—Yorkshire Walls Photos Courtesy of Public Domain
ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE
Is it a bit much for him to say, he wonders,
As he thinks again how to express his admiration
for your talent?
Is it a bit much to allude to Bernhardt as Phèdre,
To Bergman and Hepburn and Dench
At the peak of their respective crests?
And might it be throwing the compliments some-
where overboard,
After capping them and wrapping them in their
collegiate gowns,
All the better to precipitate the drowning to follow,
For him to allude to Helen of Troy when wanting
to say something of your beauty?
Would it even be reasonable to excuse his hyperbole
By noting the insurmountable obstacle of weaving
words
To best describe his regard for you?
For he is not Dickens or Faulkner or Tolstoy,
And he fears that even they would have to get up
well before dawn
To come close to encapsulating all you are to him.
Is it a bit much to be searching for synonyms for
words as yet uncoined
Because he does not want to devalue the three
simple words that
Resonate within him whenever he thinks of you?
Is it?
A bit much?
A surfeit of sycophancy?
A verbigrised wall obscuring the simplicity of the real
feelings at his heart?
Only you can say,
Safe in the knowledge that, when that time comes,
He is bound to have words for that, too.
(Originally published in What is Love to You?)
Is it a bit much for him to say, he wonders,
As he thinks again how to express his admiration
for your talent?
Is it a bit much to allude to Bernhardt as Phèdre,
To Bergman and Hepburn and Dench
At the peak of their respective crests?
And might it be throwing the compliments some-
where overboard,
After capping them and wrapping them in their
collegiate gowns,
All the better to precipitate the drowning to follow,
For him to allude to Helen of Troy when wanting
to say something of your beauty?
Would it even be reasonable to excuse his hyperbole
By noting the insurmountable obstacle of weaving
words
To best describe his regard for you?
For he is not Dickens or Faulkner or Tolstoy,
And he fears that even they would have to get up
well before dawn
To come close to encapsulating all you are to him.
Is it a bit much to be searching for synonyms for
words as yet uncoined
Because he does not want to devalue the three
simple words that
Resonate within him whenever he thinks of you?
Is it?
A bit much?
A surfeit of sycophancy?
A verbigrised wall obscuring the simplicity of the real
feelings at his heart?
Only you can say,
Safe in the knowledge that, when that time comes,
He is bound to have words for that, too.
(Originally published in What is Love to You?)
SUNSHINE:
THE VISIBLE BIT IS EASY
It seems so easy, the sunshine through your window,
The speed of your thought as the word comes to
mind.
And it is easy.
Even when considering the 8 minutes and 20
seconds
The light has taken to travel—at 299,792 kilometres
per second—
From the surface of the sun to the Earth.
And it is easy.
Even when considering the tens, or even thousands,
of years
It has really taken those photons to work their way
Through chaotic plasma from the core of the star to
the photosphere.
And it is easy.
Even when considering the impossibility of that star
achieving
Sufficient mass to ignite,
And the third planet being in precisely the right place
For the light to reach your eyes at all.
It is easy.
The visible bit is easy.
The sun in your eyes and on your face.
But then, we both know that, don't we?
(Originally published by Know Thyself, Heal Thyself)
NO STREAM OR STREAMING WITHOUT
THOSE WHO COME BEFORE
Without Savery, without Newcomen, without Watt,
without Trevithick,
Without steam, without sufficiently high pressure,
Without irregular motion and torque throughout the
cycle,
There would be no engine, no locomotion, no GWR,
no LMS, no LNER.
Without facsimile, without Bain and Bakewell and
Nipkow,
And spinning discs and Baird and Stooky Bill,
There would be on definition, standard or high,
There would be no BBC, ITV, Netflix or streaming.
Without those who come before, no steam or
streaming.
Without those whose faith makes them grandparents
Of a future they cannot yet envisage,
There can be no further innovations,
No inventions, no progeny.
We must have faith that what we do will pay off in
more than steam.
Real love and care will always produce more than
hot air.
(Originally published by Move Me Poetry)
THE RANDOM WASHING OF FRUIT
There are phrases that stay with me,
Things you say that mean more than you know,
Resonating with how this life now is for me,
This existence without solace,
This world without succour,
Because I have shut the door on so many,
Because even grief prevented me from letting in
Those who were still there,
Those who would have been there
For me
If only I had realised.
And so, when you talk of the “random washing of
fruit,”
Because you have been collecting
Because you are making jam
Because that is your world,
I think of what you are doing
By letting me in,
By talking to me after so long,
After the worst,
After my world collapsed,
After I decided I should withdraw.
I am the random, I am the fruit,
And you are there.
How can it be random
When this is meant?
When you are offering me something
You do not even know you are offering?
These words.
This exchange.
While you wash the fruit,
You attend to the shards of my soul,
And I thank you.
You know not what you do,
But I thank you.
This is how I will survive this moment,
And this is why I will be here
For others to come.
(Originally published in What is Love to You?)
DO NOT LET GRIEF BEFORE (AND AFTER)
THE EVENT ROB YOU OF YOUR BEST DAY
My favourite day on Earth
Was October 30th, 2023.
I was not entitled to it.
I could not have expected it.
I am sure I did not deserve it.
I have mourned it every second since.
How sad.
How sad to think that the best of experiences,
When all experiences are only ever in the moment,
And are not guaranteed to last beyond this moment,
As our lives are not guaranteed to last beyond this
moment,
And can be devalued
Because these moments will never come again.
We are limited-time offers.
I hate to tell you this,
If you had not figured it out already,
But we are impermanent,
Our lives will end,
And nothing we ever do,
No day we ever have,
Will be forever.
We must—I must—learn to love
The love that lasted only the one day.
We must—I must—learn that if we
Pile on the bitterness and the misery afterwards,
We kill the thing that will be with us forever,
The memory of that which will last forever,
Or until the closing of our eyes for the last time,
anyway:
The joy of the memory.
Every happiness stands against the misery of its
surroundings.
Every joyful experience is distinct
Because of the lack of joy around it.
If we do not appreciate those moments,
Even when they are gone,
It is as if we never had them at all.
I mourn the lack of October 30th in the rest of my life.
But I must celebrate the fact it happened at all.
That is what it means to live.
To never risk the impermanence of the one day…
Is what it means to die.
(Originally published in Know Yourself, Heal Yourself)
LOVE AND DEATH
We speak of the pain of a broken heart,
A broken promise,
Of days to be mourned,
For we know we will never have them again.
For every joyful moment
There are the absences to follow.
For every love, there must be loss,
For everything we treasure, there must be risk.
For, to take the slow path,
We must lose others along the way.
For, to commit is to use time and energy you can
never have again,
And there should be such happiness in knowing this,
As we embrace the knowledge that is the best we
can have now,
As we embrace the temporary release from the
sadness to follow.
It is true that love and death are painful,
But truer still is that between them
Lies the most painful thing of all.
Always enjoy this day while you can.
(Originally published in Know Yourself, Heal Yourself)
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
We do not choose whom we love…We can only choose how well..
—Martha Brockenbrough, The Game of Love and Death
____________________
—Medusa, with thanks to Mike Hickman for today’s fine poetry! Walls. Love means walls, yes? Either taking them down, or putting them up…
Mike Hickman
A reminder to check out the
International Peace Festival
taking place in Rancho Cordova
today starting at 11am;
Christina Lloyd and Alice Templeton
read in Turloch today, 2pm;
Sacramento Poetry Alliance
features Josh McKinney and
Susan Kelly-DeWitt today, 4pm;
and Tea and Poetry at the
Sacramento Garden open mic
takes place tonight, 7pm.
For info about these and other
future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
during the week.
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
to find the date you want.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
Sacramento Poetry Alliance
features Josh McKinney and
Susan Kelly-DeWitt today, 4pm;
and Tea and Poetry at the
Sacramento Garden open mic
takes place tonight, 7pm.
For info about these and other
future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
during the week.
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
to find the date you want.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
