M22

I use to write.  Something stirred me a few years ago to pick up a pen and attempt some magic.  I had never written poetry before.  That reminds me of a pablo naruda poem....

And it was at that age....poetry arrived in search of me.

I don't know, I dont know where it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when, no, they were not voices, they were not words, not silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from others,

among raging fires

or returning alone,

there I was, without a face,

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say

my mouth

had no way with names,

my eyes were blind.

Something started in my soul......

But now it has been so long since I wrote my last poem.....  I guess I thought by coming on this site I might get inspired again.  You are right, there are wonderful poets here and I think I am going to enjoy this.  What inspires you to write since you struggle at times.

M22 (still trying to decide which poem she couldn't live without for the rest of her life)

I think that is too much pressure...how about if you were to be on a desert island alone with only 3 poems, name one. Hope that helps...

a short one...from one of John Donne's poems:

He was the Word that spake it;

He took the bread and brake it;

and what the Word did make it;

I do believe and take it.

Oh beliefnet grace i love thatElizabeth Barrett Browning too, I just bought a volume of her complete poems.

Here is one of my favorite poems by Theodore Roethke:

The Other

What is she, while I live?-

Who plagues me with her Shape

Lifting a nether Lip

Lightly so buds unleave;

but if I move to close

who busks me on the Nose?

Is she what I become?

Is this my final Face?

I find her every place;

She happens time on time-

My Nose feels for my Toe;

Nature's too much to know.

Who can surprise a thing

Or come to love alone?

A lazy natural man,

I loll, I loll, all Tongue.

She moves, and I adore:

Motion can do no more.

A child stares past a fire

With the same absent gaze:

I know her careless ways!-

Desire hides from desire.

Aging I sometimes weep,

Yet still laugh in my sleep.

Gene, Gene, made a machine...

I think we all know the rest...

I found it!!  Thank you! Thank you!  Thank you!  I haven't thought of this poem in years and wouldn't have known where to look because I couldn't remember enough about it to search for it.  I'm so happy!

Let No Charitable Hope


Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am in nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.


Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)