fav edward eslin line must surely be 'i'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance'.
like so many i got 'into' him because of 'hannah and her sisters'.
― piscesboy, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
frequent poster momus is a bit of a fan i'm imagining, as there's that reference to 'how do you like your blue eyed boy mr. death' on 'transiberianexpress'
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Laureate Cibber, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
"Is anybody there?" said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor. And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the traveller's head: And he smote upon the door a second time; "Is there anybody there?" he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:-- "Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.
*shiver*
― C J, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Slim Greer went to heaven; St. Peter said, "Slim, You been a right good boy." An' he winked at him. "You been travelin' rascal In yo'day. You kin roam once mo'; Den you come to stay. "Put dese wings on yo' shoulders, An' save yo' feet." Slim grin, and he speak up, "Thankye, Pete." Den Peter say, "Go To Hell an' see, All dat is doing, and Report to me. "Be sure to remember How everything go." Slim say, "I be seein' yuh On de late watch, bo." Slim got to cavortin' Swell as you choose, Like Lindy in de Spirit Of St. Louis Blues. He flew an' he flew, Till at last he hit A hangar wid de sign readin' DIS IS IT. Den he parked his wings, An' strolled aroun', Gittin' used to his feet On de solid ground.
II
Big bloodhound came aroarin' Like Niagry Falls, Sicked on by white devils In overhalls. Now Slim warn't scared Cross my heart, it's a fac', An de dog went on a bayin' Some po' devil's track. Den Slim saw a mansion An' walked right in; De Devil looked up Wid a sickly grin. "Suttingly didn't look Fo' you, Mr. Greer, How it happens you comes To visit here?" Slim say---"Oh, jes' thought I'd drop by a spell." "Feel at home, seh, an' here's De keys to hell." Den he took Slim around An' showed him people Rasin' hell as high as De first Church Steeple. Lots of folks fightin' At de roulette wheel, Like old Rampart Street, Or leastwise Beale. Showed him bawdy houses An' cabarets, Slim thought of New Orleans An' Memphis days. Each devil was busy Wid a devlish broad, An' Slim cried, "Lawdy, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd." Took him in a room Where Slim see De preacher wid a brownskin On each knee. Showed him giant stills, Going everywhere, Wid a passel of devils Stretched dead drunk there. Den he took him to de furnace Dat some devils was firing, Hot as Hell, an' Slim start A mean presspirin'. White devils with pitchforks Threw black devils on, Slim thought he'd better Be gittin' along. An' he says---"Dis makes Me think of home--- Vicksburg, Little Rock, Jackson, Waco and Rome." Den de devil gave Slim De big Ha-Ha; An' turned into a cracker, Wid a sheriff's star. Slim ran fo' his wings, Lit out from de groun' Hauled it back to St. Peter, Safety boun'.
III
St. Peter said, "Well, You got back quick. How's de devil? An' what's His latest trick?" An' Slim Say, "Peter, I really cain't tell, The place was Dixie That I took for hell." Then Peter say, "you must Be crazy, I vow, Where'n hell dja think Hell was, Anyhow? "Git on back to de yearth, Cause I got de fear, You'se a leetle too dumb, Fo' to stay up here. . ."
― Dom Passantino, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Wallace Stevens
I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.
― mark s, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― anthony, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― michael, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dan, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan Perry, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― bnw, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― chris sallis, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Oh be a demon outside all class! If you're a woman or even an ass still be a demon beyond the mass.
Somewhere inside you lives your own little fiend, and woe betide you if he feels demeaned, better do him justice, keep his path well cleaned.
When you've been being too human, too long, and your demon starts lashing out going it strong, don't get too frightened it's you who've been wrong.
You're not altogether such a human bird, you're as mixed as the weather, not just a good turd, so shut up pie-jaw blether, let your demon be heard.
Don't look for a saviour, you've had some, you know! Drop your sloppy behaviour and start in to show your demon rump twinkling with a hie! hop below!
If, poor little bleeder, you still feel you must follow some wonderful leader now the old ones ring hollow, then follow your demon and hark to his holloa!
I'll bet the formatting fukt up.
Such a shame that Ezra Pound was a fascist:
"Le paradis n'est pas artificiel But is jagged; For a flash, for an hour, Then agony, then an hour."
But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man It deepens like a coastal shelf Get out as early as you can And don't have any kids yourself.
― Justyn Dillingham, Tuesday, 25 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ess Kay, Tuesday, 25 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
-Rainer Maria Rilke
― Archel, Tuesday, 25 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― i do like to be bside the sea, Thursday, 27 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Archel, Friday, 28 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
MARILYN NELSON (translating Inge Pederson)The Potatoes
Hospital. In sinkingyellow gardens. Waterstands stillunder the trees.
In a white bed liesmy immortal father.
Behind our closed eyeswe are busilylaughingthrowing leaves into the airto make gold rain.When we runour feet swish.
Come evening we rakethe litter together,make a bonfire.
In the air above the flameshis face is peeledvibrating, naked
his glance in minebefore it congeals.
The potatoes in the ashesare for me
― Zeno, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 15:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Gerard Manley Hopkins Spelt From Sibyl's Leaves
EARNEST, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous, … stupendous Evening strains to be tíme’s vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night. Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ' her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ' stárs principal, overbend us, Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ' her being has unbound, her dapple is at an end, as- tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; ' self ín self steedèd and páshed — qúite Disremembering, dísmémbering ' áll now. Heart, you round me right With: Óur évening is over us; óur night ' whélms, whélms, ánd will end us. Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish ' damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black, Ever so black on it. Óur tale, O óur oracle! ' Lét life, wáned, ah lét life wind Off hér once skéined stained véined variety ' upon, áll on twó spools; párt, pen, páck Now her áll in twó flocks, twó folds — black, white; ' right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind But thése two; wáre of a wórld where bút these ' twó tell, each off the óther; of a rack Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, ' thóughts agaínst thoughts ín groans grínd.
― a used up cumrag who now plays NFL for the Bengals (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 15:28 (fourteen years ago) link
This thread should be much more lively than it is. Sez me.
The Treesby Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too, Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
― DSMOS has arrived (kenan), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 13:12 (twelve years ago) link
If only for the first stanza:
A Strange Wild Songby Lewis Carroll
He thought he saw an ElephantThat practised on a fife:He looked again, and found it wasA letter from his wife."At length I realize," he said,"The bitterness of life!"
He thought he saw a BuffaloUpon the chimney-piece:He looked again, and found it wasHis Sister's Husband's Niece."Unless you leave this house," he said,"I'll send for the police!"
He thought he saw a RattlesnakeThat questioned him in Greek:He looked again, and found it wasThe Middle of Next Week."The one thing I regret," he said,"Is that it cannot speak!"
He thought he saw a Banker's ClerkDescending from the bus:He looked again, and found it wasA Hippopotamus."If this should stay to dine," he said,"There won't be much for us!"
He thought he saw a KangarooThat worked a Coffee-mill:He looked again, and found it wasA Vegetable-Pill."Were I to swallow this," he said,"I should be very ill!"
He thought he saw a Coach-and-FourThat stood beside his bed:He looked again, and found it wasA Bear without a Head."Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!It's waiting to be fed!"
― DSMOS has arrived (kenan), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 13:24 (twelve years ago) link
there have been a couple of other rolling poetry threads since, i believe
― thomp, Tuesday, 2 August 2011 13:52 (twelve years ago) link
Maybe not ultimate favorite but I have always loved this one by Ferlinghetti
Not like Dante Discovering a commedia Upon the slopes of heavenI would paint a different kind of Paradisoin which the people would be naked as they always are in scenes like that because it is supposed to be a painting in their soulsbut there would be no anxious angels telling them how heaven is the perfect picture of a monarchy and there would be no fires burning in the hellish holes belowin which I might have stepped nor any altars in the sky except fountains of imagination
― ladies love draculas like children love stray dogs (ENBB), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 13:59 (twelve years ago) link
aw damn the form didn't copy
:(
― ladies love draculas like children love stray dogs (ENBB), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 14:00 (twelve years ago) link
The Threadby Don Paterson
Jamie made his landing in the worldso hard he ploughed straight back into the earth.They caught him by the thread of his one breathand pulled him up. They don't know how it held.And so today I thank what higher willbrought us to here, to you and me and Russ,the great twin-engined swaying wingspan of usroaring down the back of Kirrie Hill
and your two-year-old lungs somehow out-revvingevery engine in the universe.All that trouble just to turn up deadwas all I thought that long week. Now the threadis holding all of us: look at our tiny house,son, the white dot of your mother waving.
― that mustardless plate (Bill A), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 14:28 (twelve years ago) link
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,Saying that now you are not as you wereWhen you had changed from the one who was all to me,But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,Standing as when I drew near to the townWhere you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessnessTravelling across the wet mead1 to me here,You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward, Leaves around me falling,Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward, And the woman calling.
-- Thomas Hardy, "The Voice"
― livin in my own private Biden hole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 14:31 (twelve years ago) link
Eve-ningwillcomethey willsewthe blue sail
Ian Hamilton Finlay
― Count Palmiro Vicarion (Stew), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
'Siesta of a Hungarian Snake'
s sz sz SZ sz SZ sz ZS zs Zs zs zs z
Edwin Morgan
― Count Palmiro Vicarion (Stew), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
PLEASE
for James Broughton
Oh god, let's go.This is a poem for Kenneth Patchen.Everywhere they are shooting people.People people people people.This is a poem for Allen Ginsberg.I want to be elsewhere, elsewhere.This is a poem about a horse that got tired.Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.I want to go home.I want you to go home.This is a poem that tells the story,which is the story.I don't know. I get lost.If only they would stand still and let me.Are you happy, sad, not happy, please come.This is a poem for everyone.
Robert Creeley
― Count Palmiro Vicarion (Stew), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
that's great. also probably the longest creeley poem i've ever read.
― (oboe interlude) (schlump), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah it is.
― ladies love draculas like children love stray dogs (ENBB), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
best love poem ever written (don't think it has a title but it's from Stephen Crane's The Black Rider):
Should the wide world roll awayLeaving black terrorLimitless night,Nor God, nor man, nor place to standWould be to me essentialIf thou and thy white arms were thereAnd the fall to doom a long way.
― swaguirre, the wrath of basedgod (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
I just discovered this little butthurt gem from Thomas Wyatt:
My Lute Awake
My lute awake! perform the lastLabour that thou and I shall waste,And end that I have now begun;For when this song is sung and past,My lute be still, for I have done.
As to be heard where ear is none,As lead to grave in marble stone,My song may pierce her heart as soon;Should we then sigh or sing or moan?No, no, my lute, for I have done.
The rocks do not so cruellyRepulse the waves continually,As she my suit and affection;So that I am past remedy,Whereby my lute and I have done.
Proud of the spoil that thou hast gotOf simple hearts thorough Love's shot,By whom, unkind, thou hast them won,Think not he hath his bow forgot,Although my lute and I have done.
Vengeance shall fall on thy disdainThat makest but game on earnest pain.Think not alone under the sunUnquit to cause thy lovers plain,Although my lute and I have done.
Perchance thee lie wethered and oldThe winter nights that are so cold,Plaining in vain unto the moon;Thy wishes then dare not be told;Care then who list, for I have done.
And then may chance thee to repentThe time that thou hast lost and spentTo cause thy lovers sigh and swoon;Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,And wish and want as I have done.
Now cease, my lute; this is the lastLabour that thou and I shall waste,And ended is that we begun.Now is this song both sung and past:My lute be still, for I have done.
― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 03:48 (ten years ago) link
anne carson, "first chaldaic oracle":
There is something you should know.And the right way to know itis by a cherrying of your mind.
Because if you press your mind towards itand try to knowthat thing
as you know a thing,you will not know it.It comes out of red
with kills on both sides,it is scrap, it is nightly,it kings your mind.
No. Scorch is not the wayto knowthat thing you must know.
But use the humof your woundand flamepit out everything
right to the edgeof that thing you should know.The way to know it
is not by staring hard.But keep chiselledkeep Praguing the eye
of your soul and reach—mind emptytowards that thing you should know
until you get it.That thing you should know.Because it is out there (orchid) outside your and, it is.
― Rothko's Chicken and Waffles (donna rouge), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 04:20 (ten years ago) link
Ich habe eine SchlangeMeine Schlange hast viel DurstEr geht in zum KafeEr hat Getranke und eine Wurst
Tom Ewing
― j., Wednesday, 22 January 2014 04:29 (ten years ago) link
Pain—has an Element of Blank—It cannot recollectWhen it begun—or if there wereA time when it was not—
It has no Future—but itself—Its Infinite ContainIts Past—enlightened to perceiveNew Periods—of Pain.
-Emily Dickinson
not the flashiest poem but super otm
― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 04:37 (ten years ago) link
also this one is incredible, but i can't find the text anywhere in a cut and pastable form: http://books.google.com/books?id=Z0eoYZGA2RMC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=your+child+lacks+a+credible+god+term+ben+lerner&source=bl&ots=XaFEWS4Fi4&sig=KqAWX7kcZknsaaYTPJVqDrJ61Ko&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Gk7fUsWJJe7KsQTppIDgDg&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=your%20child%20lacks%20a%20credible%20god%20term%20ben%20lerner&f=false
― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 04:51 (ten years ago) link
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery
― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 05:04 (ten years ago) link
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf.Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.
This Be The Verse, Philip Larkin
― His magesty's satanic walnut farm (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 05:17 (ten years ago) link
Oops, sorry Justyn Dillingham, didn't notice your post of 2003.
― His magesty's satanic walnut farm (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 05:18 (ten years ago) link
wow donna
― mustread guy (schlump), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 05:42 (ten years ago) link
Somehow this popped into my head although I probably haven't thought of it in 15 years
NEW YEAR’S DAY
Again and then again . . . the year is bornTo ice and death, and it will never doTo skulk behind storm-windows by the stoveTo hear the postgirl sounding her French hornWhen the thin tidal ice is wearing through.Here is the understanding not to loveOur neighbor, or tomorrow that will sieveOur resolutions. While we live, we live
To snuff the smoke of victims. In the snowThe kitten heaved its hindlegs, as if fouled,And died. We bent it in a Christmas boxAnd scattered blazing weeds to scare the crowUntil the snake-tailed sea-winds coughed and howledFor alms outside the church whose double locksWait for St. Peter, the distorted key.Under St. Peter's bell the parish sea
Swells with its smelt into the burlap shackWhere Joseph plucks his hand-lines like a harp,And hears the fearful Puer natus estOf Circumcision, and relives the wrackAnd howls of Jesus whom he holds. How sharpThe burden of the Law before the beast:Time and the grindstone and the knife of God.The Child is born in blood, O child of blood.
—Robert Lowell
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 9 January 2019 23:03 (five years ago) link
this one by patrick pearse has been on mine
The Wayfarer
The beauty of the world hath made me sad,This beauty that will pass;Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joyTo see a leaping squirrel in a tree,Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,Or little rabbits in a field at evening,Lit by a slanting sun,Or some green hill where shadows drifted bySome quiet hill where mountainy man hath sownAnd soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;Or children with bare feet upon the sandsOf some ebbed sea, or playing on the streetsOf little towns in Connacht,Things young and happy.And then my heart hath told me:These will pass,Will pass and change, will die and be no more,Things bright and green, things young and happy;And I have gone upon my waySorrowful.
― Punster McPunisher, Sunday, 5 December 2021 05:10 (two years ago) link