Gaia: The Poet Tree

Re: The Weather Makers

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:56:26 GMT

wonderful, so glad you directed me here, Darrell! But you know, there are other poetry groups that are more active...

Love,

Nicole

The Weather Makers

http://Moneynot.gaia.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:29:03 GMT

The Weathermakers

We are the Weathermakers -
Mr. and Mrs. .
You stepped this way
and I stepped that.

Your step started clouds
collecting a condensation of tears,
turning into bloated effigies
forming battalions pressing overhead, over heart.
Scorn, jagged and white hot,
jumps out from your dark disposition.
Suddenly, love is shattered,
blazing and smoldering.

My step started a drought,
collecting cracks in once-loamy soil,
turning into deep gaps,
forming a mosaic of distance under foot, underhanded.
Indifference, jagged and shadowy cool,
spreads out from my dry disposition.
Soon, love is shriveled,
stagnant and evaporating.

We seldom recall stepping this way or that,
both left wondering
where the thunderstorm or drought came from,
or why it came to this (or that).
Way back, years ago, or only yesterday, we stumbled,
began pushing or moving away.
Magnetic fields formed moist or dry air;
we worked the weather,
whether we knew it or not.

So, why don’t we use this or that power to step together,
form a gentle rain on a dusty path
we settle down softly?
Let’s hold hands and stroll home,
welcoming the sight of our front door,
where we’ll step onto a plush mat
that reads “The Weathermakers”.

copyright 2005 Darrell Moneyhon

The Weather Makers

http://Moneynot.gaia.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:30:25 GMT

  Hi, I was especially drawn to this group because of the "poet tree". Years ago, as a counselor in prison, I started a primitive version of this, by exactly the same title. I asked prisoners in "segregation" (a dark lonely place) if they would like to make some use of thier awful situation by writing poetry. We called the project the - you got it - "Poet Tree". I gathered up 3 or four rounds of "limbs" to place in a photocopied compilation of poems, and distributed the publication to the interested parties in "seg". Unfortunately, I transferred my employment to another prison soon after this project, so no real tradition was established.
   Years later, after I happened to return to that particular prison, an inmate told me how important his participation in the "Poet Tree" had been to him - how it helped him reflect on his life and to use his mind in a more creative way.
   Now, I am in segregation again - segregated, geographically isolted, from the members of this group who live "who knows where"! And here I am participating in The Poet Tree again, as though nothing has changed. What an irony! We are the one's who are changing.
   Below is a poem that I just shared in the context of a discussion about how to handle anger in a love relationship. The thread was based on thoughts about anger shared by the Daali Lama (sp?) and Aaron Beck (cognitive psychology guru) as they talked with each other in a video that a moderator brought into the group (Integral, Postmetaphysics - or something like that! - group).
   It thrills me to see how, like the branches and twigs of a tree, poetry can work its way into real life situations such as the personal sharings that inspired me to share the below poem in the first place.
   Here (finally!) is the poem:

The Weathermakers

We are the Weathermakers -
Mr. and Mrs. .
You stepped this way
and I stepped that.

Your step started clouds
collecting a condensation of tears,
turning into bloated effigies
forming battalions pressing overhead, over heart.
Scorn, jagged and white hot,
jumps out from your dark disposition.
Suddenly, love is shattered,
blazing and smoldering.

My step started a drought,
collecting cracks in once-loamy soil,
turning into deep gaps,
forming a mosaic of distance under foot, underhanded.
Indifference, jagged and shadowy cool,
spreads out from my dry disposition.
Soon, love is shriveled,
stagnant and evaporating.

We seldom recall stepping this way or that,
both left wondering
where the thunderstorm or drought came from,
or why it came to this (or that).
Way back, years ago, or only yesterday, we stumbled,
began pushing or moving away.
Magnetic fields formed moist or dry air;
we worked the weather,
whether we knew it or not.

So, why don’t we use this or that power to step together,
form a gentle rain on a dusty path
we settle down softly?
Let’s hold hands and stroll home,
welcoming the sight of our front door,
where we’ll step onto a plush mat
that reads “The Weathermakers”.

copyright 2005 Darrell Moneyhon

Re: Finding my poetic heart and soul

http://Moneynot.gaia.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:07:26 GMT

   Hi Brian, Poetry does seem to be a door to the beauty side of things, where "the ineffable things are" (instead of "Where the Wild Things Are" - children's book made into a recent movie). Funny that words can be used to suggest the beyond-words of the beauty you mention.
  But poetic words are slippery and shiney, often luminous "words" that connect, perhaps, with the right brain, or with the "subtle body" (dreaming mind), and truly bring depth and life to existence. I'm happy that you found the "river".
   When you write a poem, you are, in effect, "walking on water". Instead of something being on your mind, you are closer to being with, really with, the mind. And by the simple, non-resistant awareness, you begin to float above and around "mind".
  From that freed perspective -"walking on water" - one can gain access to greater, or at least a different kind of, seeing and knowing. I sometimes call poetic thinking "thinking like energy", thinking in a way that seems to match the qualities of pure energy.
   Turn on a light bulb and watch the light energy spread out evenly all over the place, in an overlapping, uninterupted, and interconnected field of wholeness. Energy also passes through things. It is highly flexible, fluid, even able to be "more than one place at a time". The ancients, before they identified "energy", called it "spirit". To me, "thinking like energy" (or like your above, "river") is looking at things from our spirit, from spirit's point of view.
   At least poetry is a form of "thinking like energy", or "seeing like spirit". This philosophical notion of "thinking like energy" is a left brain-ish speculation about a right-brain realm of poetry and ineffiable beauty (even the beauty of nightmare-ish dramas), but is in deep respect of the poetic mind.
   I am so happy that you discovered this dimension, and that (if I am correct) you are now "thinking like energy". I enjoyed your poem. It helped me to... well, to "think like energy"!

   Darrell

stOne

http://philosophia.gaia.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:32:02 GMT

a statue stood

of a courtyard green

the garden, rose and thorn

you look at me

an enigma unseen

alabaster, stOne, marble

but i am still the One

(how could we not

be changed by this)

As the

watcher watching would ?

No ! the lover loving could ~

This fortress, insurmountable

by force

only the Mysterious Secret

will allay its course

You are still, the One.

kiss me before I turn to stone

A Yorkdale Spring

http://samiyam.gaia.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:08:16 GMT

A Yorkdale Spring

Springtime always smells of rot,
and fertile concentrations of muck.

The compost pile, awakened from its winter slumber,
steams in its glory as the last of the snow beats
a sly retreat back to the northern side of the woods.

The dog’s deposits, long forgotten and frozen, burst forth in fungal profusions.

Sweet swelling nastiness wrinkles the nose as
soaked mukluks and mittens dry, dripping over the
radiator in percussive droplets,
emitting their questionable incense from hissing censor.

Like a baby born in blood and excrement,
whose screams of painful birthing signal the life-filled breathing,
springtime comes into the world messily.

Growing, crying, slimy and wet, soaking, shiny, smelly, and yet…

ALIVE!

Springtime brings the…
…shoots of green uprising out of meadows pulsing sunward,
as woven nests cradle upward seeking mouths.
…thoughts of whimsy playing upon my mind as I look longingly at legs released from winter’s woolen wrappings.
…pleasant evenings dodging hungry insects and listening
to amorous frogs proclaim their desire in frightening chorus.

Oh what splendid squalor! Oh what fecund mess!

Oh to be in springtime now that it’s England again.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner (aka Samiyam)

Re: I art sin.

http://shadna108.gaia.com — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:57:28 GMT

This is really grand... thanks for the new poem...

I art sin.

http://urbanshakesphere.gaia.com — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:20:58 GMT

I am
the red fruit.
Dropping on Newtons Imagination,
persuading Eve to induldge in sin.
Again.

I am the situation that's stuck in the back of your mind that you try to ignore but can't because it's becoming
you.

an organ doomed to death constructing our lives and music.
The enamored unanimous.
The euphonic tunes of demonic goons.
the Nightmare.

Transending into your dreams, clutching hold to your greatest fantasies-holding them hostage.

POW goes the gun on the P.O.W who tried to run.
where the hell did you think your thoughts were goin?

Touch of a blind
man.
Sight of a deaf
one.
Pride of an oldest
child
shame of a
stepson

The Oil
your necessity, the gyrator to your engine
rotating like shoulder joints.

you know the point?
its sharp.

Puntual are we in the way that we discipline?
CAPITAL punishment is the sentence they exclaimed(!) after the jury dashed(--) in with the verdict that he was guilty, and after a period(.) of hidind his colon (:) quoting his lawyer, and questioning(?) his innocence, he would be beheaded at the CAPITAL.

I am the saint
with a dirty magazine
the braggart
with a small ~~penis.~~
the hypocrite
with no hypocrisies.
the fatigued Olympian

Karma is a two-toned 8 foot boa with fangs squezzing and nibbling at your sins.

Suffocating and biting at your flaws.

draining airs and defleshing vengance.

the heart that pumps kool-aid
fits well
with the body that sweats Crisco.

Literary Obesity
too thick, too fattening, too sweet are the words that stroll from the lips of a playwright--thus weungage in mental fasting in which we only read the light novelties served by enquire

we fear a chubby mentality

the genius struggles with weight.
the idiot prevails with lightness.
the meagar proclaim excellence.
I am
the apple

Stagnation

http://sagenhoney.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:02:49 GMT

stagnation - guess we've been here for awhile

is the abstract a part of your truth, just not expressed?

because I only sense space between space

I understand escape, but indifference is a dead end

I think I'm open, but you think I'm blind - closed

outside the box - I stand alone, peering off the edge

although

humble and patient, I still make an ass of myself

naysayer

I must be lost because the scenery hasn't changed,

not knowing thyself anymore

....alone

Evolution

http://sagenhoney.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:58:54 GMT

Down from the trees, and out of the caves

Somewhere along the way we must have got brave…

To jump in our cars and head down this path…

Treading across the borderline of hatred and wrath.

So you gave up your soul to the man down the lane,

And now your crying cause all that’s left to see is your pain.

Well, there must be some excuse for it all…

Aren’t we all victims, don’t we all fall?

Evolution passed by our house today,

Cause no one was outside ready to play.

…So he left, and I don’t blame him.

Inactive Warrior

http://sagenhoney.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:57:09 GMT

history has made us susceptible with an addiction to please

so the watcher within remains mute as an inactive warrior

stand for truth, or back down when outnumbered

strange symbolism has guided me here, stronger than it has before

yet denial

the dark, windy and cold

fear

The Wheel

http://sagenhoney.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:55:26 GMT

We are all predators, we are all prey
Devour the carcass...and seize the day

No need to argue of what's past, and what's to come
... 'cause in the end our day is done

The cycle of cycles; it all turns 'round,
to this wheel we all are bound.

Element of Tears

http://sagenhoney.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:54:43 GMT

For every beginning, there is and end
For every gain, there is a loss

Noises heard ... Silences felt

Arise

http://hopelightandgrace.gaia.com — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:47:05 GMT

Arise
I say to you Arise
For I am the Beloved
You are the Beloved
We are the Beloved
We are the Magnificence
The Radiance
The Joy and the Hope
We are the embodiment of light
that will transform our world
forever

Re: A Poem

http://Netherlands.gaia.com — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:18:13 GMT

Thanks Jason for posting this poem is such a special way. Very passionate.

Do you prefer to only present it in spoken word or would you be so kind to put it in words here as well?
For me it would also be interesting to see it in written because I could let the words sink in a bit more.

Blessings,
Alluvja

A Poem

http://jasonturner79.gaia.com — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:33:45 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU_Hm8IY3Fg

A Poem

http://jasonturner79.gaia.com — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:31:35 GMT

Lost and Found Project

http://shadna108.gaia.com — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:16:51 GMT

Here's the update for the "Lost and Found" project: We're gathering the poetry and short stories from "The Poet Tree" and will be getting consent from all of you amazing creators here in the next few months. We'll be publishing it in November and will release a webpage dedicated to the promotion and sales of the book. Check back here for updates or message me on my profile if you have any questions.

Namaste,

Shadna

Finding my poetic heart and soul

http://Nara-Narayana.gaia.com — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:59:35 GMT

Hello everyone!

My name is Brian, and about four years ago I woke up to the real world and saw so much love and beauty all around me that words could do no justice. Since that beautiful day I have been working on releasing my heart and soul from all of the shackles that were weighing them down. I am now at a point where I can attempt to use words, although primitive and misguided, to desbribe all of the beauty that I now see before my very heart and soul. Hear is my first attempt at putting this beauty into words:

The River
As my awareness knows,
my mind slow,
as my mind slows,
my love shows,
as my love shows,
my confidence grows,
as my confidence grows,
my life flows,
as my life flows,
the river goes.

Where the river goes,
nobody knows.

Thanks for this wonderful pod.
Brian

And this is why I'm leaving....

http://ouroboros.gaia.com — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:49:34 GMT

Out into space, not empty, but illusory
Complying with volition, gravity is pulling me
My eyes'll get tired, and my hands'll stay lazy
The inertia of my hunger and desires drive me crazy.

Bow down, idol hands, Procrastinate like pharoah
I am not amused one bit by your magick show
Culture is a zealous creep, and all his hat tricks are cheap
Cannabalistic buffet, come on in and feast

Maybe it's brain damage, maybe I could manage
Maybe I could fucking think straight if I found myself stranded
An ocean in between me and a world teetering on the edge
I've got a mind to kick the huddled masses over the ledge.

Stuck in zero gravity, free fall infinately
Zero at the center of all objects and bodies
If we had the sight to see all the world broadly
Our feet would never touch the ground, we'd never step wrongly

I wrote this jacked up on speed.....
So it's really weird, and most of it seems of the wall.
But of course.
It makes perfect sense to me.