Urban Retreat

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poetry

Tags

Joy, Longfellow, Love, Peace, Poems, Poetry

Give me poetry!

A retreat into snow on a cloudy
day, sun the shine of yester-
mornings, regret a post-idea fact
of a Kennedy effort at World Peace.

Give me Poetry!

A reading in the sun, times with
you, my mountains—this could be
fun!

A Santa Barbara beach, a Pasadena
moon over hills, the Los Angeles trash
of bad budgets a thing of the short-
term past, as suits decide their
next robbery.

Give me Poetry!

Not in the urban sweat and swing—
I want to retreat to God’s glory,
give words to gratitude in the winter
of now. The song of April in December
singing Christmas Carols way too soon,

the death of hate and hope eternal!

Give me Poetry!

I want to live another day, despite
the night’s salty margarita I should
not have imbibed—

I should have looked “alcohol” up
in the dictionary, studied something
I considered a right to enter!

I should have dreamed another dream,
but maybe God will give me a second chance.

A blast to a second wind, a lost dance—
a far off romance!

Chastity is the wise course of failures
like me. A handsome waste of sperm,
reaching you as you turn—

The way back home revved up
in the worst inventions of all time,
loud motors, the rotors of choppers
the motorcycle berm, another earth
burn, the fuel of fools

to go faster past our five senses’ need
to sense, there’s no sense in it,
could I get my change back?

My apple pie with fries, a bad combo
of meals taking hours for my
stomach to decide—

should we let Bill live or die?

Coughing at night!

Your choices do come back to
haunt if not chosen right!

Will I have nine hundred years to
live like an Old Testament wise man?

Will I die in the breeze of forgotten
memories?

Never, if sober. God is just, and
takes away pain when you ask the
right questions. Ask for support
or rest… and receive.

Give me poetry!!

Give it to me today,

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Read it to me not here. Make me travel
and strive to receive it, LORD—
written in capitals from the mighty
Torah, not as the Lord of love brought
by your rebellious rabbi son.

Make me travel to the mountain.

Surprise me with a dream.

Give me poetry!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

“Ardlogie, Christmas Eve, 1939” by Douglas Young:

08 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by Bill Watkins in Nature, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Scottish, Winter

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Douglas Young, Joy, Love, Peace, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Scottish

winter flowers2

The mild midwinter evening ebbs, leaving
wreckage of gold and purple on the hill.
The full round moon sails up from eastward, cleaving
dim veils of star-split cloud, tenuous and still.

Winter has jewels yet, leaf, flower, and berry,
berberis, holly, crab, and many more;
wych-hazels’ golden straps, a starry cherry,
primroses, heaths, a purple hellebore.

There’s a viburnum by the porch, some vagrant
botanist found in Western Yunnan.
It’s flowering now, exquisitely fragrant,
waxy white umbels, scent of marzipan.

Moon-white the naked beeches tower, wreathing
lichened limbs above the laurel glooms;
beyond the lawn a ground-air faintly breathing
stirs the white torches of the pampas plumes.

About me as I walk an odour lingers
of cypress logs I sawed; the pungent scent
clings in my tweeds, and when I raise my fingers
I get the resinous smell, and am content.

Cock-pheasants from the neighbouring pinewood chortle,
a blackbird whistles from the red-twigged lime.
There’s enough pleasure here for any mortal
with eyes, ears, nose, this mild midwinter-time.

“Spring Song” by John Davidson

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetry, Rare Poems, Scottish, Spring

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John Davidson, Joy, Love, Peace, Poem, Poems, Poems on Spring, Poetry, Scottish, Scottish Poetry, Spring

Spring1

About the flowerless land adventurous bees
Pickeering hum; the rooks debate, divide,
With many a hoarse aside,
In solemn conclave on the budding trees;
Larks in the skies and ploughboys o’er the leas
Carol as if winter had never been;
The very owl comes out to greet the sun;
Rivers high hearted run;
And hedges mantle with a flush of green.

The curlew calls me where the salt winds blow;
His troubled note dwells mournfully and dies;
Then the long echo cries
Deep in my heart. Ah, surely I must go!
For there the tides, moon-haunted, ebb and flow;
And there the seaboard murmurs resonant;
The waves their interwoven fugue repeat
And brooding surges beat
A slow, melodious, continual chant.

“Lovers’ Dusk” by Arthur Davison Ficke

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by Bill Watkins in Arthur Davison Ficke, Love, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Arthur Davison Ficke, Couples, Ficke, Joy, Love, Lovers, Peace, Poems, Poetry, Romance, Romantic, Romantic Poetry, Valentine's, Valentine's Day

lovers2

Lovers’ Dusk

Spring fills the air today; with different sound
The whistles blow, out in the foggy bay;
There is a thawing in the sodden ground;
And flowers whose birth is still two months away
Send down the air premonitory ghosts
Of what shall be their odors. As we lie
Here in the dusk of silence, all things lost
Seem phantoms of a winter soon to die.
Nothing is dead that had the power to live;
Nothing can end except what should not be;
Beauty, that far-sought April fugitive,
Comes home to those who trust felicity;
Moments that have the whole life to give
Pause thus by lovers’ couches, tenderly.