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Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
thank you, milum, for bring that lovely poem to mind
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
The City
by C.P. Cavafy
Translated by
Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard
You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."
You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.
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Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
mmmm....interesting sentiments there... maybe one or two of them best understood out of the corner of one's eye. Betcha don't know two poems about "Clods"? I thought not. Sometimes "It takes a thief... 
[THE CLOD]]
I picked up a clod.
"You may yet be a man" I said. "Dream on.
Are you not glad? Do you not tremble?"
But dully it looked at me.
I could swear I heard a sigh of relief.
There was no ecstasy or joy.
"I have been a man" the clod said.
~Edwin Curran ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE
"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
"Nor for herself hath any care,
"But for another gives its ease,
"And builds a Heaven in Hell's dispair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only self to please,
"to bind another for it's delight,
"Joys in another's loss of ease,
"And builds a hell in Heaven's despite."
William Blake
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Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
A poem about words. What could be more appropriate.
THESAURUS
It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.
It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.
Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.
I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.
I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.
Billy Collins
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
YOUR CATFISH FRIEND
by Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)
If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
.... one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
.... of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
.... somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
.... at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."
From The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan, published by Houghton Mifflin.
Copyright © 1989 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
The Only WO'N!
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Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
WE REAL COOL
by Gwendolyn Brooks
THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
From The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks, published by Harpers.
© 1960 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
The Only WO'N!
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Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
THE LION
The lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.
He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
And all is family peace again.
Vachel Lindsay Which of the following two is YOU.
PRESCIENCE
I went to sleep smiling,
I wakened despairing -
Where was my soul,
On what terror-path faring?
What grief shall befall me,
By midnight or noon,
What thing has my soul learned
That I shall know soon?
Margaret Widdemer
A WASTED DAY
I spoiled the day;
Hotly, in haste,
All the calm hours
I gashed and defaced.
Let me forget,
Let me embark
- Sleep for my boat -
And sail through the dark.
Till a new day
Heaven will send,
Whole as an apple,
Kind as a friend.
Frances Cornford
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Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Following up on milum's lionizing, and adding a word-related Twist:
THE PURIST
by Ogden Nash
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord
O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.
-- Ezra Pound
Based on a 1st century BC Chinese poem
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Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
THE PURIST
by Ogden Nash
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.Ah, Nash at his best, even surpassing... Po-ta-to, po-tah-ta,
sih-CAY-dah, sih-CAH-duh,
Let's call the whole thing off. - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~And now; Lets give these ceremonies some chauvinistic USA patriotism by way of a poetic twist... REGARDING (1) THE U.S AND (2) NEW YORK
Before I was a travelled bird,
I scoffed, in my provincial way,
At other lands; I deemed absurd
All nations but these U.S.A.
And - although Middle-Western born -
Before I was a travelled guy,
I laughed at, with unhidden scorn,
All cities but New York N.Y.
But now I've been about a bit -
How travel broadens! How it does!
And I have found out this, to wit:
How right I was! How right I was!
Franklin P. Adams
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