Poetry assignment

Coffee in heaven

You’ll be greeted

By a nice cup of coffee

When you get to heaven

And strains of angelic harmony. Stretch to the fullest.

But wouldn’t you be devastated 

If they only serve decaffeinated

While from the percolators of hell

a kind of coffeepot in which boiling water in a repeatedprocess is forced up a hollow stem

Your soul was assaulted  metaphor

By satan’s fresh espresso smell.  metaphor

MESSAGE: not everything you want or wish for can be found in the right place.

Theme: Dissapointement

I am listening now…

I am listening now, the past is past,     Repetition

I’m here. I’m sitting beside your bed.

Speak to me now. It’s time at last

To make amends.The past is dead.     Methaphor

I’m listening, now. I’m here, my dear.

Your spotted hands are soft as fur        Simile

Speak to me, now.  I’ve ears to hear,

They are not so deaf as once they were.

I am listening, now.  I’m done with fuss;

Babble of treachery, love or pain, to talk idly, irrationally

Speak of yourself, of them, of us—

Speak of the ghosts that fill the rain. Repetition

I am listening, now.  I left it late,

Later than ever we thought or knew.

Speak to me.  Please.  Unbar the gate.  Methaphor

Turn back, my dear.  I’m here for you.

Message: it’s never too late to make amends.

Theme: guilt.

A Barred Owl

The warping night air having brought the boom         Methaphor

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,  personnification

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight done

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw. a past participle of bear.  Methaphor.

Message: The poem shows us how we react and percieve fear.

Theme: Fear.

 Flag

What's that fluttering in a breeze?

Its just a piece of cloth

that brings a nation to its knees.  Metaphor.

What's that unfurling from a pole?

It's just a piece of cloth

that makes the guts of men grow bold.  Metaphor.

What's that rising over a tent?

It's just a piece of cloth           Repetition

that dares the coward to relent.

What's that flying across a field?

It's just a piece of cloth

that will outlive the blood you bleed.

How can I possess such a cloth?

Just ask for a flag my friend.

Then bind your conscience to the end.

Message : people have so much respect for symbolic things.

Theme : fear.

Solitude

It’s something they carry with them

                      – explorers  night shifts  seamen –

like a good pair of binoculars

or a camera case

                perfectly and deeply compartmented.

It has a quiet patina

that both absorbs and reflects

                           like a valuable instrument   simile

                                                you have to sign for

 – contract with alone –    personnification

                     and at the end of the voyage

                                                          you get to keep.

Sometimes it’s very far away.

Sometimes so close                 repetition.

               at first you think the person next to you

is picking up  putting down

                                 a personal cup

                                    a book in another language

before you realise what

– when talk has moved off

                               leaning its arms

                                       on someone else’s table –

is being

handed to you.

Message: solitude is something a person chooses.

Theme: Loneliness

Handbag

My mother's old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war. The smell
of my mother's handbag: mints
and liptsick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened
and worn at the edges, opened,
read, and refolded so often.               Metaphor.

Letters from my father. Odour
of leather and powder, which ever
since then has meant womanliness,
and love, and anguish, and war.

Message : Women pay special attention to ordinary things in life.

Theme :  scents

 Nobody

If you can't bring yourself to build
a snowman or even to clench              to hold tightly

a snowball or two to fling                   Repetition

at the pine tree trunk, at least
find some reason to take you out

of yourself: scrape a patch of grass clear
for the birds maybe; prod at your shrubs        to poke

so they shake off the weight, straighten up;
or just stump about leaving prints
of your boots, your breath steaming out    Metaphor.

Promise. Don't let yourself in
for this moment again: the end
of the afternoon, drawing the curtains
on the glare of the garden, a whole     Metaphor

 day of snow nobody's trodden.

Message:

Theme: Winter

Storm Windows

People are putting up storm windows now,
Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain
Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon,
I saw storm windows lying on the ground,        metaphor/ personnification.

frame-full of rain; through the water and glass
I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream
Away in lines like seaweed on the tide         Simile

Or blades of wheat leaning under the wind.
The ripple and splash of rain on the blurred glass
Seemed that it briefly said, as I walked by,
Something that I should have liked to say to you,
Something . . .the dry grass bent under the pane
Brimful of bouncing water . . . something of    Repetition.

A swaying clarity which blindly echoes     Metaphor

This lonely afternoon of memories       Personnification

And missed desires, while the wintry rain
Unspeakable the distance in the mind!)
Runs on the standing windows and away.  Personnification.

Message:

Theme: Regret