When I walkI part the airand alwaysthe air moves into fill the spaceswhere my body's been.
We all have reasonsfor moving.I moveto keep things whole.
Mark Strand - "Keeping Things Whole"
― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 00:35 (twenty years ago) link
"Tower of Light"~Pablo Neruda
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:20 (twenty years ago) link
The ice-cream van waits, outside the school,for the pupil's recovered memory of unanswerednotes to question his hunger when, for dancing's sake,he'll giggle across the playground for cones and sherbet.A joy-rider on the front page ("only FIVE years"),he thinks through P.E.'s politics of dodge-ball,magic tricks, Louise Alison, and girlswhen a woman's voice breaks the cabin's dark, half humanhalf nothing-at-all, travelling from somewherebehind something, unnamed. Its edges talk of his dad, who has long moved on, hungover and drinking,from report cards to bills, his criminal record and cataloguesof memory - drawn, with the drunk's anaesthetic ardour,by hurting his wife and child. Trouser's at half-mast he'll actthe fool dropped on his attention-span as a child and ignorethis seriousness, again giggling and swearing, as he orders.
But if we should cut here, stopto stalk left across Scotland,our imagination animating alongMaginot Lines of dissolutionto the ruined hamletof Wester Sallochynone of this is going onbut the poetry. Oh dear
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 23:02 (twenty years ago) link
Educated in the Humanities,they headed for the City, their beliefsimplicit in the eyes and arteriesof each, and their sincerity displayedin notes, in smiles, in sheavesof decimal etcetera. [...]
- Glyn Maxwell (The High Achievers)
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 25 March 2004 09:23 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 26 March 2004 19:26 (twenty years ago) link
the burnside poem was characteristically brilliant, obv., to round off my 'editor's note' above.
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 26 March 2004 19:34 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 26 March 2004 20:50 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Friday, 26 March 2004 22:21 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 27 March 2004 05:38 (twenty years ago) link
"You can't go home again." Thomas Wolfe"That's shit." Bill Holm
Who sed that?Did somebody say thator was it in one of them darn books you read?
It doesn't matterif it's a pile of crapI go home ever daydon't matter where I amI'm the prodigal son coming backI don't even need a Greyhound busI can go to my town right nowright here talking to youbecause thisis everywhereI've ever been
--David Lee MY TOWN
Poetry is home to me. I am more comfortable here than anywhere. It's everywhere I've ever been. I don't even need a Greyhound bus.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 27 March 2004 07:32 (twenty years ago) link
for all you formalists and uninformalists
I met a traveler from an antique land,Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand 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 decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ozymandias)
― donald, Sunday, 28 March 2004 03:47 (twenty years ago) link
― donald, Sunday, 28 March 2004 03:57 (twenty years ago) link
Joan Larkin (my former teacher) - "Sonnet Positive"
― bnw (bnw), Sunday, 28 March 2004 04:25 (twenty years ago) link
What? That's poetry, that is!
― SRH (Skrik), Sunday, 28 March 2004 13:50 (twenty years ago) link
I would contribute to a sonnet thread if you start one I expect david... I haven't read 101 Sonnets though so there's a chance I have 101 fewer things to say than those who have :)
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 29 March 2004 08:42 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 29 March 2004 09:18 (twenty years ago) link
(for Anna)
She brought me a box of magnetic words,and now the kitchen has become a poemthat writes itself, unpredictably, at night.Under our fingers sudden meanings form,these phrases stick like burrs.We are all accidental poets,wild and free rawsculpt ing.The room is loaded, layeredwith chance collisions,broken language.
These days we feed off words.We can't make a sandwichwithout makinga point.Breakfast produces gloomy sentiments,a morning smearcigarette pain.Lunchtimes become journeyswhich begin, and end, at the fridge doorin an unfinished sentence,break out of
When the house is emptyI find messages with the frozen foodlike cries for help. Who wrote i like him dead this morning?she suffered ?Graffiti artists of white goods,we are all anonymous.Like children we scatter words;random and ominous,they cling.Who wrote we don't make senseas if it made sense?
Soon the box runs out; we all get bored.The fridge buzzes, inscrutably,and I go hungryfor magnetic words.
[by Rachel Playforth]
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 29 March 2004 09:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 29 March 2004 11:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 29 March 2004 12:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 29 March 2004 12:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 29 March 2004 12:18 (twenty years ago) link
here's a little something poem I wrote mainly just as a formal exercise in trying out rhyme and syllable strength, I'm not sure I like it either, a little too mean but why not - it doesn't even have a name:
You inhale and hold,weighing the smoke,a thought knuckles inand then I choke:
"It's you, it's not me;sorry to say -now pack up your bag,go on your way."
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 29 March 2004 13:10 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 29 March 2004 13:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 29 March 2004 13:16 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 29 March 2004 14:01 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 29 March 2004 14:03 (twenty years ago) link
It is interesting the way rhyme pushes you towards thinking that the poem is 'about' the rhymed words, when in this case I want it to be about 'a thought knuckles in' which I think is a great line.
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 29 March 2004 14:24 (twenty years ago) link
As usual, the Nipper is partly to blame.
― the pinefox, Monday, 29 March 2004 14:45 (twenty years ago) link
who are you reading, the pinefox? and why did you have to be wheeled back round?
I picked up robin robertson's second collection today ('slow air'; I was poised so close to buying 'the pleasure of the text' and jacob polley's first; mmm money money) after reading his first earlier in the week and being underwhelmed in proportion to the praise in its jacket quotes ('its honesty, insight and sheer lyrical power'; 'the best new poet in britain.') too much fluff not enough oomph for me to be honest (except a few stand-out poems like 'the flaying of marsyas' which is... phenomenal.) but this new one is a bit special so far, if extremely maudlin in its lyricism, here's a sample:
"Art Lesson"
She stood at hisburnt windowsuntil she saw herselfanswered in their dark,the way glass getsblacked at nightin a lighted room.She went home,pulled the curtains;drew a red bath.
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 00:54 (twenty years ago) link
What I have been reading: Larkin and Muldoon.
I have been half-thinking of trying to write a poem about You (Cozen!). But do I really know how to write poems? I half-wish that I could have a lesson from Archel.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 30 March 2004 15:26 (twenty years ago) link
Actually I might have to give a workshop for a bunch of e2e kids soon and I have no idea what to do :/
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 15:49 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 16:14 (twenty years ago) link
My pains at last some respite shall afford,Whilst I behold the battles you maintain,When fleets of glasses sail about the board,From whose broadsides volleys of wit shall rain."
The Disable Debauchee~John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 18:52 (twenty years ago) link
Raglan Road - Patrick KavanaghOn Raglan Road on an Autumn day I met her first and knewThat her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue,I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day
On Grafton street in November we tripped lightly along the ledgeOf the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passions pledgeThe Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -O I loved too much and by such by such is hapiness thrown away
I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's knownTo the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stoneAnd word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to sayWith her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking nowAway from me so hurriedly my reason must allowThat I had wooed not as I should a creature made of claywhen the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day
or the classic:
Stony Grey SoilO stony grey soil of Monaghanthe laugh from my love you thieved;you took the gay child o fmy passion and gave me your clod-conceived.
you clogged the feet of my boyhoodand I believed that my stumblehad the poise and stride of Apolloand his voice my thick-tongued mumble
[...]
you flung a ditch on my visiono fbeauty, love and truthO stony grey soil of Monaghanyou burgled my bank of youth!
― Mark Lennox, Tuesday, 30 March 2004 23:12 (twenty years ago) link
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 31 March 2004 14:18 (twenty years ago) link
this is the garden:colours come and go
this is the garden:colours come and go, frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing strong silent greens silently lingering, absolute lights like baths of golden snow. This is the garden:pursed lips do blow upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing (of harps celestial to the quivering string) invisible faces hauntingly and slow.
This is the garden. Time shall surely reap and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled, in other lands where other songs be sung; yet stand They here enraptured,as among the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.
― Camellia, Wednesday, 31 March 2004 14:44 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 31 March 2004 15:33 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 1 April 2004 05:14 (twenty years ago) link
Whatever the difference is, it all began the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again, possessed him, till it would not fall or waver; and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin but his own smile, or one I'd rediscovered. Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin and the true path was as lost to me as ever when you cut in front and lit it as you ran. See how the true gift never leaves the giver: returned and redelivered, it rolled on until the smile poured through us like a river.How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men! I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 1 April 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 1 April 2004 22:55 (twenty years ago) link
Was that written AFTER we talked about the pome that is not by D Paterson?
― the pinefox, Friday, 2 April 2004 14:00 (twenty years ago) link
Ye white antarctic birds of upper 57th street,you gallery of white antarctic birds, you streetwith white antarctic birds and cabs and whiteantarctic birds you street, ye and you thestreet and birds I walk upon the galleries ofstreets and birds and longings, you the birdsantarctic of the conversations and the bankmachines, you the atm of longing, the longingfor the atm machines, you the lover of thebanks and me and birds and others too andcabs, and you the cabs and you the subtlelonging birds and me, and you theconversations yet antarctic, and soup andteeming white antarctic birds and you thebooks and phones and atms the bankmachines antarctic, and you the banks andcabs, and him the one I love, and those wholove me not, and all antarctic longings, and allthe birds and cabs and also on the streetantarctic of this longing. -- Lisa Jarnot
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 2 April 2004 20:37 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Sunday, 4 April 2004 02:43 (twenty years ago) link
This is by Stephen Crane.
― Ingolfur Gislason (kreator), Monday, 5 April 2004 15:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:20 (twenty years ago) link
I was thinkin' about posting 'Thirteen' here, but I ws worried ppl might consider it all sycophantic and stuff! I actually sent Archel's page to two friends of mine who are big into the idea of being poetesses only the other week...
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:31 (twenty years ago) link
That birthdaywould not slip past like all the others.She felt her eyes wideningas it stuck in her throat,that sickly pink-white icing.She blew out the candlesand started wishing.Her flesh dripped off like wax.
(Rachel Playforth)
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:33 (twenty years ago) link