needysboy
Sophomore
@needysboy
Posts: 347
Likes: 129
|
Post by needysboy on Oct 19, 2018 22:38:45 GMT
Fairy Tale
Many times upon a time There was a man who loved a woman. Many times upon a time There was a woman who loved a man. Many times upon a time There was a man and there was a woman Who did not love the ones who loved them.
Once upon a time Perhaps only once A man and a woman who loved each other.
--Robert Desnos
|
|
|
Post by llltdesq on Oct 21, 2018 22:30:48 GMT
A Man Said To The Universe
Stephen Crane
A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," the universe replied, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
May this find you happy and healthy.
Robert Reynolds Tucson AZ
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Oct 22, 2018 13:27:33 GMT
somewhere i have never travelled
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if you wish to be close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
by Edward Estlin Cummings
|
|
|
Post by Morgana on Oct 22, 2018 13:54:27 GMT
This short work illustrating the impermanence and cosmic insignificance of even the greatest and most terrible of men and man's deeds has served me well as an existential perspective, and has long been a favorite of mine: Ozymandias-Percy Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Peace. I love how evocative the poem is, too. I feel like I am staring at a magnificent Egyptian statue of one of it's past Pharoahs.
|
|
|
Post by Morgana on Oct 22, 2018 13:55:53 GMT
One of my very favourite poems.
I Am!
BY JOHN CLARE
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 shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled 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.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:02:33 GMT
The Dead
BY RUPERT BROOKE
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:02:48 GMT
War Girls
BY JESSIE POPE
There's the girl who clips your ticket for the train, And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor, There's the girl who does a milk-round in the rain, And the girl who calls for orders at your door. Strong, sensible, and fit, They're out to show their grit, And tackle jobs with energy and knack. No longer caged and penned up, They're going to keep their end up Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.
There's the motor girl who drives a heavy van, There's the butcher girl who brings your joint of meat, There's the girl who cries 'All fares, please!' like a man, And the girl who whistles taxis up the street. Beneath each uniform Beats a heart that's soft and warm, Though of canny mother-wit they show no lack; But a solemn statement this is, They've no time for love and kisses Till the khaki soldier-boys come marching back.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:03:03 GMT
Marching Men, by Marjorie Pickthall
Under the level winter sky I saw a thousand Christs go by. They sang an idle song and free As they went up to calvary.
Careless of eye and coarse of lip, They marched in holiest fellowship. That heaven might heal the world, they gave Their earth-born dreams to deck the grave.
With souls unpurged and steadfast breath They supped the sacrament of death. And for each one, far off, apart, Seven swords have rent a woman's heart.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:03:14 GMT
The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:03:25 GMT
A Dead Boche, by Robert Graves
To you who’d read my songs of War And only hear of blood and fame, I’ll say** (you’ve heard it said before) ”War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same, Today I found in Mametz Wood A certain cure for lust of blood: Where, propped against a shattered trunk, In a great mess of things unclean, Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk With clothes and face a sodden green, Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired, Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:03:38 GMT
The Cenotaph, by Charlotte Mew
Not yet will those measureless fields be green again Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed; There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain, Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread. But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled, We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column's head. And over the stairway, at the foot - oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread Violets, roses, and laurel with the small sweet twinkling country things Speaking so wistfully of other Springs From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred. In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers To lovers - to mothers Here, too, lies he: Under the purple, the green, the red, It is all young life: it must break some women's hearts to see Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed! Only, when all is done and said, God is not mocked and neither are the dead. For this will stand in our Market-place - Who'll sell, who'll buy (Will you or I Lie each to each with the better grace)? While looking into every busy whore's and huckster's face As they drive their bargains, is the Face Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:03:56 GMT
To Germany, by Charles Hamilton Sorley
You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each others dearest ways we stand, And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.
When it is peace, then we may view again With new won eyes each other's truer form And wonder. Grown more loving kind and warm We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain, When it is peace. But until peace, the storm, The darkness and the thunder and the rain.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:04:12 GMT
Break of Day in the Trenches, by Isaac Rosenberg
The darkness crumbles away. It is the same old druid Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat, As I pull the parapet’s poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems you inwardly grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver — what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins Drop, and are ever dropping; But mine in my ear is safe — Just a little white with the dust.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 22, 2018 22:04:31 GMT
Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman
Here dead we lie Because we did not choose To live and shame the land From which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, Is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, And we were young.
|
|
|
Post by llltdesq on Oct 25, 2018 22:40:29 GMT
Sonnet 29
William Shakespeare
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 possessed, 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 remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
May this find you happy and healthy.
Robert Reynolds Tucson AZ
|
|
|
Post by mikef6 on Oct 26, 2018 4:10:49 GMT
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota by James Wright
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly, Asleep on the black trunk, Blowing like a leaf in green shadow. Down the ravine behind the empty house, The cowbells follow one another Into the distances of the afternoon. To my right, In a field of sunlight between two pines, The droppings of last year’s horses Blaze up into golden stones. I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on. A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. I have wasted my life.
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Nov 9, 2018 23:46:26 GMT
And There Was a Great Calm
BY THOMAS HARDY (On the Signing of the Armistice, 11 Nov. 1918) I
There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold, And much Despair, and Anger heaving high, Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold, Among the young, among the weak and old, And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”
II
Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness, Philosophies that sages long had taught, And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought, And “Hell!” and “Shell!” were yapped at Lovingkindness.
III
The feeble folk at home had grown full-used To 'dug-outs', 'snipers', 'Huns', from the war-adept In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused; To day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused— To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.
IV
Waking to wish existence timeless, null, Sirius they watched above where armies fell; He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.
V
So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly Were dead and damned, there sounded 'War is done!' One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly, 'Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly, And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?'
VI
Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped, As they had raised it through the four years’ dance Of Death in the now familiar flats of France; And murmured, 'Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?'
VII
Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not, The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song. One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, 'What? Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?'
VIII
Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the gray, No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn, No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray; Worn horses mused: 'We are not whipped to-day;' No weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.
IX
Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency; There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky; Some could, some could not, shake off misery: The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!' And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?'
|
|
|
Post by Morgana on Nov 10, 2018 9:17:41 GMT
Another favourite of mine is a very poignant poem whose author is unknown. It's thought to be 15th -16th century. When I first read this poem years ago, I did a lot of searching online for it's meaning. Here I'm posting the general consensus which I agree with. The maidens came When I was in my mother’s bower; I had all that I would. The bailey beareth the bell away; The lily, the rose, the rose I lay. The silver is white, red is the gold; The robes they lay in fold. The bailey beareth the bell away; The lily, the rose, the rose I lay. And through the glass window shines the sun. How could I love and I so young? The bailey beareth the bell away; The lily, the rose, the rose I lay. Anonymous On a side note: while searching for a link to add here, i found someone had posted my reading of the poem on something called 'the allen ginsberg project' page. But to be honest, I don't think I did a great job. Sometimes it's written as being three verses or stanzas. The copy above is from the link below, if anyone is interested in reading more about the poem, though I think their explanation has a little too much 21st century feminist spin. linkhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/08/poem-of-the-week-bridal-morn
|
|
|
Post by koskiewicz on Nov 10, 2018 19:04:03 GMT
The Recruit
Fresh from the farm or factory or street, His marching, in pursuit or in retreat, Were and enormous martial spectacle Except for two impediments - his feet. -Thompson Johnson
"O bury the hatchet irascible Red, For peace is a blessing" the White Man said. The savage concurred, and that weapon interred, With imposing rites, in the White Man's head. -John Lukkus
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Nov 12, 2018 15:56:51 GMT
The Day is Done
The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor; And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
|
|