Poetry thread
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sqrt
1210 Posts
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Dr. ROCKZO
New Zealand396 Posts
A bit long to copy-paste, but well worth the read. | ||
Trombpwn
United States20 Posts
I find no peace, and yet I make no war: and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice: and fly above the sky, and fall to earth, and clutch at nothing, and embrace the world. One imprisons me, who neither frees nor jails me, nor keeps me to herself nor slips the noose: and Love does not destroy me, and does not loose me, wishes me not to live, but does not remove my bar. I see without eyes, and have no tongue, but cry: and long to perish, yet I beg for aid: and hold myself in hate, and love another. I feed on sadness, laughing weep: death and life displease me equally: and I am in this state, lady, because of you. -Francesco Petrarch translation by A.S. Kline | ||
Artemis
United States129 Posts
Thought The idea snowballs in my mind, before erupting out of my mouth like a cognitive volcano. As it collides with the air it sends shock-waves, which caress your ear. It travels through the darkness of understanding, building up monumental pressure before exploding into the dynamic metropolis of your skull. Slowly building up mass, a new life rocks gently in the cold damp reaches of your mind. Boredom Boredom saturates my soul, like murky waters of disdain. I beat a sheet of white-washed parchment, with the blunt end of my pen, like the monotonous ticking of a grandfather clock. Tick Tock Tick Tock Time is dripping like a leaky faucet into the vast desert of life. I wander eternally in this forsaken land, crawling through the wasteland I leave trails in the universe. I search the universe for a single grain of sand, A door appears. A cracked, dried out hand slowly envelops the knob the knob turns counter-clockwise, and the door flies inward. Time stops for a brief eternity. I step through the gateway into a blinding light A damp breeze envelops me, The day begins again. | ||
LeafHouse
United States185 Posts
This isn't exactly classic poetry, but a good beat poem is something worth listening to. "Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars" - Buddy Wakefield Here's another good one called "Aaron" + Show Spoiler + and a couple of fun poems by Taylor Mali + Show Spoiler + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU Cheers | ||
Bourneq
Sweden800 Posts
Also I don't like jellyfish, they’re not a fish, they're just a blob. They don’t have eyes, fins or scales like a cod. They float about blind, stinging people in the seas, And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas. Get rid of 'em! | ||
Ayush_SCtoss
India3050 Posts
Either way, I will be editing this with a freestyle poem of mine. | ||
RealDeal
United States117 Posts
ahh, love my verbal poetry(hip-hop) | ||
Kontemptuous
Australia132 Posts
+ Show Spoiler [I.] + My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. + Show Spoiler [II.] + What else should he be set for, with his staff? What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travellers who might find him posted there, And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, + Show Spoiler [III.] + If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be. + Show Spoiler [IV.] + For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring, I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its scope. + Show Spoiler [V.] + As when a sick man very near to death Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end The tears and takes the farewell of each friend, And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside, (``since all is o'er,'' he saith, ``And the blow falIen no grieving can amend;'') + Show Spoiler [VI.] + While some discuss if near the other graves Be room enough for this, and when a day Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves and staves: And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and stay. + Show Spoiler [VII.] + Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among ``The Band''---to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed Their steps---that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now---should I be fit? + Show Spoiler [VIII.] + So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, That hateful cripple, out of his highway Into the path he pointed. All the day Had been a dreary one at best, and dim Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. + Show Spoiler [IX.] + For mark! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, Than, pausing to throw backward a last view O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. I might go on; nought else remained to do. + Show Spoiler [X.] + So, on I went. I think I never saw Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: For flowers---as well expect a cedar grove! But cockle, spurge, according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove. + Show Spoiler [XI.] + No! penury, inertness and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See "Or shut your eyes,'' said nature peevishly, "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: "'Tis the Last judgment's fire must cure this place, "Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.'' + Show Spoiler [XII.] + If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk All hope of greenness?'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. + Show Spoiler [XIII.] + As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud! + Show Spoiler [XIV.] + Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain. + Show Spoiler [XV.] + I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards---the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights. + Show Spoiler [XVI.] + Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm in mine to fix me to the place, That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. + Show Spoiler [XVII.] + Giles then, the soul of honour---there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good---but the scene shifts---faugh! what hangman hands Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! + Show Spoiler [XVIII.] + Better this present than a past like that; Back therefore to my darkening path again! No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. Will the night send a howlet or a bat? I asked: when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. + Show Spoiler [XIX.] + A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof---to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. + Show Spoiler [XX.] + So petty yet so spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of route despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. + Show Spoiler [XXI.] + Which, while I forded,---good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! ---It may have been a water-rat I speared, But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek. + Show Spoiler [XXII.] + Glad was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--- + Show Spoiler [XXIII.] + The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. + Show Spoiler [XXIV.] + And more than that---a furlong on---why, there! What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, Or brake, not wheel---that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. + Show Spoiler [XXV.] + Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--- Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. + Show Spoiler [XXVI.] + Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. + Show Spoiler [XXVII.] + And just as far as ever from the end! Nought in the distance but the evening, nought To point my footstep further! At the thought, great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap---perchance the guide I sought. + Show Spoiler [XXVIII.] + For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains---with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surprised me,---solve it, you! How to get from them was no clearer case. + Show Spoiler [XXIX.] + Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--- In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts---you're inside the den! + Show Spoiler [XXX.] + Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight! + Show Spoiler [XXXI.] + What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counter-part In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start. + Show Spoiler [XXXII.] + Not see? because of night perhaps?---why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--- ``Now stab and end the creature---to the heft!'' + Show Spoiler [XXXIII.] + Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--- How such a one was strong, and such was bold, And such was fortunate, yet, each of old Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years. + Show Spoiler [XXXIV.] + There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew. ``Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'' <3 Big Dark Tower fan | ||
SpiffD
Denmark1264 Posts
A mosquito was heard to complain That a chemist had poisoned his brain The cause of his sorrow Was paradichloro Diphenyltrichloroethane | ||
Trombpwn
United States20 Posts
Anyway, everyone's favorite: Dulce Et Decorum Est + Show Spoiler + Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. --Wilfred Owen A poem I wrote for an assignment back in HS that I'm proud of. Kind of too romanticized when I look back, but it's all right I think. Worms + Show Spoiler + On the edge of our farm, I arranged the wildflowers I had picked and placed them on Grandpa's grave Standing in front of his stone, I traced my thumb over his name and the Latin words I couldn't pronounce I knelt on the empty plot beside his and reached my hands into the cold earth. I felt the worms wiggle between my fingers preparing the soil for Grandma's arrival I pictured him waiting for her, waiting to lift her ebon veil, to kiss and to carry her over the threshold to paradise I pulled my arms from the dirt and filled the holes they left, letting the worms do their work in the dark My hand reached out and clutched a stick, with which I began stabbing the ground. A stronger thrust, and it snapped. I threw both halves down the hill. | ||
Fission
Canada1184 Posts
by William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold | ||
Sky
Jordan812 Posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSo3HbkmiQU | ||
Kojaimea
United Kingdom277 Posts
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GreyArrow
United States157 Posts
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. -William Shakespeare + Show Spoiler + | ||
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
Dream song 1 Huffy Henry hid the day, unappeasable Henry sulked. I see his point,--a trying to put things over. It was the thought that they thought they could do it made Henry wicked & away. But he should have come out and talked. All the world like a woolen lover once did seem on Henry's side. Then came a departure. Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought. I don't see how Henry, pried open for all the world to see, survived. What he has now to say is a long wonder the world can bear & be. Once in a sycamore I was glad all at the top, and I sang. Hard on the land wears the strong sea and empty grows every bed. Dream Song 14 Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag. | ||
Dalguno
United States2446 Posts
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On April 16 2011 07:53 Dalguno wrote: Haven't yet read it, but when I'm feeling ambitious I want to get going on The Divine Comedy. Anyone read it? Yes. It's not really a poem, unless you're counting the Odyssey or the Iliad and such works as poems. It's a very long story with no real conflict or plot to it. Paradisio is more interesting than the inferno but no one reads past it (more creative take on things than... "OH NO PEOPLE ARE BEING TORTURED. IN DIFFERENT WAYS. FOR 300 PAGES."). edit but I'm an atheist. So that might be why i was literally bored out of my mind with each line of it. | ||
Dr. ROCKZO
New Zealand396 Posts
On April 14 2011 22:57 Bourneq wrote: It would be spitefull, to put jelly fish in a trifle. Mad respect for Karl Pilkington. | ||
micromegas
Denmark171 Posts
On April 16 2011 08:03 Nevuk wrote: Yes. It's not really a poem, unless you're counting the Odyssey or the Iliad and such works as poems. It's a very long story with no real conflict or plot to it. Paradisio is more interesting than the inferno but no one reads past it (more creative take on things than... "OH NO PEOPLE ARE BEING TORTURED. IN DIFFERENT WAYS. FOR 300 PAGES."). edit but I'm an atheist. So that might be why i was literally bored out of my mind with each line of it. What I see you saying is - The Divine Comedy, that is, a masterpiece of literature, can tell you nothing because it fails to affirm the arbitrary 'ideology' that you happen to subscribe to? If you stake that claim, there's some really fine lines you'd have to be extremely careful not to cross each time you, say, want to read a book, watch a movie, look at a painting, even speak your mind about a certain piece of architecture, and so on. I mean, I'm interpreting here, but still. It's a point to consider. On another level, I don't see how there's no plot or no conflict to Dante. It's high strung and ambitious as hell (!), that's for sure, but in many ways, it's incredibly ardous in terms of composition - it's a classical story about a man who's lost, faces evil, reflects upon his own role in all of it and at last finds some form of God. And what drives him through it all? A gal. | ||
Kamille
Monaco1035 Posts
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jinorazi
Korea (South)4948 Posts
i had to post this XD | ||
micromegas
Denmark171 Posts
by Dylan Thomas | ||
MasterFischer
Denmark836 Posts
A fitting tantrum of memorabilia Caught up again, still pushing the greyer shades of the rainbow Putting brainwaves to sleep In my perfect universe Tell me what I already know So we pretend to help you, help me Have you seen me? I lost track again Aimless fear, the carefree angry simpletons When worlds come crashing down We always failed to escape ourselves Entertained and resting on broken illusions It rings true.. | ||
mister.bubbles
Canada171 Posts
Epics: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge -As far as epic poems go this one is fantastic. It has great imagery, it's concise and it's gripping. The Iliad by Homer -This one is a touch harder to swallow than some others simply because it is so huge and the story is very decadent. It is theorized that other authors added chapters at later dates which makes sense because there can be huge breaks from the plot. Reading it feels like reading the movie 300 though. Paradise Lost by Milton -I think it's hilarious that people gave Milton flak for liking the Devil too much and making him a relatable character since this book is in no way pro-satan. It's a good read though simply due to Milton's command of the language. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by someone whose identity we are unsure of -Considering the fact that this was written in the Middle Ages I find it impressive that this piece of literature was so gripping since it took quite a few centuries for writers to work the rambling out of their system. Reading Sir Gawain will take you right into a new world. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer -Don't read the whole thing because it is immense and not all the Tales are Fantastic. A selection of the best Tales makes for a great read though. Chaucer had a knack for creating realistic characters the likes of which I have yet to encounter. I recommend The Wife's Tale in particular as it is hilarious. Poets: Sylvia Plath -I like Plath entirely too much. She just has this way to write the most brutal things and not seem like she is overdoing it. The Bell Jar, her novel, is my favorite book as well. Robert Lowell -I liked the book Life Studies in particular although this guy has a tenancy to just write really everyday images into his poems and make them boring and depressing (much in the way of indy musicians). John Keats -I'm not sure about what I like so much about Keats; he is just so cool. | ||
mister.bubbles
Canada171 Posts
I couldn't get into Alfred J. Prufrock, it felt too heavy handed. I thin Eliot wrote much stronger poems later on. | ||
Voltaire
United States1485 Posts
THAT is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations - at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. Pretty good poem. I have written a few essays on it. Plus the book No Country for Old Men is based on it | ||
AMaidensWrath
Belgium206 Posts
You got so much to prove Hoping they approve The only thing that's true is all you ever do is do You're movin shoe to shoe But you're not going You stop growing The moment that you stay at the top The only way is to drop Free falling down the stairs that you climbed up, lined up to freely mount the air But you dare not air drop Tied up like a hair knot Hiking down without a chance of steppin on a fair rock And so you stand still in a standstill Hands still building castles on a sand hill Man chill is what your friends say But you're not hearing what little men say anyway Keep on going and taste the stars Keep on growing and raise the bar You're living life for the A's down to the Z's After the hill you gotta mountain to seize You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are Who can tell Your living is an organized hell The mansion of your mind just an oversized cell The pressure Everything is done to a measure In the sea of competition sunk like a treasure Like a feather falling slow Spiraling to the floor Strung up like a broken violin to your course Opportunity is knocking at your door But you never left a welcome mat (it doesn't matter anymore) Or anyhow but you're too late to turn back Fate pushing you into the wall like a thumbtack Ain't no comebacks in this game of life Roll the dice again Roll it once, never twice Keep on going and taste the stars Keep on growing and raise the bar You're living life for the A's down to the Z's After one drop you gotta fountain to seize You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are Want a break from the world but the world wanna break you The weight makes your back bone curl up and ache you You are an overachiever Do what it takes till it takes everything you are Want a break from the world but the world wanna break you The weight makes your back bone curl up and ache you Wait, what? Hip-hop? In this thread? But why the hell not? It's modern literature at its best. And since it's Tablo, a guy studying English Literature and Creative Writing, you know that it should be sophisticated enough for this thread. :3 On April 16 2011 08:03 Nevuk wrote: Yes. It's not really a poem, unless you're counting the Odyssey or the Iliad and such works as poems. It's a very long story with no real conflict or plot to it. Paradisio is more interesting than the inferno but no one reads past it (more creative take on things than... "OH NO PEOPLE ARE BEING TORTURED. IN DIFFERENT WAYS. FOR 300 PAGES."). edit but I'm an atheist. So that might be why i was literally bored out of my mind with each line of it. It seems to me that being an atheist is a rather odd reason for being bored of Dante's Divine Comedy. The plot may take place in places such as hell and purgatory. But that's not to be taken literally. Even back then, no one did so. Even the Roman poet Lucretius stated once: Atque ea ni mirum quae cumque Acherunte profundo prodita sunt esse, in vita sunt omnia nobis. Roughly translated it means: Whatever they say about the souls in the depths of hell, that is happening right here in our live. But that's a common misconception. People tend to think that modern literature needs a reader that is able to read between the lines, while every opus before the 20th century is dull, dead an to be taken literally. Pick the Divine Comedy up once again and maybe read some postfaces with it. Learn to read between the lines! It's not important where these people are tortured and that they are tortured. It's extremely interesting to know who these people are! And the way that they are tortured often tells you what they have done wrong in their lives. Just think about it: It wouldn't be deemed as a masterpiece if it's just about people being tortured in different ways for 300 pages, would it? | ||
procyonlotor
Italy473 Posts
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness. And suddenly a hare ran across the road. One of us pointed to it with his hand. That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive, Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture. O my love, where are they, where are they going The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles. I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder. Encounter, by Czeslaw Milosz Also, if anybody's going to be reading The Iliad let me point you toward Alexander Pope's translation of it. See Robert Fagles for an awesome translation of The Odyssey. | ||
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
BY ROBERT HASS All the new thinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old thinking. The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown- faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk of that black birch is, by his presence, some tragic falling off from a first world of undivided light. Or the other notion that, because there is in this world no one thing to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds, a word is elegy to what it signifies. We talked about it late last night and in the voice of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone almost querulous. After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice, pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman I made love to and I remembered how, holding her small shoulders in my hands sometimes, I felt a violent wonder at her presence like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat, muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her. Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances. I must have been the same to her. But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread, the thing her father said that hurt her, what she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous as words, days that are the good flesh continuing. Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings, saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry. | ||
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
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BabyKnight
Denmark112 Posts
Dammit I’m mad. Evil is a deed as I live. God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt. To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss. Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help? Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell. I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”. Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp, In my halo of a mired rum tin. I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin. Is evil in a clam? In a trap? No. It is open. On it I was stuck. Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web. Be still if I fill its ebb. Ew, a spider… eh? We sleep. Oh no! Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position. Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name. Both, one… my names are in it. Murder? I’m a fool. A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash, A Goddam level I lived at. On mail let it in. I’m it. Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet! A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name. Name not one bottle minus an ode by me: “Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog” Evil is a deed as I live. Dammit I’m mad. Palindrome poem ftw :D | ||
EdaPoe
Netherlands82 Posts
Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow – You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand – How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep – while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? By Edgar Allan Poe. | ||
TehPwntif
United States25 Posts
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. "And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. | ||
bellhop
United States165 Posts
It seems to me that being an atheist is a rather odd reason for being bored of Dante's Divine Comedy. The plot may take place in places such as hell and purgatory. But that's not to be taken literally. Even back then, no one did so. Even the Roman poet Lucretius stated once: Atque ea ni mirum quae cumque Acherunte profundo prodita sunt esse, in vita sunt omnia nobis. Roughly translated it means: Whatever they say about the souls in the depths of hell, that is happening right here in our live. But that's a common misconception. People tend to think that modern literature needs a reader that is able to read between the lines, while every opus before the 20th century is dull, dead an to be taken literally. Pick the Divine Comedy up once again and maybe read some postfaces with it. Learn to read between the lines! It's not important where these people are tortured and that they are tortured. It's extremely interesting to know who these people are! And the way that they are tortured often tells you what they have done wrong in their lives. Just think about it: It wouldn't be deemed as a masterpiece if it's just about people being tortured in different ways for 300 pages, would it? Very true! The Divine Comedy was written as a political piece attacking Italian politicians, not as a primer for Christianity or as a fear pamphlet. As an atheist myself, I found The Divine Comedy to be an awesome, frightening and relevant text that continues to be referred to in all literature. In terms of more modern poetry, check out the poet Charles Bukowski. I'll post a great poem by him below. I'm currently a 3rd year undergraduate poetry major, so it's great to see a thread like this! Lovin' the community here. + Show Spoiler + I Made A Mistake by Charles Bukowski I reached up into the top of the closet and took out a pair of blue panties and showed them to her and asked "are these yours?" and she looked and said, "no, those belong to a dog." she left after that and I haven't seen her since. she's not at her place. I keep going there, leaving notes stuck into the door. I go back and the notes are still there. I take the Maltese cross cut it down from my car mirror, tie it to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave a book of poems. when I go back the next night everything is still there. I keep searching the streets for that blood-wine battleship she drives with a weak battery, and the doors hanging from broken hinges. I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love. a confused old man driving in the rain wondering where the good luck went. | ||
Jailino
France1 Post
by: Charles Baudelaire HEY 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! | ||
Sajimo
United States95 Posts
On April 14 2011 22:53 LeafHouse wrote: I'm glad we're having another one of these threads. Thanks sqrt. This isn't exactly classic poetry, but a good beat poem is something worth listening to. "Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars" - Buddy Wakefield http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHX3qtJlmdU Here's another good one called "Aaron" + Show Spoiler + and a couple of fun poems by Taylor Mali + Show Spoiler + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNIBV87wV4&feature=related Cheers Buddy Wakefield is amazing | ||
SafeWord
United States522 Posts
On April 14 2011 23:25 Kontemptuous wrote: [/spoiler]Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came - Robert Browning [+ Show Spoiler + spoiler=I.] My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. + Show Spoiler [II.] + What else should he be set for, with his staff? What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travellers who might find him posted there, And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, + Show Spoiler [III.] + If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be. + Show Spoiler [IV.] + For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring, I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its scope. + Show Spoiler [V.] + As when a sick man very near to death Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end The tears and takes the farewell of each friend, And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside, (``since all is o'er,'' he saith, ``And the blow falIen no grieving can amend;'') + Show Spoiler [VI.] + While some discuss if near the other graves Be room enough for this, and when a day Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves and staves: And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and stay. + Show Spoiler [VII.] + Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among ``The Band''---to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed Their steps---that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now---should I be fit? + Show Spoiler [VIII.] + So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, That hateful cripple, out of his highway Into the path he pointed. All the day Had been a dreary one at best, and dim Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. + Show Spoiler [IX.] + For mark! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, Than, pausing to throw backward a last view O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. I might go on; nought else remained to do. + Show Spoiler [X.] + So, on I went. I think I never saw Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: For flowers---as well expect a cedar grove! But cockle, spurge, according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove. + Show Spoiler [XI.] + No! penury, inertness and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See "Or shut your eyes,'' said nature peevishly, "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: "'Tis the Last judgment's fire must cure this place, "Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.'' + Show Spoiler [XII.] + If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk All hope of greenness?'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. + Show Spoiler [XIII.] + As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud! + Show Spoiler [XIV.] + Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain. + Show Spoiler [XV.] + I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards---the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights. + Show Spoiler [XVI.] + Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm in mine to fix me to the place, That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. + Show Spoiler [XVII.] + Giles then, the soul of honour---there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good---but the scene shifts---faugh! what hangman hands Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! + Show Spoiler [XVIII.] + Better this present than a past like that; Back therefore to my darkening path again! No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. Will the night send a howlet or a bat? I asked: when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. + Show Spoiler [XIX.] + A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof---to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. + Show Spoiler [XX.] + So petty yet so spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of route despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. + Show Spoiler [XXI.] + Which, while I forded,---good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! ---It may have been a water-rat I speared, But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek. + Show Spoiler [XXII.] + Glad was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--- + Show Spoiler [XXIII.] + The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. + Show Spoiler [XXIV.] + And more than that---a furlong on---why, there! What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, Or brake, not wheel---that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. + Show Spoiler [XXV.] + Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--- Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. + Show Spoiler [XXVI.] + Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. + Show Spoiler [XXVII.] + And just as far as ever from the end! Nought in the distance but the evening, nought To point my footstep further! At the thought, great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap---perchance the guide I sought. + Show Spoiler [XXVIII.] + For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains---with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surprised me,---solve it, you! How to get from them was no clearer case. + Show Spoiler [XXIX.] + Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--- In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts---you're inside the den! + Show Spoiler [XXX.] + Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight! + Show Spoiler [XXXI.] + What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counter-part In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start. + Show Spoiler [XXXII.] + Not see? because of night perhaps?---why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--- ``Now stab and end the creature---to the heft!'' + Show Spoiler [XXXIII.] + Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--- How such a one was strong, and such was bold, And such was fortunate, yet, each of old Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years. + Show Spoiler [XXXIV.] + There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew. ``Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'' <3 Big Dark Tower fan <3 That poem is soooo amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also the Divine Comedy just blows my mind ^_^ Here is one I wrote a awhile back that I love. Poetic State of Mind Poetry. sigh The fine link of mind to pen. As words form onto the page, Spilling from every corners of your brain. The moment pen touches paper, You enter a twisted dimension. Sometimes; Dark, Heavenly, and Cheerful dimensions. Words that collect themselves on pages, Sometimes sending bone chilling messages to readers. Even nice warm fussing feelings. It moves people to great lengths. To achieve things that are far from their minds. It tears down walls of hatred, And sends out waves of joy. This art; Poetry. Has withstood the test of time. And will not hinder the slightest. It is my Bible. My Juliet. My comfort on those dog days. My second life line. Poetry. Is a state of mind, That overwhelms even the strongest of wills. You are the conductor of this orchestra of words. Let your poetic symphony be heard. Let it ripple through the hearts and minds. Let it be the moon that sways the waters and the ill willed. I will run through that grass filled dimension, As the sun shines on to my face. I will become the forger of sentences. I will conduct the greatest classical score of words. I will be eternally bound to this state of mind. smiles Poetry. | ||
Kamille
Monaco1035 Posts
On April 17 2011 03:58 mister.bubbles wrote: I couldn't get into Alfred J. Prufrock, it felt too heavy handed. I thin Eliot wrote much stronger poems later on. I prefer young Eliot over old Eliot. If you think Prufrock is heavy handed, I'm not sure how you can enjoy The Wasteland. | ||
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
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Fulgrim
United States560 Posts
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Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
http://www.nothing-new.com/poetry/howl(1).htm Honestly, I rate Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan very highly these days. Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail we ducked inside the doorways as thunder went crashing. + Show Spoiler + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLq7Aqd_H7g http://www.myvideo.de/watch/3474797/Chimes_of_freedom_1964 Then It's alright ma im only bleeding, which has the line "he not busy being born is busy dying". The meter in his songs is difficult to replicate in written verse because the songs have natural rhythm, but this comes pretty close: + Show Spoiler + Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. 12. The Windhover To Christ our Lord 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: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. | ||
Pixilated
United States82 Posts
So about the comments on Dante being boring: I'm an atheist too, but I absolutely loved Inferno. Really powerful imagery in that text, sooo immersive. Pretty much every pre-modern text is absolutely seeped in religious imagery/thought/etc. You gotta realize, basically everyone in the west was Christian (of some denomination) in those times. So naturally, their writing will reflect that. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy how great their writing is! And @AMaidensWrath, that was a great song, thanks for sharing that! Oh and for the folks that aren't too terribly into poetry yet and maybe don't quite see the appeal (much like myself back in high school), here's a really fantastic TED talk from a poet and poetry educator named Sarah Kay about how poetry has affected and shaped her life and the lives of her students. She even reads a couple of her favorites during the talk; very powerful stuff. http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html Edit: spelling/grammar | ||
Clamev
Germany498 Posts
I absolutely adore his writing. | ||
Fiercegore
United States294 Posts
At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death 5 When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath— It may be I shall pass him still. 10 I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep 15 Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear... But I've a rendezvous with Death 20 At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous. Alan Seeger. My favorite poem And this is Andrea Dorfman | ||
oo inflame oo
United States286 Posts
My favorite has been: My Heart I’m not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don’t prefer one “strain” to another. I’d have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says “That’s not like Frank!”, all to the good! I don’t wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart— you can’t plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open. -Frank O’Hara | ||
Dyme
Germany523 Posts
Dich will ich loben: Häßliches, du hast so was Verläßliches. Das Schöne schwindet, scheidet, flieht - fast tut es weh, wenn man es sieht. Wer Schönes anschaut, spürt die Zeit, und Zeit meint stets: Bald ist's soweit. Das Schöne gibt uns Grund zur Trauer. Das Häßliche erfreut durch Dauer. I'd post an English poem, but my sense for English poetry can't exceed this level: There once was a young man from Brighton Who thought he'd at last found a tight one He said, "O my love! It fits like a glove!" Said she, "You're not in the right one." Seriously though, English poetry just doesn't work for me. It's the internet and business language. English is such a heartless, emotion-free language. I guess poetry ownly works with your native language. English is too efficient/easy/stupid. And any time it is not, I don't understand it. | ||
UKISS
United States29 Posts
A bunch of stuff I wrote a while ago. | ||
Stereotype
United States136 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Mistah Kurtz -- he dead. A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Perhaps one of the most quoted stanzas in poetry (especially of Eliot's work, though) is the final stanza. So powerful and expressive. | ||
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On April 17 2011 04:10 AMaidensWrath wrote: It seems to me that being an atheist is a rather odd reason for being bored of Dante's Divine Comedy. The plot may take place in places such as hell and purgatory. But that's not to be taken literally. Even back then, no one did so. Even the Roman poet Lucretius stated once: Atque ea ni mirum quae cumque Acherunte profundo prodita sunt esse, in vita sunt omnia nobis. Roughly translated it means: Whatever they say about the souls in the depths of hell, that is happening right here in our live. But that's a common misconception. People tend to think that modern literature needs a reader that is able to read between the lines, while every opus before the 20th century is dull, dead an to be taken literally. Pick the Divine Comedy up once again and maybe read some postfaces with it. Learn to read between the lines! It's not important where these people are tortured and that they are tortured. It's extremely interesting to know who these people are! And the way that they are tortured often tells you what they have done wrong in their lives. Just think about it: It wouldn't be deemed as a masterpiece if it's just about people being tortured in different ways for 300 pages, would it? I can't name a single poet I respect who deems the inferno a masterpiece. But then, I stuck far more to contemporary postmodern poetry which DOES have a loathing for the classics. edit : That was too harsh. I'm not trying to discourage people from reading the inferno, just stating that it did nothing for me in any way whatsoever. The Divine Comedy is IMPORTANT to literature. One of the most influential poems ever written - but so was Beowulf, and I rarely see people arguing that it was good. I much prefer Milton's Paradise Lost to the Divine Comedy, but it may also be because I've never read the divine comedy in the original italian that I don't really appreciate it, I'm a super sound/phonetics focused person and the english translation I've read did nothing for me - this is a much more accurate statement on it. I've read the Divine Comedy three times and studied it in four college classes - if anything I've been overexposed to it. In english. | ||
Justifer
107 Posts
Sorry I couldn't find it on the internet when I searched for it so no link On April 17 2011 10:24 Dyme wrote: Seriously though, English poetry just doesn't work for me. It's the internet and business language. English is such a heartless, emotion-free language. I guess poetry ownly works with your native language. English is too efficient/easy/stupid. And any time it is not, I don't understand it. So your saying there isn't any good English poets out there? I guess Shakespeare is a bad poet to some people. His sonnets are some of the most touching and well respected pieces of poetry out there, but since its an emotion-free language i guess they must be bad. | ||
jon arbuckle
Canada443 Posts
On April 17 2011 10:03 oo inflame oo wrote: My honors literature class has us memorize a poem to recite every week. My favorite has been: My Heart I’m not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don’t prefer one “strain” to another. I’d have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says “That’s not like Frank!”, all to the good! I don’t wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart— you can’t plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open. -Frank O’Hara Ding, ding, ding. One of the best. + Show Spoiler [having a coke with you] + + Show Spoiler [fantasy] + + Show Spoiler [september 14, 1959] + | ||
Scriptix
United States145 Posts
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. (Lord Byron) I love metaphysical poetry. | ||
Chequemate
Australia4 Posts
I also like small motavational ones like the following: The past is history the future’s a mystery today is a gift that’s why we call it the present. | ||
scribe123456
United States43 Posts
Where The Side Walk Ends + Show Spoiler + There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends. Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout + Show Spoiler + Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would not take the garbage out! She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans, Candy the yams and spice the hams, And though her daddy would scream and shout, She simply would not take the garbage out. And so it piled up to the ceilings: Coffee grounds, potato peelings, Brown bananas, rotten peas, Chunks of sour cottage cheese. It filled the can, it covered the floor, It cracked the window and blocked the door With bacon rinds and chicken bones, Drippy ends of ice cream cones, Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel, Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal, Pizza crusts and withered greens, Soggy beans and tangerines, Crusts of black burned buttered toast, Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . . The garbage rolled on down the hall, It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . . Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, Globs of gooey bubble gum, Cellophane from green baloney, Rubbery blubbery macaroni, Peanut butter, caked and dry, Curdled milk and crusts of pie, Moldy melons, dried-up mustard, Eggshells mixed with lemon custard, Cold french fried and rancid meat, Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat. At last the garbage reached so high That it finally touched the sky. And all the neighbors moved away, And none of her friends would come to play. And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said, "OK, I'll take the garbage out!" But then, of course, it was too late. . . The garbage reached across the state, From New York to the Golden Gate. And there, in the garbage she did hate, Poor Sarah met an awful fate, That I cannot now relate Because the hour is much too late. But children, remember Sarah Stout And always take the garbage out! Crocodile’s Toothache + Show Spoiler + The Crocodile Went to the dentist And sat down in the chair, And the dentist said, "Now tell me, sir, Why does it hurt and where?" And the Crocodile said, "I'll tell you the truth, I have a terrible ache in my tooth," And he opened his jaws so wide, so wide, The the dentist, he climbed right inside, And the dentist laughed, "Oh isn't this fun?" As he pulled the teeth out, one by one. And the Crocodile cried, "You're hurting me so! Please put down your pliers and let me go." But the dentist laughed with a Ho Ho Ho, And he said, "I still have twelve to go- Oops, that's the wrong one, I confess, But what's one crocodile's tooth more or less?" Then suddenly, the jaws went SNAP, And the dentist was gone, right off the map, And where he went one could only guess... To North or South or East or West... He left no forwarding address. But what's one dentist, more or less? Lazy Jane + Show Spoiler + he also wrote a lot of great songs, including "a boy name sue" for Johny Cash, but thats a bit off topic. | ||
Eruaphadion
Canada78 Posts
On April 17 2011 10:36 Stereotype wrote: T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men + Show Spoiler + Mistah Kurtz -- he dead. A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Perhaps one of the most quoted stanzas in poetry (especially of Eliot's work, though) is the final stanza. So powerful and expressive. I always loved poetry through high school because I saw each poem as a puzzle of words, something to be dissected, and I loved the feeling of GETTING the poem the first time, after putting some work into it. It wasn't until I read this piece that I realized the true power of poetry. This poem shocked me to my core with words, and words alone. It is my very favorite piece, and thanks to it I have spent many happy(or sad) hours studying the greats. My pick for contribution (this poem is so much fun lol): To his Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell + Show Spoiler + Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day; Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood; And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow. An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long preserv'd virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust. The grave's a fine and private place, But none I think do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like am'rous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power. Let us roll all our strength, and all Our sweetness, up into one ball; And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life. Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. | ||
Hemula
Russian Federation1849 Posts
On April 17 2011 12:15 jon arbuckle wrote: Ding, ding, ding. One of the best. + Show Spoiler [having a coke with you] + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDLwivcpFe8 + Show Spoiler [fantasy] + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9eeqlvlNoM + Show Spoiler [september 14, 1959] + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOH7E-n5lIs Hey, Frank O'Hara is awesome, I think I don't know english poetry at all, could somebody introduce me to it? Like, a list of the most valuable works or some poems that are on a next level. I see some people posting here shit (pardon my french), so I know that everybody has his own opinion on art, but still there must kind of a criteria, like works recognized by the fair amount of critics as the pieces of art. Please, please share with me. | ||
Klamity
United States994 Posts
On November 09 2011 17:32 Hemula wrote: Hey, Frank O'Hara is awesome, I think I don't know english poetry at all, could somebody introduce me to it? Like, a list of the most valuable works or some poems that are on a next level. I see some people posting here shit (pardon my french), so I know that everybody has his own opinion on art, but still there must kind of a criteria, like works recognized by the fair amount of critics as the pieces of art. Please, please share with me. Frank O'hara is really fantastic. If you're looking for more work by him, check out the New York School poets he is commonly associated with. This link is a good summary on them: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5668 In general, poets.org is a great place to look around for poems. I personally like O'hara the most out of the bunch, but that's also because I've read more of him than anyone else - Lunch Poems is perhaps my favorite collection of poetry. Of the pack, I've also liked most of Ashberry's stuff that I've read, though he far less grounded in urban meanderings than O'hara. I like Ron Padgett and Dean Young (another contemporary often lumped in with them) a lot as well. Billy Collins is widely regarded as the most popular poet in America, as he carries an aesthetic that easily connects to the masses and contains a lot of humor. With him, I don't sense much evolving as a poet - he seems to have plateaued or regressed even, unfortunately. It's hard to identify who the biggest names are in contemporary poetry for several reasons. First, poetry is dying, if not dead, to the masses. Second, it is as you say, extremely subjective. The obvious giants are all dead - Walt Wiltman, William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson, W.H. Auden, W.B. Keats, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and even Allen Ginsburg [beats generation]. I came here mainly to post "Having a Coke with You," but since that has been done, here are some of my favorites: Ash Ode by Dean Young When I saw you ahead I ran two blocks shouting your name then realizing it wasn’t you but some alarmed pretender, I went on running, shouting now into the sky, continuing your fame and luster. Since I've been incinerated, I've oft returned to this thought, that all things loved are pursued and never caught, even as you slept beside me you were flying off. At least what's never had can’t be lost, the sieve of self stuck with just some larger chunks, jawbone, wedding ring, a single repeated dream, a lullaby in every elegy, descriptions of the sea written in the desert, your broken umbrella, me claiming I could fix it. The List of Famous Hats by James Tate Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all honesty wasn't much different than the one any jerk might buy at a corner drugstore now, except for two minor eccentricities. The first one isn't even funny: Simply it was a white rubber bathing cap, but too small. Napoleon led such a hectic life ever since his childhood, even farther back than that, that he never had a chance to buy a new bathing cap and still as a grown-up--well, he didn't really grow that much, but his head did: He was a pinhead at birth, and he used, until his death really, the same little tiny bathing cap that he was born in, and this meant that later it was very painful to him and gave him many headaches, as if he needed more. So, he had to vaseline his skull like crazy to even get the thing on. The second eccentricity was that it was a tricorn bathing cap. Scholars like to make a lot out of this, and it would be easy to do. My theory is simple-minded to be sure: that beneath his public head there was another head and it was a pyramid or something. Setting the Table by Matthew Harvey To cut through night you'll need your sharpest scissors. Cut around the birch, the bump of the bird nest on its lowest limb. Then with your nail scissors, trim around the baby beaks waiting for worms fall from the sky. Snip around the lip of the mailbox and the pervert's shoe peeking out from behind the Chevy. Before dawn, rip the silhouette from the sky and drag it inside. Frame the long black stripe and hang it in the dining room. Sleep. When you wake, redo the scene as day in doily. Now you have a lacy fence, a huge cherry blossom of a holly bush, a birch sugared with snow. Frame the white version and hang it opposite the black. Get your dinner and eat it between the two scenes. Your food will taste just right. Poem by Alice Notley Why do I want to tell it it was the afternoon of November 15th last fall and I was waiting for it whatever it would be like it was afternoon & raining but it was late afternoon so dark outside my apartment and I was special in that I saw everything through a heightened tear, things seemed dewy, shiny and so I knew there was a cave it was more or less nearby as in my apartment it was blue inside it dark blue like an azure twilight and the gods lived in the cave they who care for you take care of at death and they had cared for Ted and were there for me too and in life even now Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed!] by Frank O'Hara Lana Turner has collapsed! I was trotting along and suddenly it started raining and snowing and you said it was hailing but hailing hits you on the head hard so it was really snowing and raining and I was in such a hurry to meet you but the traffic was acting exactly like the sky and suddenly I see a headline LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED! there is no snow in Hollywood there is no rain in California I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed oh Lana Turner we love you get up | ||
discodancer
United States280 Posts
Choose the sword, and you will join me Choose the ball, and you join your mother... in death You don't understand my words, but you must choose *baby gurgling* So... come boy, choose life or death Verse One: Ghostface Killah The only man I hold wake for Is the sky-blue Bally kid, in eighty-three, rocked Taylor's My Memorex performed tape decks, my own phone sex Watch out for Haiti bitches, I heard they throw hex Yo, Wu whole platoon is filled with rac-coons Corner sittin wine niggaz sippin Apple Boone, this ain't no white cartoon Cuz I be duckin crazy spades The kid hold white shit, like blacks rock ashy legs Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Why did Judas rat to Romans while Jesus slept? Stand up You're out of luck like two dogs stuck Iron Man be sippin rum, out of Stanley Cups, unflammable Noriega, aimin knives which stay windy in Chicago spine-tingle, mind boggles Kangols in rainbow colors, promoters try to hold dough Give me mine before Po, wrap you up in so-and-so I ran the Dark Ages, Constantine and great Henry the Eighth Built with Ghengis Khan, the wreck suede wiley Don Verse Two: Killah Priest I judge wisely, as if nothin ever surprise me Loungin, between two pillars of ivory I'm lively, my dome piece, is like buildin stones in Greece my poems are deep from ancient thrones I speak I'm overwhelmed, as my mind, roams the realm My eye's the vision, memory is the film Others act sub-tile, but they fragile above clouds They act wild and couldn't budge a crowd No matter how loud they get, though they growl and spit Clutch they fists, and throw up signs like a Crip And throw all types of fits I leave em split, like ass cheeks and ragged pussy lips Verse Three: The RZA Aiyyo, camoflouge chameleon, ninjas scalin your buildin No time to grab the gun they already got your wife and children A hit was sent, from the President, to raid your residence Because you had secret evidence, and documents On how they raped the continents, and it's the prominent dominant Islamic, Asiatic black hebrew The year two thousand and two, the battle's filled with the Wu Six million devils just died from the Bubonic Flu Or the Ebola Virus, under the reign of King Cyrus You can see the weakness of a man right through his iris Un-loyal snakes get thrown in boilin lakes of hot oil, it boils your skin, chickenheads gettin slim like Olive Oyl, only plant the seed deep inside fertile soil Fortified with essential, vitamin and mineral use the sky for a blanket, stuffin clouds inside my pillow Rollin with the Lands, the tribe's a hundred and forty four thousand chosen Protons Electrons Always Cause Explosions Verse Four: The Genius/GZA (Maximillion) The banks of G, all CREAM downs a vet Money feed good, opposites off the set It ain't hard to see, my seeds need God-degree I got mouths to feed, unnecessary beef is more cows to breed I'm on some tax free shit by any means Whether bound to hit scheme or some counterfeit CREAM I learned much from such with cons who run scams Veterans got the game spiced like hams And from that, sons are born and guns are drawn Clips are fully loaded, and then blood floods the lawn Disciplinary action was a fraction of strength that made me truncate the limp on temp with the stump, treat his hips like air pumps RZA shaped the track, niggaz caught razor bumps Scarred tryin to figure who invented this unprecented, opium-scented, dark-tinted Now watch me blow him out his shoes without clues Cuz I won't hesitate to detonate, I'm short fuse | ||
garlicface
Canada4196 Posts
About me not studying For my last exam | ||
kafkaesque
Germany2006 Posts
On April 14 2011 22:57 Bourneq wrote: It would be spitefull, to put jelly fish in a trifle. Also I don't like jellyfish, they’re not a fish, they're just a blob. They don’t have eyes, fins or scales like a cod. They float about blind, stinging people in the seas, And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas. Get rid of 'em! Gotta respect the orange head. What's with Britons and finishing when it's nicest? | ||
EffectS
Belgium795 Posts
On April 17 2011 07:53 Fulgrim wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAC3WXOOWE I've never been into poetry much but my god this is intense! Thank you so very, very much for putting this here. EDIT: I've just listened to this 10 times in a row. - Feeling inspired | ||
Roe
Canada6002 Posts
my favourite, "New York Times" by John Mcguirk | ||
Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
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Cutebone
United States62 Posts
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etothepii
4 Posts
I was surprised that the poems here are actually a pretty good selection. The Snow Man 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. -Wallace Stevens | ||
homeless_guy
United States321 Posts
ted kooser google them, read them, and you will be glad you did | ||
Bobbin Threadbare
Australia30 Posts
Climb Mount Fuji, But slowly, slowly! Surprised there aren't more voices around for some Japanese masters. | ||
Sumahi
Guam5609 Posts
In all the classes I teach I like to have them analyze poetry, even though I teach History. One I like to use when teaching Ancient History is "Ozymandias" by Percy 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." | ||
Tortious_Tortoise
United States944 Posts
To me, a dying ember in the fireplace Is another adventure. The sparkling ash The road on which a hero's journey begins. As thin smoke rises, scarring the bricks within The chimney and spiraling like a beautiful Gray ribbon into the starry night I see a Winding and eternal road, the end of which Holds happiness. And the single dying ember, The lone spark of light in this darkness speaks To me, with a low and tired voice. It repeats The same single utterence that has sustained it: "Happiness is an eternal pursuit." Process I tried to load a video on a website Of a barbershop quartet singing a Jazzy and uplifting song And the picture froze, and the sound cut Like a divisive dagger and threw itself from my Ears and I was left with a spinning wheel Of circles on a frozen picture and the Mingled irritation, expectation, and Excruciating irrational anger that nothing The web has brought me bears fruit anymore-- Nothing but the resounding crash of yesterday When a video-- what a concept, a video A piece of moving paint, a breathing, feeling Speaking cut of life encapsulated in a fraction Of life-- would load. I gaze at The spinning circle of little circles Beseechingly, longingly-- with every fiber In my tense and strained body I want To hear a few more notes, a few more Drops of heaven in my ears that keeps me From tearing out my insides. I want to hear The swift and sacred harmonies that connect Together four souls, I want to be reminded That beauty comes from within the vocal Chords of every preaching child of god I want to let the overwhelming sound drown Me in a cathartic sea of mellow melody I am asleep, and I want to be woken for the day By the sounds of the golden gates of heaven creaking a Jazzy and uplifting song. | ||
Tortious_Tortoise
United States944 Posts
George Watsky-- not only a sick fast rapper, but a brilliant poet. | ||
clementdudu
France819 Posts
Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers, Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage, Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers. A peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches, Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux, Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux. Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule ! Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid ! L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule, L'autre mime en boitant, l'infirme qui volait ! Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer ; Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées, Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher. (this reading is quite bad tbh) got to agree with my german friend,i like every type of literrature in english except poetry,every language has this sensibility,and poetry is usually what brings the most out of it. i usually just cant get it when it comes to english poetry,and this is coming from a guy whos read pretty much half of french classics in english instead of french :o | ||
Xiphias
Norway2222 Posts
The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities And ships upon untamed seas, But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead. A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood, Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood An unintelligible multitude, A million eyes, a million boots in line, Without expression, waiting for a sign. Out of the air a voice without a face Proved by statistics that some cause was just In tones as dry and level as the place: No one was cheered and nothing was discussed; Column by column in a cloud of dust They marched away enduring a belief Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief. She looked over his shoulder For ritual pieties, White flower-garlanded heifers, Libation and sacrifice, But there on the shining metal Where the altar should have been, She saw by his flickering forge-light Quite another scene. Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke) And sentries sweated for the day was hot: A crowd of ordinary decent folk Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke As three pale figures were led forth and bound To three posts driven upright in the ground. The mass and majesty of this world, all That carries weight and always weighs the same Lay in the hands of others; they were small And could not hope for help and no help came: What their foes like to do was done, their shame Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride And died as men before their bodies died. She looked over his shoulder For athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance Moving their sweet limbs Quick, quick, to music, But there on the shining shield His hands had set no dancing-floor But a weed-choked field. A ragged urchin, aimless and alone, Loitered about that vacancy; a bird Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone: That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third, Were axioms to him, who'd never heard Of any world where promises were kept, Or one could weep because another wept. The thin-lipped armorer, Hephaestos, hobbled away, Thetis of the shining breasts Cried out in dismay At what the god had wrought To please her son, the strong Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles Who would not live long. I fell in love with this poem as I took some credits in English at the university, being a sc2 player, I am mastering in mathematcis | ||
procyonlotor
Italy473 Posts
I unlatch the door and quietly await the one I want to greet me in my dreams. Otomo no Yakamochi, 8th Century Japan, one of the compilers of the Man'yoshu. | ||
Aphasie
Norway474 Posts
On April 17 2011 10:36 Stereotype wrote: T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men + Show Spoiler + Mistah Kurtz -- he dead. A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Perhaps one of the most quoted stanzas in poetry (especially of Eliot's work, though) is the final stanza. So powerful and expressive. I absolutely LOVE this poem. Simply my favorite poem. I first read it under severe depression some years ago and probably read it like ten times in a row. I even tried to committ it to memory, i think im gonna try again. I also have to chime in with the french/germans. English poetry has a great advantage in this thread. Even though our poems might be translated, you always lose something during translation. And finding a good translation on the net is nigh impossible. To contribute, I cant remember seeing Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats. (from The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899) HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. | ||
SeriouR
Spain622 Posts
Romance Sonámbulo (Verde que te quiero verde) + Show Spoiler + ROMANCE SONÁMBULO A Gloria Giner y a Fernando de los Ríos Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar y el caballo en la montaña. Con la sombra en la cintura ella sueña en su baranda, verde carne, pelo verde, con ojos de fría plata. Verde que te quiero verde. Bajo la luna gitana, las cosas le están mirando y ella no puede mirarlas. * Verde que te quiero verde. Grandes estrellas de escarcha, vienen con el pez de sombra que abre el camino del alba. La higuera frota su viento con la lija de sus ramas, y el monte, gato garduño, eriza sus pitas agrias. ¿Pero quién vendrá? ¿Y por dónde...? Ella sigue en su baranda, verde carne, pelo verde, soñando en la mar amarga. * Compadre, quiero cambiar mi caballo por su casa, mi montura por su espejo, mi cuchillo por su manta. Compadre, vengo sangrando, desde los montes de Cabra. Si yo pudiera, mocito, ese trato se cerraba. Pero yo ya no soy yo, ni mi casa es ya mi casa. Compadre, quiero morir decentemente en mi cama. De acero, si puede ser, con las sábanas de holanda. ¿No ves la herida que tengo desde el pecho a la garganta? Trescientas rosas morenas lleva tu pechera blanca. Tu sangre rezuma y huele alrededor de tu faja. Pero yo ya no soy yo, ni mi casa es ya mi casa. Dejadme subir al menos hasta las altas barandas, dejadme subir, dejadme, hasta las verdes barandas. Barandales de la luna por donde retumba el agua. * Ya suben los dos compadres hacia las altas barandas. Dejando un rastro de sangre. Dejando un rastro de lágrimas. Temblaban en los tejados farolillos de hojalata. Mil panderos de cristal, herían la madrugada. * Verde que te quiero verde, verde viento, verdes ramas. Los dos compadres subieron. El largo viento, dejaba en la boca un raro gusto de hiel, de menta y de albahaca. ¡Compadre! ¿Dónde está, dime? ¿Dónde está mi niña amarga? ¡Cuántas veces te esperó! ¡Cuántas veces te esperara, cara fresca, negro pelo, en esta verde baranda! * Sobre el rostro del aljibe se mecía la gitana. Verde carne, pelo verde, con ojos de fría plata. Un carámbano de luna la sostiene sobre el agua. La noche su puso íntima como una pequeña plaza. Guardias civiles borrachos, en la puerta golpeaban. Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar. Y el caballo en la montaña. Thanks for reading | ||
Tortious_Tortoise
United States944 Posts
On January 27 2012 09:44 homeless_guy wrote: w.s. merwin ted kooser google them, read them, and you will be glad you did I like Merwin for his sort of blend between the Modern and the Post-Modern era of literature-- he structures his poems in a pretty common modernist style, but the content just sort of reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Kooser's a different story. Normally, I don't like short poems (I hate the poems of William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound), but I found myself really enjoying the succinct, yet powerful, structure Kooser brings. I also really love how he plays with distances and light in his stuff. Definitely worth taking a look :D | ||
Enwrit
United States39 Posts
On February 01 2012 05:21 mbr2321 wrote: I like Merwin for his sort of blend between the Modern and the Post-Modern era of literature-- he structures his poems in a pretty common modernist style, but the content just sort of reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Kooser's a different story. Normally, I don't like short poems (I hate the poems of William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound), but I found myself really enjoying the succinct, yet powerful, structure Kooser brings. I also really love how he plays with distances and light in his stuff. Definitely worth taking a look :D I'll have to check out Kooser, too; I love that style. Also, cool to see Stevens and Auden in here. My favorite poem at the moment is "Sadness" by Donald Justice: + Show Spoiler + 1 Dear ghosts, dear presences, O my dear parents, Why were you so sad on porches, whispering? What great melancholies were loosed among our swings! As before a storm one hears the leaves whispering And marks each small change in the atmosphere, So was it then to overhear and to fear. 2 But all things then were oracle and secret. Remember the night when, lost, returning, we turned back Confused, and our headlights singled out the fox? Our thoughts went with it then, turning and turning back With the same terror, into the deep thicket Beside the highway, at home in the dark thicket. 3 I say the wood within is the dark wood, Or wound no torn shirt can entirely bandage, But the sad hand returns to it in secret Repeatedly, encouraging the bandage To speak of that other world we might have borne, The lost world buried before it could be born. 4 Burchfield describes the pinched white souls of violets Frothing the mouth of a derelict old mine Just as an evil August night comes down, All umber, but for one smudge of dusky carmine. It is the sky of a peculiar sadness— The other side perhaps of some rare gladness. 5 What is it to be happy, after all? Think Of the first small joys. Think of how our parents Would whistle as they packed for the long summers, Or, busy about the usual tasks of parents, Smile down at us suddenly for some secret reason, Or simply smile, not needing any reason. 6 But even in the summers we remember The forest had its eyes, the sea its voices, And there were roads no map would ever master, Lost roads and moonless nights and ancient voices— And night crept down with an awful slowness toward the water; And there were lanterns once, doubled in the water. 7 Sadness has its own beauty, of course. Toward dusk, Let us say, the river darkens and looks bruised, And we stand looking out at it through rain. It is as if life itself were somehow bruised And tender at this hour; and a few tears commence. Not that they are but that they feel immense. I love his imagery and description, and the way he uses form. | ||
sevencck
Canada691 Posts
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. Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man" Edit: wow, I didn't notice etothepii already posted this. You have good taste. | ||
Klamity
United States994 Posts
Song by Brigit Pegeen Kelly Listen: there was a goat's head hanging by ropes in a tree. All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat's head Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away Beside which the goat's headless body lay. Some boys Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined. The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything. The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks. The head called to the body. The body to the head. They missed each other. The missing grew large between them, Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills. Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder, Sang long and low until the morning light came up over The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped.... The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after The night's bush of stars, because the goat's silky hair Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit. The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train's horn Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats. She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming Made it so. But one night the girl didn't hear the train's horn, And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat's body By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles At the goat's torn neck. Then somebody found the head Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take These things away so that the girl would not see them. They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat. They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke.... But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job, Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark. What they didn't know was that the goat's head was already Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn't know Was that the goat's head would go on singing, just for them, Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen, Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song, The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother's call. Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness. You Ask How Nick Flynn "Some Ether" & I say, suicide, & you ask how & I say, an overdose, and then she shot herself, & your eyes fill with what? wonder? So I add, in the chest, so you won't think her face is gone, & it matters somehow that you know this... & near the end I eat all her percodans, to know how far they can take me, because they are there. So she won't. Cut straws stashed in her glove compartment, & I split them open to taste the alkaloid residue. Bitter. Lingering. A bottle of red wine moves each night along as she writes, I feel too much, again & again. Our phone now unlisted, our mail kept in a box at the post office & my mother tells me to always leave a light on so it seems someone's home. She finds a cop for her next boyfriend, his hair greasy, pushed back with his fingers. He lets me play with his service revolver while they kiss on the couch. As cars fill the windows, I aim, making the noise with my mouth, in case it's them, & when his back is hunched over her I aim between his shoulders blades, in case it's him. | ||
Klamity
United States994 Posts
by Larry Levis Whenever I listen to Billie Holiday, I am reminded That I, too, was once banished from New York City. Not because of drugs or because I was interesting enough For any wan, overworked patrolman to worry about— His expression usually a great, gauzy spiderweb of bewilderment Over his face—I was banished from New York City by a woman. Sometimes, after we had stopped laughing, I would look At her & and see a cold note of sorrow or puzzlement go Over her face as if someone else were there, behind it, Not laughing at all. We were, I think, “in love.” No, I’m sure. If my house burned down tomorrow morning, & if I & my wife And son stood looking on at the flames, & if, then Someone stepped out of the crowd of bystanders And said to me: “Didn’t you once know. . . ?” No. But if One of the flames, rising up in the scherzo of fire, turned All the windows blank with light, & if that flame could speak, And if it said to me: “You loved her, didn’t you?” I’d answer, Hands in my pockets, “Yes.” And then I’d let fire & misfortune Overwhelm my life. Sometimes, remembering those days, I watch a warm, dry wind bothering a whole line of elms And maples along a street in this neighborhood until They’re all moving at once, until I feel just like them, Trembling & in unison. None of this matters now, But I never felt alone all that year, & if I had sorrows, I also had laughter, the affliction of angels & children. Which can set a whole house on fire if you’d let it. And even then You might still laugh to see all of your belongings set you free In one long choiring of flames that sang only to you— Either because no one else could hear them, or because No one else wanted to. And, mostly, because they know. They know such music cannot last, & that it would Tear them apart if they listened. In those days, I was, in fact, already married, just as I am now, Although to another woman. And that day I could have stayed In New York. I had friends there. I could have strayed Up Lexington Avenue, or down to Third, & caught a faint Glistening of the sea between the buildings. But all I wanted Was to hold her all morning, until her body was, again, A bright field, or until we both reached some thicket As if at the end of a lane, or at the end of all desire, And where we could, therefore, be alone again, & make Some dignity out of loneliness. As, mostly, people cannot do. Billie Holiday, whose life was shorter & more humiliating Than my own, would have understood all this, if only Because even in her late addiction & her bloodstream’s Hallelujahs, she, too, sang often of some affair, or someone Gone, & therefore permanent. And sometimes she sang for Nothing, even then, & it isn’t anyone’s business, if she did. That morning, when she asked me to leave, wearing only The apricot tinted, fraying chemise, I wanted to stay. But I also wanted to go, to lose her suddenly, almost For no reason, & certainly without any explanation. I remember looking down at a pair of singular tracks Made in a light snow the night before, at how they were Gradually effacing themselves beneath the tires Of the morning traffic, & thinking that my only other choice Was fire, ashes, abandonment, solitude. All of which happened Anyway, & soon after, & by divorce. I know this isn’t much. But I wanted to explain this life to you, even if I had to become, over the years, someone else to do it. You have to think of me what you think of me. I had To live my life, even its late, florid style. Before You judge this, think of her. Then think of fire, Its laughter, the music of splintering beams & glass, The flames reaching through the second story of a house Almost as if to—mistakenly—rescue someone who Left you years ago. It is so American, fire. So like us. Its desolation. And its eventual, brief triumph. | ||
John__Galt
5 Posts
By, Me Grenade We lay in silent watchfulness along that gun pocked hill a momentary pause in time at last the war was still And while we waited on that ground all wreathed in cannon smoke: our muscles tense, our hearts were full but not a word we spoke Then sudden forth in hero charge came strong the bitter foe They found that we had dug in deep; they could not make us go In minutes we had routed them but as they turned around the last of them looked back at us and in his pocket found a little fruit encased in steel the taste of which is death grenade in hand he pulled the pin we all drew one last breath We watched in silent agony as it flew through the air I looked about at sky and clouds and thought them strangely fair I spent a while in memory of these men by my side and thought that with no other men would I have rather died Each man thought then of those he knew and each took one last glance then sudden came the springing thought: to give them one last chance! I shot a last departing prayer to Him that lives above and then I dove on that grenade to give myself in love And just before I felt the blast, that strange, all cutting knife I looked into the eyes of those to whom I gave my life In each the promise to himself a better life to lead my dying thought in blinding light: their thanks is all I need | ||
Probasaur
United States461 Posts
I haven't ever really posted anything I usually just write for myself and now and again if someone inspired the work then I'd show it to them. Last night I wrote something while I was reflecting on all thats gone down between me and my father pritty much our entire lives but mostly from having just spoken with him recently. Like I said I felt that the style was something I was proud to call my own and the words all really rang true together so I thought, "post it... why the hell not". And so here goes nothing..... Every olive branch outwardly reaching.... comes a begrudging, non-relinquished vine snapped back, disdained, each snap more deserving than the next. For every thorn embedded belongs a home to each vile moment, vindicated by holes punctured. Forever they may remain a reminder. Yet as the stinging clings to memory.... too soon each hole, now together, replaced by one... leave a single scar. Tho a mark still to force remembrance, still somehow forgotten. As time heals all wounds, the stinging surpasses... drives deeper down this day, to the next. Seems as though the very very very few people who check the poetry section over at Reddit are saying really nice things about it. I thought it was pritty good I didn't expect such words to come about, like "fantastic" that was really something. That positivity does mean quite a lot to me.... writing is something I enjoy and my love for it only continues to grow each time it helps me expand my thoughts on something or even to help understand my own emotions. Like I said there as well, this is my first time really posting anything or getting involved in any community around it. And I plan to do just that, get involved and stay involved. And consider this my introduction. Cheers! Just had a thought, what do you guys think about me starting a blog on here. Just something that I can continue to edit and maybe along the way I could notice some progress. And I just assume it would be an easier way to find criticisms and thoughts on my works if I kept it nice and tidy in a blog. What you guys think, good idea? | ||
Najda
United States3765 Posts
Anyone know some other good spoken word poets? I really enjoy it but my knowledge of the material is extremely limited. | ||
Meadowlark
United States349 Posts
By Octavio Paz Stretched out on the grass, a boy and a girl. Savoring their oranges, giving their kisses like waves exchanging foam. Stretched out on the beach, a boy and a girl. Savoring their limes, giving their kisses like clouds exchanging foam. Stretched out underground, a boy and a girl. Saying nothing, never kissing, giving silence for silence. Eric Whitacre wrote a delightful piece of music set to this poem, and it is especially good if you read along as you listen. | ||
GreenHorizons
United States21792 Posts
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