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poetry
What is Life?
And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream.
Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought.
And Happiness? A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem -and dies;
A cobweb, hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark mysterious name of horrid sound?
A long and lingering sleep the weary crave.
And Peace? Where can its happiness abound?
Nowhere at all, save heaven and the grave.
Then what is Life? When stripped of its disguise,
A thing to be desired it cannot be;
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'Tis but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know,
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.
~John Clare
one more poem by him:
I Am
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
~John Clare
Audre Lorde
Hanging Fire
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his thumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before morning
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I die before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth about me
Ther is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
Nobody even stops to think
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team
my marks were better than his
why do I have to be
the one
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
Margaret Atwood
Variations on the Word Love
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
Margaret Atwood
Is/Not
Love is not a profession
genteel or otherwise
sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities
you are not my doctor
you are not my cure,
nobody has that
power, you are merely a fellow/traveller
Give up this medical concern,
buttoned, attentive,
permit yourself anger
and permit me mine
which needs neither
your approval nor your suprise
which does not need to be made legal
which is not against a disease
but agaist you,
which does not need to be understood
or washed or cauterized,
which needs instead
to be said and said.
Permit me the present tense.
This is one of my favorites:
Sylvia Plath
Mad Girl's Love Song
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
John Clare
The Secret
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.
ok, i lied, one more:
Sylvia Plath
Never Try to Trick Me with a Kiss
Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.
Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.
The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.
Cry To Heaven
Angels, Angels of my Lord
Clense away my fear
Hold me, hold me till the pain
Seems to dissapear
Truth is told and mercy shown
Clearly as the day
And the children find their home
Vengence put away.
this one's more recent, and not as carring cuz my attitide just changed, i don't care much about anything..or as strongly:
hollowness
stark coldness,
my body holds no heat.
in fact, my eyes
have died long time ago
and just my hands
keep clasped on tight,
as though grasping
at a fading life.
i have no right
to write of love,
when now i'm dead
and haven't found it yet.
for what am i but shallow,
vulgar shadow of a lie;
when lone i dream
and lonlier i die.
THE LAKE OF VAN
Raffi (Hakop Melik-Hakopian)
Unutteruble silence here is spread
On every hand, and Nature might be dead.
A lonely exile, here I sit and weep,
And far above, bright Moon, I see thee sweep.
From Earth's creation till the skies shall parch
And she dissolve, thou circlest Heaven's high arch:
Saw'st thou the laurels on Armenia's brow ?
And dost behold her hopeless sorrows now ?
Mournful as I! I wonder dost thou see
How she is ground by heels of tyranny!
And do thine eyes with bitter tear-drops smart
When barbed arrows pierce her through the heart
Thy heart is stone, thy pity stark and cold,
For fields of innocent blood thou dost behold
Without a word, and o'er Armenia's land
Thy nightly compass of the dome hast spanned
With all the brightness that was thine of old.
O Lake, make answer! Why be silent more ?
Wilt not lament with one whose heart is sore ?
And you, ye Zephyrs, hurl the waters high
That I may feed them from a mourner's eye!
Louise Gluck
Mock Orange
It is not the moon, I tell you.
It is these flowers
lighting the yard.
I hate them.
I hate them as I hate sex,
the man's mouth
sealing my mouth, the man's
paralyzing body--
and the cry that always escapes,
the low, humiliating
premise of union--
In my mind tonight
i hear the question and pursuing answer
fused in one sound
that mounts and mounts and then
is split into the old selves,
the tired antagonisms. Do you see?
We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.
How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?
Sylvia Plath
The Applicant
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,
Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand
To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed
To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit----
Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.
Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that ?
Naked as paper to start
But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk , talk.
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.
FRIIK
What's my problem,
Here's my problem,
My problem is that I'm
Too visual to be blind,
Too audiological to be deaf,
Too ideological to be in peace,
Too compassionate to be in war,
Too crazy to be sane,
To sane to be lazy,
Too emotional to be you
If I could only stop my head,
From going into constant infection,
Then maybe I can swim back
To my own version of consistent sanity.
Angelic daemons,
Liquid dreams,
Transparent mountains
Of our own reality.
Burning oceans,
Melting faces,
Melting faces,
Why!
MIX
Extreme ride desires,
An actress and her admirers,
Amore, you whore,
Go get us more of that drink we called for.
The devil's music is in the insurmountable
Ocean of desires permeating to and from
A provocative creature in a red dress.
Today, I was told that I would burn in hell,
At the hands of a merciful God.
She sees you as before, no more.
To love a loss, to lose a love,
A masterful cut, a surgical incision,
Kill your fucking television.
Love is a truck stop in the middle of Kansas, on shrooms.
Life is a potato pancake being eaten by fireflies in the middle of Ohio.
America can be described as a country with no public urinals,
With laws against urinating in public.
~Serj Tankian
Hayasdan
by Baruyr Sevag
(1924-1971)
* translated from Armenian by Shant Norashkharian *
Your name so sweet,
Your name so high,
My tormented,
Yet glorious one!
Among old ones, you are gray-haired,
Among new ones, new and youthful;
You, the vineyard of rows of grapes,
You, sand yet with water sorrows;
You, a willow of many leaves,
Oleaster spread on the brook,
You, half-ruined fortress, castle,
You, paper of old manuscripts;
You, Zvartnots, ruined temple,
Apricot tree of Gomidas;
You, watermill in deep valley,
You, also sweet and running well,
Gleam of plough and silver coulter;
You, bow, arrow, and a crude lance,
You, the smoke of our homes' chimneys,
You, unwritten novel and you, a devious one out of Sassoon...!
My glorious one,
My tormented,
Your name so high,
Your name so sweet!
You, the storehouse of many fruits,
You, cellar of gold-flowing wine,
You, velvet peach, you bubbling bread,
You, black-eyed grapes from Ardashad;
You, Lake Sevan's shining billow,
You, chapiter and the pillar of Yerevan;
You, an abode, calling lighthouse,
You, Armenian banner and flag,
Speaking witness of genocide,
And clear eye of weeping which dried;
Formidable court of justice,
The sheath of sword,
The book of love -
Always ancient and yet always new Hayasdan.
and ofcourse this one everyonehas heard, but it needs to be repeated:
The Dance
by: Siamanto (1878-1915)
And as her tears drowned in her blue eyes,
On a field of ash where Armenian life was still dying,
This is what the witness of our horror, the German woman narrated:
"This story which I tell you and which cannot be told,
I saw with my cruel human eyes,
From the window of my safe house which looked on hell,
Crushing my teeth from my terrible rage...
With my cruelly human eyes I saw .
It was in Garden city, which was turned to a pile of ashes.
The corpses were piled high to the top of the trees,
And from the waters, from the fountains, from the streams, from the roads,
The rebellious murmur of your blood...
Still speaks now its vengeance into my ears...
O, don't be shocked when I tell you this story which cannot be told...
Let men understand the crime of man against man,
Under the sun of two days, on the road to the cemetery
The evil of man against man,
Let all the hearts of the world know...
That morning in death's shadow was a Sunday,
The first and helpless Sunday which rose over the corpses,
When inside my room, from evening to dawn,
Bending over the agony of a girl slashed with a sword,
I was wetting her death with my tears...
Suddenly from afar a black, beastly mob
Brutally whipping the twenty brides who were with them,
Stood in a vineyard singing songs of debauchery.
Leaving the poor dying girl on her mattress,
I approached the balcony of my window which looked on hell...
In the vineyard the black mob became a forest.
A savage roared to the brides: "You must dance,
You must dance when our drum sounds."
And the whips started wildly cracking on the bodies
Of the Armenian women who were missing death...
Twenty brides, hand in hand, started their round dance...
The tears flowed from their eyes like wounds,
Ah, how much I envied my wounded neighbor,
Because I heard, that with a peaceful moan,
Cursing the universe, the poor beautiful Armenian girl,
To her young dove spirit gave wings toward the stars...
In vain I moved my fists against the mob.
"You must dance", roared the furious crowd,
"You must dance until your death, lustfully and lasciviously,
Our eyes are thirsty for your movements and your death..."
The twenty beautiful brides fell to the ground exhausted...
"Stand up", they shrieked, waving their naked swords like snakes...
Then someone brought to the mob a barrel of oil...
O, human justice, let me spit at your forehead...!
They anointed the twenty brides hastily with that liquid...
"You must dance", they roared, "here is a perfume for you which even Arabia does not have..."
Then they ignited the naked bodies of the brides with a torch,
And the charcoaled corpses rolled from dance to death...
In my terror I closed the shutters of my window like a storm,
And approaching my lonely dead girl I asked:
"How can I dig my eyes out, how can I dig them out, tell me...?"
sinful
willing to be a slave
he was willing to taste the fruit.
i was wanting to be a slave
i have given him my fruit.
in the shabby clothing,
loathing masks and paint,
faint with need and hunger,
tounge and cheek with blood,
hide! the demon's nearing!
fearing death of love
drove the lovers fleeing,
reeling in the dark
stark in anguish.
languish in the pain.
i can help,
just taste,
sweet taste,
the apple of my womb.
bleak
peaceful resolutions
of mass suicides.
guides and leaders
can't help you recover,
discover the essance
of eloquence
and grace when alone
and only a knife..
life
is but a hopeless
darkness past the mass.
Shadow Queen
Dark beauty
Goddess of the night
Sad eyes
Betray the light
Sad heart
As black as coal
What pain has made
Your beauty stone
What knife has carved
The tears of doom
The end of life
The sleep
The tomb
and these are about the armenian genocide and our people:
To the Dead
over the proud glistening mountain peaks
the sun is shining neatly down
on the ordered-
battered-
ghosts.
of once breathing beasts.
small ones, pink ones, grey ones, big
decaying in the morning glory
how small each one, but combined
a mass of angry righteousness
quenched
drenched in blood-
a show
God's theatre:
the beauty of the sky
radiating death below
To the Dead (poem 2)
Where did you go?
did you go far?
far enough that i can't see you.
over the mountains?
or just under the oaks?
where did they take you,
were they merciful,
did they look like your brothers,
was the edge sharp?
how did the dawn look
through misty eyes,
was the thirst
in your parched throat
quenched?
what did you do
to make them angry,
what did they do
to make you dead?
can you see me now
wanting to reach and touch you
needing to understand:
why you, and not me.
am i you?
i am you and you are me.
i will never forget
how the hard ground felt
the morning after we were dead.
For I Have Lived Like a Dusty Angel
by Michael Blumenthal
And the muddy waters have washed over me,
coating my large wings with soot, clouding my eyes,
and the raging blood has coursed through my veins,
flooding the flatlands of virtue and decency,
ravaging the structures, inundating the houses,
shattering the windows, and I have grown heavy
with my deeds, and light with desire,
been betrayer and betrayed, wounder and wounded,
taken my turn at whatever was possible,
bad father good father infidel satyr,
been decent, forgiving, tender, wounding,
whoremonger exile patriot rake.
I have shaken the birches, made love
under the sycamore, wept beneath the willow,
I have trembled with desire
beside the mock orange (What good am I
to anyone, I ask, if I'm not good
to myself? Why pray to an invisible God
if I can't please the beckoning flesh?)
And what more can a man ask of his body
but that it confess to everything? Sad bird,
this human one, but happy in exile: a confusion
of tongues, a mottle of trembling needs,
the dust still gathering on these broken wings—
the darkness, the hunger, the flickering soot.
Tongues
by Michael Blumenthal
To make the frozen circumstances dance, you have to learn to sing to them their own music. —Karl Marx
I turn to my cold blood
in the language of blood.
And in the shrill, ivory tones of neglect,
I sing to the widening penumbra of my neglect.
In the incoherent babble of the child,
I return to my childhood.
And in the sharp, unfeeling syllables of betrayal,
I renounce my betrayals.
Soon,
I will be a master of many tongues,
a Pentecostal rabbi chanting to the ghosts
of all my infidelities as they fall from the heavens.
And I will skate by
on the ice that has become my life—
whispering to the moon
in the language of the moon,
beckoning to the stars
in the voice of the stars,
waiting for the mute tides to ripple
beneath my rubbery legs
as I stoop to address the ice
in the cold, brackish language of water,
and of salt.
a letter from sorrow
inside i am ugly
nothing but darkness within
no beauty to behold
only sorrow to be shamefully told
inside theres no such word as god
theres no carefully written x's and o's on the letter of my soul,
but it painfully wrote
My name is Sorrow
my thoughts are morose
i wish to die
or stay silently in a state of comatose
i wish to be numb to the anxiety
i want to get away from the pain
i need a place to bleed
i wont eat
i want to get high
i wish i could sleep
i want to get these scars off of me
i want a door open freely to leave
i need a place,
a place for me
sincerely,
Sorrow
alisha gonzales
For the Goddess Too Well Known
I have robbed the garrulous streets,
Thieved a fair girl from their blight,
I have stolen her for a sacrifice
That I shall make to this night.
I have brought her, laughing,
To my quietly dreaming garden.
For what will be done there
I ask no man pardon.
I brush the rouge from her cheeks,
Clean the black kohl from the rims
Of her eyes; loose her hair;
Uncover the glimmering, shy limbs.
I break wild roses, scatter them over her.
The thorns between us sting like love's pain.
Her flesh, bitter and salt to my tongue,
I taste with endless kisses and taste again.
At dawn I leave her
Asleep in my wakening garden.
(For what was done there
I ask no man pardon.)
Elsa Gidlow
Rosabel
I
Leaves, that whisper, whisper ever,
Listen, listen, pray;
Birds, that twitter, twitter softly,
Do not say me nay;
Winds, that breathe about, upon her,
(Since I do not dare)
Whisper, twitter, breathe unto her
That I find her fair.
II
Rose whose soul unfolds white petaled
Touch her soul rose-white;
Rose whose thoughts unfold gold petaled
Blossom in her sight;
Rose whose heart unfolds red petaled
Quick her slow heart's stir;
Tell her white, gold, red my love is;
And for her,--for her.
Angelina Weld Grimké
Foiled Sleep
Ah me! I cannot sleep at night;
And when I shut my eyes, forsooth,
I cannot banish from my sight
The vision of her slender youth.
She stands before me lover-wise,
Her naked beauty fair and slim,
She smiles upon me, and her eyes
With over fierce desire grow dim.
Slowly she leans to me. I meet
The passion of her gaze anew,
And then her laughter, clear and sweet,
Thrills all the hollow silence through.
O, siren, with the mocking tongue!
O beauty, lily-sweet and white!
I see her, slim and fair and young.
And ah! I cannot sleep tonight.
Marie-Madeleine
The Garden by Moonlight
A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting through the snowball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone.
Amy Lowell
My Heart is Lame
My heart is lame with running after yours so fast
Such a long way,
Shall we walk slowly home, looking at all the things we passed
Perhaps to-day?
Home down the quiet evening roads under the quiet skies,
Not saying much,
You for a moment giving me your eyes
When you could bear my touch.
But not to-morrow. This has taken all my breath;
Then, though you look the same,
There may be something lovelier in Love's face in death
As your heart sees it, running back the way we came;
My heart is lame.
Charlotte Mew
i love Charles Bukowski's work.
Be Kind
we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.
Charles Bukowski
hello, how are you?
this fear of being what they are:
dead.
at least they are not out on the street, they
are careful to stay indoors, those
pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets,
their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.
their ideal neighborhood
of parked cars
of little green lawns
of little homes
the little doors that open and close
as their relatives visit
throughout the holidays
the doors closing
behind the dying who die so slowly
behind the dead who are still alive
in your quiet average neighborhood
of winding streets
of agony
of confusion
of horror
of fear
of ignorance.
a dog standing behind a fence.
a man silent at the window.
Charles Bukowski
EVE'S APOLOGY
IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN
by: Amelia Lanier
But surely Adam can not be excusde,
Her fault though great, yet hee was most too blame;
What Weaknesse offerd, Strength might have refusde,
Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame:
Although the Serpents craft had her abusde,
Gods holy word ought all his actions frame,
For he was Lord and King of all the earth,
Before poore Eve had either life or breath.
Who being fram'd by Gods eternall hand,
The perfect'st man that ever breath'd on earth;
And from Gods mouth receiv'd that strait command,
The breach whereof he knew was present death:
Yea having powre to rule both Sea and Land,
Yet with one Apple won to loose that breath
Which God had breathed in his beauteous face,
Bringing us all in danger and disgrace.
And then to lay the fault on Patience backe,
That we (poore women) must endure it all;
We know right well he did discretion lacke,
Beeing not perswaded thereunto at all;
If Eve did erre, it was for knowledge sake,
The fruit beeing faire perswaded him to fall:
No subtill Serpents falshood did betray him,
If he would eate it, who had powre to stay him?
Not Eve, whose fault was onely too much love,
Which made her give this present to her Deare,
That what shee tasted, he likewise might prove,
Whereby his knowledge might become more cleare;
He never sought her weakenesse to reprove,
With those sharpe words, which he of God did heare:
Yet Men will boast of Knowledge, which he tooke
From Eves faire hand, as from a learned Booke.
The Diameter of THE BOMB
by: Yehuda Amichai
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won't even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
~Edgar Allan Poe
Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
~Edgar Allan Poe
IDENTITY
Because mother's she--I'm me.
Because father's he--I'm me.
Because of them, I am what I am,
In spite of them, I am me.
Because of my schooling--I'm me.
Because of church ruling--I'm me.
Because of the norm, obey and conform,
In spite of the norm, I am me.
Because of three wars--I'm me.
Because of bomb lore--I'm me.
Because of the fear, year after year,
In spite of the fear, I am me.
Because of the times--I'm me.
Because of the clime--I'm me.
Because of the pall, wrapped over this ball,
In spite of the pall, I am me.
Because there is caring--I'm me.
Because there is sharing--I'm me.
Because there is fate, indifference and hate,
In spite of my fate, I am me.
Accepting, rejecting the mold.
Accepting, rejecting don't fold.
Accepting, rejecting man and his earth.
Is this all I am, all I'm worth?
Within this sum total I see
A more basic awareness that's me
To be fought for each day, lest it wither away,
The true me--If I want to be free...
~by Denise
This is a poem from the book: "The Perks of being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky.
Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toe nails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it
Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint
And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And he left the butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it
Once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote another poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly
That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was all about
And he gave himself an A
And a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think
he could reach the kitchen.
Upon your head I bestow a crown;
My savior dead, it's you I drown.
Perfection has no start--no end,
Regard it as an old false friend.
The truth I find in lovely shades;
Entrapped in mind, I fear it fades.
So let us think to new beginnings,
And slowly drink to kill all feeling.
For what am I, or you in time?
Specs of dust: dry and lost, but I'm
A newborn once, again, and over.
Alone I'll dance, if need forever;
And worship in my own free temple,
And pray for then when times are simple;
When sins are made but nothing dies,
When people fade but no one cries.
In God we trust, but not ourselves;
We bleed and rust, but nothing sells.
Mind over body, body over soul;
Our ethics muddy, lost pretense of control.
No Worst, There Is None
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing --
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked "No ling-
Ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
by: ~Gerard Manley Hopkins
And ofcourse, his classic: Pied Beauty
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things --
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted & pieced -- fold, fallow, & plough;
And all trades, their gear & tackle & trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled, (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins (a priest and a poet)
The Alchemist in the City
My window shews the travelling clouds,
Leaves spent, new seasons, alter'd sky,
The making and the melting crowds:
The whole world passes; I stand by.
They do not waste their meted hours,
But men and masters plan and build:
I see the crowning of their towers,
And happy promises fulfill'd.
And I - perhaps if my intent
Could count on prediluvian age,
The labours I should then have spent
Might so attain their heritage,
But now before the pot can glow
With not to be discover'd gold,
At length the bellows shall not blow,
The furnace shall at last be cold.
Yet it is now too late to heal
The incapable and cumbrous shame
Which makes me when with men I deal
More powerless than the blind or lame.
No, I should love the city less
Even than this my thankless lore;
But I desire the wilderness
Or weeded landslips of the shore.
I walk my breezy belvedere
To watch the low or levant sun,
I see the city pigeons veer,
I mark the tower swallows run
Between the tower-top and the ground
Below me in the bearing air;
Then find in the horizon-round
One spot and hunger to be there.
And then I hate the most that lore
That holds no promise of success;
Then sweetest seems the houseless shore,
Then free and kind the wilderness,
Or ancient mounds that cover bones,
Or rocks where rockdoves do repair
And trees of terebinth and stones
And silence and a gulf of air.
There on a long and squared height
After the sunset I would lie,
And pierce the yellow waxen light
With free long looking, ere I die.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstreched beneath the tree.
5:37 PM
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