Poem readings liked by J Bryden

I am too alone by Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Robert Bly 

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough 
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough 
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, 
as it goes toward action, 
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times 
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things 
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your old and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, 
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things 
true before you.  I want to describe myself 
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,
like a ship that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.


A peek at Lababidi's inner life:  http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/books-we-were#.VYLleflViko 

I Am Too Alone In The World, And Not Alone Enough by Rilke - read by Lababidi

Widening Circles - by Rilke

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Book of Hours, I 2
(translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)

Yahia Lababidi, Egyptian poet, celebrates the power of poetry to bring us closer to the Divine:
http://www.onbeing.org/blog/yahia-lababidi-in-embracing-we-let-go/8705

"Widening Circles" by Rainer Maria Rilke - read by Yahia Lababidi

He Fumbles at your Soul - by Emily Dickinson

He fumbles at your Soul
He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys —
Before they drop full Music on —
He stuns you by Degrees —
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers — further heard —
Then nearer — Then so — slow —
Your Breath — has time to straighten —
Your Brain — to bubble Cool —
Deals One — imperial Thunderbolt —
That scalps your naked soul —
When Winds hold Forests in their Paws —
The Universe — is still —

[Yahia Lababidi is learning to appreciate that the guardian of the riddle must speak in riddles:
http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2016/05/the-guardian-of-the-riddle-aphorisms-by-yahia-lababidi.html] 

He Fumbles at your Soul, by Emily Dickinson - read by Yahia Lababidi

Trillium (for Kosovo) by Ken Smith, read by Peter Danbury

The Gate by Marie Howe, read by Peter Danbury

Read by David J. Bauman
Photo by Frank Boston

THE HOLLOW WOOD 
by EDWARD THOMAS

Out in the sun the goldfinch flits
Along the thistle-tops, flits and twits
Above the hollow wood
Where birds swim like fish---
Fish that laugh and shriek---
To and fro, far below
In the pale hollow wood.

Lichen, ivy, and moss
Keep evergreen the trees
That stand half-flayed and dying,
And the dead trees on their knees
In dog's-mercury, ivy, and moss:
And the bright twit of the goldfinch drops
Down there as he flits on thistle-tops.

The Hollow Wood by Edward Thomas

The Owl
BY EDWARD THOMAS

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; 
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof 
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest 
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof. 

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, 
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I. 
All of the night was quite barred out except 
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry 

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill, 
No merry note, nor cause of merriment, 
But one telling me plain what I escaped 
And others could not, that night, as in I went. 

And salted was my food, and my repose, 
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice 
Speaking for all who lay under the stars, 
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

The Owl by Edward Thomas

The Long Boat By Stanley Kunitz Read By Gary Zmolek

The Guest House 


This being human is a guest house. 
Every morning a new arrival. 

A joy, a depression, a meanness, 
some momentary awareness comes 
as an unexpected visitor. 

Welcome and entertain them all! 
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, 
who violently sweep your house 
empty of its furniture, 
still, treat each guest honorably. 
He may be clearing you out 
for some new delight. 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, 
meet them at the door laughing, 
and invite them in. 

Be grateful for whoever comes, 
because each has been sent 
as a guide from beyond.
 

- The Essential Rumi, version by Coleman Barks

[Yahia Lababidi is an Egyptian poet; his latest book is: "The Artist as Mystic" a collaboration on a series of conversations, exploring the ecstatic dimension in literature: http://amzn.com/e/B0042SRQWG ]

The Guest House, by Rumi - Read by Yahia Lababidi

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

- Jack Gilbert

(Yahia Lababidi believes that poetry is a form of prayer:  http://www.thearabreview.org/poetry-yahia-lababidi/ )

A Brief for the Defense, by Jack Gilbert - read by Yahia Lababidi

Miscegenation by Natasha Trethewey read by Christina Lux

Invitation written and read by Druzelle Cederquist

This poem is for participation in The Poetry Foundation's 2013 National Poetry Month initiative "Record-a-Poem." Gwendolyn Brooks is one of my favorite poets. This is my favorite poem. Read with hopefully the same vigor and love as she recited it. May she rest in peace!

"We Real Cool" By Gwendolyn Brooks - Recited By Christopher D. Sims

Section XVI from Dark Harbor by Mark Strand read by Mark Johnson

The Silken Tent by Robert Frost read by Gary Zmolek

Observer of transformations, social and personal, which I try to catch in poetry. 

The Silken Tent by Robert Frost read by Gary Zmolek

GTZmolek

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