And while we're at it.... Amazing Poetry!

[otek]

So maybe this is one too many "greatest hits" type threads, but I sorta got a bit inspired by the "Amazing lyrics" thread.


I'll go first:





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.


- W.B. Yeats, When You are Old






New books of poetry will be written
New books and unheard of manuscripts
will come wrapped in brown paper
and many and many a time
the postman will bow
and sidle down the leaf-plastered steps
thumbing over other men's business.

But we ran ahead of it all.
One coming after
could have seen her footprints
in the wet and followed us
among the stark chestnuts.

Anemones sprang where she pressed
and cresses
stood green in the slender source--
And new books of poetry
will be written, leather-colored oakleaves
many and many a time.


- William Carlos Williams, A Coronal

[E. Shaun]

My favorite poem, by my favorite poet.


As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Afica meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street.

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water
Plunge them up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed."

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
And Jill goes down on her back."

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless."

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.


By: W. H. Auden.

[Johnny]

We took a jaunt
you in your two wheeled chariot
and I on foot behind you.

The stillness of silence
walked with us for awhile
as we marveled
at the expanse
in which sunlight danced.

We halted
in front of your tree,
a pillar of strength and beauty.
Our eyes were averted
to a bed of crimson roses
resting alongside the timber.

The sun
ceased to waltz
and found respite
behind a great cloud.
As the light languished
you said,
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

I did
and now
am aware
that I shall never gather
a flower of such fragrance
which now abides
in the confines of
nothing but eternity
in companion with
the seraphim and cherubim
who led you there,
and flowers with petals
that will never wilt
gathered by The Rose of Sharon.

--My Lovely Wife

[blackieC]

Poetry?

:lol: :lol: :lol:


You guys are so, like, ghey and stuff...




but while we're at it, this one kills me.


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 upon my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

[PRobb]

This is from a long poem by AE Houseman, but its the good part.


Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.

[mousdrvr]

Lullaby

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
to drown the throat of war! – When the senses
are shaken, and 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, 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 souls are torn to everlasting fire,
and fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain.
O who can stand?

O who hath caused this?
O 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!

-William Blake

[PRobb]

If you're gonna talk about great records ya gotta cover the Beatles. If you're talkin poesy, ya gotta give a shout out to old Willie Shakes.

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth

[blackieC]

it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth


Sounds like most of the songs I wrote.
:grin:

Last August crunch and I did a session with the Austin Shakespear Society for a cast album of a musical version of As You Like It.

It was both wierd and a fucking hoot.

Mad props to Willy Shakes.
:Thumbsup:

[Fulcrum]

Stanyan Street

1.

You lie bent up in embryo sleep
below the painting of the blue fisherman
without a pillow.
The checkered cover kicked and tangled on the
floor
the old house creaking now
a car going by
the wind
a fire engine up the hill.

I've disentangled myself from you
moved silently,
groping in the dark for cigarettes,
and now three cigarettes later
still elated
still afraid
I sit across the room watching you -
the light from the street lamp coming through the
shutters
hysterical patterns flash on the wall sometimes
when a car goes by
otherwise there is no change.
Not in the way you lie curled up.
Not in the sounds that never come from you.
Not in the discontent I feel.

You've filled completely
this first November day
with Sausalito and sign language
canoe and coffee
ice cream and your wide eyes.
And now unable to sleep
because the day is finally going home
because your sleep has locked me out
I watch you and wonder at you.

I know your face by touch when it's dark
I know the profile of your sleeping face
the sound of you sleeping.

Sometimes I think you were all sound
kicking free of covers
and adjusting shutters
moving about in the bathroom
taking twenty minutes of our precious time.

I know the hills
and gullys of your body
the curves
the turns.

I have total recall of you
and Stanyan Street
because I know it will be important later.

It's quiet now.
Only the clock,
moving toward rejection tomorrow
breaks the stillness.


2.

I have come as far away
as means and mind will take me
trying to forget you.
I have traveled, toured
turned a hundred times in the road
hoping to see you rushing after me.

At night,
though half a world away,
I still hear you sigh in several sizes.
The breathing softer when you're satisfied.
The plip-plop body machinery back to normal.

Remembering how warm you are
and how defenseless in your sleep
never fails to make me cry.
I cannot bear the thought of you
in someone else's arms
yet imagining you alone is sad.

And in the day
my mind still rides the bridge
from Sausalito home.
I do not think
me and San Francisco
will be friends again
we share too many troubles.
Stanyan Street and other sorrows.


3.

We try so hard to make each other frown
I sometimes wonder
if we haven't been together much too long.
The words that work the wonders are so few
that they seem foolish anymore.

Is this a kind of loving too,
a chocolate bar that tastes good at the time
but kills the dinner later on?
Could be our appetite will go
till even memory's not a feast.

But there are times
when you can smile in such a way
that I'd forget a ten year war
and lie down in your shadow's shadow
and live on sounds your stomach makes.
In these brief times
I could die against your side
and never make a warning sound
content to suffocate
within the circle of your back.


4.

There are those times
when I'm not sure
there ever was a house
on Stanyan Street.
That house,
just like that long gone love
fades too sometimes.
One doesn't think
to photograph the now
when you're convinced it lasts.

But real it was and is
kind reality for some of us
is only those things
done or thought done
and well remembered.


5.

Three years
(or maybe four)
have moved beneath the San Francisco wreckers
and their yard-long hammers.
Their caterpillar treads that transform brick
to dust-red powder.
Those giant cranes
that slice a roof down
with a single swing.

Some have never known the wreckers' rattle.
Those houses on Pacific that march toward
posterity
restored by dilettantes from Jackson Square
painted up like aging actresses
with eye-shadow windows and rouge-red doors.
Some have had collections taken up
petitions passed from hand to hand.
Their widows walks scraped free of dirt
and green grass planted where the weeds once grew.

These houses almost shiny new
that crowd Nob Hill
and marched down Lombard in a row
were saved to show the glory of the past.

There was a house on Stanyan Street
that took a single day to wreck
and that includes an hour spent
at tin-pail lunch on sandwiches and beer.

They carted off the timber and sold it by the
pound.
The bricks at least, ten cents a piece,
now make a Marin garden wall.

But there is little salvage to be had
in bent and broken nails
and things that might have been
if I'd had wiser eyes
or been a fisherman
in blue.

-- Rod McKuen

[chrisj]

Got to post this because when I was younger this fucked me up to the point that I was scared to read it. My dad kept wanting me to read it, and I'd shy away. I now know what he meant. Eliot is one bad motherfucker, the way he breaks you into rubble with this one.


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.

[chrisj]

Yikes- while re-reading my post, my finger slipped against the key of my Matias keyboard (keyswitches and springs)

It made a whimper. With _reverb_ from the key springs. :icon_eek:

[McAllister]

It's so hard for me to choose, bu no one has posted e.e. cummings yet, so here are three short ones:

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea



i like my body when it is with your
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new


the boys i mean are not refined

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

[Fulcrum]

More from Willie the Shakes..


146.
WHEN, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising—
Haply I think on thee: and then my state,Like to the Lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.

[Fulcrum]

And while we're on sonnets, John Keats' last one was a doozy.

BRIGHT Star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

[Fulcrum]

I read this poem in third or fourth grade, and it stayed with me.

The Calf-Path

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

-- Sam Walter Foss

[graveleye]

There once was a man from Nantuket...

[nobby]

Anabel Lee - Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[Fulcrum]

Just found this thread languishing since December... maybe some of the newer folks about here might want to chime in?

This has been on my mind, and in my life, a lot lately.

The Dangling Conversation

It's a still life water color
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives.

And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives.

Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me,
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives.

-- Paul Simon

[bunnerabb]

These are far from amazing, but they're handy and I just woke up.



Practical Math

"Don't leave me here", she said
"With this skin and this diseased architecture and this shiny car"

(And I know damsels, I used to save a few)

"And this wrestling mat of photos of the same people in different places and Bukowski on a dead shelf"

And the last time I saw her
She was standing in line for the marble window
Where girls trade dreams for tinker's damns
In the endless pursuit of mommy love
And a little something to slip inside


----

At Thirteen


Nothing gold ever stays
Drop by and see me one of these days
Steal these lines from finer minds
write them all down and send them to you

Only great poets had the rhyme and measure
To chronicle life at whim and leisure
And I was left with my hands outstretched for you


----

Arthur St. James

[bunnerabb]

Upon The End of Things

Come
Let us dance the last dance
On the last night
Let us light the fires of the last day's waning
Let them burn brightly
For they are the last of ashes
Let us sing the diver's song
Cold close and deep
Let us look up the very last sky
Starless, and bible black
As we fall back
Into the arms
Of mother night

[emtou2u]

oh beloved,
take me.
liberate my soul.
fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.

if i set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.

oh beloved,
take away what i want.
take away what i do.
take away what i need.
take away everything
that takes me from you.

-Rumi
(translated by shahram shiva)

[PRobb]

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.

-Percy Bysshe Shell

[Fulcrum]

More McKuen, if no one minds... I've been brooding on this lately and reflecting that my life is probably more than half over.


Kearny Street

The house on Kearny Street
where I came and went on weekends
is the same.
The hill above is summer green
the sky a foggy blue
and children still march by each day at three
o'clock
foraging back from school.
The hill and Kearny Street are still the same
but I have changed.

No more the winning smile
the hasty song
the happy stare of love
the young heart leaping in the dark room.
And no more the wild young man
who talked too quickly and too loud
of love he owned and wished to give away.

Seldom the sun
catches me lying in bed late anymore.
Seldom the pigeons gargling in the grass
see my form stretched out upon the lawn.

I pace unfamiliar streets now
attempting new solutions to old problems
and the answers seldom come.

But there was a time
in the fall and winter of the year
when the sun's bright yellow mingled with the fog
and Kearny Street in San Francisco was the whole
world.

Sometimes I'm sorry for love once known
it doesn't justify the years you spend remembering.
I was always timid about your loving me anyway
knowing the eagle doesn't hunt flies
and that worlds were larger than our love.

But I am happy still
that even for a moment
you laughed in my direction
and chased my nakedness down a lonely beach.
For maybe six months of love
is worth the lifetime you spend looking,
and marmalade
and oysters for breakfast one morning
and knowing you tried to love me
is enough.

For love is only moments here and there
it comes and goes quietly I think.
You hear it like silver bells
tied about the throats of cats
(now near - now sounding far away.)

I was loved on Kearny Street.
But no more the young heart leaping in the dark
room.

[chrisj]

My divorce is final now :icon_eek:

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

-Keats

keepin' busy,
ChrisJ

[Miss Vee]

Let's not forget the "crazy" women poets...

The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator - Anne Sexton

The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out, I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute's speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today's paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

[bunnerabb]

"Mercy Street"© Peter Gabriel

for anne sexton

looking down on empty streets, all she can see
are the dreams all made solid
are the dreams all made real

all of the buildings, all of those cars
were once just a dream
in somebody's head

she pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
she pictures a soul
with no leak at the seam

lets take the boat out
wait until darkness
let's take the boat out
wait until darkness comes

nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
nowhere in the suburbs
in the cold light of day

there in the midst of it so alive and alone
words support like bone

dreaming of mercy st.
wear your inside out
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms again
dreaming of mercy st.
swear they moved that sign
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms

pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
tugging at the darkness, word upon word

confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
to the priest-he's the doctor
he can handle the shocks

dreaming of the tenderness-the tremble in the hips
of kissing Mary's lips

dreaming of mercy st.
wear your insides out
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms again
dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
looking for mercy
in your daddy's arms

mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
mercy, mercy, looking for mercy

Anne, with her father is out in the boat
riding the water
riding the waves on the sea

(Inspired by Anne Sexton's 45 Mercy Street)

Anne often described life as "The awful rowing towards God."

One day she put her oars down.

R.I.P.

[Fulcrum]

My divorce is final now :icon_eek:



Right behind you bro.

A toast to absent friends and another for independence, scary and thrilling at the same time.

Technically this is a lyric, but he makes a sideways allusion to poetry, and fuck it anyway, I'm drunk.

One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)

It's quarter to three
there's no one in the place
except you and me

So set 'em up Joe
I got a little story
I think you should know

We're drinking, my friend, to the end
Of a brief episode
Make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

I know the routine
put another nickel
in the machine

I feel kind of bad
can't you make the music
easy and sad

I could tell you a lot, but it's not
in a gentleman's code
make it one for my baby
and one more for the road

You'd never know it, but buddy I'm a kind of poet
and I've got a lot of things I'd like to say
and if I'm gloomy, please listen to me
till it's talked away

Well that's how it goes
and Joe I know you're gettin'
anxious to close

Thanks for the cheer
I hope you didn't mind
my bending your ear

But this torch that I found, it's gotta be drowned
or it's gonna explode
make it one for my baby
and one more for the road

and it's a long, long road


-- Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen

[JMP2204]

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.