art music poetry

Docks Poem by Carl Sandburg

by

DOCKS

STROLLING along
By the teeming docks,
I watch the ships put out.
Black ships that heave and lunge
And move like mastodons
Arising from lethargic sleep.

The fathomed harbor
Calls them not nor dares
Them to a strain of action,
But outward, on and outward,
Sounding low-reverberating calls,
Shaggy in the half-lit distance,
They pass the pointed headland,
View the wide, far-lifting wilderness
And leap with cumulative speed
To test the challenge of the sea.

Plunging,
Doggedly onward plunging,
Into salt and mist and foam and sun.

Did I mean to say I love you Poem by Sara Russell

by

APPENDAGE
c. Sara L. Russell
26/11/98

Did I mean to say I love you
in words or other ways?
Did we overlook each other,
through our busy working days?
Did we mean to spend more time
looking in each other’s face?
Did we mean to give each other
all of this much space?

An appendage to your life,
I filter through your days:
Fixture, lover, wife,
through your absent-minded haze
and I love you with a passion
more insane than blind
and you love me in your fashion
and you are always kind.

So I wait as days race by
with the blur you leave behind,
no time stop and try
to mutually unwind
and I love you with a passion
too intense for pride,
surviving on love’s ration
as my dreams walk by your side.

(Winner of Runners-Up Prize, Capricorn International
Love Poetry Competition, 1998)

***

Fitting into the mold poem by David Michael Jackson

by

What’s the use he says.
What’s the point.
Who says there
has to be a point.
A point to get stuck on?
Wasting your life is an alternative to
driving yourself into
cramped molds,
bread molds
medicine molds
molds which paychecks fit into
molds which success fits into
I have been hammered into these molds
by the pressure of the years. I lie like putty
in every intended and required shape
and yet
I still
I find this poem lying
gracefully along
the red mahogany
table

David Michael Jackson

Happy Birthday Pops

by

Louis has a lot to say in the prologue to to this song. I wish what he wishes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgYgl4OodeY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxjzkttwpuQ
Gotta Hear Hello Dolly, Ya know?

You just gotta hear this one too He sings of angels singing above. He’s one of them now and I see why the singing of angels has to be so special.

(August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971

When I was a child in Tennessee the only black people I got to see on TV were Sammy, Louis, and Nat. I was a little boy and I didn’t understand. I still don’t. Now I know they helped take us beyond all of that or at least get us on the road.
In a large way I grew up with Louis Armstrong. He became a part of all of us. Our love for this man flows because of the joy! If you took joy and condensed it, squeezed it down until it was pure, you’d have Louis Armstrong. You made one little boy smile and you’ve made the old man smile with a tear.
Hey Pops, thank you for the joy.

david michael jackson August 4, 2012

You Can’t Steal What Is Already Yours Poem by Cynthia Evans

by

You Can’t Steal What Is Already Yours
——————————————————————————–

Embedded in our
bones, worn into sinews,
We carry the
memories of one another.

Drums beat in
the night; it’s fall time,
And you hunted
with your bad shoulder.

Rising and
falling together,
The ducks fanned
their tails.

The bow you used
was worn from use,
And your
laughter crossed the ages.

You can’t steal
what’s already yours,
And you belong to
everyone you know.

And knowing one
another is enough,
Because life is
words not the world.

We are not needy
or greedy with one another
Patience,
compassion is all, it’s the way.

We were forever
annointed by the sun’s dance,
Brought to our
knees by the smoke of life.

Now we’ve been
given to each other once again,
Your path looked
familiar and it brought me home.

Stay quiet now in
the knowing,
Your Creator has
you by the hand.
***