― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 April 2006 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link
My skin is pemiced to faultI am down to hair-roots, down to fibre filtersOf the raw tobacco nerve
Your net is spun of sitar stringsTo hold the griefs of gods: I wander longIn tear vaults of the sublime
Queen of night torments, you strainSutures of song to bear imposition of the ritesOf living and of death. You
Pluck strange dirges from the stormSift rare stones from ashes of the moon, and riseNight errands to the throne of anguish
Oh there is too much crush of petalsFor perfume, too heavy tread of air on mothwingFor a cup of rainbow dust
Too much pain, oh midwife at the cryOf severance, fingers at the cosmic cord, too vastThe pains of easters for a hint of the eternal.
I wiould be free of your tyranny, freeFrom sudden plunges of the flesh in earthquakeBeyond all subsidence of sense
I would be free from headlong ridesIn rock seams and volcanic veins, drawn by dark steedsOn grey melodic reins.
--Wole Soyinka
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link
I do think Aimless's poem about what poetry means to people doesn't address the people that the original poet might have been confused by. All those meanings make sense.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 4 May 2006 01:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 4 May 2006 14:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 4 May 2006 15:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 5 May 2006 02:47 (seventeen years ago) link
'Pomology', Anselm Hollo
An apple a dayis 365 apples.A poem a day is 365 poems.Most years.Any doctor will tell youit is easier to eat an applethan to make a poem.It is also easierto eat a poemthan to make an applebut only just. But hereis what you doto keep the doctor out of it: publish a poemon your appletree.Have an applein your next book.
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 8 May 2006 01:02 (seventeen years ago) link
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
I thought this hovered very nicely between the formal language of traditional sonnetry and the informality of speech, which nicely suits the non-traditional approach to the traditional theme of love. It has a very Cavalier feeling to it and would snuggle up beautifully next to anything written by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
1.
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to doand its wooden beams were so inviting.
2.
We laughed at the hollyhocks togetherand then I sprayed them with lye.Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3.
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.The man who asked for it was shabbyand the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4.
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.Forgive me. I was clumsy, andI wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:32 (seventeen years ago) link
Enda really likes those monosyllabic words.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 18:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 25 May 2006 07:28 (seventeen years ago) link
The following is a poem by a German Minnesinger named Hess von Rinach. If you have a fair idea of how modern German sounds, you can probably figure out how this Middle German ought to sound:
Klageliche notklage ich von der minne,daz si mir gebot,daz ich minne sinnedar bewante da man mich verderben wil.hey minnen spil,durch dich lide ichsende kumbers alze vil.
Wengel rosenvar,wolgestellet kinne,ougen luter klar,minneclichiu tinnehat si, diu mir krenket leben unde lip.hey saelic wip,dur din besten tugende mir min leit vertrip.
Sueze troesterin,troeste mine sinnedur die minne din.in der minne ich brinne,von der minne fiure lide ich sende not.hey mundel rot,wilt du mich niht troesten, sich, so bin ich tot.--
Since I certainly can't expect any one here to understand that Middle German, I append this clumsy prose translation:
From love I bemoan my pitiful state, that she has disordered all my senses, so as to wreck me. Hey, love's passion! For your sake I feel love's pain all too much.
Rose red cheeks, full-formed chin, and a lovely brow she has, who weakens me in my life and limb. Hey, blessed woman! With your best strength banish my sickness.
Sweet consoler, comfort my senses through your love. In love I burn. In love's fires I suffer from yearning. Hey, mouth so red! If you don't comfort me, then (you'll see) I'm dead.--
Finally, here is my verse translation:
I sing a lament,love's message set twisted,since I've become bentand my senses mistedby a passion that misled me into ruin.Hey, love's tune!I sing its sorrowed service late and soon.
Cheeks of petal red,soft by a lovely chin,with faultless forhead,and lucid eyes set in.At her bypassage I breathe faintly.Hey, so saintly!Use your beauty to restore, not pain me.
My one consolerconsent to heal me,cure me of dolor.I am burned with love's heatand my song's warmth comes from an ember bed.Hey, lips of red!Send no kind of comfort and you pronounce me dead.
-- Aimless
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 25 May 2006 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link
At last you yielded up the album, whichOnce open, sent me distracted. All your agesMatte and glossy on the thick black pages!Too much confectionery, too rich:I choke on such nutritious images.
My swivel eye hungers from pose to pose --In pigtails, clutching a reluctant cat;Or furred yourself, a sweet girl-graduate;Or lifting a heavy-headed roseBeneath a trellis, or in a trilby-hat
(Faintly disturbing, that, in several ways) --From every side you strike at my control,Not least through those these disquieting chaps who lollAt ease about your earlier days:Not quite your class, I'd say, dear, on the whole.
But o, photography! as no art is,Faithful and disappointing! that recordsDull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,And will not censor blemishesLike washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards,
But shows a cat as disinclined, and shadesA chin as doubled when it is, what graceYour candour thus confers upon her face!How overwhelmingly persuadesThat this is a real girl in a real place,
In every sense empirically true!Or is it just the past? Those flowers, that gate,These misty parks and motors, lacerateSimply by being over; youContract my heart by looking out of date.
Yes, true; but in the end, surely, we cryNot only at exclusion, but becauseIt leaves us free to cry. We know what wasWon't call on us to justifyOur grief, however hard we yowl across
The gap from eye to page. So I am leftTo mourn (without a chance of consequence)You, balanced on a bike against a fence;To wonder if you'd spot the theftOf this one of you bathing; to condense,
In short, a past that no one now can share,No matter whose your future; calm and dry,It holds you like a heaven, and you lieUnvariably lovely there,Smaller and clearer as the years go by.
-- Philip Larkin
― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:37 (seventeen years ago) link
Your luna moths bring poems to my eyes,Your oriflamme brings banners to my slums;You are fat and beautiful, rich and ugly,A boiler with gold leaf floral decorations;You are a hard plush chair with sloping shouldersIn which Victoria, like a kangaroo,Raises her blazing arms to a poem by Mr. Tennyson.
In the sewing machine of your mind you mend my flags,Under your forehead fatted sheep are feeding,Falcons are climbing at unwritten speeds,Adding machines are singing your arias,Your motor playing chess with continents,With Quincy, Illinois, with Hell, New Jersey,Halting on Oriental rugs in Fez.Beautiful are your fine cartouches,Your organ pipes externalized like tusks.
If only I could put my arm around you,If only I could look you in the eye,I would tell you a grave joke about turtles' eggs,But there are always your ostrich plumes,The hydrangeas drooping between your breasts.I am afraid of your prosthetic wrists,The mason jars of your white corpuscles.
For Christmas I will send you Maeterlinck's Life of the Bee.
Priests are praying for your beautiful passengers;Sacraments are burning in your barley-sugar lighthouses;You carry wild lawyers over yellow bridges;Your soul as slow as honey coils in vats.
Voluptuous feather-plated Pegasus,You carry the horizontal thoughtful deadTo gold greens and to sculpture yards of peace.On leafy springs, O Love, O Death,Your footfall is the silence that perfects.
I see you everywhere except in dreams.
-- Karl Shapiro --
[Several wonderful images (tusks!) and a quite deft demonstration of the proper use of irony.]
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 15 June 2006 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link
They will chitter to attract matesAnd offer tasty meals of rot.Crows kiss with clackingAnd though feathers are well spit-slicked sleekTheir stubby little wings can't hug.
From those high up separate carrion nestsThey perch and observe this Saturday night.Monocled heads cocked and sporting suede vests--On the watch for rotten food,They'll ignore the bewildering plumaged sightsAs people, idiot creatures, flock.
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 25 June 2006 00:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 25 June 2006 04:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 25 June 2006 08:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 25 June 2006 13:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 26 June 2006 00:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 26 June 2006 00:39 (seventeen years ago) link
"I have exciting news for you and all Webbs." — Miles. S. Webb
The brochure shows a boat passing the Statue of Libertywhile its cargo of immigrants stand gaping,and one small boy — dressed better than the rest —watches from a director's chair. He,obviously, is the Webb. Simple but aristocratic.Poor, but destined for greatness. Set apart
from the Smiths and Joneses, the Rothblattsand Steins, the Schmidts and Hampys, the Mancusosand Malvinos and Mendozas and Tatsuisand Chus, by "the distinguished Webb name."Excitement steams from Miles S. Webb's letter to me.The very type leaps up and down. Just buy
his book, and I will learn (I'm guessing)about Thomas Webb, famous for his kipperedherring jokes, and Dan Webb of the talking armpits,and Genevieve Webb, convinced her leftand right feet were reversed. I'll learn the inside storyof Solomon Webb, Dover's greatest circus geek,
and Lady Messalina Webb, transported to Australiawith her husband, Sir Caleb Webb,son of the merkin-maker Jemmie Webb of Kent.Best of all, inside the bonus Webb International Directory,one among 104,352 Webb households in the world,there I'll be: the very Webb who woke this morning
at 5:53 when his new sprinklers ratcheted onwith the screech of strangled grebes — the Webbwho lolled in bed, loving the artificial rain, then crackedhis drapes and saw fat drops annoint his porch,and a hummingbird light on a hair-thin twig,then buzz away when the sprinklers hissed off.
The lawn lay drinking, then — each bladewith its own history, each listed in the Book of Heaven(Grandma Webb from Yorkshire used to say),each destined to be cut later this morning by José,one of 98,998 people to bear (his letter states)the "brave and glory-dripping name Cortez."
Charles Harper WebbAmplified DogRed Hen Press
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 2 July 2006 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 2 July 2006 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link
Country Song For Fuck You
There are things that are trueAnd there are things that are coolEverything's interesting when still in schoolEverything's right when nothing moves
Some trains you relay back andSome trains you loop round the trackSome trains you walk away fromAnd trains you close right goddamn down
There are things worth doingand things because fuck youStories with a thousand endingsand stories you'll clutch when you're through
Yeah theres this and that babeand viewpoints I guess you can seeand there's some shit that ain't absolutebut it's still eternal enough for me
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 9 July 2006 02:51 (seventeen years ago) link
Hometown
There are no stars in my home town tonight.Erased as the past has been, withonlythe smudge of their memoryremaining.
There is not sky in my home town tonight.Blackness has coated the housesleavingimpressions of lives in theemptystreets.
There is no air in my home town tonight -And there need not be.Exodus is not an exaggerationand thos leftno longer breathe.
There is nothing in my home town tonight.There is no more reason.
― Sara R-C (Sara R-C), Sunday, 9 July 2006 04:32 (seventeen years ago) link
The desert stretches out in copper ruststar-blossoms travel in the river's streammy mouth is bitter with the taste of dustmy eyes too dry to dream
Alight upon this gold encrusted breast;fold your enamel wingsunder the lettered scarab, rest,for darkness brings
Jackal and robber to the gleam of gold,give me but one more nightto lie among my toys these tomb walls hold,take flight,
when in the East you see the green day breakflooding the waking trees with living light -return, enamelled bird, do not forsakethis dust-dry frame tonight.
-- C.A. Trypanis
― eyeless in gazza (Phil A), Sunday, 9 July 2006 20:35 (seventeen years ago) link
Giant whispering and coughing from Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum, 'The Queen', and a huge resettling. Then begins A snivel on the violins: I think of your face among all those faces,
Beautiful and devout before Cascades of monumental slithering, One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor Beside those new, slightly outmoded shoes. Here it goes quickly dark. I lose All but the outline of the still and withering
Leaves on half-emptied trees. Behind The glowing wavebands, rabid storms of chording By being distant overpower my mind All the more shamelessly, their cut-off shout Leaving me desperate to pick out Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding.
― eyeless in gazza (Phil A), Sunday, 9 July 2006 20:44 (seventeen years ago) link
8.
Your lover sitsdejectedscratching figures in the dirt outside.Your friends won't eattheir eyes are swollen from crying.There's no silly chatter from thehousehold parrotsand you're a wreck.Stubborn girl, isn't ittime to quit sulking?
40.
With dark eyesnot blue lotusshe fashions a welcome garland.Petals she strews --not various species of jasminebut smiles.Water she offers from ripesweating breastsrather than cermonial jars.With only her own bodyshe makes for herlover apropitious arrival.
69.
Tilted his headwhen she cast a vine-knottedbrow at her rival.Saluted and stood abstractly offwhen somebody noticed.Her cheeks flashed like copper.He stared at her feet.Yet in front of the parents theymanaged to keep upappearances.
-- Poems traditionally attributed to the poet, Amaru --
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link
For My Lover, Returning to His Wifeby Anne Sexton
She is all there.She was melted carefully down for youand cast up from your childhood,cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies.
She has always been there, my darling.She is, in fact, exquisite.Fireworks in the dull middle of Februaryand as real as a cast-iron pot.
Let's face it, I have been momentary.A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.My hair rising like smoke from the car window.Littleneck clams out of season.
She is more than that. She is your have to have,has grown you your practical your tropical growth.This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,
has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,sat by the potter's wheel at midday,set forth three children under the moon,three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,
done this with her legs spread outin the terrible months in the chapel.If you glance up, the children are therelike delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.
She has also carried each one down the hallafter supper, their heads privately bent,two legs protesting, person to person,her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.
I give you back your heart.I give you permission --
for the fuse inside her, throbbingangrily in the dirt, for the bitch in herand the burying of her wound --for the burying of her small red wound alive --
for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,for the mother's knee, for the stocking,for the garter belt, for the call --
the curious call when you will burrow in arms and breastsand tug at the orange ribbon in her hairand answer the call, the curious call.
She is so naked and singular.She is the sum of yourself and your dream.Climb her like a monument, step after step.She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.I wash off.
― Sara R-C (Sara R-C), Friday, 18 August 2006 04:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― sandy mc (sandy mc), Monday, 21 August 2006 11:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link
IOW, she wants Casuistry! Let us plan our campaign to bring this to pass.
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 23:20 (seventeen years ago) link
A Riddle
I am not a picket fence,And I am not a perfect bore,And I am not pure ignorance,And I am not a bloody war,
But I am always making sense,By making like a picket fence,And making like a perfect bore,And making like pure ignorance,And making like a bloody war.
Say my name, which I adore.
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 13:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 12 October 2006 02:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 12 October 2006 04:35 (seventeen years ago) link
To Be Written on the Mirror in Whitewash I live only here, between your eyes and you, But I live in your world. What do I do? --Collect no interest--otherwise what I can; Above all I am not that staring man.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 12 October 2006 07:54 (seventeen years ago) link
Last Stand of the Unknown Shipping Clerk
The man was slim and slightly stoopedOn the sidewalk of the sodden street.His mask-like face, as clamped by irons;Toned sepia and scored by dust,Whispered faint scatters of confettiInto the horizontal rain.
It seemed that he could scarcely standThe weather seeped into his skin.As I passed him on my way to work,Some citizens had gathered round.When I returned at half-past fiveHe lay in pulp upon the ground.
Save for his crumpled trilby hat;A name inside, under the brim.But as I stopped to take a look,A dustcart drove away with him.
― Ben Dot (1977), Thursday, 12 October 2006 08:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 12 October 2006 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link
the piling up of figurements and entanglements could proceed fromthe tiny working of the small, if persistent, faculty: as if theworld could be brought to flow by and take the bent of
that single bend: and immediately flip over into the mirrored worldof permanence, another place trans-shaped with knackery: a brook inthe mind that will eventually glitter away the seas:"
A.R. Ammons - Sphere
― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 18 October 2006 06:45 (seventeen years ago) link
Paul Celan: Death Fugue
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundownwe drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at nightwe drink it and drink itwe dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfinedA man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writeshe writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margaretehe writes it ans steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he whistles his pack outhe whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a gravehe commands us strike up for the dance
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightwe drink you in the morning at noon we drink you at sundownwe drink and we drink youA man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writeshe writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margareteyour ashen hair Sulamith we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot you others sing now and playhe grabs at teh iron in his belt he waves it his eyes are bluejab deper you lot with your spades you others play on for the dance
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightwe drink you at at noon in the morning we drink you at sundownwe drink and we drink youa man lives in the house your golden hair Margareteyour ashen hair Sulamith he plays with the serpentsHe calls out more sweetly play death death is a master from Germanyhe calls out more darkly now stroke your strings then as smoke you will rise into airthen a grave you will have in the clouds there one lies unconfined
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightwe drink you at noon death is a master from Germanywe drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink youdeath is a master from Germany his eyes are bluehe strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is truea man lives in the house your golden hair Margaretehe sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the airHe plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master from Germany
your golden hair Margareteyour ashen hair Shulamith
― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 18 October 2006 08:50 (seventeen years ago) link
The buzzard never says it is to blame.The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.
A jackal doesn't understand remorse.Lions and lice don't waver in their course.Why should they, when they know they're right?
Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,in every other way they're light.
On this third planet of the sunamong the signs of bestialitya clear conscience is Number One.
― bnw (bnw), Saturday, 18 November 2006 18:38 (seventeen years ago) link
I met up on a small Yeats poem yesterday.
A Poet to his Beloved
I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams; White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-gray sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams I bring you my passionate rhyme.
― Arethusa (Arethusa), Saturday, 18 November 2006 23:14 (seventeen years ago) link