Il fait beau sous la pluie

To cry is to disturb the angels who sleep under your eyelids
Who shake their wet wings
And go to the sun to dry themselves
Crying is washing your soul,
shaking the dust off your dramas

For Music Monday, Pat Kalla & Le Super Mojo - Il fait beau sous la pluie:



Life is beautiful
life is sweet
life is good
And sometimes the opposite
There are highs
There are lows
Not funny at all
You have to hold on
Stick together
Keep warm
Until the end

Stress and resistance

When we teach oppression and struggle without also teaching the joy of resistance...we miss the mark.
~Jania Hoover

Hi y'all! Welcome!

The Poetry Friday round-up is here today. Please leave your links with Mr. Linky below!

Last night, I heard about something really unfair that had happened to a middle schooler I know (let's call him Will). One of his classmates thought it would be "funny" to tell the police that Will was planning to commit a violent act, and the police showed up at their house at night, scaring everyone. The police believed Will that he was not planning such an act, but since then, Will has been ostracized from his friend group and the student who called in a false police report has not yet gotten in trouble. I wish I could help because, honestly, I am well-and-truly tired of justice not being served.

I'm sure we could all brainstorm a passel of situations that we would like to see fairly resolved. Today's poem is about something that I would like to kick butt about, but I'm having to be patient-ish. It was written by my older daughter, Ariana.

Things my health insurance has told me since denying my medications
a found poem
by Ariana Yeatts-Lonske

- the next step of the appeal process is the external review
- the external review has already begun
- a peer to peer call is the next step
- we don't have your name in the system
- what medication is this about again?
- how do you spell that?
- how do you pronounce that?
- you can speak to the person who made the decision
- no one, not even us, can speak to the person who made the decision
- a pharmacist made the decision
- only a medical director could make the decision
- yes, the denial letter is signed by us but we don't have anything to do with this
- let me transfer you
- let me put you on a brief hold
- your medication is already approved through May!
- your medication has already been denied the maximum number of times
- someone on your care team should know the answer
- you need to ask your doctor
- you need to ask your insurance
- no, I don't know Dante
- I can't see anything here
- if you have any questions, call us

Dante's Inferno
illustration by William Blake

We can't only be stressed...we've also got to laugh about it. You have to rejuvenate for kicking butt another day. A little more about joy as resistance: Let 2023 be the year of disabled joy by Lucy Webster and The Black Joy Project. (You've probably heard about the benefits of journaling.)

Shin-Bijutsukai

Our aim is to promote and celebrate the public domain in all its abundance and diversity, and help our readers explore its rich terrain.
~The Public Domain Review

Have you checked out the Public Domain Review? They share many cool things, like these images from Japanese design magazine Shin-Bijutsukai (1902):

Waiting for this moment

As [Brad Mehldau] plays, he listens to how ideas unwind, and the order in which they reveal themselves.

Keeping it mellow this Music Monday with Brad Mehldau:

Bud to Blossom

A lifetime of writing poems has taught me there may be only one thing in life we have complete control over, and that is our attention.
~Sage Cohen

A poem by Sage Cohen for Poetry Friday!

Sunrise

The Waitress

kneels to place Theo’s fallen
shoe on his foot with the care

of a courtier. As she speaks
his name, both faces break

from bud to blossom. Foot
in hand, she tells him

There are buildings like this
everywhere, with women

like me in them.
I have been eating

pink and white and red
peanut M&Ms made

for Valentine’s Day and sold
at a post-romantic discount.

I know that once we reach...

read the rest here

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Nix the Comfort Zone has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Molly!

L'amour

Music doesn't get in. Music is already in.
~Matt Haig

Bonjour! Comment ça va? Sorry for being late!

A song from 1993 for Music Monday:



More songs about love, one way or another:

Heaven, Wait (Ghostly Kisses)
Impossible (Nothing But Thieves)
This Too Shall Last (Anderson East)
What I Got (Sublime)
Know That You Are Loved (Cleo Sol)
Just Friends (Bluey Robinson and Jeremy Passion)
I Second That Emotion (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)
All on Me (Devin Dawson)
Higher Love (Infinity Song)
Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (Tedeschi Trucks)

A rosy circle

"Does it seem strange: a hundred cutthroats against one poor poet? It is not strange. It is a minimal defense, mademoiselle--(Drawing his sword; quietly.)--when that poet is a friend of Cyrano de Bergerac."
~ Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 1

For Poetry Friday, we have a romantic rerun from 2010 spotlighting the legendary fictional poet Cyrano de Bergerac, created by Edmond Rostand (who was inspired by a real person). You have probably heard of Cyrano -- his nose is gargantuan. He describes it like this:

"A great nose is the banner of a great man, a generous heart, a towering spirit, an expansive soul--such as I unmistakably am, and such as you dare not to dream of being, with your bilious weasel's eyes and no nose to keep them apart! With your face as lacking in all distinction--as lacking, I say, in interest, as lacking in pride, in imagination, in honesty, in lyricism--in a word, as lacking in nose..."

Despite his pride in his large appendage, Cyrano is sure that it will prevent the woman who holds his heart from returning his love, so he agrees to help another man woo her. His words, spoken by the other man, are very romantically successful.

And why not? Check out how beautifully he describes a kiss:

"And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever.'"

Or you could write it like this:

"And what is a kiss,
specifically?
A pledge properly sealed,
a promise seasoned to taste,
a vow stamped with the immediacy
of a lip,
a rosy circle
drawn around the verb 'to love.'

A kiss is a message
too intimate for the ear,
infinity captured
in the bee's brief visit to a flower,
secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven,
the pulse rising from the heart
to utter its name on a lover's lip:
'Forever.'"

Links:
~ The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
~ Cyrano, the poetry card game
~ Genji, another poetry card game (Japanese-themed)
~ Monsterpiece Theater - Cyranose de Bergerac (don't say, "Nose"!)
~ Cyrano, the opera by David DiChiera

BeyondLiteracyLink is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week. Thanks, Carol!

Romare Bearden

The artist confronts chaos. The whole thing of art is, how do you organize chaos? ~Romare Bearden

For Art Thursday, Romare Bearden (1911-1988). Bearden was primarily known for his art but he also composed songs (one is below). A couple more quotes:

If you're any kind of artist, you make a miraculous journey, and you come back and make some statements in shapes and colors of where you were.

What I've attempted to do is establish a world through art in which the validity of my Negro experience could live and make its own logic.

Untitled
by Romare Bearden

Bluesy Monday

We start our lives with blues . . . with music. It's our first language. It's the rhythm of the womb. It's your mama's heartbeat inside your head.”
~David Mutti Clark

For Music Monday, Lucinda Williams with "Can't Let Go" and Bonnie Raitt with "I Feel the Same":

Star harvesting

Brigit’s holiday was chiefly marked by the kindling of sacred fires, since she symbolized the fire of birth and healing, the fire of the forge, and the fire of poetic inspiration.
~Mike Nichols

Lane Lanterns by :mrMark:

A poem by Emily Hancock of St Brigid Press today in honor of St Brigid's Day. Emily says, "A huge figure in ancient Celtic (as a goddess) and Christian (as a saint) histories, Brigid is an emblem and energy for the reverence of Nature, of healing and kindness to all (especially the poor and the animals), and of the equality of women." She is also a patron saint of poets!

St Brigid's Eve

mid-winter's sharpened sickle, the moon
cuts cleanly through all absence,
harvests stars
with one slow sweep of heaven
while we sleep, dreams rising
and falling away like chaff

come morning, for a moment
the fields will gleam
with what darkness empties -- new stars
alight upon every stilled blade

© Emily Hancock, from The Open Gate: New & Selected Poems (St Brigid Press, 2017)

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Thank you, Emily, for allowing me to share your poem here.
Laura Shovan has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Laura!

Save the Books

What I tell kids is...run, don't walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they're trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that's exactly what you need to know.
~Stephen King

My sympathies lie with teachers, students, librarians, parents, and other Floridians who are dealing with DeSantis. For Art Thursday, banned and burned books:

World War II Poster

Burning of Books
Luyken, Jan (1649-1712)

Chris Riddell on Libraries

Roberta Stevens

Twin Hickory Public Library, Glen Allen, VA

I'm with the Banned shirts (Etsy)