Poetry

[graceanne]

So, with all the poetic gems that Keroin has been posting, I got to thinking.

I love poetry, although I'm pretty picky. We're all pretty literate people, so I bet I'm not the only one.

Who's your favorite poet? Which poems speak to you? Which are your favorites?

 

[Keroin]

...I got to thinking.

Whoa! Wait. You were thinking? That's about all I want to hear.



One of my very favourite poets is a slam poet whose name, unfortunately, I don't want to post here because she is a friend of mine from my very first writing group.

What I love about her poems (and they really work best when performed) is that they deal with very mundane, everyday topics, but approach them with such a unique eye.

But here's a bit from a poem she performs about dealing with anger and sorrow:

calculate a sonata for kazoo and cantaloupe
play it backwards to hear the secret meaning
challenge cause and effect to an umbrella wrestle
use a metal detector to find your inner rubber chicken
and take it
for a gallop 'round the pond

 

[graceanne]

Whoa! Wait. You were thinking? That's about all I want to hear.



One of my very favourite poets is a slam poet whose name, unfortunately, I don't want to post here because she is a friend of mine from my very first writing group.

What I love about her poems (and they really work best when performed) is that they deal with very mundane, everyday topics, but approach them with such a unique eye.

But here's a bit from a poem she performs about dealing with anger and sorrow:

calculate a sonata for kazoo and cantaloupe
play it backwards to hear the secret meaning
challenge cause and effect to an umbrella wrestle
use a metal detector to find your inner rubber chicken
and take it
for a gallop 'round the pond

I started reading poetry when I was ten, because one of the teachers invited me to join a poetry club. I started out with Kipling, because it was the only poetry in the house.

That said, I'm not a huge Kipling fan. I have two favorite poems, The Highway Man and one a girl I knew in highschool found. It's about a three year old named Misty who got beat to death by her dad - it's pretty depressing. My favorite poet, though, is Emily Dickinson.

 

[Lord_Steve]

DID SOMEONE SAY POETRY

oh shit son i think they did.

i rise​

hungry

expectant​

as Rafael told someone
"ordinary usage teaches them only one fact - FEAR EATS REASON"

to hear everything!
my waiting eardrums tremble anew,
nameless delicate breath explodes,
a terrible inspiration now grips me

omnivorous​

unexplainable

(no truly available ideas (no substance))​

could ordinary language display wisdom?

ideation, naming,​

demands man's actual control.
can he understand pure ideology's cryptic contortions,
usurp Heraclitus's instinctual description,
invent new gnostic inversions, new thots (hopefully),
extending such unconscious nuances, unwritten novelties, forward -
outside us? not deaf forever or
(reacting, collecting examples, new theories)
utter reasonable idiocies?

-from "Translating Translating Apollonaire" by bp Nichols.

i like a poem.

 

[eastern sun]

Rainer Maria Rilke

It's possible I'm moving through the hard veins
of heavy mountains, like the ore does, alone;
I'm already so deep inside I see no end in sight,
and no distance, everything is getting near
and everything near is turning to stone.

I still can't see very far into suffering,—
so this vast darkness makes me small;
are you the one. make yourself powerful, break in
so that your whole being may happen to me,
and to you may happen my whole cry.

 

[Lord_Steve]

Rainer Maria Rilke

It's possible I'm moving through the hard veins
of heavy mountains, like the ore does, alone;
I'm already so deep inside I see no end in sight,
and no distance, everything is getting near
and everything near is turning to stone.

I still can't see very far into suffering,—
so this vast darkness makes me small;
are you the one. make yourself powerful, break in
so that your whole being may happen to me,
and to you may happen my whole cry.

if i could steal an entire body of work and pass it off with my own rilke might very well be the one i would choose to usurp.

no joke.

i knew i liked you for a reason.

 

[DVS]

Here are a couple of classics, by me. Please hold all of your applause until the end. Thank you.

I IS ME
© DVS

I is me
You is you.
I is horny
Is you too?

If you is
Let's be friends.
If you isn't
Don't pretend.

Because if you do
You're just a fake and
I don't like to
Make a fake.

Fakes are made from
Nothing real, and
Something real I
Want to feel.

I want to feel some
Parts of you, so
Is you horny?
Cause I is, too.

CLOCKS
© DVS

Clocks go tick
Clocks go tock.
What goes tick-tock?
Clocks, that's what.

What goes tick?
What goes tock?
Clocks go tick-tock.
Clocks go what?

 

[ecstaticsub]

My favorite is Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. The reason is not so much for the poem itself as for the memory it evokes. When I was in 5th grade I had to memorize a poem. My father loved Poe and had one of those big complete works books. He told me he had memorized Annabelle Lee when he was in grade school. I was a Daddy's girl then so I picked it to memorize also to please him. My father died of a short sudden illness 14 years ago. I miss him terribly. Annabelle Lee always causes a chill up my spine...and warms my heart at the same time.


Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabelle Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

 

[Stella_Omega]

One of the prettiest poems ever written; e.e. cummings

Doll's boy's asleep
under a stile
he sees eight and twenty
ladies in a line

the first lady
says to nine ladies
his lips drink water
but his heart drinks wine

the tenth lady
says to nine ladies
they must chain his foot
for his wrist's too fine

the nineteenth
says to nine ladies
you take his mouth
for his eyes are mine.

Doll's boy's asleep
under the stile
for every mile the feet go
the heart goes nine

 

[His_pet_slut]

Morning at the Window
T. S. Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

~~~~~~
A favorite...and the reason my cat is named Eliot.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Elliot is such a good name for a cat!

 

[graceanne]

Here are a couple of classics, by me. Please hold all of your applause until the end. Thank you.

I IS ME
~DVS~



CLOCKS

*applause*

I am so jealous of people who can write poetry, no matter if it's fun and silly or deep and thoughtful. i can't write poetry to save my life.

My favorite is Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. The reason is not so much for the poem itself as for the memory it evokes. When I was in 5th grade I had to memorize a poem. My father loved Poe and had one of those big complete works books. He told me he had memorized Annabelle Lee when he was in grade school. I was a Daddy's girl then so I picked it to memorize also to please him. My father died of a short sudden illness 14 years ago. I miss him terribly. Annabelle Lee always causes a chill up my spine...and warms my heart at the same time.

Annabelle Lee is the only ... well, anything by Edgar Allen Poe that I like. I normally find his stuff creepy to extreme.

 

[His_pet_slut]

Elliot is such a good name for a cat!

Thank you.

 

[graceanne]

IF tolling bell I ask the cause.
“A soul has gone to God,”
I ’m answered in a lonesome tone;
Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell
A soul had gone to heaven,
Would seem to me the proper way
A good news should be given.

~ Emily Dickenson

 

[BiBunny]

I can't choose a favorite poet. But I can choose a handful of favorites.

Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, John Donne, Sir Phillip Sidney. Donne's "The Canonization" is probably my favorite poem, though Plath's "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" are close, as is Parker's "Love Song," the last stanza of which I had as my sig line here once before. Sidney's "Sonnet 1" from Astrophel and Stella is wonderful, too.

"The Canonization"
John Donne

FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

Call's what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;

And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love."


/lit nerd

 

[Lord_Steve]

I can't choose a favorite poet. But I can choose a handful of favorites.

Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, John Donne, Sir Phillip Sidney. Donne's "The Canonization" is probably my favorite poem, though Plath's "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" are close, as is Parker's "Love Song," the last stanza of which I had as my sig line here once before. Sidney's "Sonnet 1" from Astrophel and Stella is wonderful, too.

"The Canonization"
John Donne

FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

Call's what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;

And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love."


/lit nerd

thank fuck someone else likes sidney over that fucker spencer. "the fairy queen" more like "the dairy queen" (he was famously fat btw). also he had a real creepy fixation with various elizabeths (his wife, his mother, and his queen) and frequently conflated them in ways that probably only made sense to him.

fuck that dude. sidney was cool. he was a jousting champion! i like knights because i am literally six years old

 

[BiBunny]

thank fuck someone else likes sidney over that fucker spencer. "the fairy queen" more like "the dairy queen" (he was famously fat btw). also he had a real creepy fixation with various elizabeths (his wife, his mother, and his queen) and frequently conflated them in ways that probably only made sense to him.

fuck that dude. sidney was cool. he was a jousting champion! i like knights because i am literally six years old

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Netzach]

John Ashberry, always

WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN

To have been loved once by someone--surely
There is a permanent good in that,
Even if we don't know all the circumstances
Or it happened too long ago to make any difference.
Like almost too much sunlight or an abundance of sweet-sticky,
Caramelized things--who can tell you it's wrong?
Which of the others on your team could darken the passive
Melody that runs on, that has been running since the world began?

Yet, to be strapped to one's mindset, which seems
As enormous as a plain, to have to be told
That its horizons are comically confining,
And all the sorrow wells from there, like the slanting
Plume of a waterspout: doesn't it supplant knowledge
Of the different forms of love, reducing them
To a white indifferent prism, a roofless love standing open
To the elements? And some see in this paradigm of how it rises
Slowly to the indifferent heavens, all that pale glamour?

The refrain is desultory as birdsong, it seeps unrecognizably
Into the familiar structures that lead out from here
To the still familiar peripheries and less sure notions:
It already had its way. In time for evening relaxation.
There are times when music steals a march on us,
Is suddenly perplexingly nearer, flowing in my wrist;
Is the true and dirty words you whisper nightly
As the book closes like a collapsing sheet, a blur
Of all kinds of connotations ripped from the hour and tossed
Like jewels down a well; the answer, also,
To the question that was on my mind but that I've forgotten,
Except in the way certain things, certain nights, come together.

 

[Lord_Steve]

this is it; the poem that, at the tender age of 15, made me want to be a poet. I have found more complex poems since, and maybe more beautiful poems too, but none that keen for me so loudly:

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.​

"The idea of order at key west" by wallace stevens

oh god what a debt i owe
if only i could do anything so simply good

 

[Lord_Steve]

this is it; the poem that, at the tender age of 15, made me want to be a poet. I have found more complex poems since, and maybe more beautiful poems too, but none that keen for me so loudly:

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.​

"The idea of order at key west" by wallace stevens

oh god what a debt i owe
if only i could do anything so simply good

 

[Stella_Omega]

*applause*

I am so jealous of people who can write poetry, no matter if it's fun and silly or deep and thoughtful. i can't write poetry to save my life.

Come read and be jealous of me!
http://stellaomega.com/poetry-and-flashfic/

Annabelle Lee is the only ... well, anything by Edgar Allen Poe that I like. I normally find his stuff creepy to extreme.

Annabelle Lee is pretty creepy, IMO. The Bells is about the only thing I know of by him that isn't.

 

[graceanne]

Come read and be jealous of me!
http://stellaomega.com/poetry-and-flashfic/

<<<< is jealous. You are really good.

Annabelle Lee is pretty creepy, IMO. The Bells is about the only thing I know of by him that isn't.

I thought Annabelle Lee was sad. And you're right about The Bells - if it didn't say Edgar Allen Poe right on top I would never have believed he'd write something so cheerful. I read some of his stuff in highschool - enough to be sure I'm not a huge fan and never looked any deeper.

 

[DVS]

I was watching the Johnny Carson show, this night. OK, I'm old. Get over it. But Jimmy always had a poem he'd written to recite, when he came on. I'll always remember this one.

 

[DVS]

Trail of Tears - © DVS

I came across a red man
His hair was straight and grey
I asked him where he's from
But he wouldn't say

I asked him where he's going
And he looked me in the eye
I'm moving away from white man
Or I will die.

Life moves in strange ways
It's the laws of our land
We don't always progress
But we do what we can

Sometimes things get misplaced
And sometimes people, too
But always when this happens
The laws tell us what to do

Move along red man
This land is ours
No use in believing
In your ancient powers

The treaties that were bargained
Over many years
Began your Tail of Tears

On a reservation
To keep a people strong
Before they were a nation
A hundred thousand strong

To live among the white man
Would force a change of ways
The old ways of the fathers
With every passing day

Move along red man
This land is ours
No use in believing
In your ancient powers

The treaties that were bargained
Over many years
Began your Tail of Tears

Can we be so greedy
To take their land from them
Make them as our enemy
When they wanted to be friends

It seems so damn useless
To treat them this way
They just wanted to live
But we made them go away

Move along red man
This land is ours
No use in believing
In your ancient powers

The treaties that were bargained
Over many years
Began your Tail of Tears


Exit With a Smile - © DVS

Little quotations and simulations
Of everything I've said before
Big white houses and many many spouses
Going in and out the door

Wedding invitations, great expectations
They're both one in the same
Dear John letters, from silent regretters
And no one wants the blame

Sorry but I can't stay
Oh baby what can I say
But it was fun for a while
Time for me to leave
One last hand squeeze
Then Exit With a Smile

What seems to be the matter with me?
Don't they find the love in me?
Is it me, or are they all to blame?
I'm trying to find the one for me
I need someone so desperately
Is there one or are they all the same?

Is there one out there who wants to care
Or are they all too selfish?
Is there any that live also to give
Or is receiving all they relish?

Maybe I'm the selfish one in fact
And I'm the one I should attack
Maybe so, I don't know.

Maybe I'm the selfish one in fact
And I'm the one that I should attack
I just wish my loves would last

Time will come, I'll find the answer
My love desires, soon I'll master
And when I do, I'll be happy, too
And no longer love in disaster

The day I find the love for me
I'll be as happy as I could ever be
And when I do I'll write a letter
To the rest of the world
And then I'll feel better

(I'll say)
Sorry but I must go
But I want you all to know
It was fun for a while
Time for me to leave
One last hand squeeze
Then Exit With a Smile

Little quotations and simulations
Of everything I've said before
Big white houses and many many spouses
Going in and out the door

Wedding invitations, great expectations
It was all fun for a while.
Dear John letters, from silent regretters
Then Exit With a Smile


Perfection Odyssey - © DVS

I sit here looking at a vision
A perfect odyssey
Something I could never obtain
Just a goal to seek

Living your life
It's all you can do
'Till the Lord God almighty
Comes to get you

Cut throats and villains
We must live with them all
Surviving our best
'Till we get the call

Something must be done
In this troubled land
To help it last more if we can
If we can

Overcome the greed and apathy
Right before your eyes
Oh can't you realize?
Or does it surprise you?

I sit here looking at a vision
A perfect odyssey
Something I could never obtain
Just a goal to seek

 

[Babyslave]

Just beautiful, DVS, no matter the form your words are presented.

I was a little stressed arriving home before having to leave for the next chapter of Christmas day. (always the mediator) Finding this was the best thing that could have happened. Much better than the shot of Stoli's I was going to have.

Thank you for sharing.