Let businessmen wear black
and straight-laced grey faces,
but let poets punctuate
their wardrobes with patterns
that leave lingering traces…
Let bards wear bright flowers
and nice funky hats,
red shoes or loud boots
and snazzy jackets that shout:
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,
you know it—
you guessed it:
I’m a poet!
I’m a walking, talking metaphor—
a symbol in motion and what’s more,
a barrel of books, ready to pour
the golden brew of language
upon your heart’s door.”
Yesterday I wrote a guest post for my friend Bonnie Way on her blog The Koala Mom called “Exactly as you are: Loving your spouse unconditionally.”
Here is her intro and the link in case you’d like to check it out!
Today, contributing writer Anna Eastland is sharing what she learned in a late-night chat with her husband about loving your spouse unconditionally.
No matter how well you know your spouse, every now and then you learn something new, like a new skylight opened and illumined a corner of their soul you hadn’t seen before. You have one of those unexpected midnight conversations where you are allowed to enter an unexplored recess of their heart. How do you respond to this intimate revelation? With love.
I had the great pleasure of writing this poem—on the back of an envelope— in a very rare moment alone, while waiting for my husband to meet me for a date in a Louisiana style jazz cafe last month. The Ouisi Bistro. Picture smooth music, cozy candlelit atmosphere, me and my pen. Happy sigh….
Explode
Why do artists go crazy?
Because inside them
The universe is exploding
The exquisite painful beauty
Of being alive sears their hearts
With madness
The delicate tragedy of
Falling in love
When a loved one can be lost
Blinds them with tears
But their eyes bleed in colour
Myriads of rainbows
Dancing light
The quivering emotion
That teeters between perfection
And just right
The knowledge that all can be shattered
And yet love endures
It is a beauty unendurable
Unless expressed
How many times can my heart break?
As many times as I can write it, paint it
Draw it, dance it, beat it to the rhythm of
That life that keeps going
That fire that keeps burning
In my soul
Just East Of Crazy Land 