Pre-Islamic poetry

il était une fois...
Pre-Islamic poetry is the poetry of the era before Mohamed, and before the written word entered the Arabic world. Everything before that was oral tradition. Transferred orally by chanting, singing, and in poetry. Poetry has always been incredibly important in the Arab world, back then and still now. Contrary to the western world, it is not a 'thing' for intellectuals only, but for everyone, old and young, educated and less educated.

Pre-islamic poetry is what I love, most of all the poetry of one su'luk (brigand) poet in particular: as-shanfara l-azdi

Al-Shanfarā is named as the author of a scattering of individual verses as well as a long passage known as The Ta’iyya of al-Shanfarā preserved in the seminal collection of pre-Islamic verse, the Mufaḍḍaliyāt. His works are discussed in at least twenty medieval and early medieval scholarly commentaries (source, Wikipedia)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shanfara

Go away

On Fargo (the film, not the series
Oh my where? 
Yeah? Aw geez 
Okay, there in a jif. 
Real good, then.
Ya got Arby's all over me
Mind if I sit down? I'm carrying quite a load here.
So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. 
And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. 
And those three people in Brainerd. 
And for what? 
For a little bit of money. 
There's more to life than a little money, you know. 
Don't you know that? 
And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. 
Well, I just don't understand it.

Grimsrud: Where is Pancakes House?

Carl: What?

Grimsrud: We stop at Pancakes House.

Carl: What are ya nuts? We had pancakes for breakfast. I want to go somewhere I can get a shot and a beer, and a steak, maybe. No more fuckin' pancakes, c'mon man. C'mon man! Okay here's an idea. We'll stop outside of Brainerd. I know a place there we can get laid. What do ya think?

Grimsrud: I'm fuckin' hungry now, you know!

Carl: Yeah, yeah. Jesus. I was just saying we could stop, get pancakes, and get laid.

Just for you

     For Sara Ella

no metaphor for you
but rhyme, because YOU do
love that most of all
yes I recall
:)
words don't suffice
so I'll be wise
try not to be too smart
not to try too hard
:)
in your boxes tissue-wrapped
are little gifts, trapped
between my gratefullness
and a little shamefullness
:)
this little rhyme just tells
my love for you, it yells
in undercast
may friendship last!!
:)
I know you'll understand.
<3


Ron,
I read this as a prayer, a dramatic monologue. The speaker is addressing us all, asking us to forgive those with faults, because all of us are faulty. That when the world ends, or our lives do, we will be reunited in spirit, time and universe.
Because I am reading it as a prayer, I have a problem editing. So I decided to look at it as a poem, and try to treat it that way, which wasn't easy. In red suggested cuts, between brackets are my questions whether it is needed or not. Comments in blue


To The Outsider

That estranged moment
is behind us now.
Yesterday is gone.
We have only today
to live inside each breath,
and tomorrow
(to contend with)
in the passing moment
when it arrives 

deaf.

I refuse to hold anger
toward anyone's blindness
who can suffer their own
darker misgivings
(in the world's spinning.)
If we were perfect beings
we wouldn't be here.

To make an error
is part of living
inside the present,
and being human
is not without fault,

This part above says basically the same as the end of the previous stanza

for the sake of us all
I see my humanness
in all others, as a truth,
and I grieve for us all.

I will be obliged
for my fellow beings
in the hour of our need.
I will be forthright
in my dealing with others
in every way possible.

There is no line
between night and day
(that's drawn on the earth)

If there is no line, how can it be drawn

when our hearts
are united within
the sunrise and sunset.
The sky and the earth unite
where we walk together.

a poet friend
© RH Peat 4/28/2018

cliches

I have no clue
What's behind red evening hues
What is false is never true
Still tonight I'm feeling blue

THE MERRY CHASE

Don’t tell me. Do me a favor and let me guess. Be honest with me, tell the truth, don’t make me laugh. Tell me, don’t make me have to tell you, do I have to tell you that when you’re hot, you’re hot, that when you’re dead, you’re dead? Because you know what I know? I know you like I know myself, I know you like the back of my hand, I know you like a book, I know you inside out. I know you like you’ll never know. You know what this is? You want to know what this is? Because this is some deal, this is some set-up, this is some joke — you could vomit from what a joke this is. I want you to hear something, I want you to hear the unvarnished truth. I want you to hear it from me, right from the horse’s mouth, from the one person who really cares. You know what you are? That’s what you are! Ages ago, years ago, so long ago I couldn’t begin to remember, past history, ancient history — you don’t want to know, another age, another life, another theory altogether. I am telling you, I am pleading with you, I am down to you on bended knee — just don’t get cute with me, just don’t make any excuses to me — because in broad daylight, in the dead of night, at the crack of dawn. You think the whole world is going to do a dance around you? No one is going to do a dance around you. No one even knows you are alive, they don’t know you from Adam. Don’t ask. Don’t even begin to ask. Don’t make me any promises. Don’t tell me one thing and do another. Don’t look at me cross-eyed. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t hand me that crap. Look around you, for pity’s sake. Don’t you know that one hand washes the other? Talk sense. Take stock. You think this is a picnic? This is no picnic. Don’t stand on ceremony with me. The whole world is not going to step to your tune. I warn you — wake up before it’s too late. You know what? A little birdie just told me. You know what? You have got a lot to learn — that’s what. I can’t hear myself talk. I can’t hear myself think. I cannot remember from one minute to the next. Why do I always have to tell you again and again? Give me a minute to think. Just let me catch my breath. Don’t you ever stop to ask? I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to tell you what no one else would have the heart to tell you. I’m going to give you the benefit of my advice. Do you want some advice? You think the sun rises and sets on you, don’t you? You should get down on your hands and knees and thank God. You think death is a picnic? Death is no picnic. Face facts, don’t kid yourself, people are trying to talk some sense into you, it’s not all just fun and fancy free, it’s not all just high, wide, and handsome, it’s not just a bed of roses and peaches and cream. You know what I’ve got to do? I’ve got to talk to you like a baby. I’ve got to talk to you like a Dutch uncle. I’ve got to handle you with kid gloves, just in case you didn’t know. Let me tell you something no one else would have the heart to tell you. Go ahead, look! Look far and wide — because they are few and far between. Go ahead, go to the ends of the earth, go to the highest mountain, go to any lengths, because they won’t lift a finger for you — or didn’t you know that some things are not for man to know, that some things are better left unsaid, that some things you shouldn’t wish on a dog, not on a bet, not on your life, not in a month of Sundays? What do you want? You want the whole world to revolve around you, you want the whole world at your beck and call? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Be honest with me and let’s be done with it, be finished with it, over and done with it, enough, for crying out loud, enough.

What do I say to you, where do I start with you, how do I make myself heard? I don’t know where to begin with you, I don’t know where to start with you, I don’t know how to impress on you the importance of every single solitary word. Thank God I am alive to tell you, thank God I am here to tell you, thank God you’ve got someone to tell you, I only wish I could begin to tell you, if there were only some way someone could tell you, if only there were someone here to tell you, but you don’t want to listen, you don’t want to learn, you don’t want to know, you don’t want to help yourself you just want to have it your own sweet way. Who can talk to you? Can anyone talk to you? You don’t want anyone to talk to you. So far as you are concerned, the whole world could drop dead. You think death is a picnic? Death is no picnic. Face facts, don’t kid yourself, people are trying to talk some sense into you, it’s not all just fun and fancy free, it’s not all just high, wide, and handsome, it’s not just a bed of roses and peaches and cream. You know what I’ve got to do? I’ve got to talk to you like a baby. I’ve got to talk to you like a Dutch uncle. I’ve got to handle you with kid gloves, just in case you didn’t know. Let me tell you something no one else would have the heart to tell you. Go ahead, look! Look far and wide — because they are few and far between! Pardon my French — but put up or shut up! Oh, we could just laugh in your face. Oh, you — you dirty dickens, you! Can’t you just leave us in peace?

—from Gordon Lish’s Mourner At The Door: Stories (1989)

Elke dag

Reflection

I watch him every day
I know so well
green eyes
the twitching corners of his mouth
how he runs thin fingers through
those wild golden curls

Where he goes
I fail to follow
he wll return
to look at me

to see through me

but what he sees is him
not me
I see him twice
and neither is mine

He doesn't know
how I long to be seen by him
caressed by him

He doesn't see how I
fragment into smithereens
for I cannot voice the words in me
so painfully mute
against his blissful ignorance




I think you could use the final stanza to portray the idea of the mirror holding the object of its love and yet never being able to possess him completely. This would illustrate the double element of his appearance.


Proposed alternate title: "How we see him"

This is an excellent, but incomplete poem. There are pieces missing, the ideas not fully fleshed out. Here's how I envision a more fleshed out version, with holes pointed out via ellipsis for where I think you should complete thoughts:


I watch him closely every day
I know so well:
his green eyes,
the twitching tics of his mouth,
and how he runs thin fingers through those golden curls

Where he goes I fail to follow
he will return:
to look at me,
to see through me...
...

He doesn't know that I long
to be seen by him:
caressed...
...
...

I shatter into smithereens
...
while I see two
all he sees is one of him
and none is mine or ever will be


EDIT -

Also, I got that it's a mirror, and think too much clarity or beating over the head there would detract from this piece.

You smile.
Greed in your fingers weaves waves, silken braids in his golden hair.
You capture his image while you move around him. His wheels try to keep up with you, his fingers run the rims.

"I'm s-s-sorry", he says.
You remember him before and after.
You know the thin white remnants, and the thick ugly red, you know them while your fingers trace the stories they tell.
You know his scent, his giggles when tickled, the fragrance when you fold yourself around him, while you bury yourself in him

"I'm s-s-sorry", he says again. Two stripes, small brooks, glisten on his cheeks.
Your hand freezes mid-air in a gesture. His emerald gaze glances past. You kneel before him, rest your hands on his knees.

Setting goals

"We chase unreachable heights, in the hope to find happiness, only to find we are still the same, because in fact we are chasing ourselves."

- Darren White

(Triggered and inspired by a conversation between Arthur Vaso and myself)

I have crashed many times over the past five years. Many, many times before realising I was chasing my own tail.
Does this mean that I don't crash anymore? On the contrary. I came back last week (note: this was written a few months ago) from a three-week stay in a mental hospital. Oh, I crash and when I do, I do it good and hard. Rock bottom, here I come.

Then what?

Realization is just a first step. It can also be the first hurdle, the one you never get over, that one that you will see in the distance and that becomes so BIG when you come near it, that it seems it will swallow you whole.
It's a first baby step.

What is unreachable? That is a first question everyone needs to answer for themselves. It's different for everyone, but we all share this: if we don't realize we are chasing a phantom, or our own tail, we will end up bitter and frustrated.

Unreachable for me (to make it less abstract) is:
- walking;
- playing the violin again;
- dancing again;
- speaking fluently;
- not feeling lonely;
- setting goals that jeopardize my mental and physical health.

Up until recently I tried to achieve the impossible by trying to reach every one of these goals. Seeing this list I think that everyone who knows me realizes that it's a list that is setting me up for failure. And I finally I agree.

I used to try and aim for the impossible. And I admit it still feels a little like defeat by admitting I can never reach these goals. It made me deeply depressed at first, almost suicidal. But I am slowly learning to set new goals, little steps, small things that make me not only happy, but also proud of myself.

Like writing poems, alone or together with the marvellous poets I met everywhere, as well as my other friends. Or finding out what fun sports are available in a wheelchair when you also have limited use of your arms. Or finding friends, even though my loneliness is something innate (also something I needed to learn to accept.)

I still chase myself. But I set the reachable goal now that I finally found the truth and am aiming for acceptance of self.