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Post by Carl LaFong on Dec 25, 2021 14:28:10 GMT
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Post by Nalkarj on Dec 25, 2021 17:45:36 GMT
The Meeting by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
After so long an absence At last we meet again: Does the meeting give us pleasure, Or does it give us pain?
The tree of life has been shaken, And but few of us linger now, Like the Prophet's two or three berries In the top of the uppermost bough.
We cordially greet each other In the old, familiar tone; And we think, though we do not say it, How old and gray he is grown!
We speak of a Merry Christmas And many a Happy New Year But each in his heart is thinking Of those that are not here.
We speak of friends and their fortunes, And of what they did and said, Till the dead alone seem living, And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish Between the ghosts and the guests; And a mist and shadow of sadness Steals over our merriest jests.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jan 8, 2022 20:48:46 GMT
The Leaden-Eyed by Vachel Lindsay
Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap, Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve, Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.
It was quoted in full in the novel Strangers on a Train.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 25, 2022 18:08:18 GMT
The Sunlight on the Garden by Louis MacNeice
The sunlight on the garden Hardens and grows cold, We cannot cage the minute Within its nets of gold; When all is told We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances Advances towards its end; The earth compels, upon it Sonnets and birds descend; And soon, my friend, We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying Defying the church bells And every evil iron Siren and what it tells: The earth compels. We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon, Hardened in heart anew, But glad to have sat under Thunder and rain with you, And grateful too For sunlight on the garden.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Feb 26, 2022 2:05:00 GMT
Here is a short awful poem i wrote
The Young king
The young king came home one morning in June he ran up the hill to see his land burn he fell down and died on the top of the hill one morning in June
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 21, 2022 15:05:20 GMT
Apologia by Phyllis McGinley
When I and the world Were greener and fitter, Many a bitter Stone I hurled. Many a curse I used to pitch At the universe. Being so rich, I had goods to spare, Could afford to notice The blight on the lotus, The worm in the pear.
But needier grown (If little wiser) Now, like a miser, All that I own I celebrate Shamefacedly — The pear on my plate, The fruit on my tree, Though sour and small. Give, willy-nilly, Thanks for the lily, Spot and all.
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 26, 2022 23:24:51 GMT
Parity by Kenneth Rexroth
My uncle believed he had A double in another Universe right here at hand Whose life was the opposite Of his in all things—the man On the other side of zero. Sometimes they would change places. Not in dreams, but for a moment In waking, when my uncle Would smile a certain sly smile And pause or stagger slightly And go about his business.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Mar 29, 2022 20:25:25 GMT
After Great Pain … by Emily Dickinson After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’? The Feet, mechanical, go round – A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone – This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/28/poem-of-the-week-after-great-pain-by-emily-dickinson
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 30, 2022 17:37:45 GMT
Prose…or is it? Either way, A.E. Stallings’s manifesto on rhyme. It’s fantastic, just like her poetry.Presto Manifesto!The freedom to not-rhyme must include the freedom to rhyme. Then verse will be “free.” All rhymed poetry must be rhyme-driven. This is no longer to be considered pejorative. Rhyme is at the wheel. No, rhyme is the engine. Rhyme is an engine of syntax: like meter, it understands the importance of prepositions. English is not rhyme poor. It is only uninflected. On the contrary, English has a richness in rhymes across different parts of speech; whereas in many other languages, rhyme is often merely a coincident jingle of accidence. There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are not predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, love and of, moon, June, spoon, all still have great poems ahead of them. Rhymes may be so far apart, you cannot hear them, but they can hear each other, as if whispering on a toy telephone made of two paper cups and a length of string. Rhymes do not need to be hidden or disguised: they are nothing to be ashamed of. Rhymes are not good Victorian children, to be seen but not heard. Rhyme may be feminine or masculine, but not neuter. Some rhymes are diatonic; some are modal. Off rhymes founded on consonants are more literary than off rhymes founded on vowels (assonance). Vowels are shifty. Assonance is in the mouth, not the ear. It is performative. Consonance brings forth what is different, so we listen for what is the same (harmonic). Assonance brings forth likeness; we listen for dissonance. The vowel is the third of the chord. Translators who translate poems that rhyme into poems that don’t rhyme solely because they claim keeping the rhyme is impossible without doing violence to the poem have done violence to the poem. They are also lazy. Rhyme is an irrational, sensual link between two words. It is chemical. It is alchemical. April, silver, orange, month. Rhyme frees the poet from what he wants to say. Rhyme can also free a poem from fixed line length. A rhyme lets us hear the end of the line, so lines may be of any metrical length, or even syllabic, and still be heard. Rhyme schemes. Rhyme annoys people, but only people who write poetry that doesn’t rhyme, and critics. See also: chime, climb, clime, crime, dime, grime, I’m, lime, mime, paradigm, pantomime, prime, rime, slime, sublime, thyme, Time.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Apr 1, 2022 20:09:06 GMT
High Island
A shoulder of rock Sticks high up out of the sea, A fisherman’s mark For lobster and blue-shark.
Fissile and stark The crust is flaking off, Seal rock, gull rock, Cove and cliff.
Dark mounds of mica schist, A lake, mill, and chapel, Roofless, one gable smashed, Lie ringed with rubble.
An older calm, The kiss of rock and grass, Pink thrift and white sea-campion, Flowers in the dead place.
Day keeps lit a flare Round the north pole all night. Like brushing long wavy hair Petrels quiver in flight.
Quietly as the rustle Of an arm entering a sleeve, They slip down to nest Under altar stone or grave.
Round the wrecked laura Needles flicker Tacking air, quicker and quicker To rock, sea, and star.
—Richard Murphy, from Collected Poems 1953-2000
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Post by Carl LaFong on Apr 4, 2022 21:51:30 GMT
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Post by Nalkarj on Apr 15, 2022 22:30:56 GMT
“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!” And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
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Post by mikef6 on Apr 16, 2022 2:14:01 GMT
Spring and Fall by Gerard Manly Hopkins
Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
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Post by mikef6 on Apr 16, 2022 2:20:31 GMT
Bilbo's Song. Preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch and translated from the Common Speech by J.R.R. Tolkien
I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been; Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair. I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see. For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green. I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago and people who will see a world that I shall never know. But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.
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Post by mikef6 on Apr 16, 2022 2:30:27 GMT
The Bustle in a House by Emily Dickinson
The Bustle in a House The Morning after Death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon Earth –
The Sweeping up the Heart And putting Love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity –
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Post by Nalkarj on May 12, 2022 3:11:28 GMT
Atlantis – A Lost Sonnet by Eavan Boland
How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder that a whole city – arches, pillars, colonnades, not to mention vehicles and animals – had all one fine day gone under?
I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then. Surely a great city must have been missed? I miss our old city –
white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe what really happened is
this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word to convey that what is gone is gone forever and never found it. And so, in the best traditions of where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name and drowned it.
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Post by mikef6 on May 12, 2022 20:58:00 GMT
When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutored youth, Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Sonnet 138 - William Shakespeare
A modern English translation if you need it but is is best not to look at it. A perfect "relationships" poem.
When my mistress swears that she speaks nothing but the truth I believe her so that she will think that I’m a naïve youth, ignorant of the complex ways of the world – even though I know she’s lying. So, to satisfy my vanity, I believe that she regards me as young, even though she knows that my best days are behind me. I agree with her lies without reservation. And so we’re both concealing the truth from each other. But why does she insist on her lies? And why don’t I insist that I’m old? Oh, it’s best for lovers to pretend to trust each other; and older lovers don’t like having their age pointed out. So I lie with her and she lies with me, and both being imperfect, we flatter each other with our lies.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 13, 2022 20:19:11 GMT
N.B. As usual with A.E. Stallings’s poetry, I find the following poem of hers moving. But I also wanted to post it as an example of her remarkable felicity with rhyme—and her ability to make it all seem so easy. She is such a talent.
Olives by A.E. Stallings
Sometimes a craving comes for salt, not sweet, For fruits that you can eat Only if pickled in a vat of tears— A rich and dark and indehiscent meat Clinging tightly to the pit—on spears
Of toothpicks, maybe, drowned beneath a tide Of vodka and vermouth, Rocking at the bottom of a wide, Shallow, long-stemmed glass, and gentrified; Or rustic, on a plate cracked like a tooth—
A miscellany of the humble hues Eponymously drab— Brown greens and purple browns, the black and blues That chart the slow chromatics of a bruise— Washed down with swigs of barrel wine that stab
The palate with pine-sharpness. They recall The harvest and its toil, The nets spread under silver trees that foil The blue glass of the heavens in the fall— Daylight packed in treasuries of oil,
Paradigmatic summers that decline Like singular archaic nouns, the troops Of hours in retreat. These fruits are mine— Small bitter drupes Full of the golden past and cured in brine.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 18, 2022 12:35:40 GMT
Summer Storm by Dana Gioia
We stood on the rented patio While the party went on inside. You knew the groom from college. I was a friend of the bride.
We hugged the brownstone wall behind us To keep our dress clothes dry And watched the sudden summer storm Floodlit against the sky.
The rain was like a waterfall Of brilliant beaded light, Cool and silent as the stars The storm hid from the night.
To my surprise, you took my arm— A gesture you didn’t explain— And we spoke in whispers, as if we two Might imitate the rain.
Then suddenly the storm receded As swiftly as it came. The doors behind us opened up. The hostess called your name.
I watched you merge into the group, Aloof and yet polite. We didn’t speak another word Except to say goodnight.
Why does that evening’s memory Return with this night’s storm— A party twenty years ago, Its disappointments warm?
There are so many might have beens, What ifs that won’t stay buried, Other cities, other jobs, Strangers we might have married.
And memory insists on pining For places it never went, As if life would be happier Just by being different.
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Post by theravenking on Jul 18, 2022 17:17:09 GMT
To a Cat by Algernon Charles Swinburne
I Stately, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed, On the golden page I read.
All your wondrous wealth of hair, Dark and fair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright As the clouds and beams of night, Pays my reverent hand's caress Back with friendlier gentleness.
Dogs may fawn on all and some As they come; You, a friend of loftier mind, Answer friends alone in kind. Just your foot upon my hand Softly bids it understand.
Morning round this silent sweet Garden-seat Sheds its wealth of gathering light, Thrills the gradual clouds with might, Changes woodland, orchard, heath, Lawn, and garden there beneath.
Fair and dim they gleamed below: Now they glow Deep as even your sunbright eyes, Fair as even the wakening skies. Can it not or can it be Now that you give thanks to see?
May not you rejoice as I, Seeing the sky Change to heaven revealed, and bid Earth reveal the heaven it hid All night long from stars and moon, Now the sun sets all in tune?
What within you wakes with day Who can say? All too little may we tell, Friends who like each other well, What might haply, if we might, Bid us read our lives aright.
II Wild on woodland ways your sires Flashed like fires: Fair as flame and fierce and fleet As with wings on wingless feet Shone and sprang your mother, free, Bright and brave as wind or sea.
Free and proud and glad as they, Here to-day Rests or roams their radiant child, Vanquished not, but reconciled, Free from curb of aught above Save the lovely curb of love.
Love through dreams of souls divine Fain would shine Round a dawn whose light and song Then should right our mutual wrong — Speak, and seal the love-lit law Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw.
Dreams were theirs; yet haply may Dawn a day When such friends and fellows born, Seeing our earth as fair at morn, May for wiser love's sake see More of heaven's deep heart than we.
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