Poetry & Rambling

When I graduated from high school, a family friend gave me a book of collected poems.  One poem in particular stood out to me.  Who was this Rumi?  His poetry is like a much, much better (of course!), lighter version of some of my poetry.  I write in a similar fashion and delve into the same topics at times.  It felt like we were on the same wavelength, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the book above is my favorite collection of Rumi's poetry.  I go back to it a lot and my copy looks it. haha  Here are some of my favorites  =)

(ps -- I hem and haw over his use of the word God, but float over that, and keep the rest. Love it anyway.)


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The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

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I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door.
It opens.

I’ve been knocking from the inside!

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No Flag

I used to want buyers for my words.

Now I wish someone would buy me away from words.

I have made a lot of charmingly profound images,

scenes with Abraham and Abraham's father, Azar,

who was famous for making icons.

I am so tired of what I have been doing.

Then one image without form came,

and I quit.

Look for someone else to tend the shop.

I am out of the image-making business.

Finally I know the freedom

of madness.

A random image arrives. I scream,

Get out! It disintegrates.

Only love.

Only the holder the flag fits into.

No flag.

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Tending Two Shops

Don’t run around this world

looking for a hole to hide in.

There are wild beasts in every cave!

If you live with mice,

the cat claws will find you.

The only real rest comes

when you’re alone with God.

Live in the nowhere that you came from,

even though you have an address here.

That’s why you see things in two ways.

Sometimes you look at a person

and see a cynical snake.

Someone else sees a joyful lover,

and you’re both right!

Everyone is half and half,

like the black and white ox.

Joseph looked ugly to his brothers,

and most handsome to his father.

You have eyes that see from that nowhere,

and eyes that judge distances,

how high and how low.

You own two shops,

and you run back and forth.

Try to close the one that’s a fearful trap,

getting always smaller.  Checkmate,

this way.  Checkmate, that.

Keep open the shop

where you’re not selling fishhooks anymore.

You are the free-swimming fish.

Poetry by She Was

 

Mid-February

I wish you could hear how quiet it is here. The last of summer’s nights. The shh shh shh of the wind in the eucalyptus leaves. The snap of dry grass and twigs under the dog’s paws. Cicadas. It’s another kind of song. I wish you could see how dark the night sky is. Here. The stars. The sky full and rich, hangs velvet curtain low. After the rush of stories and words and sorrow and music and a thumping beat. This is all I want. I don’t seek the grit, the dirt, the tarnish of before. More than anything this stillness. This alive. This quiet. This solitude. This alone. I think sadness stains skin and teeth and bones and tongue and eyelids and fingertips. I think it soaks and seeps and bleaches strong.  There are so many descriptions, dark and bruised and melancholy. I think of cherries and blueberries and the tart sweetness of my tongue. My purple blue stained fingers. And always we must do something to clean the stain, to cleanse and to make fresh and bright and shiny. Like happiness is an imperative. I can listen to the song without singing, I’ll take the imperfect sweet, I’ll wear the stain. More than anything this alone. This dark heavy with stars. To make my own.

Beautiful prose-poetry from SheWas, anonymous poet blogger

Robert Bly

More talk of poetry today.

One of Robert Bly's poems is a favorite of mine for a simple reason - it conveys how I feel during snowy, winter nights...

The crunch of snow beneath your boots.  The smell of it in the air.  The flush on your cheeks.  The blanket of white.  The stillness and quietness it brings to everything around you.  Those nights have a beautiful, otherworldly quality to them.

So maybe I romanticize snow.  Maybe it's because I live in the South and hence, don't see much of it. But for whatever reason, I love it. (As you can glean from an earlier post, I love rain too!)  What is it with me and precipitation?

Onto the good stuff...

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter

It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.

The only things moving are swirls of snow.

As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.

There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.

Driving around, I will waste more time.

In my mind when I read it, I'm walking from my home to the mailbox.  Why take out the fun part of experiencing your surroundings first hand, not in a car through metal and glass?  Is it sacrilegious to take only parts of a poem that I like?  lol  I tend to do that with all kinds of things though.  Take only what feels right/true and disregard the rest. ..I guess Robert Bly not only wants to be separated from people in this poem, but also from the world in a sense.  Otherwise, why the car?

Since I included the whole poem, I'll link to where you can buy his book Silence in the Snowy Fields. It's a great read.

A Poetic Frame of Mind

Rainy days are the perfect environment for poetry to me.  In honor of a beloved drizzly, cool day in the Delta...

I used to write poetry all the time.  Now, not so much.  It seems to come in cycles really.  Dreams are like that for me also.  I'll remember my dreams almost every night for months on end, then *poof*, nothing. Odd, huh?

I was in south MS for a wedding recently and got to visit my great aunt. (Shout out to Aunt Re!  Love her!) She and I are close and talk about the oddest, most random things.  Anyway, she reminded me of some poems of mine that I had given her eons ago.  I have most of my poems in a journal of some sort, but I don't remember these two.  Ahhh, how old poetry can make you simultaneously giggle, groan, and smile!  haha

I know it's a cop out not to include them here after mentioning them, but I don't think I'm brave enough. heh  Maybe in the future...

I've been feeling the urge to write poetry again actually.  We'll see.  It's never light going.

Have a happy, rainy night, all!