reframe » poetry

What I Have Learned So Far- Mary Oliver

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:19:24 +0000

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems Volume Two, (thanks Rudi)

The Victorian Bushfires

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:33:00 +0000

scorched trees mark the dead
land, hungry for rain and fire
behind char she cries

some powerful pictures

A Thought for 2009

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:53:00 +0000

The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the question,

nor is it bought with going to amazing places.

Until you’ve kept your eyes

and your wanting still for fifty years,

you don’t begin to cross over from confusion.

- Rumi (مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی)

Barack seeks the Stillness

admin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:52:00 +0000

(Obama minutes before the first Presidential debate)

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness, the dancing.

T.S. Eliot, East Coker, No.2 of ‘Four Quartets‘

Reckoner by Radiohead

admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:13:00 +0000

Reckoner

You can’t take it with you
Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for
Bittersweet distractor
Dare not speak its name
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)
Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)

Reckoner

Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

- Reckoner, by Radiohead, written by Thom Yorke.

This coming Tuesday- Radiohead, Gara and Brodie. It’s like going home.

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:00:00 +0000

“I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray.

When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me.

In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me:

“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written.

I am not done with my changes.”

- The Layers- by the late, American Poet Laureate, Stanley Kunitz

Compiling Poets Forever Young

admin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:00:00 +0000

How many golden roads end at The Samarkand,
When midnight chokes the disquieted soul
And history finds another fall from grace?

Those who with songs beguile the pilgrimage.
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die
For lust of knowing what should not be known.
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why,
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest.

The thief speaks now to many here
But none level on this line
We, bare-foot servant-princes feel
The cold distance they will find

James Elroy Flecker, (November 5, 1884- January 3, 1915)
Jimi Hendrix, (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970)

Sold in Salvador

admin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:38:00 +0000

At first she’s a prom girl, but then slurred speech and a vacant look that reads only money, speak of something else entirely. Shake and sigh and So Wrong- in this oldest city- and seem to pray that maybe she gets it together enough that baby daughter wont realise until she can… Handle it? Run her own game? Get the hell out of here? And to where? This is The Where.

You have to pay me.

I don’t think anyone cries for them. Desired and reviled for the same thing by the same people. Such a shame at such a price. Lie down with heady everything and stand with condemnation- they are nothing- and you are still clean.. if you forget.

You have to pay me.

And so what? Run drugs or scam gringoes or make something beautiful that no-one ever sees and it’s tomorrow again and you’re still hungry, and so the fuck what? Stop the screams and the pain and maybe it’s a forgotten day or two ahead or maybe just the streets again.

We all sell. But people cry for your pain.

Opening to "Om"

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:02:00 +0000

An excerpt of a poem by Herman Hesse, set to a Baraka-like scene.

Wanderer, Worshipper, Lover of Leaving

admin — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:59:00 +0000

“The Sufi poet and mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi, was born in Afghanistan 800 years ago and UNESCO has designated 2007 the ‘Year of Rumi‘. His poetry is astonishing in its beauty, wisdom, and spiritual depth, and we hear from the pre-eminent translator and promoter of Rumi in the West, Coleman Barks. Included in the program are musical excerpts from ‘The Rumi Concert’ held in Melbourne in August 2007, and we hear from one of the world’s great scholars of Rumi, Dr Zeki Saritoprak.”

TheSpiritofThings on ABC Radio National
Listen Now |Download Audio

I cannot recommend this highly enough. If you are familiar with Rumi, it is a pure delight. If you are not, it is as if to catch a glimpse of one’s beloved for the first moment- or rather 54 remarkable minutes. N.B. The podcast will only be accessible for a limited time, after which only a transcription will be available.

All that is left
to us by tradition
is mere words.

It is up to us
to find out what they mean.

ibn al-`Arabi ( أبن عربي), Tarjuman al-Ashwaq

Previously, I’ve posted Rumi’s poem “Quietness”, his “lecture” on “The Dream That Must Be Interpreted”, another poem “All The Hemispheres” and an interview with Coleman Barks.