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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2014 19:58:18 GMT
Beautiful poem, casimira. Brought a tear to my eye.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2014 13:53:19 GMT
Thank you good people for taking the time to read and comment.
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Post by lola on Jan 14, 2014 22:20:06 GMT
Just chilling, casimira. Thank you for posting.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2014 13:53:12 GMT
Thanks Lola.xo
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Post by lola on May 15, 2014 14:57:38 GMT
This world of dew Is a world of dew, And yet, and yet...
Kobayashi Issa, 1763 - 1827
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sal paradise
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Post by sal paradise on May 15, 2014 18:59:00 GMT
lovely spring day in london - reminded me of this
I so liked Spring last year Because you were here;- The thrushes too- Because it was these you so liked to hear- I so liked you.
This year's a different thing,- I'll not think of you. But I'll like the Spring because it is simply spring As the thrushes do.
Charlotte Mary Mew
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Post by lola on May 16, 2014 0:44:27 GMT
Sal Paradise. (I just wanted to type the name. Can't think of anything clever to say afterwards.)
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Post by htmb on May 20, 2014 22:45:49 GMT
For a friend...
How do you forgive when a knife has been dragged through your heart, slicing it cleanly and neatly in half?
How do you forgive when, even if you heal, there remains a thickness, a scar, where once it was smooth, slick, and intact?
How do you forgive - you can never go back - trust once taken for granted is now dissolved.
Can you ever forgive; ever return to the way it used to be when there was no doubt, only joy? And was that just an illusion?
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sal paradise
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Post by sal paradise on Jul 22, 2014 15:23:08 GMT
A Late Walk
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
Robert Frost
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2014 15:30:37 GMT
Gorgeous poem Sal.Thank you. While on holiday I read a lot of Walt Whitman from his Leaves of Grass. It just seemed to fit where my head was at.
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sal paradise
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Post by sal paradise on Sept 12, 2014 9:10:00 GMT
I've been lurking on this thread for a while and your poems posted here are beautiful, casimira.
I love Walt Whitman - oh captain, my captain!
This is one of my favourites: Tichborne was part of the plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was foiled, and he was arrested. This was supposedly written the night before his excecution.
Elegy
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares, My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, My crop of corn is but a field of tares, And all my good is but vain hope of gain. The day is gone and yet I saw no sun, And now I live, and now my life is done.
The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung, The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green, My youth is gone, and yet I am but young, I saw the world, and yet I was not seen, My thread is cut, and yet it was not spun, And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb, I lookt for life and saw it was a shade, I trode the earth and knew it was my tomb, And now I die, and now I am but made. The glass is full, and now the glass is run, And now I live, and now my life is done.
Chidiock Tichborne (1562-1586)
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 12, 2014 15:19:28 GMT
Oh, thank you for that piece of history and for the remarkable poem, Sal. Do you know if Tichborne (only 24 years old when he died!) was known as a poet before the extreme circumstances that moved him to write that poem?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2014 1:16:13 GMT
Thank you Sal for the lovely compliment and your contributions to this thread.
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sal paradise
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Post by sal paradise on Sept 18, 2014 8:27:56 GMT
I'm not sure if he was particularly known, but he did have two other poems, "To a Friend," and "The Housedove," though Elegy is by far and away my favourite. I realised only on perhaps the 5th reading that it is entirely mono-syllabic, apart from maybe "lookt". Clever It is a shame that he was killed (hanged, drawn and quartered, no less) so young, but it is true that extreme circumstances do bring out the wonderful poet in people. The birth of Joyce's Grandson, and the death of his father only a month beforehand (Joyce was not in the country while his father lay dying) drove him to write this beauty. Ecce Puer Of the dark past A child is born. With joy and grief My heart is torn. Calm in his cradle The living lies. May love and mercy Unclose his eyes! Young life is breathed On the glass; The world that was not Comes to pass. A child is sleeping: An old man gone. O, father forsaken, Forgive your son! James Joyce (1932)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2014 13:25:43 GMT
My goodness, how very moving a poem Sal. Thank you for sharing it with us. Any idea what the title translates into?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2014 13:42:50 GMT
The Disappearance
This deleting of all messages I saved, not trusting to a fickle mind's recall, stuns me as I see my Inbox drained of all its content-an act willed by me.
I startle from my sleep to this blank day of incomprehensible loss- the articulated past beyond access through deliberate act or thoughtless impulse.
Images of flame and smoke arise as Alexandria turns to ash once more. Irrecoverable expressions sting my eyes. The air is thick with burning messages.
9/9/14, New Orleans
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 18, 2014 16:32:20 GMT
Wow, powerful poem, Casimira!
Thanks for the reply, Sal. I went back to re-read it after your comment. I never would have caught that detail!
After one of those executions, the proceedings were described to Elizabeth, who was appalled and decreed that henceforth no such punishment would be meted out. I really wish I could remember if it was Tichborne's execution.
Casimira, the teensy bit of Latin I retain tells me that Ecce Puer is "behold the boy", undoubtedly a reference to Pontius Pilate's "Ecce homo" (behold the man) when presenting the tortured Christ to the rabble before his crucifixion.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2014 22:54:01 GMT
Thank you Bixa. Poems can indeed be cathartic as well as many other things.
As for the Latin title, me, after, four years of Latin in High School and my Roman Catholic Latin, should have been able to translate that!!!!! Oh,poor Mr.Koncelick,my mentor and favorite teacher is turning in his grave!!!!!
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Post by lola on Sept 24, 2014 18:43:12 GMT
I love it, casimira! Makes me want to go burn an inbox or two myself, though.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2014 17:44:43 GMT
I love it, casimira! Makes me want to go burn an inbox or two myself, though. Grazie Lola. Go ahead on! Perhaps it's because of the end of summer, although, we're still in the 80F'S, there's a breeze, and, the urge to arise early, and be creative. Summer RespiteReading this book about someone who is only seven on page 232, this woman has turned back the clock. With her bare feet on the torn slipcover and the fan blowing kisses across the room, she mops moisture from her forehead wet from staking ginger lilies in her yard. A gardener in a jungle returns to her story- breathless yet eager as she was once, and she is yet- even at her age- engaged in the timeless act of somehow turning page after page. New Orleans, 9/25/14
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 3, 2014 16:25:47 GMT
Oh my goodness! That is wonderful, really sublime, Casimira! As it happens, I opened this thread to post a poem -- a poem for everyone of course, but especially for you ~~ www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2014/september/audio-recording-swallows-g-mend-ooyo#.VC7PvxYr6ppThe SwallowsG. Mend-Ooyo Returning from afar, swallows in flocks Embrace the tales of the gentle, tranquil steppe. The waters of eternity were spilt into the yellow steppe’s palms, And, ever since, these little birds have dared not leave. Once, out riding with my father many years ago, There were swallows flying over the lonely hills. Returning from the distant time, They are perhaps still seeking their elixir. I didn’t understand my father’s story then. I saw a swallow pass away, though It had found the water of eternity. I grieved it hadn’t drunk. My father shared the cream of stories, Eternal and prophetic. And once, I promised that, before the swallows did, I’d find and offer him the waters of eternity. In this brief world, promises are not always fulfilled. My father’s gone now, his son’s not found the waters of eternity. The swallows circle overhead, Looking to source these everlasting waters. To my own son, who’ll gain his father’s hearth and home, I’ll tell the tale of the swallows. But, life is not eternal, I’ll be gone, I’ll leave the swallows’ tale to my children. The story’s over. The waters of eternity are still not found, But they’ll be found eventually. And what the waters of eternity reveal, please share With these my story’s swallows, pursuing their joys over the steppe.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2014 1:53:21 GMT
Oh, Bixa, what a very moving, beautiful and profound poem. Thank you ever so much. Ah, the silhouettes of those forked tails soaring in the skies always just send me.
(I wish I could find the image of the lone swallow that I used as my first avatar on here...it was so special).
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 7, 2014 16:48:29 GMT
Try typing the word swallow in Google Images. It will give you quite a few single swallow options. Perhaps your lost pic is among them.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2014 17:02:52 GMT
I have scoured several sources, some close to it but not it. Thanks.
On another note. Local poet Ralph Adamo has just published an anthology of sorts of works from 2000-2014 titled EVER. I missed one of his readings but there's another one tomorrow evening that i plan on going to. I will keep you posted and plan to post a poem or two on here.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 7, 2014 17:19:53 GMT
Thank you!! You know I'd love to see them.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2014 19:27:27 GMT
The Skip Fantastic
Ah, to decipher and recall a sensation without one being able to gently place it in some box and want to repeat but, cannot, despite the yearning.
The same urgency to repeat the "butterflies in one's stomach" that won't go away. A message so desperate to deliver as to drive one
As a young school girl who would run and skip with glee to deliver.
The heady drive my destination would lead me into the light of that day and beyond.
That light will continue to repeat the end of my destination and will always be there should one care to see just as the moon would glow clear and bright.
New Orleans, 12/7/14
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 19, 2015 16:13:42 GMT
Just come across this by chance. I think it's excellent-
Phenomenal Woman
By Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
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Post by tod2 on Feb 23, 2015 17:48:31 GMT
Mick, that poem is being recited in an advert on TV right now. The only aggravating thing about the ad is that the person reciting it sounds like a man. They don't do the whole thing just the "I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman "
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sal paradise
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Post by sal paradise on Feb 23, 2015 21:26:51 GMT
boo.
My Brother at 3am
He sat cross-legged, weeping on the steps when Mom unlocked and opened the front door. O God, he said, O God. He wants to kill me, Mom.
When Mom unlocked and opened the front door at 3 a.m., she was in her nightgown, Dad was asleep. He wants to kill me, he told her, looking over his shoulder.
3 a.m. and in her nightgown, Dad asleep, What’s going on? she asked, Who wants to kill you? He looked over his shoulder. The devil does. Look at him, over there.
She asked, What are you on? Who wants to kill you? The sky wasn’t black or blue but the green of a dying night. The devil, look at him, over there. He pointed to the corner house.
The sky wasn’t black or blue but the dying green of night. Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives. My brother pointed to the corner house. His lips flickered with sores.
Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives. O God, I can see the tail, he said, O God, look. Mom winced at the sores on his lips. It’s sticking out from behind the house.
O God, see the tail, he said, Look at the goddamned tail. He sat cross-legged, weeping on the front steps. Mom finally saw it, a hellish vision, my brother. O God, O God, she said.
Natalie Diaz (2012)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2015 14:50:17 GMT
Ditto BOO on the Maya Angelou poem.
Sal, I read your last poem a couple of times. All I can say is that it is most peculiar to put it mildly. I don't know if it's meant to be humorous or if it's the voice of someone delusional or if it's a dream/nightmare. It did have an impact on me, but, I can't quite pinpoint what.
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