Today's poet

[Mossdog]

Our poetry thread has captivated another person.

We will need Haneke to translate the haiku.

An example:

Sneeuw
In de sneeuwnacht roept
plots een uil de stilte stuk.
Een vreemde vogel.

Hes will enjoy it!

The translation thing-me-jig came up with this (no, I'm not referring to Hester)

Snow

Eight calls in the snow

an owl suddenly the silence piece.
A strange bird.

[Mossdog]

The translation thing-me-jig came up with this (no, I'm not referring to Hester)

Snow

Eight calls in the snow

an owl suddenly the silence piece.
A strange bird.

apologies Hes, I meant Hannke - I'm not with it this evening!

[Mossdog]

apologies Hes, I meant Hannke - I'm not with it this evening!

er.... that's ......Hanele - see what I mean?????????

[Mossdog]

er.... that's ......Hanele - see what I mean?????????

er.....Haneke....I'm going to bed now, it's all too much

[Harry H Howgill]

I found this some time ago regarding a 'western' Zen perspective re; relationships and their significance in our lives.

http://www.tricycle.com/magazine/col...nships-no-gain

There are some interesting ideas here.

That is a fascinating article and one I'll have to return to again to absorb fully. The last two paragraphs are especially interesting.

We learn to keep our relationships and support systems in good repair because we admit to ourselves how much we need them. We take care of others for our own sake as well as theirs. We begin to see that all our relationships are part of a broad spectrum of interconnectedness, and we respect not only the most intimate or most longed-for of our relationships but also all the relationships we have—from the most personal to the most public—which together are always defining who we are and what we need in order to become fully ourselves.

Relationships work to open us up to ourselves. But first we have to admit how much we don’t want that to happen, because that means opening ourselves to vulnerability. Only then will we begin the true practice of letting ourselves experience all those feelings of vulnerability that we first came to practice to escape.

[freckle]

While I'm at it....I wrote this a month or so ago. The mason imagery I used elsewhere but I reread this and didn't dislike it as much as I thought.

Fathers and lovers

Those two lovers have come and gone
But like the mason shaping stone
Their hands and words leave indelible marks
That linger invisible in mind and body
And shape my future self
Looking through windows to the past
I glimpse family mornings
And I, the temporary guest,
Sitting at breakfast tables
With his timid daughters
And his fiercely passionate twins
I took as little space as possible
So that my disappearance would go unnoticed
When I pass them in the street
We smile at each other
but I do not know them now
Long limbed coltish
Beautiful young women
Do they remember how I swang
Upside down to make them laugh
Took them to their first concert
Jumped rivers to please them
These surrogate children who were never mine
I mourned the loss of my lovers
His blue eyes and wolfish grin
Long body, firm hands, gentle voice,
And he, sullen yet passionate
Anger simmering behind fierce loving
But it is them that I miss still
I am no longer privy to their promise
I will not celebrate their successes
Hug them through their failures
My little strangers.

I can't really express how moved I felt when I read this, it is beautiful Hes thank you so much for sharing it

[freckle]

Hate.

Don't try to change the minds of the ignorant,
By trying to make them force down P.C. platitudes,
They will take no notice of you and never repent,
Their minds are closed books full of violence and feuds.

Well meaning you maybe put this approach gives them power,
What needs to change is the focus of attack,
Then their position will weaken hour by hour,
By bringing it back to the so called victim we can take it back.

What i mean is that if you're told that a word will hurt then it will,
So turn that round it is only a random collection of letters,
If you use this train of thought you can knock down the hill,
And never worry again about these cowardly braggers.

To conclude lets start now and take the words back,
And destroy their power and be upfront and proud,
There is nothing to stop us walking this track,
So tell the world I'm mentally ill and proud.

By Herakles.

Good stuff herakles

[Mossdog]

My God, it's quiet around here, and I'm most definitely getting the withdraw DTs for the lack of any DT's Haiku.

So to shake you lot up, here's an offering from Our Sylvia.....


The Disquieting Muses

Mother, mother, what illbred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always,
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.

In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
"Thor is angry: boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!"
But those ladies broke the panes.

When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother,

I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.

Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born,
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.

[freckle]

Ideas

words are flickering like a humming birds wings
Concentrate, Concentrate!
Ideas that were clear have begun to pixelate
Mind holding onto thoughts like fingertips
scratching at cliffs edge but, slip
slip, slipping.
Words now; inapproprite shoes
Kicking
at the face;
crumbling,
no purchase.
falling, blurred
and gone...

Mmmmmm at times NDubya you are ever so sickeningly good!!!!!

i really liked this and it somehow reminded me of the thought fox by ted hughes, posted on this thread previously by Harry.

[Mossdog]

Another feisty lady...


Maya Angelou - Still I Rise


You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.