Tuesday Poem: "Short lecture on your own happiness" by Mary Ruefle

You know how to write poetry, it is all you need to be happy,
but you will not be happy, you will be miserable, thinking you

need so many other things, and in years and years of misery 

you have only one thing, as poets, to look forward to, the day 

you will not want what you haven’t got, the thing you have got 

is poetry, let nothing cheat, steal, or deflect you from it, even 

poetry itself. Why are you sitting there? You should have fled 

before I finished the first sentence.

 by Mary Ruefle

Mary Ruefle

For more information about Mary Ruefle see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-ruefle

Tuesday Poem (Song): "River" by Natalie Merchant

Young and strong Hollywood son
In the early morning light
This star fell down
On Sunset Boulevard

Young and strong beautiful one
That we embrace so close, is gone
Was torn away

Let the youth of America mourn
Include him in their prayers
Let his image linger on
Repeat it everywhere

With candles and flowers
He was one of ours
One of ours

Why don't you let him be?
He's gone
We know
Give his mother and his father peace
Your vulture's candor
Your casual slander
You murder his memory
He's gone
We know
It's nothing but a tragedy

Lay to rest your soul
And body lay beside your name
Lay to rest your rage
Your hunger and amazing grace

With candles and flowers
You were one of ours
One of ours

I saw cameras expose your life
I heard rumours explode with lies
I saw children in tears
Cry and crowd around the sight
Of where you had collapsed that day
Where your last breath and word
Had been sighed
Where your heart had burst, where you had died
Where you had died
Where you had died

I saw how they were lost and grieving
All half believing you were gone
The loss and the pain of it
Crime and the shame of it you were gone
It was such a nightmare raving
How can we save him from himself?

I saw how they were lost and grieving
All half believing you were gone
The loss and the pain of it
Crime and the shame of it you were gone
It was such a nightmare raving

How can we save him from himself? 

by Natalie Merchant

For more information about the musician and songwriter, Natalie Merchant, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Merchant

Tuesday Poem: "When Struck by Night" by Luther Hughes

For our new apartment, which my mother may never see
since slugging into that old person’s disease—I won’t bring myself
to say it in writing—I bought a cactus and it’s beautiful,
its soldier-green skin and feline-whiskered dress howls
beneath the den light which encourages me to keep my big-boy jeans on.
I know I look for answers everywhere. Everywhere there you are
with your eyes a war-less country, a privilege we sometimes share.
But tonight, there isn’t a country. Just a sky fussing. Anxious music.
The classic duty of breath as we binge another episode of
What Should I Do When You Want to Die. Sometimes, you fail
to love me, I think I say, the math ain’t mathing—but what could you do?
You’ve researched plants, I know, to find which could live
without much gusto from its human. You pour yourself
another glass of vodka, a shot of tequila for me. Who am I
to think I’m too good for your anger—you were right…
Come, let’s sour our swords together. Come, let morning waltz
into our bedroom all cocky-like like it landlords the place. Come,
let’s plunge forward, drunkenly in love, grab hold the darkness we become.

by Luther Hughes

For more information about the poet, Luther Hughes, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/luther-hughes

Tuesday Poem (Song): "Tramp" by The Stranglers

Takes the time to stay one place
Though his clothes aren't finest lace
Read the lines on a tramp's face
Taking his time just like you just like me

Wandering so fancy free
Searching for love in the call of the wild
Travelling lost like a child
Law has missed him every day

Doesn't need it anyway
Life is the next meal away
A lost woman long ago
Does she miss him does he know?

Does it matter in the snow?
Taking his time just like you just like me
Wandering so fancy free
Searching for love in the call of the wild

Travelling lost like a child
Taking his time just like you just like me
Wandering so fancy free
Searching for love in the call of the wild

Travelling lost like a child

by David Greenfield, Hugh Cornwell, Jean Jacques Burnel and Jet Black

 

Photo Credit: L. J. Van Houten/Rex/Shutterstock

For more information about the band, The Stranglers, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranglers

Tuesday Poem (Song): "Summer of My Life" by Archie Roach

She comes here everyday
This little lady with hair of grey
And she just smiles and shuffles
On her way

Through these hospital corridors
She walks along these lonely floors
To a bed
Where an old man used to lay
And an old man used to say

I'm in the summer of my life
I've seen the good times
I've seen the strife
I've just been under the surgeon's knife
Please don't cry, my darling wife

He came here a year ago
And the doctors didn't know
If the time for him to go
Was near

But when it came
And he went to sleep
She prayed the Lord
His soul to keep
And as she closed her eyes to weep
It seemed that she could hear

I'm in the summer of my life
I've seen the good times
I've seen the strife
I've just been under the surgeon's knife
Please don't cry, my darling wife

She'll sit there for many hours
And repeat her marriage vows
And place it there, the sweetest flowers in bloom
She sits by that empty bed
Her weary eyes are wet and red
And the words that he once said
Still echo through the room

I'm in the summer of my life
I've seen the good times
I've seen the strife
I've just been under the surgeon's knife
Please don't cry, my darling wife

'Cause you and I, we've had some fun
And our love has touched everyone
And in the light of the moon and sun
You and I have been as one

by Archie Roach

For more information about the songwriter and Aboriginal activist, Archie Roach, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Roach

Tuesday Poem; "UNTITLED' by George Mulligan

The rough sleeper sits by his sign on the street,

and the people passing by turn their eyes away.

He is invisible, alone on a crowded cityscape.

He is the one we choose not to see,

He is our reminder of inequality, our reminder that 

life is not fair.

He is untitled.

But he is not untitled.

He has many titles.

He is called a son,

He is called a brother,

He is called a father,

He is called a friend,

He is called known,

He is called love,

He is called valued,

He is called human.

Just being human entitles you to respect.

He is entitled to respect.

He is entitled to be valued 

He is entitled to be heard,

He is entitled to be cared for.

He is entitled to a title.

by George Mulligan

George Mulligan is an Otautahi Poet and keen reader at Mad Poets and Creatives Collective. 

George Mulligan, Otautahi poet

Tuesday Poem: "Sonnet to Orpheus - Part II, Sonnet 16" by Rainer Maria Rilke

Torn open by us again and again,
the god is the place that heals.
We're jagged, because we want to know,
but he is scattered and serene

Even the pure, the consecrated gift
he takes into his world no other way
than this: standing unmoved
opposite the open end.

Only the dead drink
from the spring heard here by us, --
when the god signals to them silently, the dead.

To us just the noise is given. 
And out of quieter instinct

the lamb begs for its bell.

by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated from the German by Edward Snow)

For more information about the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke