Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #180 on Aug 19, 2010, 5:10pm »
The death has just been announced of Edwin Morgan, Scotland's National Poet. Here's one that seems appropriate (and I hope it's how I feel "At Eighty"):
At Eighty
Push the boat out, compañeros, push the boat out, whatever the sea. Who says we cannot guide ourselves through the boiling reefs, black as they are, the enemy of us all makes sure of it! Mariners, keep good watch always for that last passage of blue water we have heard of and long to reach (no matter if we cannot, no matter!) in our eighty-year-old timbers leaky and patched as they are but sweet well seasoned with the scent of woods long perished, serviceable still in unarrested pungency of salt and blistering sunlight. Out, push it all out into the unknown! Unknown is best, it beckons best, like distant ships in mist, or bells clanging ruthless from stormy buoys.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,318 Location: Mexico
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #184 on Sept 19, 2010, 12:15am »
That Will to Divest
Action creates a taste for itself. Meaning: once you've swept the shelves of spoons and plates you kept for guests, it gets harder not to also simplify the larder, not to dismiss rooms, not to divest yourself of all the chairs but one, not to test what singleness can bear, once you've begun.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #185 on Sept 19, 2010, 4:18am »
When you loose someone close to you-
When you loose someone close to you You cant explain the way you feel, The way you could just all hang out and never get bored Just the way you could all be friends and never fight
You never got to say your last goodbye to your good mate But always remember he is above us all Telling us not to grieve and to get on with life And live life like he would have With passion and pride And live it up for your mate because he cant anymore
But now he is watching from above.
You would always back each other up Everywhere you go you look lonely Now I see how much loosing someone means I am so sorry I know I cant take your pain away
When you loose someone remember All the good times And not the bad ones Because that is what matters the most
You make mistakes in life But look-so does everyone else So dont look at all the mistakes you made Look at the ones you made together and how much fun you had
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,318 Location: Mexico
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #186 on Nov 7, 2010, 3:31pm »
The New York Times / November 6, 2010 Falling Back Six poems to mark the end of daylight saving time.
Light Verse
It’s just five, but it’s light like six. It’s lighter than we think. Mind and day are out of sync. The dog is restless. The dog’s owner is sleeping and dreaming of Elvis. The treetops should be dark purple, but they’re pink.
Here and now. Here and now. The sun shakes off an hour. The sun assumes its pre-calendrical power. (It is, though, only what we make it seem.) Now in the dog-owner’s dream, the dog replaces Elvis and grows bigger than that big tower
in Singapore, and keeps on growing until he arrives at a size with which only the planets can empathize. He sprints down the ecliptic’s plane, chased by his owner Jane (that’s not really her name), who yells at him to come back and synchronize.
— VIJAY SESHADRI, author of “The Long Meadow”
Parable
First divesting ourselves of worldly goods, as St. Francis teaches, in order that our souls not be distracted by gain and loss, and in order also that our bodies be free to move easily at the mountain passes, we had then to discuss whither or where we might travel, with the second question being should we have a purpose, against which many of us argued fiercely that such purpose corresponded to worldly goods, meaning a limitation or constriction, whereas others said it was by this word we were consecrated pilgrims rather than wanderers: in our minds, the word translated as a dream, a something-sought, so that by concentrating we might see it glimmering among the stones, and not pass blindly by; each further issue we debated equally fully, the arguments going back and forth, so that we grew, some said, less flexible and more resigned, like soldiers in a useless war. And snow fell upon us, and wind blew, which in time abated — where the snow had been, many flowers appeared, and where the stars had shone, the sun rose over the tree line so that we had shadows again; many times this happened. Also rain, also flooding sometimes, also avalanches, in which some of us were lost, and periodically we would seem to have achieved an agreement; our canteens hoisted upon our shoulders, but always that moment passed, so (after many years) we were still at that first stage, still preparing to begin a journey, but we were changed nevertheless; we could see this in one another; we had changed although we never moved, and one said, ah, behold how we have aged, traveling from day to night only, neither forward nor sideward, and this seemed in a strange way miraculous. And those who believed we should have a purpose believed this was the purpose, and those who felt we must remain free in order to encounter truth, felt it had been revealed.
— LOUISE GLÜCK, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author, most recently, of “A Village Life”
How It Happens
The sky said I am watching to see what you can make out of nothing I was looking up and I said I thought you were supposed to be doing that the sky said Many are clinging to that I am giving you a chance I was looking up and I said I am the only chance I have then the sky did not answer and here we are with our names for the days the vast days that do not listen to us
— W.S. MERWIN, poet laureate of the United States and author, most recently, of “The Shadow of Sirius,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2009
The Green Flash
le rayon vert
And the sea’s skin heaves, saurian, and the spikes of the agave bristle like a tusked beast bowing to charge tonight the full moon will soar floating without any moral or simile the wind will bend the longbows of the arching casuarinas the lizard will still scuttle and the sun will sink silently with a stake in its eye bleeding behind the shrouding sail of a skeletal schooner. You can feel the earth cooling, you can feel its myth cooling and watch your own heart go out like the red throbbing dot of a hospital machine, with a green flash next to Pigeon Island.
— DEREK WALCOTT, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992 and author, most recently, of “White Egrets”
Free
I was always thinking about her even when I wasn’t thinking. Days went by when I did little else. She had left me one night as a complete surprise. I didn’t know where she went. I didn’t know if she was ever coming back. I searched her dresser and closet for any clues. There wasn’t anything there, nothing. No lotions or creams in the bathroom. She had really cleaned out. I thought back on our years together. They seemed happy to me. Summers on the beach, winters in the mountains skiing. What more could she want? We had friends, dinner parties. I walked around thinking, maybe she didn’t love me all that time. I felt so alone without her. I hated dinners alone, I hated going to bed without her. I thought she might at least call, so I was never very far from the phone. Weeks went by, months. It was strange how time flew by when you had nothing to remember it by. My friends never mentioned her. Why can’t they say something? I thought. I remembered every tiny gesture of her hand, every smile, every grimace. Birthdays, anniversaries — I never forgot. But then something strange started to happen. I started doubting every memory. Even her face began to fade. The trip to Majorca, was it something I read in a book? The jolly dinner parties, were they a dream? I didn’t trust anything any longer. I searched the house for any trace of her. Nothing. I started asking my friends if they remembered anything about her. They looked at me as if I were crazy. I sat at home and began to cheer up. What if none of this happened? I thought. What if there was nothing to be sad about?
— JAMES TATE, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author, most recently, of “The Ghost Soldiers”
Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness
Every year we have been witness to it: how the world descends into a rich mash, in order that it may resume. And therefore who would cry out
to the petals on the ground to stay, knowing, as we must, how the vivacity of what was is married
to the vitality of what will be? I don’t say it’s easy, but what else will do
if the love one claims to have for the world be true? So let us go on
though the sun be swinging east, and the ponds be cold and black, and the sweets of the year be doomed.
— MARY OLIVER, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author, most recently, of "Swan: Poems and Prose Poems"
cross-posted in Shipping Out, Autumn Time Changes, 2010 thread
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #189 on Nov 18, 2010, 6:26am »
Work
To feed one, she worked from home, took in washing, ironing, sewing. One small mouth, a soup filled spoon, life was a dream
To feed two, she worked outside, sewed seeds, watered, threshed, scythed, gathered barley, wheat, corn. Twins were born. To feed four,
she grafted harder, second job in the alehouse, food in the larder, food on the table, she was game, able. Feeding ten was a different kettle,
was factory gates at first light, oil, metal, noise, machines. To feed fifty, she toiled, sweated, went on the night shift, schlepped, lifted.
For a thousand more, she built streets for double that, high rise flats. Cities grew, her brood doubled, peopled skyscrapers, trebled. To feed more, more.
she dug underground, tunnelled, laid down track, drove trains. Quadruple came, multiplied, she built planes, out flew sound. Mother to millions now,
she flogged TVs, designed PCs, ripped CDs, burned DVDs. There was no stopping her. She slogged night and day at Internet shopping.
A billion named, she trawled the seas, hoovered fish, felled trees, grazed beef, sold cheap for fast food, put in a 90 hour week. Her offspring swelled. She fed
the world, wept rain, scattered the teeth in her head for grain, swam her tongue in the river to spawn, sickened, died, lay in a grave, worked to the bone her fingers twenty-four seven.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #190 on Nov 18, 2010, 4:01pm »
Thanks Tilly,phew....quite a poem,'twas work reading it.... I am a big fan of, most of, Ms. Duffy's poetry. I can read and reread,and reread most and still enjoy,read something different each time.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,318 Location: Mexico
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #191 on Dec 9, 2010, 3:13pm »
Words a Cell Can’t Hold
by Liu Xiaobo, from "Experiencing Death"
I had imagined being there beneath sunlight with the procession of martyrs using just the one thin bone to uphold a true conviction And yet, the heavenly void will not plate the sacrificed in gold A pack of wolves well-fed full of corpses celebrate in the warm noon air aflood with joy
Faraway place I’ve exiled my life to this place without sun to flee the era of Christ’s birth I cannot face the blinding vision on the cross From a wisp of smoke to a little heap of ash I’ve drained the drink of the martyrs, sense spring’s about to break into the brocade-brilliance of myriad flowers
Deep in the night, empty road I’m biking home I stop at a cigarette stand A car follows me, crashes over my bicycle some enormous brutes seize me I’m handcuffed eyes covered mouth gagged thrown into a prison van heading nowhere
A blink, a trembling instant passes to a flash of awareness: I’m still alive On Central Television News my name’s changed to “arrested black hand” though those nameless white bones of the dead still stand in the forgetting I lift up high up the self-invented lie tell everyone how I’ve experienced death so that “black hand” becomes a hero’s medal of honor
Even if I know death’s a mysterious unknown being alive, there’s no way to experience death and once dead cannot experience death again yet I’m still hovering within death a hovering in drowning Countless nights behind iron-barred windows and the graves beneath starlight have exposed my nightmares
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #192 on Dec 9, 2010, 4:29pm »
Beautiful and poignant. At the risk of a thread hijack the states caving to CCP pressure not to attend Liu's Nobel ceremony comprise a list of states of extraordinarily craven moral cowardice. They should not escape our notice. These are the ones I could easily find:
Ukraine Colombia Egypt Sudan Tunisia Iraq Vietnam Afghanistan Serbia Morocco Ukraine Columbia Russia Philippines Kazakhstan Saudi Arabia Iran
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 34,518 Location: Paris, France
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #193 on Feb 8, 2011, 9:51am »
Time to revisit a classic?
The Bells - Edgar Allan Poe
I
Hear the sledges with the bells - Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells - From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells - Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! -how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells - To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells - Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, Leaping higher, higher, higher, With a desperate desire, And a resolute endeavor Now -now to sit or never, By the side of the pale-faced moon. Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar! What a horror they outpour On the bosom of the palpitating air! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells - Of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells - In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells - Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people -ah, the people - They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone - They are neither man nor woman - They are neither brute nor human - They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A paean from the bells! And his merry bosom swells With the paean of the bells! And he dances, and he yells; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the paean of the bells, Of the bells - Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells - To the sobbing of the bells; Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells - To the tolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells - To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #194 on Feb 8, 2011, 11:46am »
Thank you for posting this Kerouac.Reading it triggered a vivid adolescent memory. I had an English Literature teacher in High School, Mrs. Hamilton. She would recite this poem to our class and her whole body would sway as a bell,tolling away. Many of my classmates were amused by this,I,however,was profoundly affected by the emotion in which she recited it,so intense was her emotion in doing so. Memories such as this,I firmly believe,helped shape my love of poetry, so strong an impression she made.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #197 on Feb 16, 2011, 6:17am »
Oh kerouac! My mother's family had a story about one of the children (I think it might have been one of my great-aunts sometime in the 1890s!) who was made to learn that poem as a "party piece". She let the side down by rushing through it and ending up ".. the bellsbellsbellsbellsbells - can I have my cake now auntie?"
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Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #198 on Feb 16, 2011, 5:58pm »
Children trained to do party tricks are so pathetic, not to mention how the guests cringe when Junior is told to go get his violin or to sit on the piano bench.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #200 on Feb 17, 2011, 3:14pm »
I have a vivid recall of having to recite Longfellow's The Village Blacksmith as a very young girl.Not a particularly inspiring, fantastic poem by any means. I recall every word to this day. My first exercise in tedium as well.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 4,271 Location: USA
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #201 on Feb 20, 2011, 2:13pm »
At the end of a recent big dinner party we were pleased when some talented guests got their guitars and mandolins out and started playing, but significantly less so when the hostess encouraged Junior to get his violin out and start ruining the music.
More on Mrs. Scirocco: she read us, with gusto, that poetic bodice ripper The Highwayman. Normally a sweet timid type, she delivered the line "Though hell should bar the way" with great enthusiasm, and then told us it was all right to say that word, you know, because it was a poem.
Joined: Aug 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 1,801 Location: Herts, UK
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #203 on Apr 7, 2011, 1:48pm »
I have just found this stunningly beautiful Dylan Thomas poem about his 30th birthday -
It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That second In the still sleeping town and set forth.
My birthday began with the water- Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses And I rose In rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road Over the border And the gates Of the town closed as the town awoke.
A springful of larks in a rolling Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling Blackbirds and the sun of October Summery On the hill's shoulder, Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly Come in the morning where I wandered and listened To the rain wringing Wind blow cold In the wood faraway under me.
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour And over the sea wet church the size of a snail With its horns through mist and the castle Brown as owls But all the gardens Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud. There could I marvel My birthday Away but the weather turned around.
It turned away from the blithe country And down the other air and the blue altered sky Streamed again a wonder of summer With apples Pears and red currants And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother Through the parables Of sun light And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy In the listening Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. And the mystery Sang alive Still in the water and singingbirds.
And there could I marvel my birthday Away but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of the long dead child sang burning In the sun. It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. O may my heart's truth Still be sung On this high hill in a year's turning.
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Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #205 on Apr 8, 2011, 7:09pm »
Shakespeare's
Sonnet XCVIII From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer’s story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seemed it winter still, and you away, As with your shadow I with these did play.
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #207 on Aug 23, 2011, 4:50pm »
These are some great poems. The Dylan Thomas one is beautiful. Love the imagery in the line "the town below lay leaved with October blood." As it happens, this is my first time reading the poem and I'm at the big 3-0.
Nice to revisit "The Bells," that's a fun one. I also love the "The (sexy) Highwayman." And it's always heartwarming to reminisce over passionate teachers.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,318 Location: Mexico
Re: Poem of the Day « Reply #208 on Aug 28, 2011, 6:24am »
A life should leave deep tracks: ruts where she went out and back to get the mail or move the hose around the yard; where she used to stand before the sink, a worn-out place; beneath her hand the china knobs rubbed down to white pastilles; the switch she used to feel for in the dark almost erased. Her things should keep her marks. The passage of a life should show; it should abrade. And when life stops, a certain space— however small — should be left scarred by the grand and damaging parade. Things shouldn't be so hard.
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And it's always heartwarming to reminisce over passionate teachers.
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