WHAT IS POETRY

"Poetry is the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." Leonard Cohen


Poetry is where we can be ourselves.
Poetry speaks a pure voice.
Poetry is in the details.

I love this quote about poetry by Adrienne Rich  1929- 2012

Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century".
Her first collection of poetry, A Change of World, was selected by the senior poet W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award; she went on to write the introduction to the published volume.

She said poetry is "a living language, the core of every language, something that is still spoken, aloud or in the mind, muttered in secret, subversive, reaching around corners, crumpled in  a pocket, performed to a community, read aloud, to the dying, recited by heart, scrated or sprayed on a wall. That kind of language from the heart and the mind. From the gut and the crotch. To claim wider horizons.

A language that made what is true, truer; what is small, bigger; what is silent, heard;what is fleeting, eternal.

The Waves

Cresting
Resting
in a flow
of endless pitch
blue bands of calm
break over the horizon
forming circles
shapes that wiggle in and out
of troughs
mezmorizing
teaching us about
repitition and recovery
how water transfers
and answers
our fears
as we roll into
the energy
if we hear our own rush
in the magnificent pulse
of the ocean
and ourselves

A Cup of Tea

I jump into
a cup of hot water
licking a new leaf
as it sits
inside my belly
I feel "me"
the band of heat
serves thirst
and connects
sips around the world
saliva and flavour
a ritual
as if a belt
loosely holds liquid
a dull warmth
that stares me down
over and over
and coffee
isn't even there

My Buddy

I see purity
Pushing power
In the words
Of my grandchild
She flies with her thoughts
Her imagination
A language
Of joy
A craziness
That freezes our wonder
Cuts emotion
In cookies of love.

Shame

Stumbling 
Clinging to the misery  
Of a few words  
That cut my chest   
Tapped at my ego
and bruised my brain
I stood facing the shame
Wet with tears
Head to foot 
Clothed in white guilt 
Silent fists pounding me
Pushing back I tried  
To unwrap the ribbons of fear
That colored the space between us 

Words

Words are swords
or pillows
to rest or scream
With on your quest
they wake your mind
change a moment
Or touch a desperate day

The words you say drift
the ones you don't say
are staining my shirt
as I pull my hair
with the itch
in waiting
patiently for your voice

Speak your truth
open your mouth blindly
to those you love
or your trapped honesty
will cut
the powerful words
where peace is blanketed.

WET GARDENS

Drops of pressure
tip bended leaves
a turn of
rainfall massaging
the curls of nature
walking in the shadows
of raindrops I hear oxygen
breathing from the trees
bugs lick the stones
in the hum
of this sweet damp air
straws of pink light
press the clouds
and at the smell
of silence
lays in the grass.