my last poetry thread is un-postable.

i must start a new thread with this:

Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry


Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.


- Howard Nemerov

Deborah Ager - Morning

We are what we repeatedly do.
—Aristotle

You know how it is waking
from a dream certain you can fly
and that someone, long gone, returned

and you are filled with longing,
for a brief moment, to drive off
the road and feel nothing

or to see the loved one and feel
everything. Perhaps one morning,
taking brush to hair you'll wonder

how much of your life you've spent
at this task or signing your name
or rising in fog in near darkness

to ready for work. Day begins
with other people's needs first
and your thoughts disperse like breath.

In the in-between hour, the solitary hour,
before day begins all the world
gradually reappears car by car.

CXLVII.

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

by William Shakespeare

.

a few cherry-picked excerpts from the unfathomably long, "Maud" by Alfred Lord Tennyson


My dream? do I dream of bliss?
I have walk'd awake with Truth.
O when did a morning shine
So rich in atonement as this
For my dark-dawning youth,
Darken'd watching a mother decline
And that dead man at her heart and mine:
For who was left to watch her but I?
Yet so did I let me freshness die.

-----

See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairly well
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design!

-----

Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.

-----

But the broad light glares and beats,
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;
And I loathe the squares and streets,
And the faces that one meets,
Hearts with no love for me:
Always I long to creep
Into some cavern deep,
There to weep, and weep, and weep
My whole soul out to thee.

-----

O me, why have they not buried me deep enough?
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough,
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?
Maybe still I am but half-dead;
Then I cannot be wholly dumb;
I will cry to the steps above my head
And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come
To bury me, bury me
Deeper, ever so little deeper.

-----

It is madness
says reason
It is what it is
says love

It is unhappiness
says caution
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It has no future
says insight
It is what it is
says love

It is ridiculous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love.

field day - W.R.Rodgers

the old farmer, nearing death, asked
to be carried outside and set down
where he could see a certain field
'and then i will cry my heart out,' he said.

it troubles me, thinking about that man;
what shape was the field of his crying
in Donegal?

i remember a small field in Down, a field
within fields, shaped like a triangle.
i could have stood there and looked at it
all day long.

and i remember crossing the frontier between
France and Spain at a forbidden point, and seeing
a small triangular field in Spain,
and stopping

or walking in Ireland down any rutted by-road
to where it hit the highway, there was always
at this turning point and abuttment
a still centre, a V-shape of grass
untouched by cornering traffic,
where country lads larked at night.

i think i know what the shape of the field was
that made the old man weep.

the Corpus Christi carol - anon. 16th cent.

lully, lulley, lully, lulley
the fawcon hath born my mak away.

he bare him up, he bare him down,
he bare him into an orchard brown.

in that orchard ther was an hall,
that was hanged with purpill and pall.

and in that hall ther was a bed:
it was hanged with gold and red.

and in that bed ther lythe a knight,
his woundes bleding day and night.

by that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
and she wepeth both night and day.

and by that bedes side ther stondeth a ston,
'Corpus Christi' wreton thereon.



just, just beautiful.

[This message was edited Tue Jul 13 5:13:03 2004 by TheFrog]

A Hero


Three times I had the lust to kill,
To clutch a throat so young and fair,
And squeeze with all my might until
No breath of being lingered there.
Three times I drove the demon out,
Though on my brow was evil sweat. . . .
And yet I know beyond a doubt
He'll get me yet, he'll get me yet.

I know I'm mad, I ought to tell
The doctors, let them care for me,
Confine me in a padded cell
And never, never set me free;
But Oh how cruel that would be!
For I am young - and comely too . . .
Yet dim my demon I can see,
And there is but one thing to do.

Three times I beat the foul fiend back;
The fourth, I know he will prevail,
And so I'll seek the railway track
And lay my head upon the rail,
And sight the dark and distant train,
And hear its thunder louder roll,
Coming to crush my cursed brain . . .
Oh God, have mercy on my soul!

Robert Service

starkitty said:

Nice!

TheFrog said:

i love this.

lollyp0p said:

Before u all think i am insane i think this poem sums up how people with mental health issues are neglected in the UK, and thatmost sucides are preventable. Education is needed to help people with mental health problems feel more able to come forward and seek help.

I think it is one of the most intrigueing poems i have ever read and almost made me cry..... it's pure desperation

lollyp0p said:

oh so true!

lollyp0p said:

WOW.

christ on a cracker.

Sweeny79 said:

hell yeah.

Dorothy Parker - Dilemma

If I were mild, and I were sweet,
And laid my heart before your feet,
And took my dearest thoughts to you,
And hailed your easy lies as true;
Were I to murmur "Yes," and then
"How true, my dear," and "Yes," again,
And wear my eyes discreetly down,
And tremble whitely at your frown,
And keep my words unquestioning
My love, you'd run like anything!

Should I be frail, and I be mad,
And share my heart with every lad,
But beat my head against the floor
What times you wandered past my door;
Were I to doubt, and I to sneer,
And shriek "Farewell!" and still be here,
And break your joy, and quench your trust-
I should not see you for the dust!

Dorothy Parker - For a Lady Who Must Write Verse

Unto seventy years and seven,
Hide your double birthright well-
You, that are the brat of Heaven
And the pampered heir to Hell.

Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures,
Strung and seen and thrown aside.
Drill your apt and docile measures
Sternly as you drill your pride.

Show your quick, alarming skill in
Tidy mockeries of art;
Never, never dip your quill in
Ink that rushes from your heart.

When your pain must come to paper,
See it dust, before the day;
Let your night-light curl and caper,
Let it lick the words away.

Never print, poor child, a lay on
Love and tears and anguishing,
Lest a cooled, benignant Phaon
Murmur, "Silly little thing!"

Dorothy Parker - Fighting Words

Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad-
Still behold me at your side.

Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue-
Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!

i dyed my blond hair red
i ignored all they said
and i nearly ended up dead

For Marsha


"I have a boyfriend," she said

"A boyfriend?" I said

"A boyfriend," she said

I visored my eyes with my hands, mock searching the crowd

for this newly appointed boyfriend even as I knew he was not here

this newly titled man she had been spending time with

earning boyfriend status even though he was not ready

for the two children that came along with the package.

Even though recently he had been arranging to meet other girls

for dinner or whatever.

"I figure it's time to give it a try," she said,

"I know in the back of my mind it won't work, though."

"Listen to that little voice," I said, "and don't kill it. It's there for a reason."

"But I won't know if i don't try," she said, this woman whose babies' daddy

was never was her speed, but who provided companionship

for many years and had been dismissed.

"One more thing," I said.

"It's a lot easier to get into it than it is to get out of it."

Me from my perspective and she from hers

I knew she had stopped listening some time ago.

buchenwald - anon

buchenwald, you are peaceful now.
buchenwald, you are smirking now
bruised children play again,
upon the gritty plain
as their elderly drover, who
has not been content for years
gazes on the scars with shame.

the smoke's decayed into frozen clouds;
mother's decayed inside a shroud
laugh on, buchenwald.

you are peaceful now, he mutters
under a meandering ash moon.

but

"papa's got no hair!
papa's got no hair?
...
why's papa got no hair?
why's mama going bare?"

and the silence smirks
on in buchenwald; it says:

"like to watch?
jedem das sein.

jedem das sein."

TheFrog said:

I like that one, very thought provoking,

simplify me when i'm dead - keith douglas

remember me when i am dead
and simplify me when i'm dead.

as the processes of earth
strip off the colour and the skin
take the brown hair and blue eye

and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless i came howling in
as the moon entered the cold sky.

of my skeleton perhaps,
so stripped, a learned man will say
'he was of such a type and intelligence,' no more.

thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may
deduce, from the long pain i bore

the opinions i held, who was my foe
and what i left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.

time's wrong-way telescope will show
a minute man ten years hence
and by distance simplified.

through that lens see if i seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion,

not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled,
leisurely arrive at an opinion.

remember me when i am dead
and simplify me when i'm dead.

POOK said:

starkitty said:

that's very perceptive and visual; me like.

and it also makes me thing of "because you asked about..."

lollyp0p said:

that's terrifying to read. it rips at you.

TheFrog said:

I think it's nice to have something so powerful and gripping to the point it can hurt the reader, I'm taking this into work tomorrow i think a few people i work with need to read it and feel what it's like to have emotions

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)
John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

I thought i'd post something a bit on the lighter side.


[This message was edited Tue Jul 13 14:08:55 2004 by lollyp0p]