Poetry for the people

[Professor Walsh]

Poetry is bite-sized goodness, perfect for sharing. Want to share something? Or tear something apart?

Since there's been a bit of discussion about melodrama lately, I thought this sonnett by Elizabeth Barrett Browning was as good a start for a thread as any:

XXXV
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change
That’s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.
 

oh dont even get me started on melodramatic poetry

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

That was lovely, Professor. Made me think of a certain scene involving a certain redhead. I am a big sucker for melodrama, me.

Since we've been talking about music and funerals, I thought I'd whip up some Wallace Stevens.

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Strangely, no ice cream in Forever.

 

[Priceless]

I'm a sucker for poetry . . . I hope this counts . .

Love, I've heard it said, sometimes flies and sometimes walks, with one it runs and with another it creeps, some it cools and some it burns, some it wounds and others it kills, in one moment it starts its race of passion and in the same instant concludes and ends it; in the morning it makes siege to a fortress and by evening conquers it, for there is no force that can resist it. That being so, what is it that frightens you?

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

 

[Ethan Reigns]

A bit of late 19th century doggerel from a British magazine:

Ten weary footsore travellers
All in a woeful plight
Sought shelter at a wayside inn
One dark and stormy night

"Nine rooms, no more," the landlord said
"Have I to offer you.
To each of eight a single bed
But the ninth must serve for two."

A din arose. The troubled host
Could only scratch his head
For of those tired men no two
Would occupy one bed.

The puzzled host was soon at ease -
He was a clever man -
And so to please his guests devised
The most ingenious plan:

In room marked A two men were placed,
The third was lodged in B,
The fourth to C was then assigned,
The fifth retired to D.

In E the sixth was tucked away,
In F the seventh man,
The eighth and ninth in G and H
And then to A he ran,

Wherein the host, as I have said,
Had laid two travellers by;
Then taking one, the tenth and last,
Lodged him safe in I.

Nine single rooms, a room for each
Were made to serve for ten.
And this is it that puzzles me,
And many wiser men.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

I ♥ poetry! I'll start with a true timeless classic:

I met a traveller 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.”

- Ozymandias by Percy Shelley

 

[ILLYRIAN]

But was that a timeless classic?
Had I read it, it would have taken time,
But had I not read it,
It would not have taken any time at all.
So gone is the theory it's timeless,
And if it is never read it can't claim,
To be one such thing of a classic.
If you don't read this it will never be,
Heralded as a timeless wonder,
Though if you do read it, it still won't.

 

[Priceless]

All my anthologies are about love or war . . . so here's another love 'poem' (sorry, I am so damn sappy 😳)

From Julie de l'Espinasse to Monsieur de Guibert

My dear, I am in torment, I love you and await you.

Dated: every moment of my life

(From La Nouvelle Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

@HowiMetdaSlayer Ozymandias reminds me of Illyria. Look what happened to me, ye mighty, and despair 😛 The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

Anywho, let's read some Walt Whitman....

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair,
Little streams pass’d over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended trembling from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with the pendant and bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.

 

[Professor Walsh]

That was lovely, Professor. Made me think of a certain scene involving a certain redhead. I am a big sucker for melodrama, me.

But did you catch the actual BtVS reference?

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

But did you catch the actual BtVS reference?

No, but I googled it. Aaaaw! Melt! 😀

I think it works very well with Kennedy speaking to Willow though, don't you think?

 

[Grace]

Here's some translated Czesław Miłosz that I got by email today:

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own–but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late. And the truth is laborious.

 

[Professor Walsh]

No, but I googled it. Aaaaw! Melt! 😀

And whilst you are melting, do you find the connection to @RachM 's post in Why we love Angel?

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

And whilst you are melting, do you find the connection to @RachM 's post in Why we love Angel?

Did this turn into a Bangel intervention? If so, I surrender 😛

I see how the poem relates to Bangel, because Angel carries grief with him, and he is unsure about sharing that baggage with Buffy, however, I can't see a direct connection with what Rachel writes.

Damn, I am an idiot. "Let me count the ways..."

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

- Alone by Edgar Allan Poe

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Please let me tell you in brief
what has always been my belief,
Though you may have a passion
for beauty and fashion,
What matters
is what's underneath.
- Kate Moss

It's so poignant and heartfelt. Very deep stuff.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

James Fenton - The Skip - A very English poem 😛

I took my life and threw it on the skip,
Reckoning the next-door neighbours wouldn’t mind
If my life hitched a lift to the council tip
With their dry rot and rubble. What you find

With skips is – the whole community joins in.
Old mattresses appear, doors kind of drift
Along with all that won’t fit in the bin
And what the bin-men can’t be fished to shift.

I threw away my life, and there it lay
And grew quite sodden. `What a dreadful shame,’
Clucked some old bag and sucked her teeth: ‘The way
The young these days … no values … me, I blame…’

But I blamed no one. Quality control
Had loused it up, and that was that.
‘Nough said. I couldn’t stick at home. I took a stroll
And passed the skip, and left my life for dead.

Without my life, the beer was just as foul,
The landlord still as filthy as his wife,
The chicken in the basket was an owl,
And no one said: `Ee, Jim-lad, whur’s thee life?’

Well, I got back that night the worse for wear,
But still just capable of single vision ;
Looked in the skip; my life – it wasn’t there!
Some bugger’d nicked it – without my permission.

Okay, so I got angry and began
To shout, and woke the street. Okay. Okay!
And I was sick all down the neighbour’s van.
And I disgraced myself on the par-kay.

And then … you know how if you’ve had a few
You’ll wake at dawn, all healthy, like sea breezes,
Raring to go, and thinking: `Clever you!
You’ve got away with it.’ And then, oh Jesus,

It hits you. Well, that morning, just at six
I woke, got up and looked down at the skip.
There lay my life, still sodden, on the bricks;
There lay my poor old life, arse over tip.

Or was it mine? Still dressed, I went downstairs
And took a long cool look. The truth was dawning.
Someone had just exchanged my life for theirs.
Poor fool, I thought – I should have left a warning.

Some bastard saw my life and thought it nicer
Than what he had. Yet what he’d had seemed fine.
He’d never caught his fingers in the slicer
The way I’d managed in that life of mine.

His life lay glistening in the rain, neglected,
Yet still a decent, an authentic life.
Some people I can think of, I reflected
Would take that thing as soon as you’d say Knife.

It seemed a shame to miss a chance like that.
I brought the life in, dried it by the stove.
It looked so fetching, stretched out on the mat.
I tried it on. It fitted, like a glove.

And now, when some local bat drops off the twig
And new folk take the house, and pull up floors
And knock down walls and hire some kind of big
Container (say, a skip) for their old doors,

I’ll watch it like a hawk, and every day
I’ll make at least – oh – half a dozen trips.
I’ve furnished an existence in that way.
You’d not believe the things you find on skips.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

My Heart Is A Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole
- Kristen Stewart

I reared digital moonlight
You read its clock, scrawled neon across that black
Kismetly . . . ubiquitously crest fallen
Thrown down to strafe your foothills
. . . I’ll suck the bones pretty.

Your nature perforated the abrasive organ pumps
Spray painted everything known to man
Stream rushed through and all out into
Something Whilst the crackling stare down sun snuck
Through our windows boarded up
He hit your flint face and it sparked.

And I bellowed and you parked
We reached Marfa
One honest day up on this freedom pole
Devils not done digging
He’s speaking in tongues all along the pan handle
And this pining erosion is getting dust in

My eyes
And I’m drunk on your morsels
And so I look down the line
Your every twitch hand drum salute
Salutes mine.

 

[GwenRaiden]

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill’s I hear the blast,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
A’ day they fare but sparely;
And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.


- Up in the Morning Early, Burns

 

[Ethan Reigns]

I met one of my favourite musicians: Weird Al Yankovic, appropriately enough on Halloween of 1998. Some of the magic must have rubbed off on me because I like doing parody lyrics of music. Neko Case is a familiar name from the west coast of Canada where my daughter went for her master's at the University of Victoria and one of Neko's songs was "Thrice All-American" about growing up in Tacoma Washington. I changed the lyrics from the original:

Artist: Neko Case
Album: Furnace Room Lullaby
Song: Thrice All American


I want to tell you about my hometown
It's a dusty old jewel in the South Puget Sound
Well the factories churn and the timbers all cut down
And life goes by slow in Tacoma

People they laugh when they hear you're from my town
They say it's a sour and used up old place
I defended its honor, shrugged off the put downs
You know that you're poor, from Tacoma

Buildings are empty like ghettos or ghost-towns
It gives me a chill to think what was inside
I can't seem to fathom the dark of my history
I invented my own in Tacoma

There was nothing to put me in love with the good life
I'm in league with the gangs and the guns and the crime
There was no hollow promise that life would reward you
There was nowhere to hide in Tacoma

People who built it they loved it like I do
There was hope in the trainyard of something inspired
Once was I on it, but it's been painted shut
I found passion for life in Tacoma

Well I don't make it home much, I sadly neglect you
But that's how you like it away from the world
God bless California, make way for the Wal-Mart
I hope they don't find you Tacoma

The people in Victoria like getting a little buzzed and many if them got prescriptions for marijuana to control glaucoma, so I transmogrified the song into this:

Glaucoma

I want to tell you about what's been goin' down
I'm finding my eyesight just isn't that sound
Sharp pain in my eyes when the lighting it goes down
The doctor says I have got glaucoma

My eyeball pressure goes up and won't come down
Everyone says they see pain in my face
There's a halo around all the streetlights in downtown
They say it's a sign of glaucoma

The doctor he said that the pressure must come down
Trabecular meshwork is blocked up inside
He said that the treatment is not such a mystery
He prescribed me some weed for glaucoma

Now I'm constantly buzzed and I'm living the good life
Prescription says I'm not committing a crime
Got busted when I asked a cop for his lighter
But they let me off for glaucoma

I can't see you now but you can't see me too
Not blindness but smoke from the bong when it's fired
I used to worry but I spend my days half-cut
I'm having a ball with glaucoma

Now I get the munchies and the local economy's
Thriving from making me round as the world
God bless the Dorito's I get at the Walmart
Now don't you go blind me glaucoma.

The music is here:

[youtube]

I did a few more parody songs for Rockstar Supernova and other such things so if you like this, let me know. BTW my daughter played this a Carolyn Mark's bar (who often sings with Neko Case) and it was a hit. She even got invited to Thanksgiving dinner by one of the people who heard it and made a lot of friends just from the music.

 

[Grace]

Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes
By D. Nurkse

Ignorance will carry me through the last days,
the blistering cities, over briny rivers
swarming with jellyfish, as once my father
carried me from the car up the tacked carpet
to the white bed, and if I woke, I never knew it.