SirPort• Show poetry

I like being in such good company, as the many poets here at AP. Just brushing shoulders with all of you is inspirational in itself. Many of the great poems make me realize the depth of the water, as it were, that we drift upon.
Please feel free to browse through my works. No comments are necessary; just enjoy yourself at your leisure. I rest in Gods grace, as we all do.

Yours truly.

Rose up north of St. Louis where the Missouri & the Mighty Mississippi join forces displaying their wonders. I have traveled to all points of the compass in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, overseas to Guam, Japan, Okinawa, and Indochina, among other places in the Eastern hemisphere. I now reside in the Southeastern Ohio Valley Foothills along the Ohio River. As a youth I worked the farmland of the Mississippi Valley, bucking hay among other things. Life along these rivers has, and always will be, a colorful reference to who I am in life. Life and philosophy of the Far East attracted, and affected me greatly from the first moment it entered my life. In fact it was one of my majors in college. I later studied under Master Hidetaka Nishiyama, “the way” of “mind of no mind” or “the way” of “empty hand”, alongside of many that came to Los Angles to gather crumbs from his table. I also attended seminary for a degree in Theology, perhaps this spiritual aspect, colors my eye in writing poetry, how could it not? Love and the array of emotions are as much a part of nature as is the squirrel or the locust, and I try to connect them as such, in what I see, and write about. I still have the poetry I first wrote in my early adult life, I knew then that I had to express what I felt burning in my heart.

Maybe there are those of us out there that share a love of seeing thoughts formed on paper and to say,” I have always wanted to say this, I just did not know how”.

“Poetry is something that one carries in ones heart; becoming a poet is not a choice; rather, it is a recognition of ones one's reality”.

I only wish to bring that which is of value in my life, to share with others as part of myself, which may be enjoyed through these verses. I do not pretend to be a skilled writer of prose and verse, which you will see for yourself. However I do have a story to tell. For it has been said, “listen to the dull and the ignorant, for they too have their story.” I also realize that you may say, “ He should be taken out and hung, for the cold blooded murder, of the English tongue. –“For my part, I care not. I say little, but when time shall serve, there shall be smiles – Act II, Scene I, Henry V

Much ado about nothing

May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not

be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.

I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing in love.

Much ado about nothing

Act II Scene III

MACBETH

MacBeth:

How does your patient Dr?

Doctor:

Not so sick my lord, as she is troubled with thick coming fancies that keep her from her rest.

MacBeth:

Canniest thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raise out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the fraught bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor:

Therein the patient must minister to themselves.

MACBETH

Act V Scene III

Zen is the “everyday mind,” as was proclaimed by Baso (Ma-tsu died 788); this “everyday mind” is no more than “sleeping when tired, eating when hungry.”  As soon as we reflect, deliberate, and conceptualize, the original unconsciousness is lost and thought interferes.

“Childlikeness” has to be restored with long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness.  When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not think.  He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like the waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze. Indeed, he is the showers, the ocean, the stars, and the foliage.

Ipswich, Massachusetts, May 1953, D.T. Suzuki

This a link to the official definition of what haiku is or is not. As a reader may tell by these definitions all else is strictly personal opinion. So be careful what you listen to and believe.

HAIKU SOCIETY OF AMERICA, Inc.

Report of the Definitions Committee

Adopted at the Annual Meeting of the Society, New York City, 18 September 2004

Official Definitions of Haiku and Related Terms

allpoetry.com/Poem/1411917

A Dance With Poetry

To Ronald, whose poems have inspired me

Each poem he writes
fills me with anticipation
for his words are like music

As he takes my hand
I am drawn into his melody of verse
as he plays the keys of my emotions

I'm swept across the dance floor
heart beating faster
with each lyrical line

Only to be softly embraced
and gently returned
to await yet another poetic dance

by nlruth

Author's Comments:
"After reading "Gateway" I couldn't contain my urge to write more than a review - Your Friend in Poetry, Nancy"