cranky old poems from cranky old people

[twelveoone]

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
......all this fiddle
...Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
......discovers in
......it after all, a place for the genuine.
...... Hands that can grasp, eyes
...that can dilate, hair that can rise
.............if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
......they are
...useful. When they become so derivative as to become
......unintelligible,
...the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
......do not admire what
......we cannot understand: the bat
.............holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
......wolf under
...a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
......that feels a flea, the base-
...ball fan, the statistician--
......nor is it valid
.............to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
......a distinction
...however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
......result is not poetry,
...nor till the poets among us can be
......"literalists of
......the imagination"--above
.............insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
......shall we have
...it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
...the raw material of poetry in
......all its rawness and
......that which is on the other hand
.............genuine, you are interested in poetry.

-- Marianne Moore

I discovered a MFA that shared by affection for Marianne Moore
we hated each others stuff

 

[PatCarrington]

Self-Portrait Linda Pastun

I am child to no one, mother to a few,
wife for the long haul.
On fall days I am happy
with my dying brethren, the leaves,
but in spring my head aches
from the flowery scents.
My husband fills a room with Mozart
which I turn off, embracing
the silence as if it were an empty page
waiting for me alone to fill it.
He digs in the black earth
with his bare hands. I scrub it
from the creases of his skin, longing
for the kind of perfection
that happens in books.
My house is my only heaven.
A red dog sleeps at my feet, dreaming
of the manic wings of flushed birds.
As the road shortens ahead of me
I look over my shoulder
to where it curves back
to childhood, its white line
bisecting the real and the imagined
the way the ridgepole of the spine
divides the two parts of the body, leaving
the soft belly in the center
vulnerable to anything.
As for my country, it blunders along
as well intentioned as Eve choosing
cider and windfalls, oblivious
to the famine soon to come.
I stir pots, bury my face in books, or hold
a telephone to my ear as if its cord
were the umbilicus of the world
whose voices still whisper to me
even after they have left their bodies.

 

[Angeline]

Good Morning

After Us
Connie Wanek

I don't know if we're in the beginning
or in the final stage. -- Tomas Tranströmer

Rain is falling through the roof.
And all that prospered under the sun,
the books that opened in the morning
and closed at night, and all day
turned their pages to the light;

the sketches of boats and strong forearms
and clever faces, and of fields
and barns, and of a bowl of eggs,
and lying across the piano
the silver stick of a flute; everything

invented and imagined,
everything whispered and sung,
all silenced by cold rain.

The sky is the color of gravestones.
The rain tastes like salt, and rises
in the streets like a ruinous tide.
We spoke of millions, of billions of years.
We talked and talked.

Then a drop of rain fell
into the sound hole of the guitar, another
onto the unmade bed. And after us,
the rain will cease or it will go on falling,
even upon itself.

 

[twelveoone]

no Frost?

 

[Angeline]

no Frost?

Only on my windshield. It's 28 here.

 

[jthserra]

Marianne Moore

Poetry

-- Marianne Moore

Ah yes... I knew 1201 was a bright one. An excellent choice.


jim : )

 

[jthserra]

Wow...

Only on my windshield. It's 28 here.

We hit 88 last week, today it's supposed to hit the mid eighties with the wonderful Gulf humidity. I'll have to open the freezer for frost...

jim : )

 

[twelveoone]

Jim,
correct me if I'm wrong, I think she did three versions of it, it kept getting shorter. I think Pat may disagree, but I like the words in this, I think she went out of her way to pick "unpoetic" wording, something to be said about that.

and you people are incorrigible - Frost Frost, Frost

God, I hope HE isn't stuck in Angeline's windsheild.

 

[jthserra]

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


......................................-- Elizabeth Bishop

 

[BooMerengue]

no Frost?

Just 1 second before I read this I asked "Where's that 'Grow old with me, the best is yet to be' thing???" So I'll go get it.

Here it is. I didn't know it was so long...


GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?”
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”

Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth’s brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find a feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To that which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence,—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.

What is he but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
To man, propose this test—
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once “How good to live and learn”?

Not once beat “Praise be thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!”

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
“Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, “All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”

Therefore I summon age
To grant youth’s heritage,
Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a God though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:
A whisper from the west
Shoots—“Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.”

So, still within this life,
Though lifted o’er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
“This rage was right i’ the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.”

For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.

As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me; we all surmise,
They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass
Called “work,” must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O’er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world’s coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee ’mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves,
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
What though, about thy rim,
Skull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The master’s lips aglow!
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel? 180

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colors rife,
Bound dizzily—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

 

[Angeline]

We hit 88 last week, today it's supposed to hit the mid eighties with the wonderful Gulf humidity. I'll have to open the freezer for frost...

jim : )

Give me a few weeks. I'll send you a snowman.

 

[BooMerengue]

Just 1 second before I read this I asked "Where's that 'Grow old with me, the best is yet to be' thing???" So I'll go get it.

Here it is. I didn't know it was so long...


GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

blah

.......... blah

.................... blah

So, take and use Thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Did I mix up 2 poems here?? I don't like this.

 

[Tzara]

You know where you did despise
Alexander Pope

You know where you did despise
(Tother day) my little Eyes,
Little Legs, and little Thighs,
And some things, of little Size,
...................You know where.

You, tis true, have fine black eyes,
Taper legs, and tempting Thighs,
Yet what more than all we prize
Is a Thing of little Size,
...................You know where.

 

[Guest]

Advice to a Young Poet

So long as there are humans
on this planet
and Jupiter's in heaven
there will be disasters.

Make sure
you can read about them.

Irving Layton

 

[Reltne]

GAWD! You look just like my sister going to Woodstock!

Advice to a Young Poet

So long as there are humans
on this planet
and Jupiter's in heaven
there will be disasters.

Make sure
you can read about them.

Irving Layton

 

[Angeline]

GAWD! You look just like my sister going to Woodstock!

My sister went to Woodstock. Think we're related?

 

[Reltne]

My sister went to Woodstock. Think we're related?

Only by interests.

But I did eventually get a PhD niece out of the Hippie/commune generation.

 

[Angeline]

Only by interests.

But I did eventually get a PhD niece out of the Hippie/commune generation.

My cousin was um arrested for holding up a North Vietnamese flag behind General Westmorland at some lecture at my cuz's college.

My the sixties were fun. My aunt wasn't pissed, either. She marched in the Moratorium in DC wearing Another Mother for Peace t-shirt. Damn radicals.

 

[Reltne]

My cousin was um arrested for holding up a North Vietnamese flag behind General Westmorland at some lecture at my cuz's college.

My the sixties were fun. My aunt wasn't pissed, either. She marched in the Moratorium in DC wearing Another Mother for Peace t-shirt. Damn radicals.

My sister was a groupie/buddy of Abbey Hoffmann and his cronies.
Still amazes me how she finally grew up and decided to become a doctor.