the most recent poem you have read

[cacian]

why not post or share you most recent poem you have so far.
it would be good to read it too

[cacian]

here is one I read recently entitled



Elegance by Linda Gregg

All that is uncared for.
Left alone in the stillness
in that pure silence married
to the stillness of nature.
A door off its hinges,
shade and shadows in an empty room.
Leaks for light. Raw where
the tin roof rusted through.
The rustle of weeds in their
different kinds of air in the mornings,
year after year.
A pecan tree, and the house
made out of mud bricks. Accurate
and unexpected beauty, rattling
and singing. If not to the sun,
then to nothing and to no one.

[Whosis]

Oh, man. (walks to room for book like every other post) The most recent poem I've read is recent, "Home Burial" by Robert Frost. I'm going through his book of complete poems. It's a big long. Part of it reads:

You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.

I'm also reading E. E. Cummings, and I have Emily Dickinson on the backburner. I would like to read some recent Shakespearean sonnets by a single author to spruce me up on the medium. I have read Shakespeare's sonnets.

[qimissung]

That's a really beautiful poem, cacian. And Robert Frost is always good, Whosis, maybe particularly when he is discoursing on death, which is not how we generally think of him.

Here is one I came across in the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott that I just read. It's a poem by Sharon Olds. I just had such a strong reaction to it. I knew-I knew exactly how she felt.

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

[Lokasenna]

That's a really beautiful poem, cacian. And Robert Frost is always good, Whosis, maybe particularly when he is discoursing on death, which is not how we generally think of him.

Here is one I came across in the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott that I just read. It's a poem by Sharon Olds. I just had such a strong reaction to it. I knew-I knew exactly how she felt.

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Crikey, that's strong stuff. What a powerful poem.

[qimissung]

I know, right!?

[YesNo]

I enjoyed reading Sharon Old's Stags Leap.

At the moment I'm reading the current issue of Rattle: www.rattle.com

The back issues are available and to pick out one as an example, I liked "Rome" by Toi Derricote: http://www.rattle.com/poetry/rome-by-toi-derricotte/

[osho]

here is one I read recently entitled



Elegance by Linda Gregg

All that is uncared for.
Left alone in the stillness
in that pure silence married
to the stillness of nature.
A door off its hinges,
shade and shadows in an empty room.
Leaks for light. Raw where
the tin roof rusted through.
The rustle of weeds in their
different kinds of air in the mornings,
year after year.
A pecan tree, and the house
made out of mud bricks. Accurate
and unexpected beauty, rattling
and singing. If not to the sun,
then to nothing and to no one.

Elegance is really elegant and I like this poem so much that I am internalizing every line of it. Your choice is really superb and I am looking up for the life of this poet. Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem.

[cacian]

I enjoyed reading Sharon Old's Stags Leap.

At the moment I'm reading the current issue of Rattle: www.rattle.com

The back issues are available and to pick out one as an example, I liked "Rome" by Toi Derricote: http://www.rattle.com/poetry/rome-by-toi-derricotte/

amasing piece by the 11 year old so lurid and yet simple. raw talent indeed

[cacian]

Elegance is really elegant and I like this poem so much that I am internalizing every line of it. Your choice is really superb and I am looking up for the life of this poet. Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem.

hey osho so glad you liked this one

[MorpheusSandman]

Right now I'm reading the latest issue of American Poetry Review, which, sadly, isn't digitized so I can't post anything; which is no great loss since I haven't read anything of real high quality in the latest issue yet.

[JanVanHogspeuw]

Liberty by Edward Thomas

The last light has gone out of the world, except
This moonlight lying on the grass like frost
Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow.
It is as if everything else had slept
Many an age, unforgotten and lost -
The men that were, the things done, long ago,
All I have thought; and but the moon and I
Live yet and here stand idle over a grave
Where all is buried. Both have liberty
To dream what we could do if we were free
To do some thing we had desired long,
The moon and I. There's none less free than who
Does nothing and has nothing else to do,
Being free only for what is not to his mind,
And nothing is to his mind. If every hour
Like this one passing that I have spent among
The wiser others when I have forgot
To wonder whether I was free or not,
Were piled before me, and not lost behind,
And I could take and carry them away
I should be rich; or if I had the power
To wipe out every one and not again
Regret, I should be rich to be so poor.
And yet I still am half in love with pain,
With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,
With things that have an end, with life and earth,
And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.

[Poetaster]

Most recent poem I've read is in Latin. By Catullus. Poem 1, to be precise. I'll not post the text.

[cacian]

Most recent poem I've read is in Latin. By Catullus. Poem 1, to be precise. I'll not post the text.

why not?

[Poetaster]

why not?

I didn't think anyone would be interested, but it's thus:

I.

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum
arida modo pumice expolitum?
Corneli, tibi: namque tu solebas
meas esse aliquid putare nugas.
Iam tum, cum ausus es unus Italorum
omne aevum tribus explicare cartis . . .
Doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis!
Quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli—
qualecumque, quod, o patrona virgo,
plus uno maneat perenne saeclo!

I love the rhythm in this poem.