Posting this as a dedication to

elisi ~ there will be more stories to come, but I need to go home and work on them; write some more, and take care of my kittehs.

There will be some kind of master-post for the fics when they're done; including a list of them in chronological order; aslo likely need to go back and correct a few mistakes :-)

However, I wanted to post a poem before I headed back to the real world.

Really like this poem, it almost feel slike a companion to my favourite story about Shakespeare; Mrs. Shakespeare by Robert Nye, which has been on BBC Radio a few times. Must get the book, and some kind of recording of the radio production too. I think there's a YouTube reading of this, which I must try and find.

Anyway, here's Anne Hathaway by Carol Ann Duffy; from www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/anne-hathaway

Anne Hathaway

‘Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…’

(from Shakespeare’s will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love – 
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

Carol Ann Duffy

From New Selected Poems 1984-2004 (Picador, 2004). Originally published in The World's Wife (Macmillan, 1999).
Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk(evik) TehKek Hiraeth

Current Mood: artistic
Current Location: Cateran Cafe, Blairgowrie
Current Music: I Got A Leak In This Old Building by Lightnin' Hopkins
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/132504.html

I've been following the poet known to me as BLÜ for a long time now, but it's been a while since I've posted any poetry, let alone any of theirs, so good time to correct that. Today she posted one of her most beautiful; for me at least.

sayingitanyway.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/twighlight/

TWIGHLIGHT

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016 BLÜ LEAVE A COMMENT

I wonder if the stars get anxious

When the sun begins to crest

The edge of a world sleeping?

The moon of course is always touched

And on occasion visits her brother

But the star with no name

Save an account in some ancient book

Has no quarter but with darkness.

Who notices her shimmer?

Who counts the moments she strives to shine?

And should she weep, would even the sisters give comfort?

In briefest moments, she gives light and takes care of a wish drifting by

But twilight comes, as the celestial perfection emerges

So, I wonder, do the stars grow anxious

As do I?

She can also be found here https://www.facebook.com/Blu.The.Dragon/ - there appear to be youtube & twitter accounts with the same name, but I don't believe they are hers.

May the Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk(evik) TehKek Hiraeth

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Blairgowrie Library
Current Music: (trying to) listen to Pick of the Week on BBC Radio Ulster/Foyle
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/129914.html

'SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH'
by
Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, things remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain
Far back through creeks and inlets making
Came, silent, flooding in, the main,

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

And one of my favourite songs of all time.

"Bobbie Gentry - Refractions" (Watch on YouTube)

As I imagine Terry Pratchett saying, "Still kicking and screaming and complaining, so the 'ol bugger ain't got me yet; still ahead of the game then."

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: alive
Current Location: Wellmeadow, Blairgowrie, Scotland.
Current Music: Michael Rosen on My Teenage Diary
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/124204.html

For anyone who might be able to make it, or knows someone who might be interested.

http://www.ukblackpride.org.uk/poetry-lgbt-open-mic-uk-black-pride-special-5-june/

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Being a Cushion for a Cat
Current Music: Sisters of Mercy - Floodland LP
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/116402.html

No words at this time. The world is such a dark, and confusing place. I'm getting a lot of loving from the cats, who are the only ones being taken care of.

The looks of trust and love are making me want to cry.

Anyway, a poem.

“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”

Aleksandr Pushkin

"The Flowers Of Autumn Days"

The flowers of autumn days
Are sweeter than the firsts of plains.
For they awaken an impression,
That’s strong, although it may be sad,
Just as the pain of separation
Is stronger than the sweet of date.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, October, 1999 Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, November, 1999

Goddess watch over us all,

'TIS OKAY

Kerk TehKek (currently a feline's comfy pillow)

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Whisky in the Jar by Jerry Garcia & Dave Grisman
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/114231.html

This one is for

yourlibrarian who posted some shots that pleased even me, with my growing antipathy; as I grow old, to the brighter weather ahead.

I've only recently really become aware of DH Lawrence's poetry, but must have read some in the past; just not connected to it at the time.

This one however, I read last night, and when I saw the post http://yourlibrarian.dreamwidth.org/431233.html immediately returned to it when thinking of another poem to post.

The Enkindled Spring

BY D. H. LAWRENCE

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among

This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed

About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek, the Human Sleeping Platform for Cats

Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Pieces After Emily Dickinson By Mary Howe
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/113957.html

Not new, but this struck me as soon as I saw it in a new way. The first Captain of my first Fandom is gone. There with him go all illusions of a rebirth of Blake's 7; never real, I thought, but apparently there all the same.

What will it be like when William Shatner goes to the great holodeck in the sky?

And there is a parallel, because I never really liked Blake; just as I never really liked Kirk. This it seems makes little difference.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! (From Memories of President Lincoln)

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.

And here is the complete poem from Leaves of Grass http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/192

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: empty
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: ASL Signed version of Lose Yourself by Eminem
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/113688.html

Today has seen the deaths of two famous Welshman; ( Gareth Thomas ) who most will probably know best as Roj Blake in Blake's 7; which was my first fandom, and a former National Poet of Wales ( Prof. Gwyn Thomas ) - I found out about the latter because I was searching for a poem by or about Wales; penned by someone from Wales preferably.

I did not realise it would be such a frustrating task.

For a land of bards the work of their poets is very hard to find; certainly nothing by Gwyn Thomas could be had. Eventually though I found this by an Argentinian-born poet who lived in Wales; which also happens to describe this year as it is unfolding. Winter here is a spiritual thing for me; I love Winter, but the winter of the spirit is a much harsher creature.

Winter Walk by Lynette Roberts


She left the hut and the bright log fire at noon
And walked outside on crisp white winter snow
To find the iced slopes shadowed like the moon,
The wild wood desolate and bare below;
The red trees wet, adrift with icy flow,
The evergreens with glassy needled leaves;
A bloodstone veined red and white this view weaves.

But lifted off the path like crystal spheres
There lay cut prints of glinting stylized forms
Of birds not seen, large sparkling twig-like spears,
And squirrel pricks where fox's paw transforms
White single roses out of petalled storms;
While keltic scrolls transcribe where birds had been:
Then stamped in ice another track was seen.

A slight right turn of foot. She sensed him there,
Tree like with rain coat shouldered, fine large looks,
A four-armed god. From this sweet honeyed snare
She turned, upspraying, Marsh Tits, Finch, and Rooks,
Through brushwood hills, seeing by frosted brooks
His foot prints: these she retraced like a bride
With loaves and wood returned to his keen side.





Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: The Arts Show on BBC Radio Ulster
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/113646.html

The name of the poet seems very familiar, but I can't seem to recall where I've seen it.

However, I was browsing my Poetry Please book again and this caught my eye.

Go the Long, Long Way Home by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Go the long way, the long way home.
Over this gate and that lean, at the three lanes’ meeting delay,
Look well at that field of hay, eye closely the drilled loam,
Finger the springing corn, count every petal
Of the hedge rose and the guelder rose.
Under the bosom of the blossomed elder stay,
Delay, linger, browse deep on all this green and all this growing,
Slant cheek to the sweet air, with deep greeting survey
The full-leaved boughs like water flowing,
The corn-waves hurrying uphill as the wind blows.
Look overhead into the blue, look round,
Watch this bird fly and that bird settle,
With slow treading and sure greet the assuring ground:
Go slowly, for slowly goes this midsummer day,
And this is the last time you will come this way.

Go the long way, the long way home.
Aye, and when you’ve arrived and the sighing gate falls to,
Go slowly, go heedfully your garden through.
Breathe in the spice pinks, turn face up to the soft
Ripe rose that wags aloft,
Nod to the old rake, rub thumbs along the spade’s edge,
Measure the potato hills and the tall bean rows,
Pledge cherry and currant bush, pledge lily and lily leaf spear
And rebel the nettles waving along the hedge;
Look closely, look well,
See how your garden grows,
Ponder yourself even into the secret cell
Of this year’s honeycomb:
Look long, for long has this been yours and long been dear,
And this is the last time you will stand here.

Go the long way, the long way home.
Though you are weary, hasten not ghost to ground,
Tarry this last hour out, take your last look round,
Greet finally the earth, greet leaf and root and stock.
Stand in your last hour poised, like the dandelion clock-
Frail ghost of the gaudy raggle-taggle that you were-
Stand up, O homing phantom, stand up intact and declare
The goodness of earth the greatest good you found,
Ere the wind jolts you, and you vanish like the foam.

From: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/panmeditation/message/147

Date: 1938

By: Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978)

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Radio biography of Kenneth Campbell
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/113369.html

One of the reasons I love to listen to Poetry Please is that many times you discover poems that have been around for a very long time, or not very long at all, but you missed on the programme; then discover them when you buy a collection of its most popular requested poetry.

This is one such.

A Disused Shed in County Wexford (1975)

Derek Mahon

“Let them not forget us, the weak souls among theasphodels. SEFERIS, Mythitorema”
for J.G. Farrell

Even now there are places where a thought might grow —
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped forever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft,
Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence,
Lime crevices behind rippling rainbarrels,
Dog corners for bone burials;
And in a disused shed in Co. Wexford,

Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.
This is the one star in their firmament
Or frames a star within a star.
What should they do there but desire?
So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud,
They have learnt patience and silence
Listening to the rooks querulous in the high wood.

They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
of the expropriated mycologist.
He never came back, and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain.
Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew
And once a day, perhaps, they have heard something —
A trickle of masonry, a shout from the blue
Or a lorry changing gear at the end of the lane.

There have been deaths, the pale flesh flaking
Into the earth that nourished it;
And nightmares, born of these and the grim
Dominion of stale air and rank moisture.
Those nearest the door growing strong —
‘Elbow room! Elbow room!’
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling
Utensils and broken flower-pots, groaning
For their deliverance, have been so long
Expectant that there is left only the posture.

A half century, without visitors, in the dark —
Poor preparation for the cracking lock
And creak of hinges; magi, moonmen,
Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
At the flash-bulb firing-squad we wake them with
Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.

They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
‘Save us, save us,’ they seem to say,
‘Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naive labours have been in vain!’

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: A-A-A-Gale Laaj by Holle Holle
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/113129.html

Got some catching up to do, not been doing so well, but this is no excuse.

Anyway, as part of the effort, a poem that is short and funny; managing to raise a smile in me even at the worst of times. New(ish( since I first heard it three(?) years ago, but I was inspired to find it in a print(able)ed form; finding in my purchase of BBC's Poetry Please publication of its most requested poems.

The Cats' Protection League by Roger McGough

Midnight. A Knock at the door.
Open it? Better had.
Three heavy cats, mean and bad.

They offer protection. I ask. 'What for?'
The Boss-cat snarls, 'You know the score.
Listen man and listen good

If you wanna stay in the neighbourhood,
Pay your dues or the toms will call
And wail each night on the backyard wall.

Mangle the flowers, and as for the lawn
a smelly minefield awaits you at dawn.'
These guys meant business without a doubt

Three cans of tuna, I handed them out.
They then disappeared like bats into hell
Those bad, bad cats from the CPL.

(also here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pRlMrFkoHg
with text taken from here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/mcgough_cat.shtml)

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: crushed
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Black is Black by Los Bravos
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/112884.html

Was almost tempted to post Still I Rise, but since I'm trying to post poems that are new, or relatively so, to me I studied the poems around that in one of my newest purchases, a Poetry Please anthology of popular poems in the programmes history.

This one caught my eye; especially after a proper reading.

Dedicated to all Xander and William/Spike fans.

One Art

BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.

Source: The Complete Poems 1926-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983)

May the Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: listless
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Soliloquy by Joe Volk
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/112403.html

Missed yesterday for... reasons.

Had the book this comes from for a while now, but only found it again last night; thanks to a kitteh climbing where he shouldn't so, with thanks to Ryouh here is a poem sadly pertinent for the times in which we live.

The Leader by Sharon Olds (from One Secret Thing publ. by Cape Poetry)

Seeing the wind at the airport blowing on his hair,
lifting it up where it was slicked down, you
want to say to the wind, Stop, that's
the leader's hair, but the wind keeps lifting it
and separating the thin strands and
fanning it out like a weed-head in the air.
His brows look bright in the airport glare,
his eyes are crinkled up against the sun, you
want to say to his eyes, Stop you are
the leader's eyes, close yourselves, but they are
on his side, no part of his body
can turn against him. His thumbnail is long and
curved - it will not slit his throat for the
sake of the million children; his feet in their
polished shoes won't walk him into the
propeller and end the war. His heart won't
cease to beat, even if it knows
whose heart it is - it has no loyalty to
other hearts, it has no future outside his body.
And you can't suddenly tell his mind that it is
his mind, get out while it can,
it already knows that it's his mind -
much of its space is occupied with the
plans for the marble memorial statues
when he dies of old age. They'll place one
in every capital city of his nation
around the world - Lagos, Beijing,
São Paulo, New York, London, Baghdad,
Sydney, Paris, Jerusalem,
a giant statue of hi, Friend to the Children
of the leader's country -
which will mean all children, then,
all those living.

www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sharon-olds

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: DS9 eps in the background
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/112325.html

Finally my internet connection seems stable enough to attempt a post.

Having a bad time lately; today has been very fractured; unstable and unsettling. Never have I beenmore grateful have I been for my cats, but I can't lay my hands on a particular poetry book, so I'm going with the poem I first selected before all the internet craziness fouled up my day even more.

Not read much Tennyson, so this can justly be said to be the first time I saw this poem; today, or yesterday now.

Break, Break, Break

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

May the Goddess watch over all of us,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Dum Tek Tek by Hadise
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/111882.html

Probably a more familiar one for many, but also, as with me, more familiar as a song than in its original form.

It also suits my mood just now.

So We'll Go No More a Roving

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

May the Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: silence
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/111639.html

Not the poem I was going to post, but I hit a hitch with that one.

Still this is a pretty darn good stand in.

Loud Without The Wind Was Roaring by Emily Brontë

Loud without the wind was roaring

Through th'autumnal sky;
Drenching wet, the cold rain pouring,
Spoke of winter nigh.
All too like that dreary eve,
Did my exiled spirit grieve.
Grieved at first, but grieved not long,
Sweet--how softly sweet!--it came;
Wild words of an ancient song,
Undefined, without a name.

"It was spring, and the skylark was singing:"
Those words they awakened a spell;
They unlocked a deep fountain, whose springing,
Nor absence, nor distance can quell.

In the gloom of a cloudy November
They uttered the music of May ;
They kindled the perishing ember
Into fervour that could not decay.

Awaken, o'er all my dear moorland,
West-wind, in thy glory and pride!
Oh! call me from valley and lowland,
To walk by the hill-torrent's side!

It is swelled with the first snowy weather;
The rocks they are icy and hoar,
And sullenly waves the long heather,
And the fern leaves are sunny no more.

There are no yellow stars on the mountain
The bluebells have long died away
From the brink of the moss-bedded fountain--
From the side of the wintry brae.

But lovelier than corn-fields all waving
In emerald, and vermeil, and gold,
Are the heights where the north-wind is raving,
And the crags where I wandered of old.

It was morning: the bright sun was beaming;
How sweetly it brought back to me
The time when nor labour nor dreaming
Broke the sleep of the happy and free!

But blithely we rose as the dawn-heaven
Was melting to amber and blue,
And swift were the wings to our feet given,
As we traversed the meadows of dew.

For the moors! For the moors, where the short grass
Like velvet beneath us should lie!
For the moors! For the moors, where each high pass
Rose sunny against the clear sky!

For the moors, where the linnet was trilling
Its song on the old granite stone;
Where the lark, the wild sky-lark, was filling
Every breast with delight like its own!

What language can utter the feeling
Which rose, when in exile afar,
On the brow of a lonely hill kneeling,
I saw the brown heath growing there?

It was scattered and stunted, and told me
That soon even that would be gone:
It whispered, "The grim walls enfold me,
I have bloomed in my last summer's sun."

But not the loved music, whose waking
Makes the soul of the Swiss die away,
Has a spell more adored and heartbreaking
Than, for me, in that blighted heath lay.

The spirit which bent 'neath its power,
How it longed--how it burned to be free!
If I could have wept in that hour,
Those tears had been heaven to me.

Well--well; the sad minutes are moving,
Though loaded with trouble and pain;
And some time the loved and the loving
Shall meet on the mountains again!

Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Sports et Divertissements by Erik Satie
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/111520.html

Saw ( Dragonyphoenix's post of The Wasteland ) for National Poetry Month in the USofA and decided, as Canada is (sort of) related to my homeland I'd try and post poems too; since 'tis National Poetry Month in North America's better half as well.

This is my first choice.

Witch - Jean Tepperman

They told me
I smile prettier with my mouth closed.
They said--
better cut your hair--
long, it's all frizzy,
looks Jewish.
They hushed me in restaurants
looking around them
while the mirrors above the table
jeered infinite reflections
of a raw, square face.
They questioned me
when I sang in the street.
They stood taller at tea
smoothly explaining
my eyes on the saucers,
trying to hide the hand grenade
in my pants pocket,
or crouched behind the piano.
They mocked me with magazines
full of breasts and lace,
published in their triumph
when the doctor's oldest son
married a nice sweet girl.
They told me tweed-suit stories
of various careers of ladies.
I woke up at night
afraid of dying.
They built screens and room dividers
to hide unsightly desire
sixteen years old
raw and hopeless
they buttoned me into dresses
covered with pink flowers.
They waited for me to finish
then continued the conversation.
I have been invisible,
weird and supernatural.
I want my black dress.
I want my hair
curling wild around me.
I want my broomstick
from the closet where I hid it.
Tonight I meet my sisters
in the graveyard.
Around midnight
if you stop at a red light
in the wet city traffic,
watch for us against the moon.
We are screaming,
we are flying,
laughing, and won't stop.

__________________

May the Goddess watch over us all,

Kerk TehKek

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: ABBA's album ABBA
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/111262.html

I saw, while browsing today, that it was World Poetry Day.

I was trying to think what, or even whether to post.

While in Blairgowrie Library; depressingly empty, which the cynic in me says is exactly what the local council wants, i thought of a local poet; of whom I actually know little beyond that he was born in the parish in which I now reside.

However, I think I have found a poem which resonates with me just now, and here it is.

The Freedom-Come-All-Ye

Hamish Henderson

Roch the wind in the clear day's dawin

Blaws the cloods heelster-owdie pw'r the bay,

But there's mair nor a roch wind blawin

Through the great glen o' the warld the day.

It's a thocht that will gar oor rottans

- A' they rogues that gang gallus, fresh and gay -

Tak the road, and seek ither loanins

For their ill ploys, tae sport and play

Nae mair will the bonnie callants

Mairch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw

Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan

Mourn the ships sailin' doon the Broomielaw.

Broken faimlies in lands we've herriet,

Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair;

Black and ehite, ane til ither mairriet,

Mak the vile barracks o' their maisters bare.

So come all ye at hame wi' Freedom,

Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom.

In your hoose a' the bairns o' Adam

Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room.

When MacLean meets wi's freens in Springburn

A' the roses and geans will turn bloom,

And a black boy frae yont Nyanga

Dings the fell gallows o' the burghers doon.

Hamish Henderson

Goddess watch over us all,

'tis ok to be Takei

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Mreyte Ya Mreyte (from Caramel)
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/111103.html

huffingtonpost:

This Poet’s Message To Anti-Abortion Politicians Deserves A Hell. Yes.
It’s the first electrifying line from poet Theresa Davis, who, in just three minutes, takes on every politician who has ever tried to block the reproductive rights of women in America.

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Sector 001
Current Music: Sugar, Sugar by The Archies
Crossposts: http://kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com/93070.html

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Page Summary

POEM: Anne Hathaway by Carol Ann Duffy
POEM: TWIGHLIGHT by BLÜ
'Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth' by Arthur Hugh Clough
Poetry LGBT OPEN MIC – UK Black Pride Special 5 June @ Tipsy Bar 6 – 10:30pm
POEM: Time Does Not Bring Relief by Edna St. Vincent Millay (#14 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: The Flowers of Autumn Days by Aleksandr Pushkin (#13 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: The Enkindled Spring by DH Lawrence (#12 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: O Captain! My Captain! (#11 for National Poetry Month in Canada and the US)
POEM: Winter Walk by Lynette Roberts (#10 for National Poetry Month in Canada and the US)
POEM: Go the Long, Long Way Home by Sylvia Townsend Warner (#9 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: A Disused Shed in County Wexford by Derek Mahon (#8 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: The Cats' Protection League by Roger McGough (#7 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (#6 for National Poetry Month in Canada and the US)
POEM: The Leader by Sharon Olds (#5 for National Poetry Month in Canada and the US)
POEM: Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (#4 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: So We'll Go No More a Roving by Byron (#1 for National Poetry Month in Canada and the US)
POEM: Loud Without The Wind Was Roaring by Emily Brontë (#2 for National Poetry Month)
POEM: Witch by Jean Tepperman (#1 for National Poetry Month in Canada and the US)
POEM: World Poetry Day ~ The Freedom Come-All-Ye by Hamish Henderson
I LOVE THIS! This Poet’s Message To Anti-Abortion Politicians Deserves A Hell. Yes.

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Aleksandr Pushkin

"The Flowers Of Autumn Days"

The Enkindled Spring

Go the Long, Long Way Home by Sylvia Townsend Warner

A Disused Shed in County Wexford (1975)

Derek Mahon

One Art

Break, Break, Break

So We'll Go No More a Roving

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