The stars,
As fragile
Filaments,
Will dim
Before I let
Meager men
Determine
My worth.

#poetry

There are those
Who seek the
Fire in you
In order to
Extinguish it.
Do not relent,
Burn brighter
As a consequence.

#poetry

#shahai by Anne Fox (IG: @annefox333 ) of Broomes Island, Maryland, USA.
#poetry #death #blackandwhite #haiga

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In this #shahai by Anne Fox (IG: @annefox333 ) of Broomes Island, Maryland. USA, a young man smiles at the camera in a black and white photo, standing before an outdoor crematory or burial vault, into which, he appears to have just loaded a coffin. At the bottom center, slightly to the right side, a haiku reads, “still in costume these old bones wrapped in black” #poetry #death #blackandwhite #haiga

There is a
Tomb in
All of us,
And our
Struggle
Is to keep
It empty.

#poetry

I cling to
The limbs
Of starlight
Knowing
Gravity is a
Weak force,
But love
Moves us
By falling.

#poetry

#haiku by Randy Brooks (IG: @brooksbookshaiku ). Dr. Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where he teaches courses on haiku, tanka, and Japanese poetics. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent publication is HAIKU DECK: A collection of playing cards. #poetry #river #illinois

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Against a white background, a #haiku by Randy Brooks ( @brooksbookshaiku ), reads, “river out of its banks the restlessness of pigeons under a bridge” Dr. Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where he teaches courses on haiku, tanka, and Japanese poetics. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent publication is HAIKU DECK: A collection of playing cards. #poetry #river #illinois

From Genesis to Malachi the Bible is very poetic. The Psalms are top-shelf poetry.

Much of the New Testament uses the same poetic emblems of the Old Testament.

God the Father is the master of poetry.

#christian #christianity #godsword #jesus #christ #god #poetry #bible #Jesus

The more I’m
Broken open
The more light
Can get in.
Come, pry me
Apart.

#poetry

Spiraling
In fractals,
Kaleidoscopic,
Geometric,
On the lattice
Of our bones,
This prismatic
Love.

#poetry

The Golden Bough is a fantastical object in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the 1st century BCE Roman poet Virgil. The Trojan hero Aeneas is tasked to find the bough and remove it from its host tree to prove his divine favour before his journey into the Underworld.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bough_(Aeneid)

via @wikipedia

There are several versions of Aeneid at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Aeneid

#Books #Literature #Poetry

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Aeneas, holding the golden bough and accompanied by the Cumaean Sibyl, approaches the entrance to the Elysian Fields. From folio 52r of the 4th-century manuscript known as the Vatican Vergil (Vergilius Vaticanus). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vergilius_Vaticanus_(Vat._lat._3225),_fol_52r_-_Aeneas_and_the_Sibyl_at_the_entrance_to_the_Elysian_Fields_(detail).jpg

#senryu by new contributor, Katherine E Winnick. Katherine is an award winning Japanese short-form poet, published in 18 countries with some works translated into Japanese, Hindi, German, French and Romanian. She is the founding editor of the Shadow Pond Journal and part of the editorial team at The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. #haiku #poetry #moonlight #shadow

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Against a black background, a #senryu by new contributor, Katherine E Winnick, reads, “a fragment of moonlight across the shoulders shadow” Katherine is an award winning Japanese short-form poet, published in 18 countries with some works translated into Japanese, Hindi, German, French and Romanian. She is the founding editor of the Shadow Pond Journal and part of the editorial team at The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. #haiku #poetry #moonlight #shadow

Beginning and end
Are forged of the
Same materials,
And exist simultaneously
According to light.
Darling,
Everything,
Everything
Is light.

#poetry

#haiku by Vishal Prabhu (IG: wilderness.es.poet ) from the Greater Himalayas, Indi. #poetry #india #apple

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Against a plain white background, a #haiku by Vishal Prabhu (IG: wilderness.es.poet ) from the Greater Himalayas, India, reads, “wooden window curving into an apple laden sunlight” #poetry #india #apple

Live loudly.
There is no
Fear greater
Than the
Bravery of love.

#poetry

Their impressions
Of you are subjective
Because you are art.

#poetry

A river divided
From itself is
Just water.
A woman
Divided from
Herself
Is a mother.

#poetry

RE: https://live.acarsdrama.com/@acarsdrama/116548263139680792

We successfully charged System Two,
but:
remain, Green Man!
Loading Elevator appeared
but Loading Elevator is oft normal.
With Loading Elevator knob:

auto.

#poetry
#FoundPoetry

They’ve come
To break our bones
Without knowing
The stars inside
Will burn them
Alive.

#poetry

Let the stars seethe
Between us,
And as we fall
We will wish upon
Each other.

#poetry

#senryu / #haiku by long time contributor, Mona Bedi @drmonabedi Mona is a physician/educator in #india. A past FreshOut Featured Artist, her #poetry has many times, been featured here & elsewhere & has won numerous awards. #homecoming

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Against a plain black background, a #senryu / #haiku by long time contributor, Mona Bedi @drmonabedi, reads, “moving home only the stars stay with me” Mona is a physician/educator in #india. A past FreshOut Featured Artist, her #poetry has many times, been featured here & elsewhere & has won numerous awards. #homecoming

I’ll not be collected
Like sea glass,
Tumbled smooth
By rough seas.
Know me by
My sharp edges.
Bleed upon me.

#poetry

What if, says a small child to me this afternoon,
We made a poem without using any words at all?

[.....]

https://www.christiancentury.org/artsculture/poems/best-poem-ever

#poem #poetry #poets #poems

If only life
Would be as
Kind as we
Meet it.

#poetry

Beneath the
Vaulted stars,
I am the altar,
And memory
Bares her neck.

#poetry

Bless the matter
Light gave
That came to
Rest in your
Precious bones.

#poetry

#haiku by new contributor, Mark Heathcote.
Mark’s poems are widely published & anthologized, both online & in print. Residing in the UK from Manchester, he is the author of “In Perpetuity” & “Back on Earth,” two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. #UK #poetry #poisonous

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Against a plain white background, a #haiku by new contributor, Mark Heathcote reads, “some poisonous things more acceptable than others lily of the valley” Mark’s poems are widely published and anthologized, both online and in print. Residing in the UK from Manchester, he is the author of “In Perpetuity” & “Back on Earth,” two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. #UK #poetry #poisonous

Be here with me now.
Between these lines
We entwine
As real as any touch.

#poetry

As small as the
Singularity,
As vast as any
Galaxy,
Our lives
Spilling out
Of time.

#poetry

#OTD in 1812 Robert Browning was born.

He was "English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterisation, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning

Browning at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/146

#books #literature #poetry

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An 1865 photo of Robert Browning taken by Julia Margaret Cameron. It shows him from the waist up. In this he is an older man with a beard that is mostly gray. He is looking towards his left and wrapped in a dark robe.

Sometimes
A silver lining
Is a knife blade.
Sometimes
A wound is
Just a wound.

#poetry

Even the spaces
Between atoms
Contain multitudes.
Search the nothing,
You’ll find everything.

#poetry

#shahai by Reid Hepworth @reidhepworth | Reid lives in a small cottage in Georgian Bay, Ontario where she spends her time listening to trees, talking to all manners of wildlife and writing short form #poetry. #haiku #photo #free

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A black and white photo shows an object partially entering the frame from the upper left of the frame. Against the plain black background, is it a seed pod of some kind or the underside of a canoe or other watercraft? Beneath this and slightly to the right, a tanka by Reid Hepworth reads, “staying sane in an insane world starts with a cabin in a verdant forest what I’d give up to feel free” #shahai by Reid Hepworth @reidhepworth | Reid lives in a small cottage in Georgian Bay, Ontario where she spends her time listening to trees, talking to all manners of wildlife and writing short form #poetry. #haiku #photo #free

Author's notes for the short poem (cinquain) by me that appears immediately upthread of this message.

I think this is my first attempt at the cinquain form. I think I did not get the meter right. It's harder than it looks to do that right. But I have limited time today, so this will have to do for a first pass.

I should say that I had a discussion on duck.ai with GPT-5 mini about this poem as I wrote various drafts of what is attached above. I let it do critiques and give me some info on the general form requirements, but I refused to let it do any of the actual writing. I feel very strongly that I want to do my own writing and not have that outsourced to another entity.

I chose to use duck.ai because it promises some degree of privacy. Not that this was a super-private project. But I think even when getting advice, it's useful to think about this question.

However, "we" did usefully discuss word choice and it's pretty good at being able to assess whether the sense of a particular word choice lands in the way I intend, so that was helpful in working through some changes I was contemplating.

#Writing #Poetry #WritingCommunity #AI #NoAI #privacy #DuckAI #LLMs

There were
Times I’d rather die
Than face an
Ordinary Tuesday,
And sometimes I did,
Only to be resurrected
in the morning.

#poetry

A few tickets left for event in Berkhamsted Bookshop tonight - 7pm start https://theberkhamstedbookshop.co.uk/ #comedy #poetry #neurodiversity #autism #adhd

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Stack of normally weird books

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Let the Quiet Ones Rise

#haiku by regular contributor, John Pappas John is a touchstone-winning poet, literature professor & punk-rock drummer. He does all that in Boston, MA, USA. #hare #poetry #silence #spring

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Against plain white background, a #haiku by regular contributor, John Pappas reads, “morning mist the hare’s silence dipped in silver” John is a touchstone-winning poet, literature professor & punk-rock drummer. He does all that in Boston, MA, USA. #hare #poetry #silence #spring

Let the silence
Be a chrysalis
Not a grave.

#poetry

Accustomed
To the gloom,
The vague
Rays of a
Dying star
Are enough.
However dim,
Let the light win.

#poetry

Bring the
Blade of night
To my chest
And let me
Bleed the stars
Onto it.

#poetry

This Week in Literary History: Edna St. Vincent Millay Loses Her Manuscript in a Hotel Fire

Did She Ever Truly Recover?

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-edna-st-vincent-millay-loses-her-manuscript-in-a-hotel-fire/

Her works at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/70

#books #literature #poetry

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Photo of Millay. She is in profile and looking to left. Her hair is short and wavy.

Every wound
That time inflicts
Is a kindness
To steal the sting
From death

#poetry

Moon whispers
Against our skin
What Sun told her
In confidence,
“All bright and
Lovely things
Began in
Darkness.”

#poetry

"There seems to be a sort of tether between that moment—be it with my brother in the tall grass by the lake, or speaking my final words to him through the phone held to his ear—and the still undetermined moment of my own passing." —D.S. Waldman for Poetry https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/1784128/the-number-you-have-dialed?src=longreads #loss #grief #poetry #longreads

#monoku by Anne Fox (IG: @annefox333 ) of Broomes Island, Maryland, USA.
#poetry #haiku #maryland #human

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In white text, against a black background, a #monoku by Anne Fox (IG: @annefox333 ) of Broomes Island, Maryland, USA, reads: “almost to the finish line human race” #poetry #haiku #maryland #human

I have sifted
Through Hell
To find slivers
Of joy, and I
Intend to
Keep them.

#poetry

Who could
Love you
Without
Falling?
Not even
The stars.

#poetry

#micropoetry by Biswajit Mishra

Biswajit Mishra is a bilingual poet writing mostly in English and occasionally in Odia. His poems have been widely published internationally. Born in India and having spent a few years in Kenya, Biswajit and his wife Bharati currently live in Calgary, Canada.
#haiku #poetry #canada #home

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Two #micropoems by Biswajit Mishra, fixed in parallel against a white background read, 1. in the safety of a home helium carries on until ceiling is the ceiling 2. a poem flies out of a heart into a cage in a balcony Biswajit Mishra is a bilingual poet writing mostly in English and occasionally in Odia. His poems have been widely published internationally. Born in India and having spent a few years in Kenya, Biswajit and his wife Bharati currently live in Calgary, Canada. #haiku #poetry #canada #home #micropoetry

They could not
Crush us
With the weight
Of their emptiness.
We are made
Of stars.

#poetry