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the worse verse thread seems to have petered out (at least momentarily :) -- so who wants to post some serious poesy?
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Ai-eee, terror! D'you mean original ???
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John Donne, the metaphysical one:
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."
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The onbly three line limerick:
There once was a fellow from France, Who waited nine years for his chance. Then he muffed it.
TEd
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That belongs on the worse verse thread, Ted.
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In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'
Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk.
Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-grass; Yet this will go on the same Though Dynasties pass.
Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by: War's annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.
Hardy
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old hand
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I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - Too? Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!
How dreary - to be - Somebody! How public - like a frog - To tell one's name - the livelong June - To an admiring Bog!
Emily Dickinson (Nobody? No way.)
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Fra Giovanni gave us these immortal words in 1513:
"No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present moment. Take peace! The gloom of this world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look. Life is so generous a giver..."
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Estranged from beauty none can be -- For beauty is infinity
And power to be finite ceased Before identity was leased. -E. D.
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I guess it was from fairy tales I learned a puissant immortality, and then discerned the words involved were lovelier than blocks and equally oblivious of clocks.
when the facts of birth were straightened out in time to know what life was all about, I assumed, though saying nothing indiscreet, that I was more or less complete.
now those old volumes of my aping trust reveal provisos I never had discussed, tracing an acquired taste for dust.
if I rightly understand the way it goes: as naturally as looking out on winter snows, I wind up wearing bones for clothes.
[roll over, Fra Giovanni]
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Michael, I...I...hardly know what to say. You are incredibly brave, for one thing. And, I think you are right. Bones with no living flesh on them are, actually, dead. But it is ALWAYS possible to revive the dry dust-- it just takes the water of life (I am not speaking religiously) being poured in: love is the best form of this.
This seems to be a day for heartfelt posts.
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For dearest Jackie, no fan of Shakespeare though she be (witness an earlier thread) A truly sublime sonnet ...
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate; Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summer's lease hath all too short a date; Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And ev'ry fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade ...
... To know what's next, YHTLIU; And find what William truly said of you.
lusy
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OH! I...I...am completely overwhelmed, but not so much that I don't know what to say! THANK YOU! Thank you! Thank you! You are an absolute darling! I love you! You have my heart forever! How could anyone NOT look it up, after that?? I shall type the rest:
"Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long as lives this, and this gives life to thee."
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For dearest lusy, a heartfelt counterpoint that applies to you!
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow od, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
William Wordsworth, March 26, 1802
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tsuwm, encouraged by your bravery, I'll post something original too. (This was an exercise from my writing class - apparently a sestina, definitely the most taxing poetic form I've come across in English)
Keeping Together
My sun, my moon, my stars - you are the light that gilds the summer days within my heart. I do not know or care if this is right. I'm more concerned - and have been from the start of this our love - by twisted Fate, that might find cruel ways to tear our souls apart.
For in the briefest hour we spend apart my senses fail, my spinning head is light. I lose my very self, till with a start I know your voice or touch and all is right. The storm subsides - your presence soothes my heart to rock in sweet content as infants might.
Do you recall - I rather think you might - we swore that we would never be apart? Then, from the fading of the evening light until the sun called the new day to start, I grasped your tiny hands and held them right where they could feel the trembling of my heart.
Do you remember how it beat, that heart, and pushed against your touch with all its might? How you leaned close, how lips barely apart breathed soft with love and stars and laughter light? And then we kissed… It was the start of my belief our love would come out right.
But now it seems you'll exercise your right to tear the bleeding entrails of my heart. The hold I have upon you is too light - you'd leave, and rip our close embrace apart. Your soul succumbs and knows another's might - our game's played out so yours and his can start.
I cannot understand. When did it start? Just when and how was it you seized the right to play these deadly tricks upon my heart? I thought we loved as true as any might, but I was wrong, and now that we're apart, my shattered dreams will never see the light
Yet in the cold dawn light, when I wake with a start, though it might break my heart, I will not prove you right. E'en though you said I might, I will not fall apart.
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Bridget, that is so beautiful. Thank you very much for posting it. Me old mate Bill should be jealous of your pentameters! Perhaps not, but it was really lovely. Thanks!
lusy
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Oh, Bridget!!
What an impact! Oh, if anyone has ever loved, they will just devour those words! And for someone who has never loved, this will make them cry for what they've missed. Thank you, Dearest Bridget. How very lovely!
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<the worse verse thread seems to have petered out (at least momentarily :)> Gallantly swallowing the momentarily (I'm sure I can get used to this if I try.... ), let's get back to wrose verse. I used to know someting that ended up ...then Peter's ?? will pall and Paul's will peter out. Can anyone give me the complete version? And where does 'peter out' come from anyway?
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>And where does 'peter out' come from anyway? unknown; but, once again, speculation is rife. http://www.cam.org/~jennyb/lasto3.html
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"Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay. Remember me, when no more day by day, You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me, for a while And afterward remember, do not grieve; For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad."
Christina Rosetti
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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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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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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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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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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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[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.)
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(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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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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Sparteye, I loved your poem. Perhaps we want most those things which are not within our grasp?
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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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william-
Your poem is beautiful. It reminds me of the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Pygmalion created a statue of the perfect woman, then fell in love with her. Aphrodite brought her to life for him (more details can be found online). I was curious - is your poem related to this story? I really enjoy the imagery, especially the second stanza.
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francais,
thank you very much for you comments. actually i didn't know the story of pygmalion. from memory, i wrote that quite a few years ago after seeing the face of a statue and thinking how sad it would be to fall in love with something not living (or not living anymore). had a similar feeling when i met the bust of nefertiti, too. on the other hand, the only thing you can really worship is perfection, is it not?
if i'm asked again about the poem i'll whip out the ol' pygmalion story, though...
thank you.
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>the only thing you can really worship is perfection, is it not? Or the little perfections in the whole.
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Or the little perfections in the whole.
avy,
well put.
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Sir William, I'm with Frankie-Pie; when I read your poem, I immediately thought of Pygmalion. Nice work, Sir!
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Perhaps we want most those things which are not within our grasp?
I think that is part of it, Francais. But also, that our capacity for certain treasured aspects of life - small joys, deep affections, trust and love, to name a few - can be killed if not nurtured. A cold childhood can raise a barren adult.
For a more self-induced regret, here is:
Days
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleachèd garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It was a Maine lobster town-- each morning boatloads of hands pushed off for granite quarries on the islands,
and left dozens of bleak white frame houses stuck like oyster shells on a hill of rock,
and below us, the sea lapped the raw little match-stick mazes of a weir, where the fish for bait were trapped.
Remember? We sat on a slab of rock. From this distance in time, it seems the color of iris, rotting and turning purpler,
but it was only the usual gray rock turning the usual green when drenched by the sea.
The sea drenched the rock at our feet all day, and kept tearing away flake after flake.
One night you dreamed You were a mermaid clinging to a wharf-pile, and trying to pull off the barnacles with your hands.
We wished our two souls might return like gulls to the rock. In the end, the water was too cold for us.
--Robert Lowell
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Fog The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.
--Carl Sandburg
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Sea-Fever By John Masefield
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
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I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed-- and gazed-- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Wordsworth (an aptronym if there ever was one)
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---but I had to post this anyway:
Every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
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wow, funny you should post that. i used to sing "Sea Fever" (to music by John Ireland) and everytime i got to the part about "and all i want is a tall ship..." my mum would call out "you don't want much, do you!" which was enough to break the spell. recently an uncle put together some family recordings on CD, and there it was, me at 18 or so whipping out "Sea Fever". couldn't vouch for the quality of the rendition, but what a poem and what a song for a young man to sing! (later renditions have been at the sea itself, and a little less steady in rhythm and pitch - see bio) thanks for brining back the memories!
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jackie, that is beautiful!
who are these people who can see truth when all around is expedient?!
hate to wonder if "Longfellow" is also an aptronym...
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Rapunzel, thank you for that. Haven't heard it for years and it was a youthful favorite. So delighted to see it here. I read it aloud while looking out the window and enjoying the swath of daffodils under the trees in my neighbor's yard. So I must add this poem which MaxQ found for me in March in "The Flowers of Spring" thread.
LOVELIEST OF TREES BY A.E. Housman
Lovliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now of my threescore years and ten' Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Does anyone remember a poem about the sense of smell and what certain smells conjure in memory? I read it in high school. Long ago.
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Bobyoungbalt>>> Being in my office with no poetry books handy, one of the few I know by heart: The New Colossus ........
You must still be very young to remember/memorize a long poem like that. Do you have a special method of memorizing? I know one way would be to tape it and listen to that over and over in a car, the only place I know where you are a captive and might as well spend your time there doing something useful like memorizing sublime poetry.
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There is a FABULOUS arrangement of that set to music, for a girls' choir. The choir at my highschool sang it. It was driving me wild about a month ago but I'd managed to exorcise it. Then my daffodils bloomed in my "rock garden", Rapunzel posted this poem, and it's back again!
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The New Collossus Well, it's not that long. It's a sonnet, which is 14 lines of iambic pentameter; at 5 feet of about 2 syllables per line, that comes to only about 140 syllables. Of course, one of the reasons poems have scansion and/or rhyme is to help in memorization. In ancient times, poems, even epics like those of Homer, had to be memorized since few people could read and write, and the metric scheme was to provide a help. I was in high school when I learned that poem, and at that time I had a near-photographic memory. The fact that I love the poem, and the rhyme and scansion, is what keeps it in mind for another 40+ years.
There have been posted some poems very rich in descriptions of sounds, sights, etc. One of my favorites (which I also know by heart -- learned it in French class at University) is this one. Sorry I can't give an English version -- I believe it's impossible to give a good translation, so hope those who know French will enjoy it.
Harmonie du Soir
Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige, Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir. Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir, Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir, Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige, Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige! Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige, Un coeur tendre, qui haït le néant vaste et noir! Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir; Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.
Un coeur tendre qui haït le néant vaste et noir Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige! Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige ... Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir!
--- Charles Baudelaire
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What a wonderful thread this is - many thanks to Rod for disinterring it. And especial thanks to Bridget for her truly lovely poem, and to Jackie for reminding me of the "Little cat feet". I am impressed by the memories of those who have not had to refer to their books, and have loved most of the selections, whether memorised or not. My own memorisation only runs to parts of poems - like great chunks of "Horatio", by Macaulay, which is one of my all time favourites. But the poetry that comes most easily to my mind is always Omar Kayyam (I think that Avy might agree with me on this!) It contains a great deal of wisdom, of a rather fatalistic sort, for sure, but nevertheless he has always struck a chord in me. Two quatrains, in particular, are never far from me, as they more or less sum up my own philosophy of life.
"Dreaming, as Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky, Methought I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, 'Awake, my little ones and Drink Before Life's Liquor in the Cup runs dry' "
and:
"Come fill the Cup! And into the Fire of Spring, Your winter Garment of Repentance fling. The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter. And the Bird is on the Wing!"
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Yes, Rhu-- I too know more chunks than whole poems-- the last 30 lines or so of Amy Lowell's Patterns and most but not all of Oh Captian, Oh captain, Or The Highwayman, or from early childhood-- RLS--Childrens garden of verse--My Shadow.
I think is sad that children are not required to memorize poetry anymore.. (many don't even get much exposure to poetry in primary school.) I found as child that poetry always had "interesing, odd words"-- From My Shadow I rememeber errant-- as well as wonderful ideas.. Christina Rosetti-- had such wonderful poems.. and Robert Frost.
age 13, I was rewarded for a very minor good deed-- (visiting the sick) by being taken to a book store and told "Select anything you'd like" , and that's how i got my first poetry book (it was a paperback, {a Louis Untermeyer Anthology} I expect i could have gotten a hard cover book-- but I didn't think i deserved more-- at the time even a paperback book was to big bucks for me- and the "sick" I visited was a friend hospitalized after a car accident!)
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>But the poetry that comes most easily to my mind is always Omar Kayyam (I think that Avy might agree with me on this!)
Yes Rhub. I love the Rubaiyat because it has all richness of the east which I miss so much in English poetry. And somehow the Rubaiyat translates well or maybe it is Fitzgerald's talent. From amongst the huge emerald peacock feathers I have in my copy of the Rubaiyat from MANY favourites, I choose this one : Ah love! could thou and I with fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re-mould it to our Heart's desire!
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Pellegrinaggio
In agguato in queste budella di macerie ore e ore ho strascicato la mia carcassa usata dal fango come una suola o come un seme di spinalba
Ungaretti uomo di pena ti basta un'illusione per farti coraggio
Un riflettore di lE mette un mare nella nebbia
Ungaretti (thinking of emanuela)
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another from the Rubaiyat:
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread-and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
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Mist edged its way across the knoll, Whilst sunlight rose below. Atop horizon's velvet prop, She cast her stifled glow.
The time is seven, clear and true, Yet my temper is not so, I tried the tonics, weak and strong, That I might allay my woe.
Now I set myself down, slotting in, Beside this fleeting morn, Each time mixed up throughout my games, No different now this dawn.
Impatient perhaps zealous, For I wasn't sure which one, I traced footsteps in sodden shoes back from where I'd come
Amidst heavy heart and broadening sky, Feet shuffled down lush lines, Glancing up, I saw a second path, Which intertwined with mine.
Veering right along the hillside's face, the helix brought me back; to where I'd stood just prior to my solemn homeward track
Shimmering on that lone hill in her true and rightful place, Stood she in all her splendour true, With a ruddy, beaming face
The sun akin, aptly lit the mount Now ablaze with promise, ..fate Falling to my knees in bliss, I pledged to her my faith.
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I have heard, and I forget where, that Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubiyat is not very accurate and that several of the better known passages were ones he completely made up. Can anyone confirm/refute this?
Bingley
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> ...he completely made up
Is it not the case with many translations Bingley, particularly in poetry? The vast majority of the content often reflects the translators understanding of what he read, his spin on it, so to speak. It's like trying to look out onto a landscape through a stained-glass window: the general form can be discerned but nothing is as crisp and clear. Nevertheless my grandfather cherished the Fitzgerald Rubiyat regardless of whether the original text was just(!) a catalyst for his own creation.
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Yes, Bingley, there is a lot of truth in what you have asked. The first quatrain, in particualr, ("Awake, for Morning into the bowl of night / Has cast the Stone that puts the stars to flight / and Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught / The Sultan's turret in a Noose of Light." {5th edn} {{EDIT: what AM I thinking about!! that is the 1st edition!}}) bears but a passing echo of some of the sentiments expressed by the Tentmaker. There is a vast difference in the words used to express the Dawning of the Day between the one I've quoted, which is his 1st edition, to the version he uses in the 5th edition, itself not at all the same as the 2nd edition!! Every quatrain is Fitzgerald's interpretation rather than his translation, of the original. This is shown, to some extent by the changes he makes to some of the quatrains from one edition to the next. (The absolutely top-famous quatrain about the book of verse, the loaf of bread, the flask of wine, and thou beside me in the wilderness, is a classic example of this - LIU!) But I think - as BY has already suggested, that the strength of Fitzgeralds work lies in his capture of the spirit of Khayyam (Khayyam himself would, doubtless, have said it was the wine, not the spirit ) And to Avy, I will heartily agree that his chosen quatrain is also a firm favourite of mine - it was just, I think, that the previous postings had suggested the other two more strongly in my mind. And "The moving Finger writes ... " has been so overused - - -. (But is still a powerful piece of imagery, hey?)
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Of the whole variety of poetry I love, the ones I can return to most naturally again and again (apart from Shakespeare) are the Romantics, tho’ not particularly Wordsworse. Keats’ To Autumn sticks in my mind: Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells…. And bel, specially for you I could recite La Belle Dame sans Merci I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful, a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean, and sing A faery's song… Rime of the Ancient Mariner has certain stanzas that stick but I stumble over most of it however many times I go back: With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, Then southward aye we fled… Also a vivid favourite is Sam T’s Frost at MidnightThe Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings, save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed, so calm! - that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! The thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not… Of all those I mumble to myself (and others, if they are too slow to join the other wedding guests!) the absolute old favourite is the strange and evocative magic of Kubla KhanIn Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery….. Perhaps this has something of the spirit you and Rhu were talking about, Avy?
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Oh, maverick! Kubla Kahn is nearly my favorite! William Blake's intro. to Songs of Innocence is first, though: it just rings with joy! Introduction Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ``Pipe a song about a Lamb!'' So I piped with merry chear. ``Piper, pipe that song again;'' So I piped: he wept to hear. ``Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy chear:'' So I sung the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. ``Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.'' So he vanish'd from my sight, And I pluck'd a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs, Every child may joy to hear.
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Oh, maverick! Kubla Kahn is nearly my favorite!
Ditto, though for me, first place would be almost anything by Emily Dickinson
MUCH madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain.
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While hunting for another of my all-time favourites, Shelley's Ozymandias, I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.I stumbled across this, http://www.wmich.edu/english/tchg/lit/pms/ozymand-rival.htmlMethinks that even I could do a better job of naming a sonnet!
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It appears that Horace Smith was wordy rather than witty. Max, you're right. A better title may have been "A futile attempt at writing a poem which will make others think that I am on the same intellectual plane as P.B Shelley any day of the week."I think that mine is much pithier and to the point than his. We could have a competition coming up with better titles to Smith's poem than Smith managed!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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>Perhaps this has something of the spirit you and Rhu were talking about, Avy? Actually Mav "Old Khayyam's" spirit (correct me if I am wrong, Rhub) is the serious other-worldly question of death and life and the contrasting quirky solution he has to it. "There is no lasting meaning to death and life anyway so just enjoy yourself with wine, woman(man), and song"
But regarding "the strange and evocative magic of Kubla Khan" Yes you are right! I won't say that there is no 'richness of the east' in English poetry. There is Kubla Khan and there is also Abhou Ben Adhem and others. These are a few from a collection of his verses that describe Khayyam in a potter's shop, when the pots start speaking to him: And strange to tell, among the Earthen Lot Some could articulate, while others not: A suddenly one more impatient cried - Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?
Then said another - 'Surely not in vain My substance from common Earth was Ta'en, That He who subtly wrought me into Shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again.'
None answer'd this; but after Silence spake A vessel of a more ungainly Make: 'They sneer at me for leaning all awry; What! Did the Hand then of the Potter shake?'
Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh, 'My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry: But, fill me with the old familiar juice, Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!' Cheers!
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fill me with the old familiar juice...
Thanks, Avy, that made me both chuckle and ponder on reflection. I guess that's what you mean.
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I hope this will not put a damper to the this bright and sunny thread...
When You Are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep:
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled And paced upon the mountain overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
A free adaptation by William Butler Yeats of a Pierre Ronsard poem.
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I had thoughts of showing all six here, but together is not how she wrote them only how I set them to music, so you'll have to wait 'til I get recordings made for Max's site...
Message For Me
The sound of the sad soughing of pines and birches, as the wild winds of winter flail the high branches, has a message for me: Man is not alone to suffer the fate of age; all nature, in due season, reaches the wintertime of life, in the same relentless way.
Marie Engebretson-Jackson
(sorry, no rhyming)
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fill me with the old familiar juice...
Thanks, Avy, that made me both chuckle and ponder on reflection. Oh, mav--does that mean what I think it does? In water? (pond water?) Which is the true, and which the (slightly) altered one? Or is neither neither, but each a separate entity, the truth according to itself?
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This is a wonderful thread and thank you whoever resurrected it. (And a special congrats to William for daring to post. Beautiful!) I'd forgotten just how much I liked Baudelaire - only glad to get back to him when I have learned a little more about poetry and can appreciate the cleverness of some of the stuff he does. Look at the form and the way the lines repeat! As for the rest of it - wow!
Not strictly relevant, but one of my most treasured possessions is a book my grandmother gave me. It's a simple black-bound book, but through her life she used to write in it poems and extracts from books that particularly struck her. A very personal anthology. She gave it to me when I was at university, with blank pages still in the back, and since then I've carried on, writing in poems and passages that strike me. I hope that one day I too will have someone to pass the book on to. And I recommend that anyone who loves words considers keeping a book like this. It's the nearest I think she could have got to letting me into her soul. I get all soggy thinking about it even now, years later.
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Bridget>>>> Not strictly relevant, but one of my most treasured possessions is a book my grandmother gave me. It's a simple black-bound book, but through her life she used to write in it poems and extracts from books that particularly struck her. A very personal anthology. She gave it to me when I was at university, with blank pages still in the back, and since then I've carried on, writing in poems and passages that strike me. I hope that one day I too will have someone to pass the book on to. And I recommend that anyone who loves words considers keeping a book like this.
I wish that children in school, the minute they learn how to write, should be encouraged to keep a journal or a notebook, every year that they are in school. They should be allowed ample time to write in this journal everyday. observations, snippets of poetry, descriptions, etc. I know that some dedicated English or writing teachers do this, but not every one.
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As my contribution to this delightfully meandering thread, here is a cri-de-coeur on behalf of our inarticulate arboreal friends against the insensitivity of poets, or at least those (unlike myself) who publish in traditional media.
Notably, this little sonnet is a double acrostic, with the first and last letters of each line spelling out the first, while preserving rhyme and metre. If you think such a contrivance is easy to assemble, I invite you to try one yourself.
Acrostics on paper
A cross sticks on paper; trees weep Convinced that no man heeds their plea Red cedars, bereaved, cannot sleep Ovid gulps down his minestrone Sequoias, sequestered, afar Shed tears from their loftiest height Stenographers swill at the bar Trees moan to the moon, bark stark white Ionesco, egged on by their roe, Chews sturgeons entire, and whole cows! Keening cries of the weeping willow Stab silence and dead souls arouse Our poets enjoy jours de soupe – Night’s falling, limbs tremble, leaves droop.
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"Old Khayyam's" spirit (correct me if I am wrong, Rhub) is the serious other-worldly question of death and life and the contrasting quirky solution he has to it. "There is no lasting meaning to death and life anyway so just enjoy yourself with wine, woman(man), and song"
I wouldn't dream of correcting you, Avy. not when you have captured the essence of Kayyam's philosphy of life (and death.)in far better words than I could manage. He shows himself as essentially a fatalist, especaially in those quatrains - of which there are many - concerning the Potter and the Pots.
BTW, Kayyam's continual references to wine are, from my point of view as a social historian, very interesting as a documentary indication that Islam did not start off with a total ban on alcohol. It is analagous with the Methodists, over here, who did not really adopt temperance until the 1830s, well after the death of Wesley, their founder. Does anyone know when and why Islam adopted their opposition to "the grape?"
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Yeats on RonsardPierre de Ronsard is one of my favorites. To see where Yeats was coming from, the following from the Sonnets pour Hélène:
Quand vous serez bien vielle, au soir, à la chandelle, Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant, Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant: «Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j'étais belle.»
Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle, Déjà sous le labeur à demi sommeillant, Qui au bruit de Ronsard ne s'aille réveillant, Bénissant votre nom de louange immortelle.
Je serai sous le terre, et fantôme sans os, Par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos; Vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie,
Regrettant mon amour et votre fier dédain. Vivez, si m'en croyez, n'attendez à demain; Cueillez dès aujourd'hui les roses de la vie.When you are very old, by candle glow, Beside the fire where you spin and skein, You'll sing my songs, and murmur once again, "I was admired by Ronsard long ago." And then your servant, sleepy now and slow With labour, when she hears that soft refrain, Will wake to recognise my deathless strain On praise of beauty that I used to know. My body will be underground, and I A boneless wraith; and this will be your fate, A bent old crone, remembering with a sigh My love and your contempt for it -- too late! Then live, believe me, live without delay; Gather the roses of your life today. translation by Reine ErringtonThis was a common theme with poets of the time. Compare with Marvell's advice to the virgins, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". Someone wanted more poems. One of my favorites, which includes two expressions which nearly everyone will recognise, is Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard which is too long to quote here, but you can see it at http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/gray4.html
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Can anyone call from memory the poem from which came the lines : "From dust thou art, to dust returneth was not written of the soul." ?
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Life is real! life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. A Psalm of Life -- Longfellow
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Thank you Tsuwm! I'd corrupted it over time ... happy to have it, and have it right. You're a gem. wow
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High Flight John Gillespie Magee Jr.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings, Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long, delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For a bio of the author, just 19 when he died in WWII. Google --High Flight"+poem ---for several interesting sites some with photos.
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Bobyoungbalt: What do you think about this: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/9282/sonnet.htm Do you think it works? I have been brought up as a child listening to the poetic form of a Ghazal and the way this person has used it is not very effective at all (read "Murder!"). Also which in your opinion is the best form of the sonnet?
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Bobyoungbalt.... Yeats on Ronsard Pierre de Ronsard is one of my favorites. To see where Yeats was coming from, the following from the Sonnets pour Hélène
You are so considerate to provide the translation. There is a dash of playfulness in the Ronsard that somehow tempers the aching regret.
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In reply to:
Does anyone know when and why Islam adopted their opposition to "the grape?"
Some Muslims here in Indonesia interpret the prohibition as being against getting drunk rather than alcohol per se. Perhaps they're right and that was the original intent, and then just to make sure people didn't get drunk others tightened the prohibition up a bit.
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>Pierre de Ronsard is one of my favorites. To see where Yeats was coming from, the following from the > Sonnets pour Hélène >You are so considerate to provide the translation. >There is a dash of playfulness in the Ronsard that somehow tempers the aching regret. I have never known Ronsard. Okay .. off on the search to know another poet. >"I was admired by Ronsard long ago." He uses his signature - known as "Maqta" and very common in Arabic and Urdu poetry
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veteran
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veteran
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High Flight Thank you, dear wow, for this beautiful contribution. I've never heard of the poem or the author up to now.
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veteran
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veteran
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Sonnets Avy, I like the site you posted. It gives a good account of the Italian forms and the Shakesperian forms. You will have noted that the Milton sonnet quoted there is in the form ABBA(bis)CDECDE, which is somewhat unusual. The New Collossus which I quoted earlier in this thread has the form ABBA(bis)CDCDCD. John Donne, in the Holy Sonnets, used the form ABBA(bis)CDCDEE, which became a very common form. There is also the form ABAB(bis) with most of the aforementioned arrangements for the sestet. As to my preference, while I enjoy all types of sonnets, I think the Donne form the most interesting; it never gives the sing-song sound you get with some of the others.
I was also interested in the description of the ghazal, which I read about in a most interesting book set in India at the time of the partition, when it was still possible for Moslems and Hindus to be friends and share an evening of listening to ghazals being sung.
I think it is time for a new thread, so I am starting one on Sonnets etc. and will begin with one of the prototypes by Petrarch. I hope you will contribute some ghazals with some notes on their structure etc., since you don't like the notes given in the url.
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newbie
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newbie
Joined: May 2001
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A city different Than Carl Sandburg's Rises to meet the hot sky as I politely ask pardon for interposing myself between two identical-looking men screaming at each other in a plate-glass window. The queens are holding court in Boys Town. The poverty claims another victim in Cabrini Green. Multifarious mundane cruelties unfold with corporate efficiency in the suburbs. Bienvenidos a Little Village! where every day more and more es el dia de los muertos Brought by hard-eyed men Tattooed teardrops fall from eye to hand, marking them in their sorrow, these sons and grandsons of the first generation who came here and discovered: The skyline markers of Wright of Mies van der Rohe, are monuments to an America you must crane your necks and peer northward to see.
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Joined: Nov 2000
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If that's your own work, my dear Kit, congratulations. I enjoyed it very much. It reminds me of Ferlinghetti, one of my favorite poets, so you can take kudos for being compared to him.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Very nice, thanks for sharing that! Now, am I jealous of your skill, or do I envy it?
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Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Posts: 275 |
slovovoi
A city different.......
I must add my praise and applaud the difficult work of creating your very own art. Congratulations!
chronist
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Carpal Tunnel
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Very good, Slovovoi ... you are accomplished.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Slovovoi, Every time I come to this thread I reread your work, and enjoy it more each time! And that's more of a compliment than you may realize: I don't like depressing things, as a rule. Namaste.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . . and touched the face of God.
The immortal words used by Ronald Reagan after the horrible explosion of the Challenger.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"High Flight" by John G. Magee is well known among members of the US military, especially and naturally, the U.S. Air Force.
I had it printed on the back of my late husband's Memorial Card. He was a in USAF. On the front was his picture and dates/places of birth and death with my and sons' names. I mailed the cards to far-flung friends when I could no longer repeat or write the news another time. Is this a practice of Memorial Cards used in other places? What poem would you want on your card?
Tsuwm, A great idea to start this thread. Perhaps you might consider "#2" as this is getting rather long?
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Posts: 87
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
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Oh, where do I start!! Y'all have reminded me of things I've forgot and things I never knew.
One of my favs is Masefield's Cargoes, simply for what it taught me about sound in poetry:
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road rail, pig lead, Firewood, ironware, and cheap tin trays.
-- John Masefield
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Here's one of my favorites ("Hyla" is a breed of frog that inhabits the brook); I especially love the poignant last line: HYLA BROOK by Robert Frost By June our brook's run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago Like ghost of sleighbells in a ghost of snow)-- Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent Even against the way it's waters went. Its bed is left a faded paper sheet Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat-- A brook to none but who remember long. This as it will be seen is other far Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. We love the things we love for what they are. By the way, you lovers of verse might well enjoy a great site I frequent: <eMule.com> The Poetry Archives They have over 3,500 classic poems archived (mid-20th Century and back), and an interesting and lively discussion forum. So click on over and maybe I'll meet you there!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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wow requests: tsuwm, A great idea to start this thread. Perhaps you might consider "#2" as this is getting rather long?wow, BobYB has done this for us. See Sonnets etc right down thar
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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Ah-HA! Hasn't been good last couple of days ... my computer DIED and I am at a cybercafe with all the town's computer junkies ... I needed a FIX. (Confirmation that this place is an addiction.) Computer Magic Man comes Wednesday ... Will I survive? Will $$$ hold out? Hold good thoughts. Do not expect any answers to Email for a few days. Thank you for allowing me to post this... wow
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Posts: 275 |
I do not like this thread to break yet so here is another sublime rhyme.
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (An excerpt)
The awful shadow of some unseen power Floats though unseen among us--visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower-- Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening-- Like clouds in starlight widely spread-- Like memory of music fled-- Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form--where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not forever weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom--why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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