Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Photography and Photo Art
Some days
I think they are right, the ones
who fear the world outside,
taking aim at
all things different.
Perhaps there is an order that must be
maintained,
worshiped,
revered.
Perhaps there is an absolute
scheme
of things where some don’t fit,
like pieces found in the wrong puzzle box.
Perhaps there is.
Sometimes the feet are unwilling,
caught between fear and desire,
shadow and light.
So they stay,
immovable,
staking a claim to one spot as if that
will make
everything right.
Thanks again to Paul – wwwpalfitness for nominating me. 🙂
Three quotes for three days
And once again, I will simply invite those who visit this post to participate in the challenge if they would find it interesting to do so.
When I decided to take on this quote challenge, I knew that I wanted to focus on poetry in looking for quotes to feature. That led me to my own collection of poetry books and gave me a chance to revisit some old favorites. One of the books I pulled off the shelf was The New Naked Poetry, an anthology published in 1976 which features some fine poets. Two of them, Peter Everwine and Philip Levine, were actually professors of mine when I attended college at California State University, Fresno many years ago. My original intent had been to include some quotes from their work. But then I noticed something. Of the 26 poets included in this anthology, only three are women. Now that may have something to do with the focus on naked poetry which is loosely defined as poetry without adornment – no formal structure, no rhyme, etc. But I suspect it may also have something to do with the time period in which the volume was published. In any case, I decided to include one quote from each of the three women for this post.
Thanks to Paul – wwwpalfitness for nominating me. 🙂
Here are the rules that I copied:
Three quotes for three days
Three nominees each day(no repetition)
Thank the person who nominated you.
Inform the nominees.
Since I think some of my contacts have previously participated in this challenge (or one similar) and am unsure if some of the others would like to, I am going to depart from the nominees rule and simply invite those who visit this post to participate in the challenge if they would find it interesting to do so.
Today I am featuring quotes from the poetry of Theodore Roethke, specifically his poem Meditations of an Old Woman. You can read more about him here.
1. How can I rest in my days of slowness?
I’ve become a strange piece of flesh,
Nervous and cold, bird-furtive, whiskery,
With a cheek soft as a hound’s ear.
What’s left is light as a seed;
I need an old crone’s knowing.
2. In my grandmother’s inner eye,
So she told me when I was little,
A bird always kept singing.
She was a serious woman.
3. I see a shape, lighted with love,
Light as a petal falling upon stone.
From the folds of my skin, I sing,
The air still, the ground alive,
The earth itself a tune.
Adolescents are the ones who get it
right, relishing
the graphic image as they cling together,
so close,
and whisper, “Oh, gross…”
Guts
and blood are undeniable
as are fingers, eyeballs, liver and kidney.
What have souls
and such to do with the body,
the words,
reduction and reproduction?
Even the phoenix only rises from the ashes
to become its fleshy self
once again.
The mockingbird’s song
clinks and slides against the glass,
rebuffed
by retreat
into each cloistered night.
Peace lurks like a ghost
in shrouded
corners of light.
I stood below and watched them come.
Only a few at first, winged silhouettes
that swirled and dipped their way across the sky.
Then more appeared and joined the few, a shadow
cloud above my head.
I have come
to hold myself like a stone
on the dry palm
of my upturned hand,
to comfort myself
with a calloused thumb.
A story exists. You know, the one where you fall in
love (once
upon that time),
the one where she comes
through
the door
and occupies your bed.
Not a prince to test you with some silly shoe
but a femme in fancy dress
whose lust is all
for you.
You carry
a huge black piano
through the streets.
It fell from the sky.
You caught it
and did not
crumple
like the cat
you once saw in a cartoon.
You caught it
and stayed straight.
You carry it home
each day.
Karen Lee Kleis 