Poetry Plus – Song of the Flower XXXIII – A poem by Khalil Gibran

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Goff James

Song of the Flower XXIII by Khalil Gibran

Morning’s Flowers Sing

Morning’s flowers sing
The sweet love songs of my heart
Borne upon the breeze

Khalil Gibran (1883 -1931), Lebanese-American philosophical essayist, novelist, poet, and artist.

Khalil Gibran considered himself to be mainly a painter, lived most of his life in the United States, and wrote his best-known works in English, Kahlil Gibran was the key figure in a Romantic movement that transformed Arabic literature in the first half of the twentieth century.

Gibran’s simple and direct style was a revelation and an inspiration. His themes of alienation, disruption, and lost rural beauty and security in a modernizing world also resonated with the experiences of his readers.

He quickly found admirers and imitators among Arabic writers, and his reputation as a central figure of Arabic literary modernism has never been challenged.

Poem Attribution © Khalil Gibran, Song of the Flower XXIII

Source Attribution https://allpoetry.com/Song-Of-The-Flower——XXIII

Senryū Attribution Goff James, Morning’s Flowers Sing

More senryū poems by Goff James

Song Of The Flower XXIII by Khalil Gibran

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth; I was
Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun, which is
The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover’s gift; I am the wedding wreath;
I am the memory of a moment of happiness;
I am the last gift of the living to the dead;
I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.

But I look up high to see only the light,
And never look down to see my shadow.
This is wisdom which man must learn.

Painting Attribution © Yvonne Coomber, Sweet Love Songs of My Heart, (Date Unstated)

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Sweet-Love-Songs-of-My-Heart/659857/4164629/view

Bio Reference Attribution https://www.britannica.com/biography/Khalil-Gibran & https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kahlil-gibran

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Poetry Plus – The Way My Mother Speaks – A poem by Carol Ann Duffy

Posted on January 23, 2021 by Goff James

The Way My Mother Speaks by Carol Ann Duffy

Morning’s Sunlight Gleams

Morning’s sunlight gleams
Mother’s ways and words awake
Memory’s music plays

Carol Ann Duffy (1955 -), British poet whose well-known and well-liked poetry engaged such topics as gender and oppression, expressing them in familiar, conversational language that made her work accessible to a variety of readers. In 2009–19 she served as the first woman poet laureate of Great Britain.

Poem Attribution © Carol Ann Duffy, The Way My mother Speaks

Source Attribution https://engpoetry.com/g-k-chesterton/the-strange-music/

Senryū Attribution Goff James, Morning’s Sunlight Gleams

More senryū poems by Goff James

Painting Attribution © Ira Mitchell, Memories of my Mother, (Date Unstated)

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Memories-of-my-Mother/155153/4674023/view

The Way My Mother Speaks by Carol Ann Duffy

I say her phrases to myself
in my head
or under the shallows of my breath,
restful shapes moving.
The day and ever. The day and ever.

The train this slow evening
goes down England
browsing for the right sky,
too blue swapped for a cool grey.
For miles I have been saying
What like is it.
The way I say things when I think.
Nothing is silent. Nothing is not silent.
What like is it.

Only tonight
I am happy and sad
like a child
who stood at the end of summer
and dipped a net
in a green, erotic pond. The day
and ever. The day and ever.
I am homesick, free, in love
with the way my mother speaks.

Bio Reference Attribution https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carol-Ann-Duffy

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Poetry Plus – The Caterpillar – A poem by Robert Graves

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Goff James

© Diego Lazzarin, Interior Garden #2 – The Dragons and the Caterpillar

The Caterpillar by Robert Graves

Silent Out of Sight

Silent out of sight
Mister Caterpillar feasts
Summer’s bounty ripe

Robert Graves (1895 -1985) English poet, novelist, critic, and classical scholar who carried on many of the formal traditions of English verse in a period of experimentation. His more than 120 books also include a notable historical novel, I, Claudius (1934); an autobiographical classic of World War I, Good-Bye to All That (1929; rev. ed. 1957); and erudite, controversial studies in mythology.

Poem Attribution © Robert Graves, The Caterpillar

Source Attribution https://poets.org/poem/caterpillar

Haiku Attribution Goff James, Silent Out of Sight

Painting Attribution © Diego Lazzarin, Interior Garden #2 – The Dragons and the Caterpillar, (Date Unstated)

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Interior-Garden-2-The-Dragons-and-the-Caterpillar/1020461/3913485/view

The Caterpillar by Robert Graves

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses;
Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
I eat and swallow and eat again.

Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
I’ll mind my business: I’m a good worm.

When I’m old, tired, melancholy,
I’ll build a leaf-green mausoleum
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away.

Some say worms win resurrection,
With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
Either way I’ll miss my share.

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat.

Bio Reference Attribution https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Graves

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Poetry Plus – The Coral Grove – A poem by James Gates Percival

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Goff James

The Coral Grove by James Gates Percival

Turquoise Waters Gleam

Turquoise Waters Gleam
Fishes dazzling radiant swim
Coral paradise

James Gates Percival, (1795 -1856) an American poet, surgeon, and geologist.He assisted Noah Webster in editing his great American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828. poetic works include Prometheus and The Dream of a Day (1843).

His poetic works include Prometheus and The Dream of a Day (1843). A short poem by him The Language of Flowers was set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar at the age of fourteen.

Source Attribution https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-coral-grove/

Haiku Attribution Goff James, Turquoise Waters Gleam

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-The-Golden-Glow-of-the-Sea/1012471/4668786/view

The Coral Grove by James Gates Percival

DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,
Where the purple mullet, and gold-fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift,
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea plants lift
Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air:
There with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To bluch, like a banner bathed in slaughter:
There with a light and easy motion,
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea:
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms,
Has made the top of the waves his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore;
Then far below in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet, and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,
Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

Bio Reference Attribution https://www.poemhunter.com/james-gates-percival/biography/

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Poetry Plus – The Strange Music – A poem by G. K. Chesterton

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Goff James

The Strange Music by G. K. Chesterton

In My Aching Heart

In my aching heart,
the sweet music of your love
plucks her healing tunes.

G. K. Chesterton, (1874 -1936) was an influential English writer of the early twentieth century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy, and detective fiction.

Chesterton has been called the “prince of paradox.” He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations.

Source Attribution https://engpoetry.com/g-k-chesterton/the-strange-music/

American Sentence Attribution Goff James, In My Aching Heart

More American Sentences by Goff James

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-The-Harp/860049/2947046/view

The Strange Music by G. K. Chesterton

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,
But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,
Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,
Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e’er let fall,
In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;
Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,
Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow’s name.

Not as mine, my soul’s annointed, not as mine the rude and light
Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;
Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,
Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God’s harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,
Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.
But I will not fear to match them-no, by God, I will not fear,
I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

Bio Reference Attribution https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/G._K._Chesterton

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Tag Archives: Poems

Poetry Plus – Song of the Flower XXXIII – A poem by Khalil Gibran

Poetry Plus – The Way My Mother Speaks – A poem by Carol Ann Duffy

Poetry Plus – The Caterpillar – A poem by Robert Graves

Poetry Plus – The Coral Grove – A poem by James Gates Percival