#81695
10/10/2002 10:41 PM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
I Hold Your Hand In Mine
I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.
The night you died I cut it off,
I really don't know why.
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie.
I'm sorry now I killed you,
For our love was something fine,
And till they come to get me
I shall hold your hand in mine.
-Tom Lehrer
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#81696
10/10/2002 10:53 PM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
Meet Me In The Indian Summer
(Van Morrison)
Well don't you know
How much I love you
Don't you know
How much I care
It's beyond my comprehension
'Cos I love you on the square
It's not bound by any definition
It isn't written in the stars
It's not limited like Saturn
Isn't ruled by Mercury or Mars
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
Where we'll go walking
Down by the weeping willow tree
Won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking to eternity
It's not modelled by convention
It isn't worshipped like the sun
It's not likened unto any other
And it will never come undone
Well don't you know
That my world is so lonely
Just like a freight train in the dawn
That's why I need to
Have and hold you
Just to keep me from going wrong
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking
By the weeping willow tree
Won't you meet me Lord
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking to eternity
Won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
Well before
Those chilly winds do blow
Won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
Take me way back
To what I know
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking
By the weeping willow tree
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking to eternity
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#81697
10/10/2002 11:43 PM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
"Listen! The wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
Now for October eves!
-- Autumn (Resignation) by Humbert Wolfe, 1926
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#81698
10/11/2002 2:01 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
(even numbered lines are indented 3 spaces, 2, 4, etc.)
THE AUTUMN
By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them --
The summer flowers depart --
Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,
Except your musing heart.
How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.
Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!
The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --
Their presence may be o'er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh'd our mind,
Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.
Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;
Look out o'er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them --
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --
Come change -- and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne'er be desolate.
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#81699
10/11/2002 2:41 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
(in memory of "Shellie", my 11 year old Sheltie who died suddenly Wednesday, interred today...with my heartfelt thanks to Jackie for these):
THE BEST PLACE TO BURY A DOG
"There is one best place to bury a dog.
"If you bury him in this spot, he will
come to you when you call - come to you
over the grim, dim frontier of death,
and down the well-remembered path,
and to your side again.
"And though you call a dozen living
dogs to heel, they shall not growl at
him, nor resent his coming,
for he belongs there.
"People may scoff at you, who see
no lightest blade of grass bent by his
footfall, who hear no whimper, people
who may never really have had a dog.
Smile at them, for you shall know
something that is hidden from them,
and which is well worth the knowing.
"The one best place to bury a good
dog is in the heart of his master."
--- Ben Hur Lampman ---
from the Portland Oregonian Sept. 11, 1925
[AKA "If A Dog Be Well Remembered"]
[AKA "Where TO Bury A Dog"]
*****************************************
ROOM IN YOUR HEART
Sorrow fills a barren space;
you close your eyes and see my face
and think of times I made you laugh,
the love we shared, the bond we had,
the special way I needed you -
the friendship shared by just we two.
The day's too quiet, the world seems older,
the wind blows now a little colder.
You gaze into the empty air
and look for me, but I'm not there -
I'm in heaven and I watch you,
and I see the world around you too.
I see little souls wearing fur,
souls who bark and souls who purr
born unwanted and unloved -
I see all this and more above -
I watch them suffer, I see them cry,
I see them lost, I watch them die.
I see unwanted thousands born -
and when they die, nobody mourns.
These little souls wearing fur
(Some who bark and some who purr)
are castaways who - unlike me -
will never know love or security.
A few short months they starve and roam,
Or caged in shelters - nobody takes home.
They're special too (furballs of pleasure),
filled with love and each one, a treasure.
My pain and suffering came to an end,
so don't cry for me, my person, my friend.
But think of the living -
those souls with fur
(some who bark and some who purr) -
And though our bond can't be broken apart,
make room for another in your home and
your heart.
--- Caro Schubert-James ---
amethyst@nc5.infi.net
alt.support.grief.pet-loss
http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~rneville/saveapet.html
**************************************************
EPITAPH TO A DOG
Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains
Of one
Who Possessed Beauty
Without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery
If inscribed over Human Ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the
Memory of
"Boatswain," a Dog
Who was born at Newfoundland,
May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey
Nov. 18, 1808.
When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth--
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power--
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on--it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one--and here he lies.
Lord Byron
Inscription on the monument of his
Newfoundland dog, 1808
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#81700
10/12/2002 5:05 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Beautiful, Won. Thank you for these contributions. And please accept my condolences; I know what grief you must feel. Our boxer, Beau, will soon be 12 -- a great age for a boxer, and I dread losing him.
Regarding the notion that animals have no souls and no place in Heaven, C.S. Lewis remarked that we really do not know that animals, or at least the higher ones like simians and the ones we make pets of, have no souls. Indeed, he thought it more likely that they do and that they might have as good a chance of going to heaven as we do. And he also thought that maybe one of the responsibilities of humans was to make our animals more like us.
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#81701
10/14/2002 2:47 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
he also thought that maybe one of the responsibilities of humans was to make our animals more like us
Hmmm. Many of us would do better to learn from "our" animals.
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#81702
10/17/2002 2:28 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Just came across this one by an author not everyone realizes was a poet.
The wind, I hear it sighing
With Autumn's saddest sound;
Withered leaves as thick are lying
As spring-flowers on the ground.
This dark night has won me
To wander far away;
Old feelings gather fast upon me
Like vultures round their prey.
Kind were they once, and cherished,
But cold and cheerless now;
I would their lingering shades had perished
When their light left my brow.
'Tis like old age pretending
The softness of a child,
My altered, hardened spirit bending
To meet their fancies wild.
Yet could I with past pleasures
Past woe's oblivion buy,
That by the death of my dearest treasures
My deadliest pains might die,
O then another daybreak
Might haply dawn above,
Another summer gild my cheek,
My soul, another love.
-- Emily Bronte, The Wind, I Hear It Sighing
P.S.
I don't know what y'all think, but now that I've read over this, I'm sorry I posted it. I think that's one of the worst pieces of poetry I've read in a good while.
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#81703
10/17/2002 2:31 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
of autumn
a sonted watch
of leaf unlocked
seems morescore years
since such a foiled scene unfolded
extra-hemispherical,
interequatorial,
cheating paid back in full
leaves hover about
rolling, meandering,
cushioned in
ordered visible sinuosity
some kind of, um,
plain matter of fact existence made visible.
most leaves flit by though -
thin drawn out swirls
or tight-crimped screws unperceived
so now caught up
dressed down
something other than just leaf is shed:
light, tears, blood...
is all motion in general,
the flow of the world's character
borne of infinite quiescence?
all is motion in general,
the flow of the world its character
and yet it is borne of infinite quiescence.
all acoiled round
frizzly crepe sound
waging through another autumn
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#81704
10/19/2002 1:20 AM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Hi, BoYB:
I'm glad you posted the poem. The subject is certainly a valid one--and the emotional state one that probably visits people when they've given up their best dreams. It's harsh; it's cold; it's bitter. And it anticipates the cruelty of April, doesn't it? Even though overly dramatic in stroke with a couple of the images--the old feelings as vultures, for instance--it's still good in showing that state of mind in which the review of something lost once considered valuable can cause so much anguish and bitterness.
I'd give this one a "B."
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#81705
10/23/2002 1:07 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
by, this is really good! What is sonted, please?
I LOVE the rhythm of this:
extra-hemispherical,
interequatorial,
cheating paid back in full
Share some more any time, Sweetie.
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#81706
10/23/2002 4:46 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
DARKLING SUMMER, OMINOUS DUSK, RUMOROUS RAIN
by Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
1.
A tattering of rain and then the reign
Of pour and pouring-down and down,
Where in the westward gathered the filming gown
Of grey and clouding weakness, and, in the mane
Of the light's glory and the day's splendor, gold and vain,
Vivid, more and more vivid, scarlet, lucid and more luminous,
Then came a splatter, a prattle, a blowing rain!
And soon the hour was musical and rumorous:
A softness of dripping lipped the isolated houses,
A gaunt grey somber softness licked the glass of hours.
2.
Again, after a catbird squeaked in the special silence,
And clouding vagueness fogged the windowpane
And gathered blackness and overcast, the mane
Of light's story and light's glory surrendered and ended
--A pebble--a ring--a ringing on the pane,
A blowing and a blowing in: tides of the blue and cold
Moods of the great blue bay, and slates of grey
Came down upon the land's great sea, the body of this day
--Hardly an atom of silence amid the roar
Allowed the voice to form appeal--to call:
By kindled light we thought we saw the bronze of fall.
© 1959 by Delmore Schwartz
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#81707
10/23/2002 5:13 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
AUTUMN
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933- )
Inside me the season is autumn,
the chill is in me, you can see through me,
and I am sad, but not altogether cheerless,
and filled with humility and goodness.
But if I rage sometimes
then I am the one whose rage is shedding my leaves,
and the simple thought comes sadly to me
that raging isn't really what is needed.
The main need is that I should be able
to see myself and the struggling, shocked world
in autumnal nakedness,
when even you, and the world, can be seen right through.
Flashes of insight are the children of silence.
It doesn't matter, if we don't rage aloud.
We must calmly cast off all mere noise
in the name of the new foliage.
Something has apparently happened to me,
and I am relying on nothing but silence,
when the leaves laying themselves one on another
inaudibly become the earth.
And you can see it all, as if from a height,
when you can shed your leaves at the right time,
when without passion your inner autumn
lays its airy fingers on your forehead...
--from Bratsk Station and other new poems © 1967 by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
[Note: Yevgeny Yevtushenko is regarded as the foremost Russian poet of the late 20th century, whose work is viewed with the same special esteem by his countrymen as Pasternak and Pushkin before him.]
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#81708
10/23/2002 5:39 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
ELECTION DAY IS A HOLIDAY
by Ogden Nash
People on whom I do not bother to dote
Are people who do not bother to vote.
Heaven forbid that they should ever be exempt
From contumely, obloguy and various kinds of contempt.
Some of them like Toscanini and some like Rudy Vallée,
But all of them take about as much interest in their right to ballot as their right to ballet.
They haven't voted since the heyday of Miss Russell (Lillian)
And excuse themselves by saying What's the difference of one vote in fifty million?
They have such fine and delicate palates
That they can discover no one worthy of their ballots,
And then when someone terrible gets elected
They say, There, that's just what I expected!
And they go around for four years spouting discontented criticisms
And contented witticisms,
And then when somebody to oppose the man they oppose gets nominated
They say Oh golly golly he's the kind of man I've always
abominated,
And they have discovered that if you don't take time out to go to the polls
You can manage very nicely to get through thirty-six holes.
Oh let us cover these clever people very conspicuously with
loathing,
For they are un-citizens in citizens' clothing.
They attempt to justify their negligence
On the grounds that no candidate appeals to people of their integligence,
But I am quite sure that if Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) ran against Thomas Jefferson (Dem.)
Neither man would be appealing enough to squeeze a vote out of them.
© 1947 by Ogden Nash
[Note: The first Tuesday in November is US election day (hint,hint)]
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#81709
10/23/2002 6:21 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Along this way
No travellers.
Dusk in autumn.
--Basho¯ (1644-1694)
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#81710
10/23/2002 12:53 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Inside me the season is autumn,
the chill is in me, you can see through me,
and I am sad, but not altogether cheerless,
and filled with humility and goodness.
Ohh, thank you, Sweet WO'N--this is me right now. What an utterly lovely, insightful piece.
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#81711
10/25/2002 1:15 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
Fortelling
amber colors
leave no doubt
leaves will be falling.
Icy winds soon
notorize winter's
gloom.
Me - Now
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#81712
10/26/2002 1:15 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Heavy-hearted, i watch
ever more leaves of brown
a-spiraling down, down;
leaping now, around and around as
i look unseeingly into the chill,
noting nothing but the
gnawing not-here-any-more.
Me - Now
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#81713
10/26/2002 2:07 AM
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
the crisp swish of leaves,
the smile of the sound.
the smile of my son,
the crisp swish as he leaves.
Me - now
formerly known as etaoin...
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#81714
10/27/2002 4:04 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
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#81715
10/27/2002 8:57 PM
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 261
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 261 |
Flora Inferno
The leaves are aflame,
The leaves are aflame,
The heat of the summer is burning away.
The trees are on fire,
The trees are on fire,
And each leaf is falling to add to the pyre.
This flora inferno
Is chilling the air,
The trees are burnt out,
Their branches are bare.
The leaves are all gone,
The leaves are all gone,
Summer's retreated, the autumn has won.
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#81716
11/06/2002 9:40 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
i just posted a december poem in the winter thread, but in NYC, the fall colors are just about at prime.. so even though this is an october poem and its now november...i am posting..
October's Party
by George Cooper
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.
Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."
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