Poetry

A Poem & A Picture (Day 1)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Hold your horses you little whipper-snappers. We’re not done yet.

It is still National Poetry Month and we are going to see this thing through!  I know some of you don’t really love poetry and there are others who think it’s too far over their head. That’s cool.  It may be wrong but it can still be cool. Then (you see me shaking my finger at you because you know who you are) there are a few of you who just want to play hooky and hang out in smoke filled bars until the end of April.  Well if that’s your attitude you can just order me a pomegranate martini by gosh!

This week we’re gonna mix it up a little. Not the drinks silly. For the next five days [if the good lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise] I’m going to pick a photo I’ve taken and find a poem to go with it. Oh this is going to be sooo fun!

 

I wonder if words can breathe life into a photograph? If so does it make the picture worth more than a thousand words? Let’s see.

Iris

by David St. John
There is a train inside this iris:
You think I’m crazy, & like to say boyish
& outrageous things. No, there is
A train inside this iris.
It’s a child’s finger bearded in black banners.
A single window like a child’s nail,
A darkened porthole lit by the white, angular face
Of an old woman, or perhaps the boy beside her in the stuffy,
Hot compartment. Her hair is silver, & sweeps
Back off her forehead, onto her cold and bruised shoulders.
The prairies fail along Chicago. Past the five
Lakes. Into the black woods of her New York; & as I bend
Close above the iris, I see the train
Drive deep into the damp heart of its stem, & the gravel
Of the garden path
Cracks under my feet as I walk this long corridor
Of elms, arched
Like the ceiling of a French railway pier where a boy
With pale curls holding
A fresh iris is waving goodbye to a grandmother, gazing
A long time
Into the flower, as if he were looking some great

Distance, or down an empty garden path & he believes a man
Is walking toward him, working
Dull shears in one hand; & now believe me: The train
Is gone. The old woman is dead, & the boy. The iris curls,
On its stalk, in the shade
Of those elms: Where something like the icy & bitter fragrance
In the wake of a woman who’s just swept past you on her way
Home
& you remain.

M-O-O-N (That Spells Dun)

/ Janna Hill / 7 Comments

Well this wraps up my week of future poets.

Yep, M-O-O-N that spells dun.

I’ve probably read close to 100 poems trying to find just the right one to end my Not Yet Notorious week of poetry.

I wanted something (I liked) to reflect the unsung working class by a humble individual who wasn’t tooting their own horn.

Don’t get me wrong, we must all toot every now and again. Oops, I just did. Excuse me.

I crammed in so many units and stanzas it all started running together like Scary Movie 3 so I took a break and looked at photographs like the one that I stole you see here.

Sue's Swans

Sue’s Swans

In case you didn’t know photography is a hobby that helps me to ‘not think’. There are a lot of attention-seeking characters living in my head. No, really! Sometimes I show them a pretty picture so they’ll shut up.

Photography is my yang to the yin of self-help.

So… I was scrolling along and low and behold it was one of those I never knew that or maybe I did and just forgot moments. That happens. Anyway there it was. Monday Morning Hike right there under my nose.
Did you know the anatomical position of the eyes prevents us from being able to see those things that are right under our nose? That’s my excuse. That’s also why I try to inform every self-confident male that he has a partially dried glob of mucus dangling from his moustache. I can’t believe they fall for it – even the clean shaven ones.

Alas to conclude (dear lord let me shut up) I’d like to share this poem by a fellow blogger and photo hobbyist. It has nothing to do with toots, noses or boogers so clear your mind.
Take a deep breath. Hummmmm….

Monday Morning Hike

by Sued51

When I park my car
the music stops.
I shuffle to the front door
of my brick purgatory
a little late,
head down,
watching my feet
go through the motions.
At the front steps
a pack is
put on my back–
every soldier’s companion;
gravity pulls
my shoulders earthward;
a groan slips out
as I yank open
cumbrous glass doors.
With every step
down the stale hall,
my pack gets heavier.
I imagine the silent
figures I pass
loading me up
behind my back,
as I struggle along,
bound for my trench.
By the time I reach
that terminus
my canteen is empty;
any weekend peace
it held drained away.
Another deadend
week has begun.

 

Lucky Me

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

laundry
dishes
mail on the table
things piling up

leaks
leaning toilet
dad by nine
things falling down

mom on her i-phone, i-pad,  i – i – i
I make dinner for myselfDSC_0015 (1280x1125)
empty fridge, fruits and vegetables are for farm heroes.
save candy crush for dessert.

trip over musty towels, bang my head on rusty washer.
still no clean clothes in the dryer.
saving pets is more humane. baseball practice tomorrow.
a fruit cup with a bowl of lucky charms.

Lucky me.

Let’s Go with Wordless Wednesday…

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

I scrapped the post I had planned for today. Poetry from Prison sounded good but after a little research… sorry I just can’t.

The suggested poet/poem was interesting but the crimes were beyond heinous.  After seventeen years on death row she probably is remorseful but all I can think is why hasn’t California executed her yet.  ‘Nuff said.

I think I’ll go water the lawn.

big green tractor (1024x683)

 

 

Future Poets

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

Adding to our poets of the future, laureates in waiting, aka not yet notorious composers today I present to you Typhanie Tijerina- Hill. No we are not related as far as I know but if she were to win a Pulitzer or become a future Poet Laureate that might change.

UT_Tyler_bell_tower.jpg
Typhanie is currently a student at the University of Texas at Tyler studying Chinese, Literature and History.

Prior to UT she attended Trinity Valley Community College where she studied theater, literature and history.
Typhanie is also a wife and a mother. Anyone who has juggled such roles knows the hardships and the rewards. It takes an iron will and an artist’s heart and that is a kick- *ss combination.
I chose A Willow Among the Maple because (for me) it reflects humility and strength… Coming to terms with who we are and accepting our limitations without conceding defeat.

A Willow Among the Maple

By Typhanie Tijerina-Hill

I am a willow among the Maple
I weep while they pour out syrup so sweet
I am droopy and they are strong
I fight for survival while they grow with ease
My roots are planted deep
But are small compared to their large core
They hover over me mocking my fragile limbs
I know I will never be as big as the maple
But I don’t have to be

***
I really, really liked this poem because it left me nodding my head and thinking…

Sometimes it’s like reaching for the stars on a cloudy night. But if we keep reaching, groping into the unseen – maybe one night the clouds will pass and maybe, just maybe we will find a star in our hand. Perhaps not the biggest or the brightest star – but it will be the best star because this one will have our name on it.

 Yes, I wax poetic on occasion.

Not Yet Notorious Composers

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

This week I’m not featuring renowned poets.
This week let’s look at future poets or should I say not yet notorious composers.
The following poem was taken from

Poems for MIT Students.

A simple cover for a deep book.

It was written [and I quote] “by MIT students, for MIT students.”

Of the 20+ poems in this little chapbook I chose Almost by Julia Kimmerly.

(I hope 🤞🏼 this links to the free PDF file.)

 

MIT_logo_black_red

 

Ahh you thought MIT was a boring technical institute with some weird shorthand logo that has occult meanings.  Maybe that was my line of  thinking? No, all I can think of  is the Bee Gees so y’all go ahead and read while I sing. 

And the lights alllll weennnt out in Massachusetts…

 

Julia Kimmerly / 2013

it’s been a while since the smile of a pen has styled my page,
ages since mental meandering, penned pondering, wistful wandering
wondering about mysteries, histories, blistering bliss stories
of sinister misters, kissed-hers, twisted listening and
tea: a small plea from me to indulge.
today is a break from the intensity.
it makes a bulge in the tense immensity of stress,
incensed duress.
Dad’s mom’s locket rests in my palm,
her psalms next to his curbed proverbs:
once begun half done
measure twice, cut once
a stitch in time saves nine
but what about when the second half is baffling,
twice doesn’t suffice,
and the stitches come undone
like poorly hitched horses looking for fodder?
what about:
everything in moderation
variety is the spice of life
everything is relative—
relative to what?
it’s all the same insane struggle,
trouble bubbling over from one night to the next.
fight the biting light, the tightening sight as eyelids sigh
sleep is nigh
the group droops with equations left unsolved
greek letters in an unresolved war
equality separating the horror.
symbols swapping sides and constants barring pi’s.
Intensity Has a Taste For Pain.
this feast of information has ceased to be fun.
the yearning of learning gone,
no longer appealing.
the feeling of prolonged gratification
empty.
the anticipation not
tempting.

teachers hold the treat just out of reach,
each time bringing me forward
toward the future, it’s
badder, better, bigger, baller, butter from the stick
but if I don’t get out of this mean fiendish routine—
color outside the confining outline—
i won’t survive.
my thriving creativity of young,
now stifled insensitively,
clung to by what grip I have left.
i want to rip away from the
numerical masochism
hysterical workaholism
compensation for lack of sensation.
i have forgotten how to live,
rotten, now oblivious to what reality does,
sacrificing who I am now, or was, for who I could be.
but that to-be she is only one possible me
a successful breast full of delicious accomplishments.
yes, enticing time now is dimes and cents to my future dollars
a smaller price to pay for a greater later
a relentless satyr of ambition
searing volition to steer myself straight to the top.
but I don’t want to wait and be
a fated one-sided, dull-minded, blind signer
i want to be alive.
strive for more than better letters and wonder numbers
get out of this slumber and
find time for stars and clouds and dimension counting
Mars and How’s and existential doubting
the so-bad-its-good idea talks
the late-night, fate-type of walks
more coffee shops and railroad stops
beer stein hops and sly eaves drops
i want to tout the now and
scout the crowd for smiles and Guastavino tiled lies
(he knows woe woven into faulted vaults).
i want to drive and be driven.
And given the chance, yes i will.
but until the game is won, tassel hassled and the famous cap flung,
i have to persevere
buckle down for my career
gear up for my dear job.
study, read, feed my mind until it wants to be fed.
beg, plead, lead my mind until it wants to be led.
heed my mind until it is ahead, not overrun.
until all is said and done.

When Lust Looks Like Love

/ Janna Hill / 6 Comments

Joseph Rudyard Kipling
30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936

Kipling-wikimedia commons
Once upon a time hit and run sex was sooo romantic.

Rudy was too sophisticated for a one night stand but give him a sensuous landscape in the hills of India and lust looks a lot like love.Jakko Hill by Michael Gomes May 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 
A Ballade of Jakko Hill

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed — an idle hour to kill —
A headless, armless armory
That smote us both on Jakko Hill.

Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait
Through Time and to Eternity!
Ah Heaven! we could conquer Fate
With more than Godlike constancy
I cut the date upon a tree —
Here stand the clumsy figures still:
“10-7-85, A.D.”
Damp with the mist of Jakko Hill.

What came of high resolve and great,
And until Death fidelity!
Whose horse is waiting at your gate?
Whose ‘rickshaw-wheels ride over me?
No Saint’s, I swear; and — let me see
To-night what names your programme fill —
We drift asunder merrily,
As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill.

L’ENVOI.
Princess, behold our ancient state
Has clean departed; and we see
‘Twas Idleness we took for Fate
That bound light bonds on you and me.
Amen! Here ends the comedy
Where it began in all good will;
Since Love and Leave together flee
As driven mist on Jakko Hill!

Choosing Life Over Death

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

Countee Cullen
May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946

signed cullenMr. Cullen was an award winning poet, a novelist and a playwright. His history, mystery, talents and accomplishments are far too many to mention in this small space but Modern American Poetry has an interesting bit of info.

Cullen was also a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

It’s said that he wrote this piece in response to Alan Seeger’s I Have a Rendezvous With Death.

Cullen’s rendezvous with life (though short lived) strikes me as more optimistic which I’m sure was his intention. It is also the reason I chose it.

I Have a Rendezvous With Life

I have a rendezvous with Life,
In days I hope will come,
Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
When Spring’s first heralds hum.
Sure some would cry it’s better far
To crown their days with sleep
Than face the road, the wind and rain,
To heed the calling deep.
Though wet nor blow nor space I fear,
Yet fear I deeply, too,
Lest Death should meet and claim me ere
I keep Life’s rendezvous.

 

Emily’s Simplicity

/ Janna Hill / 4 Comments

Emily Dickinson

(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)
Today I thought I’d visit the modest rhymes and musings of sweet Emily Dickinson but then I changed my mind.

Not that I don’t adore Emily’s simplicity – we were like best friends for a long time. Did you know if she hadn’t died of kidney disease or heart failure she would have been 184 years old next month? We were going to go skydiving…

Okay, back to earth and the late Emily Dickinson.

Instead of sharing the standard fluffy stuff of hopes and dreams and sugary illusions of death she is known for I decided to show her darker side with this letter and poem to her sister in law Susan Huntington Dickinson.

I heard if you invert Em’s photo you’ll see that she actually has horns. [gasp! yikes! yee gads it’s true!]

She lived and died in Massachusetts ya know.

THE LETTER

Tuesday morning – [1854]
Sue – you can go or stay – There is but one alternative – We differ often lately, and this must be the last.
You need not fear to leave me lest I should be alone, for I often part with things I fancy I have loved, – sometimes to the grave, and sometimes to an oblivion rather bitterer than death – thus my heart bleeds so frequently that I shant mind the hemorrhage, and I can only add an agony to several previous ones, and at the end of day remark – a bubble burst!
Such incidents would grieve me when I was but a child, and perhaps I could have wept when little feet hard by mine, stood still in the coffin, but eyes grow dry sometimes, and hearts get crisp and cinder, and had as lief burn.
Sue – I have lived by this.
It is the lingering emblem of the Heaven I once dreamed, and though if this is taken, I shall remain alone, and though in that last day, the Jesus Christ you love, remark he does not know me – there is a darker spirit will not disown its child.
Few have been given me, and if I love them so, that for idolatry, they are removed from me – I simply murmur gone, and the billow dies away into the boundless blue, and no one knows but me, that one went down today. We have walked very pleasantly – Perhaps this is the point at which our paths diverge – then pass on singing Sue, and up the distant hill I journey on.

I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing –
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears –
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown –
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.

Fast in a safer hand
Held in a truer Land
Are mine –
And though they now depart,
Tell I my doubting heart
They’re thine.

In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
each little discord here
Removed.

Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.

E –

 * * *

For more information on the life of Emily Dickinson check out the Emily Dickinson Museum.

Wallowing in the Words of FARMER

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment
National Poetry Month officially starts April 1st and guess who I chose?

(thanks for the suggestion “gs”)

FRIEDA HUGHES
Frieda Rebecca Hughes was born April 1, 1960 to poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. frieda

In all honesty I hadn’t read Frieda’s poetry though I did stalk her a little last year.  Not in the literal/physical sense. I’m not that disturbed – okay maybe that is debatable but anyway…

You see last April I was obsessing over her mother and the tragedies that surrounded young Frieda Hughes. Thank goodness the July heat cured me – at least I thought it did. Now I find myself wallowing in this poem.
I will not dissect FARMER or delve into the misfortunes of Ms. Hughes today. Instead I would like to point out that Frieda went on to become an artist in her own right. She is not only an author and a poet she is a [talented] painter as well.

FARMER

by Frieda Hughes

Slim, beautiful thing he was, like a dropped angel.
Eyes huge, set amazed in his face,
He wondered at the universe.
Strange man, tree watching.

She caught him young. Hollow vessel;
She saw his ownership of things, and wanted.
Saw his weaknesses early, nailed him to the floor
With an unexpected daughter.

Hooked, like a mouth-torn trout,
He was held fast by the cry and spit
Of little childhood begun so sudden, so surprised.
Mother felt her job was done.

Had used her womb like a weapon. Now her words
Beat him down, he was harvested in his own fields.
His bruises bloomed, those blue roses sank their stain
Beneath his surface, made him dumb with pain.
He learned to be silent.

In his head he hid. Green grew there,
Rocks cracked hot in the sun, his landscape
Was knitted by lizards and boulders of sheep.
She could not find him or snap a bone
With the thought that made her child,
It became her stone. Its heaviness outweighed her.
At last, she left him,
Strange man, tree watching.

***
P.S. HaPpY BiRthDaY Frieda Hughes.

Photo courtesy of friedahughes.com