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I have posted this before, but it is brief, so please pardon my yarting vanity...

Generic Haiku
by Alex Williams and Jimi Evans, 1987

Five syllables here
Something about the seasons
This line is real deep


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My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.




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I hope this thread survives the Ides of April, what with the gloom of the happy cats down at the I, R, and S. But a rich diet of even the most expensive poems needs a refreshingly moderately-priced, tone-wine to clear the jaded palate. So here I offer an interlude, a sampling, such as it am, of my selections of the most pleasing, or the most sonorous, extracts from mankind's poetry.

And sup til times and times are done
the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.

-Yeats

If the red slayer thinks that he has slayed
And the slain believes that he is slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep,
I turn, and pass, and live again
.

- Emerson

When robot mice and robot men run 'round in robot towns.

- Bradbury

the bird of time has but a short way to flutter
And Lo, the bird is on the wing.


- Omar

Damsel with a dulcimer ...etc.

- Coleridge

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...

-King James Bible.

Over the mountains of the moon, down the valley of the shadow
Ride boldly ride, the Shade replied, if you seek for Eldorado
.

-Poe.


And so forth...


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When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?


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Carpal Tunnel
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I like the idea of a few samplings there, Milo.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T. S. Eliot, from The Wasteland


The contradiction in every act,
The infinite task of the human heart.

Delmore Schwartz, from The One Who Would Take Man's Life in His Own Hands


We love the things we love for what they are.

Robert Frost, from Hyla Brook

He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out

A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent

The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun

God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

William Blake, from Auguries of Innocence (all punctuation and letter case his)

Expect poison from the standing water.

Joys impregnate. Sorrow brings forth.

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

Damn braces: Bless relaxes.

William Blake, from Proverbs of Hell

Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson, from My Life Closed Twice

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A quiet bower for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

John Keats, from Endymion








Your Happy Epeolatrist!

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ODE

by Arthur O'Shaugnessy (1844-1881)

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.



Your Happy Epeolatrist!

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HEY ! One thing is true that can't be taken from (US):
We have 10 days left in National [Poetry] Month (US).
             ___________________________

Ever-so-often this month, I will post a lessor poem by a major poet or a major poem by a lessor poet, least either be forgotten. Aren't I nice?

YOUR TEARS

I DARE not ask your very all:
I only ask a part.
Bring me - when dancers leave the hall -
Your aching heart.

Give other friends your lighted face,
The laughter of the years:
I come to crave a greater grace -
Bring me your tears!
Edwin Markham































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——— Sea Fever ———
I must go down to the sea 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 grey mist on the sea's face,
... and a grey 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.

John Masefield


I tried o break the lines so the post will not go wide on us all. I may have posted this before but I do love it!



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Okay, milum, gems of obscurity it is! Here's one of my favorite lesser known scribblings:

ON THE EVE OF HIS EXECUTION

by Chidiock Tichborne (1558?-1586)

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
my feast of ioy is but a dish of paine:
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
and al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I liue, and now my life is done.


My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
my fruite is falne, & yet my leaues are greene:
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seene.
My thred is cut, and yet it is not spunne,
And now I liue, and now my life is done.


I sought my death, and found it in my wombe,
I lookt for life, and saw it was a shade:
I trod the earth, and knew it was my Tombe,
And now I die, and now I was but made.
My glasse is full, and now my glasse is runne,
And now I liue, and now my life is done.


Tichborne was executed because he got caught up in one of those English Throne conspiracy things...and he died rather gruesomely. Here's a link for the story if anyone is interested:

http://www.etsu.edu/english/sites/bowens.htm





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Another obscure poet

Hints of Spring

Last night I heard an owl
Hoot a lovesong to the night.
No answer came, but I'm sure it will.
Then I saw a waning moon
Rise just before dawn
To look down on my fields so dark and still.

I've caught other hints of spring
In a streak of living red
That chased a herd of shadows from my woods,
And a little shaft of morning
That came dancing down the hill
And started romancing with some buds.


-Max Ellison

That was a quick edit, amigo!

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