d’Verse Poetics – My philosophy of life

Today at d’Verse, we are so happy to have one of the founders of the community with us – Brian Miller, off from sabbatical to discover the “why” of his life. He has given us the challenge to give our philosophy of life, love, hair care products (grin), whatever….Come join us today.  This is part of the Four Year Anniversary of this amazing poetics community and it has been a super celebration.   http://dversepoets.com/2015/07/16/talk-on-a-cereal-box-a-smile-on-a-dog   And – HAPPY NATIONAL CORN FRITTER DAY!!!!!

My Philosophy of Life
When I was a young child,
The years passed by in one long string of
summer…..fall…..winter…..spring…..
it took forever for Christmas break to come
and even longer for the end of the school year
to come rescue me from samedom.
(I hated school).

Being an older child now though –
the years pass by in a blur –
summerfallwinterspring.
A whirl of green grass, blue sky, tomato red –
another turn of the kaleidoscope
and the colors of flame, orange brown –
another twist:
grey, black, white – the next turn –
tender green, pale pink, forsythia yellow.
Too quickly the days pass.
Too quick to waste not seeing the wonders around me,
Too quick to not laugh when a baby giggles.
Too quick to not hug or listen to the voices of those I love.
The first day I went to school
My grandmother said – be courteous. respect others.
it is more important to always be kind than to be right.
Help the helpless and protect the innocent.
Always say “thank you” for kindnesses done and compliments given.
My mother added, Don’t take any crap from anyone.
My father said, Walk softly when you have a choice.

Some things do not change with time
no matter how quickly the colors in the kaleidoscope change.

copyright kanzensakura

 

dVerse Poetics – My Inspiration

T S Eliot photographed by his friend and correspondent Ottoline Morrell. public domain image

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”  T.S.Eliot

Today, I have the happy task of being bartender at dVerse Poetics Pub. This means I get to talk with all the folk in the community who make comments. I also get to choose a prompt. We often speak of someone who inspired us to write. I am asking our community to write about the poet and their poem that inspired them to begin writing. I am also asking them to take the prompt farther and if possible, write the poem in the style of the inspiring poet. My inspiration is T.S. Eliot. I took this poem from one of my few surviving notebooks wherein I wrote my poems years ago. This is from January 1965. It is full of all the angst and alientation of a teenager at odds with the world around her. And it is a bland imitation of several of Eliot’s poems.

January
January – the dark month
The month of moonless nights
And stars hidden by clouds.

Smoke tasting fog – piles of grey ash
In cans on the sidewalk
And the ash men come –
Reaping what the fire has tasted and left behind –
Ash days
Grey and dry – trees cremated to warm
Those flower folk hidden behind lace curtains
And wide porches sipping tea and eating cakes
Made by those below –
Silent in their movements
And almost as invisible
As the skeleton of an oak leaf –
But visible if the flower people gaze hard enough
But who only sip their tea and eat their cakes
who only look away.

A little dog trots on the sidewalk –
He alone has someplace to go.

Two men in black coats walk
Towards him and he shies away from them.
He jumps on the steps leading up
The grey walk to the big house
And whines as the men pass by.
Black hats black coats
Twins of darkness on this empty street
The flower folks entombed behind
Long panes of glass.

In a country graveyard by a long deserted church
With dirt as red as blood
I saw neglected graves and on one was set in a stone
A photograph behind smashed glass.
I assume it was the person buried in the blood red dirt.

Buried behind a pane of glass
In the blood red dirt of January
I sit by a dead fire and sip tea and eat cake.