What poems stick with you ?

[beths-virtue]

well, poets, i assume , read others poetry, both on and off the list ...
so, heres my question, what poems , have you read, that stick with you, and in your mind, , why, what about the poem appeals to you ?


one of my top ones, that i have memorized, is from the book the outsiders , by SE hinton, thats where i first met it, but, the actual poem itself is from robert frost.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


the other one i like, is actually a chanted poem , which i fell in love with due simply to the title,
Dancing on the Grave of a son of a bitch... now , of course sincei am writing this thread, i cant find the book to type it in here. sorry to tease, i will relocate it and add it in later... x my heart, and lands as well..

 

[beths-virtue]

whoo hoo, found it !

Dancing On The Grave Of A Son Of A Bitch , diane wokowski, unfortunately the book is out of print...

God damn it,
at last I am going to dance on your grave,
old man;
you've stepped on my shadow once too often,
you've been ubfaithful to me with other women,
women so cheap and insipid it psychs me out to think i might
ever
be put
in the same category with them;
you've left me alone so often that I might as well have been
a homesteader in Alaska
these past years;
and you've left me, thrownme out of your life
often enough
that I might as well be a newspaper,
differently discarded each day.
Now you're gone for good
and I don't know wy
but your leaving actually made me as miserable
as an earthworm with no
earth,
but now I've crawled out of the ground where you stomped me
and I gradually stand taller and taller each
day.
I have learned to sing new songs,
and as I sing,
I'm going to dance on your grave
because you are
dead
dead
dead
under the earth with the rest of the shit,
I'm going to plant deadly nightshade
on your grassy mound
and make sure a hemlock tree starts growing there.
Henbane is too good for you,
but I'll let a bit grow there for good measure
because we want to dance,
we want to sing,
we want to throw this old man
to the wolves,
but they are too beautiful for him, singing in harmony
with each other.
So some white wolcves and I
will sing on your grave, old man
and dance for the joy of your death.
"Is this an angry statement?"
"No, it is a statement of joy."
"Will the sun shine again?"
"Yes,
yes,
yes,"
because I'mgoing to dance dance dance
Duncan's measure, and Pindar's tune,
Lorca's cadence, and Creeley's hum,
Steven's sirens and Williams' little Morris dance,
oh, the poets will call the tune,
and I will dance, dance, dance
on your grave, grave, grave,
because you're a sonofabitch, a sonofabitch,
and you tried to do me in,
but you cant cant cant.
You were a liar in a way I that only I know:
You ride a broken motorcycle,
You speak a dead language,
You are a bad plumber,
And you write with an inkless pen.
You were mean to me
and I've survived,
God damn you,
at last I am going to dance on your grave,
old man,
I'm going to learn every traditional dance,
every measure,
and dance dance dance on your grave
one step
for every time
you done me wrong

 

[WickedEve]

Much of the poetry that I read as a teen and young adult has stuck with me. I read (and still do occasionally) Poe, Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Shakespeare, Richard Lovelace...
Why has their poetry stuck with me? Probably for the same reasons that have kept their poems in the spotlight for all these years - it's great poetry.

I've always loved To Althea from Prison by Lovelace:

When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd to her eye,
The gods, that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.

When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.


I've always believed that no matter what confines me in life, I'm totally free, because my mind let's me be whatever I choose to be and go wherever I desire.

 

[Rybka]

Favorites

My favorite poets are Frost, MacLeish, and Cummings. Here are two by Archie; the first one is still my favorite poem and is what got me started reading, and then writing poetry. The second ones means more and more to me as I get older. I also include the first poem I ever had to memorize.

EXCAVATION OF TROY

Girl do you think
Girl do you think ever
Waking stretching your small
Arms your back arched
Your long legs straight
Out your mouth red
Round in a pout in a half
Yawn half smile
Do you think delicate
Girl with the skin smoother than
Silver cooler than apples
Delicate cool girl
Do you think as your throat
Lifts your breath
Catches ever of
Me
far back
Buried under the many
Nights layer on layer
Like a city taken a town
Fallen in antique wars and Forgotten?

Half awake on your bed the images
Fading from the edge of sleep
As the salt rim of the surf from the wet
Sand do you think of me
As men long landed from the famous ships
Beached by the bright Aegean and the sails brought silver
down
Of the fallen town
Of the white walls in the sun the cicadas
The smell of eucalyptus by the sea?

- Archibald MacLeish

They Come No More Those Finches

Oh when you're young,
And the words to your tongue,
Like the birds to St Francis,
With darting, with dances,
Sing "Wait", "Wait",
"There's still time it's not late."

And the next day you're old,
And the words all as cold,
As the birds in October,
Sing over, Sing over,
Sing, "Late", "Late".
And "Wait", you say "Wait"?
- Archibald MacLeish

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
-John Masefield

Regards, Rybka

 

[_Land]

Rudyard Kipling

"Cities and Thrones and Powers"

Cities and Thrones and Powers,
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears,
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's;
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance,
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er -kind,
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"

 

[_Land]

IF

also by Rudyard Kipling





If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

 

[beths-virtue]

wow, this is just fantastic, i really look forward to more posts..
i hadnt expected quite the scope we have already spanned...

now let me add in some dylan...
dylan thomas, that is , the irish drunken poet.,who drank to escape a life he never fit into and was openly emotional , a thing , only acceptable for poets...
born in 1914, died in new york, at age 39


Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.


Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics dies,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

 

[Angeline]

What a Great Thread!

Dear Ms. Beths-Virtue

I am loving this thread! What a delight both to see what poems you love and have the opportunity to read them. Great to discover new poems too. (I now see that I must read more Archilbald MacLeish).

I love the lots of the classic English stuff (Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, the Romantics, the Victorians), but now am very interested in modern American poetry and poems from other cultures. Here are a few favorites.



I Adore Pablo Neruda!

Parthenogenesis
by Pablo Neruda

Day by day, all those who gave
me advice get crazier and crazier.
Luckily, I paid no attention
and they took off for some other city
where they all live together
swapping hats with each other.

They were praiseworthy types,
politically astute,
so that all my ineptitudes
caused them great suffering:
They got gray-haired and wrinkled,
couldn't stomach their chestnuts,
and finally an autumnal depression
left them delirious.

Now I don't know which way to be-
absent-minded or respectful;
shall I yield to advice
or tell them outright they're hysterical?
Independence as such gets me nowhere,
I get lost in the underbrush,
I don't know if I'm coming or going.
Shall I move on or stand pat,
buy tom-cats or tomatoes?

I'll figure out as best I can
what I ought not to do- and then do it:
that way, I can make a good case
for the times I got lost on the way;
if I don't make mistakes
who'll have faith in my errors?
If I live like a savant
no one will be greatly impressed.

Well, I'll try to change for the better:
greet them all circumspectly,
watch out for appearances,
be dedicated, enthusiastic-
till I'm just what they ordered,
being and unbeing at will
till I'm totally otherwise.

Then if they let me alone,
I'll change my whole person,
disagree with my skin,
get a new mouth,
change my shoes and my eyes-
then when I'm different
and nobody can recognize me
-since anything else is unthinkable-
I'll go on as I was in the beginning.

Poetry
by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.


Ted Berrigan is an acquired taste. I love the way he's irreverent and funny and profound all at once

Wrong Train
by Ted Berrigan

Here comes the man! He's talking a lot
I'm sitting, by myself. I've got
A ticket to ride. Outside is, "Out to lunch."
It's no great pleasure, being on the make.
Well, who is? Or, well everyone is, tho.
"I'm laying there, & some guy comes up
& hits me with a billyclub!" A fat guy
Says. Shut up. & like that we cross a river
Into the Afterlife. Everything goes on as before
But never does any single experience make total use
Of you. You are always slightly ahead,
Slightly behind. It merely baffles, it doesn't hurt.
It's total pain & it breaks your heart
In a less than interesting way. Every day
Is payday. Never enough pay. A deja-vu
That lasts. It's no big thing, anyway.
A lukewarm greasy hamburger, ice-cold pepsi
that hurts your teeth.

Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
by Langston Hughes


Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

And a Sentimental Favorite by William Butler Yeats

When You Are Old
William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


(Yes, I'll stop now before I totally lose control.)

 

[RisiaSkye]

Belly Dancer
by Diane Wakoski

Can these movements which move themselves
be the substance of my attraction?
Where does this thin green silk come from that covers my body?
Surely any woman wearing such fabrics
would move her body just to feel them touching every part of her.

Yet most of the women frown, or look away, or laugh stiffly.
They are afraid of these materials and these movements in some way.
The psychologists would say they are afraid of themselves, somehow.
Perhaps awakening too much desire—
that their men could never satisfy?

So they keep themselves laced and buttoned and made up
in hopes that the framework will keep them stiff enough not to feel
the whole register.
In hopes that they will not have to experience that unquenchable desire for
rhythm and contact.

If a snake glided across this floor
most of them would faint or shrink away.
Yet that movement could be their own.
That smooth movement frightens them—
awakening ancestors and relatives to the tips of the arms and toes.

So my bare feet
and my thin green silks
my bells and finger cymbals
offend them—frighten their old-young bodies.
While the men simper and leer—
glad for the vicarious experience and exercise.
They do not realize how I scorn them:
or how I dance for their frightened,
unawakened, sweet
women.


~~~~
Incident
by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

~~~
Equity
by Charlyne Nichols (the spacing is hard to reproduce, though)

I (generic female of the species
whose name is not even my own)

Did lawfully take that man
(assertive, macho-proud)

To be my wedded husband,
To love, honor, and cherish...

But later he insisted
I'd promised to obey:
"Clean the house,
do the laundry.
Mow the lawn and
Fix the faucet.
Gas the car,
Pay the bills
And get this kid out of here, he's buggin' me.
*
And go get a job--
You're in a rut and we need the money.
*
And by the way,
bring me a beer, I'm
right in the middle
of a ballgame--jeez
looka that sonofabitch GO!"
*
*
*
*
I do solemnly swear:
"I'm tired, Judge,
Just tell him, please,
Marrying means sharing--
It goes both ways."

The gavel sounded: Divorce Granted.

 

[_Land]

RisiaSkye

Belly Dancer
by Diane Wakoski

Can these movements which move themselves
be the substance of my attraction?
Where does this thin green silk come from that covers my body?
Surely any woman wearing such fabrics
would move her body just to feel them touching every part of her.

Yet most of the women frown, or look away, or laugh stiffly.
They are afraid of these materials and these movements in some way.
The psychologists would say they are afraid of themselves, somehow.
Perhaps awakening too much desire—
that their men could never satisfy?

So they keep themselves laced and buttoned and made up
in hopes that the framework will keep them stiff enough not to feel
the whole register.
In hopes that they will not have to experience that unquenchable desire for
rhythm and contact.

If a snake glided across this floor
most of them would faint or shrink away.
Yet that movement could be their own.
That smooth movement frightens them—
awakening ancestors and relatives to the tips of the arms and toes.

So my bare feet
and my thin green silks
my bells and finger cymbals
offend them—frighten their old-young bodies.
While the men simper and leer—
glad for the vicarious experience and exercise.
They do not realize how I scorn them:
or how I dance for their frightened,
unawakened, sweet
women.


~~~~
Incident
by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

~~~
Equity
by Charlyne Nichols (the spacing is hard to reproduce, though)

I (generic female of the species
whose name is not even my own)

Did lawfully take that man
(assertive, macho-proud)

To be my wedded husband,
To love, honor, and cherish...

But later he insisted
I'd promised to obey:
"Clean the house,
do the laundry.
Mow the lawn and
Fix the faucet.
Gas the car,
Pay the bills
And get this kid out of here, he's buggin' me.
*
And go get a job--
You're in a rut and we need the money.
*
And by the way,
bring me a beer, I'm
right in the middle
of a ballgame--jeez
looka that sonofabitch GO!"
*
*
*
*
I do solemnly swear:
"I'm tired, Judge,
Just tell him, please,
Marrying means sharing--
It goes both ways."

The gavel sounded: Divorce Granted.

Thanks for posting, I particularly like the last one........_Land

 

[shanier]

this poem sticks with me...

Deus Ex Machina

Today, she comes to me in the grocery store,
In the frozen food aisle of all places.
After weeks of nervous faith-
Nails bitten to the quick,
Dirty hair pulled back to hide the knots and tangles-
Like a ghost appearing slowly in a doorway,
Hope has come again, today.
I gasp for air, exhausted from holding my breath so long.

Who knows why she went in the first place?
She's fickle is all I can figure,
Evaporating at the slightest sign
Of illness
Or poverty
Or failure.

The ghost doesn't smile.
She just stands there. Still.
But her presence is felt.
Is noted.
Is celebrated.

I'm a little bit proud of myself;
I waited her out this time.
No pounding my head with clenched fists.
Just a box of candy eaten at midnight,
A canceled lunch date
And an early morning nightmare.

And now she's here again,
Approaching me with a warm light,
Not as bright as a comet, but brighter than the TV screen.
My eyes burn and I bite my bottom lip.
"I knew she would come," I whisper to the fishsticks.

by Lori Cossens
----------------


because she absolutely nails what it's like to be depressed and/or somehow without that magic spark of hope.

 

[beths-virtue]

yeah risiaskye!!!
someone else who likes diane wakowski!!!

i do so love her poetry...
especially, right when youre breaking up with someone...
i had a male friend read it , once, and his remark was "sterotypical"," she hates men"

ahhh well, not everyone can get every poem or poet...

 

[_Land]

another favorite

Robert Frost
Poetry


Putting in the Seed

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

 

[karmadog]

Great thread

Poems from a morbid youth, I guess.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And this one:

The Pardon

Richard Wilbur

My dog lay dead five days without a grave
In the thick of summer, hid in a clump of pine
And a jungle of grass and honeysuckle-vine.
I who had loved him while he kept alive

Went only close enough to where he was
To sniff the heavy honeysuckle-smell
Twined with another odour heavier still
And hear the flies' intolerable buzz.

Well, I was ten and very much afraid.
In my kind world the dead were out of range
And I could not forgive the sad or strange
In beast or man. My father took the spade

And buried him.
Last night I saw the grass
Slowly divide (it was the same scene
But now it glowed a fierce and mortal green)
And saw the dog emerging. I confess

I felt afraid again, but still he came
In the carnal sun, clothed in a hymn of flies,
And death was breeding in his lively eyes.
I started in to cry and call hi name,

Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head.
...I dreamt the past was never past redeeming:
But whether this was false or honest dreaming
I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Portuguese Poetry

This is one of those poems that virtually every Portuguese knows by heart, or at the least the first stanza. Pessoa is one of the best poets of the 20th century by any standards:



Autopsicografia

O poeta é um fingidor.
Finge tão completamente
Que chega a fingir que é dor
A dor que deveras sente.

E os que lêem o que escreve,
Na dor lida sentem bem,
Não as duas que ele teve,
Mas só que éles não têm.

E assim nas calhas de roda
Gira, a entreter a razão
Esse comboio de corda
Que se chama o coração


(Autopsychography)

(The poet is a fake.
His faking seems so real
That he will fake the ache
Which he can really feel.

And those who read his cries
Feel in the paper tears
Not two aches that are his
But one that is not theirs.

And so in its ring
Giving the mind a game
Goes this train on a string
And the heart is its name.)

Fernado Pessoa (1888-1935)
(translation by Keith Bosley)

 

[beths-virtue]

karma dog,
hey, thanks for bringing "the pardon"
into this, i remember that poem , only because the first time i heard it , was shortly after one of our farm dogs found out the truth about tires and pavement

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Re: Portuguese Poetry

Pessoa is one of the best poets of the 20th century by any standards

I found a few poems that he wrote in English. They my not be as good as the bulk of his work, but at least they were not tampered with by translators:


I am the escaped one

I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.


Fernado Pessoa (1888-1935)

-------------------------------------------


Meantime

Far away, far away,
              Far away from here...
There is no worry after joy
              Or away from fear
Far away from here.

Her lips were not very red,
              Not her hair quite gold.
Her hands played with rings.
              She did not let me hold
Her hands playing with gold.

She is something past,
              Far away from pain.
Joy can touch her not, nor hope
              Enter her domain,
              Neither love in vain.

Perhaps at some day beyond
              Shadows and light
She will think of me and make
              All me a delight
              All away from sight.


Fernado Pessoa (1888-1935)

-------------------------------------------


ON AN ANKLE

A SONNET BEARING THE IMPRIMATUR
OF THE INQUISITOR-GENERAL
AND OTHER PEOPLE OF DISTINCTION AND DECENCY

I had a revelation not from high,
But from below, when thy skirt awhile lifted
Betrayed such promise that I am not gifted
With words that may taht view well signify.

And even if my verse that thing would try,
Hard were it, if that word came to be sifted,
Ti find a word that rude would not have shifted
There from the cold hand of Morality.

The gaze is nought; mere sight no mind hath wrecked.
But oh! sweet lady, beyond what is seen
What things may guess or hint at Disrespect?!

Sacred is not the beauty of a queen...
I from thine ankle did as much suspect
As you from this suspect what I mean.


Fernado Pessoa (1888-1935)

-------------------------------------------

FLASHES OF MADNESS II

When you see me spend hours
Holding in a too-local glance
Your mouth or teeth, or your hand
And note how my soul devours
With a sleep-like trance
The commonest things that stand,

And ask me what in them I see
Since in to each my spirit delves
As if each had a mystery,
You err in your conjecturings,
For whatever obsesses me
Is not things in their many selves
But the being there of things.


Fernado Pessoa (1888-1935)

-------------------------------------------


Alentejo Seen From The Train

Nothing with nothing around it
And a few trees in between
None of wich very clearly green,
Where no river or flower pays a visit.
If there be a hell, I've found it,
For if ain't here, where the Devil it is?


Fernado Pessoa (1888-1935)

(I was actually thinking about the last time I was under a 115ºF Alentejo sun when I wrote Meteorological Report, a few months ago. That would give you an idea of what he's talking about. Beautiful place, no matter what )

 

[RisiaSkye]

yeah risiaskye!!!
someone else who likes diane wakowski!!!

Yeah...I read "Belly Dancer" more than a decade ago, and it still sticks with me. It's not for everyone, though.

Land, thanks, and I'm glad you liked "Equity."

karma: the Thomas piece always seems to come up at funerals I attend. So, reading it is always an emotional experience. Thanks for posting it.

Great thread!