My Poetry Library

Earth Prayer

Posted on 24 April, 2013 by PoetJanstie

Picture credit: Max Mitrofanov (via tr1umph.deviantart.com)

Dear Earth,
mother of us all,
solar sister,
child of the Universe,
our common blood
was carbon, nitrogen,
oxygen and hydrogen,
in concert with the stars.

Astronomical forces
great voids imploding
then exploding in light
with the dust and smell
of a thousand million
godless bombs
driven to extinction
by unlimited energy.

Facing the hideousness
of death at day’s end,
the weight of this life
seems so much less,
in the lightness
of our being,
portending reunion
of the atoms we are.

Dear Earth,
mother of us all,
in your patience and
your tolerance of us,
breath a huge sigh
and remind us
who we are and
whence we came.

© 2013 John Anstie
All rights reserved

Posted in poetry | 9 Comments

Snow Dog

Posted on 3 April, 2013 by PoetJanstie

Snow Dog Nelly

Photo by Barbara Anstie

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

The depth of it exceptional, and all
at once she lies and sits and stands below.
She smiles, then in her mind she skips, her paws
tread deeply in the soft white powdered snow.

An icy East wind hails from far away,
intemperate continental clime it brings,
that covers food so blackbirds cannot find
sufficient energy to brace their wings.

Out there, beyond the hill, the homeless lie,
reciting tunelessly an unheard poem,
they fight an urge to yield to hopelessness,
and longing for a crackling log-fired home.

We look in warmth, contentment unalloyed,
at children with their snow dog, overjoyed.

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

[Poetic notes: This poem looks like a sonnet, in that it has fourteen lines, arranged into four quatrains and a concluding couplet, and it is written in iambic pentameter. But that is where the similarity ends. The rhyming scheme is confined to alternate (second and fourth) rhyming lines and a rhyming couplet at its end. So it is different from either Petrarchan or Shakespearean forms. Crucially, though, the classic structure, in which the first eight lines present an issue or problem, and the last six lines, particularly the finishing couplet, present a resolution, is absent. Instead, the opening quatrain portrays a pleasant scene, the second and third stanzas move to present the problems created by cold winter weather for wildlife and the homeless, but then the final couplet seems to try and put blinkers on the reader; blotting out, as it were, the harsh reality of life’s injustice. It depends on your mindset, as to which sentiment the poem leaves you with…]

Posted in animals, melancholy, poem, poetry, political, Sonnet, Weather | 12 Comments

And I Love Her Still

Posted on 14 February, 2013 by PoetJanstie

I found a note from one remembered love,
It’s one she’d written many years ago.
She’d washed her fountain pen and had to see
if it would write just like it used to do!

It flowed so beautifully, this conversation
partly with herself; partly me.
Contented, she announced the startling news
that it had started raining; and the cat
had just come in to sit upon her knee;
and then a line, ’twas almost incidental,
as if she didn’t need to let me know,
still moist from her sweet, honeyed pen,
I saw her words say how she loved me so.

My yearning heart took flight and lodged itself
somewhere between her lips and finger tips,
my stomach glowed with love’s eternal warmth
that only comes from passion so consumed.

Her letter’s affirmation spans the years
with warm remembered grace that dries my tears.
Her words were sown like seeds on fertile earth
and bore the fruits of love in painful birth.

No greater confirmation could reveal
that I am blessed with how I know I feel…

that, undeniably, I love her still.

[For someone special on Valentines Day…]

[Poetics Notes: This poem is written in, what is for me, an anchor of poetic story telling… Blank Verse. This was championed by William Shakespeare in all of his plays, but apparently was also used, in some way by Greek and Latin poets.

By definition, Shakespearean blank verse is written with five metrical ‘feet’ (that is units of two syllables) or pentameter, it is mostly, in this poem at any rate, ‘Iambic’, which is to say with stress on the second part of each metrical foot. Occasionally, in order to maintain the sense, from the words available to me to achieve the desired effect, emotion or expression, the meter changes to ‘trochaic’ pentameter and occasionally with the odd syllable missing, or silent – as in the line “partly with herself; partly me.”, where the semicolon provides a pause, which replaces the unstressed first part of the foot, linking to the second, stressed first syllable of the word “partly..”; the beginning of this same line has a missing unstressed syllable, which is effectively replaced by the last syllable of the word “conversation” at the end of the previous line. The effectiveness of this deviation from the scheme, of course, depends on how the line is read, but I think it works well!

Whilst it still has regular poetic rhythm and balance, using this form is a wonderful way for a poet to retain the feel of story telling prose, by not having a regular rhyme scheme. The exception I make for this poem, however, again following the Bard’s tendency for their use, is that I used three rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter in the concluding lines of the piece and one at the end of the second stanza. The poem finishes with a single title line.]

Posted in Blank Verse, Love, poem, poetry | 10 Comments

Elegy for Penny

Posted on 7 February, 2013 by PoetJanstie

It isn’t the loss of the shirt from my back,
nor the house that’s levelled and gone.
You couldn’t replace the air that we breath
or the love, ’bout which there’s a song.

Refrain
But you gave me power and passion and lure;
o’er my sweetest dreams you held sway,
and you took my hand, so confidently
counting my luck for the day.

When I recall the corner shop
and its sweet scented displays,
my senses, filled with memories,
explode in halcyon days.

Back then it was a penny for
a slice of simple joy,
but now, more like a toonie or loan
our pleasure to destroy.

Refrain
But you gave me power and passion and lure;
o’er my sweetest dreams you held sway,
and you took my hand, so confidently
counting my luck for the day.

Oh how I long for yesterday,
a bittersweet kind of pain,
for springtime days and sugar-lust
coursing through my veins.

Refrain
But you gave me power and passion and lure;
o’er my sweetest dreams you held sway,
and you took my hand, so confidently
counting my luck for the day.

[This poem was prompted by Awna Teixeria in a post on her Facebook page on Tuesday, 5th Feb 2013. It mourns the loss of the Canadian one-cent piece this week.

Awna said: “I will never forget standing in Sam’s, my childhood corner store, with grubby hands full of penny’s slowly counting out my luck for the day. They had the best selection of one cent candies it seemed the world had to offer. For that I will always love and miss you dearly penny. So long old friend….Xo”]

Posted in age, Ballad, children, Money, nostalgia, poem, poetry, sadness | 4 Comments

All, Save One

Posted on 29 January, 2013 by PoetJanstie

[This poem was written for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27th January 2013, and is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. It was recently inspired by Rachel Lucas’ very well written blog post – Mozartsgirl’s Reflection and Remembrance – which I recommend you read first. I shall also offer this to the dVerse Poets OpenLinkNight]

~~~~~~~~~~~

Variola vera,
the red plague
has all but gone;
wiped from the face
of the earth.
TB is beatable,
cholera and malaria too.
Cancers multifarious
have receded as a threat,
but who would deny
the hope living strong
that all of them, one day,
will be treatable and gone.

All, perhaps, save one.

We know the secrets,
and unhealthy causes
of our malaise
that shorten life.
Medical science
and, Lord knows, WHO
advise us all that
common sense
and oranges
exercise and laughter..

..yes laughter
particularly laughter

and, perhaps, prayer…

will ensure that we
live longer, happier
lives; maybe
genetically modified
lives, but longer
all the same.

Is that it, is that all?
You know it isn’t.

There is one disease,
for which there is,
yet, no known cure!
It’s pathogens
aren’t known;
no medical research
to establish its
cause, has ever
been shown to exist.

Does it reveal itself
in subtle ways?
At first, maybe,
the bullying at school;
a propensity
to hurt?
Ironic Josef M,
the experimenter?
Who knows, because
we, who have not
succumbed to this
extreme condition,
can never fathom
the depths of he,
or she,
who could become
an angel of death;
who could, today,
take a journey to…

Brzezinka,
Birkenau
Monowitz,

and not feel
the unbearable pain
of millions,
bleeding from the walls.

Is it a terminal disease
that lies still dormant
in all of us, to which
the most of us
have developed
an immunity?

Save the few …

Is it a switch
inside the brain
over which the few
have no control;
for which there is
no cure, but death?

It has a name,
a very simple name,
whose tone belies
its true significance.

It is Hate.
It is Evil.
It is pure,
undiluted,
unequivocal,
Evil.

And this is not descriptive
of the disease …
it is
the disease
itself,
alone.

Is it within our grasp
to purge humanity
of this malaise as well…

or will it always have to be …

All, save one?

Posted in Death, Fear, Hope, poem, poetry, sadness, War | 31 Comments

The Secrets of Life

Posted on 21 January, 2013 by PoetJanstie

The riptide pulled and weighed us down,
swimming in our shoals.
It bent us in our will to win,
oh weary, sorry souls.

Oh tiresome, terrifying days
when scholars moved to preach
that all of Christendom was ours,
but always out of reach.

Oh weary, sorry souls, I cried
for all of us, who’re driven,
wherein unconscious mind, so tuned,
lays bare the ego given.

Always, it seems, beyond our reach,
genetics never fail
to teach us how we must survive,
not how to trim the sail.

Ego’s given winds may blow,
but odysseys must end.
For quests beyond our human bounds,
Inferno may portend.

Just when this sea of troubles weighed
too much on mortal coil,
the magic of encircling arms
became the perfect foil.

So I reset the sails for home,
embracing Vesta’s heart;
discovered Marais’ secret strength:
in concert, ne’er apart.

Read a short commentary on this poem.

[This is my contribution to the ever popular dVerse Poets’ Pub OpenLink Night, where you can find dozens of fine poets offering the work for your appraisal]

Posted in Ballad, experience, family, Fear, Heroes, Hope, Love, poem, poetry, wisdom | 38 Comments

Another Poet

Posted on 3 January, 2013 by PoetJanstie

This poem has such pathos in so few words, it represents all that poetry should be. Above all its message is crystal clear… from a poet, for whom I have the highest regard, Abigail (The Linnet) Baker

Posted in poetry | 4 Comments

Christmas Tree

Posted on 22 December, 2012 by PoetJanstie

Christmas Tree

Christmas tree
O, Christmas tree,
bring me a little magic
so I will see
where I can dwell
in places far away
and hear you tell
the tales of yesterday.

Christmas tree
O, Christmas tree,
bring hope of dreams
as yet to come…

and keep safe
the infinite child in me.