Poems from your favorite poets

Chip McFlenniganChip McFlennigan Posts: 1,162
edited December 2013 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
Go ahead & post 'em.

Be sure to give credit.



Kansas, of
sand plums & muddy rivers
from where I come

where,
once all roads led out, east, west,
into high
ways & winding sea roads,
where Zukofsky

up from Willow, Brooklyn Heights,
the streets of Gloucester out to Olson, Fort Point,
Ruggles at the Cut-Leaf Maples
Motel, Vermont,

& Ives under Danbury's
Maples,

are now ways homeward.

-Ronald Johnson
I knew it all along, see?
Post edited by Unknown User on
«13456

Comments

  • peacefrompaulpeacefrompaul Posts: 25,293
    Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
    Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
    As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
    "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -
    Only this, and nothing more."

    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
    And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
    Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
    From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
    For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
    Nameless here for evermore.

    And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
    Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
    "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
    Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
    This it is, and nothing more."

    Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
    "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
    But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
    That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; -
    Darkness there, and nothing more.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
    Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
    This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" -
    Merely this, and nothing more.

    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
    Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
    "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
    Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
    Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
    'Tis the wind and nothing more."

    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
    In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
    Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
    Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
    Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

    Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
    By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
    "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
    Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore -
    Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
    Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
    Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
    Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door -
    Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
    With such name as "Nevermore."

    But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
    That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
    Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered -
    Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before -
    On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
    Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

    Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
    "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
    Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
    Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
    Of 'Never - nevermore'."

    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
    Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
    Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
    What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
    Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
    To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
    On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
    But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
    She shall press, ah, nevermore!

    Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
    Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
    "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee
    Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore:
    Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
    Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
    Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
    On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore -
    Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"
    Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil - prophet still, if bird or devil!
    By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
    Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
    Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting -
    "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
    Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
    Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
    Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
    On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
    And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
    And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
    Shall be lifted - nevermore!
    - Edgar Allan Poe
  • Lisbon Revisited (1923)

    No, I don’t want anything.
    I already said I don’t want anything.

    Don’t come to me with conclusions!
    Death is the only conclusion.

    Don’t offer me aesthetics!
    Don’t talk to me of morals!
    Take metaphysics away from here!
    Don’t try to sell me complete systems, don’t bore me
    with the breakthroughsOf science (of science, my God, of science!)—
    Of science, of the arts, of modern civilization!

    What harm did I ever do to the gods?

    If you’ve got the truth, you can keep it!

    I’m a technician, but my technique is limited to the technical sphere,
    Apart from which I’m crazy, and with every right to be so.
    With every right to be so, do you hear?

    Leave me alone, for God’s sake!

    You want me to be married, futile, predictable and taxable?
    You want me to be the opposite of this, the opposite of anything?

    If I were someone else, I’d go along with you all.
    But since I’m what I am, lay off!
    Go to hell without me,
    Or let me go there by myself!
    Why do we have to go together?

    Don’t grab me by the arm!
    I don’t like my arm being grabbed. I want to be alone,
    I already told you that I can only be alone!
    I’m sick of you wanting me to be sociable!

    O blue sky—the same one I knew as a child—
    Perfect and empty eternal truth!
    O gentle, silent, ancestral Tagus,
    Tiny truth in which the sky is mirrored!
    O sorrow revisited, Lisbon of bygone days today!
    You give me nothing, you take nothing from me, you’re
    nothing I feel is me.

    Leave me in peace!
    I won’t stay long, for I never stay long...
    And as long as Silence and the Abyss hold off,
    I want to be alone!

    -Fernando Pessoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa)

    (Not my translation but I found it pretty accurate.)
    ~Can't escape from the common rule
    If you hate something, don't you do it too...~
  • MK1980MK1980 Nottingham, UK Posts: 291
    The Fourth Poem from A E Housman's A Shropshire Lad

    REVEILLE

    Wake: the silver dusk returning
    Up the beach of darkness brims,
    And the ship of sunrise burning
    Strands upon the eastern rims.

    Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
    Trampled to the floor it spanned,
    And the tent of night in tatters
    Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

    Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
    Hear the drums of morning play;
    Hark, the empty highways crying
    "Who'll beyond the hills away?"

    Towns and countries woo together,
    Forelands beacon, belfries call;
    Never lad that trod on leather
    Lived to feast his heart with all.

    Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
    Sunlit pallets never thrive;
    Morns abed and daylight slumber
    Were not meant for man alive.

    Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
    Breath's a ware that will not keep.
    Up, lad: when the journey's over
    There'll be time enough to sleep.
    How I choose to feel is how I am...I will not lose my faith, It's an inside job today.
    Manchester Aug 17th 2009
    Hyde Park June 25th 2010
    Manchester June 20th & 21st 2012
    Leeds July 14th 2014
  • Roses are red, Violets are blue

    I have a gun, get in the van.

    - Anonymous
    MSG II 5/21/10
    Tres Mts. Gramercy Theatre 3/26/11
    *formerly manutd3581
  • justamjustam Posts: 21,392
    Here's one for Halloween-->

    Nothing But Death by Pablo Neruda


    There are cemeteries that are lonely,
    graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
    the heart moving through a tunnel,
    in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
    like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
    as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
    as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

    And there are corpses,
    feet made of cold and sticky clay,
    death is inside the bones,
    like a barking where there are no dogs,
    coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
    growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

    Sometimes I see alone
    coffins under sail,
    embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
    with bakers who are as white as angels,
    and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
    caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
    the river of dark purple,
    moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
    filled by the sound of death which is silence.

    Death arrives among all that sound
    like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
    comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
    finger in it,
    comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
    throat.
    Nevertheless its steps can be heard
    and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

    I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
    but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
    of violets that are at home in the earth,
    because the face of death is green,
    and the look death gives is green,
    with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
    and the somber color of embittered winter.

    But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
    lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
    death is inside the broom,
    the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
    it is the needle of death looking for thread.

    Death is inside the folding cots:
    it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
    in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
    it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
    and the beds go sailing toward a port
    where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&
  • pandorapandora Posts: 21,855
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OesThGR_ ... re=related


    "I breathed my soul back into me"


    each time I read I am brand new :D
  • tremorstremors Posts: 8,051
    In general Ted Hughes isn't a favourite poet of mine - but I hold Birthday Letters amongst the most powerful things I have ever read. This is the first one (I think)


    Fulbright Scholars

    Where was it, in the Strand? A display
    Of news items, in photographs.
    For some reason I noticed it.
    A picture of that year's intake
    Of Fulbright Scholars. Just arriving -
    Or arrived. Or some of them.
    Were you among them? I studied it.
    Not too minutely, wondering
    Which of them I might meet.
    I remember that thought. Not
    Your face. No doubt I scanned particularly
    The girls. Maybe I noticed you.
    Maybe I weighed you up, feeling unlikely.
    Noted your long hair, loose waves -
    Your Veronica Lake bang. Not what it hid.
    It would appear blond. And your grin.
    Your exaggerated American
    Grin for the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners.
    Then I forgot. Yet I remember
    The picture : the Fulbright Scholars.
    With their luggage? It seems unlikely.
    Could they have come as a team? That's as I remember.
    From a stall near Charing Cross Station.
    It was the first fresh peach I had ever tasted.
    I could hardly believe how delicious.
    At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
    By my ignorance of the simplest things.


    -Ted Hughes
    Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
    Send my credentials to the house of detention

    lettherecordsplay1x.gif?t=1377796878
  • Der Panther - Rainer Maria Rilke

    Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
    so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
    Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
    und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

    Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
    der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
    ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
    in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

    Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
    sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
    geht durch der Glieder angespannter Stille -
    und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
  • rollingsrollings unknown Posts: 7,124
    I’ve Dreamed So Much of You

    I’ve dreamed so much of you that you’ve lost substance.
    Is there still time to reach your living body
    and kiss your mouth, the origin
    of the voice most dear to me?

    I’ve dreamed so much of you that my arms, accustomed
    to crossing on my own chest when I clutch at your shadow,
    might no longer fold around the contours of your body.
    Faced with the embodiment of that which haunts me
    and has ruled me for days and years,
    I would, no doubt, become a shadow.
    Our feelings balance.

    I’ve dreamed so much of you that it’s past time,
    Without doubt, that I wake.
    I sleep standing up, my body bared
    To all the incarnations of life, of love,
    Of you—the only who counts for me today.
    I could less easily touch your brow
    and your lips than the lips and brow
    of the next passerby.

    I’ve dreamed so much of you, walked, talked,
    slept with your ghost,
    that perhaps there’s nothing left for me now
    but to be a ghost among ghosts,
    a hundred times fainter than the shadow that walks
    and will walk, joyous,
    on the sundial of your life.

    —Julia Fine
  • IF

    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!


    Rudyard Kipling
  • pandorapandora Posts: 21,855
    Eye's of the sun.


    If you had the time
    to look inside my mind
    could you hold the piece's of me
    that run thru thought's and hide.

    The foot prints of your life
    are followed by the dreams
    you've left behind
    and the smiles that you take
    from the faces that you make
    are etched into the eyes of the sun.

    When I close my eyes I see the traces
    of a dream you have left behind
    on the shores of changing tides
    and all I can do is run to chase
    the faces that you make.

    The smiles that you take
    and the dreams you've left behind
    leave me running thru thoughts to hide
    in the burning eyes of the sun.

    The crazy smile of silense winks
    as the foot steps we make
    walk further from the dreams we leave behind.



    by Godfather
  • THE ECSTACY.
    by John Donne


    WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
    A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
    The violet's reclining head,
    Sat we two, one another's best.

    Our hands were firmly cemented
    By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
    Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
    Our eyes upon one double string.

    So to engraft our hands, as yet
    Was all the means to make us one ;
    And pictures in our eyes to get
    Was all our propagation.

    As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
    Suspends uncertain victory,
    Our souls—which to advance their state,
    Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.

    And whilst our souls negotiate there,
    We like sepulchral statues lay ;
    All day, the same our postures were,
    And we said nothing, all the day.

    If any, so by love refined,
    That he soul's language understood,
    And by good love were grown all mind,
    Within convenient distance stood,

    He—though he knew not which soul spake,
    Because both meant, both spake the same—
    Might thence a new concoction take,
    And part far purer than he came.

    This ecstasy doth unperplex
    (We said) and tell us what we love ;
    We see by this, it was not sex ;
    We see, we saw not, what did move :

    But as all several souls contain
    Mixture of things they know not what,
    Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
    And makes both one, each this, and that.

    A single violet transplant,
    The strength, the colour, and the size—
    All which before was poor and scant—
    Redoubles still, and multiplies.

    When love with one another so
    Interanimates two souls,
    That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
    Defects of loneliness controls.

    We then, who are this new soul, know,
    Of what we are composed, and made,
    For th' atomies of which we grow
    Are souls, whom no change can invade.

    But, O alas ! so long, so far,
    Our bodies why do we forbear?
    They are ours, though not we ; we are
    Th' intelligences, they the spheres.

    We owe them thanks, because they thus
    Did us, to us, at first convey,
    Yielded their senses' force to us,
    Nor are dross to us, but allay.

    On man heaven's influence works not so,
    But that it first imprints the air ;
    For soul into the soul may flow,
    Though it to body first repair.

    As our blood labours to beget
    Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
    Because such fingers need to knit
    That subtle knot, which makes us man ;

    So must pure lovers' souls descend
    To affections, and to faculties,
    Which sense may reach and apprehend,
    Else a great prince in prison lies.

    To our bodies turn we then, that so
    Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
    Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
    But yet the body is his book.

    And if some lover, such as we,
    Have heard this dialogue of one,
    Let him still mark us, he shall see
    Small change when we're to bodies gone.
    I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing......Only I will remain—Dune, George Herbert
    In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!—Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    The Laughing Heart - Charles Bukowski

    your life is your life
    don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
    be on the watch.
    there are ways out.
    there is a light somewhere.
    it may not be much light but
    it beats the darkness.
    be on the watch.
    the gods will offer you chances.
    know them.
    take them.
    you can’t beat death but
    you can beat death in life, sometimes.
    and the more often you learn to do it,
    the more light there will be.
    your life is your life.
    know it while you have it.
    you are marvelous
    the gods wait to delight
    in you.
  • justamjustam Posts: 21,392
    Byrnzie wrote:
    The Laughing Heart - Charles Bukowski

    your life is your life
    don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
    be on the watch.
    there are ways out.
    there is a light somewhere.
    it may not be much light but
    it beats the darkness.
    be on the watch.
    the gods will offer you chances.
    know them.
    take them.
    you can’t beat death but
    you can beat death in life, sometimes.
    and the more often you learn to do it,
    the more light there will be.
    your life is your life.
    know it while you have it.
    you are marvelous
    the gods wait to delight
    in you.

    I like this one!
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Come Dance with Kitty Stobling


    No, no, no, I know I was not important as I moved
    Through the colourful country, I was but a single
    Item in the picture, the namer, not the beloved.
    O tedious man with whom no gods commingle.
    Beauty, who has described beauty? Once upon a time
    I had a myth that was a lie but it served:
    Trees walking across the crest of hills and my rhyme
    Cavorting on mile-high stilts and the unnerved
    Crowds looking up with terror in their rational faces.
    O dance with Kitty Stobling I outrageously
    Cried out-of-sense to them, while their timorous paces
    Stumbled behind Jove's page boy paging me.
    I had a very pleasant journey, thank you sincerely
    For giving me my madness back, or nearly.

    -Patrick Kavanagh
    Copyright © Estate of Katherine Kavanagh
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    edited January 2013
    justam wrote:
    Byrnzie wrote:
    The Laughing Heart - Charles Bukowski

    your life is your life
    don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
    be on the watch.
    there are ways out.
    there is a light somewhere.
    it may not be much light but
    it beats the darkness.
    be on the watch.
    the gods will offer you chances.
    know them.
    take them.
    you can’t beat death but
    you can beat death in life, sometimes.
    and the more often you learn to do it,
    the more light there will be.
    your life is your life.
    know it while you have it.
    you are marvelous
    the gods wait to delight
    in you.

    I like this one!

    Then you might like this too:


    Tom Waits reads Bukowski's poem 'The Laughing Heart':

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhM-Dm2PHHo
    Post edited by Byrnzie on
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    edited November 2011
    "Dog," by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (From 'A Coney Island of The Mind')

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlVQhl8GxkI

    The dog trots freely in the street
    and sees reality
    and the things he sees
    are bigger than himself
    and the things he sees
    are his reality
    Drunks in doorways
    Moons on trees
    The dog trots freely thru the street
    and the things he sees
    are smaller than himself
    Fish on newsprint
    Ants in holes
    Chickens in Chinatown windows
    their heads a block away
    The dog trots freely in the street
    and the things he smells
    smell something like himself
    The dog trots freely in the street
    past puddles and babies
    cats and cigars
    poolrooms and policemen
    He doesn't hate cops
    He merely has no use for them
    and he goes past them
    and past the dead cows hung up whole
    in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
    He would rather eat a tender cow
    than a tough policeman
    though either might do
    And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
    and past Coit's Tower
    and past Congressman Doyle of the Unamerican Committee
    He's afraid of Coit's Tower
    but he's not afraid of Congressman Doyle
    although what he hears is very discouraging
    very depressing
    very absurd
    to a sad young dog like himself
    to a serious dog like himself
    But he has his own free world to live in
    His own fleas to eat
    He will not be muzzled
    Congressman Doyle is just another
    fire hydrant
    to him
    The dog trots freely in the street
    and has his own dog's life to live
    and to think about
    and to reflect upon
    touching and tasting and testing everything
    investigating everything
    without benefit of perjury
    a real realist
    with a real tale to tell
    and a real tail to tell it with
    a real live
    barking
    democratic dog
    engaged in real
    free enterprise
    with something to say
    about ontology
    something to say
    about reality
    and how to see it
    and how to hear it
    with his head cocked sideways
    at streetcorners
    as if he is just about to have
    his picture taken
    for Victor Records
    listening for
    His Master's Voice
    and looking
    like a living questionmark
    into the
    great gramophone
    of puzzling existence
    with its wondrous hollow horn
    which always seems
    just about to spout forth
    some Victorious answer
    to everything
    Post edited by Byrnzie on
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    edited November 2011
    I Am Waiting - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13NWp3cuvr0

    I am waiting for my case to come up
    and I am waiting
    for a rebirth of wonder
    and I am waiting
    for someone to really discover America
    and wail
    and I am waiting
    for the discovery
    of a new symbolic western frontier
    and I am waiting
    for the American Eagle
    to really spread its wings
    and straighten up and fly right
    and I am waiting
    for the Age of Anxiety
    to drop dead
    and I am waiting
    for the war to be fought
    which will make the world safe
    for anarchy
    and I am waiting
    for the final withering away
    of all governments
    and I am perpetually awaiting
    a rebirth of wonder

    I am waiting for the Second Coming
    and I am waiting
    for a religious revival
    to sweep through the state of Arizona
    and I am waiting
    for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
    and I am waiting
    for them to prove
    that God is really American
    and I am waiting
    to see God on television
    piped’ onto church altars
    if only they can find
    the right channel
    to tune in on
    and I am waiting
    for the Last Supper to be served again
    with a strange new appetizer
    and I am perpetually awaiting
    a rebirth of wonder

    I am waiting for my number to be called
    and I am waiting
    for the Salvation Army to take over
    and I am waiting
    for the meek to be blessed
    and inherit the earth
    without taxes and I am waiting
    for forests and animals
    to reclaim the earth as theirs
    and I am waiting
    for a way to be devised
    to destroy all nationalisms
    without killing anybody
    and I am waiting
    for linnets and planets to fall like rain
    and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
    to lie down together again
    in a new rebirth of wonder

    I am waiting for the Great Divide to ‘be crossed
    and I am anxiously waiting
    for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
    by an obscure general practitioner
    and I am waiting
    for the storms of life
    to be over
    and I am waiting
    to set sail for happiness
    and I am waiting
    for a reconstructed Mayflower
    to reach America
    with its picture story and tv rights
    sold in advance to the natives
    and I am waiting
    for the lost music to sound again
    in the Lost Continent
    in a new rebirth of wonder

    I am waiting for the day
    that maketh all things clear
    and I am awaiting retribution
    for what America did
    to Tom Sawyer
    and I am waiting
    for the American Boy
    to take off Beauty’s clothes
    and get on top of her
    and I am waiting
    for Alice in Wonderland
    to retransmit to me
    her total dream of innocence
    and I am waiting
    for Childe Roland to come
    to the final darkest tower
    and I am waiting
    for Aphrodite
    to grow live arms
    at a final disarmament conference
    in a new rebirth of wonder

    I am waiting
    to get some intimations
    of immortality
    by recollecting my early childhood
    and I am waiting
    for the green mornings to come again
    youth’s dumb green fields come back again
    and I am waiting
    for some strains of unpremeditated art
    to shake my typewriter
    and I am waiting to write
    the great indelible poem
    and I am waiting
    for the last long careless rapture
    and I am perpetually waiting
    for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
    to catch each other up at last
    and embrace
    and I am waiting
    perpetually and forever
    a renaissance of wonder
    Post edited by Byrnzie on
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Lew Welch - I Saw Myself

    I saw myself
    a ring of bone
    in the clear stream
    of all of it

    and vowed
    always to be open to it
    that all of it
    might flow through

    and then heard
    "ring of bone" where
    ring is what a
    bell does
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    edited December 2011
    Li Bai - In The Green Mountains


    You ask me why I dwell in the green mountains;
    I smile and look away
    As the peach-blossoms flow down stream into the unknown,
    I inhabit a world apart from men.
    Post edited by Byrnzie on
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Arthur Rimbaud - My Bohemian Life

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RfciuHL53Q

    I would take to the road with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
    my overcoat too was becoming an ideal;
    I walked beneath the sky, Oh Muse!
    I was your devotee;

    What splendid loves I dreamed of then!
    My only pair of trousers
    had a big hole in them. --

    Dreamy Tom Thumb,
    I sowed rhymes along the way.
    My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
    In the sky my stars made a gentle rustling.

    And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
    on those clear September evenings
    I felt drops of dew on my forehead
    like vigorous wine

    and there, making poems amid fantastical shadows,
    I would stretch out and pluck like lyre strings,
    the laces of my tattered boots,
    one foot up close to my heart!
  • American Indian Poetry
    Songs from the SouthWest

    SONG OF THE RACE

    Many people have gathered together,
    I am ready to start in the race,
    And the Swallow with beating wings
    Cools me in readiness for the word.

    Far in the west stands the Black mountain
    Around which our racers ran at noon.
    Who is this man runnig with me,
    The shadow of whose hands I see?


    SONG OF STRANGENESS

    Singing to the gods in supplication;
    Singing to the gods in supplication,
    Thus my magic power is uplifted.
    My power is uplifted as I sing,

    Harlots hither running come;
    Harlots hither running come,
    Holding blue flowers as they run.
    Talking in whispers they file along.

    Along the crooked trail going west.
    To the land of rainbows I'm going,
    Swinging my arms as I journey on.

    NAME SONG

    The ceremonial reeds are lifted;
    The ceremonial reeds are lifted.
    Ma-akahi has killed an Apache,
    And we meet together here in war paint
    To collect hair trophies with their power.
    Hivayomi has taken a captive,
    And the magic of his bow dies with him.

    PUBERTY SONG

    Come, hurry forth, hurry forth
    Already the echoing sounds
    Of darkness are heard around.

    The Virgin is not sleepy,
    She is wakeful through the night.

    The Saguaro lies there broken;
    And my fallen feathers rise
    O'er the top of Table Mountain.

    The boy stirred the rumbling stones;
    The woman heard and could not sleep.
    And my toe nails are broken.

    The branches of darkness fell,
    Cutting my feathers as I passed.


    SONG OF THE MAGIC OF DAWN

    On the top of Mohatuk
    There are many clouds standing
    On the top of Mohatuk
    Many fog clouds are rising.
    The bitter wind blows on us;
    The bitter wind blows on us.
    As we sing with many bows.
    Though I am a Navitco,
    I hear you talk about me.
    I thrust my head through the sky
    And with it I run away.

    Cut sticks, cut sticks, cut sticks straight.

    FETISH SONG

    We commence the fetish song;
    We commence the fetish song.
    It is difficult but I try;
    The night grows very noisy.

    The fetish song arises;
    The fetish song arises.
    To it the crazed women run;
    To it the crazed women run.

    Pity me! Oh, pity me!
    And strip away my disease;
    Now strip away my disease;
    Clear it away by singing.
    I'm going to the singing;
    It is leading to the mountain,
    Running to Sievat mountain.

    LIGHTNING SONG

    See the destructive lightning
    Going to kill the distant tree.
    It is going, my younger brother,
    To split the distant tree.

    Around the mountain I carry
    My poor younger brother;
    Carry him around the mountain
    And then stand before it.

    The lightning like reddish snakes
    Tries to lash and shiver the trees.
    The lightning tries to strike them,
    But it fails and they still stand.

    Through the roaring darkness I run,
    Carrying my poor younger brother;
    From the top of the sky the lightning
    Shoots, and strikes nearby.

    FROM AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY

    As I sing this song here with you I can not help shedding tears. I have never sung it before except as I stood looking upon the little child and praying for it in my heart. There is no little child here, but you are writing all these things down that they may not be lost and that our children may know what their fathers believed and practiced in this ceremony. So, as I sing, I am calling to Tirawa atius to send down his breath upon you, to give you strength and long life. I am praying for you with all my spirit.

    TAHIRUSSAWICHI
    Native Keeper of Sacred Rites
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Charles Bukowski - Well, That's Just The Way It Is...

    Sometimes when everything seems at
    Its worst
    When all conspires
    And gnaws
    And the hours, days, weeks
    Years
    Seem wasted –
    Stretched there upon my bed
    In the dark
    Looking up at the ceiling
    I get what many will consider an
    Obnoxious thought :
    It’s still nice to be Bukowski
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6ns_6_Yc_U

    I know you
    You were too short
    You had bad skin
    You couldn't talk to them very well
    Words didn't seem to work
    They lied when they came out of your mouth

    You tried so hard to understand them
    You wanted to be part of what was happening
    You saw them having fun
    And it seemed like such a mystery
    Almost magic

    Made you think that there was something wrong with you
    You'd look in the mirror and try to find it
    You thought that you were ugly
    And that everyone was looking at you

    So you learned to be invisible
    To look down
    To avoid conversation

    The hours, days, weekends
    Ah, the weekend nights alone
    Where were you?
    In the basement?
    In the attic?
    In your room?
    Working some job - just to have something to do.
    Just to have a place to put yourself
    Just to have a way to get away from them
    A chance to get away from the ones that made you feel
    so strange and ill at ease inside yourself

    Did you ever get invited to one of their parties?
    You sat and wondered if you would go or not
    For hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire
    They would laugh at you
    If you would know what to do
    If you'd have the right things on
    If they would notice that you came from a different planet

    Did you get all brave in your thoughts?
    Like you going to be able to go in there and deal with it
    and have a great time.
    Did you think that you might be the life of the party?
    That all these people were gonna talk to you and you
    would find out that you were wrong?
    That you had a lot of friends and you weren't so
    strange after all?

    Did you end up going?
    Did they mess with you?
    Did they single you out?
    Did you find out that you were invited because they
    thought you were so weird?

    Yeah, I think I know you
    You spent a lot of time full of hate
    A hate that was pure sunshine
    A hate that saw for miles
    A hate that kept you up at night
    A hate that filled your every waking moment
    A hate that carried you for a long time

    Yes, I think I know you
    You couldn't figure out what they saw in the way they lived

    Home was not home
    Your room was home
    A corner was home
    The place they weren't, that was home

    I know you

    You're sensitive and you hide it because you fear
    getting stepped on one more time
    It seems that when you show a part of yourself that is
    the least bit vulnerable someone takes advantage of you
    One of them steps on you

    They mistake kindliness for weakness
    But you know the difference
    You've been the brunt of their weakness for years
    And strength is something you know a bit about because
    you had to be strong to keep yourself alive

    You know yourself very well now
    And you don't trust people
    You know them too well

    You try to find that special person
    Someone you can be with
    Someone you can touch
    Someone you can talk to
    Someone you don't feel so strange around
    And you find that they don't really exist
    You feel closer to people on movie screens

    Yeah, I think I know you
    You spend a lot of time daydreaming
    And people have made comment to that effect
    Telling you that you're self involved, and self centred

    But they don't know, do they?
    About the long night shifts alone
    About the years of keeping yourself company
    All the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself
    so you could imagine someone holding you
    The hours of indecision, self doubt
    The intense depression
    The blinding hate
    The rage that made you stagger
    The devastation of rejection

    Well, maybe they do know
    But if they do, they sure do a good job of hiding it
    It astounds you how they can be so smooth
    How they seem to pass through life as if life itself
    was some divine gift
    And it infuriates you to watch yourself with your
    apparent skill at finding every way possible to screw it up

    For you life is a long trip
    Terrifying and wonderful
    Birds sing to you at night
    The rain and the sun the changing seasons are true friends
    Solitude is a hard won ally, faithful and patient

    Yeah, I think I know you
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • mysticweedmysticweed Posts: 3,710
    'in a strange game i saw myself as you knew me
    when the change came and you had a chance to see through me
    though the other side is just the same
    you can tell my dream is real
    because i love you . . .

    though we rush ahead to save our time
    we are only what we feel
    and i love you . . ."

    Neil Young
    On The Way Home
    fuck 'em if they can't take a joke

    "what a long, strange trip it's been"
  • OffSheGoes35OffSheGoes35 Posts: 3,487
    edited November 2012
    .
    Post edited by OffSheGoes35 on
  • rollingsrollings unknown Posts: 7,124
    somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
    by E. E. Cummings


    somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
    any experience,your eyes have their silence:
    in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
    or which i cannot touch because they are too near

    your slightest look easily will unclose me
    though i have closed myself as fingers,
    you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
    (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

    or if your wish be to close me, i and
    my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
    as when the heart of this flower imagines
    the snow carefully everywhere descending;

    nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
    the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
    compels me with the color of its countries,
    rendering death and forever with each breathing

    (i do not know what it is about you that closes
    and opens;only something in me understands
    the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
    nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

    love.e. it

    he's my favorite too
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    edited December 2011
    Arthur Rimbaud - At The Green Inn

    A week of walking had torn my boots to shreds.
    I finally got to Charleroi and came
    to The Green Inn.
    I ordered bread,
    and butter, and a piece of half-cold ham.

    I felt good, stretched out my legs under
    the table and looked at the silly tapestries
    hanging on the wall. And what a wonder,
    When a girl with huge tits and shining eyes
    - Hell, a kiss would never scare her off! -
    entered the room.

    She laughed as she brought me the bread and butter
    And a fancy platter of ham, pink and white,
    with a little garlic, and filled my mug with beer,
    which a ray of fading sunlight turned to gold.


    (October 1870)
    Post edited by Byrnzie on
  • 7RayZ7RayZ Posts: 488
    That poem is funny, all i can do is picture a very old dimly lit tavern for travelers with Ale 'ed, greasy and seedy.

    I picked up a old 50's poetry book with hand carved linoleum block prints in it @ a resale shop called "A Walk With Me" by Gwen Frostic:

    here is just an excerpt:

    Follow the path of a stone ...
    that rolls long the beach

    Follow the flight of and eagle
    as he soars above ...

    Follow the trail of wind ...
    that blows through the top of the trees

    Follow the song of a thrush ....
    when evening comes to earth

    Follow God's moon in the heavens ...
    till it sinks below the lake


    ... and your heart will be filled with wonder .....
    and your years will be ever inspired ....


    Here is another by Ursula K Le Guin

    The Elders at the Falls

    I heard this story.
    They stood all day with their backs turned.
    They stood there just above the river
    all the long day with their backs turned
    to what was happening.
    Like the chorus in ancient tragedies,
    not the heroes but the old people
    who do not see the battle,
    the sacrifice, the murder,
    they stood and listened to the messenger,
    the voice that tells the story.
    The voice they listened to
    that had spoken all their lives
    and all the lives before them
    telling its story, their story, that great voice
    Celilo
    grew smaller, became less,
    became quieter,
    all day, until
    at twilight
    it was silent.

    They turned around then.
    They turned and looked at the flat lake of silence.
  • 7RayZ7RayZ Posts: 488
    I just heard the reading of The Shepherd by Fredrick Forsyth.

    A story about a pilot navigating through the fog without any instruments who is going home for Christmas.


    Hilariously i switched the channel accidentally during the reading and rudolph the red nose reindeer came on. Anyway read the story for a bit of inspiration about getting through the fog put the analogy to work for your own life. ;)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2_bLEqmBi0
Sign In or Register to comment.