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Begin forwarded message:
From: Akwasi Aidoo <akwasi.aidoo@gmail.com>
Date: October 30, 2016 at 2:01:29 PM CDT
To: Akwasi Aidoo <akwasi.aidoo@gmail.com>
Subject: Three innerving poems for your Sunday
Dear Friends & Colleagues
This weekend, I bring you three very exciting poems: Two by 'Tade Aina (a true poet's poet) and one by Ron Padgett. Each is followed by some very brief comments from yours truly ~~ very brief, so you can focus on enjoying the poems:
Enjoy!
Stirrings at Dawn
By 'Tade Aina
Dew droplets at dawn
glitter of tiny diamonds
on soul's receptive petals,
light hesitant kisses
gentle imperceptible nibbles
on morning's ear lobes.
Voyeur birds their joy chirp
as insistent Sun rays spear
love through clouds
from a proud rising Day
that lover Earth embrace
as wakefulness mists drift
from Night's sleep comfort.This is about the joys and blessings that just come to us now and then, almost unearned – the "glitter of tiny diamonds" we didn't have to dig for and which have no bloody quality to them (like manna from the blue sky), the "kisses" and "nibbles" we are lucky to share with a "SoulMate", the early morning birds that soothe our ears, the spear-like rays of the rising sun that bring love our way and wake up the Earth that we so thoughtlessly abuse in our blind quests for lots without deep meaning. The comfort sleep bestows, when we succeed in putting the follies and fouls of the day beyond the back of our minds… In the end, the "stirrings" forworn have a completely different meaning, which is positive. That's the beauty of this poem; the beautty of all good poetry, methinks.
Next is 'Tade's 2nd poem:
Deadlines
By 'Tade Aina
Despair, the Lagos mob's necklace
cruel, my chest, weight invisible
press down. In gasoline sweat
my being drenched, day time nightmare,
strange ghosts and demons my inner
self haunt as with deadlines I battle
spinning my creative lines dead, unburied,
their paths woven in my creation famine,
shuttles of fixated endless refinements
in this cold land of summers' unbearable
heat that my brain fries, my day drains,
but sure I am that Skye's commission in due
time will be finished, my salvation without
an army certain, my promise to redeem true.
I told you 'Tade is a poet's poet! Excitingly, you dig deeper with him. This is a poem about what stress does to one and the simplest way to overcome it. One approach to reading the poem lies in its perfect use of a "disordering" and "ordering" pattern or structure, for it's got this great sense of order at the end of what's obviously a very disordering experience. It's about how gain can emerge from pain – pain from what we can't control and gain from what we can hope. Notice how everything that's unimaginably horrid and frightening in the poem ("despair", "cruel mob's necklace", "gasoline sweats", "daytime nightmare", "famine", "unbearable heat", fried brain…) is overcome by that internal power conveyed by the simple words of "sure", "promise", "redeem", and "true"? Another approach to the poem is in its evocative & intimate quality. The use of the first-person point of view creates a great sense of immediacy & intimacy, and makes association & solidarity much easier to establish. It's all about mood and feeling. Listen to Wordsworth for an angle on 'Tade's poem: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Powerful, ultimately redeeming, feelings we have here, isn't it?
Finally, here's Padgett:
How to be Perfect
By Ron Padgett
Get some sleep.
Eat an orange every morning.
Be friendly. It will help make you happy.
Hope for everything. Expect nothing.
Take care of things close to home first. Straighten up your room
before you save the world. Then save the world.
Be nice to people before they have a chance to behave badly.
Don't stay angry about anything for more than a week, but don't
forget what made you angry. Hold your anger out at arm's length
and look at it, as if it were a glass ball. Then add it to your glass
ball collection.
Wear comfortable shoes.
Do not spend too much time with large groups of people.
Plan your day so you never have to rush.
Show your appreciation to people who do things for you, even if
you have paid them, even if they do favors you don't want.
After dinner, wash the dishes.
Calm down.
Don't expect your children to love you, so they can, if they want to.
Don't be too self-critical or too self-congratulatory.
Don't think that progress exists. It doesn't.
Imagine what you would like to see happen, and then don't do
anything to make it impossible.
Forgive your country every once in a while. If that is not
possible, go to another one.
If you feel tired, rest.
Don't be depressed about growing older. It will make you feel
even older. Which is depressing.
Do one thing at a time.
If you burn your finger, put ice on it immediately. If you bang
your finger with a hammer, hold your hand in the air for 20
minutes. you will be surprised by the curative powers of ice and
gravity.
Do not inhale smoke.
Take a deep breath.
Do not smart off to a policeman.
Be good.
Be honest with yourself, diplomatic with others.
Do not go crazy a lot. It's a waste of time.
Drink plenty of water. When asked what you would like to
drink, say, "Water, please."
Take out the trash.
Love life.
Use exact change.When there's shooting in the street, don't go near the window.Padgett's poem is so smart in structure, and journeys far from simple words, without losing its way to a deep counsel of the impossible perfect which, as we know, is the enemy of the good life we seldom know. That's the real provenance of its beauty (not in the common-sensical injunctions we so often hear).
And here's the parting gift, if you're down from all the negativity in our world today. It's an oldie from Miriam Makeba, titled Nongqongqo ~ To Those We Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3upHN5sqd8Peace & Love,
Akwasi
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