"pulitzer" poems
It was hard to miss Jerry
in the corner
holding court
over the bran muffin.
Flurries of judgement and wisdom
flying across coffee dappled pages
as he sentenced a large cup of
Paruvian Dark Roast
to be ******
7 am Dan never flinched
steeling his tenured chair at
a spot one section of stir sticks away
calculably just out of reach
of the regularly scheduled tantrum.
An auburn-haired newbie
fanes camoflage
peeking over two pages of Obituaries
she never intended to read.
Her raised and nearly detached eyebrows
hover above the dateline like a magic trick.
And on every table fall
scattered leaves
of press print trees
unsorted and littered with intent
by careless absorbers of trivia.
Disconnected
ear-budded
footnotes of humanity
see nothing
hear nothing
using the disarrayed World News as
enormous coasters
unmoved by hyper-ventilating compulsives
pushing panic buttons through
desperate quests to uncover
one alphabetically organized set
of local news.
Of the papers not strewn
the remnant holds anxious
on a distant wall
a throng of flopping
rabbit-eared
step children
dangling precariously
from unaccomodating magazine racks
like smoky orphans from
windows in a fiery building.
Disordered.
Disrespected.
Discarded...words are
Jews in the holocaust.
Death of a voice.
We are irreverent in our silence
diminishing genius through apathy
put off by the imposition to be challenged
choosing disposable principles
above responsible knowledge.
Everything is disposable - cameras, cars,
relationships, loyalty, babies...and wisdom -
crumpling Pulitzer prize authors
and discarding WW2 veterans
just to get to the cartoons.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
Independent Grammy
Ameripolitan Billboard
CMA Triple Play
Indigenous K-Love Fan
Austin YouTube
Loudwire MTV Video
GMA Dove iHeartRadio
Canadian Country
Stellar BBC Music Magazine
Americana Blues
Tennessee Songwriters Association
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
APRA Western Heritage
Texas Sounds
Academy of Country Music
Wine Country
Carolina Teen Choice
Pulitzer Prize
Latin American Unsigned
Alternative Press
International Western
People's Choice
American Tejano
ASCAP Country Soul Train
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
American Songwriting
Branson Terry
Nashville Industry
International Bluegrass
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 6:27 PM UTC
If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
You can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands or windows or mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may have not ever seen one before.
If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
You can let them touch you.
Sometimes, it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwich, a Pulitzer — another woman.
But their hands found you first.
Do not mistake yourself for a guardian or a muse or a promise or a victim or a snack.
You are a woman — skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat.
You are not made out of metaphors, not apologies, not excuses.
If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
You can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright.
Even after all this evolving it still feels unnatural.
Still strains the muscles, hold firms the arms and spine.
Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,
Admit they do not have the answers they thought they would by now.
Some men will want to hold you like the answer.
You are not the answer.
You are not the problem.
You are not the poem or the punch-line or the riddle or the joke.
Woman, if you grow up the type men want to love,
You can let them love you.
Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping.
It is realizing you have hands.
It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.
Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of women men will hurt.
If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.
It is hard to stop loving the ocean even after it has left you gasping — "salty."
So forgive yourself for the decisions you've made.
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night and know this:
Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours.
Let the statues crumble.
You have always been the place.
You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You are born to build.
-Sarah Kay
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 11:15 PM UTC
the waiting in hallways
lined up on the wall
with eyes following the chatterbox and her
flowing train of rabid listeners
who hang themselves ritualisticly on her
shallow water illustrations
swimming on this thin tide of unpublished lip candy
her bubblegum words are commentary
upon which her followers build temples
to the unfit mothers of televangelists
the chatterbox spills her loud thoughts
on the sun warmed concrete
as the summer lawnmower navigates
around santa and his late december reindeer
and the children's labyrinth of christams morning plans
while i sunbath nearby
she gathers her spilled thoughts
and races away proudly proclaiming that'
my poems are too short for the pulitzer
so she is ready for her laurels
and a fast road to academia
with a neatly packaged version of her inner perversions
spread like *** and lip candy
on the local coffee shop bookshelf's
for the pretty college girl with glasses to drink from
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013 at 2:08 PM UTC
a Pulitzer Prize winner
tells us in an interview
in TIME magazine
that a necessary part
of our future energy
must be nuclear
no word
about the hazards of nuclear waste
the advantages of alternative sustainable
and renewable sources of energy
or about reducing energy consumption
very strange
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 11:20 AM UTC
The sky looks like cigarette ashes in a puddle of milk,
and I, almost 22, am unsatisfied that I have not won a Pulitzer.
And I, on the borderline of delusion and confidence, am unsatisfied I am not crazy or cocky enough to submit to The New Yorker.
I hear the voices of the pastors,
telling me that God heals all.
They say 'He' is the only absolute.
The people raise their hands towards the water-stained ceiling,
as if He'll push his arms through the copper-colored scabs and save them.
Grabbing their wrists and cooing,
I am the remedy to the anxiety of death.
I am six foot one and French, Irish, Cherokee,
some sort of Anglo-Saxon,
and a lost **** in a drowning garden.
I think about all those who had to ****
in order to make my cheekbones,
eyebrows, lips, and ****
I think about how I'm good at *** and bad when it comes to forgiving too easily.
I wonder how I can sweat on another body,
but only feel naked when I have to be myself.
I watch the elderly chant words:
****** ****** **** and Half-Breed.
I study if their dry lips reflect the hate in their eyes.
Not all are like this,
but I am surrounded by tables of them,
as I pretend to be Christian,
just to get ahead.
I don't speak,
just sit like an unfilled bubble,
waiting to be marked out by graphite.
I feel like a **********
I wish I had a Pulitzer.
The sky looks like a stretched grape,
covered in kisses of ******
And I, white American conformist,
am unsatisfied
that I have succumbed to the American Dream.
I wish I had a Pulitzer,
I wish I had my mom and dad.
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 2:56 PM UTC
FEW POETIC REFLECTIONS ON OLD AGE
Dear Poet Friends, after a long break, I have composed a few lines as a very senior citizen and a lover of poetry. If you like the same, kindly Re-post this poem for wider circulation. Thanks and best wishes, - Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
It has been often been said that old age is that period of life,
When all bad habits are given up on doctor’s advice,
And yet you don’t feel all that good while you survive!
Yet I do try to take some solace from Robert Browning’s poem
‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ which says;-
‘’Grow old along with me!
For the best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.’’
Despite my grey hairs and wrinkled face,
With creaking joints and scattered aches and pains,
‘’Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress’’,
In thanks giving to the Lord and sings his praise;
As I recall WB Yeats’ ‘Sailing Byzantium’, - that
lovely poem from my college days.
As our biological clock continues to tick incessantly,
Getting older becomes compulsory.
But becoming Wiser in wrinkled years remains optional,
A choice our free will has the opportunity to make!
I recall what Agatha Christie had once said,
That an archaeologist is the best husband a woman can get,
For the older she gets, the more interested in her he
becomes;
With due respect to our women whose age is impolite
not ask.
Here I recall what the Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost
had once said,
That a diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s
birthday and not her age.
I recall the observation of Sartre the famous French philosopher
who had said,
That more sand that escapes from the hourglass of our life,
The clearer we should see through it as a blessing of time!
It is true that we live in deeds, not in years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial, - as James Bailey had said.
I finally conclude by quoting the first stanza from ‘Beautiful Old Age’ by DH Lawrence;
‘’It ought to be lovely to be old
To be full of the peace that comes of experience
And wrinkled ripe fulfilment.’’
-Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
Dec 19, 2019
Dec 19, 2019 at 11:04 AM UTC
See them with their
Fine shape,
Flawless face
And pretty eyes?
You don't have to
Fall prey,
I say
it's a disguise!
They may have a
Glide walk,
**** talk;
Pulitzer prize;
You would make a
Mistake
Be half-baked
And neutralized.
Camouflaging
Hurt past
Hourglass
Of yesterday.
With them you will
Come last,
Kiss ***
Or run away!
So make sure you
Look deep
Before you leap
Into their arms,
Or you may catch a
Deep sleep,
Cry and weep
Cuz of their charms.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 12:24 PM UTC
I come from Kashmir
where land is green & white snow bed
and I come from Kashmir
where roads aren’t black but are red.
I come from Kashmir
where Daughter Tajamul brought Gold
and I come from Kashmir
where daughter Nafiya craves for her father’s body and lost his soul.
I come from Kashmir
where journalists get Peter Mackler & Pulitzer awards
and yet I come from Kashmir
where journalists get charged under UAPA as a reward.
I come from Kashmir
where Thekedar gets benefits under the Roshni Act
and I come from Kashmir
where an internet shutdown of 551 days was for every sect.
I come from Kashmir
where Gupta g ranked 1st in the country
and yet I come from Kashmir
where youth have to carry ID’s to prove their identity.
I come from Kashmir
which was known for its cultural dress Pheran
and I come from Kashmir
which now has more business in selling Kaffan.
I come from Kashmir
which Allama called the valley of braves
and I come from Kashmir
which now is the valley of Graves.
I come from Kashmir
which was called Earth’s Heaven
and yet I come from Kashmir
which now is the World’s Biggest Prison.
I come from Kashmir
where Chinars paint the autumn gold
and I come from Kashmir
where every spring, new tombstones unfold.
I come from Kashmir
where Dal Lake mirrors the moon’s glow
and I come from Kashmir
where blood taints the rivers’ flow.
I come from Kashmir
where children dream of books and play
and I come from Kashmir
where childhoods vanish in smoke and clay.
I come from Kashmir
where lovers once whispered in gardens wide
and yet I come from Kashmir
where silence now walks side by side.
I come from Kashmir
where poets wrote of love and fate
and yet I come from Kashmir
where verses now carry only weight.
I come from Kashmir
which history books fail to define
and I come from Kashmir
which lives between the headlines’ lines.
Mar 4, 2025
Mar 4, 2025 at 10:36 PM UTC
Thursday night is game night but Hasbro
has never had this one right. Operation is not
a game for ages four and up–maybe four,
multiplied by four, add four, and up.
Surgical mask on, Cavity Sam prepped,
and tweezers waiting to the right of the operating table:
I like to start with the Adam's apple–
carve away any trace of my origins
and they will never figure out who I am
because, like my mother used to say to me,
who is Eve without a blameless man.
Then I move on to the butterflies in the stomach
flittering and fluttering for a home that feels far more familiar
but they cannot be caught, only drowned.
Naturally, the broken heart follows
but the problem with pulling that out is
the never-ending-silence,
white-noise-science, black-hole-giant,
You know, the absence that predates writer's block–
writer's cramp, sliding a pencil up your wrist like it's the
(best kept) secret IV of an author.
Is that the price of filling up your bread basket,
going to bed full on recognition and reward
and maybe even a Pulitzer Prize?
Be careful not to trip up on your own ego
or you just might end up with a wrenched ankle
and water on the knee.
I still have to deal with the wishbone,
the split-in-two-gravestone,
the only-one-of-us-is-leaving-here-happy zone.
And finally, I have the spare ribs
but I just might leave those there
because we see what happened when God
bothered to remove those the last time.
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 3:37 PM UTC
my grandmother unscrewed
the door to my room
and removed the carpet from my floor
in the winter months
my toes went white and my fingertips hued blue
my lips marred red as i looked to the ceiling
and pondered my importance in this reality
i went to sleep that night and had a dream
i thought was so clever
in this dream i said: 'Roses are sometimes red, and violets
are rarely blue'.
Somebody hand me a Pulitzer this instant
in hindsight, my dreams were foretelling
as i awoke in the hospital with a headache
and diagnosis of hypothermia
the nurses and social workers sat in chairs
with my grandmother beside them
i closed my eyes and visualized all the
yellow roses and white violets often overlooked
and with a few smiles
and words of affirmations to the guests judging my performance
I received a standing ovation
of vibrant violets and beautiful deep reds thrown on stage
and returned to the Tiled Floors.
Jan 22, 2025
Jan 22, 2025 at 7:13 PM UTC
Afterwards, Stanley said of the event,
“Everything started to happen…”
What did he do? He snapped photos,
He called one The Soiling of Old Glory.
The even horizontal of the flagpole
Would be likened by critics to the engraving
Of the Boston Massacre.
“I saw him going down
And rolling over.”
Before the incident, the protesters
Recited the pledge of allegiance,
Hands over hearts.
Stanley was on the scene—
It all happened in 20 seconds.
“He was being hit with the flagpole.
I switched lenses.”
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 9:28 PM UTC
shhhhhhhh,
kick back put your feet up,
take a tea, let it steep deep,
open a red let the air go to its head,
get a book, shut it all down,
power off your phone and leave it alone
get off the grid, if there is one, with power
where you live,
flip the page as your mind steps on to the
terrain of words,
while your socked feet,
touch anothers under the cover of
not enough leg room,
but you care,
so you share,
the ottoman
as your imagination
goes to automatic and into the words
that create pictures and stir emotions,
that take you places and show
you faces,
and lives,
and living beyond, the hurt,
the superficial,
the ache that seldom goes away,
the real world,
that may have spit
and you are hurled to the side,
and it always seems to be on the wrong one.
Take heart, this too shall pass,...
whether it be poetry,
biographical history,
a short story, pulitzer prize winner,
a novel idea,
or a series with or without a quest,
may it be the best time you spend,
while being grounded in knowing
someone, near or far is reading
what you are reading and
is with you and with you and
is on the same adventure too.
©DWE122013
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 8:56 PM UTC
http://l.em.dowjones.com/rts/go2.aspx?h=969682&tp=i-1NHD-J0-Gxj-11tt6O-1p-16HvOp-1c-5XGo-11tf9T-l8fLN8RgcQ-1EmUTC
A new virtual walk lets you enjoy the quiet beauty of a poet’s paradise: the Hawaiian garden of over 400 types of palms that Pulitzer Prize winner W.S. Merwin created over the span of 40 years
Mar 4, 2023
Mar 4, 2023 at 12:20 PM UTC
Vestal Virgins forbidden to have ***
spent their days getting groped
as they stood silently around the temple; having
to watch the sacred ****** clean up; treated like goddesses,
they'd have preferred to be treated like
women, like the Senators' wives, who per custom had to serve as temple
****** for a good part of the year; harvests
flourishing; | little ******** born & set adrift; picked like apples
from trees & plucked out of streams,
yet the Virgins were busy scratching their pious itch,
that became the
sanctity of Mother Church [Mary never got her freak on? oh, no -- I say she & Leda had much in common: here's a tip, ladies, don't let birds get too near ur snooch: weird **** happens:
& eunuchs became the priests & bishops;
perverts doing the paper
work for free; for the chance to go frolicking in pre-Deluvian
Bliss
w/ fair-haired
boys forced to dress & act as maidens,
inspiring fantasies of the long ago past;
when we think of the Golden Age: [our ideas of Erotica are very predicated on the 19th century's idea of ****** fantasy; which we regurgitate erzats back into our own cultural spaces; ******* ******** & peeing & vomiting going hand-in-hand w/ giving birth;
Life has forever been ***** & in the mud;
conscious Fascists manipulate Pomp
& Circumstance
to enslave the World; Fascists Never Win
b/c a Lone Ranger rides out of the Sky
& saves the people after much destruction,
sadly, new things need to be built;
so tear down the old & burned & obsolete
& build new powerful spaces for people
to live & thrive
We think the Golden Age was like Rococo, but they were ******* Barbarians,
just like today & tomorrow
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
CAIN
By Ariana Reines
The city was humming gently under me
Like an adolescent quaffing deeply
from the cup of righteousness
Out of practice with my own world
I was looking at how someone else saw it
Longer than I realized
Longer than I care to admit
Those goggles left a mark on me
Then I stared at my own face
An invitation came with my face
To melancholy while Nature
Purred at the edges of my perception
And before me lay a broad road
Enjoining me to do of myself and make
Of myself according to the American
Tradition. Secretly I felt and knew
Things I had not perceived my body
Turning into secrets. In other words
I did not notice the mechanism
By which something within me noted
My experiences and apprehensions of ‘the truth’
Would not be met with favor if I spoke them
Which is not to say one speaks only to find favor
Only that unreciprocated realities have a boring
Way of haunting the cells
Pulling them somehow down
Like the countenance of Cain
Which fell one day and never rose
Again, and the fall of his face
Rhymed with the fall out of Eden
Leading to the first murder and the invention
Of cities, where we now find ourselves
Each tower the ghost of a farmer
Who failed to meet the favor of the Lord
<|>
Anne Boyer is a poet and an essayist. Her memoir about cancer and care, “The Undying,” won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Ariana Reines is a poet, a performing artist and a playwright from Salem, Mass. “A Sand Book” won the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She runs Invisible College, a study hall for poetry, sacred texts and the arts. This poem is from her next book, “The Rose.”
Sep 23, 2023
Sep 23, 2023 at 10:24 AM UTC
I see no purpose in your poem
One commenter told me
That it somehow fell short
He just had to scold me
But that’s just the way I meant to
Leave the Reader wanting more
Not to mend a broken heart
Heal the sick or feed the poor
Or split apart an atom
Cause the sun to set or rise
Maybe yes, maybe no
Win a Pulitzer Prize?
My poems tell a story
In an epic or a wisp
Stands alone all on its own
Not conforming to your list
So I see no purpose in your comment
And just need to tell you
That poem of 17 syllables?
It’s a simple Haiku
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 10:38 AM UTC
I dreamed I won three Oscars,
Four Emmys, and a Tony too.
My fireplace mantel was sagging
From the honors I accrued.
I picked up two Golden Globes,
Five Grammys plus a Pulitzer Prize.
The awards just poured in that night.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
They gave me the Nobel Peace Prize
And my very own Stanley Cup,
Then I earned a People's Choice Award
Seconds before I woke up!
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 1:51 PM UTC
but I have to say that the poets here, unknown behind computer screens, inspire me more than the "famous" poets ever have, no matter how many Pulitzer Prizes they've won or books they've sold. They may have guided me to the road of loving poetry but the awesome people here are the fuel that keeps me speeding along it.
So yeah, thanks.
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 7:47 PM UTC
After all these years
of having pen in hand
Being high on ideas
and low on demand
Writing the same lines
over again and again
Throwing in a new noun
where an old verb had been
There's nothing new
under the sun
The sky is still blue
the North has still won
I still talk with a draw
before I've even begun
In the spitting of words
where I'm just having fun
Never had any problems
deep in my soul
Where the dark side of me
takes over control
A Pulitzer prize
has never once been my goal
I just like to rhyme
with the stories I've told
So if you'll please pardon me
as I get back to my pen
I feel another poem
is trying to let itself in
Like every other time
this is how it begins
After all these years
of having pen in hand
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 8:59 PM UTC
Talking is an art,
The more talking done,
The lesser the fear of talking
At all,
Whether alone, in front of close acquaintances,
Or toward individuals unknown
And nonexistent before.
Admittingly, talking can be overdone
Like chard stew,
And talking on top of people…
Well, it cannot be helped,
But no one will receive a Pulitzer for it.
Unless if a “good idea” sounds from one
And ices the agreement cake.
But beware of those ideas you wish to verbally patent
In front of a gathering,
For if you only wish,
You may end up falling into the abyss
Of a silence that traps not your mouth,
But your will to speak, evaporating your words and
Ideas that might have bravely forwarded discussion.
Vanity, thy name is Groupthink:
What talk might arise next
When no talk arose at all?
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 4:09 PM UTC
exile is our fate
looking for a way home
even if we’ve never been home
exiled from my pulitzer
from my place at the algonquin roundtable
barred from the scotch of st. james 1966
john lennon’s holding my throne for me
but i can’t get in the club
exiled from our world conquests
our lives of leisure
exiled from the parents of our past
our children and ourselves as children
from the summertime of youth
and in the end
exiled from this ****** earth
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 1:16 AM UTC
Lifeblood of democracy hemorrhaging
ousting the "FAKE" president only recourse
to staunch impending grim demise,
since forefathers drafted
United States Constitution
ratified more'n two centuries ago
hoi polloi must take to the streets
denouncing severe curtailment
impinging sacred freedom of speech
linkedin with paramount bedrock provision
accessing unvarnished flint ****** "truth,"
nonetheless commander in chief
he quakingly, staunchly, vociferously...
excoriates, lacerates, repudiates...
one damning hermetically sealed,
iniquitous airtight, vacuum packed
flagrant misuse of power,
(not to mention nepotism)
invidious, insidious, injurious... infractions
incontestable, incontrovertible, contemptible...
significant melange in führer
re: hating deplorably
crooked basely barren
factual exposé after another,
deft correspondents all not quiet
along western front
(I heard Maria - mull remark)
bring "to light" execrable,
lamentable reprehensible...
gross transgressions
commander in chief
significantly overstepped
Pulitzer prize winning
prestigious storied publications
scathingly trounced, pillaried,
lambasted, insulted, denounced,
butchered, critiqued, demonized,
fricassed, gored, humiliated,...
pummeled, quartered, reviled
courageously expounding fiend
ensconced within his Taj Mahal
impregnable donjon, whereat he trumpets
laurels asper, nonpareil administration
laying groundless accusations
baring his white fangs,
twittering, naysaying, mocking.. supreme
renown gifted by "honest Abe"
recalcitrant commander in chief,
who refutes objectionable
dogged investigative journalism
every step of the way,
where dedicated news gatherers
risk life and limb
firing line reportage troopers
ferreting (foxlike) *****
doth gopher precious nuggets
uncover alarming undisputable details
impossible to refute raw bits
agent provocateur freely colluding
immediately hashtashed poppycock
smarmy, snooty, snappy
beastly capital one ogre
blatantly castigating diligent endeavors
oblivious pie in sky
delusional egotistic haughtiness
bobblehead vilified by silent majority.
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019 at 9:29 PM UTC
I see u in the way my minds eye I read and read and really I hate this I love you too so much but my soul is like the Pulitzer prize so proud to behold I feel as if my life is a a dive into darkness of darkest abyss and it like the shadows of my own inner-city of demons perched upon my soul and people perhaps need me to be something I'm not sure I'm ready to be I need u by my side and I don't have the heart to tell you I'm a guy your a guy we all wish allowed that are love could just be pure I know if tell my family then I'll just be told there's something wrong with me and that my love will be forbidden and I hold on breathing without you by my side and I take it all in divided into two groups of people who are saying that we should not be together but I will hold you for ever
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 9:24 PM UTC
RAJ NANDY:
ON BLESSINGS OF OLD AGE !
FEW POETIC REFLECTIONS ON OLD AGE
Dear Poet Friends, after a long break, I have composed a few lines as a very senior citizen and a lover of poetry. If you like the same, kindly Re-post this poem for wider circulation. Thanks and best wishes, - Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
It has been often been said that old age is that period of life,
When all bad habits are given up on doctor’s advice,
And yet you don’t feel all that good while you survive!
Yet I do try to take some solace from Robert Browning’s poem
‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ which says;-
‘’Grow old along with me!
For the best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.’’
Despite my grey hairs and wrinkled face,
With creaking joints and scattered aches and pains,
‘’Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress’’,
In thanks giving to the Lord and sings his praise;
As I recall WB Yeats’ ‘Sailing Byzantium’, - that
lovely poem from my college days.
As our biological clock continues to tick incessantly,
Getting older becomes compulsory.
But becoming Wiser in wrinkled years remains optional,
A choice our free will has the opportunity to make!
I recall what Agatha Christie had once said,
That an archaeologist is the best husband a woman can get,
For the older she gets, the more interested in her he
becomes;
With due respect to our women whose age is impolite
not ask.
Here I recall what the Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost
had once said,
That a diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s
birthday and not her age.
I recall the observation of Sartre the famous French philosopher
who had said,
That more sand that escapes from the hourglass of our life,
The clearer we should see through it as a blessing of time!
It is true that we live in deeds, not in years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial, - as James Bailey had said.
I finally conclude by quoting the first stanza from ‘Beautiful Old Age’ by DH Lawrence;
‘’It ought to be lovely to be old
To be full of the peace that comes of experience
And wrinkled ripe fulfilment.’’
-Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
Written by
RAJ NANDY NEW DELHI
Dec 26, 2019
Dec 26, 2019 at 11:28 PM UTC