Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Tag Archives: poetry
FOLLOWING
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought”.
— *Basho, (1644-1694)
This is good advice. However, I would amend it to say “Follow in the footsteps of the wise and seek what they sought”. The harmonics of wisdom recognize the gradient scale of wisdom. Wisdom is relative to all other wisdom.
In the teaching of wisdom, one much become a good follower. Yet to follow effectively one must lead others. Basho exemplified the most able of wise men. At the time of his death, Basho had more than 2000 students.
Yet, here is the eternal right of the individual to disdain from the playing of games simply to enjoy the serene and simple state of Being. Or, the enjoy the pleasure of Creation for its own sake, without regard to an audience. However, it is far easier to preach to the choir than to enlighten the “heathen”.
Here are a few of the wonderful *Haiku poems attributed to Bash (they may not have retained their purity in the English translation, but you get the flavour of them):
An old pond!
A frog jumps in-
The sound of water.
____________
The years first day
thoughts and loneliness;
the autumn dusk is here.
____________
Poverty’s child –
he starts to grind the rice,
and gazes at the moon.
____________
A weathered skeleton
in windy fields of memory,
piercing like a knife
____________
*DEFINITION OF HAIKU: Haiku is one of the most important form of traditional Japanese poetry. Haiku is, today, a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Since early days, there has been confusion between the three related terms Haiku, Hokku and Haikai. The termhokku literally means “starting verse”, and was the first starting link of a much longer chain of verses known ashaika. Because the hokku set the tone for the rest of the poetic chain, it enjoyed a privileged position in haikaipoetry, and it was not uncommon for a poet to compose ahokku by itself without following up with the rest of the chain.
The name Basho (banana tree) is a sobriquet he adopted around 1681 after moving into a hut with a banana tree alongside. He was called Kinsaku in childhood and Matsuo Munefusa in his later days.
LET’S PRETEND
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
LET’S PRETEND
When we’re young we run
and play “let’s pretend” to be
anything and everything – just for fun.
Our imagination is the key.
As we grow up we are told
by others who are very serious
That reality is time and space and gold;
that games and visions are delirious.
Life goes on and we agree
what other people think is best:
to play our part in reality
just like them and all the rest.
Every game has a start,
a middle and conclusion.
When the time comes to depart
just make a new illusion!
You are Spirit ! Life Eternal !
You’ll make a future and new friends !
Through your dreams you are immortal;
like children playing “let’s pretend”.
— by Lawrence R. Spencer
POETIC IGNORANCE
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Adrian Mitchell (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British anti-authoritarian Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country’s anti-Bomb movement. Mitchell sought in his work to counteract the implications of his own assertion that, “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.” In a National Poetry Day poll in 2005 his poem “Human Beings” was voted the one most people would like to see launched into space. “Most people ignore most poetry / because / most poetry ignores most people.”
Since the Vietnam war nothing has really changed except that war-mongers have become more sophisticated about sanitizing acts of mass-murder with remote controlled drones and smart bombs. More “enemies” are killed per square “peace keeping soldier”. Listen to a poem performed by Adrian Mitchell in the video below. Fill in the word “Vietnam” with the word “Iraq” or “Afghanistan” or “Iran”, etc.. Different year…. same old shit.
POETRY THERAPY
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
In the Western world, poetry is a dying art form….. As art becomes extinct or ignored, so does the civilization. Or, at the very least, the art being created, or the absence of it, reflect the spiritual condition of the individuals in the civilization. Personally, I have discovered that writing poetry is very therapeutic. It creates inner peace, perspective, serenity, spiritual insights, and aesthetic reverie.
Modern “poetry” is most often expressed in the Lyrics of songs. Have you listened to very much “popular” music lately? In the U.S. the most popular (best selling) music is “country music”. The lyrics to the majority of these songs are written specifically to appeal to the LOWEST common denominators of human “intelligence”: sex, cowboys, beer, trucks, parties, and the “idealized lifestyle” of the working-class peasant, jealousy, failed romance, and, did I mention sex? Fundamentally, modern “music” is all about making money. Like the rest of Western “civilization”, which is an artificially created mirage, bought and paid for by NWO bankers, legislated by criminal politicians, enforced by a psychotic military-police-state, and propagandized into “popularity” by the Global Media Machine — everything is about MONEY, Power, Control and Possessions…. and did I mention sex?
There is a quiet, simple remedy for the insane, manic, soulless absurdity created by the artificial environment of television, Hollywood films and the internet.
It is a simple form of “meditation”: Turn off the TV, turn off your cell-phone, turn ON Your Soul. Write a poem.
If you wonder sometimes why you feel depressed, overwhelmed, stressed out, purposeless and alone, you may find Your SELF while writing a poem.
I prefer HAIKU. How about you?
I you would like to share your poems with me, and others who read the Blog, please post them in the COMMENTS! 🙂
