Red Terrifying Eyes ! ~ by TPO

Red Terrifying Eyes !

~ by TPO ~

His eyes are truly not of this world !      👹 😳 🤭         
[ Click on the PowerPoint image to enlarge and magnify ! ]

"The Idea of Others" - by Brenda Shaughnessy

"The Idea of Others"

 by 
Brenda Shaughnessy * 

An animal is scritching in the wall behind my bed.  At first I thought it was some kind of water crackling in a heating pipe but what kind of water stops when you thump the wall?  I don’t mean to be mean, I mean to make it scurry off, to send it to scritch somewhere I can’t hear.

No, I’m not afraid—it is small, by the sound of its scritch.  I’m not in Room 101, not worried about a gnarled whiskered rodent face chewing my eyelids in my sleep.  I know these small animals, if it is an animal, are generally afraid of big, intelligent me so far up the food chain, capable of terrible violence if frightened.  I know they know they can never physically get me and are only after a crumb or a drop, like everyone really.

No, I’m trying to protect my peace of mind, my inner life, my pest-free dreams, from these unseen labors in a frenzy in the wall behind my bed.  I was going to say it drives me mad and that is its fault, or was I going to say who am I to judge the urges and intensities of another species?

What I’ll say instead is that I am part of the universe, privy to sounds parallel but unreachable, and on some other level, that I know I am alive, factually, unloving and alone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 * Excerpted from: "The Octopus Museum" - Copyright © 2019 by Brenda Shaughnessy
Source: lithub.com
==============================================
Commentary by Hénock Gugsa : ..............
This is one of those "free verse" poems that are magical and thought-provoking. 
In order to appreciate it, one must not just read it once and let it go.  It must be read more than once, over and over, until it thoroughly sinks in and absorbs you completely.
Strangely enough, I also find this poem quite liberating and empowering in some way.  It helps me not to be preoccupied with myself ... or crudely put, it takes me out of myself!

Count That Day Lost ~ by George Eliot

Count That Day Lost

by

George Eliot 
(a.k.a Mary Ann Evans 1819-1880) 

========================================

If you sit down at set of sun

And count the acts that you have done,

And, counting, find

One self-denying deed, one word

That eased the heart of him who heard,

One glance most kind

That fell like sunshine where it went --

Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,

You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay --

If, through it all

You've nothing done that you can trace

That brought the sunshine to one face--

No act most small

That helped some soul and nothing cost --

Then count that day as worse than lost.

---------------------------------------------------

This poem is in the public domain.

[Source: http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=178]

" Down by the Salley Gardens " ~ by TPO

Down by the Salley Gardens
========================

A melancholic Irish love song
based on a poem by W B Yeats ===>
[sung by Kathleen Ferrier]
-------------------------------------------- 

    Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
    She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
    She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
    But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

    In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
    And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
    She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
    But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. 

Forgetfulness - by Billy Collins

Forgetfulness 

- by Billy Collins -

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

 

The Walk Home - By James Tate

The Walk Home *
By James Tate (1943-2015) 

=======================

          I told the doctor I wouldn’t be seeing him again. “No, I guess
you won’t,” he said. I walked out the door feeling really good. Of
course I knew I was going to die, but still the day looked bright to
me. I walked down to the water. Ducks were circling around and about.
A sailboat sailed by. I walked along the shore. The sun beat down
on me. I felt as though I might live forever. I sat down on a bench
and watched the joggers pass. A pretty blonde walked by and I said,
“Hello.” She looked at me and said hello. A man with a greyhound
on a leash walked by. I got up and started to walk. A woodpecker
was pounding on a tree. An airplane flew over, leaving a thick trail of
smoke. I left the lake and walked on up the road. I crossed at the
streetlights and crossed the bridge. A car swerved to miss me. I
thought, that could have been it, the end right there, but I walked on,
bravely dodging the cars. When I got to the residential district, I
felt relieved. There were large elms and maples overhanging the street,
and people pushing baby carriages. Dogs ran loose everywhere. A man
stopped me and asked if I knew where 347 Walnut Street was. I said
I didn’t. He said, “Oh well, it didn’t matter anyway.” I said, “Why?”
He said it was a funeral notice. I walked on, bumping into a fat lady
with a load of groceries. I said I was sorry. She kept going, dropping
a load of grapefruit. Then, further on, there was a giant explosion across
the street. Police and firemen were there right away. It appears it
was a gas main beneath the shop. No one was there, luckily, but the
firetrucks had their hands full. I left before it was out. The shop
was pretty much destroyed. When I got home I was tired. I made
myself a cup of tea and sat down on the couch. I thought about calling
my mother, but she was in heaven. I called her anyway. “Mom, how are
you doing?” I said. “I’m bored. Don’t come here. There’s nothing to
do,” she said. “Aren’t there angels?” I said. “Yes, but they’re boring,”
she said. “But I was going to come see you,” I said. “Go to hell, it’s
more exciting,” she said. I had fallen asleep with my teacup in my
hand. When I awoke I realized I had thought it was a phone. My
mother would never be so sarcastic about heaven.
_____________________________________ 
* Source: Poetry Magazine (January, 2019)
  

The Afterlife - by Louis Jenkins

The Afterlife
by Louis Jenkins
(a Minnesotan poet born in Enid, OK , October 28, 1942)
================================================

Older people are exiting this life as if it were a movie… "I didn’t get it," they are saying.

He says, "It didn’t seem to have any plot."

"No." she says, "it seemed like things just kept coming at me. Most of the time I was confused… and there was way too much sex and violence."

"Violence anyway," he says.

"It was not much for character development either; most of the time people were either shouting or mumbling. Then just when someone started to make sense and I got interested, they died. Then a whole lot of new characters came along and I couldn’t tell who was who."

"The whole thing lacked subtlety."

"Some of the scenery was nice."

"Yes."

They walk on in silence for a while. It is a summer night and they walk slowly, stopping now and then, as if they had no particular place to go.

They walk past a streetlamp where some insects are hurling themselves at the light, and then on down the block, fading into the darkness.

She says, "I was never happy with the way I looked."

"The lighting was bad and I was no good at dialogue," he says.

"I would have liked to have been a little taller," she says.

_________________________________________________

source: www.yourdailypoem.com

From North of the Cities (Will o’ the Wisp Books, 2007) © Louis Jenkins.

~ used with the author’s permission ~

"Said a blade of grass ..." ~ by Khalil Gibran

Déjeuner du matin ~ Jacques Prévert

Déjeuner du matin 

~ Jacques Prévert ~ 

On Happiness and Love ~ by Albert Camus

On Happiness  and Love *
~ by Albert Camus ~

   If those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them … they could perceive what they have made of us.

    When love ceases to be tragic it is something else and the individual again throws himself in search of tragedy.

    Betrayal answers betrayal, the mask of love is answered by the disappearance of love.

    For me, physical love has always been bound to an irresistible feeling of innocence and joy. Thus, I cannot love in tears but in exaltation.

    The loss of love is the loss of all rights, even though one had them all.

    Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness.

    It is not humiliating to be unhappy. Physical suffering is sometimes humiliating, but the suffering of being cannot be, it is life.

    The end of their passion consists of loving uselessly at the moment when it is pointless.

    At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.

    I have not stopped loving that which is sacred in this world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
* Source : brainpickings.org/2014/06/16

Bogey and Hepburn - "The African Queen" (1952)

Sonnet 145 ["I hate ... not you”] ~ by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 145 ["I hate ... not you”] 

~ by William Shakespeare ~

////// ==== \\\\\\

Those lips that love's own hand did make

Breathed forth the sound that said "I hate,"

To me that languished for her sake.

But when she saw my woeful state,

Straight in her heart did mercy come,

Chiding that tongue that ever sweet

Was used in giving gentle doom,

And taught it thus anew to greet.

"I hate" she altered with an end

That followed it as gentle day

Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,

From heaven to hell is flown away.

"I hate" from hate away she threw.

And saved my life, saying "not you." 

* DARK AGE * ~ by Russ Allison Loar

 * DARK AGE *

~ A free verse poem by Russ Allison Loar ~

Can I do anything with a word when the world is sparking 
through wires and cables and atmosphere crackling on screens 
drawing current from electrochemical Homo sapiens?

Can I do anything with a word when the chemicals come so easy 
and hit so hard and run so fast and shoot so high and last so long?

Can I do anything with a word when art is for intellectuals 
and commoners are jettisoned to their easy pulp?

Can I find a word that will cut through meanness 
and shame power lust and inspire the meek 
and disable the unjust and pull the disguise off everyday life?

What can I do when I am tortured by the mind 
and bleeding from the heart and enslaved by the logical 
and brainwashed by the desirable and distracted by discourse 
and people are dying in droves and killing is a political option 
and this is the real world and Jesus has already come and gone 
and the kind-hearted are cheated and the vicious are prosperous 
and I am honest by accident and duplicitous by nature 
and into the night I lie awake searching for a word? 

            

How are you? / እንደምን ነሽ ? ~ by Hénock Gugsa (ሄኖክ ጉግሣ)

How are you?  / እንደምን ነሽ ? * 

~ by Hénock Gugsa (ሄኖክ  ጉግሣ) ~

💙 💙 💙

The little poem (ditty) inside the purple box is a funny, flirtatious (sometimes outrageously), somewhat political, and certainly satirical product from the mind of a restless modern day man in Ethiopia!
----------------------------------------------------------------

* Editor's note: The poem (ditty) was emailed to me without attribution to any author. // የግጥሙ ደራሲ ስም ሳይገለፅ ነው  ግጥሙ የተላከልኝ ።

[ Click inside the purple area to enlarge. ]

À Mademoiselle ~ par Alfred de Musset

À Mademoiselle  

~ par Alfred de Musset ~

//// === \\\\

Oui, femmes, quoi qu'on puisse dire,
Vous avez le fatal pouvoir
De nous jeter par un sourire
Dans l'ivresse ou le désespoir.

Oui, deux mots, le silence même,
Un regard distrait ou moqueur,
Peuvent donner à qui vous aime
Un coup de poignard dans le coeur.

Oui, votre orgueil doit être immense,
Car, grâce à notre lâcheté,
Rien n'égale votre puissance,
Sinon votre fragilité.

Mais toute puissance sur terre
Meurt quand l'abus en est trop grand,
Et qui sait souffrir et se taire
S'éloigne de vous en pleurant.

Quel que soit le mal qu'il endure,
Son triste rôle est le plus beau.
J'aime encor mieux notre torture
Que votre métier de bourreau.

  💙 💙 💙

O Captain! My Captain! [Elegy to Lincoln] ~ by Walt Whitman

O Captain! My Captain! 

 [Elegy to Lincoln]

~ by Walt Whitman ~

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head!
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.
==================================================
Source: Leaves of Grass  

Eternal Internal Beauty ~ by TPO

Eternal Internal Beauty 

 ~ by TPO ~

Eternal Internal Beauty !!!
~~ የዘላለም  የውስጥ  ውበት !!! ~~
**===============**
Oh I am love, loving this poem.

Beneath The Sweater And The Skin
How many years of beauty do I have left?
she asks me.

How many more do you want?
Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

When you are 80 years old
and your beauty rises in ways
your cells cannot even imagine now
and your wild bones grow luminous and
ripe, having carried the weight
of a passionate life.

When your hair is aflame
with winter
and you have decades of
learning and leaving and loving
sewn into
the corners of your eyes
and your children come home
to find their own history
in your face.

When you know what it feels like to fail
ferociously
and have gained the
capacity
to rise and rise and rise again.

When you can make your tea
on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon
and still have a song in your heart
Queen owl wings beating
beneath the cotton of your sweater.

Because your beauty began there
beneath the sweater and the skin,
remember?

This is when I will take you
into my arms and coo
YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING
you've come so far.

I see you.
Your beauty is breathtaking.
___________________
** by  Jeannette Encinias **

"Hate" - by Carl Sandburg

"Hate"

 - by -

Carl Sandburg

TAO TE CHING - from LAO TZU

TAO TE CHING 

- from LAO TZU -  

Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
you ruin what was almost ripe.

Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.

The Master remains as calm at the end
as at the beginning.

He has nothing,
thus has nothing to lose.

What he desires is non-desire;

 what he learns is to unlearn.

He simply reminds people
of who they have always been.

He cares about nothing but the Tao.
Thus he can care for all things.

Annum [ a year! ] ~ by Flora Willis Watson

  Annum [ a year! ]
~ Flora Willis Watson ~
================
January, falls the snow,
February, cold winds blow,
In March, peep out the early flowers,
And April comes with sunny showers.
In May, the roses bloom so gay,
In June, the farmer mows his hay,
In July, brightly shines the sun,
In August, harvest is begun.
September turns the green leaves brown,
October winds then shake them down,
November fills with bleak and smear,
December comes and ends the year.  

America's Stephen Crane - by Hénock Gugsa

America's Stephen Crane 

 A most underappreciated writer and poet 

- by Hénock Gugsa -

~~~~~~~~~~ *** ~~~~~~~~~~

[Click on image to enlarge.]