Post: #76

High Flight By John 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 with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Post: #77

John Milton

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.

Post: #78

Wallace Stevens

Large Red Man Reading

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

Post: #79

Here's a poem I wrote about a year ago:
The apes
Grew their food,
Lived in beehives,
Built their statues, played in their parks,
Wrote on paper,
Howled to to tune of strings,
Drank their tea,
And tried to cage the beast inside them

Post: #80

Quote:To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Could have been entitled The Wall Cometh.

Post: #81

Another way of saying "Carpe Diem" :

Loveliest 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.

A. E. Housman (1859 - 1936)

Post: #82

A French poem that was, at the time of its publication, absolutely unique and revolutionary in its structure:

Murs, ville,

Et port,

Asile

De mort,

Mer grise

Où brise

La brise,

Tout dort.

Dans la plaine

Naît un bruit.

C'est l'haleine

De la nuit.

Elle brame

Comme une âme

Qu'une flamme

Toujours suit !

La voix plus haute

Semble un grelot.

D'un nain qui saute

C'est le galop.

Il fuit, s'élance,

Puis en cadence

Sur un pied danse

Au bout d'un flot.

La rumeur approche.

L'écho la redit.

C'est comme la cloche

D'un couvent maudit ;

Comme un bruit de foule,

Qui tonne et qui roule,

Et tantôt s'écroule,

Et tantôt grandit,

Dieu ! la voix sépulcrale

Des Djinns !... Quel bruit ils font !

Fuyons sous la spirale

De l'escalier profond.

Déjà s'éteint ma lampe,

Et l'ombre de la rampe,

Qui le long du mur rampe,

Monte jusqu'au plafond.

C'est l'essaim des Djinns qui passe,

Et tourbillonne en sifflant !

Les ifs, que leur vol fracasse,

Craquent comme un pin brûlant.

Leur troupeau, lourd et rapide,

Volant dans l'espace vide,

Semble un nuage livide

Qui porte un éclair au flanc.

Ils sont tout près ! - Tenons fermée

Cette salle, où nous les narguons.

Quel bruit dehors ! Hideuse armée

De vampires et de dragons !

La poutre du toit descellée

Ploie ainsi qu'une herbe mouillée,

Et la vieille porte rouillée

Tremble, à déraciner ses gonds

Cris de l'enfer! voix qui hurle et qui pleure !

L'horrible essaim, poussé par l'aquilon,

Sans doute, ô ciel ! s'abat sur ma demeure.

Le mur fléchit sous le noir bataillon.

La maison crie et chancelle penchée,

Et l'on dirait que, du sol arrachée,

Ainsi qu'il chasse une feuille séchée,

Le vent la roule avec leur tourbillon !

Prophète ! si ta main me sauve

De ces impurs démons des soirs,

J'irai prosterner mon front chauve

Devant tes sacrés encensoirs !

Fais que sur ces portes fidèles

Meure leur souffle d'étincelles,

Et qu'en vain l'ongle de leurs ailes

Grince et crie à ces vitraux noirs !

Ils sont passés ! - Leur cohorte

S'envole, et fuit, et leurs pieds

Cessent de battre ma porte

De leurs coups multipliés.

L'air est plein d'un bruit de chaînes,

Et dans les forêts prochaines

Frissonnent tous les grands chênes,

Sous leur vol de feu pliés !

De leurs ailes lointaines

Le battement décroît,

Si confus dans les plaines,

Si faible, que l'on croit

Ouïr la sauterelle

Crier d'une voix grêle,

Ou pétiller la grêle

Sur le plomb d'un vieux toit.

D'étranges syllabes

Nous viennent encor ;

Ainsi, des arabes

Quand sonne le cor,

Un chant sur la grève

Par instants s'élève,

Et l'enfant qui rêve

Fait des rêves d'or.

Les Djinns funèbres,

Fils du trépas,

Dans les ténèbres

Pressent leurs pas ;

Leur essaim gronde :

Ainsi, profonde,

Murmure une onde

Qu'on ne voit pas.

Ce bruit vague

Qui s'endort,

C'est la vague

Sur le bord ;

C'est la plainte,

Presque éteinte,

D'une sainte

Pour un mort.

On doute

La nuit...

J'écoute :

-Tout fuit,

Tout passe

L'espace

Efface

Le bruit.

translation:


Walls, city,
And port,
Asylum
Of death,
Gray sea
Where breaks
Breeze,
All sleeps.


In the plain
Is born a noise.
It is the breath
Night.
It slab
Like a heart
That a flame
Always follows!


The higher voice
Seem a grelot.
Of a dwarf who jumps
It flees, springs,
Then in rate
On a foot dances
At the end of a flood.


The rumour approaches.
The echo repeats it.
It is like the bell
Of a convent maudit;
Like a noise of crowd,
Who thunders and who rolls,
And sometimes collapses,
And sometimes grows,


God! the sepulchral voice
Djinns!... What a noise they make!
Let us flee under the spiral
Deep staircase.
Already my lamp dies out,
And shade of the slope,
Who along the wall crawls,
Go up up to the ceiling.


It is the swarm of the Djinns which passes,
And whirls while whistling!
Yews, that their flight crashes to pieces,
Crack like an extreme pine.
Their herd, heavy and fast,
Flying in empty space,
Seem a livid cloud
Who carries a flash to the side.

They are near! - Tenons closed
This room, where narguons we them.
What a noise outside! Hideous army
Vampires and dragons!
The beam of the roof loosened
Ploie as well as a wet grass,
And the old rusted door
Tremble, to uproot its hinges!


Cries of the hell! voice which howls and which cries!
The horrible swarm, pushed by the north wind,
Undoubtedly, ô sky! falls down on my residence.
The wall bends under the black battalion.
The house shouts and staggers leaning,
And it would be said that, of the ground torn off,
As it drives out a dried sheet,
The wind rolls it with their swirl!


Prophet! if your hand saves me
Of these impure demons of the evenings,
I will go prosterner my face bald person
In front of your crowned encensoirs!
Make that on these faithful doors
Their breath of sparks dies,
And that in vain the nail of their wings
Squeak and shouts with these black stained glasses!


They passed! - Their troop
Fly away, and flees, and their feet
Cease beating my door
Their multiplied blows.
The air is full with a noise of chains,
And in the nearest forests
All the large oaks shiver,
Under their flight of fire folded!


Their remote wings
The beat decrease,
If confused in the plains,
If weak, that one believes
Ouïr the grasshopper
To shout of a spindly voice,
Or to sparkle hail
On the lead of an old roof.


Strange syllables
Us come encor;
Thus, of Arabic
When the horn sounds,
A song on the strike
Per moments rises,
And the child who dreams
Fact of the gold dreams.


Funeral Djinns,
Wire of the demise,
In darkness
Their steps have a presentiment of;
Their swarm thunders:
Thus, deep,
Murmur a wave
That one does not see.


This vague noise
Who falls asleep,
It is the wave
On the edge;
It is the complaint,
Almost extinct,
Of holy
For a death.


One doubts
The night...
I listen: -
All flees,
All passes
Space
Erase
Noise.

Victor Hugo, Les Djinns


And, well, in English now, from Ulysses-specialist and queen-favorite, Tennyson:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

(...)


Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Post: #83

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Post: #84

'The female of the species' Rudyard Kipling

When the Himalayan peasant meets the
he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster,
who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends
the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the
careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and
avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where
she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached
to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the
vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors,
turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the
things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him
isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands,
each confirms the other's tale -
The female of the species is more
deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations -
worm and savage otherwise, -
Man propounds negotiations,
Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him,
ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even
to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger -
Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue -
to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him,
every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue,
armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue,
lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be
deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture
for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity -
must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions -
not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by,
is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than
the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the
Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and
she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron),
her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions -
in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children,
Heaven help him who denies! -
He will meet no suave discussion,
but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring
as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges -
even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons -
even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish -
like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward,
when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council,
dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience,
he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice -
which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover,
that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern -
shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him,
and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more
deadly than the Male.

Post: #85

'Tonight I can write the saddest lines' Pablo Neruda


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Post: #86

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A.E. Housman

Post: #87

I'm a sucker for poems that are inspired by and written to the meter of a song. Makes it come alive in your head.

   





G

Post: #88

(01-09-2015 10:00 PM)Plato Wrote:  

I came to post this if it wasn't already here. I figured it would be one of the first few, and it was. You can't find any better advice for a man, except maybe this.






Approach.

Post: #89

(07-15-2017 03:32 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  'Tonight I can write the saddest lines' Pablo Neruda


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Post: #90

It's pretty cold here today, as England goes. We've got a few flakes of snow coming down. These lines from Milton came to me. This hymn is one I am familiar with from my childhood, having come across it a few times in an ancient chapel and cathedral or two. The recollection was a fond one:

On the morning of Christ's Nativity, By John Milton:

It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great master so to sympathise;
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded, that her maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready Harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,
And waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.




This in turn reminded me of one of my favourite of Milton's sonnets, that I hadn't thought about in years. I first came across it at school, and then again by chance when I was researching Sir Edward Coke during an idle moment at law school:

Sonnet XXI, By John Milton

Cyriack, whose grandsire on the Royal Bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause,
Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench,
To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth that after no repenting draws;
Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intend, and what the French.
To measure life learn though betimes, and know
Towards solid good what leads the nearest way;
For other things mild heaven a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

Post: #91

The Song of Wandering Aengus
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Post: #92

Dante

Inferno, Canto XXXIII

Lifting his mouth from his horrendous meal,
This sinner first wiped off his messy lips
In the hair remaining on the chewed-up skull,

Then spoke: “You want me to renew a grief
So desperate that just the thought of it,
Much less the telling, grips my heart with pain;

But if my words can be the seed to bear
The fruit of infamy for this betrayer,
Who feeds my hunger, then I shall speak – in tears.

I do not know your name, nor do I know
How you have come down here, but Florentine
You surely seem to be, to hear you speak.

First you should know I was Count Ugolino
And my neighbor here, Ruggieri the Archbishop;
Now I’ll tell you why I’m so unneighborly.

That I, trusting in him, was put in prison
Through his evil machinations, where I died,
This much I surely do not have to tell you.

What you could have not known, however, is
The inhuman circumstances of my death.
Now listen, then decide if he has wronged me!

Through a narrow slit of window high in that mew
(Which is called the tower of hunger, after me,
And I’ll not be the last to know that place)

I had watched moon after moon after moon go by,
When finally I dreamed the evil dream
Which ripped away the veil that hid my future.

I dreamed of this one here as lord and huntsman,
Pursuing the wolf and the wolf cubs up the mountain
(Which blocks the sight of Luca from the Pisans)

With skinny bitches, well trained and obedient;
He had out front as leaders of the pack
Gualandi with Sismondi and Lanfranchi.

A short run, and the father with his sons
Seemed to grow tired, and then I thought I saw
Long fangs sunk deep into their sides, ripped open.

When I awoke before the light of dawn,
I heard my children sobbing in their sleep
(You see they, too, were there), asking for bread.

If the thought of what my heart was telling me
Does not fill you with grief, how cruel you are!
If you are not weeping now - do you ever weep?

And then they awoke. It was around the time
They usually brought our food to us. But now
Each one of us was full of dread from dreaming;

Then from below I heard them driving nails
Into the dreadful tower’s door; with that,
I stared in silence at my flesh and blood.

I did not weep, I turned to stone inside;
They wept, and my little Anselmuccio spoke:
‘What is it, father? Why do you look that way?’

For them I held my tears back, saying nothing,
All of that day, and then all of that night,
Until another sun shone on the world.

A meager ray of sunlight found its way
To the misery of our cell, and I could see
Myself reflected four times in their faces;

I bit my hands in anguish. And my children,
Who thought that hunger made me bite my hands,
Were quick to draw up closer to me, saying:

‘O father, you would make us suffer less,
If you would feed on us: you were the one
Who gave us this sad flesh; you take it from us!’

I calmed myself to make them less unhappy.
That day we sat in silence, and the next day.
O pitiless earth! You should have swallowed us!

The fourth day came, and it was on that day
My Gaddo fell prostrate before my feet,
Crying: ‘Why don’t you help me? Why, my father?’

There he died. Just as you see me here,
I saw the other three fall one by one,
As the fifth day and sixth day passed. And I,

By then gone blind, groped over their dead bodies.
Though they were dead, two days I called their names.
Then hunger proved more powerful than grief.”

Post: #93

The Little Room


In Man’s heart is a little room.

He has named it

Oblivion



And things are arranged along its wall

That he does not wish

To think about.

Every time he pushes something in there

He closes the door very tightly.



But in hours when he is weary,

In the hours that walk around some midnights

When high fires have burned

To a low flicker

Then the little door swings on its hinges.

And no thing

Will make it stay closed

All of the time.



When he is near death

All the Velvet-footed Wanderers in there

Join the throng around his bed,

“We will not die,” they whisper

To one another.



While Beauty waits with drawn lips,

And dry eyes.

But, there is heard

The patter of a little sad rain

In her heart’s garden

Where some little flower buds

That were once thinking of the sun

Will never open

Because man keeps a little room

Of oblivion in his soul.



By Opal Whiteley

Post: #94

We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain - Poem by Charles BukowskiWe Ain'T Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain - Poem by Charles Bukowski

call it the greenhouse effect or whatever
but it just doesn’t rain like it
used to.
I particularly remember the rains of the
depression era.
there wasn’t any money but there was
plenty of rain.

it wouldn’t rain for just a night or
a day,
it would RAIN for 7 days and 7
nights
and in Los Angeles the storm drains
weren’t built to carry off taht much
water
and the rain came down THICK and
MEAN and
STEADY
and you HEARD it banging against
the roofs and into the ground
waterfalls of it came down
from roofs
and there was HAIL
big ROCKS OF ICE
bombing
exploding smashing into things
and the rain
just wouldn’t
STOP
and all the roofs leaked-
dishpans,
cooking pots
were placed all about;
they dripped loudly
and had to be emptied
again and
again.

the rain came up over the street curbings,
across the lawns, climbed up the steps and
entered the houses.
there were mops and bathroom towels,
and the rain often came up through the
toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling,
and all the old cars stood in the streets,
cars that had problems starting on a
sunny day,
and the jobless men stood
looking out the windows
at the old machines dying
like living things
out there.

the jobless men,
failures in a failing time
were imprisoned in their houses with their
wives and children
and their
pets.
the pets refused to go out
and left their waste in
strange places.

the jobless men went mad
confined with
their once beautiful wives.
there were terrible arguments
as notices of foreclosure
fell into the mailbox.
rain and hail, cans of beans,
bread without butter;fried
eggs, boiled eggs, poached
eggs; peanut butter
sandwiches, and an invisible
chicken in every pot.

my father, never a good man
at best, beat my mother
when it rained
as I threw myself
between them,
the legs, the knees, the
screams
until they
separated.

“I’ll kill you,” I screamed
at him. “You hit her again
and I’ll kill you!”

“Get that son-of-a-bitching
kid out of here!”

“no, Henry, you stay with
your mother!”

all the households were under
seige but I believe that ours
held more terror than the
average.

and at night
as we attempted to sleep
the rains still came down
and it was in bed
in the dark
watching the moon against
the scarred window
so bravely
holding out
most of the rain,
I thought of Noah and the
Ark
and I thought, it has come
again.
we all thought
that.

and then, at once, it would
stop.
and it always seemed to
stop
around 5 or 6 a.m.,
peaceful then,
but not an exact silence
because things continued to
drip
drip
drip

and there was no smog then
and by 8 a.m.
there was a
blazing yellow sunlight,
Van Gogh yellow-
crazy, blinding!
and then
the roof drains
relieved of the rush of
water
began to expand in the warmth:
PANG!PANG!PANG!
and everybody got up and looked outside
and there were all the lawns
still soaked
greener than green will ever
be
and there were birds
on the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
they hadn’t eaten decently
for 7 days and 7 nights
and they were weary of
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrows off
but the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
smaller and quicker,
got their
due.

the men stood on their porches
smoking cigarettes,
now knowing
they’d have to go out
there
to look for that job
that probably wasn’t
there, to start that car
that probably wouldn’t
start.

and the once beautiful
wives
stood in their bathrooms
combing their hair,
applying makeup,
trying to put their world back
together again,
trying to forget that
awful sadness that
gripped them,
wondering what they could
fix for
breakfast.

and on the radio
we were told that
school was now
open.
and
soon
there I was
on the way to school,
massive puddles in the
street,
the sun like a new
world,
my parents back in that
house,
I arrived at my classroom
on time.

Mrs. Sorenson greeted us
with, “we won’t have our
usual recess, the grounds
are too wet.”

“AW!” most of the boys
went.

“but we are going to do
something special at
recess,” she went on,
“and it will be
fun!”

well, we all wondered
what that would
be
and the two hour wait
seemed a long time
as Mrs.Sorenson
went about
teaching her
lessons.

I looked at the little
girls, they looked so
pretty and clean and
alert,
they sat still and
straight
and their hair was
beautiful
in the California
sunshine.

the the recess bells rang
and we all waited for the
fun.

then Mrs. Sorenson told us:
“now, what we are going to
do is we are going to tell
each other what we did
during the rainstorm!
we’ll begin in the front row
and go right around!
now, Michael, you’re first!. . .”

well, we all began to tell
our stories, Michael began
and it went on and on,
and soon we realized that
we were all lying, not
exactly lying but mostly
lying and some of the boys
began to snicker and some
of the girls began to give
them dirty looks and
Mrs.Sorenson said,
“all right! I demand a
modicum of silence
here!
I am interested in what
you did
during the rainstorm
even if you
aren’t!”

so we had to tell our
stories and they were
stories.

one girl said that
when the rainbow first
came
she saw God’s face
at the end of it.
only she didn’t say
which end.

one boy said he stuck
his fishing pole
out the window
and caught a little
fish
and fed it to his
cat.

almost everybody told
a lie.
the truth was just
too awful and
embarassing to tell.

then the bell rang
and recess was
over.

“thank you,” said Mrs.
Sorenson, “that was very
nice.
and tomorrow the grounds
will be dry
and we will put them
to use
again.”

most of the boys
cheered
and the little girls
sat very straight and
still,
looking so pretty and
clean and
alert,
their hair beautiful in a sunshine that
the world might never see
again.

Post: #95

An old poem a friend wrote regarding 9/11.

A Man Cried

A man sat at his desk making a living
Started his day with no sense of misgiving
A beautiful day one without any rival
The cool air heralded autumn’s arrival
The work was dull but needed to be done
He sat at the desk and dreamed of the sun
His reverie was broken as a buzz filled the room
People were talking and radios started to boom

A man sat confused as the buzz reached his ears
He heard something he’d never heard in all of his years
A plane struck a great building in a huge ball of flame
But he still didn’t know he would never be the same
He wondered if someone was playing a cruel joke
But the picture on the ‘net showed the black curling smoke
What could have happened to cause such a mistake?
But what happened next caused his poor heart to break

A man still wrestling with what he should think
Had his life turned around as quick as a wink
Another plane hit the great building’s twin
And it became clear someone was committing a sin
Two great towers had just been attacked
By planes full of people who had been hijacked.
Someone was trying to cause death and great strife
And now all he could think of was to call his wife

A man on the phone wakes his wife from a sleep
He tells her the story as she begins to weep
He is moved by the depth and truth of her tears
But he is helpless to soothe any of her fears
He still doesn’t understand what has just occurred
So far he only knows what he has heard
“Please come home”, she passionately pleads
And he knows to be home is just what he needs

A man drives home his hands grip the wheel
The day is still beautiful but now it’s surreal
He can’t seem to get from the car enough speed
The desire to get home is an overwhelming need
Another plane crashed on a Pennsylvania farm
Forced down by its hostages before others it could harm
The radio tells of one tower’s great fall
He tries in vain to make some sense of it all

A man is at home in the arms of his wife
He looks up at her the love of his life
She touches his face almost in disbelief
Upon her face is a look of relief
He is home now and they were together
As one now this day they would be able to weather
They gave each other strength because of their love
And both said a prayer to the Good Lord above

A man sat down and watched the screen flicker
He thought he understood but the pictures made him sicker
The words on the radio and the stills on the ‘net
Couldn’t prepare him for what he would get
Again and again he saw planes crash and explode
He saw masses of great rubble blocking the road
And then he saw something he never forgot
And the second great tower crashed down from its spot

A man sat there numb but could not look away
He watched the pictures throughout the whole day
What he was seeing caused his thoughts to become swirled
This tragedy was big enough to unite most of the world
As each picture was shown of an exploding plane
People from all over the globe felt the same pain
But there were some who did not and reacted with glee
Who actually took joy in what they could see

A man was angry and now he knew hate
He hated the people that had caused this fate
He hated the people that danced all around
Laughing and chanting as innocents lie in the ground
People like him who were just making a living
Went to work with no sense of misgiving
Under the umbrella of an unmatched blue sky
They had no idea that this was their day to die

A man was alone in the dark of the night
His wife was asleep he had tucked her in tight
He reflected on what he had witnessed that day
But there was really nothing he could manage to say
He felt so numb the whole day was a blur
Then from deep in his soul something started to stir
He felt it building up and though he tried
A man sat down and like a child he cried

Post: #96

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Post: #97

This one makes me think of Donald Trump

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Post: #98

Neither are technically poems, but these two Townes Van Zandt songs might as well be:
Our Mother The Mountain
"My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom
The moon's dancin' purple
All through her black hair
And a ladies-in-waiting she stands 'neath my window
And the sun will rise soon
On the false and the fair
She tells me she comes from my mother the mountain
Her skin fits her tightly
And her lips do not lie
She silently slips from her throat a medallion
Slowly she twirls it
In front of my eyes
I watch her, I love her, I long for to touch her
The satin she's wearin'
Is shimmering blue
Outside my window her ladies are sleeping
My dogs have gone hunting
The howling is through
So I reach for her hand and her eyes turns to poison
And her hair turns to splinters,
And her flesh turns to brine
She leaps cross the room, she stands in the window
And screams that my first-born
Will surely be blind
She throws herself out to the black of the nightfall
She's parted her lips
But she makes not a sound
I fly down the stairway, and I run to the garden
No trace of my true love
Is there to be found
So walk these hills lightly, and watch who you're lovin'
By mother the mountain
I swear that it's true
Love not a woman with hair black as midnight
And her dress made of satin
All shimmering blue"

Silver Ships of Andilar
"Of those that sailed the silver ships
From Andilar I am the last
The deeds that rang our youthful dreams
It seems shall go undone
North for the shores of Valinor
Our bows and crimson sails were made
Our captains were strong, our lances long
And our liege the holy king
The hills did turn from green to blue
And vanish as on the decks we watched
But every thought in that noble company
Was forward bound
To the lifeless plains of Valinor
Where reigns the dark and frozen one
And with tongues afire and glorious eyes
We pledged our mission be
The clime from mild to bitter ran
The wind from fair to fierce did blow
Oath and prayer did turn to thoughts
Of homes left far behind
Longed every man for some glimpse of land
And the host that did await us there
But each new day brought only a sea
And sky of ice and gray
Thanks give no word can drag you through
Those endless weeks our ships did roll
Thanks give you cannot see those sails
And faces bleach and draw
Ice we drank and leather did chew
For the oceans are unwholesome there
The dead that slid into the seas
Did freeze before our eyes
Then a wind did fling the ships apart
Each one to go her separate way
The sky did howl, the hull did groan
For how long I do not know
And what men were left when the winds had ceased
Grew dull and low of countenance
For soldiers denied their battle plain
On comrades soon must turn
So one by one we died alone
Some by hunger, some by steel
Bodies froze where they did fall
Their souls unsanctified
Until only another and I were left
Then just before his flame did fail
We shone ourselves brothers-in-arms
To serve the holy king
Perhaps this shall reach Andilar
Although I know not how it can
For once again he's hurled his wind
Upon the silver prow
But if it should my words are these
Arise young men fine ships to build
And set them north for Valinor
'neath standards proud as fire"

Post: #99

(07-15-2017 03:32 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  'Tonight I can write the saddest lines' Pablo Neruda

This poem was published when Neruda was 19. Unbelievable depth of emotion and poetic genius.

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Original Spanish

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro - Mario Benedetti

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
tiene una claridad que nos alumbra
de modo que si ocurre un desconsuelo
un apagón o una noche sin luna
es conveniente y hasta imprescindible
tener a mano una mujer desnuda.

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
genera un resplandor que da confianza
entonces dominguea el almanaque
vibran en su rincón las telarañas
y los ojos felices y felinos
miran y de mirar nunca se cansan.

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
es una vocación para las manos
para los labios es casi un destino
y para el corazón un despilfarro
una mujer desnuda es un enigma
y siempre es una fiesta descifrarlo.

Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
genera una luz propia y nos enciende
el cielo raso se convierte en cielo
y es una gloria no ser inocente
una mujer querida o vislumbrada
desbarata por una vez la muerte.


A naked woman in the dark
has a clarity that shines on us
so if a grief, a blackout or a moonless night happen
it is convenient and even essential
have about a naked woman

a naked woman in the dark
generates a glow that gives confidence
then the almanac spends Sunday
the cobwebs vibrate in his corner
and the happy and feline eyes
look and never get tired of looking

a naked woman in the dark
it is a vocation for hands
for the lips is almost a destination
and for the heart is a waste
a naked woman is a riddle
and it's always a party to decode it

a naked woman in the dark
generates her own light and turn us on
the ceiling becomes a sky
and it is a glory not to be innocent
a beloved or glimpsed woman
thwarts death for once.

Post: #100

The Man In The Glass
- Dale Wimbrow

When you get what you want in your struggle for self,
And the world makes you king for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn’t a man’s father, mother or wife,
Whose judgement upon him must pass,
The fellow whose verdict counts most in life,
Is the man staring back from the glass.

He’s the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear to the end,
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test,
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But the final reward will be heartache and tears,
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.


(Also, anything by Kipling) !