The Road Not Taken
by: Robert Lee Frost



Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

Mistah Kurz - he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy.

I.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar


Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;


Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II


Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.


Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --


Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III


This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.


Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV


The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms


In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river


Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V


Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.


Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow


For Thine is the Kingdom


Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


Life is very long


Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

This one is for you Lleena..

For My Friend
by Carol Miller


across the miles
you touched my life,
opened my eyes, and
filled my empty heart-

strangers, yet friends,
our spirits reach out,
always touching, never apart- -

you in the east,
me in the west,
never together,
never apart- -

We Wear The Mask
-Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, --
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, we let them only see us, while,
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries,
To thee from tortured souls arise,
We sing, but oh the clay is vile,
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

- Paul Laurence Dunbar High is a great marching band, too! Though they got SCREWED in finals vs. Lafayette High School in 4A competition. PLD had beat them just the week before by more than 3 points, and somehow, Lafayette ended up beating them by more than 2. Of course, Lafayette is one of the best bands in KY. I still think PLD is a hell of a lot better, but Lafayette wins by reputation. Couldn't have PLD beating the "best band in KY" that's going to Macy's Day, can we?

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot

S`io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, `` What is it? ''
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys.
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ``Do I dare?'' and, ``Do I dare?''
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: ``How his hair is growing thin!'']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: ``But how his arms and legs are thin!'']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep. . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Woud it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: `` I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all''--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ``That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.''

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
``That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.''
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.


I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
[This message was edited Mon Oct 28 14:29:52 PST 2002 by IceNine]

>>>FAITH ON WHAT WE BELIEVE<<<
by Justin.E

Dark Christmas under the pouring rain,
A woman is crying over a child in chains
There’s no windows where he is,
Only shadow 2 please,
And she knows it…

Faith on what we believe,
Somebody tell me one day we’ll achieve
What brought us all here…
Too many questions or easy answers,
There’s millions of us, still no one 2gether…

Mother oh mother, your flesh is in jail
And no one will care, no one but faith…

Dark Christmas under the pouring rain,
If my faith is the sun, it’ll brake all the chains
It’ll ease all the pain
Your faith or mine, 4ever multiplied,

If only U believe…

The Gift In Wartime
Tran Mong Tu - Translated by Vann Phan

I offer you roses
Buried in your new grave
I offer you my wedding gown
To cover your tomb still green with grass.

You give me medals
Together with silver stars
And the yellow pips on your badge
Unused and still shining.

I offer you my youth
The days we were still in love
My youth died away
When they told me the bad news.

You give me the smell of blood
From your war dress
Your blood and your enemy's
So that I may be moved.

I offer you clouds
That linger on my eyes on summer days
I offer you cold winters
Amid my springtime of life.

You give me your lips with no smile
You give me your arms without tenderness
You give me your eyes with no sight
And your motionless body.

Seriously, I apologize to you
I promise to meet you in our next life
I will hold this shrapnel as a token
By which we will recognize each other.

- I just sort of liked this one 'n stuff, when I read over it in my English III book 'n stuff.

The Useless
Chuang Tzu

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu:
"All your teaching is centered on what has no use."

Chuang replied:
"If you have no appreciation for what has no use
You cannot begin to talk about what can be used.
The earth, for example, is broad and vast.
But of all this expanse a man uses only a few inches
Upon which he happens to be standing.
Now suppose you suddenly take away
All that he is not using
So that, all around his feet a gulf
Yawns, and he stands in the Void,
With nowhere solid except right under each foot:
How long will he be able to use what he is using?"

Hui Tzu said: "It would cease to serve any purpose/"

Chuang Tzu concluded:
"This shows,
The absolute necessity
Of what has 'no use.'"

If We Must Die
Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs
Makeing their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constraned to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like me we'll face the murderous, coweardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

This is for 2the9s and Sag.

My Star
by: Robert Browning



All, that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

The Sick Rose - William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

she being brand
by e. e. cummings

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing (my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
grasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

(it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

Robert Louis Stevenson

Summer Sun

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

Waiting for the Barbarians
Constantine P. Cavafy

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emporer get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coing today
and the emporer's waiting to receive their leader.
He's even got a scroll to him,
loaded with titles, imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their emboridered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts?
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual,
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

La Casa
Maria Herrera-Sobek

Te veo parada
desolada
con los rayos del sol
salpicados
en tu cabellera
de tejas negras.
Oscura
sola
quedas como la cueva
de un hermitano
al cual se la ha
apagado su fuego.
Tus entranas
solo emiten
silencio.
El fuego
que ensanchaba
tus paredes
que bailaba
en las ventanas
y abria tus puertas
se ha alejado.

Ahorta
taciturna
solo suenas
pensativa
escuchas
los pasos lentos
de las nubes
que a tus espaldas
murmuran
compadecidas
de tu enorme
vacio.

Oh pointy bird
Oh pointy pointy
Anoint my head
Anointy nointy

Frank Drummer
Edgar Lee Masters - Spoon River Anthology

OUT of a cell into this darkened space--
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,
And the village thought me a fool.
Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul
Which drove me on trying to memorize
The Encyclopedia Britannica!

BorisFishpaw said:

Oh yeah! Another Steve Martin fan!

BorisFishpaw said:

Isn't that a poem from the great one arm poet?

Good to see another fan of the excellent "Man With Two Brains".

Oh dear little flo
I love you so
Especially in your nightie

When the moonlight flirts
Across your tits
Oh Jesus Christ almighty!

June7 said:

I wish I could remember the words to "In Dillmans Grove".

Neanderthal Graffiti

It was the
androgynous foreigner
who nearly erased
the dervish's erotic
thaumaturgy.
Each derrick
thaws.
Every andiron
erubesces.
By dinner,
old timer,
easily derogated
lawyers had
been hammered
by dermal eruptions.

Thatch eaves
deracinate the
Easter earth.

After neap tide,
amidst the
Nearctic thaw,
eager newcomers
sought to derive
easy thalers
by pandering to
thanatoid ear-wigs.

Erratum:
Murder by derringer
of derelict androids.

bkw said:

dillman's grove

in dillman's grove, my love did die.
and now in ground shall ever lie.
none could ever replace her visage.
until your face brought thoughts of kiss-age.

IceNine said:

You da man.

Did you have that handy or do you remember it from the film?

"You cooked her 9's!"

bkw said:

I half-ass remembered it from the movie, but I had to look it up to be sure... that was copied from a website.



Try this one:

I'm picking out a Thermos for you
Not an ordinary Thermos for you
But the extra-best Thermos that you can buy
With vinyl and stripes and a cup built right in
Oh, I'm picking out a Thermos for you
And maybe a barometer too
And what else can I buy so on me you'll rely
A rear-end thermometer too

IceNine said:

Is that from The Jerk?

bkw said:

Yeah!

"This is the best pizza in a cup ever... people come from all around to get this."