Life

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

-Emily Dickinson.

Here’s a short explanation for all the categories that i have so far created for my posts…

Golden-step

Golden-step is a yahoo group that i moderate. It is a small group dedicated to poetry. And hence, this category would contain poems or other pieces that I have published in golden-step and feel like sharing on this blog too.

Doodlings

These are just free wandering of the mind that I am apt to indulge in. You can read them if you just wat to while away the moments in somehting light and tension free. These little pieces would have no meaning, or very little at best, but they are a good stress busters!

Articles

Prose peices of my own creation or those that I have read and found worth sharing here.

Poems

I love poems, and in this category i would stow away all the lovely poems that i come across and consider worth tresuring.

Musings

Okay, personal thoughts, basically. But i wonder if there would be many posts in this category. I dont quite fancy the idea of shouting out my personal thoughts and feelings to the world. Not yet, anyway.

My Webpages

MY Favourite Poems

Golden-Smiles-n-Tears-of-Eternal-Poetry

A grook (“gruk” in Danish) is a form of short aphoristic poem. It was invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein (December 16, 1905–April 17, 1996). He was also a mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet, often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym “Kumbel” meaning “tombstone”. He wrote over 7,000 Grooks, most in Danish or English, published in 20 volumes.

Some say that the name of these poems is short for “GRin & sUK” (“laugh & sigh” in Danish), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin air. His gruks first started to appear in the daily newspaper “Politiken” shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell. The poems were meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. The grook are characterized by irony, paradox, brevity, precise use of language, sophisticated rhythms and rhymes and often satiric nature.

ARS BREVIS

There is

one art,

no more,

no less:

to do

all things

with art-

lessness.

PROBLEMS

Problems worthy

of attack

prove their worth

by hitting back.

THE ROAD TO WISDOM

The road to wisdom? — Well, it’s plain

and simple to express:

Err

and err

and err again

but less

and less

and less.

THE ETERNAL TWINS

Taking fun

as simply fun

and earnestness

in earnest

shows how thoroughly

thou none

of the two

discernest.

AN ODE TO MODESTY

Talking of successful rackets

modesty deserves a mention.

Exclamation marks in brackets

never fail to draw attention.

OMNISCIENCE

Knowing what

thou knowest not

is in a sense

omniscience.

NAIVE –

Naive you are

if you believe

life favours those

who aren’t naive.

ON PROBLEMS

Our choicest plans

have fallen through,

our airiest castles

tumbled over,

because of lines

we neatly drew

and later neatly

stumbled over.

THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION

Sometimes, exhausted

with toil and endeavour,

I wish I could sleep

for ever and ever;

but then this reflection

my longing allays:

I shall be doing it

one of these days.

A MAXIM FOR VIKINGS

Here is a fact

that should help you fight

a bit longer:

Things that don’t act-

ually kill you outright

make you stronger.

I’D LIKE –

I’d like to know

what this whole show

is about

before it’s out.

MISSING LINK

Man’s a kind

of Missing Link,

fondly thinking

he can think.

CONSOLATION GROOK

Losing one glove

is certainly painful,

but nothing

compared to the pain,

of losing one,

throwing away the other,

and finding

the first one again.

GROOK ON LONG-WINDED AUTHORS

Long-winded writers I abhor,

and glib, prolific chatters;

give me the ones who tear and gnaw

their hair and pens to tatters:

who find their writing such a chore

they only write what matters.

A MOMENT’S THOUGHT

As eternity

is reckoned

there’s a lifetime

in a second.

BRAVE

To be brave is to behave

bravely when your heart is faint.

So you can be really brave

only when you really ain’t.

THAT IS THE QUESTION

Hamlet Anno Domini.

Co-existence

or no existence.

LIVING IS –

Living is

a thing you do

now or never –

which do you?

MEMENTO VIVERE

Love while you’ve got

love to give.

Live while you’ve got

life to live.

ABREAST

He who aims

to keep abreast

is for ever

second best.

WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINK

Some people cower

and wince and shrink,

owing to fear of

what people may think.

There is one answer

to worries like these:

people may think

what the devil they please.

LOSING FACE

The noble art of losing face

may one day save the human race

and turn into eternal merit

what weaker minds would call disgrace.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,

and you’re hampered by not having any,

the best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,

is simply by spinning a penny.

No — not so that chance shall decide the affair

while you’re passively standing there moping;

but the moment the penny is up in the air,

you suddenly know what you’re hoping.

LAST THINGS FIRST

Solutions to problems

are easy to find:

the problem’s a great

contribution.

What’s truly an art

is to wring from your mind

a problem to fit

a solution.

ON BEING ONESELF

Good resolution grook

If virtue

can’t be mine alone

at least my faults

can be my own.

THE CASE FOR OBSCURITY

On Thoughts and Words I.

If no thought

your mind does visit,

make your speech

not too explicit.

VITA BREVIS

A lifetime

is more

than

sufficiently long

for people to get what there is of it

wrong.

ORIGINALITY

Original thought

is a straightforward process.

It’s easy enough

when you know what to do.

You simply combine

in appropriate doses

the blatantly false

and the patently true.

NOTHING IS INDESPENSABLE

Grook to warn the universe against megalomania

The universe may be as great as they say.

But it wouldn’t be missed if it didn’t exist.

INVESTMENT POLICY

Anxieties yield

at a negative rate,

increasing in smallness

the longer they wait.

SMALL THINGS AND GREAT

He that lets

the small things bind him

leaves the great

undone behind him.

MAKING AN EFFORT

Our so-called limitations, believe,

apply to faculties we don’t apply.

We don’t discover what we can’t achieve

until we make an effort not to try.

WIDE ROAD

To make a name for learning

when other roads are barred,

take something very easy

and make it very hard.

Girl in Love

Rainer Maria Rilke

That’s my window. This minute

So gently did I alight

From sleep–was still floating in it.

Where has my life its limit

And where begins the night?

I could fancy all things around me

Were nothing but I as yet;

Like a crystal’s depth, profoundly

Mute, translucent, unlit.

I have space to spare inside me

For the stars, too: so full of room

Feels my heart; so lightly

Would it let go of him, whom

For all I know I have started

To love, it may be to hold.

Strange, as if never charted,

Stares my fortune untold.

Why is it I am bedded

Beneath this infinitude,

Fragrant like a meadow,

Hither and thither moved,

Calling out, yet fearing

Someone might hear the cry,

Destined to disappearing

Within another I.

Hymn By Joseph Addison

The spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great Original proclaim.

Th’ unwearied Sun from day to day

Does his Creator’s power display;

And publishes to every land

The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The Moon takes up the wondrous tale;

And nightly to the listening Earth

Repeats the story of her birth:

Whilst all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all

Move round the dark terrestrial ball;

What though nor real voice nor sound

Amidst their radiant orbs be found?

In Reason’s ear they all rejoice,

And utter forth a glorious voice;

For ever singing as they shine,

‘The Hand that made us is divine.’

William Wordsworth

TO A BUTTERFLY

I’VE watched you now a full half-hour;

Self-poised upon that yellow flower

And, little Butterfly! indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless!–not frozen seas

More motionless! and then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze

Hath found you out among the trees,

And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;

My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;

Here rest your wings when they are weary;

Here lodge as in a sanctuary!

Come often to us, fear no wrong;

Sit near us on the bough!

We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,

And summer days, when we were young;

Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

New Year’s Morning

Helen Hunt Jackson (1892)

Only a night from old to new!

Only a night, and so much wrought!

The Old Year’s heart all weary grew,

But said: “The New Year rest has brought.”

The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down,

As in a grave; but trusting, said:

“The blossoms of the New Year’s crown

Bloom from the ashes of the dead.”

The Old Year’s heart was full of greed;

With selfishness it longed and ached,

And cried: “I have not half I need.

My thirst is bitter and unslaked.

But to the New Year’s generous hand

All gifts in plenty shall return;

True love it shall understand;

By all my failures it shall learn.

I have been reckless; it shall be

Quiet and calm and pure of life.

I was a slave; it shall go free,

And find sweet peace where I leave strife.”

Only a night from old to new!

Never a night such changes brought.

The Old Year had its work to do;

No New Year miracles are wrought.

Always a night from old to new!

Night and the healing balm of sleep!

Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,

Morn of a festival to keep.

All nights are sacred nights to make

Confession and resolve and prayer;

All days are sacred days to wake

New gladness in the sunny air.

Only a night from old to new;

Only a sleep from night to morn.

The new is but the old come true;

Each sunrise sees a new year born.

New year

Ring Out, Wild Bells

from In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1849)

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkenss of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

~*~ They Flee From Me~*~

By: – Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

Therewithall sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, ‘dear heart, how like you this?’

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.

But all is turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of forsaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness,

And she also, to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served

I would fain know what she hath deserved.

Success

from “The Ladder of Saint Augustine”

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We have not wings, we cannot soar;

But we have feet to scale and climb

By slow degrees, by more and more,

The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,

When nearer seen, and better known,

Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear

Their solid bastions to the skies,

Are crossed by pathways, that appear

As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

Note from Joe: These days, the following parody might be more appropriate:

The heights that great men reached and kept

Were not attained with much exertion;

For they, while their companions worked,

Were contacting the proper person.

He who in adversity grieves not;

He who is without fear;

He who falls not in the snare of sensuality;

Who has no greed for gold, knowing it is like dust;

He who does not slander people when their backs are turned;

Nor flatters them to their faces;

He who has neither gluttony in his heart;

Nor vanity, nor attachment to

worldly things;

He whom nothing moves;

Neither good fortune nor ill;

Who cares not for worldly applause;

Nor its censure;

Who ignores every wishful fantasy;

And accepts what comes his way at it comes;

He whom lust cannot lure;

Nor anger command;

In such a one lives God himself;

On such a one God’s Grace descends;

For he knows the righteous path;

O Nanak, his soul mingles with the Lord;

As water mingles with water.

GURU TEG BAHADUR

(Transalated by Khushwant Singh)

May all I do today

begin with you, O Lord.

Plant dreams and hopes

within my soul,

revive my tired spirit:

be with me today.

May all I do today

continue with your help, O Lord.

Be at my side

and walk with me:

Be my support today.

May all I do today

reach far and wide, O Lord.

My thoughts, my work, my life:

make them blessings

for your kingdom;

let them go beyond today,

O God.

**********************

I have a mission…

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

God has not created me for naught… Therefore I will trust him.

Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away.

God does nothing in vain.

He knows what he is about.

– J. H. Newman