poemimage

Often posting first drafts & editing in 'real' time. Blending the visual & poetic.

Tag: the future

The Sorrow of a Brown Hat by Steven McCabe

zanzibar

Crumpled fading newsprint

As yesterday’s armies march

Into tomorrow

Sorrow

A future we predicted

fly by

Sorrow

We accepted sleep standing upright

Sleep never understood;

dusk

Sorrow

A chapter of blank pages: my darling, your wrist hanging

Over the bed

extreme sorrow

Your blood a confusion

Your heartbeat the black window

Swallowing my hands

s

Fingers forming a circle

simple sunset

Bottom of a fleet casting shadows across the seabed

blur

I toss my hat overboard

h

pod

new pearl

from my book Hierarchy of Loss (2007) Ekstasis Editions

Stop Being So Religious by Hafiz

1.

What

Do sad people have in

Common?

2

It seems

They have all built a shrine

To the past

4

And often go there

And do a strange wail and

Worship.

6ccc

What is the beginning of

Happiness?

10

It is to stop being

So religious

220

Like

Untitled-27

That.

Untitled-29

Translation by Daniel Ladinsky

final

The animal figure was originally a shadow puppet created last year by a Grade 8 student in a small Ontario town.  I delivered a poetry and shadow puppetry workshop & we created a quite striking multi media production. I decided to experiment with a photo taken during the workshop. Simultaneously I discovered this Hafiz poem which follows the previous post by Rumi very elegantly.