TUESDAY POEM | Happiness by Stephen Dunn

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                                      HAPPINESS

                                      A state you must dare not enter
                                            with hopes of staying,
                                      quicksand in the marshes, and all

                                      the roads leading to a castle
                                           that doesn't exist.
                                      But there it is, as promised,

                                      with its perfect bridge above
                                           the crocodiles,
                                      and its doors forever open.

                                      Stephen Dunn

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This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Michelle Elvy with lost and found on the b train in winter by Walter Bjorkman - writer, photographer, book & web designer and editor from Brooklyn, NY - living now in the Adirondack foothills.

Please click on the quill.

* details from various paintings in progress - Oil on Paper  | CB 

TUESDAY POEM | Grapefruit (a birthday poem) by CB

         

Photo: Shutterstock

           GRAPEFRUIT
                   for Daniel

                    He has two wishes for his sixth
                    birthday; a pocket of ruby grapefruit

                    and a citrus knife with a bend in it.

          It is the Fast of Ramadan  - the twenty-eight day
          in - and the weather shows no consideration.
          Flies and an irreverent heat
          nudge Mr. Salie the fruit seller
          and his carthorse up the street.

          The children are waiting. They know
          he will come. He will spoil them
          with a fistful of pomegranate, a slice of ice
          green melon. Upside down they wait
          dangling limbs and rinds of chatter
          from the purple crown of a jacaranda
          tree. They swing from a sandpit sky
          scuffed toes bare, swishing through
          a thick mirage of air.

          Up at the gate, in the postbox shade
          beach buckets brim with the horse's drink.

          Ramadan. And today is my boy's
          sixth birthday. He drops to the ground
          with a ripe fruit sound, runs
          pelter, pelter down the street.
          There's a horse, a cart and an old man
          to meet.

          Of course he's remembered. He whistles
          and grins, heaves the grapefruit down.
          Next week - they agree - when the Fast
          is complete, they will sit on the pavement
          enjoy a pink feast.

         "Why, Mr Salie?" I hear my son speak.
         "Why do they smell so wet
          and so deep?"

          Claire Beynon 

Today we celebrate TUESDAY POEM's 4th Birthday! 

As a collective we celebrate poetry every week but birthdays are special as each year during March/April we come together to build a collaborative poem in one giant poetry celebration. This year, we asked contributing poets to send a line that included something about either food or birthdays or both, and to send the line 'blind' - that is, without seeing any other contributions. As our most excellent sub-hub editor Michelle Elvy asked, "How to fit blue cake with a clarinetist's curls, or fairy bread with the explosion of candles? Four vignettes fired together to form one whole that includes a birth and a light, a cake and a secret, a moment and a memory, anticipation and celebration." 

                      TORCH 
                      I was born the day my mother stopped being pregnant
                              a full-baked warm wetness taking its first breath
                      flame flickering, a miniature torch; a moth fluttering
                      against the pane, the porch. She held: a curved moon-nail,
                      thistle-like lock, darkened milk; and the clarinetist curled
                      slow circles around the moon

Visit the TP hub to read Three plus one:  four poems for a birthday - guaranteed to surprise and delight you!

Extra cause for celebration: Tuesday Poem has had 335, 130 page views since its inception (on Mary McCallum's blog, O Audacious Book) in April 2010 with 16, 280 page views on the hub this past month. Contributing poets hail from New Zealand, the US, UK, Australia, Italy and Lesotho with visitors to the blog from places as far flung as the United States, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia and Russia. 

Happy Birthday Tuesday Poem! And a heartfelt 'yes' and 'thank you' to Mary, Michelle, TP poets and readers and writers of poetry everywhere.  

TUESDAY POEM | Metal Rule by CB

Work in progress | Protection series | (Keeping) An Eye on the Landscape (Pencil & ink on paper & fabric)

METAL RULE

Line tamer, clearly

my bending unruly trails

you cannot contain.

CB

Fellow Tuesday Poet, Michelle Elvy writes a monthly column for the NY-based online publication Awkword Paper Cut (Founding Editor, writer, musician & filmmaker, Michael Dickes) and this month invited contributions from writer and dancer, Beate Sigriddaughter (New Mexico), writer-musician, Sheldon Lee Compton (Eastern Kentucky) and me (Dunedin, NZ). In her introduction to this piece, Michelle wrote, ". . . As a writer and sailor, I manage what I can and embrace the mystery of not knowing the beginning, middle and end. The balance between these two elements – what I know and what I don’t know – keeps me on an even keel. . . " Please click on the link below to read How Wind, Dance, Song and Colour Mystify and Delight -   

http://www.awkwordpapercut.com/13/post/2013/10/october-2013-how-wind-dance-song-and-colour-mystify-and-delight.html


Thank you, Michelle and Michael.

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This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Kathleen Jones with If We Could Speak Like Wolves by Kim Moore - a second airing, which is great for those who did not get to read Kim's poem and Kathleen's accompanying commentary last week. 

Please click on the quill. 

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