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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
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addict
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609 |
And where does 'peter out' come from anyway
Apologies for reviving an ancient topic, but I was doing some antiyart searching and just happened across it.
I don't know, but the verb "to peter" in bridge means to play a higher card than necessary followed next time round by a lower one, for example from A-7-3 or 7-3) the 7 then the 3 to request same again. I have always idly thought (with no evidence) that the connotation of high to low in bridge had some connection to "peter out".
Rod
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
John Keats
(one of my personal favorites-- one of about ten poems i still know by heart)
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 200 |
so many beautiful postings in this thread.
a few people were brave enough to post original poems.
proud would be a better word - they were powerful. i'm certainly not brave, just a six-pack the wiser!
this from me:
To a Statue
I know you like an unknown:
your loose-hipped grace
and small-lipped face
carved from a foreign stone.
Such perfection moved and saw!
But stuck where lightning struck
marbled your veins and bleached your eyes
and tilt your head to miss my space
and movement knows no more.
Your knowing hands would know my face
but purposed they
with fingers splay
sense through my ductile space.
How to align your eyes with mine!
But mighty trees have seasons' leaves
and beauty can't with flesh alloy
nor mind grow old but death betray
and wear the great decay of time.
Hands closed your rippled ribs around
locked in a flood
of stone cold blood
and breath held without sound.
Remember when your flesh was hewn!
And music scraped your sand-spun cape
and fingers dragged you from the rock:
back there you tread with noiseless thud
and to the mud of earth return.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Being in my office with no poetry books handy, one of the few I know by heart:
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conqu'ring limbs astride from land to land,
Here by our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is th'emprisoned lightning, and her name,
Mother of exiles. From her beacon hand
Flows world-wide welcome. Her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp," cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me!
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
- Emma Lazarus
(The inscription on the Statue of Liberty)
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Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
Being in my office with no poetry books handy, one of the few I know by heart:
-- ditto:
Tragedy
I always wanted a red balloon
They only cost a dime
But Ma said it was risky,
They broke too quickly
And besides,
She didn’t have the time
And even if she did,
She didn’t think they were worth a dime.
We lived in the country
And I only went
To one circus and fair
And all the balloons
I ever saw were there.
There were green ones
And yellow ones
But the kind I liked the best were red
And I don’t see why
She couldn’t have stopped and said,
Well, maybe I could have one.
But she didn’t.
I live in the city now
And I’ve got the time
And no one to tell me how to spend my dime
Plenty of balloons –
But somehow,
Something has died inside of me
And I don’t want one, now.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 86
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 86 |
[Although I profess to know these lines by heart, I was reluctant to trust memory cells o'er -taxed with relentless years. I peeked. (Don't even THINK "peaked"!)]
Rose Aylmer .......Walter Savage Landor
Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer*,all were thine
Rose Aylmer*, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
* (Note -- One may here (*) substitute another name of one's own choosing provided, of course, that one does not violate Mr. Landor's graceful meter.)
Scribbler
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
(Don't even THINK "peaked"!)Worshipped-from-afar Scribbler: I cannot imagine that you have peaked yet!  "...the best is yet to be..." =========================================================== william: thank you. You know that has special meaning for me. =========================================================== Sparteye: how terribly, terribly sad.
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Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724 |
I know this is an old revived thread (the most beautiful of threads?) .
I know Tsuwm has not slipped back to addict
And then I see William's post!
I am happy to see him back. I want to say welcome ..
But Wait!
I check the date. Yes it is current. So he is really back. This is not an old post.
Make sure. Make sure.
Yes, I am now sure enough to speak.
Welcome back William. Good to have you back. I have missed your posts.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 157
member
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member
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 157 |
Sparteye,
I loved your poem.
Perhaps we want most those things which are not within our grasp?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275 |
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
Ode to Melancholy
John Keats
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