Poet Jack J Locke passed away last week. We got to know each very well during the past year as we co founded The Charter Poets along with Blossom Thom. The doors were open wide for what we hoped would be a great future for the group. And now we
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Scripturient: Relevant poetry
I was standing in a bookstore in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back, and opened The Essential Ginsberg, a collection of poems, songs and other writing by the late Allen Ginsberg, he of Howl fame*. I open the book at random and read the opening Ginsberg’s poem, Capital Air,
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: I Have Not Lingered In European Monasteries
by Leonard Cohen I Have Not Lingered In European Monasteries and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell; I have not parted the grasses or purposefully left them thatched. I have … Continue reading →
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Note about Alan Sullivan
Nearly two years ago, the poet and blogger Alan Sullivan died. His final project, a new translation of the Book of Psalms, has been published. The translation can be ordered here. His collaborator and advisor on this translation, Seree Zohar, was kind enough to send me a note to tell me
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LV: If You Forget Me
If You Forget Me I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LVIV: The Curate Thinks You Have No Soul
Was thinking, by-the-by, about some dogs I have loved, and how I get along with (and like, if truth be known) dogs better than most people. So sentimentalism be damned: here’s a dog poem. St John Lucas was an early 20th century anthologist of poetry and friend and mentor to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LVIII: And You as Well Must Die, Belovèd Dust | Edna St. Vincent Millay
You sometimes forget about authors. They sort of fall out of your head. Expect more Millay in the future. And You as Well Must Die, Belovèd Dust And you as well must die, belovèd dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect
Continue readingFusing and Musing: Poem of the day
image source Invictus Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Poem for Easter
My own, with at least Easterish themes of death and rebirth. Originally published on 7/10/10. VSA You came to us, no vital signs, no breath Found dead, or nearly so, by the mall You last saw cars, careening carts, a child. Then falling, hard pavement, blood, a void empty Of
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LI
Easter in Pittsburgh Even on Easter Sunday jungle of lilies and ferns fat Uncle Paul who loved his liquor so would pound away with both fists on the when the church was a stone pulpit shouting sin sin sin and the fiery fires of hell and I cried all after-
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems L
Yes, the fiftieth edition of Favourite Poems. You might wonder why a blog about nurses and nursing (and some other stuff, but mostly nursing) does poetry. The answer is simple: because nursing is far more than all the mundane tasks we need to do to care for our patients. Poetry
Continue readingFusing and Musing: Poem of the day
image source An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny they are small, and the fountain is in France where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. you
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLVIII
In Winter in My Room In Winter in my Room I came upon a Worm – Pink, lank and warm – But as he was a worm And worms presume Not quite with him at home – Secured him by a string To something neighboring And went along. A Trifle
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LXVII
A poem for a Saturday morning. Just because. To Winter O winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car. He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep Rides
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLVI
Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLV
An Old Man’s Winter Night All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLIV
To a Locomotive in Winter Thee for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive, Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel, Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLIII
Now Winter Nights Enlarge Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze, And cups o’erflow with wine; Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love, While youthful revels,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Poem for a Saturday
I am really pleased to offer another poem by Michèle Katrina Thorsen. I have a couple more to offer over the next while. my dreams of your recovery died waiting in windows, at last disbelieving the roar of medical swank; the unraveling, dazzling myth of an exquisite, impossible) remission. — Michèle Katrina Thorsen Filed under: Michèle […]
Those Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLII
Two poems on the theme of Autumn. Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it split in sleep. And when it came November, I sought my heart, and sighed, “Poor thing, do you remember?” “What heart was that?” it cried. […]