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A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away
Comments
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Brilliant, and people think poetry is not real.0
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"Last Letter" by Ted Hughes
What happened that night? Your final night.
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?
Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.
My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,
Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.
That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.
That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.
Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.
What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of dirty sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.
At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’0 -
Carrying firewood on my back at dawn I go to sell it.
Buying wine I return at dusk
I ask where is my home?
Pierce the clouds and enter the verdant hills.
by Xu Xuan-ping0 -
Inniskeen Road: July Evening
Patrick Kavanagh
The bicycles go by in twos and threes -
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn to-night,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.
I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.0 -
A Handful Of Stars
Give me O Night, a blessing
Of peace, and a handful of stars-
Give me O Dawn, a beginning,
New life, and a healing of scars;
Give me O Day, a freshening
Of spirit, and warmth in the sun-
Give me, O Earth, of thy bounty,
Strength for the task I’ve begun.
Leave me, O Night, of your stillness
A calm for my inward soul-
Leave me a breath of your darkness
To cool me, and keep me whole;
Leave me the wind in the willows
The roll of the surf and the sea-
Leave me, Beloved, my memories
Of dreams you have given to me
Louis L'Amour (Best known as a Western novelist)0 -
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Canal Bank Walk
Patrick Kavanagh
Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.
0 -
This is a typical Seamus Heaney poem in a similar vein to the much better known "digging" or "Sunlight" (you know the type)
FOLLOWER;
My father worked with a horse plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck.
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.0 -
Intruder on Station Island
I was hoping the next ghost to shake hands
Would equal in fame my previous advisers.
Yeats? Swift? No, they were Protestants.
Imagine my chagrin feeling leather on bone,
A boot up my arse from a former rugby player,
Shade of a Catholic policeman I had known.
'Hello, Seamus, oul son, I was reading your book in the shop.
Still whingin! Your father's false returns
And your imitations get hardly a look in.
And weemin! Ye must have had many a frolic
With hot wee things in Harvard and the West Coast.
But never a mention, or if there is it's symbolic.'
I explained about my aunt's old leather trowel,
Its handle an egret's head, a furled sail,
The rounded hanging lip an Irish vowel;
But he interrupted and had the impudence to advise me:
'Relax oul hand. Enjoy your luck; but give us a rest
From the weather and farm implements.'
From a cattle-dealing line that would stretch from the Boyne
To Lough Neagh, crookedly, a prefect of St Columbs,
I knew how to knee a nuisance in the groin;
But signed pamphlets are more effective than dunts.
I keep them about me. This one argued fiercely
That Faber should pay its Irish poets in punts.
But how to escape without giving offence was my pain!
To aid me the air stirred my blow-dried hair,
As a helicopter whose pilot was Craig Raine
Descended. The nonentity melted in whipped air.
James Simmons0 -
I'm going to bring sexy back, wayyyyyyyyyyy back . Heres an excerpt from the 'The Faerie Queene' after the Knight of Temperance catches a couple of girls skinny-dipping.
Book II, Canto VII
The wanton Maidens him espying, stood
Gazing a while at his unwonted guise;
Then th'one her selfe low ducked in the flood,
Abasht, that her a straunger did avise:
But th'other rather higher did arise,
And her two lilly paps aloft displayd,
And all, that might his melting hart entise
To her delights, she unto him bewrayd:
The rest hid underneath, him more desirous made.
With that, the other likewise up arose,
And her faire lockes, which formerly were bownd
Up in one knot, she low adowne did lose:
Which flowing long and thick, her cloth'd arownd,
And th'yuorie in golden mantle gownd:
So that faire spectacle from him was reft,
Yet that, which reft it, no lesse faire was fownd:
So hid in lockes and waves from lookers theft,
Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left.
Withall she laughed, and she blusht withall,
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing, as did fall:
Now when they spide the knight to slacke his pace,
Them to behold, and in his sparkling face
The secret signes of kindled lust appeare,
Their wanton meriments they did encreace,
And to him beckned, to approch more neare,
And shewd him many sights, that courage cold could reare.
by Edmund Spenser0 -
August 1914
What in our lives is burnt
In the fire of this?
The heart's dear granary?
The much we shall miss?
Three lives hath one life—
Iron, honey, gold.
The gold, the honey gone—
Left is the hard and cold.
Iron are our lives
Molten right through our youth.
A burnt space through ripe fields,
A fair mouth's broken tooth.
Isaac Rosenberg0 -
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To My Daughter Betty, The Gift of God
In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
To beauty proud as was your mother's prime,
In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme
And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
And some decry it in a knowing tone.
So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,—
But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
T. M. Kettle0 -
A Teacher’s Lament
Don’t tell me the cat ate your math sheet,
And your spelling words went down the drain,
And you couldn’t decipher your homework,
Because it was soaked in the rain.
Don’t tell me you slaved for hours
On the project that’s due today,
And you would have had it finished
If your snake hadn’t run away.
Don’t tell me you lost your eraser,
And your worksheets and pencils, too,
And your papers are stuck together
With a great big glob of glue.
I’m tired of all your excuses;
They are really a terrible bore.
Besides, I forgot my own work,
At home in my study drawer.
BY KALLI DAKOS0 -
A Drinking Song
The pleasures of Love and the joys of good Wine,
To perfect our happiness, wisely we join!
We, to Beauty, all day.
Give the sovereign sway;
And her favourite Nymphs devoutly obey!
At the Plays, we are constantly making our Court;
And when they are ended, we follow the sport
To the Mall, and the Park;
Where we love till 'tis dark!
Then, sparkling Champagne
Puts an end to their reign.
It quickly recovers
Poor languishing Lovers!
Makes us frolic and gay; and drowns all our sorrow!
But, alas! we relapse again on the morrow!
Let every man stand
With his Glass in his hand;
And briskly discharge, at the word of command!
Here 's a Health to all those,
Whom, to-night, we depose!
Wine and Beauty, by turns, great souls should inspire!
Present all together! and now, boys, give fire!
Sir George Etherege0 -
The Lover Showeth How He is Forsaken of Such as He Sometime Enjoyed
or
They Flee From Me
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
Sends me to shivering.0 -
I heard this on iTunes U and it brought me back to uni days. It's by Tom Wayman. Garrison Keillor reads it brilliantly as part of the 92nd Street Y poetry series.
Did I Miss Anything?
Tom Wayman
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours
Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent
Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.
Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?
Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered
but it was one place
And you weren’t here
From Did I Miss Anything? Selected Poems 1973-1993, 1993
Harbour Publishing0 -
May Robin Williams R.I.P.
I heard this first in Dead Poets Society.
I loved it then as I do now.
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
By Robert Herrick, 1591 - 1674
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.0 -
^^^
Thanks for that, have had it in my head all day.
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Mirror In February
The day dawns, with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed -- my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy --
I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.
It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.Below my window the wakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities;
And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young, and not renewable, but man.
Thomas Kinsella0 -
“How goes the night , boy?...”
The night before Patricia’s funeral in 1951 I stayed up late talking to my father.
How goes the night,boy?
The moon is down:
Dark is the town
In this nightfall.
How goes the night, boy?
Soon is her funeral
Her small white burial.
She was my three-years child,
Her honey hair, her eyes
Small ovals of thrush-eggs.
How goes the night, boy?
It is late:lace
At the window
Blows back in the wind.
How goes the night, boy?
Oh,my poor white fawn!
How goes the night, boy?
It is dawn. (Hartnett, 51)
Michael Hartnett0 -
The Man in the Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn’t your father, or mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
He’s the fellow to please – never mind all the rest
For he’s with you, clear to the end
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.
- Peter Dale Wimbrow Snr0 -
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Extract from The Deserted Village - Oliver Goldsmith. I hope it hasn't appeared here already.
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The days disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd:
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
The village all declar'd how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too:
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics rang'd around;
And still they gaz'd and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumph'd is forgot.It's the bally ballyness of it that makes it all seem so bally bally.
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Since someone was talking about the Raven on the forum i thought i'd share this. Its a version of the Raven based on the war game 'Warhammer 40,000'. Unfortunately i didn't spot the authors name when i copied it down years ago.
Notes: An Eversor is a genetically engineered, drug enhanced, cybernetically augmented assassin http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Eversor. And a psyber Raven is basically a mechanical bird Drone.
The Raven by uknown
Once upon a battlefield dreary, where I cowered, spent and blearly,
Within an Imperial bunker, darkly stained with dust and gore,
As I cowered, nearly shuttering, suddenly there came a sputtering
As some weapon quickly stuttering - firing at my bunker door.
"`Tis some bolter", I murmmered, "firing at my bunker door -
Only this and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And the brightly burning bastions lit the horizion by the score.
Eagerly, on freedom drunker; - vainly had I sought to hunker
In this heavy Imperial bunker - with perhaps a tunnel in the floor -
A safe and empty fortress with perhaps a tiny tunnel in the floor -
Only this and nothing more.
And the mad raving howling of each distant Space Wolf prowling
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.
So that now, to the beating of my heart, I stood entreating
"`Tis some Space Wolf there repeating, firing at my bunker door,
Some common Grey Hunter rapid-firing at my bunker door -
This it is and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer
"Marine," said I, "or Scout, your attention I implore;
The bunker walls are thick - they are made of tempered brick
And your bolters do not nick the slightest scratch or tiny score -
Not a dimple, dent, depression, dip, scratch or tiny score -
Away now, and fire no more."
Then in the bunker slumping, presently I heard a thumping
A pounding - rattling many times fiercer than before.
And soon I began to screech - the bunker wall grenades did breach;
The very gods I did beseech as the ceiling fell upon the floor -
Through the wounds poured light which danced upon the floor -
Danced amidst the sounds of war.
Then at once it stopped the violence - I was left alone with silence
Confused, I spied the reason why the shells did drop no more -
For as I began to shutter, then with many a flit and flutter
a psyber-Raven flew through the clutter to perch above the door -
Perched on the two-headed eagle just above the bunker door -
Perched and sat and nothing more.
At this I grew more craven, for the talons of the psyber-Raven
Were all over covered with bright red blood and crimson gore.
"Wretch!" I cried, "Njal hath lent thee - into this fortress has he sent thee
So that remotely may he here be - and this bunker then explore -
Scry out my exact location and this bunker then explore -"
Quoth the Raven, "Eversor"
Then, methought, the air grew darker, the bunker now a little starker
For the uttered word brought terror as I had never felt before.
As for weapons, I knew I had none - no bolter, sword or lasgun;
No arms to stop the war's son fated to break soon through the door -
The blood-mad crazed assassin fated to break soon through the door-
Quoth the Raven, "Eversor"
"Be that word our sign of parting, machine or bird!" I shrieked, upstarting -
"Get thee back into the fire-fight and here spy on me no more!
For as you came unbidden - I would otherwise be here hidden -
Leave my location in this midden - quit that icon above my door!
Take thy shining metal eye, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Eversor"
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting - still is sitting
On the pallid two-headed eagle just above the bunker door;
His metal eye has all the seeming of a psyker that is scheming,
To have my guts lie steaming in a pile upon the floor;
And now all hope has left me, crouched here upon the floor
I await the Eversor!0 -
Been a few days since one was posted in here so this will be for Saturday 6th September 2014.
Chose this poem for its sheer imagery. Always lowers the heart-rate even reading it; and always think of this poem when I go out kayakingI will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
Thanks,
kerry4sam0 -
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Clive James is dying and is saying goodbye through his poetry, this is the latest one which appeared in a few English newspapers today having originally been published by the New Yorker. There are a few others which are also excellent.
Japanese Maple, by Clive James
Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:
Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?
Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.
My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:
Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.0 -
If I had my child to raise over again.
If I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self esteem first & the house later.
I'd fingerprint more & point the finger less.
I would do less correcting & more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch & watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less & know to care more.
I'd take more hikes & fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious & seriously play.
I would run through more fields & gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging & less tugging.
I'd see the oak tree in the acorn more often.
I would be firm less & affirm much more.
I'd model less about the love of power &
more about the power of love.
Diane Loomans.0 -
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
A simply beautiful poem,
kerry4sam0 -
A Little Boy in the Morning
Francis Ledwidge
He will not come, and still I wait.
He whistles at another gate
Where angels listen. Ah I know
He will not come, yet if I go
How shall I know he did not pass
barefooted in the flowery grass?
The moon leans on one silver horn
Above the silhouettes of morn,
And from their nest-sills finches whistle
Or stooping pluck the downy thistle.
How is the morn so gay and fair
Without his whistling in its air?
The world is calling, I must go.
How shall I know he did not pass
Barefooted in the shining grass?0 -
AT FANG CH'ENG MONASTERY, DISCUSSING CH'AN WITH YÚAN TAN CH'-IU
Alone, in the vast midst of boundless
dream, we begin to sense something:
wind and fire stir, come whorling
life into earth and water, giving us
this shape. Erasing dark confusion,
we penetrate to the essential points,
reach Nirvana-illumination, seeing
this body clearly, without any fears,
and waking beyond past and future,
we soon know the Buddha-mystery.
What luck to find a Ch'an recluse
offering emerald wine. We seem lost
together here - no different than
mountains and clouds. A clear wind
opens pure emptiness, bright moon
gazing on laughter and easy talk,
blue-lotus roofs. Timeless longing
breaks free in a wandering glance.
Li Po, (701–762)0 -
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This was always a poem that would draw silence when someone would recite in classMid-Term Break
Seamus HeaneyI sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble,'
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
Thanks,
kerry4sam0 -
Friendship
- Friedrich von Schiller -
Friend!--the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
A single wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit;--yea, that simple law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.
This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein,
Their radiant labyrinths to weave around
Creation's mighty hearts: this made the chain,
Which into interwoven systems bound
All spirits streaming to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!
Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!
Happy, O happy--I have found thee--I
Have out of millions found thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!--Let earth and sky
Return to darkness, and the antique waste--
To chaos shocked, let warring atoms be,
Still shall each heart unto the other flee!
Do I not find within thy radiant eyes
Fairer reflections of all joys most fair?
In thee I marvel at myself--the dyes
Of lovely earth seem lovelier painted there,
And in the bright looks of the friend is given
A heavenlier mirror even of the heaven!
Sadness casts off its load, and gayly goes
From the intolerant storm to rest awhile,
In love's true heart, sure haven of repose;
Does not pain's veriest transports learn to smile
From that bright eloquence affection gave
To friendly looks?--there, finds not pain a grave?
In all creation did I stand alone,
Still to the rocks my dreams a soul should find,
Mine arms should wreathe themselves around the stone,
My griefs should feel a listener in the wind;
My joy--its echo in the caves should be!
Fool, if ye will--Fool, for sweet sympathy!
We are dead groups of matter when we hate;
But when we love we are as gods!--Unto
The gentle fetters yearning, through each state
And shade of being multiform, and through
All countless spirits (save of all the sire)--
Moves, breathes, and blends, the one divine desire.
Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade,
From the rude mongrel to the starry Greek,
Who the fine link between the mortal made,
And heaven's last seraph--everywhere we seek
Union and bond--till in one sea sublime
Of love be merged all measure and all time!
Friendless ruled God His solitary sky;
He felt the want, and therefore souls were made,
The blessed mirrors of his bliss!--His eye
No equal in His loftiest works surveyed;
And from the source whence souls are quickened, He
Called His companion forth--ETERNITY!0 -
Miss Me, But Let Me Go
When I come to the end of the road,
and the sun has set for me.
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room.
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little—but not too long,
and not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love that was once shared.
Miss me, but let me go.
For this is a journey we all must take, and each must go alone.
It’s all a part of the master’s plan, a step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heart, go to the friends we know.
Bear your sorrow in good deeds. Miss me, but let me go.0 -
Walter de la Mare
"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.0 -
Shancoduff
-Patrick Kavanagh
My black hills have never seen the sun rising,
Eternally they look north towards Armagh.
Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been
Incurious as my black hills that are happy
When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.
My hills hoard the bright shillings of March
While the sun searches in every pocket.
They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn
With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves
In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.
The sleety winds fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff
While the cattle-drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush
Look up and say: "Who owns them hungry hills
That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?
A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor."
I hear, and is my heart not badly shaken?
....that closing line gets me every time0 -
Always reminds me of the auld Robin Williams film Dead Poets SocietyO Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.0 -
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Every speaker has a mouth,an arrangement rather neat.
Sometimes it's filled with wisdom.
Sometimes it's filled with feet.
Robert Orben.0 -
May have been posted before, Heaney's last poem and the painting it is responding to:
Banks of a Canal
by Seamus Heaney
Gustave Caillebotte, c.1872
Say ‘canal’ and there’s that final vowel
Towing silence with it, slowing time
To a walking pace, a path, a whitewashed gleam
Of dwellings at the skyline. World stands still.
The stunted concrete mocks the classical.
Water says, ‘My place here is in dream,
In quiet good standing. Like a sleeping stream,
Come rain or sullen shine I’m peaceable.’
Stretched to the horizon, placid ploughland,
The sky not truly bright or overcast:
I know that clay, the damp and dirt of it,
The coolth along the bank, the grassy zest
Of verges, the path not narrow but still straight
Where soul could mind itself or stray beyond.0 -
I love a martini
two at the most
three I'm under the table
four I'm under the host
Dorothy Parker0 -
I love a martini
two at the most
three I'm under the table
four I'm under the host
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy and I have that in common :pac:
Reminds me of good old Ogden Nash:
Candy is dandy
But liquor is quicker!
***
What's the Use?
Sure, deck your limbs in pants,
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance...
Have you seen yourself retreating?0 -
Endymion by John Keats
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.0 -
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Just posting this for its BeautyDusk ... You are My Dawn
by Bobby Ferguson
Far beyond my wildest nightmare
never shall you dream,
Hold the rainbow of no colors
shine no sun or moon beam.
I am shadow in the darkness
droplet in the sea,
Blade of grass in earths green pastures
I see you in me.
Many miles I leave behind me
nowhere have I gone,
In the morning I see night
dusk ...you are my dawn.
I show you a glimpse of light
raindrop in the sea,
Find a color for your rainbow
darkness comes for free.
Hope you Enjoy as I did,
kerry4sam0 -
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his heighth be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.0 -
The Hero - Sassoon
'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the Mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.
Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.
He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.0 -
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin by Paul Durcan.
When I was a boy, myself and my girl
Used bicycle up to the Phoenix Park;
Outside the gates we used lie in the grass
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.
Often I wondered what de Valera would have thought
Inside in his ivory tower
If he knew that we were in his green, green grass
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.
Because the odd thing was - oh how odd it was -
We both revered Irish patriots
And we dreamed our dreams of a green, green flag
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.
But even had our names been Diarmaid and Gráinne
We doubted de Valera's approval
For a poet's son and a judge's daughter
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.
I see him now in the heat-haze of the day
Blindly stalking us down;
And, levelling an ancient rifle, he says, 'Stop
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.'0 -
The Poet As Hero
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
You've heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,
Mocking and loathing War: you've asked me why
Of my old, silly sweetness I've repented—
My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry.
You are aware that once I sought the Grail,
Riding in armour bright, serene and strong;
And it was told that through my infant wail
There rose immortal semblances of song.
But now I've said good-bye to Galahad,
And am no more the knight of dreams and show:
For lust and senseless hatred make me glad,
And my killed friends are with me where I go.
Wound for red wound I burn to smite their wrongs;
And there is absolution in my songs.
0 -
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
0 -
Sketch of Lord Byron’s Life - Julia A. Moore
“Lord Byron” was an Englishman
A poet I believe,
His first works in old England
Was poorly received.
Perhaps it was “Lord Byron’s” fault
And perhaps it was not.
His life was full of misfortunes,
Ah, strange was his lot.
The character of “Lord Byron”
Was of a low degree,
Caused by his reckless conduct,
And bad company.
He sprung from an ancient house,
Noble, but poor, indeed.
His career on earth, was marred
By his own misdeeds.
Generous and tender hearted,
Affectionate by extreme,
In temper he was wayward,
A poor “Lord” without means;
Ah, he was a handsome fellow
With great poetic skill,
His great intellectual powers
He could use at his will.
He was a sad child of nature,
Of fortune and of fame;
Also sad child to society,
For nothing did he gain
But slander and ridicule,
Throughout his native land.
Thus the “poet of the passions,”
Lived, unappreciated, man.
Yet at the age of 24,
“Lord Byron” then had gained
The highest, highest, pinacle
Of literary fame.
Ah, he had such violent passions
They was beyond his control,
Yet the public with its justice,
Sometimes would him extol.
Sometimes again “Lord Byron”
Was censured by the press,
Such obloquy, he could not endure,
So he done what was the best.
He left his native country,
This great unhappy man;
The only wish he had, “’tis said,”
He might die, sword in hand.
He had joined the Grecian Army;
This man of delicate frame;
And there he died in a distant land,
And left on earth his fame.
“Lord Byron’s” age was 36 years,
Then closed the sad career,
Of the most celebrated “Englishman”
Of the nineteenth century.
Julia Ann Moore 1847 - 1920, "The Sweet Singer of Michigan". One of the finest bad poets of all time0 -
Asleep
Wilfred Owen
Under his helmet, up against his pack,
After so many days of work and waking,
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.
There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking
Of the aborted life within him leaping,
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.
And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intruding lead, like ants on track.
Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars,
High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making,
Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead,
And these winds' scimitars,
-Or whether yet his thin and sodden head
Confuses more and more with the low mould,
His hair being one with the grey grass
Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old,
Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass!
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold,
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!
Owen died 96 years ago today, aged 25, just one week before the war ended0 -
Futility
Wilfred Owen
Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?0 -
Masters Of War, by Bob Dylan
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion'
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.0 -
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