# Reading > Poems, Poets, and Poetry >  Poem of the Day

## Scheherazade

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Encouraged by the popularity of the 'Poem of the Week' thread, I would like to start another one. Every day one of us will post a poem and we will discuss/share our thoughts on it till a new poem is posted:

1. Please, to prevent any confusions, clearly indicate for which day you are posting.

2. Post only after it is the mentioned date in your part of the world.

3. The same person cannot post another poem within 5 days.

I will post the first poem for *April 24th:* 


my sweet old etcetera...

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
..............
e.e. cummings

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## Grumbleguts

Is this e.e.cummings by any chance? You forgot to post the author. The format looks like his.

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## Scheherazade

Oh, sorry! Must have slipped when I was highlighting. Yes, it is by cummings.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

Cute poem. 

I'm not too sure about Cummings myself. He seems a bit clever-clever and lacking in real emotional depth. Although I haven't read a lot of his work, just odd poems in anthologies. I know you like him a lot Scher, perhaps you could recommend some titles that would prove me wrong.

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## Petrarch's Love

Wow, I was just thinking last night of maybe starting a thread for a poem of the day. There's so many that just don't seem like they'd take up a week's worth of discussion. I'm not usually a huge cummings fan. I tend to side with Xamonas that he sometimes seems a bit "clever-clever" but not always enlightening (something the way I feel about deconstructionist criticism). That said, I actually enjoyed this poem quite a bit. The last line made me smile. The "etcetera" is quite effective in creating the feeling of the people at home going about their lives doing lots of things that sort of blend together as a lot of "and other stuff." I love, "my/ mother hoped that/ i would die etcetera/ bravely of course." It really encapsulates a certain kind of conversation you can hear his mother having across tea with the neighbor or something: "Oh, yes, my brave son, off at the war and I'm sure he's willing to sacrifice everything for our cause and die bravely...." etcetera. There's a shock in the expression that his mother hopes he'll die, but then the etcetera fills something in for us, makes us suspect it isn't a real wish but one taken out of the context of a lot of other things. Then the next line confirms that safe reading for us, that she's not really wishing her son dead, but putting out a lot of rhetoric of him dying bravely and all that. Across all the lines he's keeping us on our toes about how we view his mother, him, the attitudes of our society etcetera.  :Wink:

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## Chinaski

Like she said... I like e.e.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

My favourite Etcetera is the capitalised one at the end. But that's probably because I'm a stereotypically macho and insensitve, sexually obsessed male.  :Wink:

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## Chinaski

I think the seventh stanza is fantastic. I love the structure.

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## Scheherazade

> I'm not too sure about Cummings myself. He seems a bit clever-clever and lacking in real emotional depth. Although I haven't read a lot of his work, just odd poems in anthologies. I know you like him a lot Scher, perhaps you could recommend some titles that would prove me wrong.


Probably my liking of Cummings stems from the fact that I don't understand him enough to dislike!  :Tongue: 

I enjoy reading his poems because, once I manage to understand them, they say the deepest things with minimum number of seemingly 'simple' words. I love the 'cleverness' of his poetry. I think poetry is about being able to use words in the most efficient way to create the most pleasant effect and Cummings seems to achieve this very humbly. He does not run away with big words, does not interject confusing, pretentious references or ideas. 

As for lacking in real emotional depth... I really disagree with this. I wonder if you think so because he does not strip his soul with unheard of adjectives and verbs. Otherwise, I believe, he does a marvellous point of sharing what he had in his mind. Like in the poem I have posted. Even though his folks at home, safe with their ideals, are proud of him and wouldn't mind even his heroic death, the fact is that he is sitting in mud (how becoming of a hero!  :Tongue: ) and only thing he can think of is not his own bravery but his beloved. I find it ironic, funny and cruelly realistic.

More Cummings discussion on the Forum: http://www.online-literature.com/for...light=cummings

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## Xamonas Chegwe

You're probably right Scher - I could have got sidetracked by the weird structure - all the short lines and brackets - and not looked any deeper. I promise to give him more of a chance next time I see some of his work. I like this poem at least.

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## Jay

John Keats - La Belle Dame sans Merci

I.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,	
Alone and palely loitering?	
The sedge has witherd from the lake,	
And no birds sing.	

II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 
So haggard and so woe-begone?	
The squirrels granary is full,	
And the harvests done.	

III.

I see a lily on thy brow	
With anguish moist and fever dew, 
And on thy cheeks a fading rose	
Fast withereth too.	

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,	
Full beautifula faerys child,	
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
And her eyes were wild.	

V.

I made a garland for her head,	
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;	
She lookd at me as she did love,	
And made sweet moan. 

VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,	
And nothing else saw all day long,	
For sidelong would she bend, and sing	
A faerys song.	

VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet, 
And honey wild, and manna dew,	
And sure in language strange she said	
I love thee true.	

VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,	
And there she wept, and sighd fill sore, 
And there I shut her wild wild eyes	
With kisses four.	

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,	
And there I dreamdAh! woe betide!	
The latest dream I ever dreamd 
On the cold hills side.	

X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,	
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;	
They criedLa Belle Dame sans Merci	
Hath thee in thrall! 

XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,	
With horrid warning gaped wide,	
And I awoke and found me here,	
On the cold hills side.	

XII.

And this is why I sojourn here, 
Alone and palely loitering,	
Though the sedge is witherd from the lake,	
And no birds sing.

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## Virgil

A gorgeous poem. One of my favorites of all time. Unfortunately the current Poem of the Week, with it's double entrendres has warped me a little and today I pick up the sexual references here. But here, while I'm sure Keats intended the sexual references, it's only a small part of the poem. I love the way the poem circles back on itself. And of course, this is Keats' voice fully developed into the great poet. The poem "hath me in thrall."

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## IrishCanadian

I wonder what was happening in Keats' life that made him write this. Its so beautiful, and so depressing.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

"Do you know 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'"?
"Know her? I married her!"

Something a friend said once. 

I've always loved this one too. The shortened last line in every stanza really works with the subject matter somehow - there's bound to be a name for this meter but it escapes me.

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## Scheherazade

How likely is it that Keats was under the influence while writing this?

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## Bandini

Waking up cold on a hill side after a beautiful dream? Yes, he was under the influence. Bit of a TB metaphor too. Oh , it is also about his thwarted love for Fanny. he spent his life chasing Fanny. Couldn't get enough of Fanny old Keats. Absolutely adored Fanny. I'll stop now.

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## jackyyyy

Every last line turns each stanza into a verse from a song. I can sing that, and I can't sing. I looked at it a few times, but only now realized it. Wonderful, and thanks.

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## Virgil

> How likely is it that Keats was under the influence while writing this?


Some of the other Romantics (Coleridge, I know) may, but I don't recall Keats doing that. Do you know that he did? I read a biography of his last year of life, and I don't remember anything like that in there.

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## Scheherazade

> Some of the other Romantics (Coleridge, I know) may, but I don't recall Keats doing that. Do you know that he did? I read a biography of his last year of life, and I don't remember anything like that in there.


I don't know that he did (which is why I asked  :Wink: ) but it is all so very dreamy that one does wonder... 

Psychedelic!

 :Wink:

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## Virgil

> I don't know that he did (which is why I asked ) but it is all so very dreamy that one does wonder... 
> 
> Psychedelic!


Many of Keats' poems are dreamy. That's part of his work.

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## Scheherazade

Yes and that is what I am asking. Is it possible that this dreamy quality of his poetry might be due to intoxication (drugs/alcohol/what have you) or fever when he was suffering from TB?

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## jackyyyy

I read up on him recently. And well, he died in Rome at 25 from Comsumption, just like his brother. He was educated somewhat in medicine, another brother moved in America. I wonder about him.. maybe a happy go lucky (especially after reading this), unlike his peers. Incredibly talented, shown in only 3 and 1/2 years, and a sad end he knew was coming. 

He was resigned.

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## IrishCanadian

Thats a sad story. Its incredible how much suffering can lead to such incredible art. Loads of examples from Beethoven to VanGough. I never knew this about Keats though.

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## Petrarch's Love

Thanks for posting this Jay. It's a really beautifully written piece. Such an incredible expression of loss and desire entertwined. I love the way it circles back to the lines, "the sedge is withered from the lake/ And no birds sing." Sometimes in the autumn months those lines and the lines "the squirell's granary is full/ And the harvest's done" come to my mind like a refrain from a song. 

I don't think Keats was on anything when he wrote it. As far as I know he wasn't into drugs the way Coleridge and others were (I'm not saying he never tried anything, but it doesn't seem to have been a big part of his lifestyle or an "aid" in his poetic production). 

I was thinking as I read it about the possible influences of Arthurian Romance and the like, and I noticed for the first time that there are twelve stanzas, the traditional number of books for Epic and often Romance. I wonder if that was intentional or if I just spent too much time thinking about the epic genre for my studies this afternoon? Anyway, rambled on enough. Thanks for the poem.

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## jackyyyy

> Thats a sad story. Its incredible how much suffering can lead to such incredible art. Loads of examples from Beethoven to VanGough. I never knew this about Keats though.


Excuse my spelling above. Yes, there are lots of examples. I wondered once, and mentioning it here to kind of create the topic, if there was some measurement of correlation we could ponder between suffering and the quality, intenseness, whatever we might call it, of people's work. Great hardship, great suffering will, almost consistently, cause an equally great spike of human creativity. Self-preservation would not cause most of us to spend our last days writing poetry. I know that trying to quantify suffering is a crazy notion, but when someone is on the verge of death, as opposed to another emotional catastrophe, seems much more profound - when your own mortality is at your doorstep. Maybe that should be another thread, another time.

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## Jay

I like the mystery in the poem. I like the way it contrasts "everything's wonderful while I'm with the faery" and then suddenly it goes to pale, ghastly, (more than likely) dead men warning the knight who wakes up only to die soon. Or does he? Does anybody think he'd actually survive, having been warned in time?

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## Xamonas Chegwe

26th April - much as I love LBDSM - it's time to move on.

And despite the title - this is _not_ about psychadelics!




> *Mushrooms - Sylvia Plath*
> 
> Overnight, very
> Whitely, discreetly,
> Very quietly
> 
> Our toes, our noses
> Take hold on the loam,
> Acquire the air.
> ...

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## IrishCanadian

That is a fantastically written poem. The mood of the words .. hmm, how to describe this better ... The words have the same feeling in your mouth as a raw mushroom does --sort of. The round tones and simple wirds with multiple syllables sort of reminds me of mushrooms. I guess if someone changed the title they would remind me of apples, steak, etc. but you can still tell the time and effort she put into the poem. The simple wirds with multiple syllables (Overnight, discreetly, quietly, ... thats just the first stanza) fill your mouth with the sort of smoking flavour of mushrooms. Haha, no I'm not writing this while on mushrooms, call me crazy but thats just what i think.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

"Soft fists" is my personal favourite phrase in this poem - it's what made it stand out when I was reading through my Plath collection last night. It's such a perfect description. 

Interesting verse form too - 5 syllables in each line, but no set metrical style - enjambments across stanzas as well as merely between lines. I've noticed that Plath used variations on this distinctive, artificial, haikuesque style a lot.

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## Riesa

Wow! What a poem, nice description of it, Irish, I can definitely see what you mean about the words having the same feeling in your mouth as the way a raw mushroom does, very finely put. I feel like I've been blowing up a bunch of balloons after reading this.

My favorite lines:

_
So many of us!
So many of us!_

I hear these tiny teeth-squeaky little voices, a chorus of mushrooms.

I should dig around and find my collection of hers.

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## jackyyyy

This made me smile a lot. I can't help thinking about those little white mushroom cuts we get on our plates, and now they have a personna, it will not be the same anymore. Another thought, this little society is soooo good, and over the hill there is an evil society of mushrooms, and in the patch between there are magical ones. And before you post it, no, I am not on magic mushrooms either.  :FRlol:

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## Bandini

> Some of the other Romantics (Coleridge, I know) may, but I don't recall Keats doing that. Do you know that he did? I read a biography of his last year of life, and I don't remember anything like that in there.


Oh yes he did. He was a Laudanum addict. The poem is about a) spurned love b) TB c) the effects of Laudanum. All beatiful - but without mercy. Yes - even TB - it induced feelings of euphoria, and the much imitated 'pale and interesting' look (which caused many to die of lead poisoning, from the white face paint they used)

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## Bandini

Actually, I should say that the above is just my view! Although it is documented that he took Laudanum, had TB, and had a spurned love for Fanny, I don't KNOW that this is what the poem is about.

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## Bandini

Strange - I read today's poem before reading the comments on feeling the mushrooms, and I could totally feel/taste the mushroom. A real synaesthetic poem. And I thought it was my Jazz cigarette.

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## Virgil

Today's poem is quite nice. I especially liked the line: "The small grains make room." "make room" echoes mushroom!
I also liked this stanza:



> Nudgers and shovers
> In spite of ourselves.
> Our kind multiplies:


Who would have described mushrooms as nudgers and shovers?  :FRlol:  

Does anyone think the mushrooms are symbolic or carry some other meaning? I don't see it, but I'm just wondering.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

> Does anyone think the mushrooms are symbolic or carry some other meaning? I don't see it, but I'm just wondering.


I've been trying to see anything beyond the obvious but I don't. I think it's just a beautiful bit of descriptive poetry - do we really need more?
(Cue The Unnamable to show us how stupid we all are and how it's actually about mixed-race relationships.  :Biggrin: )

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## Virgil

> I've been trying to see anything beyond the obvious but I don't. I think it's just a beautiful bit of descriptive poetry - do we really need more?


No, we do not need more.

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## jackyyyy

> Today's poem is quite nice. I especially liked the line: "The small grains make room." "make room" echoes mushroom!
> I also liked this stanza:
> 
> 
> Who would have described mushrooms as nudgers and shovers?  
> 
> Does anyone think the mushrooms are symbolic or carry some other meaning? I don't see it, but I'm just wondering.


Mushrooms carry lots of meaning in Britain, I think going way back in history, Celt times, witchcraft, as everything from medicines to poisons, and of course 'the magic stuff'. The nudgers and shovers, I picked up on as reference to their ability to sprout up totally unexpectedly in a spot that is just about perfect for them, like after a rainfall, when their 'roofs' fill up. Gads man, Plath could have written books, man, on mushrooms, man.  :Banana: 

They are fragile and adaptive, just like humans really....

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## ktd222

I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.

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## Virgil

> I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.


I got that feeling too. Although I still like this thread. For Poem of the Day I think we are just reduced to highlighting a few key aspects of the poem, and we will have to leave detailed analysis for the Poem of the Week thread.

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## Scheherazade

> I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.


ktd, 

This thread is simply to share the poems we like with other members and, maybe, exchange a comment or two. A way of reading more poems just for the pleasure of it. We can still enjoy a poem without beating it senseless with our analyses, I am sure.

However, participation is not compulsory and it is only for those who are interested.

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## genoveva

I'll give this a try- today's Thursday (4/27)...

Laughing Song

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha, Ha, He!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live & be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, Ha, He!"

~William Blake

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## Bandini

> I don't think we can have any sort of proper discussion on most poems if we only spend a day on it. And I think we owe more to the poems and our brains, to spend a little more time discussing poems.


You vcan have an enjoyable discussion on a poetry for 10 minutes. Kepp it on please.

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## Bandini

Agreed Shez.

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## chmpman

My impression is that there is far too much laughing going on.

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## Scheherazade

> Laughing Song
> 
> When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
> And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
> When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
> And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;
> 
> When the meadows laugh with lively green,
> And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
> ...


I agree with chmpman that there is a lot of laughing going on and that is unusual for a Blake poem... Far too 'merry'? OK, it is repeat 3 times.

I like the way he changed the last 'ha' to 'he' to rhyme!  :Smile:

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## Bandini

Inspiration for David Bowies' 'The Laughing Gnome'?!

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## Virgil

Ever since we had an Emily Dickinson poem on Poem of the Week thread, I've been reading a few more of her poems. I really like her as a poet. Here is on of her rare love poems, which I've become infatuated with. Most of her poems are not titled, but this one comes with a title "In Vain." What else would a love poem by Dickinson be about? I don't know if an editor titled or if she did herself.




> *In Vain*  by Emily Dickinson
> 
> I cannot live with you, 
> It would be life, 
> And life is over there 
> Behind the shelf
> 
> The sexton keeps the key to, 
> Putting up
> ...

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## Petrarch's Love

Thanks, Virgil. I've never read this one. Was she in love with a priest or something? It sounds like religion is proving an obstacle to her love for this person. Imagine, Emily Dickinson as a more prudent Hester Prynne! I really love the sound of this poem too, and the way it flows together. As with all her verse I feel like I need to read it over and over and I'll slowly unfold layers of subtle meaning that I just missed the first time.

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## jackyyyy

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

This part is most profound to me. Emily.

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## Virgil

There's a lot profound here. I was attracted at first to two parts, the openning metaphor and the closing stanza. She cannot live with him, because it would be life, and life is like a broken cup hidden on a shelf. Wow! and the wow refers to both halves of that statement. (a) She doesn't want life because (b) life becomes mundane, quaint. And then the closing stanza is touching to me, that it is better to keep apart, and feed on the despair. It seems it would be better to live in separation.

The center of the poem she uses to dramatize the inability for the two individuals to connect in life and death, and the failure of religion to bring the two together. It seems to me a statement of the imperviousness of individuality. What she seems to be saying is that it is so imposssible her and him to harmonize (perhaps there's a better word, but it doesn't come to me) in life, that even in death it is impossible. The stanza that Jack highlights is very nice.

Petrarch, I don't know if there really was a person she's referring to. As far as I know, she was reclusive all her life, and this could refer to either a one time house guest, a family friend, a frequent visitor, or someone she imagined.

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## Nightshade

I guess Im abit late to post this but there isnt a new one yet soo I like the last bit best. especially 

And that pale sustenance,
Despair! 

Its what the word(??) palitable? You can almost touch and feel the despair. 

yupp I definetly like this  :Biggrin:

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## jackyyyy

> There's a lot profound here.


Simply to add, I could not help being drawn back to "On the death of Anne Bronte". Its one of those poems that plagues me everytime I think on these things. There is no one phrase in Charlotte's piece that mirrors this in any way, but I sense the notion of death of one, while the other is left, in just these few lines, and similar as Charlotte could have suggested in her own.

*Nor could I rise with you,*

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## chmpman

I'm bored, and it's late, so:

_Elements of Composition_
A.K. Ramanujan

Composed as I am, like others,
of elements on certain well-known lists,
father's seed and mother's egg

gathering earth, air, fire, mostly
water, into a mulberry mass,
moulding calcium,

carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,
into a chattering self tangled
in love and work,

scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,
only by moving constantly,
the constancy of things

like Stonehenge or cherry trees;


add uncle's eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
of panic on sister's face
an hour before

her wedding, a dated newspaper map
of a place one has never seen, maybe
no longer there

after the riots, downtown Nairobi,
that a friend carried in his passport
as others would

a woman's picture in their wallets;


add the lepers of Maduri, 
male, female, married,
with children,

lion faces, crabs for claws,
clotted on their shadows
under the stone-eyed

goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
moving as nothing on earth
can move--

I pass through them
as they pass through me
taking and leaving

affections, seeds, skeletons,


millennia of fossil records
of insects that do not last
a day,

body-prints of mayflies,
a legend half-heard
in a train

of the half-man searching
for an ever-fleeing
other half

through Muharram tigers,
hyacinths in crocodile waters,
and the sweet

twisted lives of epileptic saints,


and even as I add,
I lose, decompose
into my elements,

into other names and forms,
past, and passing, tenses
without time,

caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
being eaten.



Now, no complaints on how long it is - it's only one sentence.

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## Virgil

chmpman - That is a really fine poem. I've never heard of Ramnujan. It's a poem of definition; he's defining himself, and wonderfully imaginative. Almost every line is a winner, but I love the humor in this:



> add uncle's eleven fingers
> making shadow-plays of rajas
> and cats, hissing,
> 
> becoming fingers again, the look
> of panic on sister's face
> an hour before
> 
> her wedding,


I'm going to assume he was Hindu. He captures the circularity of the Hindu perspective of life in the closing lines:



> caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
> being eaten.


I enjoyed that.

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## formality hater

can i post my own poem or song?

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## Virgil

You can do that in the personal poetry section. Just start a thread with your poem or song. Poem of the Day and Poem of the Week is for analysis of published poems.

Welcome to lit net, by the way.

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## genoveva

> and even as I add,
> I lose, decompose
> into my elements,
> 
> into other names and forms,
> past, and passing, tenses
> without time,


I especially like the above. Nice, all around. Is he an Indian poet?

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## chmpman

He grew up in India. He was anthologized in my Norton of British Lit. We didn't discuss him in class, but I came across a few of his poems while just perusing the book. I liked this one a lot. Especially the lines quoted above by both Virgil and Genoveva.

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## chmpman

I also like:

and the sweet
twisted lives of epileptic saints

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## The Unnamable

1st May 2006

*For Bartleby The Scrivener*


"Every time we get a big gale around here
some people just refuse to batten down."

we estimate that

ice skating into a sixty
mile an hour wind, fully exerting
the legs and swinging arms

you will be pushed backward
an inch every twenty minutes.

in a few days, depending on
the size of the lake,
the backs of your skates
will touch land.

you will then fall on your ***
and be blown into the forest.

if you gather enough speed
by flapping your arms
and keeping your skates pointed

you will catch up to other
flying people who refused to batten down.
you will exchange knowing waves
as you ride the great wind north.

Billy Collins

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## genoveva

Hmm...I will have to try that sometime...

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## Petrarch's Love

"Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!"

Thanks Unnamable. I had read this poem some time ago and it had made an impression so that I remembered parts of it, but never could recall the title or the author. I'm glad to have found it again, and I understand it better now having read the Melville, which I had not when I first encountered it (doubtless why I had forgotten the title). Now I've got a picture of you in skates battling on against the gale force winds of ignorance. 

Genoveva--Good idea. Maybe next time Chicago has really strong winter winds I'll have to strap the skates on and see if I get blown across lake Michigan.  :FRlol:

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## Virgil

I don't get it though. What's the connection with Melville's story? What is it that Bartleby says, "I prefer not to." Is that it?

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## Riesa

April 3, 2005

*One More*  
by Raymond Carver

He arose early, the morning tinged with excitement,
eager to be at his desk. He had toast and eggs, cigarettes
and coffee, musing all the while on the work ahead, the hard
path through the forest. The wind blew clouds across
the sky, rattling the leaves that remained on the branches
outside his window. Another few days for them and they'd 
be gone, those leaves. There was a poem there, maybe;
he'd have to give it some thought. He went to 
his desk, hesitated for a long moment, and then made
what proved to be the most important decision 
he'd make all day, something his entire flawed life 
had prepared him for. He pushed aside the folder of poems-
one poem in particular still held him in its grip after 
a restless night's sleep. (But, really, what's one more, or 
less? So what? The work would keep for a while yet,
wouldn't it?) He had the whole wide day opening before him.
Better to clear his decks first. He'd deal with a few items
of business, even some family matters he'd let go far
too long. So he got cracking. He worked hard all day-love
and hate getting into it, a little compassion (very little), some
fellow-feeling, even despair and joy.
There were occasional flashes of anger rising, then 
subsiding, as he wrote letters, saying "yes" or "no" or "it
depends" -explaining why, or why not, to people out there
at the margin of his life or people he'd never seen and never 
would see. Did they matter? Did they give a damn?
Some did. He took some calls too, and made some others, which
in turn created the need to make a few more. So-and-so, being
unable to talk now, promised to call back next day.
Toward evening, worn out and clearly (but mistakenly, of course)
feeling he'd done something resembling an honest day's work, 
he stopped to take inventory and note the couple of 
phone calls he'd have to make next morning if
he wanted to stay abreast of things, if he didn't want to 
write still more letters, which he didn't. By now,
it occurred to him, he was sick of all business, but he went on
in this fashion, finishing one last letter that should have been
answered weeks ago. Then he looked up. It was nearly dark outside.
The wind had laid. And the trees-they were still now, nearly
stripped of their leaves. But, finally, his desk was clear,
if he didn't count that folder of poems he was 
uneasy to look at. He put the folder in a drawer, out
of sight. That was a good place for it, it was safe there and
he'd know just where to go lay his hands on it when he 
felt like it. Tomorrow! He'd done everything he could do
today. There were still those few calls he'd have to make,
and he forgot who was supposed to call him, and there were a
few notes he was required to send due to a few of the calls,
but he had it made now, didn't he? He was out of the woods.
He could call today a day. He'd done what he had to do.
What his duty told him he should do. He'd fulfilled his sense of 
obligation and hadn't disappointed anybody.

But at that moment, sitting there in front of his tidy desk,
he was vaguely nagged by the memory of a poem he'd wanted 
to write that morning, and there was that other poem 
he hadn't gotten back to either.

So there it is. Nothing much else needs be said, really. What 
_can_ be said for a man who chooses to blab on the phone 
all day, or else write stupid letters
while he lets his poems go unattended and uncared for, abandoned-
or worse, unattempted. This man doesn't deserve poems
and they shouldn't be given to him in any form.
His poems, should he ever produce any more,
ought to be eaten by mice.

More about Raymond Carver

----------


## Scheherazade

Thanks for giving me the chance to read my first Carver poem, Riesa.

After reading it couple of times, all I can say is that I love the flowing rythm however I am also wondering: When I finished reading it, I felt the kind of satisfaction I would feel after reading a beautifully written short story. If written in prose, I am not sure if I could tell that this was a poem.

What makes it a poem? Or what makes a poem? 

Wondering.

----------


## chmpman

I thought the same thing the first time through it (this is also my first Carver poem). Then I went back through it and I suppose the lines do have a sort of integrity of their own, which I think makes it poetic. I liked it, and sadly, related to it.

----------


## Virgil

I liked these lines in particular:



> There were occasional flashes of anger rising, then 
> subsiding, as he wrote letters, saying "yes" or "no" or "it
> depends" -explaining why, or why not, to people out there
> at the margin of his life or people he'd never seen and never 
> would see. Did they matter? Did they give a damn?


The rhythm is particularly strong in those lines. It's a nice poem, but at places I felt the lines got a little too prosey. 

Like here:



> There were still those few calls he'd have to make,
> and he forgot who was supposed to call him, and there were a
> few notes he was required to send due to a few of the calls,
> but he had it made now, didn't he? He was out of the woods.
> He could call today a day. He'd done what he had to do.
> What his duty told him he should do. He'd fulfilled his sense of 
> obligation and hadn't disappointed anybody.


Not only that. Almost every sentence there is a cliche. I got to believe he did that on purpose. There's too many for them to be accidental. "Out of the woods" is one of the most common phrases you will ever find. He's making an aestheitic statement, although I'm not sure what that is.

----------


## chmpman

Hey Riesa, shouldn't that be May 3rd?

----------


## genoveva

...and 2006 ;-)

----------


## chmpman

Ahhh, I didn't even notice that.

----------


## genoveva

Interesting guy, huh? He's dead, but he's got a place on "myspace"?
From Oregon!

----------


## Isagel

4/5 2006

rom "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" 
by William Carlos Williams 


Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you.
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that 
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.
Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers
that we both loved,
even to this poor
colorless thing-
I saw it
when I was a child-
little prized among the living
but the dead see,
asking among themselves:
What do I remember
that was shaped
as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
with tears.
Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
though too weak a wash of crimson
colors it
to make it wholly credible.
There is something
something urgent
I have to say to you
and you alone
but it must wait
while I drink in
the joy of your approach,
perhaps for the last time.
And so
with fear in my heart
I drag it out
and keep on talking
for I dare not stop.
Listen while I talk on
against time.
It will not be
for long.
I have forgot
and yet I see clearly enough
something
central to the sky
which ranges round it.
An odor
springs from it!
A sweetest odor!
Honeysuckle! And now
there comes the buzzing of a bee!
and a whole flood
of sister memories!
Only give me time,
time to recall them
before I shall speak out.
Give me time,
time.
When I was a boy
I kept a book
to which, from time
to time,
I added pressed flowers
until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
The asphodel,
forebodingly,
among them.
I bring you,
reawakened,
a memory of those flowers.
They were sweet
when I pressed them
and retained
something of their sweetness
a long time.
It is a curious odor,
a moral odor,
that brings me
near to you.
The color
was the first to go.
There had come to me
a challenge,
your dear self,
mortal as I was,
the lily's throat
to the hummingbird!
Endless wealth,
I thought,
held out its arms to me.
A thousand tropics
in an apple blossom.
The generous earth itself
gave us lief.
The whole world
became my garden!
But the sea
which no one tends
is also a garden
when the sun strikes it
and the waves
 are wakened.
I have seen it
and so have you
when it puts all flowers
to shame.
Too, there are the starfish
stiffened by the sun
and other sea wrack
and weeds. We knew that
along with the rest of it
for we were born by the sea,
knew its rose hedges
to the very water's brink.
There the pink mallow grows
and in their season
strawberries
and there, later,
we went to gather
the wild plum.
I cannot say
that I have gone to hell
for your love
but often
found myself there
in your pursuit.
I do not like it
and wanted to be
in heaven. Hear me out.
Do not turn away.
I have learned much in my life
from books
and out of them
about love.
Death
is not the end of it.
There is a hierarchy
which can be attained,
I think,
in its service.
Its guerdon
is a fairy flower;
a cat of twenty lives.
If no one came to try it
the world
would be the loser.
It has been
for you and me
as one who watches a storm
come in over the water.
We have stood
from year to year
before the spectacle of our lives
 with joined hands.
The storm unfolds.
Lightning
plays about the edges of the clouds.
The sky to the north
is placid,
blue in the afterglow
as the storm piles up.
It is a flower
that will soon reach
the apex of its bloom.
We danced,
in our minds,
and read a book together.
You remember?
It was a serious book.
And so books
entered our lives.
The sea! The sea!
Always
when I think of the sea
there comes to mind
the Iliad
and Helen's public fault
that bred it.
Were it not for that
there would have been
no poem but the world
if we had remembered,
those crimson petals
spilled among the stones,
would have called it simply
murder.
The sexual orchid that bloomed then
sending so many 
disinterested
men to their graves
has left its memory
to a race of fools
or heroes
if silence is a virtue.
The sea alone
with its multiplicity
holds any hope.
The storm
has proven abortive
but we remain
after the thoughts it roused
to 
re-cement our lives.
It is the mind
the mind
that must be cured
short of death's
intervention,
and the will becomes again
a garden. The poem
is complex and the place made
in our lives
for the poem.
Silence can be complex too,
but you do not get far
with silence.
Begin again.
It is like Homer's
catalogue of ships:
it fills up the time.
I speak in figures,
well enough, the dresses
you wear are figures also,
we could not meet
otherwise. When I speak
of flowers
it is to recall
that at one time
we were young.
All women are not Helen,
I know that,
but have Helen in their hearts.
My sweet,
you have it also, therefore
I love you
and could not love you otherwise.
Imagine you saw
a field made up of women
all silver-white.
What should you do
but love them?
The storm bursts
or fades! it is not
the end of the world.
Love is something else,
or so I thought it,
a garden which expands,
though I knew you as a woman
and never thought otherwise,
until the whole sea
has been taken up
and all its gardens.
It was the love of love,
the love that swallows up all else,
a grateful love,
a love of nature, of people,
of animals,
a love engendering
gentleness and goodness
that moved me
and that I saw in you.
I should have known,
though I did not,
that the lily-of-the-valley
is a flower makes many ill
who whiff it.
We had our children,
rivals in the general onslaught.
I put them aside
though I cared for them.
as well as any man
could care for his children
according to my lights.
You understand
I had to meet you
after the event
and have still to meet you.
Love
to which you too shall bow
along with me-
a flower
a weakest flower
shall be our trust
and not because
we are too feeble
to do otherwise
but because
at the height of my power
I risked what I had to do,
therefore to prove
that we love each other
while my very bones sweated
that I could not cry to you
in the act.
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you!
My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men. Look at
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
despised poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
Hear me out
for I too am concerned
and every man
who wants to die at peace in his bed
besides.



( when I copy this poem the way the lines are written on the page change - to see how it is supposed to be - see this link: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15541)

----------


## Virgil

Thanks Isagel. I had heard of this poem but had never read it before. Just some quick impressions:
1. Very lovely in its feeling and imagery.
2. I was surprised at how prosey it was in spots. It could have been prose sentences broken into poetic lines. Rhythm and voice was consistent. Like the poem from Chandler the day before it's hard to hear the poetry when the poet consciously tries to not elevate the language.
3. The second poem this week (Poem of the Week, Milton's "Lycidas") with the word "guerdon" in it. I found that ironic.
4. Oh, no, another irony: odor of honeysuckle; just had that in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" in Book Forum of the month. [Riesa, no laughing]

----------


## Riesa

> Hey Riesa, shouldn't that be May 3rd?






> ...and 2006 ;-)



Okay, genoveva and chmpman,  :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:  

You see I _am_ out of time, it's amazing I can brush my own teeth, let alone drive a car. sheesh.  :FRlol:

----------


## Isagel

> .
> 3. The second poem this week (Poem of the Week, Milton's "Lycidas") with the word "guerdon" in it. I found that ironic.


It would be nice to pretend that I meant for that to happen. But you are much more attentive than me. I had to look up *guerdon*  - just in case there is someone else that do not know: it means reward or payment, according to my dictionary. 

I also had to look up asphodel: 

"The plant is about 3 feet high, with large, white, terminal flowers, and radical, long, numerous leaves. It is only cultivated in botanical and ornamental gardens, though it easily grows from seeds or division of roots. 
The roots must be gathered at the end of the first year. 

The ancients planted the flowers near tombs, regarding them as the form of food preferred by the dead, and many poems refer to this custom. The name is derived from a Greek word meaning sceptre. 

The roots, dried and boiled in water, yield a mucilaginous matter that in some countries is mixed with grain or potato to make Asphodel bread. In Spain and other countries they are used as cattle fodder, especially for sheep. In Barbary the wild boars eat them greedily. "

----------


## Scheherazade

Shame that we cannot read it in original but still:

*Get Drunk!*  

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.

On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.

And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:

"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

Charles Baudelaire

----------


## Petrarch's Love

:FRlol:  Thanks Sher. I enjoyed that one. I think I'm going to go see if that Chianti is still in the cupboard to go with my pasta tonight.  :Wink:  

Et voila, l'orginal (since I happened to be on a French lit site in another window anyway I figured I'd paste it here for those who know the language--it doesn't have the pretty shape that Sher's does though  :Frown: ):




> XXXIII. Enivrez-vous
> 
> Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
> 
> Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
> 
> Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

----------


## Riesa

Thanks, Scher, that was great, It brought me back to my youth; I remember reading it years ago, and had forgotten all about it, what a shame. It's wonderful. Enjoy your chianti, Petrarch.  :Smile:

----------


## Virgil

Chianti? Did I hear chianti? Given that it's a French poem shouldn't we open a Bordeaux?  :Nod:

----------


## Petrarch's Love

:FRlol:  Oui, bien sur, but Bordeaux with penne arrabiata? I think non. Besides, I think the only french wine I have on hand is white, and white wine definately doesn't go with arrabiata sauce. The chianti, on the other hand was perfect.

----------


## genoveva

Mmm...Baudelaire, one of my favorites. This is a fun, light hearted poem! And mmm...wine, another favorite of mine. For now, a glass of homebrewed beer will do.

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

I was on my way to work but that poem almost persuaded me to get bladdered instead. The power of art!  :Biggrin:

----------


## Scheherazade

I am glad you guys enjoy the poem! Thought we needed a break from the more 'serious' discussions that have been going on.

It is Friday, it is spring, the weather is promising... 

Have a great day, everyone!  :Nod:

----------


## rachel

well I don't drink alchohol, it has never appealed to me, but to be drunk on virtue sounds intoxicating. Or totally smashed with kindness or love of humanity, with good works, I like that and try to live that. It really somehow does keep you numbed from all lot of the ugly mundane things in life. It is really simply to be passionate about what you are passionate about and drink it to the last drop, revel in it and be drunk.
very wise and beautiful really.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

So now that it really is the right day to post a new poem (sorry Scher). I'll put this one up, since Rachel's comment above reminded me of it (though there is a danger of this turning into the "Poem Association Game" thread  :Smile: ).
*
April 6* 



> I TASTE a liquor never brewed--
> From Tankards scooped in Pearl--
> Not all the vats upon the Rhine
> Yield such an Alcohol!
> 
> Inebriate of Air--am I--
> And Debauchee of Dew--
> Reeling--thro endless summer days--
> From inns of Molten Blue--
> ...

----------


## Virgil

If she wrote that today, I might think she was referring to alcohol free beer.  :FRlol:  

I've come to love Dickinson poems, but while I don't dislike this one, it wouldn't rank near my favorites. It seems awfully conventional for her. Plus the fact that it's alcohol free...  :Wink:

----------


## ktd222

I must reply because I don't think were giving this poem due justice. I've always been amazed by this poem because it displays her unique imagination: 
By taking something common as alcohol and empowering it with almost(maybe even) divine qualities. First of all, the first stanza talks about something amazing and rare that it can only be comparable to alcohol made from the Rhine. And even with this, _--Not all the Vats upon the Rhine yield such an Alcohol!_. Read the first stanza and hear how the word _Alcohol_ just echoes and expands out. This _Alcohol_ must have some amazing power in it. 

Then read the rest of the stanzas and see just what kind of power this _Alcohol_ allows in her: _To see the little Tippler Leaning against the--Sun--_. As though from earth she has risen about 90 million miles and now is physically _Leaning against the--Sun--_. Just below the highest order of celestial beings, the Seraphs, whos function it is to be the caretakers of God's throne(Wikipedia) and above the Saints. Because of this alcohol, she is closer to physically reaching God than the Saints will ever be. 

I'm telling you this definitely gets one WOW!

And there is so much more to the sounds and images in this poem, but since this is the thread for Poem of the Day...

It is one of my favorites.

----------


## Virgil

Fair enough, ktd. I do like the last lines of the tippler leaning against the sun.
You say:



> By taking something common as alcohol and empowering it with almost(maybe even) divine qualities


Well she's neither the first nor the last to endow alcohol with divine qualities. Goodness it must go back to the Romans and Greeks. You know, I pray to the god Bacchus every night with my two glasses of wine and for the powers it endows on me.  :Wink:

----------


## ktd222

> Fair enough, ktd. I do like the last lines of the tippler leaning against the sun.


Me too.




> Well she's neither the first nor the last to endow alcohol with divine qualities. Goodness it must go back to the Romans and Greeks.


Yes, but she just somehow is able to give her words their own breaths and puts the image in just the most imaginitive context, especially in this poem, that I'm dumbfounded every time I read it. 




> You know, I pray to the god Bacchus every night with my two glasses of wine and for the powers it endows on me.


LOL. Some people pray for world peace, then, there is you.

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

Who says alcohol doesn't have supernatural powers? How dare you insult my god like that? I'll fight the lot of ya! You're my best mate you are, hic, my bestest mate in the whole world. Where's that ******* bottle?

Why is the world all gone sidewards.....?

----------


## Virgil

> Who says alcohol doesn't have supernatural powers? How dare you insult my god like that? I'll fight the lot of ya! You're my best mate you are, hic, my bestest mate in the whole world. Where's that ******* bottle?
> 
> Why is the world all gone sidewards.....?


  :FRlol:   :FRlol:  

You know, Xam, since you don't participate in the Compliment the Above Person thread, I'm going to take this opportunity to say that the PAM is one the funniest person I've have ever met. Your wit just amazes me.

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

Sorry - not being witty - just blotto - hic.  :Wink:

----------


## jackyyyy

Gads, Scher! The moment I leave town, you throw a party?




> *Get Drunk!*  
> 
> Always be drunk.
> That's it!
> The great imperative!


You know, this is typical of the French, and thankyou, Petreach, for the original, though the English is actually perfect in announcing that most simple of directive... "You have a problem, or you don't have a problem, well then.. Go get drunk! And now, stupid person, you are bothering me if you are not drunk, therefore... Get drunk, be normal like the rest of France!". I know people that talk this way. Interesting to think that Baudelaire may have seeded 'haute couture' with this poem, else they'd have been too sober to design poodle haircuts, that weird 60s stuff, and of course, those strange French cars.  :FRlol:  Cheers, Baudee!

----------


## Jay

*A Lecture Upon The Shadow - John Donne*

Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.

That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westerwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day ;
But O ! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

----------


## Nightshade

I like this one  :Nod:  
but I have a few questions what does



> So whilst our infant loves did grow,
> Disguises did, and shadows, flow


mean??
Also does it mean that the 'highest degree' of love only lasts a very little and then it spoilt by shadows??

----------


## Scheherazade

I don't know what it is exactly about Donne's poetry but I really like it. The title 'lecture' sounds very sarcastic and have a very critical opinion of love (clever man!  :Wink: )

----------


## Nightshade

[QUOTE=Scheherazade]I don't know what it is exactly about Donne's poetry but I really like it.[/QUOTE ]
 :Nod:   :Nod:   :Nod:   :Nod:  




> Stand still, and I will read to thee
> A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.


And actually was thinking about it if you stand still at noon then you dont have a shadow at all-or rather you cant see it at all.

----------


## jackyyyy

I am confused by this poem because it seems contradictory. On the one hand, love is at its peak then wains as the shadow lengthens, and till a new burst of sun and new love, and on the other hand he writes: 

*Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.*

I wonder if anyone else feels its contradictory or does he mean its taking a new form?

----------


## Virgil

A Wallace Stevens poem:




> *THIS SOLITUDE OF CATARACTS* by Wallace Stevens
> 
> He never felt twice the same about the flecked river,
> Which kept flowing and never the same way twice, flowing
> 
> Through many places, as if it stood still in one,
> Fixed like a lake on which the wild ducks fluttered,
> 
> Ruffling its common reflections, thought-like Monadnocks.
> ...

----------


## Virgil

I'm not sure if anyone's looking at this thread any longer, so I'm going to bend the rules and post another.

This is a poem by Robert Penn Warren. He's mostly known as a novelist and literary critic, but he has published a significant amount of poetry too. I came across this poem a number of years back and its stuck with me.





> *Mortal Limit* by Robert Penn Warren
> 
> I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
> It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
> Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
> Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.
> 
> There--west--were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be
> In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height
> ...

----------


## RJbibliophil

Nice Poem Virgil! I have one I can post so will have to do that Monday...

----------


## Petrarch's Love

You're right Virg, I'd forgotten to look at this thread--and here you've been faithfully stocking it with excellent poems. I like the Stevens you posted earlier, especially the opening lines: 




> He never felt twice the same about the flecked river,
> Which kept flowing and never the same way twice, flowing
> 
> Through many places, as if it stood still in one,


Not to mention I learned a new word from it, Monadnock (the definition of which contained the word "peneplain" which I also had to look up, so my vocabulary is just expanding a mile a minute  :Smile: ). I'm still not sure why he capitalized "Monadnocks" though. I haven't read much Stevens. Does he often capitalize irregularly for some kind of emphasis? The end of the poem reminds me of the end to "Sailing to Byzantium" (only of course Stevens is set in the Bronze age rather than the Golden one  :Wink: ). 

The "Mortal Limit" you posted today is good too. The language of it flows easily. The poet expresses himself in such a compelling way that he makes what is at heart a pretty old conceit seem absolutely fresh and original. I like the way he plays with words. He seems interested with unfolding multiple meanings in words in a way that I think is a little reminiscent of Shakespeare (though I don't think anyone can thrash as many meanings out of a word as Willy). You can see this in lines like these where he re-uses the word "range":



> Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see 
> New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?


And obviously there's similar play in the title of the poem, written again in the eleventh line. His description of the eagle's sight as a "dying vision" before the "mortal limit" neatly suggests both the mortal limit of sight and the limit of death that mortals face. Nice choice. I really enjoyed this poem.

----------


## Virgil

> Not to mention I learned a new word from it, Monadnock (the definition of which contained the word "peneplain" which I also had to look up, so my vocabulary is just expanding a mile a minute ). I'm still not sure why he capitalized "Monadnocks" though. I haven't read much Stevens. Does he often capitalize irregularly for some kind of emphasis? The end of the poem reminds me of the end to "Sailing to Byzantium" (only of course Stevens is set in the Bronze age rather than the Golden one ).


I didn't realize monadnock was a word in its own right. I took it as a place name, which Stevens loves to do. Apparently it's both. Here from M-W:



> monadnock
> 
> Main Entry: mo·nad·nock 
> Pronunciation: m&-'nad-"näk
> Function: noun
> Etymology: Mt. Monadnock, N.H.
> : INSELBERG


So, it's a mountain in N.H. and a word for an isolated place. He does not like Dickinson capitalize for emphasis, at least I'm not aware of it.





> The "Mortal Limit" you posted today is good too. The language of it flows easily. The poet expresses himself in such a compelling way that he makes what is at heart a pretty old conceit seem absolutely fresh and original. I like the way he plays with words. He seems interested with unfolding multiple meanings in words in a way that I think is a little reminiscent of Shakespeare (though I don't think anyone can thrash as many meanings out of a word as Willy). You can see this in lines like these where he re-uses the word "range":
> 
> And obviously there's similar play in the title of the poem, written again in the eleventh line. His description of the eagle's sight as a "dying vision" before the "mortal limit" neatly suggests both the mortal limit of sight and the limit of death that mortals face. Nice choice. I really enjoyed this poem


This poem has always reminded me of the space program, and I'm sure there is a connection. It does have special meaning to me as an engineer of just to what heights man's ability can reach and yet an understandng, or perhaps a better word is testing, of our limits. If you notice it would be a perfect sonnet except for one thing. The length of the lines are way beyond pentameter, as if it's striving beyond allowed limits. And also, it's so American, the language, the setting, the striving and dream to go beyond.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

> So, it's a mountain in N.H. and a word for an isolated place. He does not like Dickinson capitalize for emphasis, at least I'm not aware of it.


And now I get a geography lesson too.  :Smile:  I thought it was a place name at first, but the plural threw me (and still seems strange, since it's the name of a single mountain and not a range). Also, I was lazy and only looked at the definition without clicking for the etymology when I looked it up in the OED, which defines "monadnock" this way: 


> A hill, mountain, or ridge of erosion-resistant rock rising above a peneplain.


The etymology link mentions the mountain in NH and gives a quote from Melville referring to "his great Monadnock hump" in _Moby Dick._ It's an interesting word, since it seems to have some sort of status between been a proper noun referring to a specific mountain, and a sort of adjective that can be both pluralized and applied to whales and such. 




> This poem has always reminded me of the space program, and I'm sure there is a connection. It does have special meaning to me as an engineer of just to what heights man's ability can reach and yet an understandng, or perhaps a better word is testing, of our limits. If you notice it would be a perfect sonnet except for one thing. The length of the lines are way beyond pentameter, as if it's striving beyond allowed limits. And also, it's so American, the language, the setting, the striving and dream to go beyond.


I hadn't thought of it in relation to the space program, but I think you've got a good point there. I had noticed the sonnet form (another thing that made me think of Shakespearean influence in his work). I like the long, irregular lines. You're right that it fits with the poem's central concern with "the mortal limit." It is a very American poem, and I think a very well done American poem.

----------


## Virgil

> And now I get a geography lesson too.  I thought it was a place name at first, but the plural threw me (and still seems strange, since it's the name of a single mountain and not a range). Also, I was lazy and only looked at the definition without clicking for the etymology when I looked it up in the OED, which defines "monadnock" this way: 
> The etymology link mentions the mountain in NH and gives a quote from Melville referring to "his great Monadnock hump" in _Moby Dick._ It's an interesting word, since it seems to have some sort of status between been a proper noun referring to a specific mountain, and a sort of adjective that can be both pluralized and applied to whales and such.


I love Wallace Stevens poetry, but frankly I can't claim to understand him entirely. There is something in his language that I'm attracted to. I wish I could take a class on him.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

I agree both about the appealing quality of the language and the not understanding entirely bit. I've never really looked at Stevens much. Part of that is no doubt due to the fact that the professors most responsible for my knowledge of 20th century poetry were not at all interested in American lit. (one of them, being Irish, hardly got to anyone apart from Yeats  :FRlol: ). I agree it would be intersting to take a class that examined Stevens' work. Now you've got me thinking about looking into sitting in on a class on American poetry next year. We've got a scholar here who's supposed to be pretty good in the field and since I'll be done with official coursework this term ( :Banana:   :Banana:   :Banana:  ) I could sit in on it just for the sake of the knowledge (if I ever do it I'll promise to share my notes with you  :Wink: ).

----------


## atiguhya padma

Some thought on Donne's poem:

I think Donne is reflecting on the changing nature of our confidence and openness in the course of love. When we first love, we seek to impress and may give a false image of ourselves, in order to win another's heart:

<So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.>

When sufficient time has passed, our concerns are shared, we trust in the love of each other, and our shadows therefore become one. Furthermore, in the early years of love, we may portray a nonchalant and casual attitude to the one we love, when in front of peers, as we do not wish to give the impression of being dependent and besotted, especially whilst the future of one's love is so uncertain. But once time has elapsed, these shadows disappear. 

<That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.>

If you cannot be open to everyone about your love, then your love still has some way to grow, to mature.

The rest of the poem, I think, talks about the need to focus on what you have and where you are going. Once you reach that point at which your love is constant, strong, perfect, this isn't the end of the road, but rather that spot on the summit with the greatest viewpoint. Love is maintained through focus.

AP

----------


## genoveva

5/14

*Penelope*

In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbour's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.

_~Dorothy Parker_

----------


## Virgil

Interesting. I like it but I'm not sure the rhyme scheme works with wave and brave so far apart.

----------


## genoveva

The poem should have some indents that the forum did not like (?).
So, imagine an indent before the second and fourth lines, and then a double indent at the fifth and last line. Does that help any?

----------


## RJbibliophil

*May 15th 2006

Bond and Free*
By Robert Frost

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight,
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.


This poem is especially for Pensive.  :Wink:

----------


## jackyyyy

This makes me, and easily.

*Wall within wall to shut fear out.*

*Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all*

Thanks, RJbibliophil.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Thanks RJ. Another Frost poem, and one I haven't read in a long while. I like this one. I've been studying all day for a big project coming up, but I think I'll take a break now from looking for beauty "fused in another star" and call the folks at home. :Smile:

----------


## jackyyyy

I always thought I knew what 'thrall' mean't, but I took the time to look it up anyway.

*thrall (thrôl) 
n.

One, such as a slave or serf, who is held in bondage.
One who is intellectually or morally enslaved.
Servitude; bondage: a people in thrall to the miracles of commerce (Lewis H. Lapham).
tr.v. Archaic., thralled, thrall·ing, thralls.
To enslave.

[Middle English, from Old English thrǣl, from Old Norse thrǣll.]

thrall'dom or thral'dom n.* 

Frost is so easy to read, his message comes across clear as silk, perfectly laid out, while leaving a barely discernible trace of something else in the air, and in case we think we're so sure. I have to put Frost in my favourites category. Why does it make me think of the 'Ex-Queen' poem, in that thread, I am wondering?

----------


## RJbibliophil

Frost seems simple if one considers them, but often there is a deeper meaning, or a meaning that might be there if only one could find it.

----------


## Bandini

Can't stand Frost myself I'm afraid.

----------


## Scheherazade

*Mr. Grumpledump's Song*  

Everything's wrong,
Days are too long,
Sunshine's too hot,
Wind is too strong.
Clouds are too fluffy,
Grass is too green,
Ground is too dusty,
Sheets are too clean.
Stars are too twinkly,
Moon is too high,
Water's too drippy,
Sand is too dry.
Rocks are too heavy,
Feathers too light,
Kids are too noisy,
Shoes are too tight.
Folks are too happy,
Singin' their songs.
Why can't they see it?
Everything's wrong!

-Shel Silverstein

----------


## jackyyyy

> *Mr. Grumpledump's Song*  
> 
> Everything's wrong,


I can't quite put my finger on it, seems something is wrong.

----------


## Bandini

Sorry - got to run; lunch over- but promised Rachel I'd post this somewhere and no time to remember how to post thread. Please leave it on!

Be Kind 


we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or 
obnoxious.

one is asked 
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with 
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly 
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint 
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted 
life 

among so many 
deliberately
wasted 
lives 

is.


Charles Bukowski

----------


## Virgil

Nice poem Bandini. I owe Bukowski an apology. I have condemed him at times, since I don't think I ever came across a poem of his that I even thought was poetry. But this is pretty good. He makes the most of this by the way he shapes the lines. [I'm not sure I share the sentiment. I tend to respect my elders, even when I don't agree with them. And who's to call someone's life a waste?] 

Here's what I think is the key stanza:



> one is asked 
> to view
> their total error
> their life-waste
> with 
> kindliness,
> especially if they are
> aged.


I'm not sure I quite understand: Is he saying that their lives are wasted because they were kind or that his kindness to them is a waste because of their errors?

----------


## rachel

Thank you so much Bandini.
Virgil, I respectfully disagree. Having worked for years in a seniors' residence and being drawn into most of the client's confidences I clearly saw that those words are very true. Just because someone is aged does not mean they are WORTHY of respect. We give it because it is the proper thing to do so to speak. You are a Christian and it says to stand up in the presence of grey hair and to be respectful for God's sake not the person.
And Scripture also says very clearly"by their fruits you shall know them" and I saw dreadful dead, warped, thorny, noxious fruit in many of those people. That IS a total waste of life, to have lived one's days with hatred, cruelty extreme selfishness. I saw many of their children and read in their haggard faces and tired eyes that their parents were yet even now still demanding and unaware deliberately or not of their effect on the lives of those children who came day after day to show love and honor to these individuals.
That is why the ones who had, regardless of social standing or wealth, tried to live a life of at least a modicum of human kindness glowed like rare diamonds in a room full of black coal.
I like this poem very much.

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

I quite agree Rachel. Someone that is obnoxious, racist, greedy, selfish, callous, etc., etc., gains no veneer of respect in my eyes merely by outstaying their welcome on the planet long enough to develop a few grey hairs. It's an interesting poem, and one which I identify with completely. I think Virgil is slipping into "PC" mode again.  :Biggrin:

----------


## Virgil

> I quite agree Rachel. Someone that is obnoxious, racist, greedy, selfish, callous, etc., etc., gains no veneer of respect in my eyes merely by outstaying their welcome on the planet long enough to develop a few grey hairs. It's an interesting poem, and one which I identify with completely. I think Virgil is slipping into "PC" mode again.


  :FRlol:  I said "*tend*  to respect". OK, I should have added until they prove unworthy of it. I find that most older people have mellowed out their issues and on average  are not as bad as younger people. Though, granted, not perfect. 

And what do you mean by "again?" Do I have a tendency of slipping into PC mode?  :Wink:

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

I don't find that older people's prejudices and issues mellow at all - they merely become more adept at concealing them from those that are likely to take offence.

Where the young racist will wear his skinhead and Doc Martins with pride and carry swastika banners at neo-nazi marches, the old racist shows no such obvious, outward signs - he and his ilk content themselves by passing their poison on to the next generation insiduously. I remember making the same point in another thread months ago.

And thinking about it, I think that you rarely slip _out_ of PC mode.  :FRlol:

----------


## rachel

Here is an example you might consider Virg. One of the ladies I cared for was a retired nurse. I and my sons went out of our way outside of work time to take her about and help her. She was rude hateful and demanding. The last two months I worked at the seniors residence she started demanding I come up and cater to her in her suite. I had seventy two other sick and dying patients and was on alone and had to help paramedics when emergencies came about. She screamed at me and I was constantly being threatened by my boss to not get her angry because of her wealth.
Well one night she demanded I come up. I had to walk all the flights of stairs because the elevator sometimes didn't work and if stuck help had to come from a city far away.
I was exhausted because no matter who I trained to take over so I could have holiday they quit after a couple of days. The woman was very ill and had a serious infectious disease so we weren't to go near her if possible, just leave it to the registered nurses when they came.She had been a seniour nurse and knew full well what she was doing.
She ordered me to do something and then tried to slap me. I told her lovingly but firmly she could not assault me. So she waited until my face was near hers and then deliberately coughed her phlem all over me. I rushed out and cleaned but unhappily I got pnuemonia in both lungs and nearly perished because of it and she died of it.
No, I don't see that type of person mellowing out at all for the most part.I must disagree and yes dear you do tend to slip back into that mode, but you are still a sweetheart.

----------


## Scheherazade

I have a feeling that we are missing the main point of this poem...

To me, this poem is not about old people and how prejudiced they are or whether we should respect them or not but about about how we live our lives: It is your responsibilty to make something out of your life; live it in a way that when you look back at the end of your life, it won't be wasted. 

And what the persona in the poem suggesting is that is one fails to do so, they have no one but themselves to blame for it. You can't expect to be respect simply because you are old unless you have lived a life to deserve it.

PS: Not a bad poem but I still don't like Bukowski!  :Biggrin:

----------


## Virgil

> I
> And thinking about it, I think that you rarely slip _out_ of PC mode.


  :FRlol:  I'm sorry if I'm old fashion. I don't think of it as PC. I call that etiquette and manners and decency.  :Tongue:  




> No, I don't see that type of person mellowing out at all for the most part.


Perhaps you're both right on that. Let me just say I give people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

----------


## Virgil

> I have a feeling that we are missing out the main point of this poem...
> 
> To me, this poem is not about old people and how prejudiced they are or whether we should respect them or not but about about how we live our lives: It is your responsibilty to make something out of your life; live it in a way that when you look back at the end of your life, it won't be wasted. 
> 
> And what the persona in the poem suggesting is that is one fails to do so, they have no one but themselves to blame for it. You can't expect to be respect simply because you are old unless you have lived a life to deserve it.
> 
> PS: Not a bad poem but I still don't like Bukowski!


No one has answered my question in my first post on this on the stanza that I highlight. "waste with kindliness" Is he saying it's a waste to be kindly or that their lives were a waste because they were kindly? It seems ambiguous to me and I don't think he means for both to be true.

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

I think it's obvious that he is saying that we are not under obligation to _view_ wasted lives with kindliness (ie. the adverb 'with kindliness' is qualifying the act of viewing the lives, NOT the act of wasting them).

----------


## Scheherazade

> No one has answered my question in my first post on this on the stanza that I highlight. "waste with kindliness" Is he saying it's a waste to be kindly or that their lives were a waste because they were kindly? It seems ambiguous to me and I don't think he means for both to be true.





> one is asked 
> to view
> their total error
> their life-waste
> with 
> kindliness,
> especially if they are
> aged.


 It is interesting that my interpretation of those lines are very different from your both suggestions, Virgil. I read it as 'one is asked to view their (people who have failed to lead 'worthy' lives) errors with kindliness, especially if they are old.'

To me, it is not 'their life is wasted with kindliness' or 'it is a waste to be kindly to them'. It is 'error of their lives' and 'their life-waste'; they wasted their lives because they did not do anything worthwhile. Later on he emphasises that it was their error not to make something out of their lives hence such people don't deserve to be respected (and viewed kindly) purely because they are old.

*edit*

Agree with XC. I didn't see his post while I was typing mine _and_ talking on the phone.  :Biggrin:

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

> *edit*
> 
> Agree with XC. I didn't see his post while I was typing mine _and_ talking on the phone.


I read half your post and was poised to be sarcastic (for once... :Biggrin: ). Fortunately, unlike some others, I was prepared to read to the end of a post before attacking.  :FRlol:

----------


## Virgil

> It is interesting that my interpretation of those lines are very different from your both suggestions, Virgil. I read it as 'one is asked to view their (people who have failed to lead 'worthy' lives) errors with kindliness, especially if they are old.'
> 
> To me, it is not 'their life is wasted with kindliness' or 'it is a waste to be kindly to them'. It is 'error of their lives' and 'their life-waste'; they wasted their lives because they did not do anything worthwhile. Later on he emphasises that it was their error not to make something out of their lives hence such people don't deserve to be respected (and viewed kindly) purely because they are old.
> 
> *edit*
> 
> Agree with XC. I didn't see his post while I was typing mine _and_ talking on the phone.


Oh, yeah Scher, you're right. The dash through me off. It's "life-waste". I was reading it "their life, waste with kindliness". Sorry. Although I wonder if the ambiguity is intentional. No Bukowski is not that good a poet.

----------


## The Unnamable

*In Memory of My Mother*

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday--
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle--'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life--
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after 
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us -- eternally.

Patrick Kavanagh

----------


## Virgil

That is beautiful. I love it!

----------


## Isagel

After the poem of the week this feels like balm for my soul.

----------


## Dark Lady

I feel like it would be a really happy poem if it weren't for the repetition of, "lying in the wet clay." You can't finnish the poem without remembering that she is dead and isn't doing all the things he talks of any more. It's especially the fact he uses 'wet clay' and not something nicer. Despite the continual assurance (or maybe because of it) that he is not thinking of her dead it seems that he constantly is.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Thank you for this one Unnamable. It's beautiful, and I don't think I've come across this poet before. 



> I feel like it would be a really happy poem if it weren't for the repetition of, "lying in the wet clay."


But isn't that what's most hopeful and loving about this poem. My favorite line is this: "Among your earthiest words the angels stray." Her earthiness is what was so wonderful about her in life. It was her being a part of the earth that made her angelic, and now that she's literally a part of the earth, she is more angelic still. This poem draws its heaven from the ground.

----------


## The Unnamable

> That is beautiful.


For once Virgil, I entirely agree with you. 




> After the poem of the week this feels like balm for my soul.


You have no idea how happy it makes me feel to read that. Beautiful is the only word that can do it justice. It almost makes me believe I _have_ a soul.  :Wink:  

*Dark Lady*, I think its a beautiful poem but I dont think its meant to be a happy poem  she is dead, after all. I wouldnt like the poem at all if he simply tried to prettify the situation. It would reduce genuine emotion to mere sentiment.

----------


## The Unnamable

> I don't think I've come across this poet before. 
> 
> Her earthiness is what was so wonderful about her in life. It was her being a part of the earth that made her angelic, and now that she's literally a part of the earth, she is more angelic still. This poem draws its heaven from the ground.


Patrick Kavanagh is a sadly under-appreciated Irish poet. Your point about the importance of the land is right. Heres another of his:
*
Shancoduff*

My black hills have never seen the sun rising,
Eternally they look north towards Armagh.
Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been
Incurious as my black hills that are happy
When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.

My hills hoard the bright shillings of March
While the sun searches in every pocket.
They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn
With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves 
In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.

The sleety winds fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff
While the cattle-drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush
Look up and say: Who owns them hungry hills
That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?
A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor.'
I hear and is my heart not badly shaken?

Great last line.

----------


## Bandini

> Nice poem Bandini. I owe Bukowski an apology. I have condemed him at times, since I don't think I ever came across a poem of his that I even thought was poetry. But this is pretty good. He makes the most of this by the way he shapes the lines. [I'm not sure I share the sentiment. I tend to respect my elders, even when I don't agree with them. And who's to call someone's life a waste?] 
> 
> Here's what I think is the key stanza:
> 
> 
> I'm not sure I quite understand: Is he saying that their lives are wasted because they were kind or that his kindness to them is a waste because of their errors?



I don't think he is saying it is a waste to be kind; he is saying don't respect your elders, jsut because they are your elders! It's a crazy social construct after all - isn't it? Respect people who earn your respect - what ever their age. It's illogical and false to do other wise. I see what you are saying, and you have to make allowances for the fact that they may be 'waning'! But don't elevate them to 'respected' purely because they are old(er)!

But for me this resonates the most:

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

- the age is not important to me; as it shouldn't be when considering 'respect'!

----------


## Petrarch's Love

> Great last line.


Indeed. I'll have to put Kavanagh's work on my ever increasing list of things to read this summer.

----------


## Dark Lady

> I think its a beautiful poem but I dont think its meant to be a happy poem  she is dead, after all. I wouldnt like the poem at all if he simply tried to prettify the situation. It would reduce genuine emotion to mere sentiment.


Don't get me wrong I wouldn't like the poem to gloss over the death either that was just my initial thought on it. It just has that great balance of happy memories being slightly shadowed by the present reality.

----------


## The Unnamable

> It just has that great balance of happy memories being slightly shadowed by the present reality.


Thats a good description of life at its least awful.  :Biggrin:  


*CUBA*

My eldest sister arrived home that morning
In her white muslin evening dress.
'Who the hell do you think you are,
Running out to dances in next to nothing?
As though we hadn't enough bother
With the world at war, if not at an end.'
My father was pounding the breakfast-table.


'Those Yankees were touch and go as it was -
If you'd heard Patton at Armagh -
But this Kennedy's nearly an Irishman
So he's not much better than ourselves.
And him with only to say the word.
If you've got anything on your mind
Maybe you should make your peace with God.'


I could hear May from beyond the curtain.
'Bless me. Father, for I have sinned.
I told a lie once, I was disobedient once.
And, Father, a boy touched me once.'
'Tell me, child. Was this touch immodest?
Did he touch your breast, for example?'
'He brushed against me, Father. Very gently.'

----------


## chmpman

Hey now, I thought we had a routine going about double posting poems.... Actually I like this one, although the second stanza is a bit of a jumble to me. Perhaps I should study my history a bit better, especially being an American. Although maybe British Lit. is where it's at. Ha, also I think The Unnamable forgot the writer of the poem. Infallible my ***!!

----------


## The Unnamable

Im pretty sure that I posted it but it seems to have been bowdlerised. As I received neither a notification nor any explanation for why this was done, I dont know. Anyway, Paul Muldoon wrote the poem. *chmpman*, may I ask what you mean by Perhaps I should study my history a bit better, especially being an American?

----------


## blp

> Patrick Kavanagh is a sadly under-appreciated Irish poet.


Not to be confused with PJ Kavanagh, a younger Anglo-Irish poet, also with a pastoral bent. 

Apparently, the two men were once, by chance, left alone together in a pub. PJ was still quite young and in awe of the more famous Patrick and went quiet, hoping for some acknowledgement from the elder sage. All he got was: 'Why don't you change yer ****in' name?'

----------


## blp

> Sorry - got to run; lunch over- but promised Rachel I'd post this somewhere and no time to remember how to post thread. Please leave it on!
> 
> Be Kind 
> 
> 
> we are always asked
> to understand the other person's
> viewpoint
> no matter how
> ...


This fits an experience I had the other night extraordinarily well. I was out with my mother and her boyfriend and an old friend of hers, a psychotherapist. I started ribbing my mother, good naturedly I though, about how neither I nor her boyfriend were following the table manners she'd taught me as a kid - elbows on the table, asking for things within reach to be passed to you etc. The psychotherapist lady started badly losing her cool, first asking me to understand that my mother and her were 'very old' and then saying that these rules were simply ways of ensuring 'consideration' for other people. I started to point out that these rules were often as much about unkindness as kindness in various ways and she simply snapped at me, looking genuinely distressed, that it was an 'argument' she didn't want to have.

----------


## blp

> I don't think he is saying it is a waste to be kind; he is saying don't respect your elders, jsut because they are your elders! It's a crazy social construct after all - isn't it? Respect people who earn your respect - what ever their age. It's illogical and false to do other wise. I see what you are saying, and you have to make allowances for the fact that they may be 'waning'! But don't elevate them to 'respected' purely because they are old(er)!
> 
> But for me this resonates the most:
> 
> we are always asked
> to understand the other person's
> viewpoint
> no matter how
> out-dated
> ...


I think the 'be kind' title is irony. It underlines the idea that kindness to someone who's made obnoxiousness or thoughtlessness a credo may be an unkindness to oneself.

----------


## blp

No poem yet today? 

*Elegy for Jane*

(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

_Theodore Roethke_

----------


## The Unnamable

> Neither father nor lover.


Sometimes its very difficult to avoid being at least one of these. Didnt Roethke marry an ex-student?

----------


## blp

> Sometimes its very difficult to avoid being at least one of these. Didnt Roethke marry an ex-student?


That's more than I know about him. I'd say there's a certain amount of longing that goes beyond the elegiac here though.

----------


## Jay

*since feeling is first by e.e. cummings*

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

----------


## chmpman

Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.

----------


## The Unnamable

Jay, could you explain the poem for me? Could you possibly give me a rough paraphrase of that last line? Isnt kisses are a far better fate / than wisdom the philosophy of a bimbo, of one who flutters her eyelids?

----------


## Isagel

> Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.


How strange these things are. I like it because of the lack of a period. 

"since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things"

"for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis"

If there had been one, ee cummings would have contradicted the point he makes, wouldn´t he?

----------


## Bandini

> Hmm, I'm not sure I like it, partially because of the lack of a period at the end.


I thought I was pedantic! I think that the fact that he chose to write his name 'e.e. cummings' tells us his views on punctuation.

----------


## Bandini

> Jay, could you explain the poem for me? Could you possibly give me a rough paraphrase of that last line? Isnt kisses are a far better fate / than wisdom the philosophy of a bimbo, of one who flutters her eyelids?


I think not. I think he is probably indulging in hyperbole to emphasise the lure of the aesthetically pleasing and living for the day; perhaps suggesting that taking life too seriously can lead to a lack of joy?. Wisdom is great, but 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever' and all that?

----------


## Virgil

I like it. I never saw this cummings poem before. Might over time become my favorite. I would paraphrase the poem as it's more important to live life in the blood (a D.H. Lawrence term!) than in the mind. "my blood approves".

----------


## genoveva

> *since feeling is first by e.e. cummings*
> 
> since feeling is first
> who pays any attention
> to the syntax of things
> will never wholly kiss you;
> 
> wholly to be a fool
> while Spring is in the world
> ...



What a beautiful poem! I want to read more e.e. cummings now.

----------


## blp

Brrr. I love cummings at his best, but he's only a short step away from bullying with this kind of simplistic, proto-hippie anti-intellectualism. Pay no attention, kids. Syntax is important!

----------


## chmpman

> If there had been one, ee cummings would have contradicted the point he makes, wouldn´t he?


I think you're right, and I was attempting to be blatantly pedantic. On first reading I just didn't see the gravity of the poem, after a closer reading, it's a little better, but not a favorite of mine.

----------


## Scheherazade

Since there aren't many of us who are willing to post poems daily, I think we will change the rules to have more flexibility:

'Same person cannot post poems within 5 days.'

*the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls* 

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things-
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

by E. E. Cummings

----------


## Virgil

I love the closing lines:



> ....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
> Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
> sky lavender and cornerless, the
> moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy


Very pretty. But frankly I have no idea what this poem is about. For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.

----------


## Scheherazade

> For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.


And it is where Harvard is, isn't it?  :Wink: 

Whether British or American, they are both university towns.  :Smile: 


> scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D

----------


## blp

> I love the closing lines:
> 
> Very pretty. But frankly I have no idea what this poem is about. For the non-Americans, there is a Cambridge in Massachusetts.


No idea at all? None?

----------


## blp

Here's one by George Oppen, with no title, just a number from his *Discrete Series*

2

...........Thus
Hides the 

Parts -- the prudery
Of Frigidaire, of
Soda-jerking ---------

Thus

Above the

Plane of lunch, of wives
Removes itself
(As soda-jerking from
the private act 

Of
Cracking eggs);

big-Business

----------


## jackyyyy

I was thinking... he really didn't need to be discrete here, could have expanded on it. I mean, not too much, because then we would know what its about. Why does this remind of Andy Warhole?

----------


## blp

Expanded? No, I don't think he needed to. 

Not sure I've totally 'cracked' it myself, but I think it's all there, so to speak. Start at the beginning, work through to the end, go back to the beginning again. What hides the parts? The parts of what? big-Business. Down at the soda counter, we can believe we're just living a life, even that we're free. None of this is as innocent as it seems. 

I'm interested in the use of capitalisations - which I've reproduced faithfully.

----------


## Shanna

*The Bookburning (Die Bücherverbrennung)*

When the Regime ordered that books with dangerous teachings
Should be publicly burnt and everywhere
Oxen were forced to draw carts full of books
To the funeral pyre, an exiled poet,
One of the best, discovered with fury, when he studied the list
Of the burned, that his books
Had been forgotten. He rushed to his writing table
On wings of anger and wrote a letter to those in power.
Burn me, he wrote with hurrying pen, burn me!
Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me! 

Bertolt Brecht

----------


## Xamonas Chegwe

What a lovely poem Shanna - My avatar shows the inevitable response of the authorities.  :Biggrin:

----------


## Virgil

Somehow this poem seems appropriate to how I feel right now. 




> *Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art* by John Keats
> 
> Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- 
> Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
> And watching, with eternal lids apart,
> Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
> The moving waters at their priestlike task
> Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
> Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
> ...

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Thank you Virgil. That is a poem I have long loved. I'm glad I stopped in to read it before going to bed tonight.

----------


## Scheherazade

from *Pippa Passes*

The year's at the spring 
And day's at the morn; 
Morning's at seven; 
The hill-side's dew-pearled 
The lark's on the wing; 
The snail's on the thorn; 
God's in his Heaven - 
All's right with the world! 

Robert Browning

----------


## Virgil

Love the way the rhythm complements the theme. Great image in "dew-pearled." Browning was probably looking for a rhyme for "world" and stumbled on a great image.

----------


## Virgil

Since no one's puitting any out, I'll grab this opportunity. This is an anonymous tenth century Welsh poem, translated into modern English.




> *Spring Song* (Anonymous, translated by Wesli Court)
> 
> Earthspring, the sweetest season,
> Loud the birdsong, sprouts ripple,
> Plough in furrow, ox in yoke,
> Sea like smoke, fields in stipple.
> 
> Yet when cuckoos call from trees
> I drink the lees of sorrow;
> ...

----------


## RJbibliophil

A very interesting and thought provoking poem with an unusual pattern. It would appear the author has a reason to be sad in the spring, something about a kindsman.

----------


## Jarndyce

Something nice and uplifting for a Friday morning....





> Paradise Motel 
> by Charles Simic
> 
> 
> Millions were dead; everybody was innocent.
> I stayed in my room. The President
> Spoke of war as of a magic love potion.
> My eyes were opened in astonishment.
> In a mirror my face appeared to me
> ...

----------


## Virgil

:FRlol:  What does that all mean?

----------


## Petrarch's Love

I think it's trying to say that humans are animals.

Since I missed Virg.'s poem yesterday, I thought I'd say I enjoyed it. Makes me wish I could read the original Welsh...say tenth century Welsh isn't anything like Old English is it? Well...probably not, but the translation of the Welsh poem reminds me of a lot of the things I've read in early medieval English poetry.

----------


## blp

'I lived well, but life was awful'

There's the key. Come on Virgil, try a _bit_ harder!

----------


## Virgil

> I think it's trying to say that humans are animals.
> 
> Since I missed Virg.'s poem yesterday, I thought I'd say I enjoyed it. Makes me wish I could read the original Welsh...say tenth century Welsh isn't anything like Old English is it? Well...probably not, but the translation of the Welsh poem reminds me of a lot of the things I've read in early medieval English poetry.


I don't know what any Welch sounds like unfortunately. I would imagine it would sound Gaelic, but then I don't know. I would wonder how much of the welch was infleuenced by Latin prior to Anglo-Saxon conquest and then by Germanic languages after that. The translator does have old English in mind. The translated poem has a Gerard Manly Hopkins feel to it.

----------


## Virgil

> 'I lived well, but life was awful'
> 
> There's the key. Come on Virgil, try a _bit_ harder!


You're right. I was blinded by the last stanza with the red and the pink!  :Biggrin:

----------


## RJbibliophil

I think I preferred the previous poem.

----------


## smoothherb

capture my mind in your eyes
It can be seen if you look deep 
Like looking through a face to find a lie
Test my madness by being blind
But only blind to my exterior
You have to look far into my eyes
Then you'll see my thougts and fears
See that my anger has came from love
My pride has been smashed yet I still don't care
I've banished my demons 
Now I just need A reason to keep them away


any opinions on this poem

----------


## Virgil

smoothherb

This thread is for estabished, published poems. The personal poetry forum is for our poetry.

----------


## Riesa

*Orion*

Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you're young

my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won't give over
though it weighs you down as you stride

and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
an old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.

Indoors I bruise and blunder,
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.
Night cracks up over the chimney,
pieces of time, frozen geodes
come showering down in the grate.

A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman's head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow's nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it's with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can so least damage.
Breathe deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall.

Adrienne Rich

----------


## Virgil

Wow, very nice choice Riesa. I really like this. Nice lines:



> Indoors I bruise and blunder,
> break faith, leave ill enough
> alone, a dead child born in the dark.


Here a little melodramaitc, but still nice:



> A man reaches behind my eyes
> and finds them empty
> a woman's head turns away
> from my head in the mirror

----------


## RJbibliophil

Interesting poem, seems to be rather "starry" and sad.

----------


## Virgil

Since no one has posted in a few days, I'll post another.




> *At Melville's Tomb*  by Hart Crane
> 
> Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
> The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
> An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
> Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
> 
> And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
> The calyx of death's bounty giving back
> ...

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Wonderful choice Virgil.

----------


## Virgil

Thank you Hyacinth


I believe there is there has always been controversy as to the openning sentence:



> Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
> The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
> An embassy.


Does anyone comprehend what it means? I'm baffled.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Virgil, I will give this a stab, but I'm really rusty at exegesis, so bear with me.  :Biggrin:  



> Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge


I view this as referring to the ocean, seen as a wide expanse from the "ledge" of land. "wide" also seems to denote distance - the ocean being far from Melville's particular "ledge".



> The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath/an embassy


The "dice" of dead sailors indicate chance, and the vagaries of Fortune/Fate that caused their gamble to fail. It also echoes "The Tempest" slightly, and I do mean _slightly_ :"those are pearls that were his eyes/his bones of coral made"(I'm probably misquoting a tetch, as I do this from memory) in that dice were once made of ivory. The bones "bequeath an embassy" - they seem to move across the wide expanse beneath the waves as an ambassador to those on land, to the living. In the next line they "beat upon the dusty shore" - carried along under the waves, but fail in their mission to reach the "ledge" of the land. The use of "dusty" seems to echo "dust to dust" - the bones seem to seek their proper place among the buried , "and were obscured" - returning under the water to the deep expanse they journeyed from, their ambassadorial mission incomplete. The lack of burial and tombstone seems to lend to their being "obscured," due to the absence of a physical memorial.

----------


## RJbibliophil

Nice poem Virgil, and very good analysis Hyacinth! You are actually quite good, and it makes sense.

----------


## Scheherazade

*No man is an island*

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

John Donne

----------


## Virgil

> Virgil, I will give this a stab, but I'm really rusty at exegesis, so bear with me.  
> 
> I view this as referring to the ocean, seen as a wide expanse from the "ledge" of land. "wide" also seems to denote distance - the ocean being far from Melville's particular "ledge".
> 
> The "dice" of dead sailors indicate chance, and the vagaries of Fortune/Fate that caused their gamble to fail. It also echoes "The Tempest" slightly, and I do mean _slightly_ :"those are pearls that were his eyes/his bones of coral made"(I'm probably misquoting a tetch, as I do this from memory) in that dice were once made of ivory. The bones "bequeath an embassy" - they seem to move across the wide expanse beneath the waves as an ambassador to those on land, to the living. In the next line they "beat upon the dusty shore" - carried along under the waves, but fail in their mission to reach the "ledge" of the land. The use of "dusty" seems to echo "dust to dust" - the bones seem to seek their proper place among the buried , "and were obscured" - returning under the water to the deep expanse they journeyed from, their ambassadorial mission incomplete. The lack of burial and tombstone seems to lend to their being "obscured," due to the absence of a physical memorial.


By Jove, I think you've done it. Thanks.  :Thumbs Up:

----------


## Virgil

> *No man is an island*
> 
> No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
> is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
> if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
> is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
> well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
> own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
> because I am involved in mankind. 
> ...


I have always loved that piece of writing. Fabulous. It doesn't diminish with time.

----------


## RJbibliophil

> The Scales of Justice
> Jeff Mondak
> 
> It's true I've fried a knight or two--
> I left them lightly toasted.
> But dragons' caves are private homes--
> We all have warnings posted.
> 
> We dragons are a peaceful lot--
> ...


Sorry, couldn't resist! 

For Pendragon, the only dragon, knight, and ghost of my acquaintance.  :Wink:

----------


## genoveva

Thank you for those last two poems, especially!

----------


## Virgil

Piglet

That is so cute. It is charming. I hope Pen sees it.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

That's great Piglet! I needed a nice laugh.  :FRlol:  It reminds me of a short story I once wrote from a dragon's eye view.

----------


## RJbibliophil

Thanks, I couldn't resist. I like the last line especially.

I did send it to Pen in a pm.  :Biggrin:

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Since no one has posted yet today. . . 

The Snow Man 
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

----------


## Virgil

Great poem Hyacinth. One of my all time favorites. Do you like Walac Stevens?

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Thanks Hyacinth. That's a great poem. I'm glad it's not winter now as I'm reading this though.  :Wink:

----------


## RJbibliophil

Very nice Hyacinth.  :Biggrin:  It is a poem where rythm and sound is more important than the rhyme. I like that in a poem. 

The meaning here kind of escapes me. Does anyone else understand it? Would it be a snow man, whose mind is made of snow?

----------


## Nightmare9870

Poem for June 14:




> I remember, I remember,
> The house where I was born,
> The little window where the sun
> Came peeping in at morn;
> He never came a wink too soon,
> Nor brought too long a day,
> But now, I often wish the night
> Had borne my breath away!
> 
> ...

----------


## Petrarch's Love

I like the way the memories of childhood are described in this poem. The comparison with the present loss of innocence is perhaps a bit predictable, but still an enjoyable poem.

----------


## RJbibliophil

nice 

nostalgic

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Hello everyone; sorry I haven't replied to you . . they actually expect me to WORK here occasionally! Go figure.


```

Do you like Walac Stevens 


```

 - Yes, Virgil, I do. One of my profs in grad school, Robert Pack, set me on Stevens, and I've been reading him ever since.



```

Would it be a snow man, whose mind is made of snow 


```

 - Piglet, I think that is part of the poems ambiguity at work. I think the "mind of winter" belongs to a snowman, but can also apply to a "snow man" - a man made of snow, or like stuff. In other words, a man of ephemerality with the appearance of substantiality. I think Stevens is using this to articulate the human condition. The term "snow man" also echoes Eliot's "hollow man" in some respects.  :Cold:

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> I like the way the memories of childhood are described in this poem. The comparison with the present loss of innocence is perhaps a bit predictable, but still an enjoyable poem.


I agree, and as a good Wordsworthian, I have to feel sorry for the speaker that cannot recapture some glimmer of the lost child - 

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

----------


## tinwhistler

> I agree, and as a good Wordsworthian, I have to feel sorry for the speaker that cannot recapture some glimmer of the lost child -


This is the loss of memory referred to in my version of "Deep Purple:"

When the purple turtle drowns
And the Irish elf wears browns,
Then the lights begin to dim out from my eye.
With *the loss of my memory*
You color my reverie,
Making me blue,
I know not why.

----------


## tinwhistler

*Ode*

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heav'ns, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim:
Th' unwearied Sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list'ning Earth
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
'The Hand that made us is Divine.'

_Joseph Addison_

----------


## Scheherazade

*Still I Rise*  

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

by Maya Angelou

----------


## Virgil

Well, I had never actually read this poem, although I have heard of it. There are those who scoff at it and those who praise it, and so now that i've read it I've got a right to an opinion. Put me in the camp that thinks it's crap. I'm sorry. I've never read Maya Angelou's poetry, so I will not judge her as a poet, but this poem is very second rate at best. Frankly I'm not sure it's even third rate. And before I get myself in trouble, let me say I in no way am disparaging her theme.

----------


## Pensive

*A New Song By Langston Hughes*
I speak in the name of the black millions 
Awakening to action. 
Let all others keep silent a moment 
I have this word to bring, 
This thing to say, 
This song to sing: 
Bitter was the day 
When I bowed my back 
Beneath the slaver's whip. 
That day is past. 
Bitter was the day 
When I saw my children unschooled, 
My young men without a voice in the world, 
My women taken as the body-toys 
Of a thieving people. 
That day is past. 
Bitter was the day, I say, 
When the lyncher's rope 
Hung about my neck, 
And the fire scorched my feet, 
And the oppressors had no pity, 
And only in the sorrow songs 
Relief was found. 
That day is past. 
I know full well now 
Only my own hands, 
Dark as the earth, 
Can make my earth-dark body free. 
O thieves, exploiters, killers, 
No longer shall you say 
With arrogant eyes and scornful lips: 
"You are my servant, 
Black man- 
I, the free!" 
That day is past- 
For now, 
In many mouths- 
Dark mouths where red tongues burn 
And white teeth gleam- 
New words are formed, 
Bitter 
With the past 
But sweet 
With the dream. 
Tense, 
Unyielding, 
Strongand sure, 
They sweep the earth- 
Revolt! Arise! 
The Black 
And White World 
Shall be one! 
The Worker's World! 
The past is done! 
A new dream flames 
Against the 
Sun!

----------


## RJbibliophil

Very nice Pensy!  :Smile:  This poem has a meaning, a reason to be. This poem wants to help change the world.

----------


## Pensive

Thanks RJ, I love this poem and some of the other poems of Hughes. They are based on opposition to racial discrimination basically. You should check out some others by him as well such as The Negro Speaks. . .

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Wow! What a contrast between the two poems. Nice job Pensive/Scher. When I first read the Angelou poem, I found it attractive, but after reading the Hughes poem, I found the Angelou poem to have a completely different tone than what I had first realized. Both poems are similar as they draw upon the horrors of the past, and emphasize the strength of character found among the descendants of an enslaved people. Angelou's poem seems to mock and berate modern oppressors as well, imaginary or not, and its speaker takes a passive role compared to the Hughes poem. Hughes' speaker chooses to focus upon hope for the future, a hope that is dependent upon the actions of the former slaves, not their former oppressors. Hughes wants the black and white world to unite into a "Workers World" - Angelou seems content to taunt (as well she might) and continue on unbowed instead of working toward a solution. I feel that it is the weaker poem, as both emphasize the endurance of a people, but Hughes' speaker seeks a way to actually end the antagonism.

----------


## Virgil

> I feel, however, that it is the weaker poem, both in structure and in message.


The messages in both are admirable in their own way. The problem I have with the Angelou poem is that it's maudlin number one, but more importantly there are hardly no poetic lines in the entire piece. I like the conceits of the "black ocean" and of the "dust rising." But the rest of the poem is no different than a pop song, and perhaps with the right music this would be an excellent pop song. But as far as poetry goes, it's quite limited. In my humble (are any of my opinions humble?  :Wink:  ) opinion.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> The messages in both are admirable in their own way


I agree Virgil, that both carry an admirable message (see my edited post), I just feel that Angelou undermines herself by "maudlin", to use your own term, navel-gazing. I do not say this to disparage her message or her poem, but her message seems to say, "Whatever you do to me, I will continue to rise up" - an admirable message. Hughes, however, says, "We were slaves, now we are free, and we will use that freedom to our advantage, not just to prove our strength, but to also work towards an understanding". I think Angelou's failure to reach out for a solution that does not involve just endurance, but acceptance "weakens" her message. 
*Note: I use the authors' names, but I mean "speakers"  :Biggrin:

----------


## ShoutGrace

> I think Angelou's failure to reach out for a solution that does not involve just endurance, but acceptance "weakens" her message.


I think so too. Perhaps the implication is there, but she doesn't actually say it. If she (the oppressed African American peoples?) merely continues to rise again and again while she keeps getting trounced upon, what is the poem really saying? 

Though she does at one point in the poem say that



> I am the dream and the hope of the slave.


I like the Hughes poem because I can identify it's themes easier; though I'm not sure if that is just because they are stereotypical.



> Bitter was the day, I say, 
> When the lyncher's rope 
> Hung about my neck, 
> And the fire scorched my feet, 
> And the oppressors had no pity, 
> *And only in the sorrow songs 
> Relief was found.*


I didn't really relate to the oil pumps and gold mines in Angelou's poem . . . she's saying that despite getting grieved and oppressed she will present/employ/exert/conduct herself as if she had . . . . money?

Besides which, I really like African American Gospel music, and oral traditions.

I think that the Hughes poem had a lot more imagery that made it better for me personally.




> Dark mouths where red tongues burn 
> And white teeth gleam- 
> New words are formed, 
> Bitter 
> With the past 
> But sweet 
> With the dream.

----------


## Virgil

> but her message seems to say, "Whatever you do to me, I will continue to rise up" - an admirable message. Hughes, however, says, "We were slaves, now we are free, and we will use that freedom to our advantage, not just to prove our strength, but to also work towards an understanding". I think Angelou's failure to reach out for a solution that does not involve just endurance, but acceptance "weakens" her message.


In all fairness to Angelou, this is but one lyric poem not a comprehensive opus that explores various aspects of the African-American experience. Perhaps she has a simliar theme to Hughes' poem elsewhere, but a simple lyric poem focuses on one emotion not several and this is what she chooses for this one poem. I just don't think it's well done.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> I all fairness to Angelou, this is but one lyric poem not a comprehensive opus that explores various aspects of the African-American experience.


Again, Virgil, I agree with you. This is simply one poem of many in Angelou's collection. My point is that when comparing the two works, Angelou's falls short in scope (and in my opinion, hope) by comparison. That is why I say that particular poem is weaker than Hughes' in both structure and message. Her work as a whole, however, does not necessarily do so. 

Besides, what do I know, I'm a Ren scholar!  :FRlol:

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Since no one has posted a new poem in a couple days, here is one that I have been pondering of late:

Solitude
George Gordon, Lord Byron

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

----------


## Reason is a cow

:Wink:  awesome.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> awesome.


Thank you. . . the university really TRIED to brainwash me into being a Romantic!  :Brow:

----------


## Pensive

Edits: Poem Deleted. Didn't think about the rule while posting:

The same person can't post within five days.

----------


## Psycheinaboat

Ooh, can I post one? I don't think I ever have.

*Poetry*
*By Marianne Moore* 


I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all 
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one 
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become 
unintelligible, 
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of 
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

----------


## Virgil

Oh I lve this poem Psyche. Great choice. I love these lines:




> the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
> do not admire what
> we cannot understand: the bat
> holding on upside down or in quest of something to
> 
> eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
> under
> a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
> feels a
> ...

----------


## fitzgolden

My first posting on this thread: 

I'm not a great Plath fan, but I love this one





> Mirror 
> 
> I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
> Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
> Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
> I am not cruel, only truthful 
> The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
> Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
> It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
> ...

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

This is one of my favorite things by Plath.
I especially like the closing lines: 




> In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
> Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.


In my reading, not only do these lines represent the passage of time and the tragedy of aging, but they make the woman complicit in her own aging by the drowning of the young girl of her youth. The poem, in some respects, warns others of the peril they face by allowing the "terrible fish" of the old woman to rise unchallenged and drowning the image of their youth. The mirror/lake must tell the truth - it cannot hide age, but allowing youth to "drown" creates a permanent state that is not only physical, but mental as well. 

Ever since reading this poem for the first time I have made it a point not to drown my "young girl" by mooning beside a lake, or by suppressing her thoughts. Instead I seek each day to make her live, at least for a moment, whether by the twinkle in my eye, or a laugh at the beauty of the morning. My mirror/lake may show the rise of the "terrible fish" of age, but it also reveals the young girl and the old woman meeting and having a cup of tea.

I think that Plath was warning us about the death of youth, of joy, and of naivite, all through the construct of a mirror/lake that is objective in a way that other human beings can never be ("I have no preconceptions/ Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.")

----------


## Madhuri

Where the Mind is Without Fear -- Rabindranath Tagore

This poem is from Tagore's book named Gitanjali (Offering of Songs)

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high 
Where knowledge is free 
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments 
By narrow domestic walls 
Where words come out from the depth of truth 
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection 
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit 
Where the mind is led forward by thee 
Into ever-widening thought and action 
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Lovely poem Madhuri, full of longing and hope

----------


## Madhuri

It was written during Indian freedom struggle, that is why it portrays the hope Tagore had and the land he wanted after freedom.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

And yet it is relevant in today's society as well . . . it should be the goal of every country to achieve that kind of "heaven of freedom" (I'm going to stop there before this heads into the taboo realm of politics! :Biggrin: )
I especially like the lines: "Where the world has not been broken up into fragments/
By narrow domestic walls" - I think that can apply to a country being isolated from the world, but it also applies on the level of the individual. That feeling of isolation, of a fragmentary world seems to be a part of modern existence that we are constantly trying to overcome.

----------


## Madhuri

In some way or the other in today's times as well, we are forever wanting to gain freedom from the boundaries set by others, or our surroundings, forever trying to create that heaven of freedom.

The idea behind posting it was not politics, but as Hayacinth rightly interpreted, its relevance in our lives.

----------


## genoveva

*1909*

The lady's dress was
Of purple corded silk
And her gold-broidered tunic
Was formed of two panels
Fitted at the shoulder

Her eyes danced like angels
She laughed she laughed
Her face showed France's colors
Blue eyes white teeth and lips of scarlet
Her face showed France's colors

Her dress was scooped low front and back
Her hair was waved a la Recamier
And O the fair bare arms she had

Will midnight never toll the hour

The lady clad in the purple corded silk
And the gold-broidered tunic
Scooped low front and back
Tossed her curls
Her gold bandeau
And trailed wee buckled shoes

She was so beautiful
You wouldn't have dared love her

I used to love dreadful women in crowded slums
Where each day a few new creatures were born
Iron was their blood and flame their brain
I loved I loved the clever tribe of machines
Luxury and beauty are only their spume
That woman was so beautiful
She frightened me

_~Guillaume Apollinaire_
(translated by Anne Hyde Greet)

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

That was lovely. . . I haven't read Apollinaire in a long time, and this has spurred me on to pulling him out and reading him again. Thank you.

I really enjoy the juxtaposition of ethereal woman (purple silk, bare arms and wavy hair) and the terrestrial one (iron, flame, machine). While one would imagine from the speaker's description that the lady in silk would be the object of desire, the expectation is dashed, and the "dreadful" women of earthiness, of industry and its slums, are the chosen. They are loved, and they remain, while "Luxury and beauty are only their spume" to be discarded and feared.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

I also enjoyed reading the Apollinaire again. I was wondering, Genoveva (or anyone else for that matter), do you have it in the original french and could post that? I've read it before in translation, but always wondered what the original sounds like.

----------


## genoveva

> I was wondering, Genoveva (or anyone else for that matter), do you have it in the original french and could post that? I've read it before in translation, but always wondered what the original sounds like.


*1909*

La dame avait une robe
En ottoman violine
Et sa tunique brodee d'or
Etait composee de deux panneaux
S'attachant sur l'epaule

Les yeux dansants comme des anges
Elle riait elle riait
Elle avait un visage aux couleurs de France
Les yeux bleus les dents blanches et les levres tres rouges
Elle avait un visage aux couleurs de France

Elle etait decolletee en rond
Et coiffee a la Recamier
Avec de beaux bras nus

N'etendra-t-on jamais sonner minuit

La dame en robe d'ottoman violine
Et en tunique brodee d'or
Decolletee en rond
Promenait ses boucles
Son bandeau l'or
Et trainait ses petits souliers a boucles

Elle etait si belle
Que tu n'aurais pas ose l'aimer

_(apologies for not knowing French, nor knowing how to insert French punctuation on my computer. Hope it makes sense nonetheless!)_  :Blush:

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Merci Beaucoup Genoveva. Yes, it makes perfect sense, but the last stanza was missing. I managed to finally track it down online, so here's just the last stanza (which is great in the french) for those who can read it:

J'aimais les femmes atroces dans les quartiers énormes
O naissaient chaque jour quelques êtres nouveaux
Le fer était leur sang la flamme leur cerveau
J'aimais j'aimais le peuple habile Des machines
Le luxe et la beauté NE sont que son cume
Cette femme était si belle
Qu'elle me faisait peur.

----------


## genoveva

Whoops- yep, forgot to flip the page!

----------


## RJbibliophil

Interesting poem (the english one, that is). Thank you!

----------


## Virgil

Today's poem of the day, "London" by William Blake. I think this is a great poem




> *London*by William Blake
> 
> I wander through each chartered street,
> Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
> A mark in every face I meet,
> Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
> 
> In every cry of every man,
> In every infant's cry of fear,
> ...

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Every time I read this poem it seems even more grimly well written to me. It's so powerful the way the sounds of poverty take on a life of their own, becoming physically manifested in the world around them. Sighs become blood, the harlot's cries become blight and plague etc. The most (justifiably) famous phrase is, of course the "mind-forged manacles." This poem is so effective in conveying the way external ugliness comes from within the human mind and soul.

----------


## Virgil

Frankly this is one of the most perfect poems I have ever read. The words just interconnect so beautifully: "chartered" with "marks" (as in marking a map) with the city of London with "mind" (which contains the internal map of the city) with "streets." "Marks of woe" with all the curses and plague and tears; "cry with "sigh" with appall. And how we go from infant to marriage to hearse. "Blackening" with "midnight". And these are great lines:



> And the hapless soldier's sigh
> Runs in blood down palace-walls.


Such a jump in thought from a simple sigh to a bloody revolution, a revoluton that could be just around the corner.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Here is my all-time favorite Langston Hughes poem:

THEME FOR ENGLISH B
By Langston Hughes
The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true. 

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

1951

----------


## Pensive

Great Poem, Hyacinth! I always like Hughes's poetry!

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Thank you. . . I enjoy him immensely. What I appreciate most about his poetry, especially this poem, is his acknowledgment of race and the inherent tensions between them, yet he constantly seeks for some sort of resolution, as in:




> Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
> Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
> But we are, that's true!
> As I learn from you,
> I guess you learn from me---

----------


## Virgil

Great poem Hyacinth. Hughes must of went to the same college as me, City College of New York.



> ...then here
> to this college on the hill above Harlem.
> I am the only colored student in my class.
> The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
> through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
> Eighth Avenue, Seventh,


I know exactly where he's talking about!

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> Great poem Hyacinth. Hughes must of went to the same college as me, City College of New York.
> 
> I know exactly where he's talking about!


I'm glad you liked it Virgil.  :Smile: 

Isn't that wonderful when you can connect a certain place with a poem? I feel the same way about Sherman Alexie's poetry. When he talks about Worley, or Coeur d'Alene, I get a kind of electric thrill of recognition.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Great poem, Hyacinth. Thanks for posting it. I enjoyed reading it again.

----------


## genoveva

Like a mountain whirlwind
punishing the oak trees,
love shattered my heart.

~Sappho

----------


## Virgil

That's almost like a Haiku.

----------


## ShoutGrace

In Three Days
Robert Browning

I.
SO, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn,
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,
Only a touch and we combine!

II.
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hands-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So lifes night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?

III.
O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Out-breaking into fairy sparks,
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Thro lights and darks how manifold
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowned the gold.

IV.
What great fearshould one say, Three days
That change the world might change as well
Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell!
What small fearif another says,
Three days and one short night beside
May throw no shadow on your ways;
But years must teem with change untried,
With chance not easily defied,
With an end somewhere undescried.
No fear!or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night, now the nights are short,
Then just two hours, and that is morn.

----------


## ShoutGrace

MEETING AT NIGHT
Robert Browning (1812-1889)

I. 

The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

II. 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating, each to each!

----------


## Virgil

Very nice Shoutgrace. You must be reading a bit of Robert Browning lately.

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Hi Shoutgrace.  :Wave:  Yes, thanks for the Browning. I hadn't read "Meeting at Night " before. I like it.

----------


## ShoutGrace

........

----------


## Virgil

Since we are discussing Stevens on the Poem of the Week thread, how about another Stevens here. 




> *Bantams in Pine-Woods*  
> by Wallace Stevens 
> 
> 
> Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
> Of tan with henna hackles, halt!
> 
> Damned universal ****, as if the sun
> Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.
> ...


I don't claim to understand it, but I think it's a fun one.

edit: Oh, I see lit net has interpreted a word to be a naughty one. It is not a dirty word as Stevens is using it. The word is c0ck, a synonym for rooster, and thats how Stevens is using it.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

I love this poem, Virgil. I crack up every time I read it. In my mind I see this big strutting rooster and a little bristly caterpillar daring the rooster to "come and get me". he he he  :Biggrin:

----------


## ShoutGrace

Thomas Carew

'Song' 

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, 
When June is past, the fading rose; 
For in your beauty's orient deep 
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep. 

Ask me no more whither do stray 
The golden atoms of the day; 
For in pure love heaven did prepare 
Those powders to enrich your hair. 

Ask me no more whither doth haste 
The nightingale when May is past; 
For in your sweet dividing throat 
She winters and keeps warm her note. 

Ask me no more where those stars 'light 
That downwards fall in dead of night; 
For in your eyes they sit, and there 
Fixèd become as in their sphere. 

Ask me no more if east or west 
The Phoenix builds her spicy nest; 
For unto you at last she flies, 
And in your fragrant bosom dies.




> Widely popular, and several times set to music, this poem exists in a variety of different forms and presentations.

----------


## water lily

To understand this poem, you must be familiar with Andrew Marvel's "To His Coy Mistress" 

His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell 

Since you have world enough and time
Sir, to admonish me in rhyme,
Pray Mr Marvell, can it be
You think to have persuaded me?
Then let me say: you want the art
To woo, much less to win my heart.
The verse was splendid, all admit,
And, sir, you have a pretty wit.
All that indeed your poem lacked
Was logic, modesty, and tact,
Slight faults and ones to which I own,
Your sex is generally prone;
But though you lose your labour, I
Shall not refuse you a reply:

First, for the language you employ:
A term I deprecate is "coy";
The ill-bred miss, the bird-brained Jill,
May simper and be coy at will;
A lady, sir, as you will find,
Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind,
Means what she says and scorns to fence
And palter with feigned innocence.

The ambiguous "mistress" next you set
Beside this graceless epithet.
"Coy mistress", sir? Who gave you leave
To wear my heart upon your sleeve?
Or to imply, as sure you do,
I had no other choice than you
And must remain upon the shelf
Unless I should bestir myself?
Shall I be moved to love you, pray,
By hints that I must soon decay?
No woman's won by being told
How quickly she is growing old;
Nor will such ploys, when all is said,
Serve to stampede us into bed.

When from pure blackmail, next you move
To bribe or lure me into love,
No less inept, my rhyming friend,
Snared by the means, you miss your end.
"Times winged chariot", and the rest
As poetry may pass the test;
Readers will quote those lines, I trust,
Till you and I and they are dust;
But I, your destined prey, must look
Less at the bait than at the hook,
Nor, when I do, can fail to see
Just what it is you offer me:
Love on the run, a rough embrace
Snatched in the fury of the chase,
The grave before us and the wheels
Of Time's grim chariot at our heels,
While we, like "am'rous birds of prey",
Tear at each other by the way.

To say the least, the scene you paint
Is, what you call my honour, quaint!
And on this point what prompted you
So crudely, and in public too,
To canvass and , indeed, make free
With my entire anatomy?
Poets have licence, I confess,
To speak of ladies in undress;
Thighs, hearts, brows, breasts are well enough,
In verses this is common stuff;
But -- well I ask: to draw attention
To worms in -- what I blush to mention,
And prate of dust upon it too!
Sir, was this any way to woo?

Now therefore, while male self-regard
Sits on your cheek, my hopeful bard,
May I suggest, before we part,
The best way to a woman's heart
Is to be modest, candid, true;
Tell her you love and show you do;
Neither cajole nor condescend
And base the lover on the friend;
Don't bustle her or fuss or snatch:
A suitor looking at his watch
Is not a posture that persuades
Willing, much less reluctant maids.

Remember that she will be stirred
More by the spirit than the word;
For truth and tenderness do more
Than coruscating metaphor.
Had you addressed me in such terms
And prattled less of graves and worms,
I might, who knows, have warmed to you;
But, as things stand, must bid adieu
(Though I am grateful for the rhyme)
And wish you better luck next time.

-- A. D. Hope

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Water Lily--I hadn't seen that one before. It's great.  :FRlol:  Maybe I should pass a copyof this out to my classes when I teach the Marvel.  :Biggrin:  I found these lines particularly pithy and amusing:




> A suitor looking at his watch
> Is not a posture that persuades
> Willing, much less reluctant maids.

----------


## water lily

Lol, I know. It's hilarious. I was so pleasant to stumble upon.

----------


## Scheherazade

*Te Deum* 

Not because of victories 
I sing, 
having none, 
but for the common sunshine, 
the breeze, 
the largess of the spring. 

Not for victory 
but for the day's work done 
as well as I was able; 
not for a seat upon the dais 
but at the common table. 

by Charles Reznikoff

----------


## Dolwen

May I post a poem? If I did this wrong, I am sorry-I haven't been on the forum very long.

THE LAPSE OF TIME

Lament who will, in fruitless tears,
The speed with which our moments fly:
I sigh not over vanished years,
But watch the years that hasten by.

Look, how they come,-a mingled crowd
Of bright and dark, but rapid days;
Beneath them, like a summer cloud,
The wide world changes as I gaze.

What! grieve that time has brought so soon
The sober age of manhood on?
As idly might I weep, at noon,
To see the blush of morning gone.

Could I give up the hopes that glow
In prospect, like the Elysian isles;
And let the charming future go,
With all her promises and smiles?

The future!-cruel were the power
Whose doom would tear the from my heart
Thou sweetener of the present hour!
We cannot-no-we will not part.

Oh,leave me, still the rapid flight
That makes the changing seasons gay,
The grateful speed that brings the night,
The swift and glad return of day;

The months that touch with added grace,
This little prattler on my knee,
In whose arch eye and speaking face
New meaning every hour I see;

The years, that o'er each sister land
Shall lift the country of my birth
And nurse her strength, till she shall stand
The pride and pattern of the earth;

Till younger commonwealths, for aid,
Shall cling about her ample robe,
And from her frown shall shrink afraid
The crowned oppressors of the globe.

True,- time will seam and blanch my brow-
Well- I shall sit with aged men,
And my good glass will tell me how
A grizzly beard becomes me then

And should no foul dishonor lie
Upon my head, when I am gray,
Love yet shall watch my fading eye,
And smooth the path of my decay.

Then, haste thee, Time- 'tis kindness all
That speeds thy winged feet so fast;
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,
And all thy pains are quickly past.

Thou fliest and bearst away our woes,
And as thy shadowy train depart,
The memory of sorrow grows
A lighter burden on the heart.

By William Cullen Bryant

I like that he has this optimistic view of time, without being all bouncy and giddy

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

FERN HILL
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the **** on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Dylan Thomas

----------


## Virgil

This will be my 5000th post. For this milestone, how about a loving poem to a Papa since I've spent the last few days with my Papa.





> *My Papa's Waltz* by Thoedore Roethke
> 
> The whiskey on your breath
> Could make a small boy dizzy;
> But I hung on like death:
> Such waltzing was not easy.
> 
> We romped until the pans
> Slid from the kitchen shelf;
> ...

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Congrats on the 5000 posts Virg. Maybe you'll make 10,000 posts before the count to 10,000 game is over.  :Biggrin:  I like the poem. Thanks for sharing it. I hope your Papa is doing well.

----------


## mono

Happy 5,000th post, Virgil.  :Wink: 



> My Papa's Waltz by Thoedore Roethke
> 
> The whiskey on your breath
> Could make a small boy dizzy;
> But I hung on like death:
> Such waltzing was not easy.
> 
> We romped until the pans
> Slid from the kitchen shelf;
> ...


I have read this Roethke poem many times, and believe it has much more depth than from the first read. The first time I read it, a former poetry instructor had her students read it and analyze it in class.
With the use of Roethke's language, several students felt confused, wondering if the narrator of the poem experienced abuse, hence some of the awkward sentences and terms, such as 'I hung on like death,' 'we romped,' 'the hand that held my wrist / was battered on one knuckle,' 'my ear scraped a buckle,' and 'beat time on my head.' I never agreed with this interpretation, but tossed it around in my head; unfortunately, the only proof I could provide relied on the sentence 'my mother's countenance / could not unfrown itself.' The amibiguity of language really always confused me; I would like to think that the more awkward sentences and vocabulary more referred to the lack of grace during intoxication ('the whiskey on your breath'), to phrase the term nicely. Needless to say, I have always loved the poem, and enjoy analyzing such debatable poems.  :Smile:

----------


## Virgil

You know, there is both love and a sense of danger associated with the Papa in the poem. I never took it as abuse, but I guess the line "You beat time on my head" may lead you to think it.

Thanks Mono and Petrarch.

----------


## stlukesguild

Since there has been a posting upon sonnets which it must be admitted slipped into a series of digressions, I thought I would post this sonnet which in a truly Post-Modern, self-referential manner refers to or imagines the very birth of the form:

He looks over the laborious drafts
of that first sonnet (still to be so called),
the random scribbles clustering the page-
triads, quatrains promiscuously scrawled.
Slowly he smoothes down angularities,
then stops. Has some faint music reached his sense,
notes of far-off nightingales relayed
out of an awesome future ages hence?
Has he realized that he is not alone
and that Apollo, unbelievably arcane,
has made an archetype within him sing-
one crystal-clear and eager to absorb
whatever night conceals or day unveils:
labyrinths, mazes, enigmas, Oedipus King?

Jorge Luis Borges
tr. Alan S. Trueblood

Borges' poetry deals with many of the same themes as his "fictions": eternity, oblivion, the beginings and the ends, the labyrinths of human knowledge and understanding, the greater labyrinth of human ignorance... and always: books.

----------


## Virgil

Thanks, St Lukes. I thought that was interesting. I'm not familiar with Borges's poetry.

----------


## genoveva

Thank you, I love Borges and didn't realize he wrote sonnets!

----------


## stlukesguild

Actually, Borges wrote quite a few sonnets... especially collected in the book of poems entitled, _The Self and the Other_ (1964). My personal favorite collection of Borges' work is _El hacedor_ ("The Maker"), which is published in the US as _Dreamtigers_. It's an very thin book, very difficult to describe: a collection of poems, aphorisms, meditations, fictions, etc...

----------


## Petrarch's Love

Thanks for posting this one, SLG. I enjoyed Borges' probing into sonnetary origins.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Thanks for posting the Borges, SLG - I'm actually reading _Ficciones_ right now, so great timing!  :Wink:

----------


## Virgil

How about a John Donne Sonnet for poem of the day.




> *Batter My Heart* by John Donne
> 
> Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
> As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
> That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
> Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
> I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
> Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
> Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
> ...

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

This is my favorite of the Holy Sonnets - thank you for posting it Virgil.
I love it because in it we see the old Johnny. . . bold, sensual, vigorous. Here is no pompous dean, but a man in thrall to his old self, using the vocabulary he knows best and applying it to his faith. Granted, Theresa of Avila also used highly sexual language when describing her ecstasies, and the use of contradictory imagery or ideas like being frozen by the fire of a woman's eyes was typical of sonnets, but I think the conceit of Donne as a beseiged city and then a woman to be kidnapped and ravished by a deity is quite unusual.

----------


## Virgil

Yes, I would agree with all you say, Hyacinth. I would also add we see the typical Donne meter, that is to say he is purposely unconventional.

----------


## Flint

"Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by the fate, on the just day.
Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?---
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much."



I think that this poem should be relatively simple. I know from previous observance that "child of my right hand" is the literal meaning of the sons name in Hebrew, and that his paying on the "just day" means that the son died on his birthday.

I have superficial trouble with the last two lines though . . . . he doesn't want to "like too much" the things that he "loves"? He even makes "all his vows" to that end.  :Confused:

----------


## Jean-Baptiste

Very nice selection, Flint. I think you're right about the last lines, in that he perhaps feels guilty, or selfish about liking the thing that he loves. Take the clue in the second line; he feels that he should have been contented with love, but made something more of the father son relationship. Perhaps he regrets the "sin" of pride, which a father often commits for a son. In any case, it seems to me that he will not make the mistake again. Pitty.

----------


## fitzgolden

I like this, by New Zealand poet James K. Baxter:





> A Pair of Sandals
> 
> A pair of sandals, old black pants
> And leather coat  I must go, my friends,
> Into the dark, the cold, the first beginning
> Where the ribs of the ancestor are the rafters
> Of a meeting house  windows broken
> And the floor white with bird dung  in there
> The ghosts gather who will instruct me
> ...


Hemi (James in Maaori) was a devout Catholic who tried to follow Jesus' example in giving most of his possessions away and living an abstemious life.  I find several of the images in this poem very evocative - the meeting house where the rafters are the "ribs of the ancestor", and where the "ghosts gather" over a "floor white with bird dung."

----------


## Virgil

Very nice, Fitz. I think it's a marvelous poem. I have never heard of Baxter, or any New Zealand poet for that matter. Is there a translation to the foreign language lines, which I assume are in Maaori? They are centered at the heart of the poem and I gather are central.

----------


## fitzgolden

Thank you Virgil - I'm very glad you like it  :Biggrin:  The line is the Maaori rendition of the English line which follows: The sun which is godlike.

I shall have to look out some more Baxter poems - he is one of my favourite modern poets.

----------


## ShoutGrace

The twilight turns from amethyst
To deep and deeper blue,
The lamp fills with pale green glow
The trees of the avenue.

The old piano plays an air,
Sedate and slow and gay;
She bends upon the yellow keys,
Her heads inclines this way.

Shy thoughts and grave wide eyes and hands
That wander as they list---
The twilight turns to darker blue
With lights of amethyst.


_Jame Joyce_

----------


## Nightwalk

*Unfinished Poem* 

IV

It's already past one. You'll have gone to bed.
In the night, a silvery river is the Milky Way.
I'm not in a hurry, and there's no need
to disturb you with the lightning of my cables.
Besides, as they say, the incident is closed.
The ship of love has foundered on life's reef.
You and I are even. And why should we list
our mutual grievances, our hurts, our griefs.
See how still the world has grown.
Night has laid the sky under a tribute of stars.
In such an hour as this, one may rise and address
the ages, history, the universe.

- Vladimir Mayakovsky ( 1893 - 1930 )

_Translation from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort_

----------


## Jean-Baptiste

Congratulations, ShoutGrace, I've never considered James Joyce much of a poet, though I love his prose, but you've posted my favorite of his poems. 

Nightwalk, this is a very lonesome poem. Are many of Mayakovsky's poems like that? I'll have to look into it. Very good selection.

I take it, the theme for today is night. Excellent, but that will have to wait.

----------


## Nightwalk

Hello Jean-Baptiste. Yes, it's one of Mayakovsky's most sombre and stirring lyrics. In fact, he included a few lines of the poem in his suicide note.

Mayakovsky's poetry was a contrast between the experimental and the lyrical. He was one of the founders and leaders of the Futurist movement in pre-WW1 Russia. But he was also noted for his verses on love and loneliness. He was said to have mocked the poetry of Anna Akhmatova in public but read her love poems in secret.

Here is a link to the best compilation of Mayakovsky's works in English.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/025...e=UTF8&s=books

----------


## Jean-Baptiste

Very interesting; I'll have to pick it up. Thanks, Nightwalk.

Here's my selection for today:

_PAGANIS, NOVEMBER 8_ 
by Ezra Pound

"Suddenly discovering in the eyes of the very beautiful 
Normande cocotte
The eyes of the very learned British Museum assistant."

----------


## ShoutGrace

U.S. 1946

Having invented a new Holocaust,
And been the first with it to win a war,
How they make haste to cry with fingers crossed,
King's X -- no fairs to use it anymore!

by Robert Frost

----------


## genoveva

_Seizure_

To me he seems like a god
the man who sits facing you
and hears you near as you speak
softly and laugh

in a sweet echo that jolts
the heart in my ribs. For now
as I look at you my voice
is empty and

can say nothing as my tongue 
cracks and slender fire is quick
under my skin. My eyes are dead
to light, my ears

pound, and sweat pours over me.
I convulse, greener than grass,
and feel my mind slip as I
go close to death,

yet I must suffer all things,
being poor.

_Sappho_

----------


## mono

Thank you for posting more poetry by Sappho, genoveva - lovely, lovely.  :Nod: 
Besides writing very early in the history of poetry, few poets of her era, location, and culture wrote with the immense passion as she did.
This particular poem, I think I read in a different translation, as it looks familiar from somewhere; it has elements of both anger and sadness, I think, and a bit of shame. Why she mentions her poverty, however, I cannot understand, since she married, allegedly, a wealthy merchant of some kind - perhaps a different kind of poverty to this 'man who seems like a god'?

----------


## genoveva

> Why she mentions her poverty, however, I cannot understand, since she married, allegedly, a wealthy merchant of some kind - perhaps a different kind of poverty to this 'man who seems like a god'?


Good point. Most undoubtedly the translation of "being poor" does not refer to financials in my opinion. Btw, that translation was by Willis Barnstone.

Here is another translation by Mary Barnard where she omits the ending lines which must be fragmented:

_He is more than a hero_

He is a god in my eyes-
the man who is allowed 
to sit beside you- he

who listens intimately 
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing

laughter that makes my own 
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't

speak- my tongue is broken;
a think flame runs under 
my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me

----------


## genoveva

Here's a third translation by Jim Powell who translates very close to Greek without conjecturing missing parts. The ending line is very interesting in comparing it to the first, Willis Barnstone translation. The ending bracket shows where the original papyrus text was ripped; hence, missing pieces of the poem!

In my eyes he matches the gods, that man who
sits there facing you- any man whatever-
listening from closeby to the sweetness of your
voice as you talk, the

sweetness of your laughter; yes, that- I swear it-
sets the heart to shaking inside my breast, since
once I look at you for a moment, I can't 
speak any longer,

but my tongue breaks down, and then all at once a
subtle fire races inside my skin, my
eyes can't see a thing and a whirring whistle 
thrums at my hearing,

cold sweat covers me and a trembling takes
ahold of me all over: I'm greener than the
grass is and appear to myself to be a little
short of dying.

But all must be endured, since even a poor [

----------


## Basil

*Piazza Piece*

I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all,
They want the young men's whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what gray man among the vines is this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

_John Crowe Ransom_

----------


## Jean-Baptiste

:FRlol:  That's good stuff, Basil. I've been thinking of looking into John Crowe Ransom, just because I like his name. This poem gives me a creepy feeling. I don't know which character to feel sorry for. Thanks for posting.

----------


## zanyzenni

That is an interesting poem. They way he gives the perspective of the two charecters almost creates two stories. This poem feels like it is emphasising the basis of love on external charectaristics. Also the idealistic ideas behind finding your true love especialy seen with the young beuty.
Beutifull poem, nice selection. I havent heard of John Crow Ransom before.

----------


## Nightwalk

howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
Who still considers himself very likeable

- Tristan Tzara ( 1896 - 1963 )

_Translation from the French by Barbara Wright_

----------


## Scheherazade

> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> howl howl howl howl howl howl howl howl
> ...


That must have been a toughie to translate!  :Tongue: 


As for today... Quite possibly I have posted this poem somewhere before as it is one of my favorites but it sums up my mood well today so... Here we go again:


*The World is Too Much With Us* 

The World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

-- William Wordsworth

----------


## Virgil

Lovely choice, Scher. That's an old favorite of mine.

----------


## Riesa

> As for today... Quite possibly I have posted this poem somewhere before as it is one of my favorites but it sums up my mood well today so... Here we go again:
> 
> 
> *The World is Too Much With Us* 
> 
> The World is too much with us; late and soon,
> Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
> Little we see in Nature that is ours;
> We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
> ...


hey, that fits my mood today too. 

what really gets me right now is: 

"are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers, 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not."

great choice, Scher.

----------


## Nightwalk

from *The Dramatic Symphony*

1. The by-street was bathed in sun. The road was turning white. In place of the sky there hung a gigantic turquoise.

2. The neo-classical house had six columns, and on the six columns stood six white, stone maidens.

3. The stone maidens had six stone cushions on their heads, and the cornice of the house rested on the cushions.

4. In the little asphalt courtyard stood a pile of damp red sand.

5. Blond-curled children played on the pile of sand dressed in sailors' jackets with red anchors.

6. They sank their little hands into the cold sand and threw the sand in handfuls over the dry asphalt.

7. On top of the pile of sand stood a little boy; his face was austere and thoughtful. His deep blue eyes absorbed the colour of the sky. His curly hair was soft as flax and tumbled in dreamy waves onto his shoulders.

8. With austere authority the little boy held in his hands an iron piston, found heaven knows where. The child was beating his little sisters with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter breaking them to shivers.

9. His little sisters squealed and threw handfuls of sand at the despot.

10. With austere authority the boy wiped the red sand from his face and looked thoughtfully up at the turquoise of the sky as he leaned on his rod.

11. Then suddenly he abandoned his iron piston, leaped from the pile of sand and ran along the asphalt courtyard, crying out joyfully.

12. A cab carried Leavenovsky by. Leavenovsky was proceeding to the fair-haired prophet to talk about general mysteries.


1. A monk was walking along a fashionable street. His head-dress rose high above his lean face.

2. He wore a silver cross and walked quickly through the festive crowd.

3. His black beard reached down to his waist; it began right beneath his eyes.

4. His eyes were sad and mournful despite the fact that it was Whitsunday.

5. Suddenly the monk stopped and spat superstitiously. A malicious smile twisted his austere features.

6. This happened because the cynical mystic had uttered yet another new thought, and it had been published in _Polar Patterns_.


1. Prophets and prelates had been on display in the window of an art shop on Kuznetsky Bridge Street.

2. And the prophets appeared to be shouting from behind the glass windows, stretching their bare hands towards the street, shaking their sorrowful heads.

3. The prelates, however, looked serene and smiled quietly, hiding a crafty grin in their whiskers.

4. People clustered by the windows with wide-open mouths.


1. Golden streams of light flooded into the windows of the decadent house.

2. They fell on a mirror. The mirror reflected the next room. From where the sound of suppressed sobbing could be heard.

3. In the middle of the flowers and silk stood the fairy-tale who had turned very pale. Her reddish hair gleamed in the gold of the sun and her pale violet dress was covered with white irises.

4. She had found out at the festival of flowers about the death of the dreamer, and now the orphaned fairy-tale was wringing her slender white hands.

5. Her coral-coloured lips trembled and silver pearls ran down her pale marble cheeks, freezing in the irises pinned to her breast.

6. She stood distraught and weeping, looking out of the window.

7. And from the window the mad dawn laughed at her tears, as it burnt through a jasper-coloured cloud.

8. The fairy-tale's tears were futile because the time of democrats was passing.

9. The wave of time had washed away the dreamer, had borne him away to eternal rest.

10. This is what the mad dawn told her, laughing to the point of exhaustion, and the fairy-tale wept over the scattered irises.

11. And ... in the next ... room stood the shattered centaur. He had entered this room ... and seen the reflection of his nymph.

12. He stood there stunned, not believing the looking-glass reflection, not daring to verify the perfidious mirror.

13. Two sorrowful wrinkles creased the brow of the good-natured centaur, and he pulled pensively at his elegant beard.

14. Then he quietly left the room.

- Andrey Bely ( 1880 - 1934 )

_Translation from the Russian by Roger and Angela Keys_

----------


## Anonymous Angel

> I'm not too sure about Cummings myself. He seems a bit clever-clever and lacking in real emotional depth. Although I haven't read a lot of his work, just odd poems in anthologies. I know you like him a lot Scher, perhaps you could recommend some titles that would prove me wrong.



I'm not quite sure he's lacking in emotional depth, I just wonder whether his view of life might have been a bit different. I know he seems clever, but I think some of his thoughts betray a creativity that's certainly missing sometimes from a lot of modern poetry. Anyway, he's not one of my favorite poets, but I do like him. One of his poems I've always liked is "Who Knows?" I don't know. Just the thought of the moon being a balloon coming out of a keen city in the sky makes me want to smile

----------


## Basil

*Naming the Stars*

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

_Joyce Sutphen_

----------


## Virgil

Nice poem Basil. I don't know Joyce Sutphen. Last stanza is fabulous.

----------


## Scheherazade

> *Naming the Stars*
> 
> This present tragedy will eventually
> turn into myth, and in the mist
> of that later telling the bell tolling
> now will be a symbol, or, at least,
> a sign of something long since lost.
> 
> This will be another one of those
> ...


Hadn't read this poem before (nor am I familiar with Joyce Sutphen) but I love it, Basil. I cannot claim to have understood it all especially in relation to the title but I still like its overall meaning and flow. Thank you for posting it!  :Smile: 


> Nice poem Basil. I don't know Joyce Sutphen. Last stanza is fabulous.


The second one is my favorite.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

Wonderful poem - I really like the mist of time obscuring the present and turning it into something meaningful and resonant, yet an abstract of that actual present. To me, it speaks of the power of imagination, the fluidity of meaning and reality, and yet, hints at the importance inherent in everything, even if that importance is unintentional. 
Plus, the language just gives me goosebumps.  :Biggrin:

----------


## Scheherazade

> To me, it speaks of the power of imagination, the fluidity of meaning and reality, and yet, hints at the importance inherent in everything, even if that importance is unintentional.


Very interesting!  :Smile:  Even though I agree with you its emphasis on the fluidity of meaning, I am not sure about the latter that the everything is inherently important. To me, the poem is pointing the other way round... That things we attach great importance today are not likely to be so in future; that they will melt into each other to form a part of a bigger picture and lose their seeming importance of the present... And that we maybe should not lose our heads concentrating on the moment.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> Very interesting!  Even though I agree with you its emphasis on the fluidity of meaning, I am not sure about the latter that the everything is inherently important. To me, the poem is pointing the other way round... That things we attach great importance today are not likely to be so in future; that they will melt into each other to form a part of a bigger picture and lose their seeming importance of the present... And that we maybe should not lose our heads concentrating on the moment.


I agree that that the poem demonstrates how the actions of the present blend into the greater picture of the future.
My reading of present actions containing untold meaning arises from the first stanza:



> This present tragedy will eventually
> turn into myth, and in the mist
> of that later telling the bell tolling
> now will be a symbol, or, at least,
> a sign of something long since lost.


The present will become myth - to me, that means that the present will become part of a tradition with meaning layered upon meaning throught time. The everyday will become epic, and what seems insignificant at present will take on meaning in the future.
The bell, at present, seems nothing more than an accident of fate. It tolls, but for no particular reason, yet in the future recasting, it will have great signinficance: "a sign of something long since lost".
In the end, all these layers of meaning combine in an undefined constellation of existence that bears resemblance to the truth, but also creates space for interpretation and creation

----------


## Scheherazade

Thank you very much for replying, Hyacinth. I am really under the spell of this poem - been turning it in my head since yesterday - and it is wonderful to be able to discuss it with someone  :Smile: 


> The present will become myth - to me, that means that the present will become part of a tradition with meaning layered upon meaning throught time. The everyday will become epic, and what seems insignificant at present will take on meaning in the future.


It seems like the word 'myth' is saying different things to each of us. To me, it does not signal something epic but a 'mere story';something you hear of but never sure of; sometimes you know they are made up stories (like Greek Mythology - true, epic elements here but we know that they are imaginary stories) or sometimes you can never be sure they are really true (like urban myths).

So, the present events, no matter how tragic they are, will fade in time, losing their seeming importance and melting in the greater picture. So much so that we will have a hard time to remember whether they have really happened or they have been just a figment of our imagination. 


> The bell, at present, seems nothing more than an accident of fate. It tolls, but for no particular reason, yet in the future recasting, it will have great signinficance: "a sign of something long since lost".


Here, I thought the bell tolling was not accidental but, on the contrary, is quite significant. It is annoucing something tragic, something effecting us deeply (a death maybe?) but, the persona in the poem is suggesting that once the present turns into a myth, even the bells tolling will not seem so important; they will not sound so tragic anymore but just remind something lost long ago.


> In the end, all these layers of meaning combine in an undefined constellation of existence that bears resemblance to the truth, but also creates space for interpretation and creation


Yes, all these present incidents (even tragedies) will melt and merge into something greater in future but I have to admit that I am still not comfortable with the last stanza, especially with the way the poem ends and would like to hear your detailed interpretation.

----------


## Nightwalk

*The Jewels*

My darling was naked, and, knowing my heart, she had kept on only her sounding jewels, whose rich array gave her the all-conquering look that the slaves of the Moors have in their happier times.

When, as it moves, it throws out its sharp, mocking sound, that glittering world of metal and stone ravishes me into ecstasy, and I love to distraction things where sound is mingled with light.
She was lying there, then, and letting herself be loved, and from her vantage point on the couch she smiled happily at my love, deep and gentle as the sea, as it rose towards her as if to its cliff.
Her eyes fixed on me like a tamed tiger's, with a dreamy, vague look she tried out new poses, and the combination of candour and lubricity lent a new charm to her various shapes;
And her arm and her leg, and her thigh and her hips, smooth as oil, undulating like a swan, passed before my eyes, all-seeing and serene; and her belly and her breasts, those clusters of my vine,
Thrust forward, more tempting than the Angels of evil, to trouble the state of rest my soul had entered, and to displace it from the crystal rock where, calm and alone, it had seated itself.
I felt I was seeing, by some new device, the haunches of Antiope joined to the torso of a beardless youth, so strongly did her waist set off her pelvis. On that wild, brown skin the make-up was wonderful!
-And the lamp having died down at last, as the fire alone lit up the chamber, every time it heaved a flaming sigh, it flooded with blood that amber-coloured skin.
- Charles Baudelaire ( 1821 - 1867 )

_Translation from the French by Carol Clark_

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

> Thank you very much for replying, Hyacinth. I am really under the spell of this poem - been turning it in my head since yesterday - and it is wonderful to be able to discuss it with someone 
> . . . I am still not comfortable with the last stanza, especially with the way the poem ends and would like to hear your detailed interpretation.


My apologies for the delay - I don't have access to the computer on the weekends. For me, the final stanza sums up the first two. It posits a future in which the speaker and companion will trace the outline of their lives, the "present tragedy" (which, by the by, I interpret as not being tragic in the sense of any catastrophe, but as ending in death rather than a marriage for comic mode). It will be reimagined/reinterpreted through the 'mist" of time and experience. The use of "constellation" in the previous stanza informs the final one. . . just as the Greeks found the outline of mythic figures in the stars, so too, do the speaker and companion find their myth in the heavens, and the constellation they create is no less arbitrary than that of the Greek astronomers. . . . and it is also fraught with as much meaning as its predecessors.
I like the idea of "the faint fusion of two bodies, breaking into light" - it gives me a sense of two becoming one to form light=knowledge=truth=illumination= divine inspiration. The lives found in the stars speak truth,. It also brings to mind the Sistine Chapel, with the fusion of God and Adam's fingertips creating a point of light, or if you are of a more pop culture bent, ET and the boy touching fingertips. :Tongue:

----------


## ShoutGrace

I am in love with him
To whom a hyacinth is dearer
Than I shall ever be dear.

On nights when the field-mice
Are abroad, he cannot sleep.
He hears their narrow teeth
At the bulbs of his hyacinths.

But the gnawing at my heart he does not hear.


----- Edna St. Vincent Millay

----------


## Scheherazade

> It also brings to mind the Sistine Chapel, with the fusion of God and Adam's fingertips creating a point of light, or if you are of a more pop culture bent, ET and the boy touching fingertips.


I love these references  :Smile: 

We should have this one as Poem of the Week maybe!  :Biggrin:

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

I'm game for it. . . I love this poem. 

ShoutGrace, how clever of you to find the Millay Hyacinth poem!  :Biggrin:

----------


## Nightwalk

*LXX*

My woman says there's no one she would rather wed
Than me, not even if asked by Jove himself.Says - but what a woman says to an eager lover
One should write on the wind or the running water.
- Catullus ( c. 84 B.C. - c. 54 B.C. )

_Translation from the Latin by Guy Lee_

----------


## stlukesguild

If only I could force
some fragment of your ecstasy
into this clumsy music of mine;
had I the talent to match your voices
with my stammering speech-
I who once dreamed of acquiring
those salt-sea words of yours
where nature fuses with art-
and with your vast language proclaim the sadness
of an aging boy who shouldn't have learned to think.
But moldy disctionary words
are all I have, and that voice of mystery
dictated by love grows faint,
turns literary, elegaic.
All I have are these words
that, like public women, 
offer themselves to any takers;
all I have are these cliches
which student rabble might tomorrow steal
in real poetry.
And your booming grows, and the blue
of the fresh shadow widens.
My thoughts fail; they leave me.
I have no sense, no senses. No limit.

Eugenio Montale
from _"Mediterranean"_ from the book _Cuttlefish Bones_
translated by William Arrowsmith

I just recently came across this poem while re-reading Montale... perhaps my favorite 20th century Italian writer after Calvino (and definitely my favorite poet). I am struck with the manner in which the poet (great as he is) feels himself to be something of a failure... impotent... in the face of the Mediterranean... and one gets the feeling that within this concept of the Mediterreanean, Montale is thinking of his great poetic precursors... especially Dante.

----------


## Virgil

That is alovely poem St Lukes. Would it be possible to get the original Italian?

----------


## stlukesguild

Potessi almeno costringere
in questo mio ritmo stento
qualche poco del tuo vanneggiamento;
dato mi mi fosse accordare
alle tue voci il mio balbo parlare: -
io che sognava rapirti
le salmastre parole
in cui natura ed arte si confondono,
per gridar meglio la mia malinconia
di fanciullo invecchiato che non doveva pensare.
Ed invece non ho che le lettere fruste
dei dizionari, e l'oscura
voce che amore detta s'affioca,
si fa lamentaosa letteratura.
Non ho che queste parole
che come donne pubblicate
s'offrono a chi le richiede;
non ho che queste frasi stancate
che potranno rubarmi anche domani
gli studenti canaglie in versi veri.
Ed il tuo rombo cresce, e si dilata
azzurra l'ombra nuova.
M'abbandonano a prova i miei pensieri.
Sensi non ho; sé senso. Non ho limite.

----------


## Riesa

Nice. It's been awhile since I've picked up my Montale, and what a poem! Thanks, slg.

----------


## GothMan

*Tears, Idle Tears*

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

_---Alfred Tennyson_

----------


## Nightwalk

Welcome to the forums GothMan, that's a timeless and stirring poem from the Victorian Poet Laureate.

----------


## Nightwalk

*Sentimental Dialogue*

In the lonely, frozen old park, two figures passed by justnow.

Their eyes are dead and their lips are limp, and their wordscan hardly be heard.

In the lonely, frozen old park, two spectres evoked the past.
- Do you remember our old rapture?
- Why on earth should I remember that?

- Does your heart still beat at my very name? Do you stillsee my soul in dreams? - No.

Ah! those fine days of ineffable bliss when our lips werejoined! - It may have been so.

- How blue the sky was, how great was hope!- Hope has fled, defeated, towards the black sky.
Thus they walked among the wild oats, and the darknessalone heard their words.

- Paul Verlaine ( 1844 - 1896 )

_Translation from the French by William Rees_

----------


## GothMan

To tell the truth I haven't read this one from Verlaine yet (especially in English...  :Wink:  ) but it's really a gem! Thanks for sharing!  :Thumbs Up:

----------


## Nightwalk

Hello GothMan, I'm glad you liked the poem. The title and subject of the piece could have fallen into mush with lesser hands, but Verlaine's talent makes it timelessly resonating.

I first read the poem from an anthology of great French poets from France's greatest poetical period. It includes all of the great poets of the era and a lot of lesser-known but talented ones. One of it's attributes is that the originals are placed alongside the translations. An essential collection and an enriching read.

Here's a link of the book from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Book-F...e=UTF8&s=books

----------


## holograph

mm. i like it a lot.

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

I love the French poetry from this period, especially Verlaine and Rimbaud. Great poem!

----------


## Taliesin

We once posted this poem by Liselotte Raune in another topic, but since it is a good one, we will post it here too:

First in German:




> Als mein Vater
> mich zum erstenmal fragte,
> was ich mal werden will,
> sagte ich nach kurzer Denkpause
> "Ich möchte mal glücklich werden."
> Sa sah mein Vater sehr unglücklich aus
> aber dann bin ich
> doch was anderes geworden
> und alle waren mit mit zufrieden.



To translate loosely:




> When my father
> asked me for the first time
> what I once want to be(come),
> said I after a small thinking-pause:
> "I want to be happy"
> Then my father looked very unhappy
> but then I
> still became something else
> and everyone was very pleased with me

----------


## Hyacinth Girl

I think this is a very poignant poem. Thank you Tal. It seems a commentary on parents' expectations for their children, as well as the ability to obtain happiness as an adult.

----------


## hitchhiker

Oh to be love
One may say it to be bliss
And if this may be this
Thier bliss be but of one tree in my forest
-Clark

----------


## romeo boy

I heard somebody talking about love so I am here because Love is My Reiligion. More Love Poems Dear.

----------


## Scheherazade

*When I Consider How My Light Is Spent*  

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton

----------


## Janine

Beautiful Pushkin poem. Love it!

----------


## Sylph

*Fatima* *by Alfred, Lord Tennyson*

O Love, Love, Love! O withering might! 
O sun, that from thy noonday height 
Shudderest when I strain my sight, 
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, 
Lo, falling from my constant mind, 
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind, 
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. 

Last night I wasted hateful hours 
Below the city's eastern towers: 
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers: 
I roll'd among the tender flowers: 
I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth; 
I look'd athwart the burning drouth 
Of that long desert to the south. 

Last night, when some one spoke his name, 
From my swift blood that went and came 
A thousand little shafts of flame 
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame. 
O Love, O fire! once he drew 
With one long kiss my whole soul thro' 
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. 

Before he mounts the hill, I know 
He cometh quickly: from below 
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow 
Before him, striking on my brow. 
In my dry brain my spirit soon, 
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon, 
Faints like a daled morning moon. 

The wind sounds like a silver wire, 
And from beyond the noon a fire 
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher 
The skies stoop down in their desire; 
And, isled in sudden seas of light, 
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, 
Bursts into blossom in his sight. 

My whole soul waiting silently, 
All naked in a sultry sky, 
Droops blinded with his shining eye: 
I will possess him or will die. 
I will grow round him in his place, 
Grow, live, die looking on his face, 
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.

----------


## ShoutGrace

Here's a double whammy, just because it has been so long.  :Wink: 





April 18

_the slime of all my yesterdays
rots in the hollow of my skull

and if my stomach would contract
because of some explicable phenomenon
such as pregnancy or constipation

I would not remember you

or that because of sleep
infrequent as a moon of greencheese
that because of food
nourishing as violet leaves
that because of these

and in a few fatal yards of grass
in a few spaces of sky and treetops

a future was lost yesterday
as easily and irretrievably
as a tennis ball at twilight_


"Metaphors," 

_I'm a riddle in nine syllables. 
An elephant, a ponderous house, 
A melon strolling on two tendrils. 
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! 
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising. 
Money's new-minted in this fat purse. 
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf. 
I've eaten a bag of green apples, 
Boarded the train there's no getting off_.


--- Sylvia Plath

----------


## ShoutGrace

*To Those Without Pity*


_Cruel of heart, lay down my song.
Your reading eyes have done me wrong. 
Not for you was the pen bitten, 
And the mind wrung, and the song written._


*Evening on Lesbos*

_Twice having seen your shingled heads adorable
Side by side, the onyx and the gold,
I know that I have had what I could not hold.

Twice have I entered the room, not knowing she was here.
Two agate eyes, two eyes of malachite,
Twice have been turned upon me, hard and bright.

Whereby I know my loss.
Oh, not restorable
Sweet incense, mounting in the windless night!_ 


Both by Edna Millay.

----------


## ShoutGrace

*Willie Nelson*


“This looks like a December day.
This looks like a time to remember day.
And I remember a spring - such a sweet tender thing,
And love's summer college, where the green leaves of knowledge
Were waiting to fall with the fall . . .
And where September wine numbed a measure of time
Through the tears of October
Now November's over; and this looks like . . . a December day . . .


This looks like a December day, it looks like we've come to the end of the way
And as my memories race back to love's eager beginning
Reluctant to play with the thoughts of the ending - the ending that won't go away . . .


And as my memories race back to love's eager beginning
Reluctant to play with the thoughts of the ending - the ending that won't go away.
Yes, this looks like . . . a December day . . .”

----------


## BSturdy

I hope it is not too presumptious to ask for comments on this poem I have written. Whilst it is critical I believe I have the creative right to express myself. I will not go into the personal reasons - that would be wrong.



The Bitterer the Better (for Lucien Freud).


Shuffling love rat, 
Paints half naked.
Likes music hall, 
And poetry.

Grand pup of
Psycho analysis: 
Attention seeking,
Fleeting novelty.

Smears on canvas,
His mauve droppings.
Like make-up, 
Applied badly.

Shuns publicity!?
Cards held close.
Wizened egomaniac, 
Public laundry.

One trick vermin,
Boring clique:
Lucifer, fraud,
Have some warfarin with your tea.

----------


## Adolescent09

> *Willie Nelson*
> 
> 
> This looks like a December day.
> This looks like a time to remember day.
> And I remember a spring - such a sweet tender thing,
> And love's summer college, where the green leaves of knowledge
> Were waiting to fall with the fall . . .
> And where September wine numbed a measure of time
> ...


Brilliant, I read it three times in a row.

----------


## white shadows

cant get it out of my head...

imagine all the thought that flowed intot his poem.

a clear masterpiece

----------


## white shadows

*The moon shone bright* 

Under a midnight sky
The moon shone bright.
Nothing more,
Nothing less.
No stars were out for a 
Walk at night.
No clouds hung around to
Talk to the Earth
Nothing more,
Nothing less.
Than a bright moon at night.

----------


## BSturdy

The Maserati Hilton Continues On:

It almost got her again: 

I call a spade a lodestar
Did you call it a day?
Tomorrow crawls into my dreams
Rome was built and remains

She was mesmerised by the horrible old hypnotysing guy - yuk!

Lucien get some style guy you is rancid

----------


## BSturdy

Invitations to any sort of commentary:

----------


## BSturdy

How depressing can you get?

Time to cheer things up

----------


## Asa Adams

Willow Tree
I sang of the Moon to a restless willow, once. 
I said Such beauty, Willow tree, is the moon,
Dont you see?
Not the moon, nor beauty, did the restless willow speak, but
Only of the wind passing through her leaves.

I sang of the sky to a waking willow, once. 
I sang, Such vastness, Willow tree, the sky holds to thee,
Dont you see?
Yet Willow tree cared not for the sky, nor the moon,
But only of the wind passing through her leaves.

I sang of the stars to a dying willow once,
I cried I see a star in the heavens, doth twinkle 
Dont you see?
Not the twinkle of the heavens, the breadth of the sky,
Nor the cold of the moon sought the Willow,
But only the failing wind through her leaves.

J. R. Johnson

----------


## Madhuri

20th Feb

The Road Not Taken -- Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

----------


## Virgil

Today is Ash Wednesday, a Christian religious day leading to Easter Sunday. I'm always reminded on this day of a poem from T.S. Eliot named, "Ash Wednesday." It's too long to post the entire thing, but I'll post my favorite section, Part II.




> From *Ash Wednesday* by T.S. Eliot
> 
> II 
> Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
> In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
> On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been 
> contained
> In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
> Shall these bones live? shall these
> ...


You can read the entire thing here: http://www.poetry-online.org/eliot_s..._wednesday.htm

----------


## Riesa

*Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff*


Paula Becker 1876-1907
Clara Westhoff 1878-1954

became friends at Worpswede, an artist's colony near Bremen, Germany, summer 1899. In January 1900, spent a half-year together in Paris, where Paula painted and Clara studied sculpture with Rodin. In August they returned to Worpswede, and spent the next winter together in Berlin. In 1901, Clara married the poet Rainer Maria Rilke; soon after, Paula married the painted Otto Modersohn. She died in a hemorrhage after childbirth, murmuring, What a shame!

The autumn feels slowed down,
summer still holds on here, even the light
seems to last longer than it should
or maybe I'm using it to the thin edge.
The moon rolls in the air. I didn't want this child.
You're the only one I've told.
I want a child maybe, someday, but not now.
Otto has a calm, complacent way
of following me with his eyes, as if to say
Soon you'll have your hands full!
And yes, I will; this child will be mine
not his, the failures, if I fail
will all be mine. We're not good, Clara,
at learning to prevent these things,
and once we have a child it is ours.
But lately I feel beyond Otto or anyone.
I know now the kind of work I have to do.
It takes such energy! I have the feeling I'm
moving somewhere, patiently, impatiently, 
in my loneliness. I'm looking everywhere in nature
for new forms, old forms in new places,
the planes of an antique mouth, let's say, among the leaves.
I know and do not know
what I am searching for.
Remember those months in the studio together,
you up to your strong forearms in wet clay,
I trying to make something of the strange impressions
assailing methe Japanese
flowers and birds on silk, the drunks
sheltering in the Louvre, that river-light,
those faces...Did we know exactly 
why we were there? Paris unnerved you,
you found it too much, yet you went on
with your work...and later we met there again,
both married then, and I thought you and Rilke
both seemed unnerved. I felt a kind of joylessness
between you. Of course he and I 
have had our difficulties. Maybe I was jealous
of him, to begin with, taking you from me,
maybe I married Otto to fill up
my loneliness for you.
Rainer, of course, knows more than Otto knows,
he believes in women. But he feeds on us,
like all of them. His whole life, his art
is protected by women. Which of us could say that?
Which of us, Clara, hasn't had to take that leap
out beyond our being women
to save our work? or is it to save ourselves?
Marriage is lonelier than solitude.
Do you know: I was dreaming I had died
giving birth to the child.
I couldn't paint or speak or even move.
My childI thinksurvived me. But what was funny
in the dream was, Rainer had written my requiem
a long, beautiful poem, and calling me his friend.
I was your friend
but in the dream you didn't say a word.
In the dream his poem was like a letter
to someone who has no right
to be there but must be treated gently, like a guest
who comes on the wrong day. Clara, why don't I dream of you?
That photo of the two of usI have it still,
you and I looking hard into each other
and my painting behind us. How we used to work
side by side! And how I've worked since then
trying to create according to our plan
that we'd bring, against all odds, our full power
to every subject. Hold back nothing
because we were women. Clara, our strength still lies
in the things we used to talk about**:
how life and death take one another's hands,
the struggle for truth, our old pledge against guilt.
And now I feel dawn and the coming day.
I love waking in my studio, seeing my pictures
come alive in the light. Sometimes I feel
it is myself that kicks inside me,
myself I must give suck to, love...
I wish we could have done this for each other
all our lives, but we can't...
They say a pregnant woman 
dreams her own death. But life and death
take one another's hands. Clara, I feel so full
of work, the life I see ahead, and love
for you, who of all people
however badly I say this
will hear all I say and cannot say.

Adrienne Rich

----------


## bazarov

Asa is back!!! 


I loved you; and perhaps I love you still,
The flame, perhaps, is not extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.
Silently and hopelessly I loved you,
At times too jealous and at times too shy.
God grant you find another who will love you
As tenderly and truthfully as I.

----------


## Basil

A *pantoum* is a poem composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza are "promoted" to the first and third lines of the following stanza. The final stanza will often feature the first and third lines of the first stanza; thus, the last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first.

*Incident* by Natasha Trethewey

We tell the story every year--
how we peered from the windows, shades drawn--
though nothing really happened,
the charred grass now green again.

We peered from the windows, shades drawn,
at the cross trussed like a Christmas tree,
the charred grass still green. Then
we darkened our rooms, lit the hurricane lamps.

At the cross trussed like a Christmas tree,
a few men gathered, white as angels in their gowns.
We darkened our rooms and lit hurricane lamps,
the wicks trembling in their fonts of oil.

It seemed the angels had gathered, white men in their gowns.
When they were done, they left quietly. No one came.
The wicks trembled all night in their fonts of oil;
by morning the flames had all dimmed.

When they were done, the men left quietly. No one came.
Nothing really happened.
By morning all the flames had dimmed.
We tell the story every year.

----------


## ALLENDALE

i am fat
u r a cat

by me

----------


## Abgail

My english is not very good,but I like poems very much.Since I can not speak out my feelings properly, I just read your words and enlarge my knowledge about poems.It will be very helpful if any of you give me some advice of reading poems. Thanks.

----------


## ktd222

> My english is not very good,but I like poems very much.Since I can not speak out my feelings properly, I just read your words and enlarge my knowledge about poems.It will be very helpful if any of you give me some advice of reading poems. Thanks.


I think you will find some good advice in the How to Analyze Poems thread. Here is the link:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=17439

----------


## sumalan monica

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

Cummings always shares a very distinct point of view-it might be a vision ,a dream or a fantasy.Evey line occurs so unexpected, a number of his poems feature a typographically exuberant style.As a painter Cummings understood the importance of presentation using topography to paint a picture with some of his poems.Anyway he was criticized for his lack of artistic growth.

----------


## dryden_now

my best poem for today is:
"To My Dear and Loving Husband"
by Anne Bradstreet 

_If ever two were one, then surely we. 
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; 
If ever wife was happy in a man, 
Compare with me, ye women, if you can. 
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold 
Or all the riches that the East doth hold. 
My love is such that rivers cannot quench, 
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense. 
Thy love is such I can no way repay, 
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. 
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere 
That when we live no more, we may live ever._
Anne Bradstreet

----------


## Il Penseroso

Have Folded My Sorrows

by Bob Kaufman

I have folded my sorrows into the mantle of summer night,
Assigning each brief storm its alloted space in time,
Quietly pursuing catastrophic histories buried in my eyes.
And yes, the world is not some unplayed Cosmic Game,
And the sun is still ninety-three million miles from me,
And in the imaginary forest, the shingles hippo becomes the gay unicorn.
No, my traffic is not addled keepers of yesterday's disasters,
Seekers of manifest disembowelment on shafts of yesterday's pains.
Blues come dressed like introspective echoes of a journey.
And yes, I have searched the rooms of the moon on cold summer nights.
And yes, I have refought those unfinished encounters. Still, they remain unfinished.
And yes, I have at times wished myself something different.

The tragedies are sung nightly at the funerals of the poet;
The revisited soul is wrapped in the aura of familiarity.

----------


## DahliaBlood

Why did my poem get deleted?

----------


## Dalua

WOW!!! this is really good I like it

----------


## Scheherazade

> Why did my poem get deleted?


Your poem hasn't been deleted but moved to 'Personal Poetry' section, Dahlia:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=23401

----------


## quasimodo1

The Windhover 

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

----------


## Jean-Baptiste

*Spring*_

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness 
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers._

~The ever-so-lovely Edna St. Vincent Millay

----------


## quasimodo1

ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO 
by Rainer Maria Rilke 
Translated by Stephen Mitchell 


We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

----------


## firefangled

What struck me first was their panic.

Some were pulled by the wind from moving
to the ends of the stacked cages,
some had their heads blown through the bars

and could not get them in again.
Some hung there like thatdead
their own feathers blowing, clotting

in their faces. Then 
I saw the one that made me slow some
I lingered there beside her for five miles.

She had pushed her head through the space
between barsto get a better view.
She had the look of a dog in the back

of a pickup, that eager look of a dog
who knows shes being taken along.
She craned her neck.

She looked around, watched me, then
strained to see over the carstrained
to see what happened beyond.

_That_ is the chicken I want to be.


- _Jane Mead_

I discovered Jane Mead because I judged her book by its cover (later that day I left open the refigerator door). "The Lord and the General Din of the World." This poem the epiphany at the end of a painful journey.

----------


## quasimodo1

All poems are included in the current edition of Dylan Thomas’ Collected Poems.



I see the boys of summer
Where once the twilight locks
A process in the weather of the heart
Before I knocked
The force that through the green fuse
My hero bares his nerves
Where once the waters of your face
If I were tickled by the rub of love
Our eunuch dreams
Especially when the October wind
When, like a running grave
From love’s first fever
In the beginning
Light breaks where no sun shines
I fellowed sleep
I dreamed my genesis
My world is pyramid
All all and all

----------


## quasimodo1

CANTO I

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wreteched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin;
Poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads;
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
These many crowded about me; with shouting,
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
Unsheathed the narrow sword,
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in the sepulchre, since toils urged other.
Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:
"Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
"Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?"
And he in heavy speech:
"Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Crice's ingle.
"Going down the long ladder unguarded,
"I fell against the buttress,
"Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
"But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
"Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
"A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
"And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows."

And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
"A second time? why? man of ill star,
"Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
"Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever
"For soothsay."
And I stepped back,
And he strong with the blood, said then: "Odysseus
"Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
"Lose all companions." Then Anticlea came.
Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,
In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.
And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outwards and away
And unto Crice.
Venerandam,
In the Cretan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
Girdle and breat bands, thou with dark eyelids
Bearing the golden bough of Argicidia. So that:


Ezra Pound

quasimodo1 (being a controversial poet...how about a short poll, like or dislike)

----------


## Virgil

Love that poem Quasi.

----------


## quasimodo1

CHICAGO

by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

OG Butcher for the World, 
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, 
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; 
Stormy, husky, brawling, 
City of the Big Shoulders: 

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. 
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. 
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. 
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: 
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. 
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; 
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, 
Bareheaded, 
Shoveling, 
Wrecking, 
Planning, 
Building, breaking, rebuilding, 
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, 
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, 
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, 
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, 
Laughing! 
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be the Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, 
Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

*Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?*
W. B. Yeats

----------


## firefangled

> *Turning and turning in the widening gyre
> The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
> Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
> The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
> The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
> The best lack all convictions, while the worst
> Are full of passionate intensity.
> 
> ...


 This and Among School Children are my favorites.

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

> This and Among School Children are my favorites.


And are you familiar with the theosophical stuff WBY believed that's relevant to _The Second Coming?_

You may have come upon my THREE FOR WBY, but better still Auden's "_Earth receive an honoured guest..."_

----------


## firefangled

> And are you familiar with the theosophical stuff WBY believed that's relevant to _The Second Coming?_
> 
> You may have come upon my THREE FOR WBY, but better still Auden's "_Earth receive an honoured guest..."_



Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

----------


## firefangled

Sailing to Byzantium I remember, but not very well. Auden's lines I wrote, I sort of remembered, but I looked them up to be sure. 

I should probably revisit both in my "old age." School Children I have read dozens of times over and am constantly bring it to mind for the "O Chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer...." stanza. 

Thanks for reminding me.

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

> Sailing to Byzantium I remember, but not very well. Auden's lines I wrote, I sort of remembered, but I looked them up to be sure. 
> 
> I should probably revisit both in my "old age." School Children I have read dozens of times over and am constantly bring it to mind for the "O Chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer...." stanza. 
> 
> Thanks for reminding me.



Do you know that wacky story by Borges: "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote"? In the fashion of Menard I'd almost be tempted to adopt the dress and character of a late 19th-early 20th century Irishman, fall helplessly in love with Maud Gonne and take up Mme Blavatsky & the other theosophists if I could then write like that SOB!

----------


## firefangled

> Do you know that wacky story by Borges: "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote"? In the fashion of Menard I'd almost be tempted to adopt the dress and character of a late 19th-early 20th century Irishman, fall helplessly in love with Maud Gonne and take up Mme Blavatsky & the other theosophists if I could then write like that SOB!



No I don't know that story, but...

I always thought I would fall for Maud Gonne if we met...and then he had to say, "but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face." 

That cinched it. I wouldn't even ask for anything in exchange for all the grief she would have put me through. I would liked to have met her when I was 18and rallying against Viet Nam. Our letters to each other from separate prisons would be famous now. 

Yeats was a bit too well behaved for Maud Gonne? He looked somewhat proper when he was young. I know he had a sense of humor and was even ribald in his writing sometimes, but that could have been his outlet.

----------


## ampoule

The Cranberries sing of her in their song, Yeats' Grave.

Silenced by death in the grave
William Butler Yeats couldn't save
Why did you stand here
Were you sickened in time
But I know by now
Why did you sit here?
In the grave.

Why should I blame her,
that she filled my days
With misery or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways
Or hurled the little streets upon the great
Had they but courage
Equal to desire

Sad that Maud Gonne couldn't stay
But she had MacBride anyway
And you sit here with me
On the Isle Inisfree

And you are writing down everything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here
In the grave..

Why should I blame her
Had they but courage equal to desire

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

> The Cranberries sing of her in their song, Yeats' Grave.
> 
> Silenced by death in the grave
> William Butler Yeats couldn't save
> Why did you stand here
> Were you sickened in time
> But I know by now
> Why did you sit here?
> In the grave.
> ...


WHAT! Did you write this gorgeous poem? If not, please HASTEN to add the name of the author!

I have spoken!

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

> No I don't know that story, but...


Well, to save you the trouble of looking it up and going through the vexation I did: Pierre Menard is an early 20th c. Frenchman who conceives a desire to write _Don Quixote_ so, to begin with, he dresses like a Spaniard of Cervantes' time, reads all the romance novels that Cervantes read... but then decides that that is the way Cervantes wrote it so he reverts to his original habits...

At his death it is found that he had completed a certain number of chapters of Book 1, etc. Borges then quotes a paragraph from Cervantes' version, and one that Menard wrote, and the reader goes effing crazy looking from one to the other to realize that indeed every word, every g/d comma is the same...

The point? Search me....

----------


## quasimodo1

I have no idea who wrote this but I wish I did write it. quasimodo1

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

> I have no idea who wrote this but I wish I did write it. quasimodo1


Well read my reply to firefangled just above yours, and you'll see that you COULD write it!

----------


## ampoule

> WHAT! Did you write this gorgeous poem? If not, please HASTEN to add the name of the author!
> 
> I have spoken!


No PrinceMyshkin, I wish I could make you that happy! But, the words and music, recorded by the Cranberries, is by their singer, Dolores O'Riordan, born September 6, 1971, in Limerick, England.

----------


## AuntShecky

(Evidently my previous posting was in the wrong place. Please forgive me, I'm new.)

Ditties for the Week of July 9-uh,oh, 13th
A Clerihew is a humorous, "pseudo-biographical" ditty invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. As a young lad he came up with the idea when he was trying to avoid doing his homework. The name of the subject, usually a celebrity, appears at the end of Line One. (So you're more likely to find a Clerihew about someone whose name is easy to rhyme, like Donald Trump or Condoleeza Rice say, as opposed to David Ignatow or Zbignew Brzezinski.) 
Heres a couple, which like Law and Order plots, are ripped off todays headlines:
Like a veggie out of the can, that Scooter Libby
Essentially scot-free from being all fibby,
Hes still driving a Bentley (not a Jeep)?
I guess it pays to be pals with The Veep.

Way down in the ratings, Ms Couric, Katie,
Gussied up for the news, all flirty and date-y,
Putting sober(?) CBS execs into a lather,
Consoled, at least, that shes not Dan Rather.

And in honor of the All Star Game that nobody watched, a baseball extra by Auntie Clerihew Shecky:


Rewind 

Inside the park home run!
_Safe_!
Home plate ump outstretches his arms.
too late.
Delivery to the catcher
runner slides-------------
who fires it home
cut off by the second baseman
the throw
the sprint from third
base coach waves im in
finally retrieved by the center fielder
the ball ricochets against the wall
its heading for the corner
the runner rounding second
he still can't get it!
The right-fielder chases
Its going down the line!
Waitits rolling
_Fair ball_ !
he busts out of the box
-a line towards first 
--and the swing--
center of the plate--
the pitcher deals 
Heres the wind-up 
Hes looking for a fastball inside
Now heres a guy whos as good as anybody with a bat
Two outs
Nobody on.

----------


## firefangled

_From Questions About Angels by Billy Collins._

*Questions About Angels*

Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and 
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, The medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

----------


## ampoule

Oh how that makes me smile. Thank you for sharing angels, Fire.

----------


## Annabel Lee

Emily Dickinson-

Glee! The great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, --
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, "But the forty?
Did they come back no more?"

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller's eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply. 

I chose this poem because I really enjoy reading about the ocean. And this poem has truth in it. This poem describes something that happens quite often in the seafaring world; a tragedy occurs, "and only the waves reply". 

But I have to admit, it was hard trying to decide whether to use Emily D or William W; they're probably my favorite... along with some others of course.

----------


## quasimodo1

Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
by

Robert W. Service
The Song of the Camp-Fire
I 

Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire; 
Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine, 
Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire, 
Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign. 
Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack; 
Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame; 
I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back; 
Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame. 
Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight; 
Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold; 
With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night, 
They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in gold. 
Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas; 
Roaming wind and roaring darkness! seek no mercy at my hands; 
I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies, 
I will flaunt my deathless banners down the far, unhouseled lands. 
In the vast and vaulted pine-gloom where the pillared forests frown, 
By the sullen, bestial rivers running where God only knows, 
On the starlit coral beaches when the combers thunder down, 
In the death-spell of the barrens, in the shudder of the snows; 
In a blazing belt of triumph from the palm-leaf to the pine, 
As a symbol of defiance lo! the wilderness I span; 
And my beacons burn exultant as an everlasting sign 
Of unending domination, of the mastery of Man; 
I, the Life, the fierce Uplifter, I that weaned him from the mire; 
I, the angel and the devil, I, the tyrant and the slave; 
I, the Spirit of the Struggle; I, the mighty God of Fire; 
I, the Maker and Destroyer; I, the Giver and the Grave. 
II 

Gather round me, boy and grey-beard, frontiersman of every kind. 
Few are you, and far and lonely, yet an army forms behind: 
By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind. 

Peer into my heart of solace, break your bannock at my blaze; 
Smoking, stretched in lazy shelter, build your castles as you gaze; 
Or, it may be, deep in dreaming, think of dim, unhappy days. 

Let my warmth and glow caress you, for your trails are grim and hard; 
Let my arms of comfort press you, hunger-hewn and battle-scarred: 
O my lovers! how I bless you with your lives so madly marred! 

For you seek the silent spaces, and their secret lore you glean: 
For you win the savage races, and the brutish Wild you wean; 
And I gladden desert places, where camp-fire has never been. 

From the Pole unto the Tropics is there trail ye have not dared? 
And because you hold death lightly, so by death shall you be spared, 
(As the sages of the ages in their pages have declared). 

On the roaring Arkilinik in a leaky bark canoe; 
Up the cloud of Mount McKinley, where the avalanche leaps through; 
In the furnace of Death Valley, when the mirage glimmers blue. 

Now a smudge of wiry willows on the weary Kuskoquim; 
Now a flare of gummy pine-knots where Vancouver's scaur is grim; 
Now a gleam of sunny ceiba, when the Cuban beaches dim. 

Always, always God's Great Open: lo! I burn with keener light 
In the corridors of silence, in the vestibules of night; 
'Mid the ferns and grasses gleaming, was there ever gem so bright? 

Not for weaklings, not for women, like my brother of the hearth; 
Ring your songs of wrath around me, I was made for manful mirth, 
In the lusty, gusty greatness, on the bald spots of the earth. 

Men, my masters! men, my lovers! ye have fought and ye have bled; 
Gather round my ruddy embers, softly glowing is my bed; 
By my heart of solace dreaming, rest ye and be comforted! 
III 

I am dying, O my masters! by my fitful flame ye sleep; 
My purple plumes of glory droop forlorn. 
Grey ashes choke and cloak me, and above the pines there creep 
The stealthy silver moccasins of morn. 
There comes a countless army, it's the Legion of the Light; 
It tramps in gleaming triumph round the world; 
And before its jewelled lances all the shadows of the night 
Back in to abysmal darknesses are hurled. 

Leap to life again, my lovers! ye must toil and never tire; 
The day of daring, doing, brightens clear, 
When the bed of spicy cedar and the jovial camp-fire 
Must only be a memory of cheer. 
There is hope and golden promise in the vast portentous dawn; 
There is glamour in the glad, effluent sky: 
Go and leave me; I will dream of you and love you when you're gone; 
I have served you, O my masters! let me die. 

A little heap of ashes, grey and sodden by the rain, 
Wind-scattered, blurred and blotted by the snow: 
Let that be all to tell of me, and glorious again, 
Ye things of greening gladness, leap and glow! 
A black scar in the sunshine by the palm-leaf or the pine, 
Blind to the night and dead to all desire; 
Yet oh, of life and uplift what a symbol and a sign! 
Yet oh, of power and conquest what a destiny is mine! 
A little heap of ashes -- Yea! a miracle divine, 
The foot-print of a god, all-radiant Fire. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------sometimes called the poet of the Yukon, Robert Service quasimodo1

----------


## genoveva

*She Is Dead*

She is dead, they said
And they gathered up the things 
Of her days.
Lifes little spindle,
Her gentle ways,
The comforting words
That were left a wall
About their fears
To keep them from climbing
Into future years.

The hopes of her pleasing,
Her little vigil hours,
The chest of her maiden dreams,
The flowers of a gladder faith,
The lavender of old tears.

The linen of her fingers weaving
The garments for her childrens souls
From words writ in the Holy booke.
And the memory
Or strong caressing hands
That they had always found
Understanding.

Afterwards, in one old chest
In the room she had slept in,
They found the gentle joys
Of her waiting years-
The petals of the hopes
At her childrens birthing.
_
- Opal Whiteley
_

----------


## quasimodo1

To Genoveva: Your "favourite poet" being an unknown to me, had to do some looking. You are aware that an editor of the Atlantic Monthly encouraged the poet to reconstruct a collection of poems which for some reason was torn to pieces. The fragments were saved and published. I found this link useful...http://intersect.uoregon.edu/opal/ Another, if somewhat obscure, great talent. quasimodo1

----------


## quasimodo1

Inversnaid

This darksome burn, horseback brown, 
His rollrock highroad roaring down, 
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam 
Flutes and low to the lake falls home. 

A windpuff-bonnet of f&#225;wn-fr&#243;th 
Turns and twindles over the broth 
Of a pool so pitchblack, f&#233;ll-fr&#243;wning, 
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. 

Degged with dew, dappled with dew 
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, 
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, 
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. 

What would the world be, once bereft 
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, 
O let them be left, wildness and wet; 
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. 

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

----------


## genoveva

> To Genoveva: Your "favourite poet" being an unknown to me, had to do some looking. You are aware that an editor of the Atlantic Monthly encouraged the poet to reconstruct a collection of poems which for some reason was torn to pieces. The fragments were saved and published. I found this link useful...http://intersect.uoregon.edu/opal/ Another, if somewhat obscure, great talent. quasimodo1


Yes, quasimodo1, however, it was not a collection of poems that were torn to pieces and published, it was her childhood diary. A very interesting author from here in Oregon!

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## quasimodo1

The Lake Isle

O GOD, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, 
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, 
With the little bright boxes 
piled up neatly upon the shelves 
And the loose fragrant cavendish 
and the shag, 
And the bright Virginia 
loose under the bright glass cases, 
And a pair of scales not too greasy, 
And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing, 
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, 
Lend me a little tobacco-shop, 
or install me in any profession 
Save this damn'd profession of writing, 
where one needs one's brains all the time. 

Ezra Pound

----------


## airam

Breathe on me winter wind
Sweep back old leaves, new shoots stir
Always, clouds come, have gone.

my first haiku. Airam. Criticism more than welcome

----------


## airam

amazing how plath can make one thing, like a mushroom, be so many other things, a fist, shelves, tables, hammers etc, etc, So clever. Her words give life to ordinary things, even though living, and assimilates them to be equal to our own lives..........all living things being of equal importance. 
reminds of The Carpet Sweeper by carol Rumens.
Airam

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## airam

Everone who wants to write knows where ezra is coming from. However he did make it!

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## quasimodo1

Megalosaurus

A MONSTER like a mountain, leathern limbed, 
With eyes of sluggish ore and claws of stone, 
He heaved his thunder-throated body, rimmed 
By marsh fires human eyes have never known. 
A monolith carved out of savage night, 
He hid in his impenetrable hide 
Muscle and blood, and nerves to sense delight 
And agony that tore him when he died.

The clumsy terror of his frame has gone 
The way of his blind, simple savagery. 
Out of his casual bones men build the dawn 
That bore and bred such brutish game as he. 
But still endures his dull, confounding shape: 
In wars of the wise offspring of the ape. 

Babette Deutsch

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## quasimodo1

(Mack The Knife by Bertolt Brecht)
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white.
Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight.

When the shark bites with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread.
Fancy gloves, though, wears Macheath, dear
So there's not a trace of red.

On the side-walk Sunday morning
Lies a body oozing life;
Someone's sneaking 'round the corner.
Is that someone Mack the Knife?

From a tugboat by the river
A cement bag's dropping down;
The cement's just for the weight, dear.
Bet you Mackie's back in town.

Louie Miller disappeared, dear
After drawing out his cash;
And Macheath spends like a sailor.
Did our boy do something rash?

Sukey Tawdry, Jenny Diver,
Polly Peachum, Lucy Brown
Oh, the line forms on the right, dear
Now that Mackie's back in town.

----------


## quasimodo1

This novelist, poet and lover of jazz wrote some amazing if experimental stuff. His book "The Journal of Albion Moonlight" has great flashes of genious and humor. Here is a fragment of one of his poems. "Let Us Have Madness" by Kenneth Patchen
Let us have madness openly. 
O men Of my generation. 
Let us follow 
The footsteps of this slaughtered age: 
See it trail across Time's dim land 
Into the closed house of eternity 
With the noise that dying has, 
With the face that dead things wear-- 
nor ever say 
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love, 
Transforming day's evil darkness; 
but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,
and within the head

----------


## quasimodo1

The Bells
(Alcools: Les Cloches)



My gipsy beau my lover
Hear the bells above us 

We loved passionately

Thinking none could see us



But we so badly hidden

All the bells in their song

Saw from heights of heaven

And told it everyone



Tomorrow Cyprien Henry

Marie Ursule Catherine

The bakers wife her husband

and Gertrude thats my cousin



Will smile when I go by them

I wont know where to hide

You far and Ill be crying

Perhaps I shall be dying

----------


## genoveva

*Lines Written in Oregon*

Esmeralda! now we rest
Here, in the bewitched and blest
Mountain forests of the West.

Here the very air is stranger.
Damzel, anchoret, and ranger
Share the woodlands dream and danger

And to think I deemed you dead!
(In a dungeon, it was said;
Tortured, strangled); but instead 

Blue birds from the bluest fable,
Bear and hare in coats of sable,
Peacock moth on picnic table.

Huddled roadsigns softly speak
Of Lake Merlin, Castle Creek,
And (obliterated) Peak.

Do you recognize that clover?
Dandelions, lor du pauvre?
(Europe, nonetheless, is over).

Up the turk, along the burn
Latin lilies climb and turn
Into Gothic fir and fern.

Cornfields have befouled the prairies
But these canyons laugh! And there is
Still the forest with its fairies.

And I rest where I awoke
In the sea shade  lombre glauque 
Of a legendary oak;

Where the woods get ever dimmer,
Where the Phantom Orchids glimmer 
Esmeralda, immer, immer.
_
 Vladimir Nabokov_

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## quasimodo1

Love's Blindness 
Now do I know that Love is blind, for I 
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth, 
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth, 
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh. 
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky, 
Seres Spring's maturity, checks Summer's birth, 
Leaves linnet's pipe as sad as plover's cry, 
And makes me in abundance find but dearth. 
But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou 
With orient eyes dawnest on my distress, 
Suddenly sings a bird on every bough, 
The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less, 
The ground is buoyant as the ether now, 
And all looks lovely in thy loveliness. Alfred Austin (1835-1913) succeeded Alfred Lord Tennyson as poet laureate of England...1896

----------


## quasimodo1

The Microbe
by Hilaire Belloc 

The Microbe is so very small 
You cannot make him out at all, 
But many sanguine people hope 
To see him through a microscope. 
His jointed tongue that lies beneath 
A hundred curious rows of teeth; 
His seven tufted tails with lots 
Of lovely pink and purple spots, 
On each of which a pattern stands, 
Composed of forty separate bands; 
His eyebrows of a tender green; 
All these have never yet been seen-- 
But Scientists, who ought to know, 
Assure us that they must be so.... 
Oh! let us never, never doubt 
What nobody is sure about!

----------


## tome_keeper

I am the wind which breathes upon the sea
I am the wave of the ocean.
I am the murmur of the billows.
I am the ox of the seven combats.
I am the vulture upon the rocks.
I am a beam of the Sun.
I am the fairest of plants.
I am a wild boar in valour.
I am a salmon in the water.
I am a lake in the plain.
I am a word of science.
I am a point of a lance in battle.
I am the God who created in the head the fire.
Who is it who throws into light the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the Moon? 
Who teaches the place where couches the Sun?
If not I?

- Amergin

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## quasimodo1

LOVE AND THE GENTLE HEART 
Love and the gentle heart are one thing,
just as the poet says in his verse,
each from the other one as well divorced
as reason from the mind’s reasoning.

Nature craves love, and then creates love king,
and makes the heart a palace where he’ll stay,
perhaps a shorter or a longer day,
breathing quietly, gently slumbering.

Then beauty in a virtuous woman’s face
makes the eyes yearn, and strikes the heart,
so that the eyes’ desire’s reborn again,
and often, rooting there with longing, stays,

Till love, at last, out of its dreaming starts.
Woman’s moved likewise by a virtuous man. 
( Dante Alighiere )

----------


## quasimodo1

TO A YOUNG CHILD
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for. 
by Gerald Manley Hopkins

----------


## blp

Great great choice, q. I'm becoming more and more aware of just how interesting this poet is. 

I should let you know, though, it's Gerard, not Gerald.

----------


## quasimodo1

To blp: Thank's for alerting me on typo (partially result of miniscule dyslexia) and Hopkins is great, underread and poetically unigue in the extreme. quasimodo1

----------


## quasimodo1

The Brain -- is wider than the Sky -- 
The Brain -- is wider than the Sky --
For -- put them side by side --
The one the other will contain
With ease -- and You -- beside --

The Brain is deeper than the sea --
For -- hold them -- Blue to Blue --
The one the other will absorb --
As Sponges -- Buckets -- do --

The Brain is just the weight of God --
For -- Heft them -- Pound for Pound --
And they will differ -- if they do --
As Syllable from Sound -- 
..................Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

----------


## quasimodo1

(Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks)
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
There once was a horse-riding chap
Who took a trip in a cold snap
He stopped in the snow
But he soon had to go 
He was miles away from a nap. }
The Raven
There once was a girl named Lenore
And a bird and a bust and a door
And a guy with depression
And a whole lot of questions
And the bird always says "Nevermore." }
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
There was an old father of Dylan
Who was seriously, mortally illin'
"I want," Dylan said
"You to ***** till you're dead.
"I'll be cheesed if you kick it while chillin'." }
I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud
There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still. }
Footprints in the Sand
There was a man who, at low tide
Would walk with the Lord by his side
Jesus said "Now look back;
You'll see one set of tracks.
That's when you got a piggy-back ride." 
*************************************five limericks/no disrespect intended

----------


## Virgil

> (Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks)
> Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
> There once was a horse-riding chap
> Who took a trip in a cold snap
> He stopped in the snow
> But he soon had to go 
> He was miles away from a nap. }
> The Raven
> There once was a girl named Lenore
> ...


 :FRlol:   :FRlol:  Did you write them yourself Quasi? Very good

----------


## quasimodo1

To Virgil: Be advised i didn't write them and hope i didn't give that impression. Make sure the credit is not mine, all I did was discover that they exist. BTW, did you see the latest by Nightshade. Niamh said the poem belongs in the "best loved poems by litneters" and it does. As for the limericks; just tried to bring a little levity into this forum. They are neet though. quasi

----------


## Nightshade

> Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
> There was an old father of Dylan
> Who was seriously, mortally illin'
> "I want," Dylan said
> "You to ***** till you're dead.
> "I'll be cheesed if you kick it while chillin'." }
> 
> I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud
> There once was a poet named Will
> ...


I think lonely as a cloud is my fav. IN DNGG is it **** in the limmerick or did the litnet censor it ( its just I cant figure out the word and its bugging me, plus the orignal version is one of all time favs. *sigh*

----------


## quasimodo1

To Nightshade: You did read the post before yours, yes? They are neat and I just intended to put a bit of levity into the mix. I guess they did get censored a bit so if that blank space is bothering you, I can PM the original text. Sometimes it's important to stand back and realize that from a geological point of view, we are way ephemeral. Hence the attempt at humor. BTW (see, I can use these hip abreviations) your poem from yesterdays post really is quality stuff. I have reems of stuff I wrote back in the day, but my daughter's have them and won't give them up. Sooner or later though... I was going to tell you to keep on writing your poetry and that is a sound idea but I also think it's possible to let poetry kind of subconsciously stew and when the time is right, they seem to jump onto the page. Just a theory. quasi

----------


## Nightshade

> To Nightshade: You did read the post before yours, yes? They are neat and I just intended to put a bit of levity into the mix. I guess they did get censored a bit so if that blank space is bothering you, I can PM the original text. Sometimes it's important to stand back and realize that from a geological point of view, we are way ephemeral. Hence the attempt at humor. BTW (see, I can use these hip abreviations) your poem from yesterdays post really is quality stuff. I have reems of stuff I wrote back in the day, but my daughter's have them and won't give them up. Sooner or later though... I was going to tell you to keep on writing your poetry and that is a sound idea but I also think it's possible to let poetry kind of subconsciously stew and when the time is right, they seem to jump onto the page. Just a theory. quasi


Ah no the censoring would happen anywhere thats ok I was just wondering if the authour put ****** to begin with how would it read aloud. But thats OK. huh...thanks id probably appreciate this more if I actually took my poetry as anything except me messing about and excorcising lines and phrases that can haunt me for weeks, but Thanks anyway. :Biggrin:

----------


## quasimodo1

"My poet-child, I want you to sing with Me:
I barter nothing with time and deeds. 
My cosmic Play is done.
The One Transcendental I was. 
The Many Universal I am. 
I am the Soul-Flower of My Eternity. 
I am the Heart-Fragrance of My Infinity." 


By: Sri Chinmoy http://www.srichinmoypoetry.com/sri_chinmoy

----------


## quasimodo1

"for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, 
has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world" 





– Nobel Citation

----------


## quasimodo1

Creed


I believe in my heart that when

The wounded heart sunk within the depth of God sings

It rises from the pond alive

As if new-born. (first stanza)

----------


## Mrs. Dalloway

September 11th,

today is the national day of Catalonia, so I post a poem written by Salvador Espriu (I also post the original poem). The page I've read the poem is: http://proxy.cwe.es/folch/poesia/espriu_.htm#XLVI

I hope you enjoy it. I really like this poet  :Wink: 

English translation:

[XLVI] from La pell de brau (Literal translation by Magda Bogin)

Sometimes it is necessary and right 
for a man to die for a people. 
But a whole people must never die 
for a single man: 
remember this, Sepharad. 
Keep the bridge of dialogue secured 
and try to understand and love 
the different minds and tongues of all your children. 
Let the rain fall drop by drop on the fields 
and the air cross the ample fields 
like a soft, benevolent hand. 
Let Sepharad live forever 
in order and in peace, in work, 
and in difficult, hard_won 
liberty.

In Catalan:

[XLVI]

A vegades és necessari i forçós 
que un home mori per un poble, 
però mai no ha de morir tot un poble 
per un home sol: 
recorda sempre això, Sepharad. 
Fes que siguin segurs els ponts del diàleg 
i mira de comprendre i estimar 
les raons i les parles diverses dels teus fills. 
Que la pluja caigui a poc a poc en els sembrats 
i l'aire passi com una estesa mà 
suau i molt benigna damunt els amples camps. 
Que Sepharad visqui eternament 
en l'ordre i en la pau, en el treball, 
en la difícil i merescuda 
llibertat.

Salvador Espriu

----------


## AuntShecky

Robert Lowell (b. 1917) died on this day, September 12, in 1977. Love his poems, but they're too long, SO:

Given the short attention span of yours truly and heraffection for "tiny" poems, here presented in its entirety is a poem by the author of _The Red Badge of Courage_ Stephen Crane ( 1871-1900)-- years conveniently outside the 1923 copyright restrictions:


A man said to the universe: 
“Sir, I exist! 
“However,” replied the universe, 
“The fact has not created in me 
“A sense of obligation.”

----------


## quasimodo1

COMPLAINT
They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to 
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one golden needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion. 
......................................by William Carlos Williams

----------


## quasimodo1

To......

MUSIC, when soft voices die, 
Vibrates in the memory- 
Odors, when sweet violets sicken, 
Live within the sense they quicken. 
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 
Are heaped for the beloved's bed; 
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
Love itself shall slumber on. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley

----------


## quasimodo1

THE LIVING FLAME 
THEY pass before me, these Eyes full of light, 
Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise; 
The holy brothers pass before my sight, 
And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes. 

They keep me from all sin and error grave, 
They set me in the path whence Beauty came; 
They are my servants, and I am their slave, 
And all my soul obeys the living flame. 

Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic light 
As candles lighted at full noon; the sun 
Dims not your flame phantastical and bright. 

You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done; 
Marching you chaunt my soul's awakening hymn, 
Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!

----------


## Logos

Robert Frost's "October"  :Smile: 

http://www.online-literature.com/frost/boys-will/30/

O HUSHED October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

.
.

----------


## Truley_aLlI

I made up my own poem see if its good or not.

That single moment
when we look into eachothers eyes
we get closer and closer
everything around us turns into an invisble suprise

Your eyes close 
right when mine do
closing the world outside
I tilt my head
and wonder when the fireworks subside

out lips touch
I do not worry when our hands clutch
*KiSs*

----------


## karo

Deliver me from the usual thing,
The clever inevitability of the conversation,
The brilliant platitudes and the second-hand
Remarks about life...
O for the tangent terror
Of the metaphor no one has used --
The keenness of cutting edges
On the fresh green ice of thought.


Spring 1939

----------


## AuntShecky

I got into trouble posting stuff today, but I'm feeling bold
and would like to nominate a pre-1923 poem by Helen Hunt Jackson, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Great Northeast (U.S.) Snowstorm of October 4, 2007.
(incidentally, it is also the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi.)

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
October's Bright Blue Weather

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June, 
And flowers of June together, 
Ye cannot rival for one hour 
October's bright blue weather; 

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste, 
Belated, thriftless vagrant, 
And Golden-Rod is dying fast, 
And lanes with grapes are fragrant; 

When Gentians roll their fringes tight 
To save them for the morning, 
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs 
Without a sound of warning; 

When on the ground red apples lie 
In piles like jewels shining, 
And redder still on old stone walls 
Are leaves of woodbine twining; 

When all the lovely wayside things 
Their white-winged seeds are sowing, 
And in the fields, still green and fair, 
Late aftermaths are growing; 

When springs run low, and on the brooks, 
In idle golden freighting, 
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush 
Of woods, for winter waiting; 

When comrades seek sweet country haunts, 
By twos and twos together, 
And count like misers, hour by hour, 
October's bright blue weather. 

O suns and skies and flowers of June, 
Count all your boasts together, 
Love loveth best of all the year 
October's bright blue weather.

----------


## jdadler

A Poem For Friday 10/5

Conscience

Conscience is instinct bred in the house, 
Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin 
By an unnatural breeding in and in. 
I say, Turn it out doors, 
Into the moors. 
I love a life whose plot is simple, 
And does not thicken with every pimple, 
A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it, 
That makes the universe no worse than 't finds it. 
I love an earnest soul, 
Whose mighty joy and sorrow 
Are not drowned in a bowl, 
And brought to life to-morrow; 
That lives one tragedy, 
And not seventy; 
A conscience worth keeping; 
Laughing not weeping; 
A conscience wise and steady, 
And forever ready; 
Not changing with events, 
Dealing in compliments; 
A conscience exercised about 
Large things, where one may doubt. 
I love a soul not all of wood, 
Predestinated to be good, 
But true to the backbone 
Unto itself alone, 
And false to none; 
Born to its own affairs, 
Its own joys and own cares; 
By whom the work which God begun 
Is finished, and not undone; 
Taken up where he left off, 
Whether to worship or to scoff; 
If not good, why then evil, 
If not good god, good devil. 
Goodness! you hypocrite, come out of that, 
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat. 
I have no patience towards 
Such conscientious cowards. 
Give me simple laboring folk, 
Who love their work, 
Whose virtue is song 
To cheer God along.

Henry David Thoreau

----------


## firefangled

_- Wallace Stevens_

In the weed of summer, comes this green sprout why.
The sun aches and ails and then returns halloo
Upon the horizon amid adult enfantillages.

Its fire fails to pierce the vision that beholds it,
Fails to destroy the antique acceptances,
Except that the grandson sees it as it is,
Peter the voyant who says, "Mother what is that" 
The object that rises with so much rhetoric,
But not for him. His question is complete.
It is the question of what he is capable
It is the extreme, the expert aetat. 2. 
He will never ride the red horse she describes.

His question is complete because it contains 
His utmost statement. It is his own array,
His own pageant and procession and display,

As far as nothingness permits . . . Hear him.
He does not say, "Mother, my mother, who are you,"
The way the drowsy, infant, old men do.

----------


## symphony

> To......
> 
> MUSIC, when soft voices die, 
> Vibrates in the memory- 
> Odors, when sweet violets sicken, 
> Live within the sense they quicken. 
> Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 
> Are heaped for the beloved's bed; 
> And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
> ...


It was a pleasure to see this one here. It was, and remains, one of my favorite poems. Of all times. Thanks for posting it.  :Smile:

----------


## karo

I have been with the trees all day.
I don't think they will remember what I said.
The wind came between us
And we dreamt a little on either side of it
And our dreams may have met.
I think I felt a tremor in the leaves once
While my fingers dreamt of playing them.....
I have been with the trees all day,
Learning to forget.

Now I may go.
I have removed all trace of me.
Where I sat, where I walked, where I slept,
Where a corner I loved resembled me too much,
In my most private places I have set
Something unlike me,
Something to make them strange to themselves again,
Something to make them forget.

With you, I have done none of these things,
Sure if I went out quietly enough
You would not miss me more than yesterday,
Having forgotten so long already
That a parting sign from me 
Might make you remember,
Regret my going.

I have picked up
Every bit of me scattered about
And burried all of it.....somewhere....I forget.....
Over the wall!
I am going out
As somebody else!

_Laura Riding_

----------


## HailStorm

It was reading this thread that prompted me to register, such lovely posts here. Needless to say I love poetry. I'd like to add one of my favourite poets as my first post. 
"Hello everyone"  :Wink:  


Madison Caiwein ~ 1865-1914

FIELD AND FOREST CALL

I

There is a field, that leans upon two hills,
Foamed o'er of flowers and twinkling with clear rills;
That in its girdle of wild acres bears
The anodyne of rest that cures all cares;
Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent
With fragrance--as in some old instrument
Sweet chords;--calm things, that Nature's magic spell
Distills from Heaven's azure crucible,
And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well.
There lies the path, they say--
Come away! come away!

II

There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams,
Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams;
That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf
Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief;
Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things,
Vague, whispering' touches, gleams and twitterings,
Dews and cool shadows--that the mystic soul
Of Nature permeates with suave control,
And waves o'er Earth to make the sad heart whole.
There lies the road, they say--
Come away! come away!

----------


## quasimodo1

CHILDREN'S PARTY
May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest. My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats. I told them tales of magic lands,
I took them out to wash their hands.
I sorted their rubbers and tied their laces,
I wiped their noses and dried their faces. Of similarities there's lots
Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.
I've earned repose to heal the ravages
Of these angelic-looking savages. Oh, progeny playing by itself
Is a lonely little elf,
But progeny in roistering batches
Would drive St. Francis from here to Natchez. ..........................................{first part of this poem by Ogden Nash}

----------


## quasimodo1

1845
THE VALLEY OF UNREST

"The Valley of Unrest" was published in an 
edition of 1831 under the title, "Valley of Nis." (see below)


Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless-
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye-
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:  from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:  from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.


-The End- 


[This version of the poem bears only a slight
resemblance to its predecessor "The Valley Nis."]




--------------------------------------------------------------------------


1831
The Valley Nis 
by Edgar Allan Poe 

Far away  far away  
Far away  as far at least 
Lies that valley as the day 
Down within the golden east  
All things lovely  are not they 
Far away  far away ? 

It is called the valley Nis. 
And a Syriac tale there is 
Thereabout which Time hath said 
Shall not be interpreted. 
Something about Satan's dart  
Something about angel wings  
Much about a broken heart  
All about unhappy things:
But "the valley Nis" at best 
Means "the valley of unrest." 

Once it smil'd a silent dell 
Where the people did not dwell, 
Having gone unto the wars  
And the sly, mysterious stars, 
With a visage full of meaning, 
O'er the unguarded flowers were leaning: 
Or the sun ray dripp'd all red 
Thro' the tulips overhead, 
Then grew paler as it fell 
On the quiet Asphodel. 

Now the unhappy shall confess 
Nothing there is motionless: 
Helen, like thy human eye 
There th' uneasy violets lie  
There the reedy grass doth wave 
Over the old forgotten grave  
One by one from the tree top 
There the eternal dews do drop  
There the vague and dreamy trees

Do roll like seas in northern breeze 
Around the stormy Hebrides  
There the gorgeous clouds do fly, 
Rustling everlastingly, 
Through the terror-stricken sky, 
Rolling like a waterfall 
O'er th' horizon's fiery wall  
There the moon doth shine by night 
With a most unsteady light  
There the sun doth reel by day 
"Over the hills and far away."



-The End- 

{Two versions of "The Valley of Unrest" by Edgar Allan Poe}

----------


## quasimodo1

'Love for Marie' 
Pierre de Ronsard 
Translated From The French by Rosemary Clark 
I 
If any lover in Anjou pass by 
A pine tree overlooking Bourgueil town, 
He'd mark, displayed upon its pointed crown, 
My freedom, victim of a beauteous eye. 
Triumphant Love, who likes my torment well, 
Hung it as spoil, to vaunt my servitude 
And to proclaim to travellers on the road 
That loving's an exquisite prison cell. 
Nor could I choose a tree of nobler mark 
To hang my poor remains, for such rough bark 
On Ida's slopes young Atys' skin encased. 
Yet he and I conceived love differently, 
For he was smitten by a wrinkled face, 
I by a beauty half in infancy. 
II 
Marie, if men should try to twist your name 
They'd find aimer – so love me then, Marie. 
Your name requires it . You must loving be; 
Refusal would be mortal sin and shame. 
If you consent to pledge me all your heart, 
I give you mine, and so we shall partake 
Of all life's pleasures; and I undertake, 
No other fancy shall command my thought. [End Page 167] 
Mistress, to love is every mortal's share. 
The man who loves not, wretchedly must bear 
A Scythian's life, and all his days will spend 
Without the sweetness of all sweets the height. 
What! Without love, where then lies all delight? 
The day I love no more, then may I meet my end. 
III 
Get up, Marie, you lie in bed too long. 
The lark already carols high above 
And the nightingale has warbled out her love 
Upon the thorn in streams of plaintive song. 
Up with you! Come and see the greensward bright 
With dewdrops, and your pretty rose-tree crowned 
With buds, your dainty pinks that deck the ground 
Which with such care you watered late last night. 
Last night you swore at bedtime by your eyes 
Sooner than I this morning to be dressed, 
But the sleep of dawn, which soft on maidens lies, 
Holds you in dreams, your lashes still close pressed. 
I'll kiss them, so! And your nipple rosy red 
A hundred times, to get you out of bed. 
IV 
Hide your bright horns tonight, indulgent Moon! 
So may Endymion, pillowed on your breast, 
Be ever loving, ever take his rest, 
And no enchanter seek to importune. 
Hateful is day to me and night my boon. 
By day I feel the threat of watchful eyes; 
More bold at nightfall, through the camp of spies 
I pass, defended by dusk's gathering gloom. 
Moon, you know well how potent is Love's smart, 
How Pan for a white fleece could sway your heart, 
And pity me, you brilliant stars above; 
Look kindly on the flame that burns in me, 
And think, you constellations, it was love 
That set you there, to shine eternally. [End Page 168] {only part of this long poem}

----------


## firefangled

_For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost. . . . Not til we are lost . . . do we begin to find ourselves.”
—Thoreau, Walden_


Kind Sir: This is an old game
that we played when we were eight and ten.
Sometimes on The Island, in down Maine,
in late August, when the cold fog blew in
off the ocean, the forest between Dingley Dell
and grandfather’s cottage grew white and strange.
It was as if every pine tree were a brown pole
we did not know; as if day had rearranged
into night and bats flew in sun. It was a trick
to turn around once and know you were lost;
knowing the crow’s horn was crying in the dark,
knowing that supper would never come, that the coast’s
cry of doom from that far away bell buoy’s bell
said your nursemaid is gone. O Mademoiselle,
the rowboat rocked over. Then you were dead.
Turn around once, eyes tight, the thought in your head.

....

-Anne Sexton, To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)

----------


## quasimodo1

Untitled, Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827
Untitled
by Edgar Allan Poe


The happiest day  the happiest hour 
My sear'd and blighted heart hath known, 
The highest hope of pride, and power, 
I feel hath flown. 

Of power! said I? yes! such I ween 
But they have vanish'd long alas! 
The visions of my youth have been  
But let them pass. 

And, pride, what have I now with thee? 
Another brow may ev'n inherit 
The venom thou hast pour'd on me  
Be still my spirit. 

The happiest day  the happiest hour 
Mine eyes shall see  have ever seen 
The brightest glance of pride and power 
I feel  have been: 

But were that hope of pride and power 
Now offer'd, with the pain 
Ev'n then I felt  that brightest hour 
I would not live again: 

For on its wing wall dark alloy 
And as it flutter'd  fell
An essence  powerful to destroy 
A soul that knew it well.


-The End- 







"[The Happiest Day]", North American (Baltimore), Sept. 15, 1827
(Original.)
by Edgar Allan Poe


The happiest day  the happiest hour, 
My sear'd and blighted heart has known, 
The brightest glance of pride and power 


I feel hath flown 

Of power, said I? Yes, such I ween  
But it has vanish'd  long alas! 
The visions of my youth have been  

But let them pass.  

And pride! what have I now with thee? 
Another brow may e'en inherit 
The venom thou hast pour'd on me: 

Be still my spirit. 

The smile of love  soft friendship's charm  
Bright hope itself has fled at last, 
'T will ne'er again my bosom warm 

'Tis ever past.

The happiest day,  the happiest hour, 
Mine eyes shall see,  have ever seen,  
The brightest glance of pride and power, 

I feel has been. W. H. P.
-The End- 


["W. H. P." are the initials of Edgar's brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, usually called Henry. As this version of the poem appeared only a few months after the abortive publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), it is presumed that they are a revision of Edgar's verses rather than the other way around. T. O Mabbott felt that the rather tepid value of the modifications suggests that they were made by Henry, though perhaps with Edgar's approval.] 

[A photographic facsimile of this printing was included by Hervey Allen and T. O. Mabbott in Poe's Brother, New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926, p. 43.] 

[The full title of the newspaper was North American, or Weekly Journal of Politics, Science and Literature. ] (notes from: http://www.eapoe.org/)


{this posting is a direct result of a statement made in the "what is a good poem" thread saying, in paraphrase, I wish we could go back to the day and style of E.A.Poe}

----------


## quasimodo1

"Married people often look that way"
"seldom and cold, up and down, 
mixed and malarial 
with a good day and a bad."
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional, 
we quarrel as we feed; 
self lost, the irony preserved 
in "the Ahasuerus tête-à-tête banquet, 
with its small orchids like snakes' tongues, 
with its "good monster, lead the way," 
with little laughter 
and munificence of humour 
in that quixotic atmosphere of frankness................... 
 {excerpt from Marianne Moore's poem, "Marriage"}

----------


## quasimodo1

AN ALPHABET OF FAMOUS GOOPS.
Which you 'll Regard with Yells and Whoops.
Futile Acumen! 
For you Yourselves are Doubtless Dupes
Of Failings Such as Mar these Groups --
We all are Human!

1 ABEDNEGO was Meek and Mild; he Softly Spoke, he Sweetly Smiled.
2 He never Called his Playmates Names, and he was Good in Running Games;
3 But he was Often in Disgrace because he had a Dirty Face!

4 BOHUNKUS would Take Off his Hat, and Bow and Smile, and Things like That.
5 His Face and Hair were Always Neat, and when he Played he did not Cheat;
6 But Oh! what Awful Words he Said, when it was Time to Go to Bed!

7 The Gentle CEPHAS tried his Best to Please his Friends with Merry Jest;
8 He tried to Help Them, when he Could, for CEPHAS, he was Very Good;
9 And Yet -- They Say he Used to Cry, and Once or Twice he Told a Lie!

10 DANIEL and DAGO were a Pair who Acted Kindly Everywhere;
11 They studied Hard, as Good as Gold, they Always did as They were Told;
12 They Never Put on Silly Airs, but They Took Things that were Not Theirs.

13 EZEKIEL, so his Parents said, just Simply Loved to Go to Bed;
14 He was as Quiet as could Be whenever there were Folks to Tea;
15 And yet, he had a Little Way of Grumbling, when he should Obey.

16 When FESTUS was but Four Years Old his Parents Seldom had to Scold;
17 They never Called him 'FESTUS DON'T!' he Never Whined and said 'I Won't!'
18 Yet it was Sad to See him Dine. His Table Manners were Not Fine. 

19 GAMALIEL took Peculiar Pride in Making Others Satisfied.
20 One Time I asked him for his Head. 'Why, Certainly! GAMALIEL Said.
21 He was Too Generous, in Fact. But Bravery he Wholly Lacked.

22 HAZAEL was (at Least he Said he Was) Exceedingly Well Bred;
23 Forbidden Sweets he would not Touch, though he might Want them very Much.
24 But Oh, Imagination Fails to quite Describe his Finger Nails!

25 How Interesting ISAAC Seemed! He never Fibbed, he Seldom Screamed;
26 His Company was Quite a Treat to all the Children on the Street;
27 But Nurse has Told me of his Wrath when he was Made to Take a Bath!

28 Oh, Think of JONAH when you 're Bad; Think what a Happy Way he had
29 Of Saying 'Thank You! -- 'If you Please' -- 'Excuse Me, Sir,' and Words like These.
30 Still, he was Human, like Us All. His Muddy Footprints Tracked the Hall.

31 Just fancy KADESH for a Name! Yet he was Clever All the Same;
32 He knew Arithmetic, at Four, as Well as Boys of Nine or More!
33 But I Prefer far Duller Boys, who do Not Make such Awful Noise!

34 Oh, Laugh at LABAN, if you Will, but he was Brave when he was Ill.
35 When he was Ill, he was so Brave he Swallowed All his Mother Gave!
36 But Somehow, She could never Tell why he was Worse when he was Well!

37 If MICAH's Mother Told him 'No' he Made but Little of his Woe;
38 He Always Answered, 'Yes, I'll Try!' for MICAH Thought it Wrong to Cry.
39 Yet he was Always Asking Questions and Making quite Ill-timed Suggestions.

40 I Fancy NICODEMUS Knew as Much as I, or even You;
41 He was Too Careful, I am Sure, to Scratch or Soil the Furniture;
42 He never Squirmed, he never Squalled; he Never Came when he was Called!

43 Some think that OBADIAH'S Charm was that he Never Tried to Harm
44 Dumb Animals in any Way, though Some are Cruel when they Play.
45 But though he was so Sweet and Kind, his Mother found him Slow to Mind.

46 When PELEG had a Penny Earned, to Share it with his Friends he Yearned.
47 And if he Bought a Juicy Fig, his Sister's Half was Very Big!
48 Had he not Hated to Forgive, he would have been Too Good to Live!

49 When QUARTO'S brother QUARTO Hit, was QUARTO Angry? Not a Bit!
50 He Called the Blow a Little Joke, and so Affectionately Spoke,
51 That Everybody Loved the Lad. Yet Oh, What Selfish Ways he had!

{A to Q of this "Alphabet..........." by Gelett Burgess}

----------


## quasimodo1

AS WINDS THAT BLOW AGAINST A STAR 
(For Aline)

Now by what whim of wanton chance
Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
Walk weary and laborious ways?
But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
The glory of celestial mirth.
The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
As winds that blow against a star.

----------


## firefangled

*The Dove in the Belly*

The whole of appearance is a toy. For this,
The dove in the belly builds his nest and coos,

Selah, tempestuous bird. How is it that
The rives shine and hold their mirrors up,

.........................................

----------


## Virgil

I've never seen that Stevens poem before, Fire. What a marvelous poem. Like most Stevens poems I can't quite grasp it, but the language is wonderful.

----------


## firefangled

> I've never seen that Stevens poem before, Fire. What a marvelous poem. Like most Stevens poems I can't quite grasp it, but the language is wonderful.


I know what you mean. I have read it I don't know how many times and I still don't have my head around it completely.

With Stevens, a part of me does not want to get him completely. it is the beauty of his poems. One his obsession was the imagination and I seem to understand his poems the way I understand human imagination - not quite totally. It is somewhat like the Mona Lisa and her smile, an eternal mystery and better for it. Some things understanding diminishes, don't you think?

The _Poems of Our Climate_ by Bloom, _Words Chosen Out of Desire_, _Parts of a World_, and, of course, _The Necessary Angel_, all helped me to not understand him better.

Stevens said, "The poem must resist the intelligence/Almost successfully." I have always thought him one of the greatest masters to have done that so well so often.

Do you remember the struggle of the main characters in Close Encounters of the Third Kind to understand the iconic image of the Devils Tower? Roy kept saying to himself, "This means something." That's how I feel about Stevens and it is frustrating and soothing at the same time.

----------


## quasimodo1

To Firefangled:With Stevens, "a part of me does not want to get him completely. it is the beauty of his poems. One his obsession was the imagination and I seem to understand his poems the way I understand human imagination - not quite totally. It is somewhat like the Mona Lisa and her smile, an eternal mystery and better for it. Some things understanding diminishes, don't you think?" This view of Stevens, elegantly stated by you, is common with readers of his poetry. I think you ought know nothing of the authors history before you read his/her work. Someone once told me to never read introductions or prefaces before you read the poem or novel; then read those parts. quasimodo1

----------


## firefangled

FROM *Girl Without Hands*

Walking through the ruins
on your way to work
that do not look like ruins
with the sunlight pouring over
the seen world
like hail or melted
silver, that bright
and magnificent, each leaf
and stone quickened and specific in it,
and you can't hold it,
you can't hold any of it. Distance surrounds you,
marked out by the ends of your arms
when they are stretched to their fullest.
You can walk no further than this,
you think, walking forward,
pushing the distance in front of you
like a metal cart on wheels
with its barriers and horizontals.

....

&#169; 1995 by Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House, Houghton Mifflin Company

----------


## Virgil

That is a haunting poem, Firef. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks.

----------


## firefangled

> That is a haunting poem, Firef. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks.


It's one of my favorite by Atwood. Her inspiration, I think, was a Grimm's Fairytale of the same name.

I also love "Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing."

----------


## firefangled

partial posting

*Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing*

The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

....

----------


## quasimodo1

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood-
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood.
with a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark and the children hark,
as we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, Ting a ling ding!
Hurray for Thanskgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood-
no matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get the sleigh upset
into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all, and play snowball
and stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,
trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound!
For 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow-
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood-
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his paw with a loud bow-wow,
and thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the wood-
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, O, dear, the children are here,
bring pie for everyone.

Over the river, and through the wood-
now Grandmothers cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!



_ { by Lydia Maria Child, published 1844} __________________________________________________ _____________

----------


## quasimodo1

. . . The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning, to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in the statue devil;--Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously tranferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and, then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. (Moby-Dick, Chapter 41) 

--Herman Melville

----------


## quasimodo1

It dropped so low in my regard

IT dropped so low in my regard 
I heard it hit the ground, 
And go to pieces on the stones 
At bottom of my mind; 

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less 
Than I reviled myself 
For entertaining plated wares 
Upon my silver shelf. 

Emily Dickinson

----------


## quasimodo1

Winter

No more tire morn, with tepid rays,
Unfolds the flow'r of various hue;
Noon spreads no more the genial blaze,
Nor gentle eve distils the dew.
The ling'ring hours prolong the night,
Usurping darkness shares the day;
Her mists restrain the force of light,
And Phoebus holds a doubtful sway.
By gloomy twilight, half reveal'd,
With sighs we view the hoary hill,
The leafless wood, the naked field,
The snow-topp'd cot, the frozen rill.
No musick warbles through the grove,
No vivid colours paint the plain;
No more, with devious steps, I rove
Through verdant paths, now sought in vain.
Aloud the driving tempest roars,
Congeal'd, impetuous show'rs descend;
Haste, close the window, bar the doors,
Fate leaves me Stella, and a friend.
In nature's aid, let art supply
With light and heat my little sphere;
Rouse, rouse the fire, and pile it high,
Light up a constellation here.
Let musick sound the voice of joy,
Or mirth repeat the jocund tale;
Let love his wanton wiles employ,
And o'er the season wine prevail.
Yet time life's dreary winter brings,
When mirth's gay tale shall please no more
Nor musick charm--though Stella sings;
Nor love, nor wine, the spring restore.
Catch, then, Oh! catch the transient hour,
Improve each moment as it flies;
Life's a short summer--man a flow'r:
He dies--alas! how soon he dies!

----------


## quasimodo1

TO YOU
WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, 
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; 
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume,
crimes, dissipate away from you, 
Your true Soul and Body appear before me, 
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms,
clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; 
I whisper with my lips close to your ear, 
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. 

O I have been dilatory and dumb; 
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you. 

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you; 
None have understood you, but I understand you; 
None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself; 
None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you;
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate
you; 
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits
intrinsically
in yourself. 

Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all; 
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light; 
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d
light;
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing
forever. 

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! 
You have not known what you are—you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life; 
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time; 
What you have done returns already in mockeries;
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their
return?) 

The mockeries are not you; 
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; 
I pursue you where none else has pursued you; 
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if
these
conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me;
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do
not
balk me, 
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all
these I
part aside. 

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you; 
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you; 
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you. 

As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you; 
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory
ofyou.
Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard! 
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable
as
they; 
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you
are
he or she who is master or mistress over them, 
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution. 

The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency; 
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges
itself;
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted; 
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

----------


## quasimodo1

CHORUSES FROM THE ROCK 


Then came at a predetermined moment, 
a moment in time and of time, 
A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history: 
transecting, bisecting the world of time, 
a moment in time, but not like a moment of time, 
A moment in time but time was made through that moment: 
for without the meaning there is no time, 
and that moment in time gave the meaning. 
Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word, 
Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being. 
1934 {excerpt}

----------


## Beverly S

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, and did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

----------


## quasimodo1

`The stars are glittering in the frosty sky'

THE stars are glittering in the frosty sky, 
Frequent as pebbles on a broad sea-coast; 
And o'er the vault the cloud-like galaxy 
Has marshalled its innumerable host. 
Alive all heaven seems! with wondrous glow 
Tenfold refulgent every star appears, 
As if some wide celestial gale did blow, 
And thrice illume the ever-kindled spheres. 
Orbs, with glad orbs rejoicing, burning, beam, 
Ray-crowned, with lambent lustre in their zones, 
Till o'er the blue, bespangled spaces seem 
Angels and great archangels on their thrones; 
A host divine, whose eyes are sparkling gems, 
And forms more bright than diamond diadems. 

Charles Heavysege

----------


## quasimodo1

Where's the Poet?

WHERE'S the Poet? show him! show him, 
Muses nine! that I may know him. 
'Tis the man who with a man 
Is an equal, be he King, 
Or poorest of the beggar-clan 
Or any other wonderous thing 
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato; 
'Tis the man who with a bird, 
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to 
All its instincts; he hath heard 
The Lion's roaring, and can tell 
What his horny throat expresseth, 
And to him the Tiger's yell 
Come articulate and presseth 
Or his ear like mother-tongue. 

John Keats

----------


## quasimodo1

The Exequy

ACCEPT, thou shrine of my dead saint, 
Instead of dirges, this complaint; 
And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse, 
Receive a strew of weeping verse 
From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see 
Quite melted into tears for thee. 

Dear loss! since thy untimely fate 
My task hath been to meditate 
On thee, on thee; thou art the book, 
The library whereon I look, 
Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay, 
I languish out, not live, the day, 
Using no other exercise 
But what I practise with mine eyes; 
By which wet glasses I find out 
How lazily time creeps about 
To one that mourns; this, only this, 
My exercise and business is. 
So I compute the weary hours 
With sighs dissolvëd into showers. 

Nor wonder if my time go thus 
Backward and most preposterous; 
Thou hast benighted me; thy set 
This eve of blackness did beget, 
Who wast my day, though overcast 
Before thou hadst thy noon-tide past; 
And I remember must in tears, 
Thou scarce hadst seen so many years 
As day tells hours. By thy clear sun 
My love and fortune first did run; 
But thou wilt never more appear 
Folded within my hemisphere, 
Since both thy light and motïon 
Like a fled star is fall'n and gone; 
And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish 
An earth now interposëd is, 
Which such a strange eclipse doth make 
As ne'er was read in almanac. 

I could allow thee for a time 
To darken me and my sad clime; 
Were it a month, a year, or ten, 
I would thy exile live till then, 
And all that space my mirth adjourn, 
So thou wouldst promise to return, 
And putting off thy ashy shroud, 
At length disperse this sorrow's cloud. 

But woe is me! the longest date 
Too narrow is to calculate 
These empty hopes; never shall I 
Be so much blest as to descry 
A glimple of thee, till that day come 
Which shall the earth to cinders doom, 
And a fierce fever must calcine 
The body of this world like thine, 
My little world. That fit of fire 
Once off, our bodies shall aspire 
To our souls' bliss; then we shall rise 
And view ourselves with clearer eyes 
In that calm region where no night 
Can hide us from each other's sight. 

Meantime, thou hast her, earth; much good 
May my harm do thee. Since it stood 
With heaven's will I might not call 
Her longer mine, I give thee all 
My short-lived right and interest 
In her whom living I loved best; 
With a most free and bounteous grief, 
I give thee what I could not keep. 
Be kind to her, and prithee look 
Thou write into thy doomsday book 
Each parcel of this rarity 
Which in thy casket shrined doth lie. 
See that thou make thy reck'ning straight, 
And yield her back again by weight; 
For thou must audit on thy trust 
Each grain and atom of this dust, 
As thou wilt answer Him that lent, 
Not gave thee, my dear monument. 

So close the ground, and 'bout her shade 
Black curtains draw, my bride is laid. 

Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed, 
Never to be disquieted! 
My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake 
Till I thy fate shall overtake; 
Till age, or grief, or sickness must 
Marry my body to that dust 
It so much loves, and fill the room 
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb. 
Stay for me there, I will not fail 
To meet thee in that hollow vale. 
And think not much of my delay; 
I am already on the way, 
And follow thee with all the speed 
Desire can make, or sorrws breed. 
Each minute is a short degree, 
And ev'ry hour a step towards thee. 
At night when I betake to rest, 
Next morn I rise nearer my west 
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail, 
Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale. 

Thus from the sun my bottom steers, 
And my day's compass downward bears; 
Nor labor I to stem the tide 
Through which to thee I swiftly glide. 

'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield, 
Thou like the van first tookst the field, 
And gotten hath the victory 
In thus adventuring to die 
Before me, whose more years might crave 
A just precedence in the grave. 
But hark! my pulse like a soft drum 
Beats my approach, tells thee I come; 
And slow howe'er my marches be, 
I shall at last sit down by thee. 

The thought of this bids me go on, 
And wait my dissolutïon 
With hope and comfort. Dear, forgive 
The crime, I am content to live 
Divided, with but half a heart, 
Till we shall meet and never part. 

Henry King, Bishop of Chichester



Sonnet

----------


## quasimodo1

Personal Ad 
wanted. dreams to fill vacancies. 

rain clouds ok, as long as rainbows appear - 
eventually. eyes that radiate magic 
essential. must be prepared 
to carry heart of stone until it again 
becomes a feather. send resume 
on the wings of blackbirds. will respond 
by same. 

Ken Mitchell, &#169; 1996 http://theotherpages.org/universe/mitchell.html {To Logos: This short poem is posted in entirety; it is, I believe, a promotional example of this new poet's work and barring any other examples, it's probably ok to exhibit this short preview.}

----------


## quasimodo1

O Intelligence Moving The Third Heaven

O Intelligences moving the third heaven,
the reasons heed that from my heart come forth,
so new, it seems, that no one else should know.
The heaven set in motion by your worth,
beings in gentleness created even, 
keeps my existence in its present woe,
so that to speak of what I feel and know
means to converse most worthily with you:
I beg you, then, to listen to me well.
Of something in me new I now will tell 
how grief and sadness this my soul subdue,
and how a contradiction from afar
speaks through the rays descending from your star. 

A thought of loveliness seems now to be
life to my ailing heart: it used to fly 
oft to the very presence of your Sire;
and there a glorious Lady sitting high
it also saw, who spoke so pleasingly,
my soul would say Up there dwells my desire.
Now one appears, which I in dread admire 
a mighty lord that makes it flee away,
so mighty, terror from my heart outflows.
To me he brings a lady very close,
and Who salvation seeks, I hear him say,
let him but gaze into this ladys eyes, 
if he can suffer agony of sighs. 

Such is the contradiction, it can slay
the humble thought that is still telling me
of a fair angel up in heaven crowned.
My soul bemoans its present misery, 
saying, Unhappy me! How fast away
went he, in whom I had some solace found!
And of my eyes it says, with mournful sound,
When was it such a lady pierced their sight?
Why did they fail to see me in her guise? 
I said, Oh, surely, in this ladys eyes
the one must dwell who kills my peers with fright. 
To no avail I warned them (Oh, my dread!),
but look at her they did, and I fell dead. 

Oh, no, not dead, you are bewildered much, 
O my poor soul, so pained and grieving so,
replies a loving spirit, kind and sweet,
For the fair woman, that you feel and know,
has changed your life so quickly and so much,
you now are trembling in your vile defeat. 
Look how humility and mercy meet
in one so wise and gentle in her height:
so call her Lady, as by now you must.
And you will see, if steadfast is your trust,
such lofty miracles, such full delight, 
youll say, O Love, true lord, do as you please:
here is your humble handmaid on her knees. 

My song, I do believe that those are few
who can unravel your most hidden sense,
so intricate and mighty is your wit. 
Therefore, if by some fate or circumstance
you stray and venture among people who
seem not completely to have fathomed it,
oh, then, I pray, console yourself a bit,
and say, O lovely latest song, to them, 
Notice, at least, how beautiful I am! 


Dante Alighieri

----------


## quasimodo1

POET SYNDROME 
I'm a person you would call a poet.
I'll be writing poems before you know it.
People say that I'm obsessed.
Others think that I'm possessed.
I tell them I'm sorry that I always rhyme.
I just can't help it. I do it all the time.
So my dog's name is Tanka and my fish's is Haiku.
I don't think I'm that obsessed, what about you?

-- Submitted by Kristin Aoyagi from Des Plaines, IL
e-mail: [email protected]

----------


## quasimodo1

The Key Note

I DREAMED I was dreaming one morn as I lay 
In a garden with flowers teeming. 
On an island I lay in a mystical bay, 
In the dream I dreamed I was dreaming.

The ghost of a scent--had it followed me there 
From the place where I truly was resting? 
It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air, 
The presence of roses attesting.

Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed 
That the place was all barren of roses-- 
That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed, 
Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses.

Full many a seaman had testified 
How all who sailed near were enchanted, 
And landed to search (and in searching died) 
For the roses the Sirens had planted.

For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed 
In the stead of their singing forever; 
But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed, 
Though man had discovered them never.

I though in my dream 'twas an idle tale, 
A delusion that mariners cherished-- 
That the fragrance loading the conscious gale 
Was a ghost of a rose long perished.

I said, "I will fly from this island of woes." 
And acting on that decision, 
By that odor of rose I was led by the nose, 
For 'twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian.

I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source 
Of the redolent river--directed 
By some supernatural, sinister force 
To a forest, dark, haunted, infected.

And still as I threaded ('twas all in the dream 
That I dreamed I was dreaming) each turning 
There were many a scream and a sudden gleam 
Of eyes all uncannily burning!

The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew 
That mirrored the red moon's crescent, 
And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue, 
Dim, wavering, phosphorescent.

But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free, 
Led me on, though my blood was clotting, 
Till--ah, joy!--I could see, on the limbs of a tree, 
Mine enemies hanging and rotting! 

Ambrose Bierce

----------


## quasimodo1

"Quatre Poems"3.
what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where ebery instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies toward succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above it's ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness

{translated from the French by the author...Part 3, of "Dieppe"}

----------


## quasimodo1

THE VICTOR DOG
Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.

From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend,

Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does he hear?I fancy he rather smells
Those lemon-gold arpeggios in Ravel's
"Les jets d'eau du palais de ceux qui s'aiment."
{excerpt from this poem, first three stanzas, by James Merrill}

----------


## quasimodo1

OPTIMISM
At last there'll dawn the last of the long year, 
Of the long year that seemed to dream no end, 
Whose every dawn but turned the world more drear, 
And slew some hope, or led away some friend. 
Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind, 
We care not, day, but leave not death behind. 

The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted, 
Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain. 
Oh, we are sick to find that they who started 
With glamour in their eyes came not again. 
O day, be long and heavy if you will, 
But on our hopes set not a bitter heel. 

For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring 
Will come, though death and ruin hold the land, 
Though storms may roar they may not break the wing 
Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland. 
Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn, 
Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born. 

A. Victor Ratcliffe

----------


## quasimodo1

Sonnet #107 





Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. 
{posted by request; the only problem with posting Shakespeare is that after reading a sonnet like this, you don't feel like writing anything. This writer was no glovemaker's son...He was the 3rd Earl of Oxford who has an empty crypt in Canteberry Cathedral}

----------


## tinustijger

I don't think shakespeare's original. Those sonnets, blaahh, always kinda the same. The metre gets so boring!! You can just read one sonnet and then you want something else. Am I the only one with this feeling?

----------


## quasimodo1

"SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI"
"Sic transit gloria mundi,"
"How doth the busy bee,"
"Dum vivimus vivamus,"
I stay mine enemy!

Oh "veni, vidi, vici!"
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh "memento mori"
When I am far from thee!

Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!

Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!

Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father's tree!

I climb the "Hill of Science,"
I "view the landscape o'er;"
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne'er beheld before!

Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go;
I'll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!

During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling,
Fell from an apple tree!

The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!

It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o'er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!

Mortality is fatal --
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!

Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho' full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still, --

The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!

A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!

Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e'e.

In token of our friendship
Accept this "Bonnie Doon,"
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,

The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then, farewell, Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee! 
 {for those unfamiliar with Latin...the title means "So Passes the Glory of the World}

----------


## quasimodo1

THE BATTLE OF AGINCORT
Fair stood the wind for France
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marcheth towards Agincourt
In happy hour;
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopped his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay
With all his power;

Which, in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride, 
His ransom to provide
Unto him sending;
Which he neglects the while,
As from a nation vile,
Yet with an angry smile
Their fall portending.

And turning to his men,
Quoth our brave Henry then,
"Though they to one be ten,
Be not amazed.
Yet have we well begun,
Battles so bravely won
Have ever to the sun
By fame been raised.

"And for myself (quoth he),
This my full rest shall be;
England ne'er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me.
Victor I will remain,
Or on this earth lie slain;
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.

"Poitiers and Cressy tell,
When most their pride did swell,
Under our swords they fell;
No less our skill is
Than when our grandsire great,
Claiming the regal seat,
By many a warlike feat
Lopped the French lilies."

The Duke of York so dread
The eager vaward led;
With the main Henry sped
Amongst his henchmen.
Exeter had the rear,
A braver man not there; 
O Lord, how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen!

They now to fight are gone,
Armour on armour shone,
Drum now to drum did groan,
To hear was wonder;
That with the cries they make
The very earth did shake;
Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.

Well it thine age became,
O noble Erpingham,
Which didst the signal aim
To our hid forces!
When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,
The English archery
Stuck the French horses.

With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long,
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But, playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts,
Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilbos drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent,
Scalps to the teeth were rent,
Down the French peasants went 
Our men were hardy!

This while our noble king,
His broadsword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it;
And many a deep wound lent,
His arms with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.

Gloucester, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood
With his brave brother;
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden knight,
Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another.

Warwick in blood did wade,
Oxford the foe invade,
And cruel slaughter made
Still as they ran up;
Suffolk his axe did ply,
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.

Upon Saint Crispin's Day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which fame did not delay
To England to carry.
O, when shall English men
With such acts fill a pen;
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry? 
By Michael Drayton {echoes of Henry V?--quasimodo1}

----------


## quasimodo1

THANKS 
HER griefs were the hours 
When my struggle was sore,-- 
Her joys were the powers 
That the climber upbore. 

Her home is the boundless 
Free ocean that seems 
To rock, calm and soundless, 
My galleon of dreams. 

Half hers are the glancing 
Creations that throng 
With pageant and dancing 
The ways of my song. 

My fires when they dwindle 
Are lit from her brand; 
Men see them rekindle 
Nor guess by whose hand. 

Of thanks to requite her 
No least thought is hers,-- 
And therefore I write her, 
Once, thanks in a verse.

----------


## kilted exile

The poem of today is and must be

Twas the night before christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winters nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

----------


## Virgil

> The poem of today is and must be
> 
> Twas the night before christmas
> 
> Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
> Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
> The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
> In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.
> 
> ...


Great thought Kilt!

----------


## quasimodo1

THE OCEAN'S SONG
We walked amongst the ruins famed in story 
Of Rozel-Tower, 
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory 
And heave in power. 

O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder, 
Whilst waves marked time. 
"Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder, 
"And shine sublime! 

"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles, 
To despots sold. 
Souls of deep thinkers, soar like mighty eagles! 
The Right uphold. 

"Be born! arise! o'er the earth and wild waves bounding, 
Peoples and suns! 
Let darkness vanish; tocsins be resounding, 
And flash, ye guns! 

"And you who love no pomps of fog or glamour, 
Who fear no shocks, 
Brave foam and lightning, hurricane and clamour,-- 
Exiles: the rocks!"

----------


## AuntShecky

This is a short passage (i.e. "fair use") from
*New Year Letter*
by W. H. Auden

"Instruct us in the civil art
Of making from the muddled heart
A desert and a city where
The thoughts that have to labour there
May find locality and peace,
And pent-up feelings their release,
Send strength sufficient for our day,
And point out knowledge on its way,
_O da quode jubes, Domine_."

----------


## mukta581

Love Is

Love is patient, Love is kind
Love is not jealous, is not proud.

Is not puffed up,
It does not behave badly.
Love does not easily get angry,
It does not think evil.

Love does not rejoice in iniquity,
But rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
Hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.

----------


## quasimodo1

ON FAME
Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;
She is a Gypsy,will not speak to those
Who have not learnt to be content without her;
A Jilt, whose ear was never whispered close,
Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;
A very Gypsy is she, Nilus-born,
Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;
Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are!
Makeyour best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

----------


## mukta581

Love is a Sickness

LOVE is a sickness full of woes, 
All remedies refusing; 
A plant that with most cutting grows, 
Most barren with best using. 
Why so? 

More we enjoy it, more it dies; 
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries 
Heigh ho! 

Love is a torment of the mind, 
A tempest everlasting; 10 
And Jove hath made it of a kind 
Not well, nor full nor fasting. 
Why so? 

More we enjoy it, more it dies; 
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries
Heigh ho!

----------


## mukta581

Love is a Sickness

LOVE is a sickness full of woes, 
All remedies refusing; 
A plant that with most cutting grows, 
Most barren with best using. 
Why so? 

More we enjoy it, more it dies; 
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries 
Heigh ho! 

Love is a torment of the mind, 
A tempest everlasting; 10 
And Jove hath made it of a kind 
Not well, nor full nor fasting. 
Why so? 

More we enjoy it, more it dies; 
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries
Heigh ho!

----------


## quasimodo1

ASIA: FROM PROMETHEUS UNBOUND
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.

We have past Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!

----------


## quasimodo1

SONG FROM AMPHITRYON*
Air Iris I love, and hourly I die, 
But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye: 
She's fickle and false, and there we agree, 
For I am as false and as fickle as she. 
We neither believe what either can say; 
And, neither believing, we neither betray. 
'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course; 
We mean not the taking for better or worse. 
When present, we love; when absent, agree: 
I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me. 
The legend of love no couple can find, 
So easy to part, or so equally joined. .................................................. .................................................. ..................... *Amphitryon... Amphitryon is an interesting and unique character, as the tales surrounding him bear witness. His name, as defined above, flows thematically throughout the material we have about him. Not only is he harassed by unrequitable love and duty, he is also harassed by Zeus, who sends him on an errand and then uses his wife to bear Hercules. Furthermore, though Zeus was disguised as Amphitryon while he seduced Alcmene, the real Amphitryon cannot lay claim as progenitor to the great Hercules, who often berates him for offending the gods.

----------


## mukta581

What words can not say alone!

More often than not,
Words can't describe,
My feelings for you,
Which go far and beyond. 

Feelings for you, 
that grow stronger and stronger,
With every minute in the day,
With every beat of my heart.
From the moment I saw you,
I knew you were the one for me,
Right from the start, 
there was no moment of doubt. 

There are no moments,
In the day,
That I can find,
where you face and smile
Do not magically appear
In my loving thoughts. 

I long to be with you,
when we are apart.
To hold you, 
To touch you, 
To love you.

We share something so special,
A love not all can find.
There are no words,
That could ever describe,
This here a feeling,
From deep within my soul,
A love so true, but only true to you.

----------


## aabbcc

ORIGINAL:

*VERRA LA MORTE E AVRA I TUOI OCCHI*

Verr&#224; la morte e avr&#224; i tuoi occhi
questa morte che ci accompagna
dal mattino alla sera, insonne,
sorda, come un vecchio rimorso
o un vizio assurdo. I tuoi occhi
saranno una vana parola,
un grido taciuto, un silenzio.
Cos&#237; li vedi ogni mattina
quando su te sola ti pieghi
nello specchio. O cara speranza,
quel giorno sapremo anche noi
che sei la vita e sei il nulla. 
Per tutti la morte ha uno sguardo.
Verr&#224; la morte e avr&#224; i tuoi occhi.
Sar&#224; come smettere un vizio,
come vedere nello specchio
riemergere un viso morto,
come ascoltare un labbro chiuso.
Scenderemo nel gorgo muti. 
(Cesare Pavese)


TRANSLATION:

_Death Will Come with Your Eyes

Death will come with your eyes—
this death that accompanies us
from morning till night, sleepless,
deaf, like an old regret
or a stupid vice. Your eyes
will be a useless word,
a muted cry, a silence.
As you see them each morning
when alone you lean over
the mirror. O cherished hope,
that day we too shall know
that you are life and nothing.
For everyone death has a look.
Death will come with your eyes.
It will be like terminating a vice,
as seen in the mirror
a dead face re-emerging,
like listening to closed lips.
We'll go down the abyss in silence._

----------


## mukta581

My Perfect Life Part 1

remember when we met,
How could I forget?
That was a special day,
My problems rushed away.
My life began when I saw you,
Ever since then, I started off new.
Whenever we are together,
I just wish the moment would last forever.
You give me a smile when it seems impossible,
You are my everything,
My one true love, sent from above.
When I was little and I watched people kiss,
I thought it was wrong, but now I have this.
I have you, my perfect life,
My beautiful girl, my future wife.
I dont need money to be rich,
Because with you I am,
The richest of the rich.
I dont need no one else,
Just you and myself.
Us against the world,
Me and you girl.
I love you so much,
I love your touch.
I love your eyes,
It makes my heart fly.
You give me everything, you give me breath,
We will not part, not until death.
When I hold you in my arms,
The world makes sense,
When I feel your warmth,
I am in heaven.
You are my saviour,
My gaurdien angel,
My darling, beautiful, you're mine.
Never will I leave, I will stay throughout all time.

----------


## quasimodo1

INFANT JOY 



"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!

{for a new person named Penelope}

----------


## Tuninks

I saw you walking on the street once,
Your hair kept in a bow of red silk.
And when we passed,
We glimpsed into each other's eyes like lovers do.

Your eyes were blue that day,
Almost as blue as the sky.
I smiled that day,
I smiled like never before.

I wish to smile like that,
one more time, please? 
I wish to smile one more time,
Just to feel that warmth.

I saw you walking on the street once,
Your hair kept in a bow of red silk.
And when we passed,
We glimpsed into each other's eyes like lovers do.

I wish to smile like that,
As I lay on this cement,
As the world grows colder around me.
One more time, please?

----------


## quasimodo1

MORTAL LIMIT
I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.

There--west--were the Tetons.Snow-peaks would soon be
In dark profile to break constellations.Beyond what height
Hangs now the black speck?Beyond what range will gold eyes see
New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?

....

----------


## symphony

*This is a Photograph of Me*


It was taken some time ago
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you can see something in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

...

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/this-...tograph-of-me/

----------


## AuntShecky

For Wednesday, February 6, 2008.

From 1930, a brief passage from "Ash Wednesday," 
by T. S. Eliot:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

----------


## Bumble-BE

My soul is dark - Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.
But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence, long;
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once - or yield to song.

_George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron_

----------


## mukta581

The Meaning

To love is to share life together
to build special plans just for two
to work side by side
and then smile with pride
as one by one, dreams all come true.

To love is to help and encourage
with smiles and sincere words of praise
to take time to share
to listen and care
in tender, affectionate ways.

To love is to have someone special
one who you can always depend
to be there through the years
sharing laughter and tears
as a partner, a lover, a friend.

To love is to make special memories
of moments you love to recall
of all the good things
that sharing life brings
love is the greatest of all.

I've learned the full meaning
of sharing and caring
and having my dreams all come true;
I've learned the full meaning
of being in love
by being and loving with you.

----------


## quasimodo1

Poem 15 
RIng ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne,
And leaue your wonted labors for this day:
This day is holy; doe ye write it dovvne,
that ye for euer it remember may.
This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight,
With Barnaby the bright,
>From whence declining daily by degrees,
He somewhat loseth of his heat and light,
When once the Crab behind his back he sees.
But for this time it ill ordained was,
To chose the longest day in all the yeare,
And shortest night, when longest fitter weare.
Yet neuer day so long, but late would passe.
Ring ye the bels, to make it weare away,
And bonefiers make all day,
And daunce about them, and about them sing:
that all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

----------


## quasimodo1

River Remembered 

The rhododendrons darkened leaves are curled
Into tight scrolls, whose dry, hermetic books
Will stay unread now, till the whitened world 
Unlocks its warmth; the frozen local brooks 

Muttering sotto voce at their own
Ice remind us of a general notion:
Some vast and abstract rivers monotone
Running through land to an eventual ocean --- 

Not the one Wallace Stevens called the river
Of rivers in Connecticut, inspired
Taker of water from the sea, and giver
Of meaning to the name the land acquired 

(Algonquian: long [or, tidal]-river-at)
Yet meditations on a name demand
Pulling new meanings out of an old hat:
Remembering this stream, I understand {excerpt from River Remembered}

----------


## quasimodo1

An Elegy On The Glory Of Her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaize 
Good people all, with one accord
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word, 
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom passed her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor, 
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please
With manners wondrous winning;
And never followed wicked ways, 
Unless when she was sinning.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumbered in her pew, 
But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has followed her, 
When she has walked before.

But now her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;
The doctors found, when she was dead, 
Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament in sorrow sore,
For Kent Street well may say
That had she lived a twelvemonth more, 
She had not died today.

----------


## AuntShecky

A gorgeous poem for the waning days of winter. The second stanza and the penultimate stanza may rank as some of the finest lines ever written in nineteenth century 
English poetry.

The Garden of Proserpine 
by Algernon Charles Swinburne 


Here, where the world is quiet; 
 Here, where all trouble seems 
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot 
In doubtful dreams of dreams; 
I watch the green field growing 
For reaping folk and sowing, 
For harvest-time and mowing, 
A sleepy world of streams. 


I am tired of tears and laughter, 
And men that laugh and weep; 
Of what may come hereafter 
For men that sow to reap: 
I am weary of days and hours, 
Blown buds of barren flowers, 
Desires and dreams and powers 
And everything but sleep. 


Here life has death for neighbour, 
And far from eye or ear 
Wan waves and wet winds labour, 
Weak ships and spirits steer; 
They drive adrift, and whither 
They wot not who make thither; 
But no such winds blow hither, 
And no such things grow here. 


No growth of moor or coppice, 
No heather-flower or vine, 
But bloomless buds of poppies, 
Green grapes of Proserpine, 
Pale beds of blowing rushes 
Where no leaf blooms or blushes 
Save this whereout she crushes 
For dead men deadly wine. 


Pale, without name or number, 
In fruitless fields of corn, 
They bow themselves and slumber 
All night till light is born; 
And like a soul belated, 
In hell and heaven unmated, 
By cloud and mist abated 
Comes out of darkness morn. 


Though one were strong as seven, 
He too with death shall dwell, 
Nor wake with wings in heaven, 
Nor weep for pains in hell; 
Though one were fair as roses, 
His beauty clouds and closes; 
And well though love reposes, 
In the end it is not well. 


Pale, beyond porch and portal, 
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands 
Who gathers all things mortal 
With cold immortal hands; 
Her languid lips are sweeter 
Than love's who fears to greet her 
To men that mix and meet her 
From many times and lands. 


She waits for each and other, 
She waits for all men born; 
Forgets the earth her mother, 
The life of fruits and corn; 
And spring and seed and swallow 
Take wing for her and follow 
Where summer song rings hollow 
And flowers are put to scorn. 


There go the loves that wither, 
The old loves with wearier wings; 
And all dead years draw thither, 
And all disastrous things; 
Dead dreams of days forsaken, 
Blind buds that snows have shaken, 
Wild leaves that winds have taken, 
Red strays of ruined springs. 


We are not sure of sorrow, 
And joy was never sure; 
To-day will die to-morrow; 
Time stoops to no man's lure; 
And love, grown faint and fretful, 
With lips but half regretful 
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful 
Weeps that no loves endure. 


From too much love of living, 
From hope and fear set free, 
We thank with brief thanksgiving 
Whatever gods may be 
That no life lives for ever; 
That dead men rise up never; 
That even the weariest river 
Winds somewhere safe to sea. 


Then star nor sun shall waken, 
Nor any change of light: 
Nor sound of waters shaken, 
Nor any sound or sight: 
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, 
Nor days nor things diurnal; 
Only the sleep eternal 
In an eternal night.

----------


## quasimodo1

Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)





Always dear to me was this lonely hill,
And this hedge, which from me so great a part
Of the farthest horizon excludes the gaze.
But as I sit and watch, I invent in my mind
endless spaces beyond, and superhuman
silences, and profoundest quiet;
wherefore my heart
almost loses itself in fear. And as I hear the wind
rustle through these plants, I compare
that infinite silence to this voice:
and I recall to mind eternity,
And the dead seasons, and the one present
And alive, and the sound of it. So in this
Immensity my thinking drowns:
And to shipwreck is sweet for me in this sea.

----------


## quasimodo1

Oh gracious moon, now as the year turns,
I remember how, heavy with sorrow,
I climbed this hill to gaze on you,
And then as now you hung above those trees
Illuminating all. But to my eyes
Your face seemed clouded, temulous
From the tears that rose beneath my lids, 
So painful was my life: and is, my
Dearest moon; its tenor does not change. 
And yet, memory and numbering the epochs
Of my grief is pleasing to me. How welcome
In that youthful time -when hope's span is long,
And memory short -is the remembrance even of
Past sad things whose pain endures. 

Giacomo Leopardi

----------


## quasimodo1

A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

----------


## quasimodo1

Ploughman at the Plough

HE behind the straight plough stands 
Stalwart, firm shafts in his hands.

Naught he cares for wars and naught 
For the fierce disease of thought.

Only for the winds, the sheer 
Naked impule of the year,

Only for the soil which stares 
Clean into God's face he cares.

In the stark might of his deed 
There is more than art or creed;

In his wrist more strength is hid 
Than in the monstrous pyramid;

Stauncher than stern Everest 
Be the muscles of his breast;

Not the Atlantic sweeps a flood 
Potent as the ploughman's blood.

He, his horse, his ploughshare, these 
Are the onnly verities.

Dawn to dusk with God he stands, 
The earth poised on his broad hands. 

Louis Golding

----------


## zhanyundong

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her， single in the field，

Yon solitary Highland Lass！

Reaping and singing by herself；

Stop here， or gently pass！

Alone she cuts and binds the grain，

And sings a melancholy strain；

O listen！ for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt，

Among Arabian sands：

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird，

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings？

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old， unhappy， far-off things，

And battles long ago：

Or is it some more humble lay，

Familiar matter of to-day？

Some natural sorrow， loss， or pain，

That has been， and may be again？

Whate'er the theme， the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending；

I saw her singing at her work，

And o'er the sickle bending；

I listened， motionless and still；

And， as I mounted up the hill，

The music in my heart I bore，

Long after it was heard no more.

----------


## quasimodo1

Gerard Manley Hopkins (184489). Poems. 1918. 

32. Spelt from Sibyls Leaves 


EARNEST, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous,  stupendous 
Evening strains to be tímes vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night. 
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ' her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height 
Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ' stárs principal, overbend us, 
Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ' her being has unbound, her dapple is at an end, as- 5 
tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; ' self ín self steedèd and páshedqúite 
Disremembering, dísmémbering ' áll now. Heart, you round me right 
With: Óur évening is over us; óur night ' whélms, whélms, ánd will end us. 
Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish ' damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black, 
Ever so black on it. Óur tale, O óur oracle! ' Lét life, wáned, ah lét life wind 10 
Off hér once skéined stained véined variety ' upon, áll on twó spools; párt, pen, páck 
Now her áll in twó flocks, twó foldsblack, white; ' right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind 
But thése two; wáre of a wórld where bút these ' twó tell, each off the óther; of a rack 
Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, ' thóughts agaínst thoughts ín groans grínd.

----------


## quasimodo1

Admonitions to a Special Person


Watch out for power, 
for its avalanche can bury you, 
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

Watch out for hate, 
it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out
to eat off your leg, an instant leper.

Watch out for friends, 
because when you betray them, 
as you will, 
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.

Watch out for intellect, 
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down, 
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth. ....

{excerpt}

----------


## quasimodo1

Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer, 

to give up customs one barely had time to learn,

not to see roses and other promising Things in terms of a human future;

no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;

to leave even one's own first name behind, 
forgetting it as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.
Strange to no longer desire one's desires.
Strange to see meanings that clung together once, floating away in every direction.
And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity.
Though the living are wrong to believe in the too-sharp distinctions which

they themselves have created.
Angels (they say) don't know whether it is the living they are moving among, or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along in it, through both realms forever, 

and their voices are drowned out in its thunderous roar. ... {excerpt from the Duino Elegies translated by Stephen Mitchell}

----------


## quasimodo1

Rabbi Ben Ezra 
by Robert Browning 


Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be 
afraid!'

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, 'Which rose make ours, 
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned, 'Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends
them all!'

Not for such hopes and fears 
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! 
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; 
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the 
maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive! 
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge 
the throe!

For thence,a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink 
i' the scale.

What is he but a brute 
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? 
To man, propose this test
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once 'How good to 
live and learn'?

Not once beat 'Praise be thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: 
Perfect I call thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,I trust what Thou 
shalt do!'

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:
Would we some prize might hold
 To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
'Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!' 
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, 'All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than 
flesh helps soul!'

Therefore I summon age 
To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the 
germ.

And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For, note when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the grey:
A whisper from the west 
Shoots'Add this to the rest, 
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.'

So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 
'This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the 
Past.'

For more is not reserved 
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth, 
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, 
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel 
alone.

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past! 
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace 
at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; 
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my 
soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass
Called 'work', must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account; 
All instinct immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled 
the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped; 
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 
shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
'Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize 
to-day!'

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay 
endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance 
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy souls its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves 
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press? 
What though about thy rim,
Skull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal, 
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st 
thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 
Did Ito the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work,
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the 
aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete 
the same!

----------


## quasimodo1

I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing --
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears --
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown --
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.

Fast is a safer hand
Held in a truer Land
Are mine --
And though they now depart,
Tell I my doubting heart
They're thine.

In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
Each little discord here
Removed.

Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.

----------


## jondrette

by dylan thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night, 
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 
Because their words had forked no lightning they 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight 
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

----------


## Pensive

> by dylan thomas
> Do not go gentle into that good night, 
> Old age should burn and rave at close of day; 
> Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 
> Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 
> Because their words had forked no lightning they 
> Do not go gentle into that good night. 
> 
> Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 
> ...


Beautiful! It's one of my favourites. I love its rhyme and rhythm. Dylan's works are really cool.

----------


## SnipSnap

Improved Farm Land
Carl Sandburg

Tall timber stood here once, here on a corn belt farm along the Monon.
Here the roots of a half mile of trees dug their runners deep
in the loam for a grip and a hold against wind storms.
Then the axmen came and the chips flew to the zing of steel and handle--
the lank railsplitters cut the big ones first, the beeches and the oaks, then the brush.
Dynamite, wagons and horses took the stumps--the plows sunk their teeth in--
now it is first class corn land--improved property--and the hogs grunt over the fodder crops.
It would come hard now for this half mile of improved farm lond along
the Monon corn belt, on a piece of Grand Prarie, to remember
once it had a great singing family of trees.

----------


## quasimodo1

A STRANGE WILD SONG
He thought he saw an Elephant
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realize," he said,
"The bitterness of life!"

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
"Unless you leave this house," he said,
"I'll send for the police!"

he thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
"The one thing I regret," he said,
"Is that it cannot speak!"

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
"If this should stay to dine," he said,
"There won't be much for us!"

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a Coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
"Were I to swallow this," he said,
"I should be very ill!"

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
"Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!"

----------


## quasimodo1

The Statesmen 



How blest the land that counts among 
Her sons so many good and wise, 
To execute great feats of tongue 
When troubles rise. 


Behold them mounting every stump, 
By speech our liberty to guard. 
Observe their couragesee them jump, 
And come down hard! 


"Walk up, walk up!" each cries aloud, 
"And learn from me what you must do 
To turn aside the thunder cloud, 
The earthquake too. 


"Beware the wiles of yonder quack 
Who stuffs the ears of all that pass. 
II alone can show that black 
Is white as grass." 


They shout through all the day and break 
The silence of the night as well. 
They'd makeI wish they'd go and make 
Of Heaven a Hell. 


A advocates free silver, B 
Free trade and C free banking laws. 
Free board, clothes, lodging would from me 
Win wamr applause. 


Lo, D lifts up his voice: "You see 
The single tax on land would fall 
On all alike." More evenly 
No tax at all. 


"With paper money," bellows E, 
"We'll all be rich as lords." No doubt 
And richest of the lot will be 
The chap without. 


As many "cures" as addle-wits 
Who know not what the ailment is! 
Meanwhile the patient foams and spits 
Like a gin fizz. 


Alas, poor Body Politic, 
Your fate is all too clearly read: 
To be not altogether quick, 
Nor very dead. 


You take your exercise in squirms, 
Your rest in fainting fits between. 
'Tis plain that your disorder's worms 
Worms fat and lean. 


Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell 
Within your maw and muscle's scope. 
Their quarrels make your life a Hell, 
Your death a hope. 


God send you find not such an end 
To ills however sharp and huge! 
God send you convalesce! God send 
You vermifuge.

----------


## quasimodo1

After Rain

BEHOLD the blossom-bosomed Day again, 
With all the star-white Hours in her train, 
Laughs out of pearl-lights through a golden ray, 
That, leaning on the woodland wildness, blends 
A sprinkled amber with the showers that lay 
Their oblong emeralds on the leafy ends. 
Behold her bend with maiden-braided brows 
Above the wildflower, sidewise with its strain 
Of dewy happiness, to kiss again 
Each drop to death; or, under rainy boughs, 
With fingers, fragrant as the woodland rain, 
Gather the sparkles from the sycamore, 
To set within each core 
Of crimson roses girdling her hips, 
Where each bud dreams and drips. 

Smoothing her blue-black hair,--where many a tusk 
Of iris flashes,--like the falchions' sheen 
Of Faery 'round blue banners of its Queen,-- 
Is it a Naiad singing in the dusk, 
That haunts the spring, where all the moss is musk 
With footsteps of the flowers on the banks? 
Or just a wild-bird voluble with thanks?

Balm for each blade of grass: the Hours prepare 
A festival each weed's invited to. 
Each bee is drunken with the honied air: 
And all the air is eloquent with blue. 
The wet hay glitters, and the harvester 
Tinkles his scythe,--as twinkling as the dew,-- 
That shall not spare 
Blossom or brier in its sweeping path; 
And, ere it cut one swath, 
Rings them they die, and tells them to prepare.

What is the spice that haunts each glen and glade? 
A Dryad's lips, who slumbers in the shade? 
A Faun, who lets the heavy ivy-wreath 
Slip to his thigh as, reaching up, he pulls 
The chestnut blossoms in whole bosomfuls? 
A sylvan Spirit, whose sweet mouth doth breathe 
Her viewless presence near us, unafraid? 
Or troops of ghosts of blooms, that whitely wade 
The brook? whose wisdom knows no other song 
Than that the bird sings where it builds beneath 
The wild-rose and sits singing all day long.

Oh, let me sit with silence for a space, 
A little while forgetting that fierce part 
Of man that struggles in the toiling mart; 
Where God can look into my heart's own heart 
From unsoiled heights made amiable with grace; 
And where the sermons that the old oaks keep 
Can steal into me.--And what better then 
Than, turning to the moss a quiet face, 
To fall asleep? a little while to sleep 
And dream of wiser worlds and wiser men. 

Madison Cawein

----------


## Kafka's Crow

'Look out! Wet paint.' My soul was blind,
I have to pay the price,
All marked with stains of calves and cheeks
And hands and lips and eyes.

I loved you more than luck or grief
Because with you in sight
The old and yellowed world became 
As white as painters' white

I swear my fried, my gloom- it will
One day still whiter gleam,
Than lampshades, than a bandaged brow,
Than a delirious dream.


(Translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater)

----------


## AuntShecky

This weekend will mark the 125th Anniversary of the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge. To honor the occasion, here is the opening passage to Hart Crane's "To Brooklyn
Bridge":

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest 
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him, 
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high 
Over the chained bay waters Liberty— 


Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes 
As apparitional as sails that cross 
Some page of figures to be filed away; 
—Till elevators drop us from our day ... 


I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights 
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene 
Never disclosed, but hastened to again, 
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen; 


And Thee, across the harbor, silver paced 
As though the sun took step of thee yet left 
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,— 
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

----------


## Beautifull

are we supposed to write a poem here or only you?

----------


## Scheherazade

Beautiful,

In this section we do not post our own poems but those poems by renown poets.

----------


## Saladin

*When I have fears that I may cease to be
*
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

- John Keats

----------


## carpenoctem

Aldous Huxley, "The Alien", The Collected Poetry of Aldous Huxley.

A petal drifted loose
From a great magnolia bloom,
Your face hung in the gloom,
Floating, white and close.

We seemed alone: but another
Bent o'er you with lips of flame,
Unknown, without a name,
Hated, and yet my brother.

Your one short moan of pain
Was an exorcising spell:
The devil flew back to hell;
We were alone again.

----------


## Kafka's Crow

*Canto LXV*

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that delight might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luthes
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly

with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour

with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom

WITH USURA

wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin' not by usura
nor was "La Callunia" painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
No church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime

Not by usura St. Hilaire,

Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

_Ezra Pound_

----------


## Kafka's Crow

* Gerontion*

_Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both._


Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.

I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.

Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign":
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger

In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering Judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;
By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils.
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?

These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.

Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season. 

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

----------


## Kafka's Crow

*We Who Were Executed*

(After reading the letters of Julius and Ether Rosenberg)

I longed for your lips, dreamed of their roses:
I was hanged from the dry branch of the scaffold.
I wanted to touch your hands, their silver light:
I was murdered in the half-light of dim lanes.

And there where you were crucified,
so far away from my words,
you still were beautiful:
color kept clinging to your lips
rapture was still vivid in your hair
light remained silvering in your hands.

When the night of cruelty merged with the roads you had taken,
I came as far as my feet could bring me,
on my lips the phrase of a song,
my heart lit up only by sorrow.
This sorrow was my testimony to your beauty
Look! I remained a witness till the end,
I who was killed in the darkest lanes.

Its true that not to reach you was fate
but wholl deny that to love you
was entirely in my hands?
So why complain if these matters of desire
brought me inevitably to the execution grounds?

Why complain? Holding up our sorrows as banners,
new lovers will emerge
from the lanes where we were killed
and embark, in caravans, on those highways of desire.
Its because of them that we shortened the distances of sorrow,
its because of them that we went out to make the world our own,
we who were murdered in the darkest lanes.

(English Translation By Agha Shahid Ali)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Rosenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz
http://www.poemhunter.com/faiz-ahmed-faiz/poems/

----------


## _Shannon_

OOh Ohh! I got here to post one for today :

*Piute Creek*

One granite ridge
A tree, would be enough
Or even a rock, a small creek,
A bark shred in a pool.
Hill beyond hill, folded and twisted
Tough trees crammed
In thin stone fractures
A huge moon on it all, is too much.
The mind wanders. A million
Summers, night air still and the rocks
Warm. Sky over endless mountains.
All the junk that goes with being human
Drops away, hard rock wavers
Even the heavy present seems to fail
This bubble of a heart.
Words and books
Like a small creek off a high ledge
Gone in the dry air.
A clear, attentive mind
Has no meaning but that
Which sees is truly seen.
No one loves rock, yet we are here.
Night chills. A flick
In the moonlight
Slips into Juniper shadow:
Back there unseen
Cold proud eyes
Of Cougar or Coyote
Watch me rise and go.

~Gary Snyder

----------


## V.Jayalakshmi

Perfect Woman 
........................ 
SHE was a phantom of delight 
When first she gleam'd upon my sight; 
A lovely apparition, sent 
To be a moment's ornament; 
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; 5 
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; 
But all things else about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful dawn; 
A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 10 

I saw her upon nearer view, 
A Spirit, yet a Woman too! 
Her household motions light and free, 
And steps of virgin liberty; 
A countenance in which did meet 15 
Sweet records, promises as sweet; 
A creature not too bright or good 
For human nature's daily food; 
For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 20 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine; 
A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveller between life and death; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 25 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; 
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd, 
To warn, to comfort, and command; 
And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
With something of angelic light. 30 


By William Wordworth.
.................................

I am posting this on 29Th May 2008 ...A.M.

My comments on the postings in the forum?Are we not supposed to discuss the poem.I see only postings.Of course the thread made me read so many poems.But I would like to have some comments too. :Smile:  

My comments on the above poem is as follows.

Wordworth paints the picture of the Perfect Woman.....So relevant in these days of superficiality.But I sigh,thinking of the impoossible aims of mankind.Can there be perfection in anyone leave alone in a woman?Or when perfection is attained will it not tire us?

Please comment.

----------


## bej6s

In reference to "Perfect Woman" poster, I believe the idea is that someone posts a poem and then it is discussed until the next poem is posted, preferably no sooner than 5 days (see 1st post for this thread).

The Perfect Woman:
I think Wordsworth is describing the perfect woman as he sees her more. Notice she isn't called a woman until the second stanza and he doesn't use "perfect woman" until the last stanza, yet physical descriptions of this being are most prevalent in the first stanza and taper out.
I believe the point Wordsworth is trying to make is that while physical features can catch your eye, perfection is found in the soul and demeanor of a person.

In response to V.Jayalakshmi, I think perfection in this sense is a bias. To him (the speaker), the woman is perfect and he tells you why. However, another man may come along and see her as completely imperfect and not ideal. No, I do not believe man can achieve perfection. But a man can be of the opinion that one woman is perfect to him.

----------


## quasimodo1

Proverbs of Hell 



From "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"


In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.

All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body, revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.

~

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the
destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that
they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once, only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse,
the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains; the fountain overflows.
One thought, fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

~

The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse,
how he shall take his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others had not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius, lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest
lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn, braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!

~

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands &
feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement,
are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
Enough! or Too much!

----------


## Kafka's Crow

*To _.*

John Keats

Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs
Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell
Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well
Would passion arm me for the enterprize:
But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies;
No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell;
I am no happy shepherd of the dell
Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes.
Yet must I doat upon thee,  call thee sweet,
Sweeter by far than Hybla's honied roses
When steep'd in dew rich to intoxication.
Ah! I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet,
And when the moon her pallid face discloses,
I'll gather some by spells, and incantation.

----------


## SnipSnap

"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; 
And on the pedestal, these words appear: 
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, 
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away." 



One of my favorites. Themes I notice: Arrogancy, and failure to keep a strong legacy.

----------


## qimissung

I love "Ozymandias." Is it a failure to keep a strong legacy, or that all things must come to an end?

----------


## SnipSnap

I think both of those could be considered the same thing to some.

----------


## JBI

> I love "Ozymandias." Is it a failure to keep a strong legacy, or that all things must come to an end?


I do not think that is what the poem is about at all. I thought the poem was about the artist, and how it is the artist's vision that stands time, while the empire and feats of Ozymandias have crumbled and are no more.

----------


## qimissung

Good point. Could the poem, perhaps, encompass both ideas? I think it could, and probably does. That idea makes me think of Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII, in which he assures the beloved that she will live eternally..."so long lives this and this gives life to thee."

----------


## aabbcc

In accordance with my newest signature, one of my favourites...

*L'Irréparable*

Pouvons-nous étouffer le vieux, le long Remords,
Qui vit, s'agite et se tortille
Et se nourrit de nous comme le ver des morts,
Comme du chêne la chenille?
Pouvons-nous étouffer l'implacable Remords?

Dans quel philtre, dans quel vin, dans quelle tisane,
Noierons-nous ce vieil ennemi,
Destructeur et gourmand comme la courtisane,
Patient comme la fourmi?
Dans quel philtre? — dans quel vin? — dans quelle tisane?

Dis-le, belle sorcière, oh! dis, si tu le sais,
À cet esprit comblé d'angoisse
Et pareil au mourant qu'écrasent les blessés,
Que le sabot du cheval froisse,
Dis-le, belle sorcière, oh! dis, si tu le sais,

À cet agonisant que le loup déjà flaire
Et que surveille le corbeau,
À ce soldat brisé! s'il faut qu'il désespère
D'avoir sa croix et son tombeau;
Ce pauvre agonisant que déjà le loup flaire!

Peut-on illuminer un ciel bourbeux et noir?
Peut-on déchirer des ténèbres
Plus denses que la poix, sans matin et sans soir,
Sans astres, sans éclairs funèbres?
Peut-on illuminer un ciel bourbeux et noir?

L'Espérance qui brille aux carreaux de l'Auberge
Est soufflée, est morte à jamais!
Sans lune et sans rayons, trouver où l'on héberge
Les martyrs d'un chemin mauvais!
Le Diable a tout éteint aux carreaux de l'Auberge!

Adorable sorcière, aimes-tu les damnés?
Dis, connais-tu l'irrémissible?
Connais-tu le Remords, aux traits empoisonnés,
À qui notre coeur sert de cible?
Adorable sorcière, aimes-tu les damnés?

L'Irréparable ronge avec sa dent maudite
Notre âme, piteux monument,
Et souvent il attaque ainsi que le termite,
Par la base le bâtiment.
L'Irréparable ronge avec sa dent maudite!

— J'ai vu parfois, au fond d'un théâtre banal
Qu'enflammait l'orchestre sonore,
Une fée allumer dans un ciel infernal
Une miraculeuse aurore;
J'ai vu parfois au fond d'un théâtre banal

Un être, qui n'était que lumière, or et gaze,
Terrasser l'énorme Satan;
Mais mon coeur, que jamais ne visite l'extase,
Est un théâtre où l'on attend
Toujours. toujours en vain, l'Etre aux ailes de gaze!

— Charles Baudelaire

*The Irreparable*

Can we stifle the old, the lingering Remorse,
That lives, quivers and writhes,
And feeds on us like the worm on the dead,
Like the grub on the oak?
Can we stifle implacable Remorse?

In what philtre, in what potion, what wine,
Shall we drown this old enemy,
Destructive and greedy as a harlot,
Patient as the ant?
In what philtre, in what potion, what wine?

Tell it, fair sorceress, O! tell it, if you know,
To this spirit filled with anguish,
So like a dying man crushed beneath the wounded,
Who is struck by the horses' shoes;
Tell it, fair sorceress, O! tell it, if you know,

To this dying man whom the wolf already scents
And whom the crow watches,
To this broken soldier! if he must despair
Of having his cross and his grave,
This poor, dying man whom the wolf already scents!

Can one illuminate a black and miry sky?
Can one tear asunder darkness
Thicker than pitch, without morning, without evening,
Without stars, without ominous lightning?
Can one illuminate a black and miry sky?

Hope that shines in the windows of the Inn
Is snuffed out, dead forever!
Without the moon, without light, to find where they lodge
The martyrs of an evil road!
The Devil has put out all the lights at the Inn!

Adorable sorceress, do you love the damned?
Say, do you know the irremissible?
Do you know Remorse, with the poisoned darts,
For whom our hearts serve as targets?
Adorable sorceress, do you love the damned?

The Irreparable gnaws with his accurst teeth
Our soul, pitiful monument,
And often he attacks like the termite
The foundations of the building.
The Irreparable gnaws with his accurst teeth!

— Sometimes I have seen at the back of a trite stage
Enlivened by a deep-toned orchestra,
A fairy set ablaze a miraculous dawn
In an infernal sky;
Sometimes I have been at the back of a trite stage

A being who was only light, gold and gauze,
Throw down the enormous Satan;
But my heart, which rapture never visits,
Is a playhouse where one awaits
Always, always in vain, the Being with gauze wings!

(translation by William Aggeler)

----------


## quasimodo1

CONUNDRUMS

Tell me a word
that you've often heard,
yet it makes you squint
when you see it in print!

Tell me a thing
that you've often seen
yet if put in a book
it makes you turn green!

Tell me a thing
that you often do,
when described in a story
shocks you through and through!

Tell me what's wrong
with words or with you
that you don't mind the thing
yet the name is taboo.

----------


## quasimodo1

Antonio Machado -- (1875 - 1939) -- "I dreamt 

you took me"
up a white lane
through the heart of the green field
toward the blue of the high mountains,
toward the blue peaks,
one still morning.

I felt your hand in mine,
your perfect matching hand,
your girlish voice in my ear
like a new bell,
like the untouched bell
of a spring dawn.
It was your voice and your hand
in the dreams, so real, so true!...
Hope, live on -- who knows
what the earth can swallow up!

----------


## quasimodo1

MOUNTAIN LIFE 
IN summer dusk the valley lies 
With far-flung shadow veil; 
A cloud-sea laps the precipice 
Before the evening gale: 
The welter of the cloud-waves grey 
Cuts off from keenest sight 
The glacier, looking out by day 
O'er all the district, far away, 
And crowned with golden light. 

But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow, 
Where gold and amber kiss, 
Stands up the archipelago, 
A home of shining peace. 
The mountain eagle seems to sail 
A ship far seen at even; 
And over all a serried pale 
Of peaks, like giants ranked in mail, 
Fronts westward threatening heaven. 

But look, a steading nestles, close 
Beneath the ice-fields bound, 
Where purple cliffs and glittering snows 
The quiet home surround. 
Here place and people seem to be 
A world apart, alone; -- 
Cut off from men by spate and scree 
It has a heaven more broad, more free, 
A sunshine all its own. 

Look: mute the saeter-maiden stays, 
Half shadow, half aflame; 
The deep, still vision of her gaze 
Was never word to name. 
She names it not herself, nor knows 
What goal my be its will; 
While cow-bells chime and alp-horn blows 
It bears her where the sunset glows, 
Or, maybe, further still. 

Too brief, thy life on highland wolds 
Where close the glaciers jut; 
Too soon the snowstorm's cloak enfolds 
Stone byre and pine-log hut. 
Then wilt thou ply with hearth ablaze 
The winter's well-worn tasks; -- 
But spin thy wool with cheerful face: 
One sunset in the mountain pays 
For all their winter asks.

----------


## patrickbeverley

VARIATIONS ON A FRAGMENT BY TRUMBULL STICKNEY

I hear a river thro' the valley wander
Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.
A rainbow stands and summer passes under,

Flowing like silence in the light of wonder.
In the near distances it is still raining
Where now the valley fills again with thunder,

Where now the river in her wide meander,
Losing at each loop what she had been gaining,
Moves into what one might as well call yonder.

The way of the dark water is to ponder
The way the light sings as of something waning.
The far-off water fall can sound asunder

Stillness of distances, as if in blunder,
Tumbling over the rim of all explaining.
Water proves nothing, but can only maunder.

Shadows show nothing, but can only launder
The lovely land that sunset had been staining,
Long fields of which the failing light grows fonder.

Here summer stands while all its songs pass under,
A riverbank still time runs by, remaining.
I will remember rainbows as I wander.

_John Hollander_

----------


## quasimodo1

"TO THE MOON" BY Giacomo Leopardi (translated by Eamon Grennan) Now that the year has come full circle, I remember climbing this hill, heartbroken, To gaze up at the graceful sight of you, And how you hang then above those woods, As you do tonight, bathing them in brightness. But at that time your face seemed nothing, But a cloudy shimmering through my tears, So wrewtched was the life I led: and lead still... Nothing changes, moon of my delight. Yet... I find pleasure in recollection, in calling back, My season of grief: when one is young. And hope is a long road, memory, A short one, how welcome then, The remembrance of things past-- no matter, How sad, and the heart still grieving.

----------


## ShoutGrace

The vastest things are those we may not learn.
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
With love.
How pitiful is our enforced return
To those small things we are the masters of.

- Mervyn Peake

----------


## Kafka's Crow

A SHROPSHIRE LAD: LIV
by AE Housman

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

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## quasimodo1

From Wandering, Notes and Sketches
(translated by James Wright)

COUNTRY CEMETERY
............

Blessed ones, who lie sheltered,
Nestled against the heart of the good earth,

Blessed, who have come home, gentle and nameless,
To rest in the mother's lap.

But listen, from the hives and blossoms
Longing for life sings to me.

Out of the tangled roots of dreams
The long dead being breaks into the light,

The ruins of life, darkly buried,
Transform themselves and demand the present,

And the queenly earth-mother
Shudders in the effort of birth.

The sweet treasure of peace in the hollowed grave
Rocks gently as a dream in the night.

The dream of death is only the dark smoke
Under which the fires of life are burning.
{excerpt}

----------


## Kafka's Crow

*I Am*

by _John Clare_ (1793-1864)

I am! yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;

The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

----------


## quasimodo1

To Kafka's Crow: I'd not seen this one by Clare in a decade...what an amazing grouping of words it is. Although it is not perhaps the more popular general theme of "rose-lipt maidens" and "lightfoot lads", it (Clare's poem), is not depressing, which, sometimes is my only requirement of poetry. Thanks for remembering it.

----------


## Kafka's Crow

What other poem reminds you of this time of the year better than Robert Frost's _Nothing Gold can Stay_:

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

----------


## AuntShecky

From "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley

An' little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

----------


## JBI

I love the Trochaic pattern in the above poem. It quite frankly makes the poem, and makes it commical. Though I don't know why the poet bothered to cut the last line up. I would think that most readers will simply piece it back together, and make it one line.

----------


## AuntShecky

John McCrae was a Canadian physician and poet. During the First World War McCrae was serving at a field hospital in Ypres. In 1915 after a friend was killed on the battlefield, he wrote the following poem, a rondeau:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place, and in the sky, 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly, 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the dead; short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe! 
To you from failing hands we throw 
The torch; be yours to hold it high! 
If ye break faith with us who die 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders fields.

----------


## AuntShecky

The following lines from "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden are posted in honor of Cdn Reader:

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

----------


## PrinceMyshkin

> The following lines from "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden are posted in honor of Cdn Reader:
> 
> With the farming of a verse
> Make a vineyard of the curse,
> Sing of human unsuccess
> In a rapture of distress;
> 
> In the deserts of the heart
> Let the healing fountain start,
> ...


How I wish she were here to appreciate this - and I believe she would!

----------


## Striker72

A Red, Red Rose


Burns' Original
1.
O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
2.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
3.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
O I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
4.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile! 


Standard English Translation

O, my love is like a red, red rose,
That is newly sprung in June.
O, my love is like the melody,
That is sweetly played in tune.

As fair are you, my lovely lass,
So deep in love am I,
And I will love you still, my Dear,
Till all the seas go dry.

Till all the seas go dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun!
O I will love you still, my Dear,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare you well, my only Love,
And fare you well a while!
And I will come again, my Love,
Although it were ten thousand mile!


This is probably one of the greatest love poems I have ever read! This poem illustrates the extent that one will go to for the love of their life. Not only is this poem beautiful through the long standing appeal of its imagery, but, it's also boundless in context. I have to dig deeper into this poem; it pulls you in. I WANT to dig deeper into the poem's meaning. Who is the narrator? Who is the love described here? What is the significance of the imagery presented? All this and more. Simply stunning.

----------


## Dedalus114

14 March 2009...

Neutral Tones 

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
-They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro-
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing...

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

-- Thomas Hardy

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## AuntShecky

Mother to Son

Well, son, Ill tell you:
Life for me aint been no crystal stair.
Its had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor
Bare.
But all the time
Ise been a-climbin on,
And reachin landins,
And turnin corners,
And sometimes goin in the dark
Where there aint been no light.
So, boy, dont you turn back.
Dont you set down on the steps.
Cause you finds it kinder hard.
Dont you fall now --
For Ise still goin, honey,
Ise still climbin,
And life for me aint been no crystal stair.

--*Langston Hughes
1922*

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## kelby_lake

> 14 March 2009...
> 
> Neutral Tones 
> 
> We stood by a pond that winter day,
> And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
> And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
> -They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
> 
> ...


One of my favourite poems  :Smile:

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