Poem readings liked by J Bryden

Experiment in Haiku

Just Words

Honey Om By Emily Turner

PAD Día 4: "¡A dormir! ¡Oh, duerme un poquito, perla blanca!" de John Keats

PAD Day 4: "Asleep! O Sleep a little while, white pearl!" by John Keats

So, springtime means it’s time for PAD: the Poetry a Day Challenge. Come on, join the fun:) I’ve always been a rebel so I want to up the ante: I’m going to set to music in/famous poems, record them and post them on my blog. I know, this is probably wishful thinking, but I’ll try. Any suggestions in English, Spanish or YOUR OWN poems are more than welcome... not all poems work but I promise to give each and every one a try.

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Bueno, la primavera significa que llegó la hora del Reto de Un Poema al Día, o PAD por sus siglas en inglés. Venga va, uniros a la fiesta:) Yo siempre he sido un poco rebelde así que voy a subir la apuesta: voy a musicalizar poemas in/olvidables, grabarlos y postearlos en mi blog. Probablemente fracasaré, pero de sueños también se vive. Cualquier sugerencia en español o inglés o vuestros propios poemas serán más que bienvenidos... no todos los poemas se pueden musicar, pero prometo intentarlo con todos y cada uno de los que propongáis.

"Asleep! O Sleep a little while, white pearl!" by John Keats—Poetry set to music

GOING PUBLIC 4.5.13 - "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why"
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175894

Been thinking about aging recently. My grandmother was lost to Alzheimer's several years back...and I just read this poignant bit of reminiscence - Side by Side, by Mally Z. Ray (in the most excellent, The Sun Magazine - http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/448/side_by_side).  

What will it be like when I can no longer remember everyone I've kissed? And isn't that already happening, aren't bits of me trailing behind me as I age, unintentionally dropped like forgotten notes? I can't really know what I've forgotten can I? No, but I can feel it...feel it, as Millay so beautifully puts it: 

I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

So it was fortuitous that my voice was still recovering a bit when I recorded this. Like a  poignant and unwanted glimpse of regret to come.

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why," by Edna St. Vincent Millay (read by Xe Sands)


it leaps and bounds

love

climbing vines towards Heaven


zinging past stars, galaxies
meteors flashing
supernova stargaze falling embers


like a waterscape canvas
melting nightscape backdrop
settling upon blooms

springing forth
from each bud

 

an electrical buzzzzzzzzzz


resonating
a bumblehum
of drones
leaving the air
thick and heavy
like buttercream frosting.

If you look to the sky, you will see the energy
electrical lines quake and quiver 

a sonic boom
like static
traveling down one arm
to the fingertip
that touched Gods' own
on the ceiling of the Sistine.

Michelangelo knew about love.

Aboriginals knew.

They needed no speech.

They felt the Earth
pull their chests
outward
magnetic
a throbbing ache
of telepathic temple
told presence of
Mother Earth
God
Buddha
Muhammad
The Great Spirit
Yahweh

The bum in the gutter
has knowing eyes.
I bet you never took
the time to see.

Next 

         time
                  look 

                           closer

the iris
reflects

the freedom
of knowing
the same crazed stare
of a driven soul
escaping through 

tunnels of poetry
waiting to flood
the city streets
and drown 

the foolhardy.

The Genesis 


of an Apocalypse.  



© Susan Marie  

Thoughts While Sleepwalking

If—
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
  And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
  And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
  And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
  If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
  Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! 

IF by Rudyard KIPLING read by MAN POEMS

Miscegenation by Natasha Trethewey read by Christina Lux

"Those Winter Sundays" by "Robert Hayden" read by cathrinak

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

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, read by Anfernee Neal

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower by Dylan Thomas read by Mark Johnson

GOING PUBLIC 5.3.13 - "Vernal Equinox," by Amy Lowell

Although I do feel pretty exuberant about this time of year, what with my yard exploding into foliage song and the birds demanding that I rejoice, I also often still feel a pull of something else, something...I don't know what - melancholy, perhaps?

So Lowell is the perfect choice this week. Well, she's also very succinct, which was a must this week...

"Vernal Equinox," by Amy Lowell (read by Xe Sands)

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

The Silken Tent by Robert Frost read by Gary Zmolek

Theme for English B, by Langston Hughes, read by Chuck Guilford

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

Poem readings liked by J Bryden

John Bryden D