Poems and Poets

[Zam_Olyas]

Do you like poems? If u are i command you to share it

 

[RedheadDane]

I write... a little... nothing worth mentioning here though.

Mainly dumb emotional ****...

 

[More Strides than Rides]

This is my current desktop:

Ever Tried, Ever Failed, No Matter. Try Again, Fail Again, Fail better.

From Worstword Ho by Sam Beckett.

I also am fond of this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_mali_what_teachers_make.html

I'll post others as I remember them

 

[hrotha]

http://acadblogs.wheatoncollege.edu/mdrout/category/wanderer/

Most poetry worth mentioning is anonymous.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

I write... a little... nothing worth mentioning here though.

Mainly dumb emotional ****...

even if its dumb emotional **** its still poetry, do share . Hrotha and more strides than rides thank you and keep it coming

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Cao cao who was an important man during the 3 kingdoms of ancient china writes interesting poems

 

[AngusW]

Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carrol (I don't write poetry, but this is my favourite poem)

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves
and the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock my son;
the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch.
Beware the jub-jub bird and shun
the frumious bandersnatch."

He took his vorpal sword in hand.
Long time the manxome foe he sought.
Then rested he by the tum-tum tree
and stood awhile in thought.

As in uffish thought he stood
the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
came wiffling 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 came gallumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day, calloo callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves
and the mome raths outgrabe.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Easily my favourite piece of poetry, and one of the most powerful pieces of literature anywhere:

Todesfuge
Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken sie abends
wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts
wir trinken und trinken
wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er schreibt es und tritt vor das Haus und es blitzen die Sterne er pfeift seine Rüden herbei
er pfeift seine Juden hervor läßt schaufeln ein Grab in der Erde
er befiehlt uns spielt auf nun zum Tanz

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich morgens und mittags wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
Dein aschenes Haar Sulamith wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng

Er ruft stecht tiefer ins Erdreich ihr einen ihr andern singet und spielt
er greift nach dem Eisen im Gurt er schwingts seine Augen sind blau
stecht tiefer die Spaten ihr einen ihr andern spielt weiter zum Tanz auf

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags und morgens wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith er spielt mit den Schlangen
Er ruft spielt süßer den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
er ruft streicht dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Rauch in die Luft
dann habt ihr ein Grab in den Wolken da liegt man nicht eng

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
wir trinken dich abends und morgens wir trinken und trinken
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blau
er trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er hetzt seine Rüden auf uns er schenkt uns ein Grab in der Luft
er spielt mit den Schlangen und träumet der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland

dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith

Paul Celan

 

[RedheadDane]

even if its dumb emotional **** its still poetry, do share . Hrotha and more strides than rides thank you and keep it coming

Right...

This is actually more like silly!

Ode to Coffee

I feel a little crazy
Crazy feeling good
Perhaps it’s just the caffeine
Cracking up my mood
Perhaps
Could it be?
This wondrous drink
Has taken to my mind
And made me feel so happy
Like I wanna dance
And sing really loud
And then I want
To have a bit more
To I can’t help wondering
How much in my blood
And is it possible
Drinking so much
It could be detected
In some sort of blood test
Well I suppose not
Though it could be quite fun
To learn that my blood
Is half made from coffee
My legs keep on jumping
‘Till people yell
STOP
Sometimes the yelling
Isn’t needed at all
As I know to well
What an evil glare means
Coffee is really
What keeps me alive
It makes me sing
Makes me dance
Makes me unable to sleep
Then because
I’m so frigging tired
I drink some more
So the circle goes round

I'm not addicted...

This one is certainly silly... and in German...

Ein Hund sitzt in Baum

Eine Katze steht hinter unter

Denn kam eine Frau

Mit Tasche und Koffert

Sie sah

Der Hund

Die Katze

Der Baum

Und dachte es sehr besonderes war

„Quatsch"

Sie sagte

„Ich träume mich"

Und die Kinder nur spielte

 

[TheRossSeaParty]

I wish I knew German...

Just started writing some poetry over the past few months. Returned to finish up my degree and with lots of time on my my hands and very little interest in school, I've taken to writing little poems throughout the day.

1)
This is the forest
the shaggy, autumnal forest
dripping
wet
leaves painted the colors of men's greed
ferns kaleidescoping from bearded limbs,
molded rocks
a fungal bloom eats the forest floor
the spires of ancient cities
a slick, wet ooze
a wooded reef
bursting with decay

2)
After the bombs fall
and our molten world turns to glass
we'll open a window on our soul
and pull shut the blinds
on our naked, nameless fear

3)
These close cropped circles,
a test patterned landscape.
the winding snake of a river
and the fragile span of a bridge.
white snow melts into brown mud
into green fields
into fat cows
and onto the dinner plate.
thick, grey clouds
parade hand in hand
queued up at mountain passes,
disembarking cold, wet passengers.
now white and empty
a fresh squeezed sponge
rolling ever onwards.
the jagged mountain teeth
receding in the distance,
chewing towards the sun.
And trees, now forests,
now a fungal stain,
drip with sunset blood.
And we chase the darkness,
fear packaged in this metal tube,
journeying deep into the known.


I have really started to enjoy this form of writing. Each poem feels like a painting. It sets a scene, and a mood and contains a little action.

 

[The Hitch]

There was a couple of years back some major honour or award (cant remember what exactly) bestowed on Salman Rushdie.

Too celebrate this there was a - in conversation with Salman Rushdie type event. Very good stuff. More intelligence displayed in an hour than in 60 years of Jay leno type shows around the world.

For the second part Salmans great friend going back 40 years - my avatar, came on to if possible make the conversation even more epic.

On the undercard (before that main event) first 1 other friend of Salman and then Christopher spoke alone to a questioner and the audience about Salman and their friendship.

Hitchens and Salman were each challenged to recite a major poem from memory.

Here is what happened

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtADw9a6H8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1la_ykW3n2g

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Folks,great stuff, do keep sharing. Lib's translation of ur post is clearly called for

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Folks,great stuff, do keep sharing. Lib's translation of ur post is clearly called for

The English translation, which is mostly good but robs a bit of the intensity from it:

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
drink it and drink it
we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there
A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
he writes it and walks from the house the stars glitter he whistles his dogs up
he whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in the earth
he commands us strike up for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink in the mornings at noon we drink you at nightfall
drink you and drink you
A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
Your ashen hair Shulamith we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there

He shouts stab deeper in earth you there and you others you sing and you play
he grabs at the iron in his belt and swings it and blue are his eyes
stab deeper your spades you there and you others play on for the dancing
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightfall
we drink you at noon in the mornings we drink you at nightfall
drink you and drink you
a man in the house your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents

He shouts play sweeter death's music death comes as a master from Germany
he shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you shall climb to the sky
then you'll have a grave in the clouds it is ample to lie there

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death comes as a master from Germany
we drink you at nightfall and morning we drink you and drink you
a master from Germany death comes with eyes that are blue
with a bullet of lead he will hit in the mark he will hit you
a man in the house your golden hair Margarete
he hunts us down with his dogs in the sky he gives us a grave
he plays with the serpents and dreams death comes as a master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith.

 

[gregod]

i'm not trolling, but i just don't get poetry. the reason i'm even bothering to comment is because it is fascinating to me that many people do appear to be moved by poetry. it just seems like pretentious twaddle to me....

for those of you who do get poetry, you might want to subscribe the PBS news hour podcast. they have a weekly poetry segment.

itunes
my yahoo
xml

 

[Anonymous]

Poetry is fine, I even wrote a little myself many years ago (but mainly song lyrics for bands)..

But I cant abide poets.. Met a bloke in the pub once, asked him what he did and he replied a poet.. "so you earn a living from it, your a professional, you get paid" I asked.. "no, im just a poet" he replied.

For most poets its just an artsy fartsy way of saying they are unemployed.

But, onto poems.. one of my favourites, and still haunting however many years after it was written

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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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.

The poetry I really dont like is anything that warbles on about hosts of golden daffodils.

 

[Maxiton]

I spent a number of years seriously writing poetry, and reading it. Some of my favorites are Alan Dugan (his first three books - Poems 1, 2, and 3), John Ashbery, and Rainer Maria Rilke in translation.

I don't have any short Ashbery at hand, but here's a couple from Alan Dugan.


This Morning Here

This is this morning: all
the evils and glories of last night
are gone except for their
effects: the great world wars
I and II, the great marriage
of Edward the VII or VIII
to Wallis Warfield Simpson and
the rockets numbered like the Popes
have incandesced in flight
or broken on the moon: now
the new day with its famous
beauties to be seized at once
has started and the clerks
have swept the sidewalks
to the curb, the glass doors
are open, and the first
customers walk up and down
the supermarket alleys of their eyes
to Muzak. Every item has
been cut out of its nature,
wrapped disguised as something
else, and sold clean by fractions.
Who can multiply and conquer
by the Roman numbers? Lacking
the Arab frenzy of the zero, they
have obsolesced: the butchers
have washed up and left
after having killed and dressed
the bodies of the lambs all night,
and those who never have seen blood awake
can drink it browned
and call the past an unrepeatable mistake
because this circus of their present is all gravy.




On An East Wind from the Wars

The wind came if for several thousand miles all night
and changed the close lie of your hair this morning. It
has brought well-travelled sea-birds who forget
their passage, singing. Old songs from the old
battle-and-burial grounds seem new in new lands.
They have to do with spring as new in seeming as
the old air idling in your hair in fact. So new,
so ignorant of any weather not your own,
you like it, breathing in a wind that swept
the battlefields of their worst smells, and took the dead
unburied to the potter’s field of air. For miles
they sweetened on the sea-spray, the foul washed off,
and what is left is spring to you, love, sweet,
the salt blown past your shoulder luckily. No
wonder your laugh rings like a chisel as it cuts
your children’s new names in the tombstone of thin air.

 

[Maxiton]

I don't really read German but I'm including it for those who do, so that you can compare the original with the translation.

From Duino Elegies
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992
Translated by Stephen Mitchell


Die erste Elegie [excerpt]

Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen? und gesetzt selbst, es nähme
einer mich plötzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem
stärkeren Dasein. Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.
Und so verhalt ich mich denn und verschlucke den Lockruf
dunkelen Schluchzens. Ach, wen vermögen
wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht, Menschen nicht,
und die findigen Tiere merken es schon,
daß wir nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind
in der gedeuteten Welt. Es bleibt uns vielleicht
irgend ein Baum an dem Abhang, daß wir ihn täglich
wiedersähen; es bleibt uns die Straße von gestern
und das verzogene Treusein einer Gewohnheit,
der es bei uns gefiel, und so blieb sie und ging nicht.
O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum
uns am Angesicht zehrt –, wem bliebe sie nicht, die ersehnte,
sanft enttäuschende, welche dem einzelnen Herzen
mühsam bevorsteht. Ist sie den Liebenden leichter?
Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los.
Weißt du's noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere
zu den Räumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht daß die Vögel
die erweiterte Luft fühlen mit innigerm Flug.

Ja, die Frühlinge brauchten dich wohl. Es muteten manche
Sterne dir zu, daß du sie spürtest. Es hob
sich eine Woge heran im Vergangenen, oder
da du vorüberkamst am geöffneten Fenster,
gab eine Geige sich hin. Das alles war Auftrag.
Aber bewältigtest du's? Warst du nicht immer
noch von Erwartung zerstreut, als kündigte alles
eine Geliebte dir an? (Wo willst du sie bergen,
da doch die großen fremden Gedanken bei dir
aus und ein gehn und öfters bleiben bei Nacht.)
Sehnt es dich aber, so singe die Liebenden; lange
noch nicht unsterblich genug ist ihr berühmtes Gefühl.
Jene, du neidest sie fast, Verlassenen, die du
so viel liebender fandst als die Gestillten.



The First Elegy [excerpt]

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to
endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note
of my dark sobbing. Ah, whom can we ever turn to
in our need? Not angels, not humans,
and already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in
our interpreted world. Perhaps there remains for us
some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take
into our vision; there remains for us yesterday's street
and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease
when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite
space gnaws at our faces. Whom would it not remain for-that
longed-after, mildly disillusioning presence, which the solitary heart
so painfully meets. Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet? Fling the emptiness out of your arms
into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds
will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

Yes - the springtimes needed you. Often a star
was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you
out of the distant past, or as you walked
under an open window, a violin
yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission.
But could you accomplish it? Weren't you always
distracted by expectation, as if every event
announced a beloved? (Where can you find a place
to keep her, with all the huge strange thoughts inside you
going and coming and often staying all night.)
But when you feel longing, sing of women in love;
for their famous passion is still not immortal. Sing
of women abandoned and desolate (you envy them, almost)
who could love so much more purely than those who were
gratified.

 

[Maxiton]

Allen Ginsberg turns on William Buckley:

http://youtu.be/sCWbVl4IKpU

 

[Maxiton]

Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery

Read by DJ Spooky

http://youtu.be/rOln40fGuDU

 

[rhubroma]

From Ars poetica, Horace:

AP:1-37 On unity and harmony
If a painter had chosen to set a human head
On a horse’s neck, covered a melding of limbs,
Everywhere, with multi-colored plumage, so
That what was a lovely woman, at the top,
Ended repulsively in the tail of a black fish:
Asked to a viewing, could you stifle laughter, my friends?
Believe me, a book would be like such a picture,
Dear Pisos, if it’s idle fancies were so conceived
That neither its head nor foot could be related
To a unified form. ‘But painters and poets
Have always shared the right to dare anything.’
I know it: I claim that license, and grant it in turn:
But not so the wild and tame should ever mate,
Or snakes couple with birds, or lambs with tigers…

 

[RedheadDane]

Okay, this is a lot more serious than the other two. Last year two of my online friends, living in Kiev, were victims of a serious hate-crime which landed one of them in hospital for several months. This was my reaction.

What is the reason?
Why do people keep hating?
Hating because
others are loving?
They cannot see
that love remains pure.
So they walk throughout life
with eyes firmly closed,
seeing only life as they think it should be.
I say no! Let's stop all this hating, stand firm together,
believing in love.

 

[Quixote]

Be Drunk

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be
drunk!"

Charles Baudelaire

 

[Christian]

Easily my favourite piece of poetry, and one of the most powerful pieces of literature anywhere:

Meh. That never really did it for me. The images are alright I guess but for some reason I find them rather simplistic and they are repeated all the time.

When it comes to poetry about WWII I find these much more powerful:

Günter Eich: Inventur

Dies ist meine Mütze,
dies ist mein Mantel,
hier mein Rasierzeug
im Beutel aus Leinen.

Konservenbüchse:
Mein Teller, mein Becher,
ich hab in das Weißblech
den Namen geritzt.

Geritzt hier mit diesem
kostbaren Nagel,
den vor begehrlichen
Augen ich berge.

Im Brotbeutel sind
ein Paar wollene Socken
und einiges, was ich
niemand verrate,

so dient es als Kissen
nachts meinem Kopf.
Die Pappe hier liegt
zwischen mir und der Erde.

Die Bleistiftmine
lieb ich am meisten:
Tags schreibt sie mir Verse,
die nachts ich erdacht.

Dies ist mein Notizbuch,
dies meine Zeltbahn,
dies ist mein Handtuch,
dies ist mein Zwirn.

Günter Grass: Am Atlantikwall

(part of the "Blechtrommel", with the famous chorus "Wir nähern uns dem Biedermeier")

 

[Christian]

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

- Apollinaire

 

[Bag_O_Wallet]

Ah, good old poetry. Love the stuff.

Lately, I'm a big fan of Richard Brautigan, Philip Larkin, Jack Kerouac (Haikus) amongst other stuff. I'm a bit selective with Romantic period stuff... but I really, really liked Keats' Hyperion. That said, my favourites are the old epics. If I can get my hands on anything Medieval and earlier, it gets read... eventually.

I've been a writer of poetry too. I did a self-published book a while back... sold 5 copies!! And a blog of original stuff with one follower. So, it looks like I'll be keeping the day job.