HOME ▪ DIRECTORY ▪ WHAT’S HAPPENING ▪ THE GALLERY ▪ POETRY ▪ JUST CHILL ▪ MANY HANDS NETWORK ▪ RESPECT YOURSELF ▪ CREATIVE FOCUS ▪ EVENTS & SERVICES ▪ GMP & ORGANIZATIONS

JUST FOR A MINUTE… I STOPPED BREATHING

Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the mother pig, stuck in a cage, with babies around, fighting for
a drop of milk.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the bleeding bull, locked in the arena, in the name of culture.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the lobster thrown in the boiling water, in the name of gluttony.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the sheep, whose throat is sliced in the name of GOD.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the rabbit, with his eyes full of tears, full of perfume, in the
name of a fake beauty.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the force- fed goose with the swelling liver, in the name of
celebration.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the calf, torn off his mother, in the name of fashion.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the mother cow, with her swelling pius, in the name of a calcium
ratio.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the thousand trees, uprooted from the soil, in the name of decoration.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
i was the red rose, cut from her branch, in the name of love.
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
Just for a minute, stop breathing.
Who are you?
Just for a minute, stop breathing.
What are you feeling?
Just for a minute, stop breathing.
How are you feeling?
Just for a minute, stop breathing.
Just for a minute, stop breathing.
Just for a minute, stop breathing.
All these minutes put together… are your life…
All these minutes put together… are life…
In what name do you consider yourself as the master of life?
Just for a minute i stopped breathing.
It hurts, i'll never do it again.
Just for a minute, stop breathing…

 

Pelagus  © 2008

 

 

 

 

 

After All
The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town;
My spirit revives in the morning breeze,
though it died when the sun went down;
The river is high and the stream is strong.

Henry Lawson

Photograph by

Johan van Beuzekom © 2008

Excerpt from

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens

 

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

 

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

 

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

 

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

 

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

 

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Cross it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

 

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?

 

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

 

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

 

 

THE CROCODILES ARE CRYING

By Rupert McCall

Endless visions fill my head – this man – as large as life
And instantly my heart mourns for his angels and his wife
Because the way I see Steve Irwin – just put everything aside
It comes back to his family – it comes back to his pride

His animals inclusive – Crikey – light the place with love!
Shine his star with everything he fought to rise above
The crazy-man of Khaki from the day he left the pouch
Living out his dream and in that classic 'Stevo' crouch

Exploding forth with character and redefining cheek
It's one thing to be honoured as a champion unique
It's one thing to have microphones and spotlight cameras shoved
It's another to be taken in and genuinely loved

But that was where he had it right – I guess he always knew
From his fathers' modest reptile park and then Australia Zoo
We cringed at times and shook our heads – but true to natures call
There was something very Irwin in the make up of us all

Yes the more I care to think of it – the more he had it right
If you're going to make a difference – make it big and make it bright!
Yes - he was a lunatic! Yes - he went head first!
But he made the world feel happy with his energetic burst

A world so large and loyal that it's hard to comprehend
I doubt we truly count the warmth until life meets an end
To count it now I say a prayer with words of inspiration
May the spotlight shine forever on his dream for conservation

…My daughter broke the news to me – my six year old in tears
It was like she'd just turned old enough to show her honest fears
I tried to make some sense of it but whilst her Dad was trying
His little girl explained it best…she said "The crocodiles are crying"

Their best mate's up in heaven now – the crocs up there are smiling!
And as sure as flowers, poems and cards and memories are piling
As sure as we'll continue with the trademarks of his spiel
Of all the tributes worthy – he was rough…but he was real

As sure as 'Crikey!' fills the sky
I think we'll miss ya Steve…goodbye

RUPERT McCALL 2008

Excerpt from The Eagle

Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”

- Frank Lloyd Wright (1869 - 1959)

 

“What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.”

-  Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904 - 1991)

 

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

- Jawaharlal Nehru

 

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” - Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Parts of Animals

 

“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.”

- Zeno (335 BC - 264 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

 

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”

- Rachel Carson.

 

 

"To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug."
—Helen Keller, deaf and blind American author

 

"If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees."

 - Hal Borland

 

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.”

- Stephen Hawking (1942 - )

 

"Poor animals! How jealously they guard their pathetic bodies . . . that which to us is merely an evening's meal, but to them is life itself."

—T. Casey Brennan

 

“It's time we stopped ignoring the environment, ... Let's not let another election go by without making this a high priority.”

- David Suzuki

 

“It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.”
- David Attenborough

 

“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences. “

- Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

The Poetic Heart

Nature & Animals

Songs for Sushi

 

Blue Whale calling

In longing

For mate of

Bleak odds,

Left in

Emptied oceans,

Bereft of possible love

And family.

 

Deep, throaty sounds,

Unheard

By eternal tide,

Of journey

Upon journeys,

In interest

Of restoring bonds.

 

Minkes sparse, hacked genes,

Dwindling on plate,

And in stomachs,

Blubber on hips,

Ocean serenade lost

To scientific research,

For ways to fill a lunchbox.

 

S.D.  © 2008

 

From “Sacred Elephants”

by Heathcote Williams

 

The shape of an African elephant’s ear

Is the shape of Africa.

The shape of an Indian elephant’s ear

Is the shape of India…

As if nature had kept an ear to the ground

When listening to the elephant’s territorial requests

The Romans believed the elephant was a religious animal;

Pliny observed it “worshipping the sun and stars,

And purifying itself at the new moon,

Bathing in the river, and invoking the heavens.”

 

In the last decade

Six out of ten elephants in Africa

Have been massacred;

And the entire population may soon be shovelled contemptuously

Into the realm of mythology.

In the mind’s eye of a child

And elephant

Should now be more accurately depicted

As a mutilated corpse.

 

(Publisher’s Note: This poem was written at a time when the ivory trade was still legal. It reminds us of the threat the ivory industry poses to these magnificent animals, and warns us that this trade should never be allowed to regain  its legal status.)

 

 

Great Mystery Publishing

The Poetic Heart

“There are no ordinary cats. “

- Colette (1873 – 1954)

 

Who can believe that

there is no soul behind

Those luminous eyes!

- Theophile Gautier

 (1811 – 71)

 

“The cat is a dilettante in fur.” - Theophile Gautier (1811 – 72)

“Even the most overweight cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: When fat, arrange yourself in slim poses.” - John Weitz

“Cats are mysterious beings…gods of the Pharaohs. You never know if they love you or if they condescend to occupy your house. This mystery is what makes them the most attractive beast.” -  Paul More – Episcopal bishop of New York.

 

For I rejoice in my cat Matty.

For his coat is variegated black and

             brown, with white undersides.

For in every way his whiskers are

             marvellous.

- Gavin Ewart (1916 – 95)

 

Like those great sphinxes lounging through eternity

In noble attitudes upon desert sand

Cats gaze incuriously at nothing – calm and wise.

- Charles Baudelaire (1822 – 67)

If a fish is the movement of water

embodied, given shape, then a cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.—- Doris Lessing (1919 - )

In Ancient Egypt, they were worshipped as gods. This makes them too prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.— P.G. Wodehouse (1885 -1975)

“I allow my cats to express themselves, never interfere with their romances and raise them with dogs to broaden their outlook.” - Murray Robinson

 

“Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they’re glad to see you.” -

W.H. Auden (1907 – 73)

 

“When I play with my cat

Who knows whether she is not amusing herself

with me more than I with her?”

- Michel De Montaigne

(1533 – 92)

 

Under the leaves

Of a morning glory

Cat’s eyes.

Natsume Soseki (1887 – 1916) Zen Haiku

 

Passing year

Our cat plays

By the water.

Chung Keido

(1860 – 1912 ) Haiku

 

It’s too deep

To go across, besides

I can’t swim

Netsume Soseki (1867 – 1916

Zen Haiku about cats

 

After the butterfly’s gone

It settles down:

A kitten

Netsume Soseki

He blinks upon the hearth-rug

And yawns in deep content,

Accepting all the comforts

That Providence has sent.

 

Louder he purrs, and louder,

In one glad hymn of praise,

For all the night’s adventures,

For quiet, restful days.

J.R.R. Tolkein (1893 – 1973) Cat

 

Cats sleep

Anywhere,

Any table,

Any chair,

Top of piano,

Window-ledge,

In the middle,

On the edge,…

Eleanor Farjeon (1881 – 1961)

Tearaway kitten or staid mother of fifty

Persian, Chinchilla, Siamese

Or backstreet brawler – you all have a tiger in your blood

And eyes as opaque as the sacred mysteries

Cecil Day Lewis (1904 – 72) Cat

 

Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night,

Their fine eyes smouldering

Green and bright…

Squeaking and scampering everywhere.

Then they pounce, now in, now out,

At whisking tail and sniffing snout…

Walter De La Mare (1873 – 1916)

 

They call me cruel. Do I know if a mouse or songbird feels?

I only know they make me light and salutary meals.

And if, as ‘tis my nature to, ere I devour I tease ‘em.

Why should a low-bred gardeners’ boy pursue me with a besom?

C. S. Calverley (18-31 – 84)

 

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round

like a top.

And the nearest kin of the moon,

The creeping cat,

looked up.

W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939

 

Plump neck, short ears, height

to his head proportionate;

Beneath his ebony nostrils

His little leonine muzzle’s

Prim beauty, which appeared

Fringed by the silvery beard

Whish gave such waggish grace

To his young dandy’s face.

Joachim Du Bellay (1525 – 60)

Epitaph on a Pet Cat

 

Everything a cat is

and does physically

is to me beautiful, lovely,

stimulating, soothing, attractive

and enchantment.

Paul Callico (1897 -1976

An Honourable Cat

 

With a tiger-leap half way

Now she meets the coming prey,

Lets it go as fast, and then

Has it in her power again:

Now she works with three or four,

Like an Indian conjurer…

William Wordsworth (1770 -1810 The Kitten and Falling Leaves

 

“…I will eat first and wash my face afterwards.”

Which all cats do, even to this day.

- Charles H. Rose

The Poetic Heart is now  divided into different topics—Love & Friendship; Mysticism, Spirituality & Haiku; Animals & Nature; Miscellaneous, and War & Peace - containing poems, song lyrics, quotes and links to poet profiles.

 

**************

Click here for poetry submission details.

As GMP’s Guest Book

is co-operated by Jewelsun— after signing the guest book, either click your back button to return to GMP, or click on the GMP link provided on the guest book.