Category Archives: Sunday Mix

SUNDAY MIX – WALKING

May 10, 2015 Feminatronic

Every Sunday I put together a mix loosely based around a theme, as I think that music and poetry go so well together and since today I went for a stroll along the seafront to blow the cobwebs away, todays theme is Walking

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)

Rain so dark I

can’t get through—

train going by

in a hurry. The voice

said walk or die, I

walked,—the train

and the voice all

blurry. I walked with

my bones and my heart

of chalk, not even

a splintered notion:

days of thought, nights

of worry,—lonesome

train in a hurry.

Walking Blues

Jane Mead

I will have been walking away:

no matter what direction I intended,

at that moment, I will have been walking

Away into the direction that you now say

I have always intended, no matter what my

intention was then, I will have been

Walking away, though it will not be clear

what it was that I was leaving or

even why, it seems that you will say

That always, I was walking away,

intending a direction that was not towards

you, but moving away with every step,

Or, even when I pretended to be walking

towards you, only making the place

for my feet to go backwards,

Away, where I will have been walking,

always away: intention and direction

unknown, but knowing you will always

say I will have been walking away.

A Kind of Villanelle

Joyce Sutphen

Poems courtesy of Poetry Foundation

Discovers, Recommends, Sunday Mix

SUNDAY MIX – FORESTS

May 3, 2015 Feminatronic 1 Comment

This weeks Sunday Mix is loosely based on the REVEIL / Soundcamp / Dawn Chorus this weekend (03/05/15) and has the theme Forests

Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
The night watches over its creatures,
except for the pine trees that never change:
the old wounded springs that spring
blessed gum, eternal afternoons.
If they could, the trees would lift you
and carry you from valley to valley,
and you would pass from arm to arm,
a child running
from father to father.

Pine Forest by Gabriela Mistral

“The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings.
– Buddhist Sutra

“In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.”
– John Fowles

Sunday Mix

THE SUNDAY MIX – VOICES

April 26, 2015 Feminatronic 1 Comment

The final Sunday Mix in celebration of American Poetry Month has the theme Voices.

There is a voice inside of you
that whispers all day long,
‘I feel that this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.’
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
or wise man can decide
what’s right for you – just listen to
the voice that speaks inside.

Shel Silverstein – 1930 – 1999 – Chicago, Illinois

NOW I make a leaf of Voices–for I have found nothing mightier than
they are,
And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place.

O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall
follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere
around the globe.

All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis’d and perfect organ? Where is the develop’d
Soul?
For I see every word utter’d thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds,
impossible on less terms.

I see brains and lips closed–tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies
slumbering, forever ready, in all words.

WALT WHITMAN (1819 – 1892)

Each small gleam was a voice,
A lantern voice —
In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.
A chorus of colours came over the water;
The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered,
No pines crooned on the hills,
The blue night was elsewhere a silence,
When the chorus of colours came over the water,
Little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

Small glowing pebbles
Thrown on the dark plane of evening
Sing good ballads of God
And eternity, with soul’s rest.
Little priests, little holy fathers,
None can doubt the truth of your hymning,
When the marvellous chorus comes over the water,
Songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

STEPHEN CRANE – (1871 – 1900)

ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS

Sunday Mix

FEMINATRONIC SUNDAY MIX – THE SEA

April 19, 2015 Feminatronic

It’s American Poetry Month and this week the subject is the Sea

Give praise with the skirling of seagulls
And the rattle and flap of sails
And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell
Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.
Give praise with the humpback whales,
Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.

From ‘A list of Praises’ – Anne Porter (2006)

Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas?
One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze,
Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass:
There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass.
Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that soul might ride
And climb the glorious mysteries of Heaven’s silent tide
In voyages that change the very metes and bounds of Fate —
O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows wait!

Vachel Lindsay (1879 – 1931)

The sea-wash never ends.

The sea-wash repeats, repeats.

Only old songs? Is that all the sea knows?

Only the old strong songs?

Is that all?

The sea-wash repeats, repeats.

Carl Sandberg (1868 – 1967)

American Poets Society

Sunday Mix

FEMINATRONIC SUNDAY MIX – THE POETRY OF E.E.CUMMINGS

April 12, 2015 Feminatronic

It’s American Poetry month and The Sunday Mixes are all linked to the celebrations.

Last week was In Praise of Trees and this week is a celebration of the poetry of E.E.Cummings, beginning with this article –

SONNETS AND UNREALITIE S – BJORK AND E E CUMMINGS

QUEEN MOBS TEAHOUSE

I Will Wade Out

i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
Will i complete the mystery
of my flesh
I will rise
After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

It May Not Always Be So; And I Say

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another’s,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another’s face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be,i say if this should be—
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

National Poetry Month April 2015

Sunday Mix, Twitter

FEMINATRONIC SUNDAY MIX – IN PRAISE OF TREES

April 5, 2015 Feminatronic

Each week I have a Sunday Mix on Twitter and thought I would reproduce them here.

For the next couple of weeks the Sunday Mix is going to be loosely based on American Poetry Month and this week as it was a beautiful Easter Day here the mix is in praise of Trees.