My Poetry Library

It is several weeks ago now, that the #GRPG collaborated on yet another photo prompt, this time one found by yours truly. I’ll not say any more, instead I am keen to let the picture, but particularly the poets’ words tell you the story…

Iconic Paralympians
(This picture via Google Images, I believe courtesy of Channel 4 Television)

~~~~~~~~

Marsha Berry

Wheelchair rugby
roller derby
crash and roll
breathless
entertainment
with a message
for those with
four functioning limbs
that courage
is resilience
against all odds

~~~~~~~~

Jacqueline Dick

You walk into my life blind
yet you see more
you limp on one leg
yet you walk tall
you do everything from your chair
yet you race willingly through life
you are my teachers
my inspiration

~~~~~~~~

Craig Morris

“Dis-abled”

I see your
Limbs lame, lopped
Hands clawed, cropped
Body mangled, misshapen
Eyes black, bare
Ears empty, spare

I park you there
Nicely,
Wheels aligned
into categorised space
A special place
I have reserved for you there

Please let me help, please let me push
Let me show you the way you should go
I know
I must make you smile

Let me be your ears, your eyes, your guide
To tell you what you can’t see
That you are disabled, don’t you see?

~~~~~~~~

Marsha Berry

For George (my dad) 1919 to 1988

At 17 you went to war
wearing the white of the ski patrol
abseiling out of danger
At 21 you marched to fight
against the Fascist miasma
that threatened to plunge
your homeland into darkness…
Ar 31 you sailed to Australia
displaced to embrace
a land down under…
At 64 you lost a leg to cancer
yet you still fought
for human rights behind
the iron curtain
and when people pitied you
for being an amputee
you’d laugh it off
with gallows humour
saying “I’m off to the other side
in instalments”
and then you’d laugh
at the shock in their faces
that you could even think
such a thing

~~~~~~~~

Peter Wilkin

“Halos”

One-legged Billy
they called him,
his difference
separating him
from all the other Williams
in the neighbourhood.
Straight backed
as a sergeant-major
his empty trouser leg
neatly folded
he would sit in the yard
and rattle his corn tin
as he cooed his brood
down from the roof
before trundling to the club
with a Red Light
glowing between his lips.
Ironically
he was the bookies runner
my dad said,
which was apparently illegal
causing my mother to cringe
inside her God-blessed world.
One day
he blew the dust
from a small metal box
and showed me his gongs.
I liked the ribbons best,
blue, gold and white.
When he died
what I missed most
were his owl calls
and the smoke rings
that hung like halos
over his hairless head –
burned off by the Germans
my grandma said.

~~~~~~~~

Jacqueline Dick

I walk the walk
I wheel the walk
I see the dark
the light
I’ve been to hell
and back
I do what you do
I feel what you feel
and more
now tell me
your tale

~~~~~~~~

Shan Ellis-Williams

“Hurdles”

Can’t,

Won’t,

there is a difference.

Standing at the starting line,
straight and stiff,
heart in mouth
racing for something, somewhere that feels so far away in the distance that a chequered flag is all that can be seen waving like a limp limb in the summers breeze.

Can’t

Won’t

Can’t

Won’t

When the pop of the starters’ gun reverberates in hollow echoes
shocking cochlea
into action

the body screams

OVERCOME.

~~~~~~~~

Louise Hastings

“Obstacles”

In the dark, I dream a miracle.
I know it by its teasing thought,
can sense the damaged nerves
renewed, the shattered spine
empowered to hold me upright.

Here, everything scintillates
and I can bend, stretch to hold
my fingers to the fullest moon.
But this fragile vertebrae will melt
come the break of dawn;
then I reach for meaning
in the subtle shades of blue,
feel the woodland air,
the susurrus of wind against my skin.

I never want to see
the face that looks right through me,
the obstacles that block and bar my way –
except you, brave soul,
who quietly meets my gaze.

~~~~~~~~

John Anstie

“Normal Redefined”

I walked to the post box yesterday
and ran late for a bus,
marched around the dance floor
to my favourite tune

Hopping between the paving stones
avoiding the cracks between.
It was to feed the ritual neurosis,
which possessed me.

Hating the fact that clever Dick
was stepping on my shadow,
he seemed to tick my every move
as a credit on his list.

Bemoaning that I had a job
that wasn’t my paradigm.
Envious of those who always seemed
to set about life with fire.

Then, one good day, I arrived,
but where?
My brain and arms and legs
all there.
Good health and wealth,
but all for what?
My heart and soul and spirit
…completely lost.

We strive so long for all of life
achieving little honour.
Conforming to a cultural norm,
imprinted in our genes.

If only I had noticed the colours
were, like old grey tombstones,
dusty, jaded, black and white,
until just now, when I awoke
to find a stage that used to be
kept way out of sight
or in another universe,
in some other back yard,
hidden from public view.

There, dancing to an unknown tune,
I winced and cringed to see
the limbless, challenged freaks perform
…but, at once, I wished I was as free.

Oh, liberate me from biassed eyes
and all the lies that ‘liberty’ denies.
It isn’t they who are deformed,
but through a filtered view of me,
they have now broken through to be

…normal redefined.

~~~~~~~~

All my poet friends above are inspirational, composing responses on the spur of the moment and with such alacrity. But there are none more inspirational than those courageous Paralympians who triumphed over adversity and succeeded in making those of us, who don’t make the effort to follow our dreams, pursue our goals, aspire to greater things, appear as mere shadows of what we could be.

This is an attempt at a Cento, inspired by Samuel Peralta over at dVerse Poets Pub ‘Form for All’, in which Samuel writes brilliantly about this form as “Collage and the Art of the Cento“.

Too Young to Die

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in your wisdom make me wise.

Remember this, that we shall ever
Bow our heads and fill with tears
Life’s cup of mercy; recall what sears
The heart, not dim their great endeavour.

Something it is which you have lost,
Some pleasure from your early years.
Break, you deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief has shaken into frost!

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.

Old Yew, which grasping at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Your fibres net the dreamless head,
Your roots are wrapped about the bones.

Whose stolen duty marked by stope
For graves, but far too little memory
Of their names, rough cut in grey,
But for one, they leave us hope

That every day we take their lead
That we may see the need for us
To find a little courage, not fuss
On things that threaten not our needs.

O living will that shall endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow through our deeds and make them pure,

With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.

Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type
Appearing when the time was ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The 2nd, 6th and 7th stanza’s are from my own poem, “Twenty Nine”. The remaining stanza’s I selected from different parts of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s epic elegy, “In Memoriam A.H.H.” My own poem shared Tennyson’s rhyming structure and, of course, its elegiac theme. The rhythm of “Twenty Nine”, however, is in pentameter as opposed to Tennyson’s tetrameter, so I have edited my three verses to fit the metre. I don’t know whether it works as well as I’d hope, but consider this as work in progress. For the sake of consistency and flow, I have altered the more archaic words used by Tennyson, for example ‘thou’ becomes ‘you, ‘thine’ becomes ‘your’ and graspest becomes grasping. However, out of respect for the tradition of that era of poetry, I have capitalised the beginning of each line.

Claudia Schoenfeld is hosting ‘MeetingTheBar’ this week over at the dVerse Poets Pub. The subject this week is Beautiful Solitude. Claudia extols the virtue of solitude and asks us to compose a poem about it.

I hope I’ll be forgiven (pretty please), but I’ve chosen to break the rules a bit, simply because there is a poem that I know and love called “Solitude”, which was written and first published 130 years ago by one of my favourite poets.

I have been a fan of Ella Wheeler Wilcox for some time. She is not that well known in the full scheme of things, but you will almost certainly recognise the opening lines of this poem, which in the pop music world, I guess, would be called a ‘hook line’. It is not a particularly happy poem, but it is full of truths, it is memorable, I love it and felt that, with Claudia’s important prompt, it could not be left without a mention.

“Solitude”

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1850 to 1919)

My own commentary on Ella is here