and,"Stop All the Clocks".
Walt Whitman:"A Noiseless Patient Spider"
Edward Thomas:"The Owl"
Hart Crane:"To Brooklyn Bridge".
Martha Silano:"Harborview".
Sylvia Plath:"Ennui".
Robert Frost:"Stopping By Woods on Snowing Evening".
John Donne:"And Death Shall Have No Dominion".

Bless them all - their words inspire me still. I found I quite enjoyed this prompt Robert. And thank you for introducing us to Silano's work - what a find!
Sharon Ingraham

Amy,thanks for the love and respect, but I have no anger in my heart. I am a blue-blooded American Patriot who is sad about what's happening to this great country of our. God has been removed, Satan has filled the void, and we're on the path to our own destruction. My faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and my belief in the Bible keeps my heart full of love and hope. However, I cannot and will not stand silently by and let the lost drag us all to Hell with them. Instead, I will write what's on my mind and pray for those who so desperately need to turn to the Lord.

America is at a turning point in its history. This November the American people will speak and a new president will be elected. Who it will be is up in the air. Do we want the best man for America, or will we choose the sharp-dressed, annointed one? If we choose the latter, this may be the last free election we have. We'd better wake up now or we'll be living in a Socialist society, wondering where our freedoms went. Of course, our downfall will only bring us closer to the return of Christ. I hope we'll all be ready for that.

You see; no anger in my heart. Just love and concern for the greatest country that has ever existed on this earth. I want America to prosper and survive. I want us to put God back in His rightful place. I want a true Patriot in the White House. And I want everyone to love America again.

I know there are several poets in this forum who do not agree with my point of view, and that's all right. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. I have a lot of peace in my heart about the way I feel about things. I love America. I love the Lord. And I love my family. I hate Satan, all that he stands for and all that he's doing to ruin this nation.

I am a Patriot and I spent over 20 years in the military defending your right to believe what you want to believe, say what you want to say, and do what you want to do. Over the years I have learned to love all mankind, even those who hate me or want to kill me. I pray that even the most wicked will find Christ and walk the streets of Heaven with me some day.

I guess I've said enough. I just wanted to point out that there is no anger in my heart. I love you all.

Well Robert -I've been trying to find your poets but I'm stymied at a mere 8 and have deadlines to meet today so probably won't get back searching until tomorrow. Here's what I have so far:(in no particular order)

Robert Frost's,"The Road Not Taken"
Dylan Thomas',"Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night"
Walt Whitman's,"Song of Myself" (I forget which number)
Allen Ginsberg's,"Howl"
Emily Dickenson's,"Because We Could not Stop for Death".
Carl Sandburg's,"Chicago".
Gwendolyn Brook's,"We Real Cool"
Elizabeth Bishop,"The Fish"

I loved your poem incidentally; you set the bar very high.

Sharon Ingraham

First, Salvatore, your poem is wonderful. Sharon, you have done something wonderful there, with Tears of God, Earl "Remember 9-11" strikes a chord with me, being a New Yorker. I remember the Twin Towers, and how proudly they stood a testament to human achievement. I would take my students there annually. Everyone else has done wonderful stuff here on this one. I am still considering my approach to it. So, I may need some time on this one.

Rod.

Watching

It’s time for a change
to slow my thoughts
and I love November
for a landscape of love so vast
an energy, a liveliness,
brought tendrils of life.
Thankful today
someone says
“Look who’s coming home!

The poets I used are: Glanda, Earl, Eleanor Berry, Rosemary, Shana, Joseph Mills, Robert, Mike, Lee Tupman, Connie.

Sorry mine is late; I was away with no computer!


I built my house beside the wood
so I could hear you singing
and it was a sweet and it was good
and love was all beginning

Fare thee well my nightingale
`twas long ago I found you
Now all your songs of beauty fail
The forest closes `round you

Do animals cry like humans
as I having lost you
yowled flagged
curled in a ball

This is how
we beat the icy field
shoeless and empty-handed
hardly human at all


If today, I follow death
go down its trackless wastes,
salt my tongue on hardened tears
for my precious dear times waste
Race
along that promised cave in a headlong
deadlong
haste.
Will you
have
the
grace
to mourn for
me?

Forgot to cite my poets. They are: Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, and Maya Angelou

Earl - yeah, I am sure there are many disagreements on this forum. But we must learn to treat others with love and respect. You are extremely entrenched in your views, as am I. I'm also a former New Yorker (8 years, Manhattan) and remember the shock of seeing my old city devastated. I also remember that regular New Yorkers were never kinder to each other.

As far as the White House goes, I do believe we should keep the forum free of political rhetoric. This does not make me a bad American, so please don't think that way. Let's just talk poetry - and again, I was only concerned for your longlasting anger.

I wish you good things and great poetry to come! Peace to you and yours, Amy

Sara! You cited some kickass poets. I included Johnny Cash in my list of many classical poets - I was going to work in Ira Gershwin, but felt that, because of my subject matter, "Let's Call the whole thing off" was a little light-weight, LOL.

Nice, graceful. Do animals cry like humans? These things are so ethereal; it's why I love poetry. Good job!

Amy http://poetmomskas.blogspot.com come and play!

Collected Poem

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
I have not found a place so sweet
We thirst at first,—'t is Nature's act
But-
I am contented, for I know that Quiet.

Well said Amy - as a Unitarian Universalist, one of our guiding principles is to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person - I agree that learning to treat others with love and respect is well worth the effort and truly important. And for this forum, I also agree with you about the political rhetoric and do not think this makes you a bad anything. I tend to agree with Voltaire who said something like, "I may disagree with what you say but I will fight to the death so that you may say it." (that is very loosely paraphrased but you get the gist)

And Rodney - thanks for your kind words; they made my day...

Sharon Ingraham

Earl, that was very well stated. If you don't mind, I would love to use part (not allowed to mention Christ) in my classroom for my students. I would of course quote you as the author. I do believe you to be one of the few honestly remaining patriots in this once great country. While I have never served (turned down due to health reasons) I have tried to make this country better through the education of my many students over the years. When I come across something someone has stated that I believe will help my students, I like to bring the words to them. So that they may see through the eyes of others what patriotism means. As many of you may know I teach math to the 7th grade a turning point in their lives. My students for the most part come from welfare homes, projects etc. They live in a world that many of us could never dream of, nor conceive of. Most of them have a mother, no father, mom has the boyfriend of the week in and out. They see drugs, violence, and misery on a daily basis. So, their views of things like presidency and this country are tainted very tainted. I try to help them to understand, after all it's why I'm there. So, with your permission, I would like to take your words Earl, and make a nice poster out of them, and place it on my wall. Unfortunately I am not allowed to mention god in anyway. I would have to leave that out. :( As a god fearing Cristian myself, I understand the loss in that, but it's the law. For those of you who don't know much about me, I am a Jewish/native American. Though, my mother is Jewish, I believe in our lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Rod.

Btw, my list of 21 poets for my poem is (in order of appearance): Elizabeth Bishop, Kay Ryan, Lucille Clifton, William Faulkner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Christina Rossetti, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Ted Kooser, T.S. Eliot, Gwendolyn Brooks, Dylan Thomas.

12 men and 9 women from different time periods and backgrounds, yet their voices blend together so well. Maybe that's what makes their work timeless. :)

Night Dreams

When the night has come
We all want to change the world
You know they didn't even give us a chance.

People asking questions lost in confusion,
Temperature's rising
I wilt just like a fading flower,
Love is the answer and you know that for sure.

Yes is surrender you got to let it go
Don't need a sword to cut through flowers oh no, oh no
Imagine all the people
I hope someday you'll join us
But it takes so long, my lord

And it's true that it really only goes to show
You'll never know how much I really care
Every night when everybody has fun
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
what am I supposed to do?

I was feeling insecure
Nothing to kill or die for
Don't need a watch to waste your time oh no, oh no
Say a little prayer,
It's getting better and better,
Well we all shine on

Ev'ryone come on
Surely not to live in pain and fear
So keep on playing those mind games together
Even when I'm miles at sea,
My body is aching
My eyes are wide open
I'm just sitting here doing time,
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
And I do appreciate you being round. . .

©Rodney C. Walmer 8/01/08.Written for the Cento “Cut up Technique” Poem writing. All of
these poems come from Beatles, Lennon, McCartney, and George Harrison poems/lyrics.
Although, I have no idea what I have done here, I want to thank you, Robert, for making me
challenge myself once again.

Always, the Miracle, a cento

The eyes are
sunlight on a broken column

it is an ever-fixed mark
that looks on tempests and is never shaken;

it is the star to every wandering bark
At its freezing point wind shatters.

Easily as wind may lower and lift
the sight shakes us.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
stand still, yet we will make him run.


There is always, like this, the miracle. Then there is after.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain.


Carol A. Stephen
August 1, 2008

Thanks to:

TS Eliot, Will Shakespear, Kazim Ali, Maggie Schwed, Andrew Marvell, Brian Brodeur, Jenny Joseph

YEAH SHAKESPEARE I meant...332

Rodney? You have done magic, that's what you've done...
And Carol, you with your slippers going out in the rain - you take my breath away. Sharon

Amy - I am passionate, and sometimes passion can be misconstrued as anger. Nevertheless, mine is pure, patriotic, Christian passion. And, yes, I am firmly grounded in what I believe and why I believe. Nothing is more important to me than my Lord, my family, and my country.

Maybe we shouldn't discuss politics in a poetry forum, but why leave out such an important part of the American landscape? And, you, dear Amy, being a New Yorker, should be up in arms about what was done to that beautiful city. Your passion should be burning to make sure 9-11 never happens again anywhere on American soil. In my mind, 9-11 and politics go hand-in-hand, and that's why I have passion.

Please, believe me, I am not angry, but I am very, very passionate. If the voices of the passionate patriots are silenced, and that's the goal of the liberals, America will do down in flames. I just can't let that happen. I have to do my part. I wish every American would do their part.

And I'm not trying to be flippant with you. I respect your opinion and rather enjoy the discussion. Happy writing to you, and may God bless.

Rodney - Use whatever you want. I'd be honored to help out in any way I can. If you want, you can contact me by email and we'll open a dialog. I may have other writings that may help you teach.

Thank you Sharon, I am not so sure that I am very comfortable with the poem myself, but it is my first attempt at this format.

Thank you Earl, I will surly make a poster from your statement and hang it up in my classroom. :-) And, in ten years, I am certain my students will thank you as well. :-) Though, there has been occasion where I have made posters like this, and other teachers have wanted copies, do you mind if others want a copy?

Rod.

Rodney, I just sent you an email. Hope you get it.

Sharon, thank you for your kind words.

Earl, this is not the blog for that discussion (believe me, my rhetoric would be quite different if we were on a political blog, but we're not).

I am the wife of a pastor, and with all due respect, please do not tell me what I "should" be feeling. Each one of us has a heart, a way, and a voice. But we need to be sensitive and stay off the soapbox on these things.

Let's get back to work! You, too, Rod! Oh - visit my blog if you want to know how I really feel!! Love to all, Amy

Amy, I am very sorry. You are correct of course, we are here to write and enjoy each others poetry. I can only say, in my defense, that I am on a never ending search for material to use with my students, and I let that need run away with me in this situation. Please accept my apology.

Rod.

Sharon, I want to thank you once again, you have given me the courage to try one more in this format. I am thinking perhaps from some of my favorite country singers who have been the means of many of my inspirations.

Rod.

HI FOLKS! I’m back. Back from vacation, back from the dead (nearly drowned rafting!).
I’ve posted a vacation poem in its rightful place & will try and catch up with rest asap.
Belated happy burpday to Robert and good poeming everyone!

Prompt: a Cento

Death runs in the family.


Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn
The evening advances and withdraws again.
Without you every morning would be like
going back to work after a holiday.
Late August, given heavy rain and sun.

Time was away and somewhere else.
Even so distant I can taste the grief.
I sat all morning in the college sickbay,
Though my mother was already two years dead.
She died in the upstairs bedroom

My father worked with a horse-plough
Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed
The day he moved out was terrible
Barely a twelvemonth after.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

The bells of waiting advent ring
all the way to the hospital.
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped.
“Let me die a youngman’s death…
…once I am sure there is nothing going on.”

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
In valleys green and still.
Into my heart an air that kills
“Is there anybody there?” said the traveller
Nobody heard him, the dead man.

Calm is the landscape when the storm has passed
I have seen the sun break through
I think continually of those who were truly great
I know I shall meet my fate
and not waving but drowning



I chose to use the index of first lines from the anthology: The Nation’s Favourite 20C Poems (UK) that was published as a result of a TV poll by the BBC in 1999. The lines are all first lines except one which is a last line (the last line!) It was an interesting way to go about it and I think it almost works.
Poets selected are (in order) Sir John Betjeman (3), Hugo Williams, Adrian Henri, Seamus Heaney (3), Louis Macniece, Phillip Larkin (3), Tony Harrison, R.S. Thomas (2), Wendy Cope, Edwin Muir, John Stallworthy, Siegfried Sassoon, Roger McGough, John McCrae, A.E. Houseman (2), Walter de la Mare, Stevie Smith (2), Stephen Spender and W.B.Yeats.


Iain

Welcome back Iain and not a moment too soon - as you can see, the natives are restless, the peasants revolting (yes, aren't they just?)...love your poem incidentally, especially the last line, also a favourite of mine and one of my secret fears; to be drowning, calling for help and taken for waving, not drowning (I actually know of someone this happened to...perhaps that accounts for my somewhat irrational paranoia in this regard.)

And Amy, bless you - I had about bitten my tongue clean off trying to keep quiet about this whole political rhetoric thing (laced through pretty heavily with some religious rhetoric, it seems to me) and you said what needed to be said in the nicest way possible.

I don't know if I've mentioned it on here or not, but the church I attend, the Unitarian Universalists, were the target of a man who hates us because of what he sees as our "liberal" ideas, about a week ago. He went into the church in Tennessee and opened fire during a children's concert, wounding over half a dozen people and killing two congregants that stepped in front of kids to keep them from getting killed.

How liberal are we? Well - we were instrumental in getting both women and blacks the vote, and we believe that everyone should have the right to believe in whatever religion they choose. That's just for starters. There is nothing about us that warrants getting shot, I don't think, and even though I'm a Canadian, I can vouch for the American Unitarians when I say they are as kind and compassionate a group of souls as you'll ever meet. We just don't think anyone has the right to tell anyone else what to believe and how to think.

Whew - I'm sorry - I didn't mean to go off like that, but as you can probably tell, this shooting has really hit me where I live. And I don't even live stateside, as I said.

I'll jump down off my soapbox now and get back to the poetry.

Peace,
Sharon

Yeee-Hah!
Yes sireee Sharon, Lil Red is back and hell I JUST damned near died o' drownin' & i see the it how tis cos they aint natives they is just mad peeple gettin madder all the while cos they they got a B-lack man gonna be P-resident & real soon. Now don't get me started, this be all 'bout pootree and we gonna forgit how the FBI file on Phil Ochs was just 13 inches thick and how all he did was tell the truth.
" Oh say can you see how the White House screwed me..."

Y'all kiss my star spangled Whoo-hah while I sing "Kick it Cajun style..."

Dance-toi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Da Rooster is crowin'

Nuff said!

IDK

Iain, your arrival is well timed. As Sharon has, please visit my website, poetmomskas.blogspot.com

Iain and Sharon:

I do believe you will find the Poem du Jour (written in response to prayer about the weird turn this blog made since last Weds.) to be of par-TIC-ular interest!!

Yeah, I have an FBI file too, for minor stuff like going toe-to-toe with SS (oops, I mean Secret Service) during a Cheney protest in Buffalo, being an environmentalist (or "eco-terrorist," even though I am non-violent), etc. All in the name of justice per my Congregationalist roots (Sharon, we should talk!)

Peace and love to all, Amy (momskas)

Great to see your back lain, your poem "Death Runs in The Family" is very moving. I have read it several times since you have posted it. It seems I am finding something new about it, each time I read the poem. Great to have you back with us my friend, glad you survived those rapids. Betcha they were fun.

Rod.

This is completely off topic and a non-sequiter if ever there was one but I am trying to find the Elizabeth, who, back in April when we were all busily penning our poems-a-day, recommended the book, "The Poet's Companion". I have been trying to find it ever since and was lucky enough to finally purchase a copy in Victoria B.C. when I was there on vacation a week or so ago. So - to Elizabeth whomever, thank you, thank you, thank you, - it is everything you said it would be and I'm glad I took the trouble to hunt down a copy. Sharon I. (if anyone knows the person in question and they are no longer on this site, please drop me an e-mail, so I can get in touch - thx)

Listening for an Answer

And I think of whispering prayers, the something
that I asked of you once in that worn out orchard to assure
myself that you were real and how I do not remember
what I asked, but how I took that hard green bud, knot of a
single peach, for your answer. And tonight I remember
where I am visiting old Florida friends where I will sleep
sound in their big quilted bed, back in the arms of
belief where gentleness flows down…

where I hear “Don’t try to end it. Be your note. I’ll show
you how it is enough… sing loud! How in the morning as I
walked along the lakeshore I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under
the dinning room table

earlier as I walked along the lakeshore I fell in love with
a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped
under the dinning room table. And how earlier
shipping oars, my own wake rocked me into shore, here
where birds have not yet returned though here and there
a banana shoot, a foot of two of cane like green ribbons
in the distance

where in the afternoon I found myself standing at the
bathroom sink gazing down affectionately at the soap, so
patient and soluble, so at home it is pale green soap dish
I can hear my breathing. I can hear the lateness of the hour
by what isn’t moving. The wind gone now
Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come. Some things that
don’t happen keep disasters from happening

and yet I think about this man, about his question
about how the whole world carried me today
and how I think that I’m in love with soap…

Poem written using lines from the following:
(Rumi –The Essential Rumi)
(Jim Kacian – Dust of Summers)
(Lavonne J Adams – In the Shadow of the Mountain)
(Pat Schneider – Another River)
(Billy Collins – Nine Horses)
(Stephen Dunn –New and Selected Poems)
(Robert Morgan – Cold Mountain Review)
(David Manning – The Flower Sermon)

"For the Child in Us"

I know you won’t believe me,
When the golden day is done,
My friends think I’m loony.
With Robert Bruce and William Tell,
The moon is our lantern, the stars are our guide,
Till morning in the land of nod.
I’m appearing out of nowhere,
Down by a shining water well,
The dragon burned my homework.

(This one was tough for me – I have favorite authors and poets but I do not have great memory retention – so I picked one old favorite and one new favorite and read their poetry until I could find some lines I liked. The poets are Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack Prelutsky.)

My demise

I meant not to demonize
Or criticize
Or proselytize
My intent was to advise
Not chastise
Or baptize
With my attempt to Christianize
And Americanize
And militarize
Instead my verbal exercise
Disenfranchised
Those who poetize
For that I apologize

Ah Earl,
After all of our many outcries
Your last poem was sure a surprise
I'm sorry if my big mouth was out-sized
But glad to know your heart's full-size.
Sharon I
(sorry for the pitiful rhyme - yours rocks - it's late here and I wanted to reply before I turned out the light..)

Nice one Earl!

Thanks Rod, Sharon & Amy

Iain

Cento Australiana

I love a sunburnt country.
On her dark breast we spring like points of light,
morning’s first colour, curving to day’s end

the children screaming at the water’s edge with seagulls,
hearing the birds’ ancestral incantations
among the arid relics of old tide patterns.

Sometimes when summer is over the land
the harbour breaks up in thunders of sunlight
and a steep blue sky

as I feel the weight of light begin to bleach my feet
where seagulls rode upon the foam
and the hawk in the high sky hung.

January heat. Raw saplings stand like cattle
at high voltage summer noon.
Flies multiply in the heat.

The scrub is thick in the gully
with graceful curves of dried up streams,
lantana green smell on your hands.

Look at the sky! It’s ‘trying’ to rain;
this desert, blinding, unnamed
leaving us undefended as the stars.

Red rock forms sheltering walls
by a ring of worn river stones,
lightning-gutted remnants.

Walk into the memory of rain
the dream of grass
the glint of fronds and blades in the light

this hushed sun-haze morning,
turning over wet leaves with my walking stick;
green leaves – a patch of world along a river.

Because a little vagrant wind veered south from China Sea
slow drops of rain began to fall; the wind
suspended in the amber sky.

The moon had rippled past the hotel glass
and suddenly there was a presence.
Sniff the bougainvillea and you’re in the south pacific again the purple islands.

The East wind sucks itself along sea shelves
it blows all summer long like a bellows
great murmur of rain spreading over suburbs and into the hills.

At night, in each other’s arms, we touch the sun . . .
watching the rocks bleed lichen onto the snow.
I am rested and walk away, into the rolling dunes.

5/8/08

Australian poets:

Dorothea Mackellar
Judith Wright
Joyce Lee
Rosemary Dobson
Gwen Harwood
Bev Roberts
Bruce Dawe
Vincent Buckley
Rod Moran
Jennifer Rankin
Kristin Henry
Dorothy Hewett
Les Murray
Dorothy Porter
Tony Page
Barbara Giles
Michael Leunig
Chris Mansell
Susan Hampton
Barrett Reid
Shelton Lea
Wendy Poussard
Mal Morgan
Gary Catalano
Katherine Gallagher
Jennie Fraine
Roland Robinson
Philip Martin
Liz Hall-Downs
John Shaw Neilson
C.J. Dennis
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
David Campbell
Pi O
John Kinsella
Michael Dransfield
Maie Casey
Bridget Porter Oldale
Judith Rodriguez
David Malouf
Doris Leadbetter
Jenny Boult (aka M.M. Bliss)

Awesome idea, Rosemary, to have all Australian poets!!!

What a great idea Rosemary! I confess, I thought Canada only had about two dozen poets - colour my face crimson to discover we have close to 200 - of course that inspired me to try another cento.

Accept the Shadows

Caught in common places
What madness is it that hurls me
Wakes the lonely echoes round
From the ancient heart of the deep
Shimmers in the pale sky
Using the wind, pretends to catch fire

Though my mind knows
The world is made forever
Dear lines that map the nation
Or so you suspected, alone in your house
The road, like poem progresses
Slammed into a universe of spiralled pearl

Something is eating away at me
An endless song about going down
Like a magnet of blood sealed from sun
To rest on my dark pools its breathless enveloping
Your fair innocence to my guilt

Lay down the shape about someone’s insides
I suspect there’s a secret society, the opalescent model
Judiciously brightening skies, helping losers to sail away
Through particular landscapes, beat to hell
The scrabble of minute claws, they broke on the palate
Where we tried to live as the splendid wolf
Supped the sacrament of death, and we love it

By my own embers, so I am aware of it only
Over sand I move silently, spared pain and unnecessary grief
Dawn winds whisper between the hedges and the town
Thick-perfumed and luxurious
Immortal beauty in her breathless flight
I told her rather cruelly, dangling from the swing
Just to rest and forget, slumber with lure of an out-lived mirth

The collective dream slept into knowledge
The close watching of abrupt birth
How brief their day beneath our five year moon
This is a cold country and there is nothing here
The lessons of pain; a code we have not learned to decipher
Spin towards the horizon using the wind to set course

A cradle of lines dreamed in fear,
drooped in prosperous curves
I pray the world believe me,
life is caught inside our cheated hearts
How long was he standing there,
all thunder-winged, trying to be brave
Cradled is he, half-naked and grimed;
our little sphere is crying for her father
That raw desire was a wound of might,
the kind who wore a bruised suit
Torn jagged open, a relationship
with light is necessary

We miss the messages written in places
Necessary to reserve a secret vice
When I am dead, the pint-sized coffin
Shall fly over me, the miniature jaws open
The shout of triumph in their throat
It follows rules of even rows,
Hand of faith upon my fears
Bear with me, bear with me
Give my emotions an animal’s name
Tuck it all up, I’ve done their desire
To symmetry and rhyme, these fleet halcyon days
Keep our steps in balance, comfort cloak us.

S.E.Ingraham

The Canadian Poets cited:

Bliss Carmen: Earth Voices, A Mountain Gateway, Garden Shadows, Tent of Noon
Charles G.D.Roberts: Cambrai and Marne
Isabella Valancy Crawford: Songs for Soldiers
Margaret Atwood: In the Secular Night
Earle Birney: My Love is Young
Leonard Cohen: I Left A Woman Waiting
Susan Musgrave: Things That Keep and Do Not Change, The Moment, The Laughter in the Kitchen
Shirley A. Serviss: Learning to Read
L.M.Montgomery: A Request
Susanna Moodie: The Dying Hunter to his Dog
Marjorie Pickthall: Marching Men, The Lamp of Poor Souls
Robert W. Service: The Song of the Wage-Slave
*Candas Jane Dorsey:tear, right this way, Visibility, Right This Way, chain reaction, you among the orchids, till you come face to face and recognize you, celestial events
Alice Major: Symmetries of dilation, The moon of magpies quarrelling
Gwendolyn MacEwen:Memoirs of a Mad Cook
P.K.Page: Your Hand Once...
Al Purdy: Separation
F.R.Scott: North Stream
A.J.M.Smith: For Healing
Phyllis Webb: Eschatology of Spring
Ralph Gustafson: The Trail Under Mount Michael
Irving Layton: I Would For Your Sake Be Gentle
John Newlove: That's the Way Everything Is
Alden Nowlan: For Claudine Because I Love Her
Michael Ondaatje: Bearhug

*should probably mention, I had the pleasure of learning under Candas Jane Dorsey who is both a formidable novelist and poet;one of Canada's unsung heroes

Sorry it took me so long to go back and find the poets I cited, It's been a lesson to me (I should have taken the extra time when I was writing down the lines, to put the poet with it).

Here they are: W. H. Auden, Francis Willialm Bourdillon, Thomas Carew, Andrew Marvell, Katherine Philips, William Butler Yeats and anonymous. These poems all came from a collection of "Love Poems," by David Stanford Burr.

Laurie K.

THANKS, Sharon, hope you got your breath back by now.
I betcha Canada has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy more than 200 poets...I think there are that many here in Ottawa alone, but I do remember Bliss Carman from school, lo those many years ago...
of course, not all are well-known :)

Rosemary, loved your all-Australia cento!

I really enjoyed this exercise, and will try it again when my monthend work is done. Taking a week off to do nothing except poetry.

Ooh, I loved the Canadian lines too! Yes, I also bet you have many more than 200. I knew a few of the names.

I always think our wonderful Aussie poets are too little known in the rest of the world, so couldn't waste such an opportunity. :)

And Emily, what a sweet idea to use lines by some of us!

I do this technique all the time!
It is one of my favorite approaches to writing poetry.

I have always wondered what the etiquette is on publishing a poem like this.

Do we need to credit authors? How many words is too many when 'borrowing' anothers line?

Happiness

White cherry petals fall like snowflakes
The scent like a light powdered kiss
Hummmmmming, swinging my legs and streaching my toes
I’m sifting the ocean for my peace of mind
Into waves of summer yawns

My memory peopled with silhouettes
And delicacy swung between horizon
Lost with the memory of a thousand ships
The wife of peter-peter I play and dance in the sun

The shores of pain have sudden, swift, uneasy shallows
I stand my mind in pendulum swing
Enraputred, I follow the intricate paths
Imperceptible silence
A vampire at the neck

The delicate mechanism reacts
Pleasant narcotic sublimating thoughts with pain
Starshadow makes them mad
Set to hack and hew complacency

The cloud? It seeks the butterfly
Which, wings folded, lies on the cold ground
Come, take my soul, if that is what you want, if this is, you dare

But something more secret
Perhaps I was condemned to be happy
Yet I too trod the well worn track of life
Without a backward glance for those behind

Poets and Poems used:
Mercia Allen - Trauma; Margaret Allison - Regret; Pamela Cocalbola Brown - Paranoia; Joanne Burns - Transformer; Candance Cambourne - Prisoner; Angela Catterns - Bus; Peggy Clarke - Untitled; Janet Collins - Untitled; Lynmore Dover - Untitled; Lindsay Dyson - When the Children Leave; Anne Elder - At Ballindean; Debbie Penny - Pumpkin; Pixie O'Harris - Helen; Kay Ogg - Untitled; Audrey Longbottom - Augury; Margaret Kilpatrick - Cobwebs; Shinikichi Takahashi - Horse; The Cloud and the Butterfly; Pablo Neruda - October Fullness; Ode to the Smell of Firewood.

The Reason I Write

When you are torn
Who will choose you
In order to edit your secrets

Who will finally say
you are perfect

I heard of a man
undisturbed by the soft hand

Never mention it to your wife

He pulled a flower
He thought of islands
And read what men have written

Who will finally say
First thing tomorrow morning

that he failed

and that I failed


(I wrote this one some time ago ... channeling Leonard Cohen, I believe)

Sgt Pepper’s Wax Funeral

I’ve not told him I’ve left
him to find you

beeswax fingers
troublemakers
longhairs

the heat from my hands
bends your wrists backward

if I can get this collar undone –

into my knapsack with you, Paul’s wax head

just so you know I’m not one of those
fucked-up types
I look just like Jane Asher
on her way to India with you

sway back and forth
my hands unzipping you
take off the suit jacket
let you go
topple

it’s just you and me now baby

you’ll burn for me


(this one's pure Kimmy Beach ... another fabulous Canadian poet)

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