Joyce's Poetry: Poetry Quotation

Joyce's Poetry: Poetry Quotation: Nothing is permanent in writing. Everything is malleable. Poetry isn't a profession; it's a way of life. It's an empty basket you put your l...

Poetry Quotation

Nothing is permanent in writing. Everything is malleable. Poetry isn't a profession; it's a way of life. It's an empty basket you put your life into it and make something out of it. -- Mary Oliver, veteran poet

If you accept this quote, you'll know that it applies to life, which isn't a profession. Life seems like work for it's a journey, but it's more about how you live that life, and everything changes day by day, minute by minute. Happiness is relative. Everything in life is malleable. Life is an "empty basket" you put memories and everyday struggles, facts, and detail into it and make something out of that life. Those people who don't put their issues and good things into a basket are cheating themselves out of a chance to make something out of their own life. Those who focus more on other folk's life are distracting from changes in their own and, more importantly, they're missing out on a chance to live well and to improve their own life.

Joyce's Poetry: Speak Now Poem

Joyce's Poetry: Speak Now Poem: 1 When you’re tired of the world & its devastation, I’m your golden arch You use me to squash your appetite for forbi...

Poem Speak Now

Poetry Speaks

1

When you’re tired of the world

& its devastation,

I’m your golden arch

You use me to squash your appetite

for forbidden food

I soothe you when your

friends betray you

I calm you when you’re anxious and angry.

I make your life luminous in blackness

while you prattle, prance & pounce

against indifference indignity

of deep, dark night

 

Every disturbance & danger

frighten you like a wasp in your path.

 

2

A gold leaf flies in your window

You so elegantly pen its existence

When it snows in spring,

you protest in bleak language:

“It’s a blemish 

in blasé nature,” you said.

 

3

When the art dealer

forgets your Georgia O’Keeffe,

your Jacob Lawrence, & your Claude Monet

you blast him on paper

to trap your tongue

You forget: I’m your bond;

You have me to console you

if you’re feeling angry,

a little purple, or overwhelmed.

c/o copyright 2012 Joyce Evans-Campbell
 

Joyce's Poetry: Cultural Clash

Joyce's Poetry: Cultural Clash: Office so plush with IBM on the desk top carpet, cabinets lumbar chair, & laptop for travel; a glass door shuts out voices & ringing...

Cultural Clash

Office so plush with IBM
on the desk top
carpet, cabinets
lumbar chair, & laptop
for travel;
a glass door shuts out voices
& ringing phones
Each morning I drop
off my blackness at the door
Every “t” and “s” enunciated.
In the P.M. I pick up my blackness
& go home to Romare Bearden
paintings,
to Aretha, Coltrane, & Billie
& greens, black eyed
peas and ham hocks
I turn, turn again, & turn back.

copyright (c) 2004 Joyce Evans-Campbell