A Day of Sharing

Today (or actually now it's yesterday because I'm up late) is a day to share poems with each other in blog world, by order of LK Ludwig, along with a picture to add to the ambience of the poem. So when I saw one of my all-time favorites, Not Waving But Drowning, on Chris' site, I knew I had to participate. After getting that post out of my system about how poetry got ruined for me, I'm feeling open to it again. I wrote a poem in the middle of the night the other night about my daughter eating strawberries. And there are still poems that move me, now that someone asks me, I realize there are. But I can't choose one. Here's the first one I'd choose (today):

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policeman wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

for nothing now can ever come to any good.

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I love this poem because it is genuine in its selfishness about grief. Grief is one of my big subjects I like to write about and I find this one sweet and somehow funny.

Next: Merc tries to choose an excerpt from a Walt Whitman poem and Blogger crashes from spacing issues.