#versethursday — Public Fediverse posts

At thirty-six
I finally stopped wanting to shower—
a caricature,
convinced I couldn’t do that right,
either.

#VerseThursday

for #VerseThursday, here’s another poem from last year’s chapbook

2 years ago, almost to the day, I posted this:

#VerseThursday

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Cold toilet seats away from home are ok with me, I can imagine no recent sitters,
How about you?

"He begins
at the crown of my scalp. He parts the two sides like a tree

branch at the V, and I think of all the forks in the road
in all the storybooks about emerald forests, kingdoms.
All the swinging bridges we travailed. Mariners, trains, conductors."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Hairbrush by Cynthia Atkins (2023 Reverie Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/38bhhazd

"He begins
at the crown of my scalp. He parts the two sides like a tree

branch at the V, and I think of all the forks in the road
in all the storybooks about emerald forests, kingdoms.
All the swinging bridges we travailed. Mariners, trains, conductors."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Hairbrush by Cynthia Atkins (2023 Reverie Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/38bhhazd

"Empty mountain: no man is seen.
But voices of men are heard.
Sun's reflection reaches into the woods
And shines upon the green moss."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Deer Enclosure by Wang Wei, translated by Wai-Lim Yip from Hiding the Universe (1972 Grossman Publishers) https://tinyurl.com/y9w53btd
in 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger (1987, 2016 New Directions Publishing) https://tinyurl.com/2p95v5mk

"Empty mountain: no man is seen.
But voices of men are heard.
Sun's reflection reaches into the woods
And shines upon the green moss."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Deer Enclosure by Wang Wei, translated by Wai-Lim Yip from Hiding the Universe (1972 Grossman Publishers) https://tinyurl.com/y9w53btd
in 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger (1987, 2016 New Directions Publishing) https://tinyurl.com/2p95v5mk

"Our orbit is drunk in its spin, and sobriety comes
only in flashes. No one knows who we are.
We live in that freedom and peril.
Let the imagination be the beast it is
that eats and fattens on us.
But let us not believe a word it says."

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
In the Air by @ronnabloom (2024 Brick Literary) https://tinyurl.com/5ewvd55z

"Our orbit is drunk in its spin, and sobriety comes
only in flashes. No one knows who we are.
We live in that freedom and peril.
Let the imagination be the beast it is
that eats and fattens on us.
But let us not believe a word it says."

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
In the Air by @ronnabloom (2024 Brick Literary) https://tinyurl.com/5ewvd55z

"Gentle Now, Don't Add to Heartache" by Juliana Spahr is long, and worth the time.

https://poems.com/poem/gentle-now-dont-add-to-heartache/

Found thanks to the excerpt posted Phyllis Cole-Dai's site "The Raft". https://phylliscoledai.substack.com/p/the-daily-boost-798 Phyllis edited the books Poetry of Presence and Poetry of Presence II and I read from her 3-year collection of mindfulness poems every morning. https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/

#PoetryOfPresence #poetry #poem #TodaysPoem #PoemADay #VerseThursday #nature #Ohio #BeingHere

"Gentle Now, Don't Add to Heartache" by Juliana Spahr is long, and worth the time.

https://poems.com/poem/gentle-now-dont-add-to-heartache/

Found thanks to the excerpt posted Phyllis Cole-Dai's site "The Raft". https://phylliscoledai.substack.com/p/the-daily-boost-798 Phyllis edited the books Poetry of Presence and Poetry of Presence II and I read from her 3-year collection of mindfulness poems every morning. https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/

#PoetryOfPresence #poetry #poem #TodaysPoem #PoemADay #VerseThursday #nature #Ohio #BeingHere

15/31: OBITS. by tess liem (2018 Coach House Press) https://tinyurl.com/4m7aue67

"when the big lights clunk on
& the grass-stained pitcher
walks the batter to first base

the crowd is quiet &
grief, like a swing,
hits you out of the park."

Obit.

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry

15/31: OBITS. by tess liem (2018 Coach House Press) https://tinyurl.com/4m7aue67

"when the big lights clunk on
& the grass-stained pitcher
walks the batter to first base

the crowd is quiet &
grief, like a swing,
hits you out of the park."

Obit.

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry

8/31: A BALTIC FRIDAY EARLY IN GREY by Adele Graf (2017 above/ground press) https://tinyurl.com/39ndzn7e

"their amazing were killed to met the possible
any there after family and passed
became again front even any there Latvian
wouldn't he home
what inside prison that the visitors see
in its to it deep mind
a Baltic Friday early in grey"

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry

8/31: A BALTIC FRIDAY EARLY IN GREY by Adele Graf (2017 above/ground press) https://tinyurl.com/39ndzn7e

"their amazing were killed to met the possible
any there after family and passed
became again front even any there Latvian
wouldn't he home
what inside prison that the visitors see
in its to it deep mind
a Baltic Friday early in grey"

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry

"But the clouds here, I haven’t
yet mentioned the clouds here:
they sing these very personal songs
about wronging and being
wronged. They smoke a lot
of cigarettes. You can hear it.
And I sing along though I have
no voice. I sing with my eyes."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
At Laundromats Here There Are No Dryers by Stuart Ross (2017 The Rusty Toque) https://tinyurl.com/36zz9ywc

"But the clouds here, I haven’t
yet mentioned the clouds here:
they sing these very personal songs
about wronging and being
wronged. They smoke a lot
of cigarettes. You can hear it.
And I sing along though I have
no voice. I sing with my eyes."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
At Laundromats Here There Are No Dryers by Stuart Ross (2017 The Rusty Toque) https://tinyurl.com/36zz9ywc

"my mother says, look how we are astonished
            by the jails, I say, by the floors holding our reflections
knowing enough medicine, enough 
            to call the burning world back to love"

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
from “The World After Rain” by Canisia Lubrin (2023 Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day) https://tinyurl.com/mvybf7wc

"my mother says, look how we are astonished
            by the jails, I say, by the floors holding our reflections
knowing enough medicine, enough 
            to call the burning world back to love"

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
from “The World After Rain” by Canisia Lubrin (2023 Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day) https://tinyurl.com/mvybf7wc

"I who can blink
to break the spell of daylight

and what a sliding screen between worlds
is a blink"

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
A Rushed Account of the Dew by Alice Oswald from Falling Awake (2016 Jonathan Cape) https://tinyurl.com/46hydytw

"I who can blink
to break the spell of daylight

and what a sliding screen between worlds
is a blink"

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
A Rushed Account of the Dew by Alice Oswald from Falling Awake (2016 Jonathan Cape) https://tinyurl.com/46hydytw

"Blocks filled with stories,
with people,
a community.

A past,
a present,
a future.

Here."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
from Denison Avenue by Christina Wong and Daniel Innes (2023 ECW Press) https://tinyurl.com/bdfmed8t

"Blocks filled with stories,
with people,
a community.

A past,
a present,
a future.

Here."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
from Denison Avenue by Christina Wong and Daniel Innes (2023 ECW Press) https://tinyurl.com/bdfmed8t

"This morning before daybreak a thunderstorm

In the last hours before her death
her enemies came. A raccoon, that storm,
the FedEx truck manned by a gentle woman
who'd recently lost her own dog."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Stella by Michael Ondaatje from A Year of Last Things (2024 McClelland & Stewart) https://tinyurl.com/2xcx9z9n

"This morning before daybreak a thunderstorm

In the last hours before her death
her enemies came. A raccoon, that storm,
the FedEx truck manned by a gentle woman
who'd recently lost her own dog."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Stella by Michael Ondaatje from A Year of Last Things (2024 McClelland & Stewart) https://tinyurl.com/2xcx9z9n

Got a #VerseThursday of two poems I quite like, (Note: the poems are not screen reader friendly but the one that's the link to the slowdown has it performed. click that)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/149976/obligations-2 - a Choose Your Own Adventure Poem

https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2023/10/27/986-eggshells - this is about shades of gray and black It's amazing to hear it read aloud

"Please let me be a blaze. I will destroy,

I mean create again this place."

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
Disembodied At The Botanical Gardens by Robin Richardson (2017 The Ex-Puritan Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/nhjvdapc

"Please let me be a blaze. I will destroy,

I mean create again this place."

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
Disembodied At The Botanical Gardens by Robin Richardson (2017 The Ex-Puritan Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/nhjvdapc

"Beyond the loggia, I watch

rain not fall, I watch fall not rain, often—
I am the expectation of gravitas,

a tub gelato, a deep spoon. Sometimes
I calligraphy the refrigerator."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Constellation Cannoli by Tara Mesalik MacMahon (2020 Duende Literary) https://tinyurl.com/y4m8a5js

"Beyond the loggia, I watch

rain not fall, I watch fall not rain, often—
I am the expectation of gravitas,

a tub gelato, a deep spoon. Sometimes
I calligraphy the refrigerator."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #VerseThursday
Constellation Cannoli by Tara Mesalik MacMahon (2020 Duende Literary) https://tinyurl.com/y4m8a5js

Only a title and two lines, so far.

“nōn serviam”

my citizenship
is hush money

#VerseThursday

"A swift flow erodes one side,
while a silty ladle adds to the other.
Repeating this motion over and over,
an oxbow lake is born and a new biome
rises."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #NationalPoetryMonth #VerseThursday @poetry
A Tribute to Fractals by Leslie Thomas (2023 Consilience Journal) https://tinyurl.com/36v67nkt

"A swift flow erodes one side,
while a silty ladle adds to the other.
Repeating this motion over and over,
an oxbow lake is born and a new biome
rises."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #NationalPoetryMonth #VerseThursday @poetry
A Tribute to Fractals by Leslie Thomas (2023 Consilience Journal) https://tinyurl.com/36v67nkt

"The golf links lie so near the mill
that almost every day
the laboring children can look out
and watch the men at play."

Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn
(02/04/1876 – 04/04/1959)
US writer
#VerseThursday

"The golf links lie so near the mill
that almost every day
the laboring children can look out
and watch the men at play."

Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn
(02/04/1876 – 04/04/1959)
US writer
#VerseThursday

outside the inservile thunder rolls
when I - I -
find a verse again.

It flits on a breeze of psyche,
sweet and calm and unaccustomed
and welcome in its rarity.

#VerseThursday

"when alone,
spelunkingly in
quire for wings to
fly with, to dive dive
dive with, to trysohardto
define"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #NationalPoetryMonth #VerseThursday @poetry
Spelunk by Edie Reaney Chunn (2023 untethered magazine) https://tinyurl.com/yknp229b

"when alone,
spelunkingly in
quire for wings to
fly with, to dive dive
dive with, to trysohardto
define"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #NationalPoetryMonth #VerseThursday @poetry
Spelunk by Edie Reaney Chunn (2023 untethered magazine) https://tinyurl.com/yknp229b

"the runaway world upside down
and no god of chaos to lift one hand
and make the place behave"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
The Turning Point by Alfred Purdy from North of Summer (1967 McClelland and Stewart) https://tinyurl.com/yeysb5t9

"the runaway world upside down
and no god of chaos to lift one hand
and make the place behave"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
The Turning Point by Alfred Purdy from North of Summer (1967 McClelland and Stewart) https://tinyurl.com/yeysb5t9

"winter sun
I wish I was as tall
as my shadow"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
by @MarjoleinRotsteeg (2024 Scarlet Dragonfly Journal) https://tinyurl.com/3mvthry8

"winter sun
I wish I was as tall
as my shadow"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry
by @MarjoleinRotsteeg (2024 Scarlet Dragonfly Journal) https://tinyurl.com/3mvthry8

"Far away, points of light in a town,
flickering coldly at the horizon.

As when a man has gone into a dream so deep
he’ll never remember having been there
when he comes back to his room."

#TodaysPoem #VerseThursday #poetry @poetry
Tracks by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robin Fulton from New Collected Poems (2011 Bloodaxe Books) http://tinyurl.com/4dj8sbd8 & http://tinyurl.com/yzf4yase

On #NationalPoetryDay,
I really just wanted to say,
Down with the Tories,
Their lies and their stories,
Vote tactically and make them pay.

#GTTO #Poems #Poetry #PoetryDay #VerseThursday #Limerick

https://stopthetories.vote/

A Maya Stein poem for #VerseThursday: "trust me, I don't know what I'm doing". It isn't a poem "about" bicycling but there's a line in it that I loved (of course):
"I know that riding a bicycle makes me braver
than yesterday"

https://mayastein.com/poetry/2023/8/7/july-25-2023

#poetry #TodaysPoem #PoemADay #BikePoems #BikeTooter #MayaStein

Just in time for #VerseThursday, I published another collection of poems involving bicycles. Enjoy!
http://bikestylespokane.com/2023/07/27/more-poems-on-the-bike-rack/
#BikePoems #poetry #poem #PoemADay #TodaysPoem #BikeTooter #BikeToot #cycling #bicycles #bikes #BicyclesChangeLives #BikeNite

"You will learn
You will rise
You'll return
Being what you are
There is no other Troy
For you to burn"

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday
Troy by Sinéad O’Connor from The Lion and the Cobra (1987) https://tinyurl.com/ysx7z8hh & https://tinyurl.com/mt245jbh

"like the summer of
rickety wheelbarrows

hauled under the breezeway
that yielded a garden,

wildly fragrant and
resistant to drought."

#TodaysPoem #poetry #VerseThursday
Prognosis by Mary Peelen (2014 Harvard Divinity Bulletin) https://bit.ly/3or971y