A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

E.T.

I've read that poem so many times - it never even dawned on me to question the sexuality of the poet! Unfortunately, it seems that if someone thinks homosexuality is "unnatural" or "wrong", nothing will dissuade them from their beliefs. It's amazing how prejudice can blind people to so many things.

Tesco Massacre

The Ecclesiast

"Worse than the sunflower," she had said.
But the new dimension of truth had only recently
Burst in on us. Now it was to be condemned.
And in vagrant shadow her mothball truth is eaten.
In cool, like-it-or-not shadow the humdrum is consumed.
Tired housewives begat it some decades ago,
A small piece of truth that is it was honey to the lips
Was also millions of miles from filling the place reserved for it.
You see how honey crumbles your universe
Which seems like an institution – how many walls?

Then everything, in her belief, was to be submerged
And soon. There was no life you could live out to its end
And no attitude which, in the end, would save you.
The monkish and the frivolous alike were to be trapped
in death's capacious claw
But listen while I tell you about the wallpaper –
There was a key to everything in that oak forest
But a sad one. Ever since childhood there
Has been this special meaning to everything.
You smile at your friend's joke, but only later, through tears.

For the shoe pinches, even though it fits perfectly.
Apples were made to be gathered, also the whole host of the
world’s ailments and troubles.
There is no time like the present for giving in to this temptation.
Once the harvest is in and the animals put away for the winter
To stand at the uncomprehending window cultivating the desert
With salt tears which will never do anyone any good.
My dearest I am as a galleon on salt billows.
Perfume my head with forgetting all around me.

For some day these projects will return.
The funereal voyage over ice-strewn seas is ended.
You wake up forgetting. Already
Daylight shakes you in the yard.
The hands remain empty. They are constructing an osier basket
Just now, and across the sunlight darkness is taking root anew
In intense activity. You shall never have seen it just this way
And that is to be your one reward.

Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living.
The night is cold and delicate and full of angels
Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up,
The chime goes unheard.
We are together at last, though far apart.

John Ashbery

E.T.

WH Davies:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Procasinator

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That's an excellent poem. WH Auden was homosexual, so the poem was presumably written for a man. I challenge anyone who says homosexuality is "unnatural" or "wrong" to read that poem and see it in emotion scarcely seen in "natural" "correct" heterosexuals.

I would only challenge your assumption. I have read that the poem exists in 2 versions, and that the first was for a play and meant to be taken as satire.

It doesn't appear he wrote the poem for a lover at all.

http://everything2.com/user/jwfxpr/writeups/Funeral+Blues

booksale

Let me introduce Chinese poetry.

The one below is one of my favourites. It is a very old poem, in Song (Sung) Dynasty My heart feels the sorrow every time I read the poem. Here I am going to list three versions of translations:


Jiang Cheng Zi

writted by: Su Dong Po (January 8, 1037 – August 24, 1101)

十年生死兩茫茫，不思量，自難忘。
千里孤墳，無處話淒涼。
縱使相逢應不識，塵滿面，鬢如霜。

夜來幽夢忽還鄉，小軒窗，正梳妝；
相對無言，惟有淚千行。
料想年年腸斷處，明月夜，短松岡。


Version 1: translated by[SIZE=-1] Liu Lao Shi
[/SIZE]
To the Tune of Jiang-cheng Zi
　　
　　1.
　　For ten years of parting
　　Thou dead, I’m still living.
　　So rarely of thee I think
　　But memories ever link.
　　
　　Thou art buried lonely and afar,
　　Knowin’ not of my heart’s scar.
　　If we’d meet thou would not know
　　Me face dusted and hairs like snow.
　　
　　2.
　　When night fell I dreamed,
　　That home again I seemed.
　　By the window thou were beheld
　　With a lovely comb nicely held.
　　
　　We looked at each other speechless,
　　Only tears streaming down ceaseless.
　　Every year my heart is thus split
　　On that short-pine hillock moonlit.


Version 2: translated by Yángxiànyi
　　
Recording my dream on the night of the twentieth of the first month of the year Yimao.

　　Ten years parted, one living, one dead;
　　Not thinking
　　Yet never forgetting;
　　A thousand Li from her lonely grave
　　I have nowhere to tell my grief;
　　Yet should we meet again she would hardly know
　　This ravaged face,
　　These temples tinged with gray.
　　
　　At night in a dream I am suddenly home again:
　　By my small study window
　　She sits at her dressing-table;
　　We look at each other and find no words.
　　But hte tears course down our cheeks.
　　Year after year heart-broken I fancy her
　　On moonlit nights
　　By the hill covered with young pines.


Version 3: translated by Burton Watson


Ten years, dead and living dim and draw apart.
　　I don't try to remember,
　　But forgetting is hard.
　　Lonely grave a thousand miles off,
　　Cold thoughts, where can I talk them out?
　　Even if we met, you wouldn't know me,
　　Dust on my face,
　　Hair like frost.

　　In a dream last night suddenly I was home.
　　By the window of the little room,
　　You were combing your hair and making up.
　　You turned and looked, not speaking,
　　Only lines of tears coursing down.
　　Year after year will it break my heart?
　　The moonlit grave,
　　The stubby pines.

booksale

<repeated post>

marienbad

Somewhat appropriate for the times ,

The Leader

I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader ?
Can I ? Can I ?
Promise ? Promise ?
Yipee I'm the leader
I'm the leader

O.K. what shall we do ?

Roger McGough

Bearhunter

My favourite Roger McGough poem:

Only trouble with
Japanese haiku is that
you write one, and then

Only seventeen
syllables later you want
to write another.

booksale

guys, Chinese New Year today, let me introduce a lovely modern Chinese poem.

鱼化石（一条鱼或一个女子说）
卞之琳 （1910.12.8－2000.12.2）

我要有你的怀抱的形状，
我往往溶于水的线条。
你真像镜子一样的爱我呢，
你我都远了乃有了鱼化石。


An Ichthyolite
Written by: Biàn Zhīlín
Translated by: Beita

I want to have the shape of your embrace,
I am always dissolved into the lines of water.
Just like a mirror, you truly love me. Both you and I
Has gone into the distance and the ichthyolite emerges.

1936，6，4



Ichthyolite is the fossil of fish. I dont know why the translator did not translate the words in the brackets. The title should be: An Ichthyolite (a fish or a woman says).

It's a love poem. Bian Zhilin loved Zhāng chōng hé (famous in the literature circle as well) for a very long time. He was shy and subtle, and not sure about Zhāng's love to him. He had never made a move but just wrote poems. He studied her interest, he found ways to meet her... But never directly told her his love. Anyway she married an American who expertised in Chinese and went to America. About 8 years later, Bian married another woman. But every time he mentioned about Zhāng, he still showed the love and care.

This is one of the poems for Zhāng. In the Chinese version, the third line has a tone of hesitation, uncertainty.

Hahaha, this poem is not very suitable for the Chinese New Year, anyway, hope you guys like this poem.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Alice Milligan

Relationship

What a silence, when you are here. What a hellish silence.
You sit and I sit.
You lose and I lose.

János Pilinszky
Translated from the Hungarian by Peter Jay

Kinski

Recently, thanks to an entry in Simon Critchley's The Book of Dead Philosophers, I came across the genre of death poems written by Japanese Buddhist monks. These short poems were written by monks who were on the verge of dying. According to Critchley, "Ideally, the dying monk would anticipate the moment of his death, write his poem, set aside his ink brush, cross his arms, straighten his back, and die." I have no idea how often the authors managed to realise this ideal, but the practice is still intriguing. Here's a trio of examples, starting with a haiku:

The joy of dewdrops
In the grass as they
Turn back to vapour.

- Koraku (d. 1837)

Inhale, exhale
Forward, back
Living, dying:
Arrows, let flown each to each
Meet midway and slice
The void in aimless flight-
Thus I return to the source.

- Gesshu Soko (d. 1696)

My whole long life I've sharpened my sword
And now, face to face with death
I unsheathe it, and lo-
The blade is broken-
Alas!

- Dairin Soto (d. 1568)

booksale

The Ballad Of A Bachelor

Ellis Parker Butler



Listen, ladies, while I sing
The ballad of John Henry King.

John Henry was a bachelor,
His age was thirty-three or four.

Two maids for his affection vied,
And each desired to be his bride,

And bravely did they strive to bring
Unto their feet John Henry King.

John Henry liked them both so well,
To save his life he could not tell

Which he most wished to be his bride,
Nor was he able to decide.

Fair Kate was jolly, bright, and gay,
And sunny as a summer day;

Marie was kind, sedate, and sweet,
With gentle ways and manners neat.

Each was so dear that John confessed
He could not tell which he liked best.

He studied them for quite a year,
And still found no solution near,

And might have studied two years more
Had he not, walking on the shore,

Conceived a very simple way
Of ending his prolonged delay--

A way in which he might decide
Which of the maids should be his bride.

He said, "I'll toss into the air
A dollar, and I'll toss it fair;

If heads come up, I'll wed Marie;
If tails, fair Kate my bride shall be."

Then from his leather pocket-book
A dollar bright and new he took;

He kissed one side for fair Marie,
The other side for Kate kissed he.

Then in a manner free and fair
He tossed the dollar in the air.

"Ye fates," he cried, "pray let this be
A lucky throw indeed for me!"

The dollar rose, the dollar fell;
He watched its whirling transit well,

And off some twenty yards or more
The dollar fell upon the shore.

John Henry ran to where it struck
To see which maiden was in luck.

But, oh, the irony of fate!
Upon its edge the coin stood straight!

And there, embedded in the sand,
John Henry let the dollar stand!

And he will tempt his fate no more,
But live and die a bachelor.

Thus, ladies, you have heard me sing
The ballad of John Henry King.

marienbad

As we are delving into Japanese poems , here is a Haiku by Gavin Ewart

God is a flasher.
He reveals himself to some,
but not to others.

Bearhunter

I'll see your Ellis Parker Butler and raise you William F Marshall:


Me An' Me Da

I'm livin' in Drumlister,
An' I'm gettin very oul',
I have to wear an Indian bag
To save me from the coul'.
The deil a man in this townlan'
Wos claner raired nor me,
But I'm livin' in Drumlister
In clabber to the knee.
Me da lived up in Carmin,
An' kep' a sarvint boy;
His second wife wos very sharp,
He birried her with joy:
Now she wos thin, her name was Flynn,
She come from Cullentra,
An' if me shirt's a clatty shirt
The man to blame's me da.


Consarnin' weemin, sure it wos
A constant word of his,
`Keep far away from them that's thin,
Their temper's aisy riz.'
Well, I knowed two I thought wud do,
But still I had me fears,
So I kiffled back an' forrit
Between the two, for years.


Wee Margit had no fortune
But two rosy cheeks wud plaze;
The farm of lan' wos Bridget's,
But she tuk the pock disayse:
An' Margit she wos very wee,
An' Bridget she wos stout
But her face wos like a gaol dure
With the boults pulled out.


I'll tell no lie on Margit,
She thought the worl' of me;
I'll tell the truth, me heart wud lep
The sight of her to see
But I wos slow, ye surely know,
The raison of it now,
If I left her home from Carmin
Me da wud rise a row.


So I swithered back an' forrit
Till Margit got a man;
A fella come from Mullaslin
An' left me jist the wan.
I mind the day she went away,
I hid wan strucken hour,
An' cursed the wasp from Cullentra
That made me da so sour.


But cryin' cures no trouble,
To Bridget I went back,
An' faced her for it that night week
Beside her own turf-stack.
I axed her there, an' spoke her fair,
The handy wife she d make me,
I talked about the lan' that joined
- Begob, she wudn't take me!


So I'm livin' in Drumlister
An' I'm get'tin' very oul'
I creep to Carmin wanst a month
To thry an' make me sowl:
The deil a man in this townlan'
Wos claner raired nor me,
An' I'm dyin' in Drumlister
In clabber to the knee.

booksale

Bearhunter wrote: »

I'll see your Ellis Parker Butler and raise you William F Marshall:

Lovely.

Now the famous Irish poet writing about his dad who's dead. it's a bit sad though. well, yet had a very subtle sense of humor / sarcasm. so true!

Memory of My Father

Patrick Kavanagh

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardiner Street
Stumble on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London.
He too set me the riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me
"I was once your father."

Bearhunter

I love that Kavanagh poem. ANd this one by FR Higgins on the death of Padraic O Conaire:

They've paid the last respects in sad tobacco
And silent is this wakehouse in its haze;
They've paid the last respects; and now their whiskey
Flings laughing words on mouths of prayer and praise;
And so young couples huddle by the gables.
O let them grope home through the hedgy night -
Alone I'll mourn my old friend, while the cold dawn
Thins out the holy candlelight.

Respects are paid to one loved by the people;
Ah, was he not - among our mighty poor -
The sudden wealth cast on those pools of darkness,
Those bearing, just, a star's faint signature;
And so he was to me, close friend, near brother,
Dear Padraic of the wide and sea-cold eyes -
So, lovable, so courteous and noble,
The very west was in his soft replies.

They'll miss his heavy stick and stride in Wicklow -
His story-talking down Winetavern Street,
Where old men sitting in the wizen daylight
Have kept an edge upon his gentle wit;
While women on the grassy streets of Galway,
Who hearken for his passing - but in vain,
Shall hardly tell his step as shadows vanish
Through archways of forgotten Spain.

Ah, they'll say, Padraic's gone again exploring;
But now down glens of brightness, O he'll find
An alehouse overflowing with wise Gaelic
That's braced in vigour by the bardic mind,
And there his thoughts shall find their own forefathers -
In minds to whom our heights of race belong,
in crafty men, who ribbed a ship or turned
The secret joinery of song.

Alas, death mars the parchment of his forehead;
And yet for him, I know, the earth is mild -
The windy fidgets of September grasses
Can never tease a mind that loved the wild;
So drink his peace - this grey juice of the barley
Runs with a light that ever pleased his eye -
While old flames nod and gossip on the hearthstone
And only the young winds cry.

Jimmy the Wheel

Flowers by Wendy Cope (for the day that's in it)


Some men never think of it.
You did. You’d come along
And say you’d nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts —
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.

marienbad

One Night

The room was poor and squalid,
hidden above the dubious tavern.
From The window you could see the alley
filthy and narrow. From below
came the voices of some workmen
playing cards and carousing.

And there on the much-used, lowly bed
I had the body of love,I had the lips,
the voluptuous and rosy lips of ecstasy-
rosy lips of such ecstasy, that even now
as I write, after so many years !
in my solitary house, I am drunk again .

From the Greek of C.P.Cavafy

booksale

Bearhunter wrote: »

ANd this one by FR Higgins on the death of Padraic O Conaire:

Need some more time to read this one. As I need to research on Padriic O Conaire for the background information. Although my Irish friend told me a bit about him.

And I shared the poem of Me an' Me Da with my Irish friends. Found out I misinterpreted 'a bit' 'cos of the Irish English. Had great laugh. We had a great time reading that poem. Really a nice one. THANKS!!

booksale

I'm nobody!
Emily Dickinson

I 'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

booksale

Jimmy the Wheel wrote: »

Flowers by Wendy Cope (for the day that's in it) ..... Have lasted all this while.

Do you think it's a long while or a short while that the flowers last....?:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Nice one...! Hahha!

[-0-]

The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney.
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'
And dance like a wave of the sea.

marienbad

On The Antiquity Of Microbes

Adam
Had'em

Said to be the shortest poem in the English Language. Author unknown. A variant of the title is ''On the Antiquity of Fleas''

booksale

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

johnthemull

Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, an any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast.

I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind.

I have heard may years of telling,
And many years should see some change.

The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground.

marienbad

On The Beach At Fontana

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Greysea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love !

James Joyce for his young son Giorgio. That last line -''deep unending ache of love'' - best expression of parental love ever. Very underrated poet, our James.

theendpoint

This poem helped me through some tough times

Life Is Fine by Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

monkey9

THE LITTLE VAGABOND

Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;
But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm.
Besides, I can tell where I am used well;
Such usage in heaven will never do well.

But, if at the Church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We'd sing and we'd pray all the livelong day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

And God, like a father, rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as He,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.

marienbad

A Flower Given to My Daughter

Frail the white rose and frail are
Her hands that gave
Whose soul is sere and paler
Than time's wan wave.

Rosefrail and fair -- yet frailest
A wonder wild
In gentle eyes thou veilest,
My blueveined child.

James Joyce

This one is to his daughter Lucia - his blue veined child - just so sad in the light of subsequent events.

monkey9

The Irish Rover


On the fourth of July eighteen hundred and six
We set sail from the sweet cove of Cork
We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks
For the grand city hall in New York
'Twas a wonderful craft, she was rigged fore-and-aft
And oh, how the wild winds drove her.
She'd got several blasts, she'd twenty-seven masts
And we called her the Irish Rover.

We had one million bales of the best Sligo rags
We had two million barrels of stones
We had three million sides of old blind horses hides,
We had four million barrels of bones.
We had five million hogs, we had six million dogs,
Seven million barrels of porter.
We had eight million bails of old nanny goats' tails,
In the hold of the Irish Rover.

There was awl Mickey Coote who played hard on his flute
When the ladies lined up for his set
He was tootin' with skill for each sparkling quadrille
Though the dancers were fluther'd and bet
With his sparse witty talk he was cock of the walk
As he rolled the dames under and over
They all knew at a glance when he took up his stance
And he sailed in the Irish Rover

There was Barney McGee from the banks of the Lee,
There was Hogan from County Tyrone
There was Jimmy McGurk who was scarred stiff of work
And a man from Westmeath called Malone
There was Slugger O'Toole who was drunk as a rule
And fighting Bill Tracey from Dover
And your man Mick McCann from the banks of the Bann
Was the skipper of the Irish Rover

We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out
And the ship lost it's way in a fog.
And that whale of the crew was reduced down to two,
Just meself and the captain's old dog.
Then the ship struck a rock, oh Lord what a shock
The bulkhead was turned right over
Turned nine times around, and the poor dog was drowned
I'm the last of the Irish Rover