Re-Opening: It Has Been a Year and a Half

I shut down this blog to private a year and a half ago.  Over that time period I debated whether to reopen it.  I had gotten some good responses to it, so that wasn't the reason I closed it off from cyberspace.  I was concerned that someone might steal some of my poems. However, all poems I posted here are in their first, raw stages.  They need more work.  Overall for someone who has written the bulk of her poetry in middle age, I feel I've done a fairly good job as a novice poet.  If someone steals some of them, they will only be snatching the first stage of each of these poems.  My passion for poetry and the desire to write my own really blossomed about four years ago.  I have a long way to go as a poet, but I believe I have potential.  

The last time I posted I was in the US.  Now I am living in northwestern Anatolia in the city of Eskişehir which was the home of one of Turkey's earlier and greatest poets Yunus Emre. I teach English here to teenagers, university students, and adults. A Turk told me Yunus Emre is like the Shakespeare of Turkey.  

I always remember Jo in Little Women saying something to the affect that living abroad is good for the writing. I think she was speaking of Europe specifically, but Europe is not the only inspiring place on earth.  I find Turkey to be quite inspiring.  

This week with so much snow on the ground and very few classes because of New Years, the desire for writing came back to me.  Being alone with no one to talk to over the last few days,  trying to arrange my thoughts and focus on writing again apparently brought back the urge to write most powerfully.  Ideas about what my writing means and how it might affect others even if I never become a big time author and poet have been in my thoughts.  

I'm learning that the most important to do if the desire for writing is present is to write.  Write even if the words are not coming I've read in several places.  It also doesn't matter the size of the audience or whether fame or fortune are possible. What matters is to write and release that need for creativity.  

Summer 2014 I wrote two short stories, the first time I'd tried such writing since I took creative writing in when I was an undergraduate.  I attempted to be literary and psychological in those two stories.  I'm trying to find my voice.  I'm trying to discover what kind of writer I really am.

So here at the beginning of 2015 I begin a new session of poetry.  Enjoy.  

Three Haiku

I've been reading haiku a lot lately and posted a number of poems by masters such as Buson, Issa, Shiki, Basho, and Taneda on my social media accounts Facebook and Twitter.  They are also my favorite composers of haiku. 

What triggered my love of haiku was this book that I have a copy of: Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems.

Here's a nice page of classic haiku: The Haiga Pages.  Also many classical haiku can be read on Poemhunter.com. 

I briefly studied haiku sometime in probably high school, but I remember feeling intimidated by it.  My teacher tried to keep us within the 5-7-5 syllable pattern which is the Japanese method, but I've learned that the rules are not so strict in English.  So tonight I tried my hand at some.

Walking, worried eyes

down a lonely road,

my car broke down.

 

Birds singing,

too confused to sleep,

midnight super moon.

 

A floral branch hangs

in front of the moon,

I gaze in my loneliness

Two Poems in Video by Mahmoud Darwish

I've written in the past that my poetry blog would not just contain poetry written by me but occasionally poetry written by others. 

Some weeks ago I saw a quote on my Facebook timeline by someone named Mahmoud Darwish. I think I'd seen quotes by him  on there before.  This last time I decided to do research.  I was immediately excited to learn that he was a famous poet.  Wikipedia writes that he is considered by some to be the national poet of Palestine. 

There are videos of him on YouTube reciting poems.  I've read a few of his poems online and want to read more.  I've listened to a song called Passport which is a poem by the Lebanese singer Marcel Khalife based on a poem by Mahmoud Darwish.  I first heard this song at the end of the movie Amreeka, which a movie I've watched twice now and like very much.  The characters are Palestinian, but I can relate to their sense of not feeling like they don't belong to their homeland or their adopted homeland in America.  I love the main character Muna's optimism and perseverance through betrayal and disappointment.  

I don't have it anywhere as difficult as their characters or as Mahmoud Darwish had, still I believe all alienation feels rather the same.  Those who don't self-destruct learn to live through it, work through and around it, and if you have something of the creative in you, you begin to make something artistic out of it.  You turn your tears into an artistic artifact.  I decided to take the creative route because most of all I want to love my fellow humans which is one of the hardest tasks of all.

I will continue to humanize even the enemy... The first teacher who taught me Hebrew was a Jew. The first love affair in my life was with a Jewish girl. The first judge who sent me to prison was a Jewish woman. So from the beginning, I didn't see Jews as devils or angels but as human beings. Several poems are to Jewish lovers. These poems take the side of love not war. ~ Mahmoud Darwish

Here are two videos in English and Arabic of poems by Mahmoud Darwish with him reciting the poems in Arabic. 

The Seeker

As the moon cries itself
to sleep
as the seas turn to brimstone
as I roam the deserts of
the world
seeking you only you.
There are only weary eyes.
There are only mute mouths
as the child swings on the playground
alone.
When will be my last
day on this flower petal earth
that weeps and dies?
I seek you only you.
I have wondered a long time
where you are
and if a time will come
when I will finally find you.

Answer Me Poet

It has been awhile, but I am back posting a bit of  my poetry. 


You may write poetry around me, embroider it
or craft it into a pearl necklace. The dew on

the lily by the lake. The little bird plump, hiding
in the shrubbery.  Lovers intertwined.  I remember

you.  I remember him, the poet of the sad eyes and
witness to so much tragedy inside and outside himself.

There is so much I do not understand and which I
question, the lightening that flickers dangerously

in the distance on a muggy summer's evening,
the wars that will not end.  Answer me poet and

and drop the syllables into my barely eloquent mouth.

Beautiful Narrow-Minded Poet

I met a poet online briefly.
Gave a compliment; she sent out an x. 
I am getting old, therefore I do not always understand
the shorthand of the young, their codes of conduct
and misconduct.  For all her beautiful words of hazy
borderline mysticism, I noted an imbalance, a dishonesty,
a narrow-mindedness, lush, vibrant words of
poetry, accounts of melancholy, longing for love,
walking outside the exile, but Twitter gave her
away, the narrow camp she followed and who
followed her, her focus on just a prick point
on the earth, her homeland.

Her words 140
characters or less, beautiful random Tweets
that though lovely left an unhealthy taste in
my mouth.  There is something too pompous
and proud there for her own good or anyone's
own good. I would love for this girl of the mellow
beautiful voice and worldly words that trick themselves
into a kind of mysticism to truly open her heart
and not pretend.  Leave the pretension on the
stage. Leave your dolls there before your audience.
Remove your mind from the narrow box it is in.
It may be difficult since I do not know the conditions
you lived under growing up.

You are a refugee,
but open your mind beyond
your group of headscarved females and self-
centered revolutionaries too afraid to die by a
bullet, drawing attention to themselves but solving
nothing.  Speak as this old girl speaks, naturally
and with open love, not all this pleading in the
dark and fear.  Even this aging poet knows when
to turn off the poetry and flowers, not to speak
like a poet all the time.  Take a holiday from
the stage.  To be a poet you have to first be
an honest human with feelings outside yourself
flowing away from the cold rigid princess.

Heaven Lost

There are things we cannot say and dare not say
but if we permitted ourselves to say them
the world would be warmed and caressed
as the sun thawing and melting the snow into
nothingness, water to the arid spirit.  Instead 
of the silence, the words that demand to be
said we relish in fear, anger, sadness, regret
when it is so easy.  Just a word, mine the right
ones disconnected from our egos permitting 
the softness and innocence to return.

Small children are artists with words. Even in their playfulness
and absurdity we see there is no treacherous pretension.
I watch the children on the playground and see the 
wonderland I lost.  I can never choose that heaven
completely again now that I know.  I remember how
difficult it was to learn how to ride my bike. 
A friendly older boy coached me but I never caught
on under his patient gaze and tutelage until one day,
one day I found myself balanced and riding on two
wheels. That boy passed away recently killed and
thrown away by his hidden pain and ignorant decisions,
hurtful that this happened to that patient and kind once
boy that I knew.  Like an old song went If I Ever Lose
This Heaven....I lost it and many more millions 
before and afterwards have.