Poetry Haven

[IQS.RLOW]

There once was a woman from Eeling...

[lisa jones]

The Statue

From this mountain I look down
on the children you despise
and I see terror and fear
brandishing their face everywhere.

Rest and peace have fled a country
that has buried its head in the sand of denial
This form of policy addresses poverty and sickness
as a nightmare recognizes life.

A conscience of stone for law
and a bullet for every impoverished child
with a reward for those who pursue the defenceless
as though it were a game.

These sins are committed in full view of my face
and I do remember them all
just like the children who fall
and are hidden away
in the thick of night.

My tolerance to all this is gone
for I am no silent statue
I have always been an omen
of your impending judgment.

I grant you this prophesy as a gift
Take it ... for it's yours to keep.

(Originally written by me in Greek whilst at Uni .. as a protest against the institutionalization of child abuse in Corcovado Brazil)

[Monkey Magic]

In My Opinion…

This is the house that opinion built.

These are the cards that made the house that opinion built.

This is the man that stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

These are the thoughts of the man that stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

This is the mind that puzzled the man who thought those thoughts who stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

This is the logic not in the plan that puzzled the mind of the man that thought the thoughts that stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

This is the maiden terribly sad that wanted for logic not in the plan that puzzled the mind of the man that thought the thoughts that stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

These are retorts all bitter and mad against the maiden terribly sad that wanted for logic not in the plan that puzzled the mind of the man that thought the thoughts that stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

These are the thoughts all tattered they stand because of retorts all bitter and mad against the maiden terribly sad that wanted for logic not in the plan that puzzled the mind of the man that thought the thoughts that stacked the cards that made the house that opinion built.

[IQS.RLOW]

[lisa jones]

This War

White sheets become stained red.
In the corner a little child lays dead.
People struggle just to survive.
A mother is hoping her child will revive.
Her baby was playing just moments before ..
now everything's changed, because of this war.

The town's buildings slowly collapse.
A community's nerve finally snaps.
People don't know what to do.
Where can they go ? They haven't a clue.
Their own home just isn't safe anymore ..
because everything's changed, thanks to this war.

People ask questions, hoping for an answer.
This war continues to spread hatred like cancer.
Both sides crave peace whatever the cost,
as long as they never admit that they've lost.
But the long lasting peace which both sides will get,
may be when this war ends .. but there'll be nobody left.

(Written by me in 2009 ... in response to the never ending conflict in the Middle East)

[lisa jones]

Conceit

It is conceit that kills us
and makes us cowards instead of gods.

Under the great Command: Know thy self, and that thou art mortal!
we have become fatally self-conscious, fatally self-important,
fatally entangled in the cocoon coils of our conceit.

Now we have to admit we can't know ourselves,
we can only know about ourselves.
And I am not interested to know about myself any more,
I only entangle myself in the knowing.

Now let me be myself,
now let me be myself, and flicker forth,
now let me be myself, in the being, one of the gods.


- D H Lawrence

[lisa jones]

The Arbor

He seems to be a god, that man
Facing you, who leans to be close,
Smiles, and, alert and glad, listens
To your mellow voice

And quickens in love at your laughter
That stings my breasts, jolts my heart
If I dare the shock of a glance.
I cannot speak,

My tongue sticks to my dry mouth,
Thin fire spreads beneath my skin,
My eyes cannot see and my aching ears
Roar in their labyrinths.

Chill sweat glides down my back,
I shake, I turn greener than grass.
I am neither living nor dead and cry
From the narrow between.


Sappho (612 B.C.)
Translated by Guy Davenport

[innkeeper]

Lost Generation

I am part of a lost generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realize this may be a shock but
“Happiness comes from within.”
is a lie, and
“Money will make me happy.”
So in 30 years I will tell my children
they are not the most important thing in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
work
is more important than
family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
but this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
30 years from now, I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.
And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it.


Now read the above poem in reverse

OMG! That is brilliant! Author????

[lisa jones]

If - by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

[lisa jones]

On Children - Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.