Poetry

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric,
but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
- W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

the poet read his poems aloud
nervously
ever wondering how it was all being perceived

the trees in winter have no leaves
I love to see the skeletons unadorned
it gives insight to the overall form

desperate to fill the spaces
in this honeycomb of gray matter between my ears
that keeps my skull from caving in

The Journey Back
by Seamus Heaney

Larkin's shade surprised me. He quoted Dante:

'Daylight was going and the umber air
Soothing every creature on the earth,
Freeing them from their labours everywhere.

I alone was girding myself to face
The ordeal of my journey and my duty'
And not a thing had changed, as rush-hour buses

Bore the drained and laden through the city.
I might have been a wise king setting out
Under the Christmas lights - except that

It felt more like the forewarned journey back
Into the heartland of the ordinary.
Still my old self. Ready to knock one back.

A nine-to-five man who had seen poetry.

2/14/2003
- Shane Pitkin Barden

As without, so within..................

11 below................ nothing moves.

Sea smoke rises above the water................. sits in the frozen air..............
Like a hiss of breath that will not quite die.

There's a peculiar beauty in the brutally desolate...............
A flame that cannot quite be extinguished.
You can see it in my eyes...................
Somewhere deep beyond the sea smoke.

As within, so without..................