BS: Poems that speak to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Emma B
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 05:54 AM

Another favourite of mine from Yeats.....

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

        -- William Butler Yeats

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RUINED MAID (Thomas Hardy)
From: Emma B
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 05:20 AM

I agree SRS, a little (or even a lot) of anger can give a powerful kick to a poem. On the "lighter side", although actually a satirical dig at the hypocritical values of the time, is this one......


THE RUINED MAID
by Thomas Hardy

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"--
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

--"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"--
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

--"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon' and 'theäs oon' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compan-ny!"--
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

--"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"--
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

--"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"--
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

--"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town."--
"My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: John O'L
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 03:32 AM

I always loved "In A Distant City" by Salvatore Quasimodo, but I can't find it on the net so I can't post a link, and sadly, I seem to have lost my only copy, so I can't even copy it out. If you ever stumble accross it though, it's worth reading. (If you get the right translation that is. I read a different translation not long ago which was not nearly as moving.)

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 02:41 AM

For those who love The Highwayman, here's a video of Phil Och's singing that poem set to song:

Phil Ochs - The Highwayman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB5vnpzm86g

Added: September 07, 2007
From: PaulJD2006

"An arrangement of a poem by Alfred Noyes. Phil Ochs was a lead player in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960's as very powerful songwriter and voice. Sorry, like many of my off-air recordings the beginning is clipped"

**

Here's another video of Phil Och's singing The Highwayman with a great collage of drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsKc7zQtfRU

Added: December 05, 2006
From: hassanradwan

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 11:04 PM

My, you folks are something else. I love reading the things that touch people's hearts, souls, minds. Funny. Because the fellows I've met in person did seem to me to be also the kind who WOULD like poetry.

Subject: Lyr Add: jessehelms (Audre Lorde?)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:59 PM

I like a little political anger in some of it. (This poem isn't for everyone.)

Audre Lorde

"jessehelms"

I am a Black woman
writing my way to the future
off a garbage scow knit from moral fiber
stuck together with jessehelms'
come where Art is a dirty word
scrawled on the wall
of Bilbo's memorial outhouse
and obscenity is catching
even I'd like to hear you scream
ream out your pussy
with my dildo called Nicaragua
ram Grenada up your fighole
till Panama runs out of you
like Savimbi aflame.

But you prefer to do it
on the senate floor
amid a sackful of paper pricks
keeping time to a 195 million dollar
military band
safe-sex dripping from your tongue
into avid senatorial ears.

Later you'll get yours
behind the senate toilets
where they're waiting for you jessehelms
those white boys with their pendulous rules
bumping against the rear door of Europe
spread-eagled across the globe
their crystal balls poised over Africa
ass-up for old glory.

Your turn now jessehelms
come on its time
to lick the handwriting
off the walls.

Subject: Lyr Add: WE NEVER RODE THE JUDITHS (Wallace McRae)
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:47 PM

WE NEVER RODE THE JUDITHS
For Ian Tyson

–Wallace McRae

We never rode the Judiths when we were grey-wolf wild.
Never gathered Powder River, Palo Duro, or John Day.
No, we never rode the Judiths when their sirens preened and smiled.
And we'll never ride the Judiths before they carry us away.

Cowboys cut for sign on back trails to the days that used to be
Sorting, sifting through chilled ashes of the past.
Or focused on some distant star, out near eternity,
Always hoping that the next day will be better than the last.

Out somewhere in the future, where spring grass is growing tall,
We rosin up our hopes for bigger country, better pay.
But as the buckers on our buckles grow smooth-mouthed or trip and fall
We know tomorrow's draw ain't gonna throw no gifts our way.

And we never rode the Judiths when we were grey-wolf bold.
Never rode the Grande Ronde Canyon out north of Enterprise.
No we never rode the Judiths, and we know we're getting old
As old trails grow steeper, longer, right before our eyes.

My horses all are twenty-some. ..ain't no good ones coming on.
The deejays and the Nashville hands won't let "... Amazed" turn gold.
We're inclined to savor evening now. We usta favor dawn.
Seems we're not as scared of dyin' as we are of growing old.

I wish we'd a' rode the Judiths when we were grey-wolf wild.
And gathered Powder River, Palo Duro, and John Day.
But we never rode the Judiths when their sirens' songs beguiled
And we'll never ride the Judiths before they carry us away.

Subject: Lyr Add: OLD PROC (Wallace McRae)
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:44 PM

OLD PROC
by Wallace McRae

Old-timers in the neighborhood
Would bandy words on who was good
At puncher jobs for hours on end when I was just a kid.
They'd get wall-eyed 'n paw and bawl
And swear, "By damn I knowed 'em all.
If'n Josh he wasn't best trailhand, I'll eat my beaver lid!"

"Down and dirty, I'm the dealer.
Old Bob Seward? Best damn peeler
Ever snapped a bronc out, jist give me one he broke."
"Give, you say? That's what I heard.
You're right that Bob's a tough ol' bird.
But better practice cactus pickin' and work on your spur stroke.

Cain't stay astraddle one of his'n
When he pops the plug and goes t' fizzin'
She'll be adios caballo and howdy to the nurse."
They'd move from bickering bronc peelers
To rawhide hands 'n fancy heelers.
"Red Carlin?" "Young Mac Philbrick?" They'd testify and curse.

They'd analyze Link Taylor's cuttin':
"His bag-splittin' way of calf denuttin'
Is pure askin' for trouble, 'sides he don't cut by the sign."
"You cut your calves by the moon?
Keep on night brandin' and pretty soon
The sheriff'll change yer address and you'll be twistin' hair and twine."

On they'd rave and postulate
'Bout who was fair 'n who was great.
As they scratched brands in the hot dust, I'd never say a word.
But in their jousting verbal battle,
Among the boasts and barbs and prattle,
I sat in youthful judgment as they sorted out the herd.

So I came early to understand
The names of every good top hand.
In my scope of country, from hearing tough hands talk.
But when they'd crow and blow and boast
The one name that came up the most
Was a wily wild horse runner they simply called "ol' Proc."


"You boys jist start 'em. I'll stop 'em."
Old Proc'd say and then he'd chop 'em
Off at some escape route. He'd wheel 'n bring them in.
"Proc thinks horse," I'd heard them say,
And finally there came the day .
That I would get to meet this fabled mounted paladin.

My mother's father, John McKay,
Up and said one fine spring day
While I was staying with them, "Minnie, get your bonnet."
"Let's go up by the Castle Rock
'N see some country, visit Proc.
If you're late, I'll be upset. You can bet your life upon it."

He never paused for her reply.
My grandma fussed around and I
Asked grandpa, "Is he the wild horse man?" "That's him," my grandpa said.
As we ricocheted and bounced our way
In a tobacco-stained green Chevrolet
My grandpa told "Proc stories" and chewed and spit and sped.

From all the tales Grandpa told me
I felt like an authority
On this ranahan, Joe Proctor, who came north with Texas cattle.
His wife had been the JO cook.
But Proc had sparked and won and took
Her for his bride. They fought and won the homestead battle.

I couldn't wait to meet Mr. Proc,
Whose peers all praised his ways with stock.
But when his calloused hand gripped mine, surprise hit me in waves.
Those old cowboys who cut no slack
Deemed it unimportant Proc was black,
And wasn't worth a mention that Joe Proctor's folks were slaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Beer
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:25 PM

Gnu?
Was that meant for me??
Beer

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BIG NASTURTIUMS (Robert Beverly Hale)
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:21 PM

Rapaire...my favorite English teacher in college read "Naming of Parts" to us, and I could SEE the scenes, so well did he read. It has been almost 50 years now, but that remains one of my favorites.

He also read to us "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church", by Browning...and made it sound like he WAS the bishop.


But one that really caught my fancy was this: I have wondered for years if some clever person could set a tune to it.

THE BIG NASTURTIUMS
—Robert Beverly Hale

All of a sudden the big nasturtiums
Rose in the night from the ocean's bed,
Rested a while in the light of the morning,
Turning the sand dunes tiger red.

They covered the statue of Abraham Lincoln,
They climbed to the top of our church's spire.
"Grandpa! Grandpa! Come to the window!
Come to the window! Our world's on fire!"

Big nasturtiums in the High Sierras,
Big nasturtiums in the lands below;
Our trains are late and our planes have fallen,
And out in the ocean the whistles blow.

Over the fields and over the forests,
Over the living and over the dead—
"I never expected the big nasturtiums
To come in my lifetime!" Grandpa said.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:19 PM

From "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift":

... "His friendship there, to few confined,*
Were always of the middling kind:
No fools of rank, a mongrel breed,
Who fain would pass for lords indeed:
Where titles give no right or power
And peerage is a withered flower,
He would have held it a disgrace
If such a wretch had known his face.
On rural squires, that kingdom's bane,
He vented oft his wrath in vain:
Biennial squires, to market brought,
Who sell their souls and votes for naught;
The nation stripped, go joyful back
To rob the church, their tenants rack;
Go snacks with rogues and rapparees,
And keep the peace to pick up fees;
In every job to have a share,
A jail or barrack to repair;
And turn the tax for public roads
Commodious to their own abodes.
    "Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein,
And seemed determined not to starve it
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim:
He lashed the vice, but spared the name.
No individual could resent
Where thousands equally were meant.
His satire points at no defect
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorred that senseless tribe
Who call it humor when they jibe.
He spared a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux.
True genuine dullness moved his pity,
Unless it offered to be witty.
Those who their ignorance confessed
He ne'er offended with a jest;
But laughed to hear an idiot quote
A verse from Horace learned by rote.
    "He knew an hundred pleasant stories,
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories:
Was cheerful to his dying day,
And friends would let him have his way.
    "He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad,
And shewed by one satiric touch
No nation wanted it so much:
That kingdom* he hath left his debtor:
I wish it soon may have a better."

I've always felt it was a very nice thing if it could be said of me.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GENIUS OF THE CROWD (Charles Bukowski
From: bobad
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:08 PM

The Genius Of The Crowd
Charles Bukowski

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: gnu
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:08 PM

pOWERFUL? Hey, that's co-inkydink. But, beside the point. Knocked me for a loop! Wow....I wish I had read it when it was posted... is there more?

Subject: Lyr Add: CHANNEL FIRING (Thomas Hardy)
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:06 PM

CHANNEL FIRING
Thomas Hardy

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into their mounds,

The glebe-cow drooled. Till God called, 'No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

'All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you that are helpless in such matters.

'That this is not the judgement-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening...

'Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).'

So down we lay again. 'I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,'
Said one, 'than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!'

And many a skeleton shook his head.
'Instead of preaching forty year,'
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
'I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.'

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHO CAN STAND (William Blake)
From: Beer
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:57 PM

William Blake - WHO CAN STAND?

Oh for a voice like Thunder, and a tongue to drown the voice of war,
When the soul is driven to madness,
WHO CAN STAND ?
When the souls of the oppressed fight in the troubled air that rages,
WHO CAN STAND ?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the throne of GOD,
WHO CAN STAND ?
When the frowns of his countenance drive the nations together,
WHO CAN STAND?
When sin claps his broad wings over the battle, and sails rejoicing in the flood of death,
When the souls are torn to everlasting fire, and fiends of Hell rejoice upon the strain, Oh who can stand?
Oh who has caused this?
Oh who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the land have done it,
Hear it not Heaven,
Thy Ministers have done it !


Then there is the one that someone on Mudcat wrote about his father I believe. I will type in the first paragraph and hopefully someone will remember who submitted it. Very powerful and would stir most hard men to tears.
Beer (adrien)


He was ten times the man I could ever hope to be;
A hero to this child, like a giant over me.
Where is the muscle now? And where is the looming height?
Where is the booming voice? Surely this cannot be right?
The eyes that sparkled like the stars, why do they look so dim?
Don't do this to my father, Lord, I beg you, no, not him.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN YOU ARE OLD (William Butler Yeats)
From: Mickey191
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:48 PM

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.


Little Boy Blue-Thanks Spaw-Anyone else drop a tear?

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: gnu
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:31 PM

Here I sit, broken hearted, paid me dime and only farted. (Anonamoose)

I am speechless.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:24 PM

My mother read that to us when I was, perhaps, four years old, Spaw. My siblings and I thought it was the greatest poem ever written, and viewed from the point I am at now I agree with you about it.

Subject: Lyr Add: DULCE ET DECORUM EST (Wilfred Owen)
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:16 PM

Okay, here's one that slammed me when I first read it years ago:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

And this one:

NAMING OF PARTS
Henry Reed

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

Subject: Lyr Add: LITTLE BOY BLUE (Eugene Field)
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:11 PM

Perhaps the first poem that "hit me" as a child was Eugene Field's "Little Boy Blue." Sad, sentimental, syrupy......a true tear jerker.......and let's face it, a bit hokey or so I thought as I grew older.

But then only a few years back, Karen and I were walking through the cemetery where my family is buried and stumbled upon the children's section. Its an old cemetery and there were probably close to two hundred graves filled with the remains of the unrealized hopes and dreams of loving parents. On a great majority of headstones there were toys, little trucks, stuffed animals..........Sad in and of itself but when I saw that many of these were new and on graves that were sometimes 50 or more years old, neither Karen nor I could hold it together. Can you imagine bringing gifts to your long dead child on a regular basis? I don't know what that kind of pain is like but we stood holding each other tightly as we cried and realized how lucky we were.

Little Boy Blue
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
   But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
   And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
   And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
   Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
   "And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
   He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
   Awakened our Little Boy Blue---
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
   But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
   Each in the same old place---
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
   The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
   In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
   Since he kissed them and put them there.

Spaw

Subject: Lyr Add: FOUR-LANE DANCE (David Wilcox)
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:07 PM

FOUR-LANE DANCE
David Wilcox


The driver right in front of me is making a mistake
He's stopping on the entrance ramp, waiting for his break
The more he hits his break, the bigger break he's going to need
When a little break is plenty if he'd just been up to speed

So I say move and you'll have your place
Don't sit waiting on the human race
Just go, you got your chance
You can't be timid in the four-lane dance

Oh and now he's got it parked there and he's looking back behind
Pleading out the window, hoping someone might be kind enough
To stop and wait and hold the traffic flow
And still he's not quite confident there's room for him to go

So I say move and you'll have your place
Don't sit waiting on the human race
Just go, you got your chance
You can't be timid in the four-lane dance

The freeway's just a lesson in the way you drive your dream
If you think you'll never make it, well than that's the way it seems
But if you thought that it'd be easy, well then easy it would be
Why just a foot between the bumpers has been room enough for me

So I say move and you'll have your place
Don't sit waiting on the human race
Just go, you got your chance
You can't be timid in the four-lane dance

Subject: Lyr Add: A SONNET (Keats)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:59 PM

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.


Keats


A sonnet, of course...

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:43 PM

Another Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem, that we did at school, was The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Our English teacher always put so much into everything she read to us and even today when I read that poem I find that I'm saying it in exactly the same way she did!

I used to learn a lot of the poetry we did off by heart and then I'd go home from school and recite them to my mother with the same feeling that they'd been recited to us.

My mother was also a great lover of poetry and as children she was always reciting poems to us. I'm sure that this had a very positive effect on me.

Subject: Lyr Add: NEUROTICS (Philip Larkin)
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:27 PM

Neurotics
by Philip Larkin when he was 26 & I was 11

No one gives you a thought, as day by day
You drag your feet, clay-thick in misery.
None think how stalemate in you grinds away,
Holding your spinning wheels an inch too high
To bite on earth. The mind, it's said, is free:
But not your minds. They, rusted stiff, admit
Only what will accuse or horrify,
Like slot-machines only bent pennies fit.

So year by year your tense unfinished faces
Sink further from the light. None one pretends
To want to help you now. For interest passes
Always towards the young and more insistent,
And skirts locked rooms where a hired darkness ends
Your long defence against the non-existent.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:26 PM

I love this thread. Thank you ALL.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE FIDDLER'S REPLY (Joel Mabus)
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:25 PM

The Fiddler's Reply
Joel Mabus

It's a question that I've heard before
And all that I can say to that is -- no sir!
No sir!

I have played a tune in the dark on the porch of a prairie farm –
Summer rain coming down so straight you could set your chair right there on the edge of the porch
And keep bone dry.
Such straight regular rain, they say, is good for the crop.
Good for tunes too, I say,
Deep in the night, listening to the corn.

And I remember a tune one winter afternoon up north, fiddling after chores.
The sun staring in through a wet kitchen window –
All ice outside, all steam inside.
My chair tips back; the wood stove snaps loudly,
Popping irregular time to the steppy tunes,
Flannel and coffee, biscuits and boots.

I've played tunes on a fine spring evening at the town hall dance
Where everybody shows, Joking with the caller, shaking off winter,
Stretching limbs, swapping partners for neighbors.
Good healthy tempos break the first real sweat.
Long lines forward and back and -- Look! Outside!
The sun's still up on a fine green evening !

And then there is a tune I know that plays just like a cold November morning.
Sober. Inside, looking out.
A gray air that wants chords unresolved –
Turning into the mist like so many leaves, riven and broken,
Returning from sky to earth after fall --The undeniable fall -- calls them home.

I have played tunes -- not songs.
Not voiceable, obvious word-infested songs -- but tunes,
Each tune a puzzle, each one a box with its own proud secret.
Each its own smile sweetly shown -- each tune is a lesson pondered.
Pattern -- at once familiar yet unique --Like snow crystals -- like footprints –
Like the way the world is right...
...now.

That's what a tune is, and, no sir.
No sir.
They don't all sound the same to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:15 PM

The Highwayman

Subject: Lyr Add: AS WE ARE SO WONDERFULLY DONE...(Patchen)
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:07 PM

Kenneth Patchen

        
As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other
        

        As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
on floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood
lies

oh my love, my golden lark, my soft long doll
Your lips have splashed my dull house with print of flowers
My hands are crooked where they spilled over your dear
curving

It is good to be weary from that brilliant work
It is being God to feel your breathing under me

A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning.....
Don't let anyone in to wake us

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: rich-joy
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:03 PM

hhmmmmm ..... "The Box" by Kendrew Lascelles, was the last one I heard recited that impacted greatly!


Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:03 PM

I like to contribute in any way I can...........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:53 PM

This from the man who pissed in the punch bowl at the duchess's dress ball . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:46 PM

Gene, Gene, built a machine.
Frank, Frank, turned the crank.
Joe, Joe, made it go.
Art, Art, ripped a fart...
And blew the whole damn thing apart.


Geeziz, what pathos! What a life lesson. What honesty.

Makes me weep every time I read it..........................

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:41 PM

I have always enjoyed Sonnet 29 by The Bard. To me, it's his best.

Subject: Lyr Add: MINERS (Wilfred Owen)
From: Emma B
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:41 PM

Miners

There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal,
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.

I listened for a tale of leaves
And smothered ferns,
Frond-frosts, and the low sly lives
Before the fauns.

My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children.

But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
Writhing for air.

And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
Bones without number.
Many the muscled bodies charred,
And few remember.

I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.

Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
In rooms of amber;
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our life's ember;

The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned;
But they will not dream of us poor lads,
Left in the ground.

        -- Wilfred Owen

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: bobad
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:37 PM

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

                   For Carl Solomon

                           I

       I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
             madness, starving hysterical naked,
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
             looking for an angry fix,
       angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
             connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
             ery of night,........


Ozymandias by Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


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

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.......

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:31 PM

Thank you all.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE JUGGLERS (John Gay)
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:25 PM

I am a great poetry lover and there are certainly so many that I could name including those already mentioned. I love Longfellow's Hiawatha, Lives of Great Men all Remind Us, Auguries of Innocence by William Blake, Robert Burns and the list goes on. One of my favourites is below.

THE JUGGLERS

A juggler long through all the town
Had raised his fortune and renown;
You'd think (so far his art transcends)
The devil at his fingers' ends.
Vice heard his fame, she read his bill;
Convinced of his inferior skill,
She sought his booth, and from the crowd
Defied the man of art aloud.
Is this, then he so famed for sleight,
Can this slow bungler cheat your sight,
Dares he with me dispute the prize?
I leave it to impartial eyes.
Provoked, the Juggler cried, 'tis done.
In science I submit to none.
Thus said, the cups and balls he played;
By turns, this here, that there, conveyed:
The cards, obedient to his words,
Are by a fillip changed to birds;
His little boxes change the grain,
Trick after trick deludes the train.
He shakes his bag, he shows all fair,
His fingers spread, and nothing there,
Then bids it rain with showers of gold,
And now his ivory eggs are told,
But when from thence the hen he draws,
Amazed spectators hum applause.
Vice now stepped forth and took the place,
With all the forms of his grimace.
This magic looking glass, she cries,
(There, hand it round) will charm your eyes:
Each eager eye the sight desired,
And every man himself admired.
Next, to a senator addressing;
See this bank-note; observe the blessing:
Breathe on the bill. Heigh, pass! 'Tis gone.
Upon his lips a padlock shone.
A second puff the magic broke,
The padlock vanished, and he spoke.
Twelve bottles ranged upon the board,
All full, with heady liquor stored,
By clean conveyance disappear,
And now two bloody swords are there.
A purse she to a thief exposed;
At once his ready fingers closed;
He opes his fist, the treasure's fled,
He sees a halter in its stead.
She bids ambition hold a wand,
He grasps a hatchet in his hand.
A box of charity she shows:
Blow here; and a churchwarden blows,
'Tis vanished with conveyance neat,
And on the table smokes a treat.
She shakes the dice, the board she knocks,
And from all pockets fills her box . . .
A counter in a miser's hand,
Grew twenty guineas at command;
She bids his heir the sum retain,
And 'tis a counter now again.
A guinea with her touch you see
Take every shape but Charity;
And not one thing you saw, or drew,
But changed from what was first in view.
The Juggler now, in grief of heart,
With this submission owned her art.
Can I such matchless sleight withstand?
How practice hath improved your hand!
But now and then I cheat the throng;
You every day, and all day long.

                                        John Gay

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:41 PM

There are far too many to list.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:36 PM

I learned "Abou Beh Adhem" as a classroom English assignement in the 6th grade. I loved the message of the poem then and still love it today.

I also confess that the other reason why I have such warm regards for this poem was that after I had volunteered to recite it in front of the class, my teacher praised me for how well he felt I had done. He also said that I {then a shy, skinny kid} had an orator's voice & presence. That praise helped me find the courage & develop the confidence to become involved in more activities in my youth and adulthood that involved public speaking.

Teachers may not realize how much their words mean to their students. To this day, I'm grateful to that teacher for his words of praise and encouragement.

**

In googling the words to that poem, I just found out that this poem is based on a real person:

"Ibrahim Bin Adham (ÇÈÑÇÀیã Èä ÇϪã) (death 777), also known as Abu Ben Adhem or Abou Ben Adhem was a Sufi saint"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Bin_Adham

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:35 PM

Rupert Brooke's "Ghosts"

But not his ghastly drum-beating pap that starts

"If I should die
Think only this of me
That there's some far corner of a foreign field
THat's for ever England".

Some war hero - killed by a mosquito!

Subject: Lyr Add: ABOU BEN ADHEM (James Henry Leigh Hunt)
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:22 PM

ABOU BEN ADHEM
{James Henry Leigh Hunt}

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Emma B
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:16 PM

That remains one of my favourites too - I can still recite it by heart.

Subject: RE: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:13 PM

Sorry. The poem I read for the nth time is "Kubla Khan".

Subject: BS: Poems that speak to you.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:08 PM

I was reading a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge today. I have liked it ever since first reading it back in grade 8 or 9. I am interested in poems other people 'love' or really like for one reason or another. Anyone?