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Poetry
I'm quite surprised that there isn't any thread about poetry, but I guess I'll be the one that will start one. If you like poetry and have a favorite poem, post it here and say why you like it. I know a lot of you know that I am wont to say that I say I'll do or will try to do many things which don't bring any visible fruit. The reason for this is that there is an excerpt of a poem that I keep dear to my heart that acts as my drive and I know it by heart. Here it is:
"I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare."
Howard Arnold Walter
I never forgot that and I never will.
"I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare."
Howard Arnold Walter
I never forgot that and I never will.
Comments
Tom
"I'm not a bum," he says
and extends his arm for a handshake.
Peter responds by putting his hand
in his trenchcoat pocket.
"I restore brownstones
just a couple blocks down."
He points with his thumb
and takes off his hat.
His hairline is receeding,
a few thin hairs fall to his forehead
and he pushes them back up.
Laura rolls down her window to listen.
"My wife just gave birth,
I have less than an hour to catch a bus
to see my first born child."
One block down on Lark Street,
the cops put up road cones
to direct traffic away
from a silver sedan.
Its passenger side door is folded open;
perpendicular to the car's body.
The hinges are bent and broken
and all the steel parts --
the simple and greasy machinery of a car door --
are exposed.
The cops keeps their reds flashing
and howl their sirens
periodically.
On the same street,
all the bars are open.
Albany is a college town;
students walk in and out
of neon doorframes,
intoxicated with smiles
and cheap beer.
And it's midnight.
People sit at their apartment windows
and stare at the night
and listen to the darkness
and everything it houses.
They hear it getting pierced
by the buzz and dance
of electric filaments
and see the density
perforated with light.
They see
the light cut
by shadows;
flat black charicatures
of human form
stretched beyond the height
of any living person
and melding perfectly
with the unseen.
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
In Flanders Fields - John McRae
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
We Real Cool - Gwendolyn Brooks
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Resume - Dorothy Parker
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Luck
once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
or cummings:
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having
thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.
K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her
up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my
lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity
avenue i touched the accelerator and give
her the juice,good
(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and
brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.
stand-
;Still)
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
my solo act.
My running after the hands
and never catching up.
(The hands are out of sight -
that is, offstage.)
All I am doing onstage is running,
running to keep up,
but never making it.
Suddenly I stop running.
(This moves the plot along a bit.)
I give speeches, hundreds,
all prayers, all soliloquies.
I say absurd things like:
eggs must not quarrel with stones
or, keep your broken arm inside your sleeve
or, I am standing upright
but my shadow is crooked.
And such and such.
Many boos. Many boos.
A nigga never been as broke as me, I like that
When I was young I had two pair of Lees, besides that
The pin stripes and the gray (uh-huh)
The one I wore on Mondays and Wednesdays
While niggas flirt, I'm sewing tigers on my shirt
and alligators
Ya wanna see the inside, huh, I see ya later
Here come the drama, oh, that's that nigga wit the fake, blaow!
Why you punch me in my face, stay in ya place
Play ya position, here come my intuition
Go in this nigga pocket
Rob him while his friends watchin
That hoes clockin, here comes respect
His crew's your crew, or they might be next
Look at they man eye, BIG man they never try
So we roll wid em, stole wid em
I mean loyalty, niggaz bought me milks at lunch
The milks was chocolate, the cookies, buttercrunch
In here, eyes crossed from blue and white dust
Pass the blunt
Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on
Just keep on pressin on
Sky is the limit and you know that you can have
what you want, pressin what you want
Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on
Just keep on pressin on
Sky is the limit and you know that you can have
what you want, be what you want, have what you want, be what you want
You can't touch that shit!
I played connect the dots with your beauty marks
And I ended up with picture perfect sheet music
I read your musical notes with a composer's eyes
And heard our song for the first time;
My spine is still tingling.
Mental images of your fine tune
is what I've been nodding my head to lately
Every now and then you can catch me humming
Your nudity under my heavy breath
I heavily suggest you resurrect
Your ancient neglected dust collector
If you distrust the dissonance in my seldom plucked heart strings
Sit stripped before your full length
Perform your reflection backwards
Maybe then you will understand the rhythm in my movement
Listen when the news is sent
Extend when the rules are bent
I'll be waiting to take your leave
Make me a victim of your two step
Make me an apprentice of your body parts
Teach me to dance to your beauty marks
I'm stepping on toes here and I don't care
It's hopeless, it's hopeless
It's hopelessness holding this openness to blow a kiss
So close your lips but don't get pissed
and throw a fist at this vocalist
I'm not emotionless, in fact I broke my wrist
when I wrote the list of all those I miss
This is my poker face, Mister Feel Nothing
It's a song, but it's also definitely a poem.
EDIT: Just to clarify, in no way am I arguing that Biggie was a poet. I'm just wondering if academia at all recognizes the attempts at bridging these two different art forms.
I fear that I'm ordinary, just like everyone
To lie here and die among the sorrows
Adrift among the days
For everything I ever said
And everything I've ever done is gone and dead
As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world
My life has been extraordinary
Blessed and cursed and won
Time heals but I'm forever broken
By and by the way...
Have you ever heard the words
I'm singing in these songs?
It's for the girl I've loved all along
Can a taste of love be so wrong
As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world
And in my mind as I was floating
Far above the clouds
Some children laughed I'd fall for certain
For thinking that I'd last forever
But I knew exactly where I was
And I knew the meaning of it all
And I knew the distance to the sun
And I knew the echo that is love
And I knew the secrets in your spires
And I knew the emptiness of youth
And I knew the solitude of heart
And I knew the murmurs of the soul
And the world is drawn into your hands
And the world is etched upon your heart
And the world so hard to understand
Is the world you can't live without
And I knew the silence of the world
EDIT: They were not prejudiced against lyrics, we simply studied them as a separate art form. Personally, I think reading lyrics as poetry, while enjoyable, takes it out of the context it was originally intended. It is like reading a stage play or looking at a black and white print out of a color painting.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
So yes, reading lyrics takes it out of the context of the song, but that can help you gain a deeper appreciation of the music, or learn to appreciate it for a single aspect. That's been my experience, anyhow.
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.
-Billy Collins
I dreamed I stood upon a little hill,
And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed
Like a waste garden, flowering at its will
With buds and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed
Black and unruffled; there were white lilies
A few, and crocuses, and violets
Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries
Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets
Blue eyes of shy peryenche winked in the sun.
And there were curious flowers, before unknown,
Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades
Of Nature's wilful moods; and here a one
That had drunk in the transitory tone
Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades
Of grass that in an hundred springs had been
Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars,
And watered with the scented dew long cupped
In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen
Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars
The luminous air of Heaven. Beyond, abrupt,
A grey stone wall, o'ergrown with velvet moss
Uprose; and gazing I stood long, all mazed
To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair.
And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across
The garden came a youth; one hand he raised
To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair
Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore
A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes
Were clear as crystal, naked all was he,
White as the snow on pathless mountains frore,
Red were his lips as red wine-spilith that dyes
A marble floor, his brow chalcedony.
And he came near me, with his lips uncurled
And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth,
And gave me grapes to eat, and said, 'Sweet friend,
Come I will show thee shadows of the world
And images of life. See from the South
Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end.'
And lo! within the garden of my dream
I saw two walking on a shining plain
Of golden light. The one did joyous seem
And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain
Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids
And joyous love of comely girl and boy,
His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades
Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy;
And in his hand he held an ivory lute
With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair,
And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute,
And round his neck three chains of roses were.
But he that was his comrade walked aside;
He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes
Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide
With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs
That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white
Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red
Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight,
And yet again unclenched, and his head
Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death.
A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold
With the device of a great snake, whose breath
Was fiery flame: which when I did behold
I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth,
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove
These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the Love that dare not speak its name.'
Mysterious past
He reminds me of Wolfwood
Who is Shepherd Book?
Wraith
By Matthew J. Geoffino
Skulking thru the night
Living on filling the world with fright
Apparitions that live to invade
Always do they hide in the shade
Never will you able to feel
The horror that makes even a warrior squeal.
Darkness and macabre is its friend
Together they bring about the impending end
Useless is it to take flight
As they will always be in plain sight
Useless is it to try to pray
For, the Holy Father will never show you the way
Countless hellions dance around the fear and misery that flows thru you
They torture and ravage those who are weak, both old and new
Give up any notion of holy light, redemption, or faith
For no human can ever escape the tendrils of…the wraith!
Beasts Bounding Through Time
Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward us
impossibly.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a fee;
A fee that mounts up day by day,
Which clients are obliged to pay;
A fee that's bringing more distress
Than any crime they might confess;
A fee requiring special skills
By being padded to the gills;
A fee I damn well will collect
And total twice what they expect;
A judge can let a man go free,
But only I collect the fee.
They say this drinkin' will kill me
I don't know; Oh Lord, it might be true
If I stop, I'd die from your leavin'
Either way that I go it's 'cause of you
Death can come from this broken heart
Or it can come from this bottle
So why prolong the Agony
Hey Bartender -- think I'll hit the throttle
I don't care what the Preacher might preach me
About the evils of being drunk with wine
I don't care what the Doctor might warn me
Since you left it's just a matter of time.
From John Brown's Body, Stephen Vincent Benet:
The stone falls in the pool, the ripples spread._
The colt in the Long Meadow kicked up his heels.
"That was a fly," he thought, "It's early for flies."
But being alive, in April, was too fine
For flies or anything else to bother a colt.
He kicked up his heels again, this time in pure joy,
And started to run a race with the wind and his shadow.
After the stable stuffiness, the sun.
After the straw-littered boards, the squelch of the turf.
His little hoofs felt lighter than dancing-shoes,
He scared himself with a blue-jay, his heart was a leaf.
He was pure joy in action, he was the unvexed
Delight of all moving lightness and swift-footed pace,
The pride of the flesh, the young Spring neighing and rearing.
Sally Dupré called to him from the fence.
He came like a charge in a spatter of clean-cut clods,
Ears back, eyes wide and wild with folly and youth.
He drew up snorting.
She laughed and brushed at her skirt
Where the mud had splashed it.
"There, Star--there, silly boy!
Why won't you ever learn sense?"
But her eyes were hot,
Her hands were shaking as she offered the sugar
--Long-fingered, appleblossom-shadow hands--
Star blew at the sugar once, then mumbled it up.
She patted the pink nose. "There, silly Star!
That's for Fort Sumter, Star!" How hot her eyes were!
"Star, do you know you're a Confederate horse?
Do you know I'm going to call you Beauregard?"
Star whinnied, and asked for more sugar. She put her hand
On his neck for a moment that matched the new green leaves
And sticky buds of April.
You would have said
They were grace in quietness, seen so, woman and horse....
. . .
Wingate saw it all - but with altered eyes.
He was not yet broken on any wheel,
He had no wound of the flesh to heal,
He had seen one battle, but he was still
The corn unground by the watermill,
He had ridden the rainy winter through
And he and Black Whistle were good as new,
The Black Horse Troop still carried its pride
And rode as Yankees could not ride,
But, when he remembered a year-old dawn,
Something had come and something had gone,
And even now, when he smelt the Spring.
And his heart was hot with his homecoming,
There was a whisper in his ear
That said what he did not wish to hear,
"This is the last, this is the last,
Hurry, hurry, this is the last,
Drink the wine before yours is spilled,
Kiss the sweetheart before you're killed,
She will be loving, and she will grieve,
And wear your heart on her golden sleeve,
And marry your friend when he gets his leave.
It does not matter that you are still
The corn unground by the watermill,
The stones grind and they get their will.
Pluck the flower that hands can pluck,
Touch the walls of your house for luck,
Eat the fat and drink the sweet,
There is little savor in dead men's meat.
It does not matter that you once knew
Future and past and a different you.
That went by when the wind first blew.
There is no future, there is no past,
There is only this hour and it goes fast,
Hurry, hurry, this is the last,
This is the last,
This is the last"
Down to My Last Cigarette
The coffee's all gone and my eyes burn like fire
It's way past the hour when most folks retire,
You told me you'd call me but you haven't yet
And I'm down to my last cigarette.
I'm down to my last cigarette
And I'm trying so hard to forget;
But you're still out there somewhere with someone you've met
And I'm down to my last cigarette.
I can't leave this room; You might call while I'm gone
Minutes seem like hours; Soon will be dawn
And on top of all of my tears and regrets,
I'm down to my last cigarette.
The third poem from his collection: The Black Riders and Other Lines
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."