Poetry

[Kickaha]

I wouldn't say I spend a lot of time reading it but from time to time it makes a welcome change from my usual diet of scfi,thrillers,fantasy and I've seen references in other post indicating a few more of the members read the odd bit off it.

I have a few personal favourites,Samuel Taylor Coleridge's,Kubla Khan being one of them

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place; as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

I also like his "the Rime of the Ancient Mariner
other would be
Dylan Thomas "Do not go gentle into that good night"
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm...7C000C07040C7A

Rudyrd Kipling "If"
http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html

Shakespeare's "St Crispins day"
http://www.chronique.com/Library/Knights/crispen.htm

I've also recently been introduced to the works of Maya Angelou but someone else will be along to tell you about her.

[Ghost Lemur]

Too many favourites I wouldn't know where to begin so I'll just list some poets instead.

Baudelaire
Rimbaude
Ginsberg
Blake
Jim Morrison
Goethe
Byron
S.T. Colleridge (favourite being Kubla Khan, thanks Kickaha)
Verlaine
....
....

Although not a poet, I'll finish off with the opening passage from Putting My Foot In It by Rene Crevel.

Sun and Tradition... The dazzling light and the firm intention not to be blinded by it, etc, etc...

[Ghost Lemur]

"Get Drunk!"


One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;
that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's
horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room,
you are waking and the drunkenness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

"It is time to get drunk!

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose!"

- Charles Baudelaire.

[jrandom]

There once was a young lass named Sally
Who enjoyed the occasional dally.
She sat in the lap
Of a well-endowed chap
And said, "Oooh, you're right up my alley".

[moko]

I`m not sure if it`s poetry or philosophy but a little book I`ve got a lot from is "The Prophet" by Khalil Ghibran,sold millions all over the world.It`s writen as a story but you can open it at any page and read truly moving and relevent writing.Example here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibran4.html

[Ms Piggy]

Poetry - one of those forms of writing I truly admire but don't spend enough time exploring. I do love Shakespeare, just the richness of the language - even though I sometimes don't understand it. Love Robbie Burns - my Scottish heritage showing through! And a lot of the other well known older poets as well Maya Angelou http://www.empirezine.com/spotlight/maya/maya-p1.htm She has some really gritty stuff but one of my favs is this one:

"Phenomenal Woman"

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

[Ms Piggy]

This is my next fav poem. By John Masefield http://www.publishingcentral.com/mas...biography.html

To be honest I don't know anything about him but this poem describes a part of me.

"Sea Fever"

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over

[jrandom]

Quite apart from naughty limericks, my favourite poem (although I'm not as well-read as I'd like to be) is probably The Hollow Men, by T. S. Eliot:

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.

[jrandom]

Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

You sure her name wasn't Sally?

[jrandom]

... For he on honey dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Amazing what one can construct with the help of a bit of opium, isn't it? An evil drug it may have been, but I don't think we'll see any enduring works of art from people under the influence of methamphetamines.

Pity that most modern writers seem to be obsessed with their own existential angst.

Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle is Mrs Random's favourite poem, too.

[Slipstream]

And I'm being genuinely serious ... is Dr. Seus.

We like our bike.
It is made for three.
Our Mike
sits up in back,
you see.

We like our Mike
and this is why:
Mike does all the work
when the hills get high.

Or my personal favourite.

Bump!
Bump!
Bump!
Did you ever ride a Wump?
We have a Wump
with just one hump.

But
we know a man
called Mr. Gump.
Mr Gump has a seven hump Wump.
So . . .
if you like to go Bump! Bump!
just jump on the hump of the Wump of Gump.

[Slipstream]

But I also like Lord Byron too...

...I stood among them,
but not of them;
in a shroud of thoughts
which were not their thoughts....

[Ghost Lemur]

Second Delirium: The Alchemy Of The Word


My turn now. The story of one of my insanities.

For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes-- and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.

What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naïve rhythms of country rimes.

I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic.

I invented colors for the vowels! A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.

I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.


Far from flocks, from birds and country girls,
What did I drink within that leafy screen
Surrounded by tender hazlenut trees
In the warm green mist of afternoon?

What could I drink from this young Oise
--Toungeless trees, flowerless grass, dark skies--
Drink from these yellow gourds, far from the hut
I loved? Some golden draught that made me sweat.

I would have made a doubtful sign for an inn.
Later, toward evening, the sky filled with clouds...
Water from the woods runs out on virgin sands,
And heavenly winds cast ice thick on the ponds;

Then I saw gold, and wept, but could not drink.

* * *

At four in the morning, in summertime,
Love's drowsiness still lasts...
The bushes blow away the odor
Of the night's feast.

Beyond the bright Hesperides,
Within the western workshop of the Sun,
Carpenters scramble-- in shirtsleeves--
Work is begun.

And in desolate, moss-grown isles
They raise their precious panels
Where the city
Will paint a hollow sky.

For these charming dabblers in the arts
Who labor for a King in Babylon,
Venus! Leave for a moment
Lovers' haloed hearts...

O Queen of Shepherds!
Carry the purest eau-de-vie
To these workmen while they rest
And take their bath at noonday, in the sea.


The worn-out ideas of old-fashioned poetry played an important part in my alchemy of the word.

I got used to elementary hallucination: I could very precisely see a mosque instead of a factory, a drum corps of angels, horse carts on the highways of the sky, a drawing room at the bottom of a lake; monsters and mysteries. A vaudeville's title filled me with awe.

And so I explained my magical sophistries by turning words into visions!

At last, I began to consider my mind's disorder a sacred thing. I lay about idle, consumed by an oppressive fever: I envied the bliss of animals-- caterpillars, who portray the innocence of a second childhood; moles, the slumber of virginity!

My mind turned sour. I said farewell to the world in poems something like ballads:


A SONG FROM THE HIGHEST TOWER

Let it come, let it come,
The season we can love!

I have waited so long
That at length I forget,
And leave unto heaven
My fear and regret;

A sick thirst
Darkens my veins.

Let it come, let it come,
the season we can love!

So the green field
To oblivion falls,
Overgrown, flowering,
With incense and weeds.

And the cruel noise
Of dirty flies.

Let it come, let it come,
the season we can love!



I loved the desert, burnt orchards, tired old shops, warm drinks. I dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with my eyes closed I offered myself to the sun, the god of fire.

"General: If on your ruined ramparts one cannon still remains, shell us with clods of dried-up earth. Shatter the mirrors of expensive shops! And the drawing rooms! Make the city swallow its dust! Turn gargoyles to rust. Stuff boudoirs with rubies' fiery powder...."

Oh, the little fly! Drunk at the urinal of a country inn, in love with rotting weeds; a ray of light dissolves him!



I only find within my bones
A taste for eating earth and stones.
When I feed, I feed on air,
Rocks and coals and iron ore.

My hunger, turn. Hunger, feed:
A field of bran.
Gather as you can the bright
Poison weed.

Eat the rocks a beggar breaks,
The stones of ancient churches' walls,
Pebbles, children of the flood,
Loaves left lying in the mud.

* * *

Beneath the bush a wolf will howl,
Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl:
Like him, I devour myself.

Waiting to be gathered
Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge
Eats only flowers.

Let me sleep! Let me boil
On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil
And flow into Kendron.



Finally, O reason, O happiness, I cleared from the sky the blue which is darkness, and I lived as a golden spark of this light, Nature. In my delight, I made my face look as comic and as wild as I could:



It is recovered.
What? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.

O my eternal soul,
Hold fast to desire
In spite of the night
And the day on fire.

You must set yourself free
From the striving of Man
And the applause of the World!
You must fly as you can...

No hope, forever;
No _orietur._
Science and patience,
The torment is sure.

The fire within you,
Soft silken embers,
Is our whole duty--
But no one remembers.

It is recovered.
What? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.



I became a fabulous opera. I saw that everyone in the world was doomed to happiness. Action isn't life; it's merely a way of ruining a kind of strength, a means of destroying nerves. Morality is water on the brain.

It seemed to me that everyone should have had several other lives as well. This gentleman doesn't know what he's doing; he's an angel. That family is a litter of puppy dogs. With some men, I often talked out loud with a moment from one of their other lives-- that's how I happened to love a pig.

Not a single one of the brilliant arguments of madness-- the madness that gets locked up-- did I forget; I could go through them all again, I've got the system down by heart.

It affected my health. Terror loomed ahead. I would fall again and again into a heavy sleep, which lasted several days at a time, and when I woke up, my sorrowful dreams continued. I was ripe for fatal harvest, and my weakness led me down dangerous roads to the edge of the world, to the Cimmerian shore, the haven of whirlwinds and darkness.

I had to travel, to dissipate the enchantments that crowded my brain. On the sea, which I loved as if it were to wash away my impurity, I watched the compassionate cross arise. I had been damned by the rainbow. Felicity was my doom, my gnawing remorse, my worm. My life would forever be too large to devote to strength and to beauty.

Felicity! The deadly sweetness of its sting would wake me at cockcrow-- ad matutinum, at the Christus venit-- in the somberest of cities.



O seasons, O chateaus!
Where is the flawless soul?

I learned the magic of
Felicity. It enchants us all.

To Felicity, sing life and praise
Whenever Gaul's cock crows.

Now all desire has gone--
It has made my life its own.

That spell has caught heart and soul
And scattered every trial.

O seasons, O chateaus!

And, oh, the day it disappears
Will be the day I die.

O seasons, O chateaus!



All that is over. Today, I know how to celebrate beauty.

- Arthur Rimbaud

[James Deuce]

Poetry is bollocks, written by effette little whacked-out Opium addicts.

It has the same effect on me as Kenny G. It makes me want to kill..............

[Jackrat]

Ok, one for the english critics to tear apart.

I am the Predator,
I am the biker,
I prey on the souls of my brothers,
I am the predator,
I am the biker,
I am the keeper of my brother,
The price be exact,
It be half and half only of what I give,
I am the predator,
I am the biker,
I am the keeper of my sister,
From my sister I take nothing,
She owns my all,
For I am the predator,
I prey on the soul of my brother,
The pride I demand is high,
half of all I give,
For I give my all,
I am the biker,
I am the elite,
With my brothers I do ride,
I am a biker,
I shall die,
My brother will remember,
For I am the biker,
I am the predator,
A user of soul.