"Last August Hours Before the Year 2000" by Naomi Shihab Nye : The Poetry Foundation

Read the poem Last August Hours Before the Year 2000 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Naomi Shihab Nye

(Source of photo: The Poetry Foundation)

Quotation: Hal Borland on the end of August

The Summer wanes,

well before the Equinox.

HAL BORLAND (1900-1978)

in his "Handbook to the Country"

Beyond Your Doorstep (1962)

"The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz" by Alicia Ostriker : The Poetry Foundation

Read the poem The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz by American poet Alicia Ostriker, and listen to an audio recording of her reading it.

Alicia Ostriker

(Source of photo: The Poetry Foundation)

Two Quotations on Broccoli

BROCCOLI

I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little boy and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!

     GEORGE BUSH

     on menus aboard Air Force One

     (Quoted in The New York Times on March 25, 1990)

Rejoice with broccoli for it is a good bush-of-a-face and goes nicely in the mouth.

     ANNE SEXTON

     in her book of poems The Death Notebooks (1974)

Broccoli

(Photo by Steven Lilley, 2011)

Eddie Albert reads "The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

From "The Excellencies of God's Law" (Psalm 119:9-16)

FROM "THE EXCELLENCIES OF GOD'S LAW"
from the Bible: Psalm 119:9-16 (King James Version)

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed thereto according to thy word.
With my whole heart have I sought thee:
O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Thy word have I hid in mine heart,
That I might not sin against thee.
Blessed art thou, O Lord:
Teach me thy statutes.
With my lips have I declared
All the judgments of thy mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
I will meditate in thy precepts,
And have respect unto thy ways.
I will delight myself in thy statutes:
I will not forget thy word.

From "The Excellencies of God's Law" (Psalm 119:1-8)

FROM "THE EXCELLENCIES OF GOD'S LAW"
from the Bible: Psalm 119:1-8 (King James Version)

Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the Lord.
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies,
And that seek him with the whole heart.
They also do no iniquity:
They walk in his ways.
Thou hast commanded us
To keep thy precepts diligently.
O that my ways were directed
To keep thy statutes!
Then shall I not be ashamed,
When I have respect unto all thy commandments.
I will praise thee with uprightness of heart,
When I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
I will keep thy statutes:
O forsake me not utterly.

Song: "Celestial Soda Pop" - Ray Lynch

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine : Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the Wikipedia article about Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which this year is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

Nicholas Solovioff's cover painting

for a 1955 issue of

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

A murder story by Walt Whitman

"One Wicked Impulse!" is a murder story by (in the words of Mark Van Doren) "the most original and passionate American poet" -- Walt Whitman. The story was first published in book form in Walt Whitman's Specimen Days & Collect (Philadelphia: Rees Welsh & Co., 1882-83), and it was reprinted in the January 1954 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Read Walt Whitman's murder story "One Wicked Impulse!" I ask that you pay particular attention to the ending of the story -- to the very last paragraph. When you have finished reading Walt Whitman's murder story, read the paragraph below.

If you were "shocked" by the last paragraph of Walt Whitman's murder story, read "One Wicked Impulse! (1845)," a commentary by Patrick McGuire on that story.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

at about 50

"Abide in the Doctrine of Christ": Second Epistle of John - King James Bible (Dramatized Audio)

"Abide in the Doctrine of Christ": A found poem from the Bible

ABIDE IN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST
A found poem by Monty Gilmer from the Bible:
The Second Epistle of John (King James Version)

The elder
Unto the elect lady and her children,
Whom I love in the truth;
And not I only,
But also all they that have known the truth;
For the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us,
And shall be with us for ever.

Grace be with you,
Mercy, and peace,
From God the Father,
And from the Lord Jesus Christ,
The Son of the Father,
In truth and love.

I rejoiced greatly
That I found of thy children walking in truth,
As we have received
A commandment from the Father.
And now I beseech thee, lady,
Not as though I wrote
A new commandment unto thee,
But that which we had from the beginning,
That we love one another.
And this is love,
That we walk after his commandments.
This is the commandment,
That, as ye have heard from the beginning,
Ye should walk in it.
For many deceivers
Are entered into the world,
Who confess not
That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an Antichrist.
Look to yourselves, that ye
Lose not those things which we have wrought,
But that ye receive a full reward.
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth
Not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ,
He hath both the Father and the Son.
If there come any unto you,
And bring not this doctrine,
Receive him not into your house,
Neither bid him Godspeed:
For he that biddeth him Godspeed
Is partaker of his evil deeds.

Having many things to write unto you,
I would not write with paper and ink:
But I trust to come unto you,
And speak face-to-face,
That our joy may be full.

The children of thy elect sister greet thee.
Amen.

"Lambert Hutchins" by Edgar Lee Masters

I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:

One, the house I built on the hill,

With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate;

The other, the lake-front in Chicago,

Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,

With whistling engines and crunching wheels,

And smoke and soot thrown over the city,

And the crash of cars along the boulevard, --

A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor

Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.

I helped to give this heritage

To generations yet unborn, with my vote

In the House of Representatives,

And the lure of the thing was to be at rest

From the never-ending fright of need,

And to give my daughters gentle breeding,

And a sense of security in life.

But, you see, though I had the mansion house

And traveling passes and local distinction,

I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers,

Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up

With a look as if some one were about to strike them;

And they married madly, helter-skelter,

Just to get out and have a change.

And what was the whole of the business worth?

Why, it wasn't worth a damn!

The source of this poem is Spoon River Anthology (1915) by Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950). To read his poem "Lillian Stewart," a poem about Lambert Hutchins's daughter, click here. 

"Lillian Stewart" by Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950)

     Lillian Stewart is the name of a character in The Lost Years (2012), a novel by Mary Higgins Clark that I am reading now. Here is a poem from Spoon River Anthology (1915) by Edgar Lee Masters (who was born on this day in 1869), a poem titled "Lillian Stewart."


LILLIAN STEWART

I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins,
Born in a cottage near the grist-mill,
Reared in the mansion there on the hill,
With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate.
How proud my mother was of the mansion!
How proud of father's rise in the world!
And how my father loved and watched us,
And guarded our happiness.
But I believe the house was a curse,
For father's fortune was little beside it;
And when my husband found he had married
A girl who was really poor,
He taunted me with the spires,
And called the house a fraud on the world,
A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes
Of a dowry not to be had;
And a man while selling his vote
Should get enough from the people's betrayal
To wall the whole of his family in.
He vexed my life till I went back home
And lived like an old maid till I died,
Keeping house for father.

Edgar Lee Masters

(Source of photo: The Poetry Foundation)

"Go Down, Death -- A Funeral Sermon" by James Weldon Johnson : Poets.org

     Read the poem "Go Down, Death -- A Funeral Sermon" by American author James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938).

James Weldon Johnson

(Photo credit: Carl Van Vechten)

"Epigrams" by Rabindranath Tagore : September 1916 - Poetry Foundation

Read "Epigrams" by Rabindranath Tagore on pages 283-285 of this issue of Poetry Magazine: September 1916 - Poetry Foundation

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Indian poet

"Old" by Anne Sexton : Poem Hunter

Read the poem "Old" by American poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974).

Anne Sexton

photographed by Elsa Dorfman

"Heavy Summer Rain" by Jane Kenyon : The Poetry Foundation

Read the poem Heavy Summer Rain by American poet Jane Kenyon and listen to an audio recording of her reading it.

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

(Photo credit: William Abranowicz)

"Sorrow" by Edna St. Vincent Millay : Poetry Foundation

Read this poem by American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950): Sorrow

The other post I have published on this blog today is a video of Peter, Paul and Mary singing the folk song "Sorrow." I hope you will enjoy watching the video and listening to the song.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Peter, Paul & Mary -- "Sorrow"

A short poem by Rabindranath Tagore on grief : Poet Seers

     I dedicate this short poem by Rabindranath Tagore on grief to the memory of my mother Evelyn M. Gilmer (1923-2016). Since she passed away on Thursday, April 21, I have missed her every day. Although it grieves me that she is no more, I am thankful that she was.

A SHORT POEM ON GRIEF

by Rabindranath Tagore

(Photo: Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries)

Say not in grief that she is no more

but say in thankfulness that she was.

A death is not the extinguishing of a light,

but the putting out of the lamp

because the dawn has come.

-- R. Tagore (1861-1941)

   Indian poet

"How Can I Keep from Singing?" : Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

     Read the Wikipedia article about the Christian hymn "How Can I Keep from Singing?" The other post I have published on this blog today is the official video of Enya singing her version of that hymn. I hope that, after you have read the Wikipedia article about the hymn, you will watch the video. Enjoy!

Enya - "How Can I Keep From Singing?" (video)

"Morning Has Broken" by Eleanor Farjeon

     As the Bible says, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23, King James Version). Read the Christian poem "Morning Has Broken" by English writer Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965).

Eleanor Farjeon in 1899

Hymn: "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" - Performed by Chris Rice

"Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning : Poetry Foundation

     Of the thirty-two stanzas of Robert Browning's poem Rabbi Ben Ezra, the ones that my mother Evelyn M. Gilmer (1923-2016) liked best are the first, the sixth, the thirty-first and the thirty-second. I hope you will enjoy reading that poem in its entirety.

Robert Browning (1812-1889),
English poet

.

"Come unto Me and Rest" by Jesus Christ : The King James Bible

COME UNTO ME AND REST
A poem of Jesus Christ

(Matthew 11:28-30, King James Version)

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
For I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Head of Christ  (1940)

by Warner Sallman

Find Hope in Scripture When You Have No Money | Blog | News | American Bible Society

Read Find Hope in Scripture When You Have No Money | Blog | News | American Bible Society: You’re down to your last dollar. Maybe you’ve been scraping by for months, or maybe you’re a new member of the “I can’t even look at my bank account” club. Either way, you have no idea how you’ll survive the next month—let alone the next 24 hours. And here you are, asking

"Prayer for Guidance: Westminster Chimes" by Monty Gilmer

In a familiar hymn of his, Isaac Watts prayed in part, "O God, our help in ages past, / Our hope for years to come; / Be thou our guide while life shall last, / And our eternal home."  Here is a poem of mine, a poem about praying for guidance, that first appeared in the 2001 edition of The Bluestone Review.  I have revised this poem of mine slightly since its first publication.


PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE: WESTMINSTER CHIMES
by Monty Gilmer

Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.

[Lord, through this hour
Be thou our guide,
So by thy power
No foot shall slide.]
"Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself" (Longfellow wrote),
So chimed the clock.

The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down;
Hickory dickory dock.

David the psalmist wrote,
"The meek will he guide in judgment,
And the meek will he teach his way."

John Hall, at one with that verse, wrote,
     "The simple thou dost teach and guide
Thy perfect ways to know,
And thou dost such instruct aright
As humble be and low."

The author of the Forty-eighth Psalm wrote,
"For this God is our God for ever and ever;
He will be our guide even unto death."

In chime with that, George Wither wrote,
     "For God in life will be our guide;
     And in our death, our God abide."

Quieter than a mouse,
Time runs; the clock still strikes,
After it plays "Westminster Chimes,"
After it prays for us.

Grandfather clock

(Photo by Quadell)

"East African Proverbs" by Anonymous : Poetry Magazine (July/August 2016)

Read this Anonymous poem that A. M. Juster translated from the Oromo: East African Proverbs

"The Keys of the Kingdom": A Poem of Jesus Christ

THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
A Poem of Jesus Christ
from the Bible: Matthew 16:17-19 (King James Version)

Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona:
For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
But my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee,
That thou art Peter,
And upon this rock I will build my church;
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee
The keys of the kingdom of heaven:
And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth
Shall be bound in heaven;
And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
Shall be loosed in heaven.

Two Quotations about Morning Coffee

MORNING COFFEE

     Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat.

     JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)

     German organist and composer

     The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.

     OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894)

     American physician and author

Luncheon of the Boating Party
by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881

"Depression Glass" by Ted Kooser : The Poetry Foundation

Read this poem by Ted Kooser about dishes kept at home for special company: Depression Glass

Ted Kooser

♫ Enya - "May it be" (lyrics) ♫

Quotation: Baron Pierre de Coubertin on the Olympic games

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

     The most important thing in the Olympic games is not winning but taking part -- just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.  The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

     BARON PIERRE DE COUBERTIN (1863-1937)

     French educationalist

"Fugue" by Peter Pereira - Poem of the Day - Poetry Foundation

Listen to Peter Pereira introducing and reading this humorous poem of his: Fugue - Poem of the Day - Poetry Foundation

Chrysanthemum: An Anthology

Poetry

Poem on Arguments : The King James Bible

POEM ON ARGUMENTS
From the Bible: Proverbs 3:30 (King James Version)

Strive not with a man without cause,
If he have done thee no harm.

An Illustration by Burne Hogarth: Tarzan of the Apes

Burne Hogarth illustration for

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

"Color" by Christina Rossetti : The Poetry Foundation

Read the poem Color by English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894).  It is a poem that is good for children.

Old Rose Dr. Van Fleet Climber

Poppy

"I Hear You Call, Pine Tree" by Yone Noguchi : Poets.org

Read the classic poem "I Hear You Call, Pine Tree" by Yone Noguchi, the first Japanese-born writer to publish poetry in English.

Yone Noguchi, 1875-1947

"Enemies" by Wendell Berry : The Poetry Foundation

Read the poem Enemies by Wendell Berry (born on this day in 1934), a poem about relationships.

Wendell Berry

Photo by Dan Carraco

"Three Things We Pray" by Richard of Chichester

THREE THINGS WE PRAY

by Richard of Chichester,

England, 13th century

Thanks be to thee, O Lord Jesus Christ,

for all the benefits

which thou hast given us;

for all the pains and insults

which thou hast borne for us.

O most merciful Redeemer,

friend, and brother,

may we know thee more clearly,

love thee more dearly,

and follow thee more nearly,

for thine own sake.

Quotation: Mahatma Gandhi on the power of the Bible

THE POWER OF THE BIBLE

     You Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace to this war-torn world.  But you read it as if it were just good literature, and nothing else.

     MAHATMA GANDHI (1869-1948)

     Indian nationalist leader

     Quoted in the American Bible Society Record (June/July 1986)

Mahatma Gandhi

"Two Things: An Observation of Agur" : The King James Bible

TWO THINGS: AN OBSERVATION OF AGUR
From the Bible: Proverbs 30:7-9 (King James Version)

Two things have I required of thee;
Deny me them not before I die:
Remove far from me vanity and lies;
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with food convenient for me:
Lest I be full, and deny thee,
And say, "Who is the Lord?"
Or lest I be poor, and steal,
And take the name of my God in vain.

"Letters to a Stranger" by Thomas James : The Poetry Foundation

Read the poem Letters to a Stranger by American poet Thomas James (1946-1974).

Thomas James