My Gran's wonderful furry companion Francis
Category: From Lieven.
A book, I think, is very like
A little golden door
That takes me into places
Where I’ve never been before.
It leads me into fairyland
Or countries strange and far
And, best of all, the golden door
Always stands ajar.
Some very nice people came to look at me one time.
They petted me and took me for a walk!
I was so sure. But they went away.
They said I was too old.
I wonder what that means.
The feet of the Gods are but half withdrawn;
The Colour fringes their garments’ hem,
And the stones of the desert remember them.
Where the white mists enfold each hill
Lingers their brooding presence still;
Still, though the glory of Thebes be done,
The twin Colossi salute the sun.
Lure on lure at the break of morn
The earth lies fair as the earth was born,
And the old Gods walk in the mist and the dew
Of an ancient splendour for ever new.
Paper, ink and thought
Fiction and reality
Passion and purpose
Poetry and prose
Map and drawing
Monographs and periodicals
Card catalog and bar code
Reading and research
Pleasure and knowledge
Wonder of language,
The power of words.
Books create
the wise man,
they educate
the sage;
the erudite
strops his
intellect
with the turn
of every
page.
I’ve learned that no matter what happens,
or how bad it seems today, life does go on,
and it will be better tomorrow.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.
I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person
by the way he or she handles these three things:
a rainy day, lost luggage,
and tangled Christmas tree lights.
I’ve learned that regardless of the differences
you have with the people in your life,
you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
I’ve learned that making a “living”
is not the same thing as making a “life.”
I’ve learned that life sometimes
gives you a second chance.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life
with a catcher’s mitt on both hands.
You need to be able to throw something back.
I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness,
it will elude you.
But if you focus on your family, your friends,
the needs of others,your work and doing the very best you can,
happiness will find you.
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something
with an open heart,
I usually make the right decision.
I’ve learned that even when I have pains,
I don’t have to be one.
I’ve learned that every day you should
reach out and touch someone.
People love that human touch –
holding hands, a warm hug,
or just a friendly pat on the back.
I’ve learned that you should
pass this on to someone you care about.
Sometimes they just need a little something
to make them smile.
I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.
I can read in red. I can read in blue.
I can read in pickle color too.
I can read in bed, and in purple. and in brown.
I can read in a circle and upside down!
I can read with my left eye. I can read with my right.
I can read Mississippi with my eyes shut tight!
There are so many things you can learn about.
But…you’ll miss the best things
If you keep your eyes shut.
The more that you read, the more things you will know
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
If you read with your eyes shut you’re likely to find
That the place where you’re going is far, far behind
SO…that’s why I tell you to keep your eyes wide.
Keep them wide open…at least on one side.
Credit Picture : Sheila Kuhn
Walking along, a community together
slowing our steps, the forest before us
spending time, lingering there
Open to what the creator will show us
gifts of this moment to share
Entering in, deeper and deeper
the pond and its treasure made known
An expanse of water, the reeds and the rushes
the artistry of our maker’s brush
Trees and moss, the ferns and the oak leaves
the crunch of the branches, the rocks underfoot
Sharing the day, the time and the fellowship
slowing our walk, in union with you
The matchbox trembled in terrified hands.
You can only go so far before you can’t come back.
But on and on they went anyway.
It’s their own fault when they fade away.
They meet after months and yet
The time melts away
And they are back in the swing
Ready to banter and bait
To play off one against the other
Of easy laughter and witty repartee
Easy smiles and quick jabs
To while away to hours
And drink in life again
As they do, as old friends do
With relish and a tall tale or two
I’ve never known what I take we understand is
writer’s block.
I can write well past eternity
unless unless
unless unless
Unless
I’m not grabbed by an idea or until I grab hold.
And I’m well past midnight-stiff, startled, appalled.
That I’ve grabbed hold and
shaped and crafted
and exulted
six hundred six thousand six hundred thousand times
before
one time one time one time
one time….
No matter.
Is this what writers fear?
It scares me shot through to a place of
persistent, low-grade, three-a.m. terror.
Because my commitment is to write every day,
write something meaningful to me,
I do lie in bed many nights (as this one)
with an anxiety dreadfully real and
dull-pounding.
Yet even as I know and as I say
“How absurd!”
(and I do say it, I do pronounce it)
I know that come sun (or morning fog)
I’ll have my idea.
Just now, I don’t.
And I’m shot-though terror.
Hundreds of thousands visit online
Those who chose to join not.
Still hundreds more who took the time
To fill out the data, post info and sign
Their pledge to conform to the rules.
Somehow surviving, the twenty plus Reverse.
Their choice is choose not to reveal who they are.
They lurk and rework in a manner perverse
Writing God only knows what from afar.
What attraction holds them to be
either poet or reader,
less a need to communicate
or express, not exist?
Left to dwell in anonymity?
A choice, a good reason? Mystery.
O brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night.
Trust not your prowess nor your strength,
Your only safety lies in flight;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.
The great white witch you have not seen?
Then, younger brothers mine, forsooth,
Like nursery children you have looked
For ancient hag and snaggle-tooth;
But no, not so; the witch appears
In all the glowing charms of youth.
Her lips are like carnations, red,
Her face like new-born lilies, fair,
Her eyes like ocean waters, blue,
She moves with subtle grace and air,
And all about her head there floats
The golden glory of her hair.
But though she always thus appears
In form of youth and mood of mirth,
Unnumbered centuries are hers,
The infant planets saw her birth;
The child of throbbing Life is she,
Twin sister to the greedy earth.
And back behind those smiling lips,
And down within those laughing eyes,
And underneath the soft caress
Of hand and voice and purring sighs,
The shadow of the panther lurks,
The spirit of the vampire lies.
For I have seen the great white witch,
And she has led me to her lair,
And I have kissed her red, red lips
And cruel face so white and fair;
Around me she has twined her arms,
And bound me with her yellow hair.
I felt those red lips burn and sear
My body like a living coal;
Obeyed the power of those eyes
As the needle trembles to the pole;
And did not care although I felt
The strength go ebbing from my soul.
Oh! she has seen your strong young limbs,
And heard your laughter loud and gay,
And in your voices she has caught
The echo of a far-off day,
When man was closer to the earth;
And she has marked you for her prey.
She feels the old Antaean strength
In you, the great dynamic beat
Of primal passions, and she sees
In you the last besieged retreat
Of love relentless, lusty, fierce,
Love pain-ecstatic, cruel-sweet.
O, brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night.
O, younger brothers mine, beware!
Look not upon her beauty bright;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.
Foto : Sheila
Its funny sometimes,
how the little things matter,
how we listen to gossip,
and mindless chatter
Its funny sometimes,
how we stress for no reason,
we feel down on a sunday,
or we change with each season
Its funny sometimes,
how we can feel so alone,
wanting someone to visit,
wanting someone to phone
Its funny sometimes,
how we just need a hug,
to scootch up on the sofa,
and cuddle and snug
Its funny sometimes,
when things get us down,
always looking at the floor,
always showing a frown,
Its funny sometimes,
if we just lift our heads,
look at the world,
and smile instead
Embrace every meeting,
enjoy every talk,
sharing those special moments,
laughing together on a nice long walk.
Open our eyes,
and take in every sight,
theres no time for sadness,
its time to fight!
Its funny sometimes,
that everything is fine,
and the people who love you,
have been right here the whole time.
Now the day is done,
Now the shepherd sun
Drives his white flocks from the sky;
Now the flowers rest
On their mother’s breast,
Hushed by her low lullaby.
Now the glowworms glance,
Now the fireflies dance,
Under fern-boughs green and high;
And the western breeze
To the forest trees
Chants a tuneful lullaby.
Now ‘mid shadows deep
Falls blessed sleep,
Like dew from the summer sky;
And the whole earth dreams,
In the moon’s soft beams,
While night breathes a lullaby.
Now, birdlings, rest,
In your wind-rocked nest,
Unscared by the owl’s shrill cry;
For with folded wings
Little Brier swings,
And singeth your lullaby.
Christmas is a time for Love;
a time for Joy and Peace;
A time to trim the Christmas Tree
and a time to stuff the geese.
It’s a time when we can come together,
however far or near;
To shed a little hope into a world
of sorrow and fear.
Yet Christmas could be all year ’round,
if only we would try
To gently wipe an old man’s brow
or soothe a baby’s cry.
If we could smile throughout the year
as we do on Christmas Day;
Just think what happiness we’d shed
along life’s weary way.
To give a gift of Hope
to one who otherwise has none;
To be a Friend to somebody
whom everyone else has shun.
To be Forgiving of our faults,
and of our sisters and our brothers;
To Live in Peace and Harmony
with ourselves and with each other.
Ah, don’t you see that Christmas
is more than opening up the gifts;
It’s more than singing Christmas Carols
and rolling in big snow drifts.
It’s a feeling that can stay with you
throughout each day, all year;
And all it takes is a loving heart
and a sensitive little tear…
This morning I read about me wrestling an angel.
And of the dream.
About the ladder reaching to heaven,
threaded with angels, ascending, descending.
This life, here on earth.
Who has not wrestled an angel?
All night, till the breaking of day.
Blind.
Pressed close as lovers.
Consumed in the fetid sweat of the flesh,
the terrible reek of power from an angel.
Thy name shall no more be called Lieven.
Rising up, weak and spent in the morning,
a strange name branded onto the brow,
a nameless horror still clinging.
Who are you?
And who am I?
All the while we’re trapped inside
This world that one day is doomed to die
Living in this world of pain
Telling yourself it’s just a game
Gone with the wind
And forever more
The sun will set upon the shore
Make a wish, it’s gone for now
The sun has set upon the bow
Sail to land and meet your friends
Be thankful you have returned again
Be glad your travels have come to an end
It’s time to help your friendships mend
Then thank the gods for hope and light
Thank them everything is right
They knew that someday someone would
Try to end this peaceful world
Now that everything is done
Understand that you have won
For everyone wins this dreadful game
Of ships and dreams and awful pain
And when the game is through
And the players gone home
Be thankful it was just a game
And that the world is still the same
That everyone you used to know
Has once again returned to go
To begin this dreadful game once more
And watch the sun set on the shore
I’d like to send my biggest Yuletide wishes,
not to my closest friends or loved relations,
but out to kids who’ve never heard of Christmas,
the ones in all the far-off poorest nations.
The kids who struggle daily for survival,
who never heard of Santa or December,
to whom a gift is simply one more morning
without the loss of one more family member.
Those kids who grow despising all religion,
with anger in their veins and hate a winner,
infused with venom searching for a victim,
not once to see the love of Christmas dinner.
Those waifs in countries still without a future,
no sleigh bells to bring smiles to hungry faces,
in Africa, Afghanistan and Asia,
the Middle East and countless other places.
So spare a thought as you unwrap your presents,
the season to be jolly – money driven,
and say a prayer for kids who don’t have Christmas,
then thank your God for what you have been given.
Gran I wonder
where you keep your wings.
Are they hung in your closet
with the rest of your things?
Do you put them away
and just use them at night
or give them to Ralphie
to polish up bright.
I know you have wings,
for this must be true,
’cause God always gives
them to Angels just like you
tribute to… Sheila
What it is that makes one appear
To challenge the meshing forces of a zipper
That come together as one
When a bit of force comes along.
Caught up in the fabric
And unwilling to wait
The shaped charges embrace
When brought face to face.
Yet a single piece of unwanted thread
Causes the tangle that all dread
When between the maws of the opening
There remains no single way of coping.
Struggle as one may like
Soon disaster is about to strike
For a forced separation can cause
Destruction by Nature’s laws.
What else to do?
When solutions are so few.
Trying to gain freedom and release
When one only wants some peace.
The tension of the organ within
Continues to demand some end
Of the problem which has assumed
Monumental proportions for that entombed.
Finally with a struggle
That ends the tussle
Freedom at last is at hand
With a final pull on the extended tab.
Relief once short lived
Now must face the fact that violence gives
A new problem to be solved.
How to reunite that which was just parted?
(Perhaps this isn’t about a zipper at all?)
Dog Looking at and Listening to a Phonograph, “His Master’s Voice”, The Original RCA Music Puppy Dog Logo Symbol for Advertising (Photo credit: Beverly & Pack)
“Once I was a lonely dog,
Just looking for a home.
I had no place to go,
No one to call my own.
I wandered up and down the streets,
in rain in heat and snow.
I ate what ever I could find,
I was always on the go.
My skin would itch, my feet were sore,
My body ached with pain.
And no one stopped to give a pat
Or a gently say my name.
I never saw a loving glance,
I was always on the run.
For people thought that hurting me
was really lots of fun.
And then one day I heard a voice
So gentle, kind and sweet,
And arms so soft reached down to me
And took me off my feet.
“No one again will hurt you”
Was whispered in my ear.
“You’ll have a home to call your own
where you will know no fear,”
“You will be dry, you will be warm,
you’ll have enough to eat”
“And rest assured that when you sleep,
your dreams will all be sweet.”
I was afraid I must admit,
I’ve lived so long in fear.
I can’t remember when I let
A human come so near.
And as she tended to my wounds
And bathed and brushed my fur
She told me ‘bout the rescue group
And what it meant to her.
She said, ”We are a circle,
A line that never ends.”
“And in the center there is you
protected by new friends.”
“And all around you are
the ones that check the pounds,
And those that share their home
after you’ve been found.”
“And all the other folk
are searching near and far.”
“To find the perfect home for you,
where you can be a star”.
She said, “There is a family,
that’s waiting patiently,
and pretty soon we’ll find them,
just you wait and see.”
“And then they’ll join our circle
they’ll help to make it grow,
so there’ll be room for more like you,
who have no place to go.”
I waited very patiently,
The days they came and went.
Today’s the day I thought,
my family will be sent.
Then just when I began to think
It wasn’t meant to be,
there were people standing there
just gazing down at me.
I knew them in a heart beat,
I could tell they felt it too.
They said, “We have been waiting
for a special dog like you.”
Now every night I say a prayer
to all the Gods that be.
“Thank you for the life I live
and all you’ve given me.”
“But most of all protect the dogs
in the pound and on the street.”
“And send a Rescue Person
to lift them off their feet.””
Snow storms are so beautiful,
the clear, white, small snow flakes;
if you find yourself in one so cool
then God is showing what it takes,
to spread a canvas before your eyes
so fragile, yet so strong,
a snow storm can be harmony
until something goes wrong.
Lives have been lost on mountaintops
as the weather swirls around,
it seems like the enjoyment stops
as people search for higher ground.
Alas the snow fall covers quickly
and innocents are trapped
snow falls have much beauty
but be wary if it snapped.
If crying is a sign of weakness, let it be
If in it weakness others find and see
Let them make of me, a mockery
For in weakness I find my strength to be free
Let alone will I let others justify
That weakness itself is the reason I cry
Foolish they are…for this I am strong
Crying is a sign of strength, they are wrong.
The stork flew over a town one day,
And back of each wing an infant lay;
One to a rich man’s home he brought,
And one he left at a labourer’s cot.
The rich man said, ‘My son shall be
A lordly ruler o’er land and sea.’
The labourer sighed, ‘’Tis the good God’s will
That I have another mouth to fill.’
The rich man’s son grew strong and fair,
And proud with the pride of a millionaire.
His motto in life was, ‘Live while you may, ’
And he crowded years in a single day.
He bought position and name and place,
And he bought him a wife with a handsome face.
He journeyed over the whole wide world,
But discontent his heart lay curled
Like a serpent hidden in leaves and moss,
And life seemed hollow and gold was dross.
He scoffed at woman, and doubted God,
And died like a beast and went back to the sod.
The son of the labourer tilled the soil,
And thanked God daily for health and toil.
He wedded for love in his youthful prime,
And two lives chorded in tune and time.
His wants were simple, and simple his creed,
To trust God fully: it served his need,
And lightened his labour, and helped him to die
With a smile on his lips and a hope in his eye.
When all is over and all is done,
Now which of these men was the richer one?
Stripped of my comfort,
I have no place to sleep.
Confused with anxiety,
I can only weep.
Why did this happen?
Oh why is it me?
I don’t know what to do,
This time, I can’t flee.
With no where to run,
I think I’ll lay down.
Only for a bit,
Until the day I’m found.
He has slept with accountants and brokers,
With a cowgirl (well, someone from Healds).
He has slept with non-smokers and smokers
In commercial and cultural fields.
He has slept with book-keepers, book-binders,
Slept with auditors, florists, PAs
Child psychologists, even child minders,
With directors of firms and of plays.
He has slept with the stupid and clever.
He has slept with the rich and the poor
But he sadly admits that he’s never
Slept with a poet before.
Real poets are rare, he confesses,
While it’s easy to find a cashier.
So I give him some poets’ addresses
And consider a change of career.
This train Carries saints and sinners
This train Carries losers and winners
This Train Carries whores and gamblers
This Train Carries lost souls
This Train Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train Faith will be rewarded
This Train Hear the steel wheels singin’
This Train Bells of freedom ringin’
I love you, rotten,
Delicious rottenness.
I love to suck you out from your skins
So brown and soft and coming suave,
So morbid, as the Italians say.
What a rare, powerful, reminiscent flavour
Comes out of your falling through the stages of decay:
Stream within stream.
Something of the same flavour as Syracusan muscat wine
Or vulgar Marsala.
Though even the word Marsala will smack of preciosity
Soon in the pussy-foot West.
What is it?
What is it, in the grape turning raisin,
In the medlar, in the sorb-apple.
Wineskins of brown morbidity,
Autumnal excrementa;
What is it that reminds us of white gods?
Gods nude as blanched nut-kernels.
Strangely, half-sinisterly flesh-fragrant
As if with sweat,
And drenched with mystery.
Sorb-apples, medlars with dead crowns.
I say, wonderful are the hellish experiences
Orphic, delicate
Dionysos of the Underworld.
A kiss, and a vivid spasm of farewell, a moment’s orgasm
of rupture.
Then along the damp road alone, till the next turning.
And there, a new partner, a new parting, a new unfusing
into twain,
A new gasp of further isolation,
A new intoxication of loneliness, among decaying, frost-cold
leaves.
Going down the strange lanes of hell, more and more
intensely alone,
The fibres of the heart parting one after the other
And yet the soul continuing, naked-footed, ever more vividly
embodied
Like a flame blown whiter and whiter
In a deeper and deeper darkness
Ever more exquisite, distilled in separation.
So, in the strange retorts of medlars and sorb-apples
The distilled essence of hell.
The exquisite odour of leave-taking.
Jamque vale!
Orpheus, and the winding, leaf-clogged, silent lanes of hell.
Each soul departing with its own isolation.
Strangest of all strange companions,
And best.
Medlars, sorb-apples
More than sweet
Flux of autumn
Sucked out of your empty bladders
And sipped down, perhaps, with a sip of Marsala
So that the rambling, sky-dropped grape can add its
Orphic farewell, and farewell, and farewell
And the ego sum of Dionysos
The sono io of perfect drunkenness
Intoxication of final loneliness.
151rby
drago7
RubIxSKube
lieven001
pollyweaver
raburcke
selangornight
sheilarosskuhn
snypha
tigerlillyxxxx
