The Poetry Thread

You're always not discussing him?

[...]
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you're lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left's no bigger than a harness gall.
First there's the children's house of make-believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
[...]

Robert Frost - Directive

[...]
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

(Tennyson - Ulysses)

Hell yeah bring on the happy isles...

[...] Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much" or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
[...]

(from 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning)

The Pink Frock

"O my pretty pink frock,
I sha'n't be able to wear it!
Why is he dying just now?
I hardly can bear it!

"He might have contrived to live on;
But they say there's no hope whatever:
And must I shut myself up,
And go out never?

"O my pretty pink frock,
Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated!
He might have passed in July,
And not so cheated!"

-T.H.

Infantry Columns

We're foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin' over Africa -
Foot-foot-foot-foot-sloggin' over Africa -
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!

Seven-six-eleven-five-nine-an'-twenty mile to-day -
Four-eleven-seventeen-thirty-two the day before -
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!

Don't-don't-don't-don't-look at what's in front of you.
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again)
Men-men-men-men-men go mad with watchin' em,
An' there's no discharge in the war!

Try-try-try-try-to think o' something different -
Oh-my-God-keep-me from goin' lunatic!
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
[...]

-Rudyard Kipling

I'm just going to point out here that I am going to be attending poetry readings on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday (that one in Seattle!) which makes me feel all, I dunno, into poetry and stuff.

...

Meanwhile
let us cast one shadow
in air or water

our mouths wide as saucers
our tongues at work in their tunnels
our shut eyes unimportant as freckles.

Let us turn to, until
the giant flashlight
comes down on us

and we are rammed home on the corkscrew gig
one at a time
and lugged off belly to belly.

TURNING TO, Maxine Kumin

(Whatever your particular political persuasions may be, watch out for those giant flashlights, corkscrew gigs, and keep your shut eyes open....)

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!

nice, isn't it? so... did you get the book? don't be coy with me - it may work with the pomefox but i won't stand for it.

:)

I haven't started reading it yet though.

yay! after all this, i hope you enjoy it.

i'm going to buy poetry, even though i should be saving $ for a big project. i'm weak! but in a good way, i think.

tell us what you buy!

"Madam and Her Madam," Langston Hughes.

I worked for a woman,
She wasn't mean--
But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.

Had to get breakfast,
Dinner, and Supper, too--
Then take care of her children
When I got through.

Wash, iron, and scrub,
Walk the dog around--
It was too much,
Nearly broke me down.

I said, Madam,
Can it be
You trying to make a
Pack-horse out of me?

She opened her mouth.
She cried, Oh, no!
You know, Alberta,
I love you so!

I said, Madam,
That may be true--
But I'll be dogged
If I love you!

damn st. mark's books. i never thought i'd say that, but damn them. i bought postcards, but no poetry.

Why damn them? They never had quite the selection I wanted, but.

i love st.mark's, but i was all excited to go shopping and get a big bag of books and spread them out on the floor tonight and just admire them and i was totally thwarted by inadequately re-stocked poetry section. ARGH.

http://www.spdbooks.org will send you fun presents in the mail if you ask nicely (and pay for them).

Also: http://poetshouse.org/library.htm Although you can't buy anything unless you catch 'em during book sale time.

Oh yeah. I hit that once. It was all right.

I just found this poem again recently. The last time I heard it was when Jane Draycott was my tutor on a residential in Portugal. V good memories and a great poem.

Prince Rupert's Drop

It's brilliant. It's a tear you can stand a car
on, the hard eye of a chandelier
ready to break down and cry like a baby, a rare
birth, cooled before its time. It's an ear
of glass accidentally sown in the coldest of water,
that sheer drop, rock solid except for the tail
or neck which will snap like sugar, kick like a mortar
under the surefire touch of your fingernail.

It's the pearl in a will-o'-the-wisp, the lantern asleep
in the ice, the light of St Elmo's fire in your eyes.
It's the roulette burst of a necklace, the snap
of bones in an icicle's finger, the snip of your pliers
at the neck of my heart, the fingertip working the spot
which says 'you are here' until you are suddenly not.

No Poem

I knew the words
to this poem once.

I wrote them down.

I looked up at the sun
and I looked down.

The words formed a sun
in their own fragile sky.

I wrote it down.

I was blinded twice
back into sight.

I was blinded twice
back into sight.

YES, I WRITE VERSE

Yes, I write verse now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talked of by young men
As rather clever.

In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?
Or now or never.

-- Walter Landor

I hope y'all are out there writing wonderful stuff, since you're not here. Now or never?

[...]
I have come late but I have come before
Later with slaked steps from stone to stone
To hope to find you listening for the door.

I stand in the ticking room. My dear, I take
A moth kiss from your breath. The shore gulls cry.
I leave this at your ear for when you wake.

- WS Graham

*sigh*

Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,
Bid adieu to girlish days,
Happy Love is come to woo
Thee and woo thy girlish ways--
The zone that doth become thee fair,
The snood upon thy yellow hair.

When thou hast heard his name upon
The bugles of the cherubim
Begin thou softly to unzone
Thy girlish bosom unto him
And softly to undo the snood
That is the sign of maidenhood.

-joyce

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and--sans End!
-Rubaiyat- Omar Khayyam

A distinctly autumnal feel is descending on the poetry thread, no?

Spectrum

Brown from the sun's mid-afternoon caress,
And where not brown, white as a bridal dress,
And where not white, pink as an opened plum.

And where not pink, darkly mysterious,
And when observed, openly furious,
And then obscured, while the red blushes come.

--William Dickey

Once more:

...
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

...
POEM IN OCTOBER--Dylan Thomas

pepek, dear, you rule - this is one of my fav Thomas poems...

I like this thread a lot and must participate (slightly more than 10 lines).

(...)
So we must be careful, those of us who were
born with
the wrong number of fingers or the gift
of loving; we must do our best to behave
like normal members of society and not make
nuisances
of ourselves; otherwise it could go hard
with us.
It is better to bite back your tears,
swallow your laughter,
and learn to fake the mildly self-depreciating
titter
favoured by the bourgeoisie
than to be left entirely alone, as you will be,
if your disconformity embarrasses
your neighbours; I wish I didn't keep forgetting
that.

- Alden Nowlan, from "He Attempts to Love His Neighbours"

Tao
(For F.R.Scott)

Things that are blown or carried by a stream
seem to be living - not in that they oppose the wind
or oppose the water, but in that they move
lightly blown,
lightly flowing, like things that move

We who are actually living do best when we do not resist,
do not insist, when winds and waters blow,
but go gently with them, being of their kind,
in the secret of wind and water, the thought of flow

Louis Dudek

rrobyn thx

(rrobyn a friend and I were just talking about this same feeling, but this poem captures it much better than we could. thanks.)

So glad to see this one movin' again!

[...]
I will walk up the road behind the house
& think of a young boy running in & out
through the doors of darkness, calling his
friends by name; his friends call back, leaping
into the tall grass to meet him.

I return to the house. From a window, a woman
shouts for the boy to come in.

I feel sorry for her
like the fool that I am,
like the man I will never be.

-Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
[...]

-To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough

Woo, I bought Alice Oswald's Dart and Sarah Wardle's Fields Away for £2.94 yesterday :)

I have poems to be writin' after my camping trip (head is full of sheep mainly) but in the meantime:

We, too, had known golden hours
When body and soul were in tune,
Had danced with our true loves
By the light of a full moon,
And sat with the wise and good
As tongues grew witty and gay
Over some noble dish
Out of Escoffier;
Had felt the intrusive glory
Which tears reserve apart,
And would in the old grand manner
Have sung from a resonant heart.

In the jangle and smecksheck of the social
I do the decent do-si-do, I say Hello,
How's it going? Not too bad, yourself?
I mingle and pay my dues.
I crinkle and share my views.
In the jangle and smecksheck of the social
I walk strafed by the flak of smiles
and the dart-smart of glances,
nodding and lauding and helping to weave
the enclosing tapestryification
that butters the toast of the social.

{The first lines of a new Mark Halliday poem.

Nice. 'I crinkle'!

i'm so poetry-free these days. what should i be reading?

Cereal boxes.

Touris, white man, wipin his face,
Met me in Golden Grove market place.
He looked at m'ol' clothes brown wid stain ,
An soaked right through wid de Portlan rain,
He cas his eye, turn up his nose,
He says, 'You're a beggar man, I suppose?'
He says, 'Boy, get some occupation,
Be of some value to your nation.'
I said, 'By God and dis big right han
You mus recognize a banana man.
[...]

-Evan Jones

(Incidentally, although this is probably not the right thread for it, I got my first review for Three Voices - only one sentence, of which most was taken up by a quote from one of the poems - but still! I am 'laconic' apparently.)

"Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz"

Are you happy? It's the only
way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy, it's a good nice
way to be.
But not happy-happy, kid, don't
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It's the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people... bust hard... they
do bust hard... when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too
doggone happy.

-Carl Sandburg