Jaqen the FatManderly Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Everything [b]Saint-Exupery [/b]wrote is poetry, especially if it's prose. [b][i][center]"Où sont les hommes?" reprit enfin le petit prince. "On est un peu seul dans le désert... " "On est seul aussi chez les hommes", dit le serpent. [/center][/i][/b] I love Longfellow, like Coleridge, Herbert, Herrick, Burns, Macauley.... it's a long list. [quote name='Donne']Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to'another due, Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.[/quote] [quote name='Auden']Here war is simple like a monument: A telephone is speaking to a man; Flags on a map assert that troops were sent; A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan For living men in terror of their lives, Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon, And can be lost and are, and miss their wives, And, unlike an idea, can die too soon. But ideas can be true although men die, And we can watch a thousand faces Made active by one lie: And maps can really point to places Where life is evil now: Nanking; Dachau.[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mashiara Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I posted this elsewhere on the board recently, I read it a few days ago and it still seems powerful in its simplicity. "The Uses of Sorrow" Mary Oliver (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaqen the FatManderly Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 [quote name='Fenny' post='1644131' date='Jan 10 2009, 21.00']Jumping on the Donne bandwagon. Since his love poems have had a turn in the sun, here's one of his Holy Sonnets: ... ETA: Okay, my humble apologies, just one more - this post is longer than I planned. From Auden's [i]As I Walked Out One Evening[/i]:[/quote] So I go back and read the thread and someone else has quoted the same Donne and another Auden in one post! :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prue Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Reklame (Ingeborg Bachmann, 1956) Wohin aber gehen wir OHNE SORGE SEI OHNE SORGE wenn es dunkel und wenn es kalt wird SEI OHNE SORGE aber MIT MUSIK was sollen wir tun HEITER UND MIT MUSIK und denken HEITER angesichts eines Endes MIT MUSIK und wohin tragen wir AM BESTEN unsere Fragen und den Schauer aller Jahre IN DIE TRAUMWÄSCHEREI OHNE SORGE SEI OHNE SORGE was aber geschieht AM BESTEN wenn Todesstille eintritt --- translation (by me) [b]Advertisement [/b] But wherever shall we go DON'T WORRY JUST DON'T YOU WORRY when it's growing dark and cold DON'T YOU WORRY but WITH MUSIC whatever shall we do MERRILY AND WITH MUSIC and think MERRILY facing an End WITH MUSIC and wherever shall we carry BEST our questions and the shivers of all our years INTO THE LAUNDRY OF DREAMS DON'T WORRY JUST DON'T YOU WORRY but whatever will happen BEST when the Stillness of Death comes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Something TP said in General Chatter made me think of this:"...We are insensate molecules,assembled from the accidentalcode engraved upon our genes.Mud that sat up.Chemicals mingle in oursediment and in theirinteractions and combustionswe suppose we feelsuppose we love.We reproduce, mathematicallypredictable as spores withina petri dish.We function briefly thensubside once more to theunknowing silt.We are a blind contingency,an unimportant restlessnessof dirt and yet Rossettipaints his dead Elizabeth,head tilted back on herimpossibly slim throat, eyesclosed against the golden light surrounding her.Clay looks on clay andunderstands that it isbeautiful.Through us, the cosmos gazeson itself, adores itself,breaks its own heart.Through us, matter staresslack-jawed at its ownstar-dusted countenanceand knows, incredulously,that it knows.And knows that it isuniverse."- Alan Moore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexia Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Julia de Burgos is my favorite poet, and this is probably my single favorite poem ever. English translation below...Ay, ay, ay de la grifa negraAy, ay, ay, that am kinky-haired and pure blackkinks in my hair, Kafir in my lips;and my flat nose Mozambiques.Black of pure tint, I cry and laughthe vibration of being a black statue;a chunk of night, in which my whiteteeth are lightning;and to be a black vinewhich entwines in the blackand curves the black nestin which the raven lies.Black chunk of black in which I sculpt myself,ay, ay, ay, my statue is all black.They tell me that my grandfather was the slavefor whom the master paid thirty coins.Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfatheris my sadness, is my sadness.If he had been the masterit would be my shame:that in men, as in nations,if being the slave is having no rightsbeing the master is having no conscience.Ay, ay, ay wash the sins of the white Kingin forgiveness black Queen.Ay, ay, ay, the race escapes meand buzzes and flies toward the white race,to sink in its clear water;or perhaps the white will be shadowed in the black.Ay, ay, ay my black race fleesand with the white runs to become bronzed;to be one for the future,fraternity of America!Her most famous poem is To Julia de Burgos and I quite like that one as well (it is quoted in my signature line). But I have a special love for this one, nonetheless.And... I totally did not notice how old this thread is! Thread necromancy FTW. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Great poem. I stumbled across this thread, and it seemed off on topic as opposed to where I saw TP's post in Love, Universe, Everything.ETA: making sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gone Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Morri Creech (a friend from undergrad):Here's a dark poem by Morri:http://www.nea.gov/features/writers/writer...er.php?id=07_03The poem:Very good, I thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minaku Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Scot, I am stunned by how good your friend's poetry is. Count me in as a fan!I'm also on the John Donne bandwagon.My favorite poet is eec, and my favorite poem of his (I have many) is somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond. eec at his romantic finest. Here is eec reading it: I don't love all of Sylvia Plath's work, but this one poem of hers struck me hard with its bitterness and desolation.LesbosViciousness in the kitchen!The potatoes hiss.It is all Hollywood, windowless,The fluorescent light wincing on and off like a terrible migraine,Coy paper strips for doorsStage curtains, a widow's frizz.And I, love, am a pathological liar,And my child look at her, face down on the floor,Little unstrung puppet, kicking to disappearWhy she is schizophrenic,Her face is red and white, a panic,You have stuck her kittens outside your windowIn a sort of cement wellWhere they crap and puke and cry and she can't hear.You say you can't stand her,The bastard's a girl.You who have blown your tubes like a bad radioClear of voices and history, the statickyNoise of the new.You say I should drown the kittens. Their smell!You say I should drown my girl.She'll cut her throat at ten if she's mad at two.The baby smiles, fat snail,From the polished lozenges of orange linoleum.You could eat him. He's a boy.You say your husband is just no good to you.His Jew-Mama guards his sweet sex like a pearl.You have one baby, I have two.I should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair.I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,Me and you.Meanwhile there's a stink of fat and baby crap.I'm doped and thick from my last sleeping pill.The smog of cooking, the smog of hellFloats our heads, two venemous opposites,Our bones, our hair.I call you Orphan, orphan. You are ill.The sun gives you ulcers, the wind gives you T.B.Once you were beautiful.In New York, in Hollywood, the men said: "Through?Gee baby, you are rare."You acted, acted for the thrill.The impotent husband slumps out for a coffee.I try to keep him in,An old pole for the lightning,The acid baths, the skyfuls off of you.He lumps it down the plastic cobbled hill, Flogged trolley. The sparks are blue.The blue sparks spill, Splitting like quartz into a million bits.O jewel! O valuable!That night the moonDragged its blood bag, sickAnimalUp over the harbor lights.And then grew normal,Hard and apart and white.The scale-sheen on the sand scared me to death.We kept picking up handfuls, loving it,Working it like dough, a mulatto body,The silk grits.A dog picked up your doggy husband. He went on.Now I am silent, hateUp to my neck,Thick, thick.I do not speak.I am packing the hard potatoes like good clothes,I am packing the babies,I am packing the sick cats.O vase of acid,It is love you are full of. You know who you hate.He is hugging his ball and chain down by the gateThat opens to the seaWhere it drives in, white and black,Then spews it back.Every day you fill him with soul-stuff, like a pitcher.You are so exhausted.Your voice my ear-ring,Flapping and sucking, blood-loving bat.That is that. That is that.You peer from the door,Sad hag. "Every woman's a whore.I can't communicate."I see your cute decorClose on you like the fist of a babyOr an anemone, that seaSweetheart, that kleptomaniac.I am still raw.I say I may be back.You know what lies are for.Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Book of IsaiahBy Anne CarsonI.Isaiah awoke angry.Lapping at Isaiah’s ears black birdsong no it was anger.God had filled Isaiah’s ears with stingers.Once God and Isaiah were friends.God and Isaiah used to converse nightly, Isaiah would rush into the garden.They conversed under the Branch, night streamed down.From the sole of the foot to the head God would make Isaiah ring.Isaiah had loved God and now his love was turned to pain.Isaiah wanted a name for the pain, he called it sin.Now Isaiah was a man who believed he was a nation.Isaiah called the nation Judah and the sin Judah’s condition.Inside Isaiah God saw the worldsheet burning.Isaiah and God saw things differently, I can only tell you their actions.Isaiah addressed the nation.Man’s brittleness! cried Isaiah.The nation stirred in its husk and slept again.Two slabs of bloody meat lay folded on its eyes like wings.Like a hard glossy painting the nation slept.Who can invent a new fear?Yet I have invented sin, thought Isaiah, running his hand over the knobs.And then, because of a great attraction between them—which Isaiah fought (for and against) for the rest of his life—God shattered Isaiah’s indifference.God washed Isaiah’s hair in fire.God took the stay.From beneath its meat wings the nation listened.You, said Isaiah.No answer.I cannot hear you, Isaiah spoke again under the Branch.Light bleached open the night camera.God arrived.God smashed Isaiah like glass through every socket of his nation.Liar! said God.Isaiah put his hands on his coat, he put his hand on his face.Isaiah is a small man, said Isaiah, but no liar.God paused.And so that was their contract.Brittle on both sides, no lying.Isaiah’s wife came to the doorway, the doorposts had moved.What’s that sound? said Isaiah’s wife.The fear of the Lord, said Isaiah.He grinned in the dark, she went back inside.II.There is a kind of pressure in humans to take whatever is most beloved by themand smash it.Religion calls the pressure piety and the smashed thing a sacrifice to God.Prophets question these names.What is an idol?An idol is a useless sacrifice, said Isaiah.But how do you know which ones are useless? asked the nation in its genius.Isaiah pondered the various ways he could answer this.Immense chunks of natural reality fell out of a blue skyand showers of light upon his mind.Isaiah chose the way of metaphor.Our life is a camera obscura, said Isaiah, do you know what that is?Never heard of it, said the nation.Imagine yourself in a darkened room, Isaiah instructed.Okay, said the nation.The doors are closed, there is a pinhole in the back wall.A pinhole, the nation repeated.Light shoots through the pinhole and strikes the opposite wall.The nation was watching Isaiah, bored and fascinated at once.You can hold up anything you like in front of that pinhole, said Isaiah,and worship it on the opposite wall.Why worship an image? asked the nation.Exactly, said Isaiah.The nation chewed on that for a moment.Then its genius spoke up.So what about Isaiah’s pinhole?Ah, said Isaiah.A memory fell through him as clear heat falls on herbs.Isaiah remembered the old days, conversing with God under the Branchand like an old butler waking in an abandoned house the day the revolution began,Isaiah bent his head.A burden was upon Isaiah.Isaiah opened his mouth.A sigh came from Isaiah’s mouth, the sigh grew into a howl.The howl ran along the brooks to the mouth of the brooksand tore the nets of the fishers who cast angle into the brooksand confounded the workers in fine flax who weave networksand broke their purpose.The howl rolled like a rolling thing past slain men and harvests and spoilsand stopped in a ditch between two walls.Then Isaiah unclamped his mouth from the howl.Isaiah let his mouth go from the teat.Isaiah turned, Isaiah walked away.Isaiah walked for three years naked and barefoot with buttocks uncoveredto the shame of the nation.All night you could see the Branch roaming against the sky like a soul.III.Isaiah walked for three years in the valley of vision.In his jacket of glass he crossed deserts and black winter mornings.The icy sun lowered its eyelids against the glare of him.God stayed back.Now Isaiah had a hole in the place where his howl had broken off.All the while Isaiah walked, Isaiah’s heart was pouring out the hole.One day Isaiah stopped.Isaiah put his hand on the amputated place.Isaiah’s heart is small but in a way sacred, said Isaiah, I will save it.Isaiah plugged the hole with millet and dung.God watched Isaiah’s saving action.God was shaking like an olive tree.Now or never, whispered God.God reached down and drew a line on the floor of the desert in front of Isaiah’s feet.Silence began.Silence roared down the canals of Isaiah’s ears into his brain.Isaiah was listening to the silence.Deep under it was another sound Isaiah could hear miles down.A sort of ringing.Wake up Isaiah! said God from behind Isaiah’s back.Isaiah jumped and spun around.Wake up and praise God! said God smiling palely.Isaiah spat.God thought fast.The nation is burning! God cried pointing across the desert.Isaiah looked.All the windows of the world stood open and blowing.In each window Isaiah saw a motion like flames.Behind the flames he saw a steel fence lock down.Caught between the flames and the fence was a deer.Isaiah saw the deer of the nation burning all along its back.In its amazement the deer turned and turned and turneduntil its own shadow lay tangled around its feet like melted wings.Isaiah reached out both his hands, they flared in the dawn.Poor flesh! said Isaiah.Your nation needs you Isaiah, said God.Flesh breaks, Isaiah answered. Everyone’s will break, There is nothing we can do.I tell you Isaiah you can save the nation.The wind was rising, God was shouting.You can strip it down, start over at the wires, use lions! use thunder! use what you see—Isaiah was watching sweat and tears run down God’s face.Okay, said Isaiah, so I save the nation. What do you do?God exhaled roughly.I save the fire, said God.Thus their contract continued.IV.When Isaiah came back in from the desert centuries had passed.There was nothing left of Isaiah but a big forehead.The forehead went rolling around the nation and spoke to people who leapt to their feetand fled.If the nation had taken Isaiah to court he could have proven his righteousness.But they met in secret and voted to cut him off.Shepherds! Chosen ones! Skinny dogs! Blood of a dog! Watchmen all! said Isaiah.Isaiah withdrew to the Branch.It was a blue winter evening, the cold bit like a wire.Isaiah laid his forehead on the ground.God arrived.Why do the righteous suffer? said Isaiah.Bellings of cold washed down the Branch.Notice whenever God addresses Isaiah in a feminine singular verb something dazzling isabout to happen.Isaiah what do you know about women? asked God.Down Isaiah’s nostrils bounced woman words:Blush. Stink. Wife. Fig. Sorceress—God nodded.Isaiah go home and get some sleep, said God.Isaiah went home, slept, woke again.Isaiah felt sensation below the neck, it was a silk and bitter sensation.Isaiah looked down.It was milk forcing the nipples open.Isaiah was more than whole.I am not with you I am in you, said the muffled white voice of God.Isaiah sank to a kneeling position.New pain! said Isaiah.New contract! said God.Isaiah lifted his arms, milk poured out his breasts.Isaiah watched the milk pour like strings.It poured up the Branch and across history and down into people’s lives and time.The milk made Isaiah forget about righteousness.As he fed the milk to small birds and animals Isaiah thought only about their little lips.God meanwhile continued to think about male and female.After all there are two words for righteousness, Isaiah could not be expected to untie thishard knot himself.First the masculine word TSDQ, a bolt of justice that splits the oak in two.Then in the empty muscle of the wood, mushrooms and maggots and monkeys set up alivelihood:here is (the feminine word) TSDQH.God grave the two words on Isaiah’s palms.God left it at that.And although it is true Isaiah’s prophecies continued to feature eunuch cylinders andclickfoot woman shame.And although it is true Isaiah himself knew several wives and begot a bastard son.Still some nights through his dreams slipped a river of milk.A river of silver, a river of pity.He slept, the asters in the garden unloaded their red thunder into the dark. 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Angalin Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I found this poem by Frank O'Hara at this blog, which also links to .Having a Coke with Youis even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonneor being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelonapartly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastianpartly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurtpartly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birchespartly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuaryit is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as stillas solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of itin the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forthbetween each other like a tree breathing through its spectaclesand the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paintyou suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did themI lookat you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the worldexcept possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frickwhich thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first timeand the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurismjust as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase orat a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow meand what good does all the research of the Impressionists do themwhen they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sankor for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefullyas the horseit seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experiencewhich is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about itFrank O’HaraOne of the things I like about O'Hara's own reading is that he doesn't use what a friend calls "poetry voice", that wispy, dreamy, indeterminate tone that poets often employ when reading their work aloud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grunkins Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Disilluionment of Ten O'clock by Wallace StevensThe houses are hauntedBy white night-gowns.None are green,Or purple with green rings,Or green with yellow rings,Or yellow with blue rings.None of them are strange,With socks of laceAnd beaded ceintures.People are not goingTo dream of baboons and periwinkles.Only, here and there, an old sailor,Drunk and asleep in his boots,Catches TigersIn red weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 For the bitter and lovelorn, and for the people who have these lines playing in their head on repeat, because Shakespeare can get stuck there almost as well as Crazy Frog, and for the people who don't want this thread to leave the front page for long:To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,All in the morning betime,And I a maid at your window,To be your Valentine:Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,And dupp'd the chamber door;Let in the maid, that out a maidNever departed more.By Gis and by Saint Charity,Alack, and fie for shame!Young men will do't, if they come to't;By Cock, they are to blame.Quoth she, before you tumbled me,You promis'd me to wed:So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,An thou hadst not come to my bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cseresz.reborn Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Cavafy: Long Ago I’d like to speak of this memory... but it’s so faded now... as though nothing is left— because it was so long ago, in my early adolescent years. A skin as though of jasmine... that August evening—was it August?— I can still just recall the eyes: blue, I think they were... Ah yes, blue: a sapphire blue. Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard József Attila: With a pure heart Without father without motherwithout God or homeland eitherwithour crib or coffin-coverwithout kisses or a loverfor the third day - without fussingI have eaten next to nothing.My store of power ere my yearsI sell all my twenty years.Perhaps, if no one else willthe buyer will be the devil.With a pure heart - that’s a job:I may kill and I shall rob.They’ll catch me, hang me highin blessed earth I shall lie,and poisonous grass will startto grow on my beautiful heart.Source of the quotation 1976, Hundred Hungarian Poems, Albion Editions, Manchester Nemes Nagy Ágnes: Lazarus As slowly he sat up the ache suffusedhis whole left shoulder where his life lay bruised,tearing his death away like gauze, section by sectionsince that is all there is to resurrection.Szirtes, Georgehttp://www.babelmatr...L%C3%A1z%C3%A1rPilinszky János: On the Wall of a KZ LagerWhere you’ve fallen, you will stay.In the whole universe this oneand only place is the sole placewhich you have made your very own.The country runs away from you.House, mill, poplar – every thingis struggling with you here, as ifin nothingness mutating.But now it’s you who won’t give up.Did we fleece you? You’ve grown rich.Did we blind you? You watch us still.You bear witness without speech.English version by Clive Wilmer and George Gömöri Radnóti Miklós:The Terrifying Angel The terrifying angel is invisible and silentinside me, he doesn't scream today.But then I hear a slight noise,no louder than a grasshopper's jump.I look around and don't find anything.It's him. But he's cautious now. He's getting ready.Save me, Oh you who love me, love me bravely.He hides when you're here. But as soon as you leavehe's back. He rises from the bottom of the soul,screaming. And screaming he accuses me.This insanity works inside me like poison.He doesn't sleep much, lives both in and outside of me,and when the moon is out, and in the white darkness,he runs through the meadow in whistling sandals.He searches my mother's grave and wakes her up."Was it worth it?" "Was it worth it?"He whispers to her about rebellion, about giving in."You gave birth to him and he dies of it!"Looking at me, sometimes he tears offthe pages of the calendar too soon."How long" and "where to"depend on him forever now. Last nighthis words fell into my heartthe way stones fall into water,forming rings, wobbling, and spinning.I was just going to bed, you were already asleep.I stood there naked when he came inand started to argue with me quietly.There was a weird smell, hisbreath chilled my ear. "Go ahead!"He urged. "Skin shouldn't cover you.You're raw meat and bare nerves.Tear it off! After all, bragging about skinis like bragging about prison, it's crazy.That thing all over you is only an illusion.Here, here's the knife.It doesn't hurt. It only takes a second, there's only a hiss!"And the knife woke up on the table and flashed.Translated by Steven Polgar, S. Berg and S.J. Marks Kosztolányi Dezső: I dream of coloured inks. Of every kind. The yellow is the finest. Reams and reamsof letters could I write in yellow inkto her, the little schoolgirl of my dreams.I'd scrawl something that looks like Japanese,then try a bird, most intricately scrolled.And I want other colours, many more,like bronze and silver, emerald and gold,and then I want a hundred more, a thousand,or rather, I will have a million:dumb-charcoal, funny-lilac, drunken-ruby,enamoured, chaste or brash vermilion.I ought to have some mournful violet,a palish blue, a brick-red-like maroon,like shadows seeping through a stained glass windowagainst a black vault, in August, at noon.In reds I want a blazing, burning one,and blood-red, like the blood-stained setting sunand then I'd go on writing: with a blueto my young sister, mother will get gold,I'd write a prayer in gold ink to my mother,a golden dawn with golden words re-told.I'd go on writing, in an ancient tower.My colour set, so fine and exquisite,would make me happy, oh my God, so happy.I want to colour in my life with it.Zollman, Peter Radnóti Miklós: How others see… How others see this region, I cannot understand:to me, this little country is menaced motherlandengulfed by flames, the world of my childhood swaying far,and I am grown from this land as tender branches arefrom trees. And may my body sink into this soil in the end.When plants reach out towards me, I greet them as a friendand know their names and flowers. I am at home here, knowingthe people on the road and why and where they are going --and how I know the meaning when, by a summer lane,the sunset paints the walls with a liquid flame of pain!The pilot cannot help seeing a war map from the sky,he can’t tell below the home of Vörösmarty Mihály;what can he identify there? grim barracks and factories,but I see steeples, oxen, farms, grasshoppers and bees;his lens spies out the vital production plants, the fields,but I can see the worker, afraid below, who shieldshis labour, a singing orchard, a vineyard and a wood,among the graves a granny mourning her widowhood;and what may seem a plant or a rail line that must be wreckedis just a signal-house with the keeper standing erectand waving his red flag, lots of children around the guard;and a shepherd dog might roll in the dust in a factory yard;and there’s the park with the footprints of past loves and theflavour of childhood kisses -- the honey, the cranberry I still savour,and on my way to school, by the kerbside, to postponea spot-test one certain morning, I stepped upon a stone:look! There’s the stone whose magic the pilot cannot seefor no instrument would merge it in his topography.True, guilty are we all here, our people as the rest,we know our faults, we know how and when we have transgressed,but there are blameless lives too of toil and poetry and passion,and infants also, with infinite capacity for compassion --they will protect its glow while in gloomy shelters untilonce more our land is marked out by the finger of peace, then they willrespond to our muffled words with new voices fresh and bright.Spread your vast wings above us, protective cloud of night. Illyés Gyula: A sentence on tyranny Where seek out tyranny?There seek out tyranny,Not just in barrels of guns,Not just in prisons,Not in the cell aloneWhere third degree goes on,Hot in the night withoutChallenged by sentry-shout,Not where in deathbright smokeProsecutors’ words provoke,Not just in the emphasisOf wall-tapped morse messages,Not in confession told,Not in the judge’s coldDeath-sentence: ‘Guilty!’Not in the military‘Halt!’ and the snapped-out ‘Aim!’‘Fire!’ and the drums of shameScattering the squad as itDrags the corpse to the pit,Not in the furtivelyGuarded, and fearfullyBreathed words the message borePassed through half-open door,Not in the ‘Ssh!’ revealedOn mouth by finger sealed,Nor confine tyranny yetTo rigid features set,Peering through bars that stillShow, through that iron grille,Cries that dumb throats retractStopped in the cataractOr inarticulate tearsDeepening the silent fearsIn pupils griefs dilateDarkened by looming fate,Not only in ‘Viva!’ criesTrack down all tyrannies,Surging on tiptoe, strong,In the acclaiming song.Where seek out tyranny?There seek out tyranny,Not just in mustered bands,Tirelessly clapping hands,Fanfares, and opera-stalls;Just as crude, just as false,Monuments, art-galleries,Though cast in stone, speak lies;Yes, each framed lie can crush.Even in the painter’s brush,Or in the car with slightNoise gliding through the night,Where it draws up and waitsThrobbing in front of gates,There omnipresently,More than your ancient God,There seek out tyranny,In school, in nursery,In father’s counselling ruleAnd in the mother’s smile,In, where a stranger putsQuestions that touch the roots,Answering the stranger’s gaze,What the child always says;Not just where barbed wire twines,Not just between book-lines,More than in barbed wire, inSlogans that stun you:There, more discreet, it isIn a wife’s parting kiss,Near you and at your back:‘When, dear, will you be back?’In words that folk repeat,‘How d’you do’s in the street,In the then suddenly softerHandshake a moment afterMaking your lover’s faceFound in the meeting-placeFreeze on the instantBecause it is present,Not only in the interrogationBut, too, in love’s confession,In the words’ sweet wineLike a fly in the wine,For even in your dreamsYou are preceded:In the bridal bedAnd in the desire it bred;Nothing you think fairBut it has already claimed;Your bed it did shareEven when love was named;It is in the plate, the glass,In the nose and the mouth,It is in the cold and the dark,In the outer air and in your house;As if through an open windowCame the reek of carrionOr somewhere in the houseThere was a leak of gas.Talk to yourself and hearTyranny your inquisitor;You have no isolation,Not even in imagination.The Milky Way through it becomesA frontier terrain, scoured by beams,A minefield, and the starA spy-hole in a war;The swarming canopy of the skyIs a monstrous labour-camp:The Orator TyrannySpeaks from bells on the ramp;From the priest to whom you confess,From his sermon no less,Church, Parliament, theseAnd the rack, are but stage properties:Open and close your eyes;Still its scrutiny liesUpon you like a sickness,Following you with memory’s quickness.Harks at the wheels of the train;This is their refrain:‘You are taken prisoner, prisoner’;On the hill, by the sea, you inhale the same reminder.In the lightning flash it is seenIn every unforeseenLittle noise; its dartLights up your astonished heart.Where you rest, there it isIn boredom’s manacles,In showers that forge nearbyBars that reach up the sky,In the snow, whose fallSheer as a cell wailHides you while it looksThrough the eyes of your dog,For it is in all you intend,In Your to-morrow it is at hand,Before your thoughts it is aware,In your every movement it is there;As water cleaves the river-bedYou follow and form it; but insteadOf peering from that circle anew,Out of the glass it looks at you,In vain you try to escape its wrath:Prisoner and jailer, you are both;It works its own corrosive wayInto the taste of your tobacco,Into the very clothes you wear –It penetrates you to the marrow;You detach your sense from it, only to findNo other thought will come to your mind.You look about, but what prompts your gazing?You use your eyes, but what do they catch?Already a forest fire is blazingFanned into flame by the stick of a matchWhere carelessly you threw it downAs you walked, and forgot to tread it in,And now it guards you in the town,In field and home and the factories’ din;No longer you feel what it is to live;Bread and meat, you do not know them;You cannot have desire, nor love;To stretch out your arms is now denied you.Thus does the slave forge with careThe fetters he himself must wear;You nourish tyranny when you eat;You beget your child for it.Where seek tyranny? Think again:Everyone is a link in the chain;Of tyranny’s stench you are not free:You yourself are tyranny.Like a mole on a sunny dayWalking in his blind, dark way,We walk and fidget in our roomsMaking a Sahara of our homes;Because, where tyranny is,Everything is in vain,Every creation, even thisPoem I sing turns vain,Because it is standingFrom the first at your grave,Your own biography branding,And even your ashes are its slave.Watkins, Vernon Source of the quotation 1976, Hundred Hungarian Poems, Albion Editions, Manchester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cseresz.reborn Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 +1: Ady Endre: I guard your eyesWith my old man's wrinkled hand,with my old man's squinting eyes,let me hold your lovely hand,let me guard your lovely eyes.Worlds have tumbled, through their falllike a wild beast chased by frightI came, and I on you did callscared, I wait with you inside.With my old man's wrinkled hand,with my old man's squinting eyes,let me hold your lovely hand,let me guard your lovely eyes.I do not know why, how longcan I thus remain for you -but I hold your lovely handand I guard your lovely eyes.Makkai, Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 "Loving humansMeansWriting poems & songsNovels & plays, slogans, chants& protest signsOur criticsWantTo stoneUs forWhileWe think ofThemAs peopleUnder differentCircumstancesWe mightBe ableTo help.There isIndeedA BuddhaInEvery oneOf usLoving humansWith allOur clear &UnmistakableReluctanceTo evolveMakes this hardFor most humansTo see.But not you."-Alice Walker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterbound Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Smooth.. heh.. yep..Heheheh.. remix..Just waking up in the mornin gotta thank GodI don't know but today seems kinda oddNo barkin from the dogs, no smogAnd momma cooked a breakfast with no hogI got my grub on, but didn't pig outFinally got a call from a girl I wanna dig outHooked it up for later as I hit the do'Thinkin will I live, another twenty-fo'I gotta go cause I got me a drop topAnd if I hit the switch, I can make the ass dropHad to stop, at a red lightLookin in my mirror and not a jacker in sightAnd everything is alrightI got a beep from Kim, and she can fuck all nightCalled up the homies and I'm askin y'allWhich park, are y'all playin basketball?Get me on the court and I'm troubleLast week fucked around and got a triple doubleFreakin niggas everyway like M.J.I can't believe, today was a good dayThat's right..Creep to the pad and hit the showersDidn't even get no static from the cowardsCause just yesterday them fools tried to blast meSaw the police and they rolled right past meNo flexin, didn't even look in a brother's directionas I ran the intersectionWent to $hort Dog's house, they was watchin Yo! MTV RapsWhat's the haps on the craps?Shake 'em up, shake 'em up, shake 'em up, shake 'emRoll 'em in a circle of homies and watch me break 'emwith the seven, seven-eleven, seven-elevenSeven even back do' Lil' JoePicked up the cash flowThen we played bones, and I'm yellin dominoPlus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.Today was a good dayHehe..Left my homie's house paidPicked up a girl been tryin to do since the twelve gradeIt's ironic, I had the brew she had the chronicThe Lakers beat the SupersonicsFelt on the big fat fannyPulled out the jammy, and killed the punannyAnd my jimmy runs deep, so deepSo deep put her butt to sleepWoke her up around oneShe didn't hesitate, to call Ice Cube the top gunDrove her to the pad and I'm coastinTook another sip of the potion hit the three-wheel motionI was glad everything had worked outDropped her butt off and then chirped outToday was like one of those fly dreamsDidn't even see a berry flashin those high beamsNo helicopter lookin for the murderTwo in the mornin got the FatburgerEven saw the lights of the Goodyear BlimpAnd it read, "Ice Cube's a pimp"Drunk as hell but no throwin upHalf way home and my pager still blowin upToday I didn't even have to use my A.K.I gotta say it was a good dayThe Warrior-Poet Ice Cube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 ETA: The Warrior-Poet Ice Cube.Ha.=-=-=Wild Geese by Mary OliverYou do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and excitingover and over announcing your placein the family of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Smells of opium smokeand musk and dried flowersThe ancient moon shedding it's skin of lightbecoming young againA red curtain parts, beaded with sweatI'm tasting her precious waters and liqueursTime is all wrongI'm afraid of HerCannibal Queen of extinctionI love HerShe's the DestroyerThe Spider-Dancer on the Funeral Pyre of Time and Space...I...God Help MeShe's like an oceanA Virgin rising from the menstrual foamCorpse-Goddess stinking of Death and Lust and -The Thunderbolt Strikes The BellFire snake ripping through the spinal channelsDetonations ascending the royal roadUnfolding into a thousand petalled lotusThe Universal EngineThe Light of a Million MoonsIn HerIn MeIn-Grant Morrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vhagar Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 I can't believe there is no Yeats love, or at least I didn't find it!HE BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACEby: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)HEAR the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,The East her hidden joy before the morning break,The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beatOver my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.Then of course, the great ee cummings:she being Brandshe being Brand-new;and youknow consequently alittle stiff I wascareful of her and (havingthoroughly oiled the universaljoint tested my gas felt ofher radiator made sure her springs were O.K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked herup,slipped theclutch (and then somehow got into reverse shekicked whatthe hell) nextminute i was back in neutral tried andagain slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(mylev-er Right-oh and her gears being inA 1 shape passedfrom low throughsecond-in-to-high likegreasedlightning) just as we turned the corner of Divinityavenue i touched the accelerator and giveher the juice,good (itwas the first ride and believe I we washappy to see how nice and acted right up tothe last minute coming back down by the PublicGardens I slammed ontheinternalexpanding&externalcontractingbreaks Bothatonce andbrought allofher tremB-lingto a:dead.stand-;Still)WH Auden...did I miss him in this list? Oh, how i love Auden, though I've not read him in years.As I Walked Out One EveningAs I walked out one evening,Walking down Bristol Street,The crowds upon the pavementWere fields of harvest wheat.And down by the brimming riverI heard a lover singUnder an arch of the railway:‘Love has no ending.‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love youTill China and Africa meet,And the river jumps over the mountainAnd the salmon sing in the street,‘I’ll love you till the oceanIs folded and hung up to dryAnd the seven stars go squawkingLike geese about the sky.‘The years shall run like rabbits,For in my arms I holdThe Flower of the Ages,And the first love of the world.’But all the clocks in the cityBegan to whirr and chime:‘O let not Time deceive you,You cannot conquer Time.‘In the burrows of the NightmareWhere Justice naked is,Time watches from the shadowAnd coughs when you would kiss.‘In headaches and in worryVaguely life leaks away,And Time will have his fancyTo-morrow or to-day.‘Into many a green valleyDrifts the appalling snow;Time breaks the threaded dancesAnd the diver’s brilliant bow.‘O plunge your hands in water,Plunge them in up to the wrist;Stare, stare in the basinAnd wonder what you’ve missed.‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,The desert sighs in the bed,And the crack in the tea-cup opensA lane to the land of the dead.‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotesAnd the Giant is enchanting to Jack,And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,And Jill goes down on her back.‘O look, look in the mirror?O look in your distress:Life remains a blessingAlthough you cannot bless.‘O stand, stand at the windowAs the tears scald and start;You shall love your crooked neighbourWith your crooked heart.’It was late, late in the evening,The lovers they were gone;The clocks had ceased their chiming,And the deep river ran on.By W.H. AudenAnd Leonard Cohen:"Dance Me To The End Of Love"Dance me to your beauty with a burning violinDance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely inLift me like an olive branch and be my homeward doveDance me to the end of loveDance me to the end of loveOh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are goneLet me feel you moving like they do in BabylonShow me slowly what I only know the limits ofDance me to the end of loveDance me to the end of loveDance me to the wedding now, dance me on and onDance me very tenderly and dance me very longWe're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us aboveDance me to the end of loveDance me to the end of loveDance me to the children who are asking to be bornDance me through the curtains that our kisses have outwornRaise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is tornDance me to the end of loveDance me to your beauty with a burning violinDance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely inTouch me with your naked hand or touch me with your gloveDance me to the end of loveDance me to the end of loveDance me to the end of loveThey're lyrics, really, so there is some repetition but the parts that are poetry are...poetry. Love.Sorry, i don't know how to do the cool quotey thing!There is some great stuff on here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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