In the subway

I was riding the subway today and was thinking about how much it changed for the last few years.

People with books in their hands always draw my attention. I peek at the titles, google them and read some of them too. Now we've got Kindles, Kobos, iPads and you never know what captures their reading mind today.

Few years ago you could see posters with poems of the winners of Young Poet competitions from all over Canada. It was the best advertisement I ever saw. Some poems where so sophisticated that it was hard to believe that a 16 year old kid wrote it.  Some of the poems I memorized, they were so beautiful!

Today, you still see posters about literary works. But they all have one thing in common: erotic content. Why is this subject became prevalent? What does it say about us today?

If you take a snapshot of the subway interior and us, riders, would that be an accurate reflection of our society?

I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 

(Maya Angelou)

Love of poetry

My new friend has recently confessed that he did not like poetry. The rest of the day I thought about people and how different their reaction to poetry in general was and is.
What makes those lines that someone strung together stop our hearts?
How do we learn this beauty?
When does the journey start?

I remember my high school days and a young teacher of math. She always struggled with us. With young age cruelty we deliberately ignored her, talked and yelled, walked and giggled. In one of those classes, desperate to restore the order, she took a stand in the middle of the room and suddenly started reciting a poem.

Идут белые снеги
Как по нитке скользя....

She kept reciting, line by line. We froze in awe. It was a poem about philosophy of life. None of us could really relate to that subject. But we were smitten by the beauty of rhythm, the love in her voice, and a discovery of something new in us.

Poems by e e cummings

Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962) wrote poems in an unusaual way: capital letters in the middle of words, unexpeted line breaks, misplaced punctuation marks, interrupted sentences and even individual words.He signed his poems by writing his name in lower case and without periods.



Here are some of my favourites...


i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


love is a place...

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds


Now i lay(with everywhere around)...

Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and
what a gently welcoming darkestness--

now i lay me down(in a most steep
more than music)feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are)only loaned:whereas
night is given(night and death and the rain

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring