Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: Poetry  (Read 9109 times)

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Poetry
« on: June 09, 2018, 08:46:40 AM »
I think we need some poems. Here is one from Housman.

--

The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
    Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
    Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.

There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
    One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
    But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

We for a certainty are not the first
    Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
    Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

It is in truth iniquity on high
    To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
    Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave.

Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
    My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
    We want the moon, but we shall get no more.

If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
    To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
    Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
    Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
    Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.


A. E. Housman
--


sidd

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2018, 08:48:06 AM »
And here's another from Reed:

--
 Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens likecoral in all the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have the naming of parts.

Henry Reed

--

sidd

aperson

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 228
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 100
  • Likes Given: 131
Re: Poetry
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2018, 09:45:46 AM »
I Know a Man
Robert Creeley

As I sd to my   
friend, because I am   
always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his   
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for   
christ’s sake, look   
out where yr going.
computer janitor by trade

RealityCheck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 174
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 45
  • Likes Given: 6
Re: Poetry
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2018, 09:53:48 AM »
Well done sidd. I agree - we need some poetry... here's one of my favourite Haiku, translated from the original of course. Not sure who wrote it ; maybe Basho..?

O snail!
Climbing Mount Fuji
Slowly, slowly.
Sic transit gloria mundi

gerontocrat

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 22166
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 5435
  • Likes Given: 70
Re: Poetry
« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2018, 11:30:14 AM »
One for Bob Wallace?

Inexpensive progress
Let's say goodbye to hedges
And roads with grassy edges
And winding country lanes
Let all things travel faster
Where motor-car is master
Till only Speed remains.

John Betjeman  (c1955) -- about the time that Britain got its first motorway.

You can hear the whole poem read by Sir John (it is in copyright) on this BBCvideo :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00x028k
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

Sleepy

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1202
  • Retired, again...
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 120
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2018, 03:27:28 PM »
This one is long, maybe too long?


Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache


I.

We come into the world.

We come into the world and there it is.

The sun is there.

The brown of the river leading to the blue and the brown of the ocean is there.

Salmon and eels are there moving between the brown and the brown and the blue.

The green of the land is there.

Elders and youngers are there.

Fighting and possibility and love are there.

And we begin to breathe.

We come into the world and there it is.

We come into the world without and we breathe it in.

We come into the world.

We come into the world and we too begin to move between the brown and the blue and the green of it.


II.

We came into the world at the edge of a stream.

The stream had no name but it began from a spring and flowed down a hill into the Scioto that then flowed into the Ohio that then flowed into the Mississippi that then flowed into the Gulf of Mexico.

The stream was a part of us and we were a part of the stream and we were thus part of the rivers and thus part of the gulfs and the oceans.

And we began to learn the stream.

We looked under stones for the caddisfly larvae and its adhesive.

We counted the creek chub and we counted the slenderhead darter.

We learned to recognize the large, upright, dense, candle-like clusters of yellowish flowers at the branch ends of the horsechestnut and we appreciated the feathery gracefulness of the drooping, but upturning, branchlets of the larch.

We mimicked the catlike meow, the soft quirrt or kwut, and the louder, grating ratchet calls of the gray catbird.

We put our heads together.

We put our heads together with all these things, with the caddisfly larva, with the creek chub and the slenderhead darter, with the horsechestnut and the larch, with the gray catbird.

We put our heads together on a narrow pillow, on a stone, on a narrow stone pillow, and we talked to each other all day long because we loved.

We loved the stream.

And we were of the stream.

And we couldn’t help this love because we arrived at the bank of the stream and began breathing and the stream was various and full of information and it changed our bodies with its rotten with its cold with its clean with its mucky with fallen leaves with its things that bite the edges of the skin with its leaves with its sand and dirt with its pungent at moments with its dry and prickly with its warmth with its mushy and moist with its hard flat stones on the bottom with its horizon lines of gently rolling hills with its darkness with its dappled light with its cicadas buzz with its trills of birds.


III.

This is where we learned love and where we learned depth and where we learned layers and where we learned connections between layers.

We learned and we loved the black sandshell, the ash, the american bittern, the harelip sucker, the yellow bullhead, the beech, the great blue heron, the dobsonfly larva, the water penny larva, the birch, the redhead, the white catspaw, the elephant ear, the buckeye, the king eider, the river darter, the sauger, the burning bush, the common merganser, the limpet, the mayfly nymph, the cedar, the turkey vulture, the spectacle case, the flat floater, the cherry, the red tailed hawk, the longnose gar, the brook trout, the chestnut, the killdeer, the river snail, the giant floater, the chokeberry, gray catbird, the rabbitsfoot, the slenderhead darter, the crabapple, the american robin, the creek chub, the stonefly nympth, the dogwood, the warbling vireo, the sow bug, the elktoe, the elm, the marsh wren, the monkeyface, the central mudminnow, the fir, the gray-cheeked thrush, the white bass, the predaceous diving beetle, the hawthorn, the scud, the salamander mussel, the hazelnut, the warbler, the mapleleaf, the american eel, the hemlock, the speckled chub, the whirligig beetle larva, the hickory, the sparrow, the caddisfly larva, the fluted shell, the horse chestnut, the wartyback, the white heelsplitter, the larch, the pine grosbeak, the brook stickleback, the river redhorse, the locust, the ebonyshelf, the giant water bug, the maple, the eastern phoebe, the white sucker, the creek heelsplitter, the mulberry, the crane fly larva, the mountain madtom, the oak, the bank swallow, the wabash pigtoe, the damselfly larva, the pine, the stonecat, the kidneyshell, the plum, the midge larva, the eastern sand darter, the rose, the purple wartyback, the narrow-winged damselfly, the spruce, the pirate perch, the threehorn wartyback, the sumac, the black fly larva, the redside dace, the tree-of-heaven, the orange-foot pimpleback, the dragonfly larva, the walnut, the gold fish, the butterfly, the striped fly larva, the willow, the freshwater drum, the ohio pigtoe, the warmouth, the mayfly nymph, the clubshell.

And this was just the beginning of the list.

Our hearts took on many things.

Our hearts took on new shapes, new shapes every day as we went to the stream every day.

Our hearts took on the shape of well-defined riffles and pools, clean substrates, woody debris, meandering channels, floodplains, and mature streamside forests.

Our hearts took on the shape of the stream and became riffled and calmed and muddy and clean and flooded and shrunken dry.

Our hearts took on the shape of whirligigs swirling across the water.

We shaped our hearts into the sycamore trees along the side of the stream and we let into our hearts the long pendulous polygamous racemes of its small green flowers, the first-formed male flowers with no pistil and then the later arriving hairy ovary with its two curved stigmas.

We let ourselves love the one day of the adult life of the mayfly as it swarms, mates in flight, and dies all without eating.

And we shaped our hearts into the water willow and into the eggs spawned in the water willow.

Our hearts took on the brilliant blues, reds, and oranges of breeding male rainbow darter and our hearts swam to the female rainbow darter and we poked her side with our snout as she buried herself under the gravel and we laid upon her as she vibrated.

We let leaves and algae into our hearts and then we let the mollusks and the insects and we let the midge larvae into our heart and then the stonefly nymph and then a minnow came into our heart and with it a bass and then we let the blue heron fly in, the raccoon amble by, the snapping turtle and the watersnake also.

We immersed ourselves in the shallow stream. We lied down on the rocks on our narrow pillow stone and let the water pass over us and our heart was bathed in glochida and other things that attach to the flesh.

And as we did this we sang.

We sang gentle now.

Gentle now clubshell,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now warmouth, mayfly nymph,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now willow, freshwater drum, ohio pigtoe,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now walnut, gold fish, butterfly, striped fly larva,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now black fly larva, redside dace, tree-of-heaven, orange-foot pimpleback, dragonfly larva,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now purple wartyback, narrow-winged damselfly, spruce, pirate perch, threehorn wartyback, sumac,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now pine, stonecat, kidneyshell, plum, midge larva, eastern sand darter, rose,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now creek heelsplitter, mulberry, crane fly larva, mountain madtom, oak, bank swallow, wabash pigtoe, damselfly larva,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now pine grosbeak, brook stickleback, river redhorse, locust, ebonyshelf, giant water bug, maple, eastern phoebe, white sucker,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now whirligig beetle larva, hickory, sparrow, caddisfly larva, fluted shell, horse chestnut, wartyback, white heelsplitter, larch,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now white bass, predaceous diving beetle, hawthorn, scud, salamander mussel, hazelnut, warbler, mapleleaf, american eel, hemlock, speckled chub,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now stonefly nympth, dogwood, warbling vireo, sow bug, elktoe, elm, marsh wren, monkeyface, central mudminnow, fir, gray-cheeked thrush,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now longnose gar, brook trout, chestnut, killdeer, river snail, giant floater, chokeberry, gray catbird, rabbitsfoot, slenderhead darter, crabapple, american robin, creek chub,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now king eider, river darter, sauger, burning bush, common merganser, limpet, mayfly nymph, cedar, turkey vulture, spectacle case, flat floater, cherry, red tailed hawk,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now black sandshell, ash, american bittern, harelip sucker, yellow bullhead, beech, great blue heron, dobsonfly larva, water penny larva, birch, redhead, white catspaw, elephant ear, buckeye,

don’t add to heartache.

Gentle now, we sang,

Circle our heart in rapture, in love-ache. Circle our heart.


IV.

It was not all long lines of connection and utopia.

It was a brackish stream and it went through the field beside our house.

But we let into our hearts the brackish parts of it also.

Some of it knowingly.

We let in soda cans and we let in cigarette butts and we let in pink tampon applicators and we let in six pack of beer connectors and we let in various other pieces of plastic that would travel through the stream.

And some of it unknowingly.

We let the runoff from agriculture, surface mines, forestry, home wastewater treatment systems, construction sites, urban yards, and roadways into our hearts.

We let chloride, magnesium, sulfate, manganese, iron, nitrite/nitrate, aluminum, suspended solids, zinc, phosphorus, fertilizers, animal wastes, oil, grease, dioxins, heavy metals and lead go through our skin and into our tissues.

We were born at the beginning of these things, at the time of chemicals combining, at the time of stream run off.

These things were a part of us and would become more a part of us but we did not know it yet.

Still we noticed enough to sing a lament.

To sing in lament for whoever lost her elephant ear lost her mountain madtom

and whoever lost her butterfly lost her harelip sucker

and whoever lost her white catspaw lost her rabbitsfoot

and whoever lost her monkeyface lost her speckled chub

and whoever lost her wartyback lost her ebonyshell

and whoever lost her pirate perch lost her ohio pigtoe lost her clubshell.


V.

What I did not know as I sang the lament of what was becoming lost and what was already lost was how this loss would happen.

I did not know that I would turn from the stream to each other.

I did not know I would turn to each other.

That I would turn to each other to admire the softness of each other’s breast, the folds of each other’s elbows, the brightness of each other’s eyes, the smoothness of each other’s hair, the evenness of each other’s teeth, the firm blush of each other’s lips, the firm softness of each other’s breasts, the fuzz of each other’s down, the rich, ripe pungency of each other’s smell, all of it, each other’s cheeks, legs, neck, roof of mouth, webbing between the fingers, tips of nails and also cuticles, hair on toes, whorls on fingers, skin discolorations.

I turned to each other.

Ensnared, bewildered, I turned to each other and from the stream.

I turned to each other and I began to work for the chemical factory and I began to work for the paper mill and I began to work for the atomic waste disposal plant and I began to work at keeping men in jail.

I turned to each other.

I didn’t even say goodbye elephant ear, mountain madtorn, butterfly, harelip sucker, white catspaw, rabbitsfoot, monkeyface, speckled chub, wartyback, ebonyshell, pirate perch, ohio pigtoe, clubshell.

I replaced what I knew of the stream with Lifestream Total Cholesterol Test Packets, with Snuggle Emerald Stream Fabric Softener Dryer Sheets, with Tisserand Aromatherapy Aroma-Stream Cartridges, with Filter Stream Dust Tamer, and Streamzap PC Remote Control, Acid Stream Launcher, and Viral Data Stream.

I didn’t even say goodbye elephant ear, mountain madtorn, butterfly, harelip sucker, white catspaw, rabbitsfoot, monkeyface, speckled chub, wartyback, ebonyshell, pirate perch, ohio pigtoe, clubshell.

I put a Streamline Tilt Mirror in my shower and I kept a crystal Serenity Sphere with a Winter Stream view on my dresser.

I didn’t even say goodbye elephant ear, mountain madtorn, butterfly, harelip sucker, white catspaw, rabbitsfoot, monkeyface, speckled chub, wartyback, ebonyshell, pirate perch, ohio pigtoe, clubshell.

I bought a Gulf Stream Blue Polyester Boat Cover for my 14-16 Foot V-Hull Fishing boats with beam widths up to sixty-eight feet and I talked about value stream management with men in suits over a desk.

I didn’t even say goodbye elephant ear, mountain madtorn, butterfly, harelip sucker, white catspaw, rabbitsfoot, monkeyface, speckled chub, wartyback, ebonyshell, pirate perch, ohio pigtoe, clubshell.

I just turned to each other and the body parts of the other suddenly glowed with the beauty and detail that I had found in the stream.

I put my head together on a narrow pillow and talked with each other all night long.

And I did not sing.

I did not sing otototoi; dark, all merged together, oi.

I did not sing groaning wounds.

I did not sing otototoi; dark, all merged together, oi.

I did not sing groaning wounds.

I did not sing o wo, wo, wo!

I did not sing I see, I see.

I did not sing wo, wo!


-Juliana Spahr
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
-
Science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings.

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2018, 04:40:35 AM »
Kipling: The Buddha at Kamakura

--
Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when the "heathen" pray
⁠To Buddha at Kamakura!


To him the Way, the Law, Apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord the Bodhisat,
⁠The Buddha of Kamakura.


For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
⁠His children at Kamakura;


Yet spare us still the Western joke
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
⁠That worship at Kamakura—


The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies
That flit beneath the Master's eyes—
He is beyond the Mysteries
⁠But loves them at Kamakura.


And whoso will, from Pride released,
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the soul of all the East
⁠About him at Kamakura.


Yea, every tale Ananda heard,
Of birth as fish or beast or bird,
While yet in lives the Master stirred,
⁠The warm wind brings Kamakura.


Till drowsy eyelids seem to see
A-flower 'neath her golden htee
The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly
⁠From Burmah to Kamakura;


And down the loaded air there comes
The thunder of Thibetan drums,
And droned—"Om mane padme oms"—
⁠A world's width from Kamakura.


Yet Brahmans rule Benares still,
Buddh-Gaya's ruins pit the hill,
And beef-fed zealots threaten ill
⁠To Buddha and Kamakura.


A tourist-show, a legend told,
A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,
So much, and scarce so much, ye hold
⁠The meaning of Kamakura?


But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
⁠No nearer than Kamakura?


--


sidd

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2018, 11:09:44 PM »
Housman is one of my favorites, so here's another from him:

How Clear, How Lovely Bright


Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what’s to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I’ve done my best
And all’s to do again.

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.

by A. E. Housman

sidd

RealityCheck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 174
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 45
  • Likes Given: 6
Re: Poetry
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2018, 12:10:11 AM »
Very nice sidd...
Sic transit gloria mundi

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 389
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 198
  • Likes Given: 66
Re: Poetry
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2018, 05:22:48 AM »
Of all the courses I took in college/grad school creative writing/poetry was among my favorite. I'll post up what I got and see if it is at all decent:

 - In Retrospect -
   
Find a mirror,
a glass puddle amidst shattered pavement
filled with clear rain once pure,
now a flat gray of rejected oil and settled dust.

Let it bark back all of your impurities.
Everything seen is through a warped lens subjective,
a lens attempting to see only what it deems beautiful,
but your depressed reflection remains.

Image is a conglomeration of the positives and negatives
that have decided to remain and advance on the surface.
Unwilling to tell age,
but willing to expose the meaningless train wreck
of the life
of the mesmerized onlooker

Angry with that stark visual the broken road allowed you to see?
Bring the red inside your veins to a boil?
Good.
Those years of neglect cannot be hidden by the latest trend,
or past diet,
or last run,
or fake laugh.

Begin to let that fury build inside the toes
then lift through the lower extremities like a balloon
and burn the stomach
then explode with ferocity out of the wrists.

Now then a dribble of salt water
rises from two glowing white spheres
and warmly slips off the chin
and befriends the gray puddle with a slight pop.

Find temporary breath in the last drop of an exhausted bottle,
anger thrown in the direction of degrading
and not restoration.
Process has been accelerated.

Then build a smile at the quick realization
that what is seen is what has been willed
subconsciously,

a two dimensional reflection of what was desired all along.

So cherish that similar object eyeing you like a starving wolf
because,
that clone of you does not know
you,
or your experiences,
or your continual progression,
it,
is jealous, no longer questions,
it,
had the answer prior
and weeps with joy
as a result.
pls!

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #10 on: August 18, 2018, 03:11:33 AM »
And some of my efforts

Had I the space
And the time
The patience to wait
Had I a hope
And a beautiful smile
Had I the stride
Or stubborn persistence
To accept what is ,Had I every wish

Had I a room
Whether it the best
To live out every dream
Had I a love
With whom I might share it
Or fight the tempest
If choice had I , Had I every wish


    Ceilo
The CCC camp has quince and grapes gone wild
Oaks and acorns being sustenance these days
  to the misery of what will be
Barrel staves hand carved , the grapes hand picked
    Ceilo
Stars needing worship
Prayers being said
Glow worms , midsummer
Poorwill
And the tusk rasp of distant pigs

 
                  Twenty-ten
Known only ease
 Ours
Dreamed only of
 More
We did not look
 Or turned away
 From old truths
We didn't listen
 To the winds off the pacific
  Or send our sons there for testing
Trading the cold ocean of old
  For more

               CO2
We have seen far into our darkness
 mistakenly called comfort
Not this
True, asteroids, volcanism
  the turning of vast scales
But never one life form
  over multitudes
Millions sacrificed , for a little comfort
No return to  innocence ours
As the acid eats away at the shell of life



There through the moving shafts of sunlight
  Move denizens
  Unseen, unheard
The inverted forest harbors our cousins
The seabed crawls with our genes
Cloned tunicates being close to us
From them
 life eventually moved forth, breathed air
 and burned the body mass of the ancients


                   Surface Tension
It is lifting facing a double gale
Leaning into it
The roar

Not something from nothing
 but the spin off the planet
 coming down

The wind takes the ocean
  Spits it, peaks it up
   but unbruised she settles in again
And you'd never know tomorrow
  the   heavens ever had a place here



 


« Last Edit: August 18, 2018, 03:29:59 AM by Bruce Steele »

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #11 on: August 18, 2018, 06:49:52 AM »
The first three lines remind me of Marvell

"Had we but world enough and time ..."

But refreshingly different. Thanx.

sidd

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #12 on: August 18, 2018, 08:03:08 AM »
Thank you Sid , Sharing poems is always personal and kinda scary.

RealityCheck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 174
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 45
  • Likes Given: 6
Re: Poetry
« Reply #13 on: August 18, 2018, 09:51:31 AM »
Thank you Pearscot. That has many layers. I like it...
Sic transit gloria mundi

RealityCheck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 174
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 45
  • Likes Given: 6
Re: Poetry
« Reply #14 on: August 18, 2018, 09:57:31 AM »
Bruce, 'Twenty-ten' really captures a whole lot for me. Like the eulogy for a civilisation... thanks.
Sic transit gloria mundi

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 389
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 198
  • Likes Given: 66
Re: Poetry
« Reply #15 on: August 18, 2018, 07:23:26 PM »
Thank you Sid , Sharing poems is always personal and kinda scary.

Yes, sharing your own work is never easy though I very much appreciate it! You have wonderful work.

Thank you Pearscot. That has many layers. I like it...

Thank you, that means a lot. I've been working on my personal blog and in doing so, have been finding more of the work I created back in my last semester as an undergrad.

This is an awesome thread and I'm happy it was created!
pls!

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 389
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 198
  • Likes Given: 66
Re: Poetry
« Reply #16 on: August 18, 2018, 07:24:33 PM »
Apologies for the double post; here is another one of mine:

 - Airport Smoking Section -

They claim it is their goal to limitlessly spend fiscal reserves to bring them back.
They will complete any effort; engineering or humanitarian.
They will allow the weak to make it, small to strive, yet censor the bold.
They will lock them in a contemporary stainless steel and glass case.

That case makes me smile,
makes me laugh,
Jail them for their impediments and bad habits,
does not bother me.

I know not; their life is the inverse of what I live.
But I live my life the obvious and right way.
Such a coward remark of judgment carelessly thrown down.

Mistakes made as minutes decease,
sins manufactured faster than the forgiveness antidote.
Has the limit been exceeded in far more aspects than simply a transmission receiver overloaded by the spinning fifth cog?
“Like complementing cogs and gears we [have] built a head of steam.”

In the end it remains nothing,
but it is now.
So focus on the immediate.

As this sphere of atoms and elements boils over
we attempt to explain impurities;
and processes,
yet we know more of our hearts than of the sky.

So the judgments remain,
as fact and theory
when they are as concrete as our preferences.
That, however, is more truth than we can find with a grant.

So keep them locked in the glass case,
Let them breathe the hydrocarbon, chlorofluorocarbon, cancer infused air they created.
They have the same rights as I have to judge.

Supposedly this issue runs deep,
but a simple mind loves short-cuts and minimalism
so let us continue to silently fight and yell like the
moon and sun tug the ocean four times a day
and never find resolve. 

Quote: Astronautalis: The Wondersmith and His Sons.  Pomegranate, Sep. 23, 2008. Eyeball Records.
pls!

ivica

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1513
  • Kelele
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 100
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #17 on: August 18, 2018, 10:14:07 PM »
Warning                       Opomena
---------------------------   ------------------------------
Man, be careful               Čovječe pazi
not to walk small             da ne ideš malen
under the stars.              ispod zvijezda!

May your whole body           Pusti
be filled with                da cijelog tebe prođe
the dim light of the stars!   blaga svjetlost zvijezda!

To have no regrets            Da ni za čim ne žališ
when with the last glances    kad se budeš zadnjim pogledima
you part with the stars!      rastajo od zvijezda!

In your final hour            Na svom koncu
instead of dust               mjesto u prah
pass whole to the stars.      prijeđi sav u zvijezde!

Source of the translation.



Antun Branko Šimić
.

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #18 on: August 18, 2018, 11:04:13 PM »
Tagore is one of my favorite poets: Here is a translation of his poems called "Walk Alone"

If they answer not to your call walk alone
If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
O thou unlucky one, open your mind and speak out alone.
If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
O thou unlucky one, trample the thorns under thy tread,
and along the blood-lined track travel alone.
If they shut doors and do not hold up the light
when the night is troubled with storm, O thou unlucky one,
with the thunder flame of pain ignite your own heart, and let it burn alone.

Rabindranath Tagore.

The poem loses a lot in translation. Here is the original song in Bengali:



Tagore, in his own words, flooded the subcontinent with song.

sidd

bligh8

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 56
  • Likes Given: 4
Re: Poetry
« Reply #19 on: August 23, 2018, 11:30:11 AM »
Rearmament

These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future … I should do foolishly. The beauty of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.

Robinson Jeffers, 1935

kassy

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 8933
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2108
  • Likes Given: 2023
Re: Poetry
« Reply #20 on: August 23, 2018, 06:24:38 PM »
Here is one poem i really liked when i read it in high school:



A bit later in Uni i discovered the next one. Punk poet John Cooper Clarke (not every ones cup of tea but i will take it over french symbolist poetry every time).



Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 389
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 198
  • Likes Given: 66
Re: Poetry
« Reply #21 on: August 23, 2018, 06:34:39 PM »
This is one of the best threads I have been able to partake in. Thank you everyone for what you have shared. I will post another one of mine tonight. Everyone is well versed and it's fascinating for me to read the diverse tastes in the art.
pls!

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Poetry
« Reply #22 on: August 23, 2018, 07:22:52 PM »
bligh8
Thanks for "Rearmament".
Both the poem and the poet are new to me.
Terry

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #23 on: August 23, 2018, 07:48:43 PM »
Terry, repost. Another Jeffers

    The House Dog's Grave (Haig, an English bulldog)

I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read--and I fear often grieving for me--
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that's too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.


Robinson Jeffers, 1941

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Poetry
« Reply #24 on: August 23, 2018, 08:58:15 PM »
Bruce
That one brought tears to my eyes.
Terry

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 389
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 198
  • Likes Given: 66
Re: Poetry
« Reply #25 on: August 24, 2018, 03:32:02 PM »
 - Nor’easter -

Two fishing ships broke dock at first sun,
teal brine lapping, licking the steel hull.
A broken act the fog wishes could be whole
again.  Far beyond the black shore: a dull act done.
Her maroon sedan turns and parks for one
minute.  Aft sea made to boil, motor demanding coal
to heat the water to spin the prop at full
speed, expanding distance between husbands’ son.

The Maine shore lies barren and silent now,
communal tears shed for uncertain winds and rain.
Fog thickens with the heaviness of hearts,
wives and children in shock and awe at how
the men left calm serenity and only complain.
Lives carelessly thrown like drunken darts.
pls!

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #26 on: August 24, 2018, 10:22:52 PM »
Nice.

sidd

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #27 on: September 12, 2018, 06:49:58 AM »
Here is a stanza that i have not been able to identify. I came across it decades ago, and never in all the years since found the author. But it has stayed with me, and i welcome any references.

--
Under bridges hobos travel
Eating only dust and gravel.
When a hobo dies, nobody knows.
Under the bridge the gravel grows.
--

Please do tell. if you have seen this before.

sidd


SteveMDFP

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2686
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 635
  • Likes Given: 70
Re: Poetry
« Reply #28 on: September 12, 2018, 01:48:44 PM »
Here is a stanza that i have not been able to identify. I came across it decades ago, and never in all the years since found the author. But it has stayed with me, and i welcome any references.

--
Under bridges hobos travel
Eating only dust and gravel.
When a hobo dies, nobody knows.
Under the bridge the gravel grows.
--

Please do tell. if you have seen this before.

sidd

No, did some google searching of key phrases.  Nada.  Closest was the song "Lonesome Hobo" by Boxcar Willie:

"See that lonesome hobo walkin' down the track;
His worldly possessions he carries on his back.
As he's walkin' down the track one thought goes thru his mind:
Things will be better further down the line.

'Cause nobody knows when that hobo cries,
Nobody cares when that hobo dies;
Nobody knows that his smile is a disguise;
'Cause nobody sees the hurt in his eyes."

But your passage likely a poem not meant to be sung, I think.

Tor Bejnar

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 4606
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 879
  • Likes Given: 826
Re: Poetry
« Reply #29 on: September 12, 2018, 05:52:30 PM »
Sidd,
I see you asked about this poem nearly 3 years ago. 

Keep looking.  I could not find a particular singer/songwriter (Radha) I met in N.Z. in 1983 until recently.  I still cannot find the recording (or lyrics) of the cassette tape we got a copy of then, which our children grew up on.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #30 on: September 17, 2018, 07:12:56 AM »
Here is one by Earle Birney. I have known cats like this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALUROID

Blurred in a blot
of laburnum leaves
panther taut
the small Siamese
has willed even her tail’s
tip to an Egyptian frieze.

But not her two
sapphire burning blue
pools whose planetary bale
to the topmost wren glares through.

The silent ritual she brings
they shatter, by their shrill
profanities deny
her lethal godhead till
Bast in anguish springs
her tawny grace at nothing
 
drops unfelicitous upon
the powermowed lawn
a staring failure
chittering.
Dish clinks
and in a breath
she is a fawn
cat, house-intent.
Bast’s thirty teeth are masked.
The terrible fires sink
to almond innocence.

The wrens fly off to other deaths.
----------------------------------------------------

This appeared in 1961. Now that i think about it i have known many cats like that.


sidd



sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #31 on: September 17, 2018, 08:30:28 AM »
Another by Birney, same collection, tells of a transcontinental journey by train, echoing Goldstone, "Ill fares the land, to hastening ill a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay"

In 1960. He foresaw a silent spring.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCONTINENTAL

Crawling across this sometime garden
now in our chaircars like clever nits
in a plush caterpillar should we take time
to glance from our dazzle of folders
and behold this great green girl grown sick
with man, sick with the likes of us?

Toes mottled long ago by soak of seaports
ankles rashed with stubble
belly papulous with stumps?
And should we note where maggoting miners
still bore her bones to feed our crawling host
or consider the scars across her breasts
the scum of tugs upon her lakeblue eyes
the clogging logs within her blood—
in the pause between our magazines?

For certainly she is ill,
her skin is creased with our coming and going
and we trail in her face the dark breath of her dooming.

It is true she is too big and strong to die
of this disease but she grows quickly old,
this lady, old with us
nor have we any antibodies for her aid
except our own.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"we trail in her face the dark breath of her dooming. "

And in all the graying decades since, our breath has grown darker indeed, and doom looms nigh.

sidd

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #32 on: September 25, 2018, 06:33:43 AM »
This is a favorite of Borges, and mine.

Harp Song of the Dane Women

Rudyard Kipling (1906)

What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in—
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you—
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables—
To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,
Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker ?




TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Poetry
« Reply #33 on: September 25, 2018, 07:23:11 AM »
Bruce
Thanks again for posting "The House Dog's Grave"


A friend's dog suddenly died last week. She's alone and the pooch had been her principal companion for some years;


I copied the poem to her & she replied that it helped.
Thanks again
Terry


Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #34 on: September 25, 2018, 07:45:16 AM »
Terry, Maybe pigs aren't like a favorite dog . I hope winter is kind to you this year.

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Poetry
« Reply #35 on: September 25, 2018, 08:44:25 AM »
Terry, Maybe pigs aren't like a favorite dog . I hope winter is kind to you this year.


I've had some house dogs & known some house pigs. Both seemed to make fine companions.


Winters in this part of Canada never were bad. Lately they've become damn near benign. I worried that my desert raised wife would have trouble with the snow, but it's summer heat + humidity that gets her down.


Your experiments are always interesting and the lessons you've learned will help others following your path.


Have a great season Bruce
Terry

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 389
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 198
  • Likes Given: 66
Re: Poetry
« Reply #36 on: September 30, 2018, 09:03:00 AM »
Thank you Terry. When you mention Canada I think of Halifax. Those were better times.
pls!

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #37 on: December 30, 2018, 08:46:42 AM »
               San Miguel

I don't find it easy
to write about a place
so perfect;
it's only an island
but the wind and man
haven't flawed her beauty

Sister to the Pacific
which holds her,
there parts the north wind,
and the sea churns in riches
we men have in our bones
such a place

In the distant past we few
who survived the ice
clung to the cold rocks
casting nets, casting spells
and waited an eternity
for the sun

There were other places,
holes in the ice
where the seals came,
but somehow
this seems where man had done well

The people
who over the years built
mountain of shells
about their sealskin tents,
finally witnessed the oceans rise
the weather warm,
and where once stood coastal villages
the sea regained

But for the stone mastery
of once great men
little remains
How is it
we honor the ancients
how do we reach our children
and when is the past the future

It's only an island



Ardeus

  • New ice
  • Posts: 24
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 10
  • Likes Given: 19
Re: Poetry
« Reply #38 on: December 30, 2018, 01:00:20 PM »
I took a poem by Stevie Smith and I created 6 songs. I had the opportunity to present it live :)

The poem is about a drowning man. His friends thought he was waving from the sea.

Quote
Nobody heard him, the dead man,   
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought   
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,   
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always   
(Still the dead one lay moaning)   
I was much too far out all my life   
And not waving but drowning.

The subject is so dark that I had to be in an extremely good mood to tackle it.


Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #39 on: January 05, 2019, 05:53:24 PM »
God put bugs on your windshield
So that you might notice when they
went missing
along with the dragonflies, the damsel flies, the May flies and hellgrammites
the swallows, the phoebe , the mountain bluebirds and meadowlarks
 I have seen ribs in my mirror although I don't have
a cough or other signs
And I have been wondering if with worms
as with so many other things
we are just a dead end host


 


sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #41 on: April 01, 2020, 09:07:55 PM »
Wendell Berry: "what man has not encountered he has not destroyed"

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.


kassy

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 8933
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2108
  • Likes Given: 2023
Re: Poetry
« Reply #42 on: April 01, 2020, 11:07:27 PM »
Nice stuff.

It is not often that you find really effective truly modern poetry and it´s from 1973.  :)

Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Florifulgurator

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 805
  • Virtual world alter ego / अवतार of Martin Gisser
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 249
  • Likes Given: 384
Re: Poetry
« Reply #43 on: May 07, 2020, 06:53:29 AM »
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or committed communist, but rather people for whom the difference between facts and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." ~ Hannah Arendt
"Солдаты всех стран, соединяйтесь!" ~ Florifulgurator 1986

Florifulgurator

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 805
  • Virtual world alter ego / अवतार of Martin Gisser
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 249
  • Likes Given: 384
Re: Poetry
« Reply #44 on: May 07, 2020, 06:55:07 AM »
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or committed communist, but rather people for whom the difference between facts and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." ~ Hannah Arendt
"Солдаты всех стран, соединяйтесь!" ~ Florifulgurator 1986

blumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: Poetry
« Reply #45 on: May 07, 2020, 08:39:50 AM »
Martin, what do you get out of communicating with the goal of not being understood?

Do you realize this is an English speaking forum?

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2659
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 813
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Poetry
« Reply #46 on: May 09, 2020, 04:16:37 PM »
They came on the ides of March
Looked around and left
Almost a month later they began daubing their nests
a new group
In the eves of the front room window I now count
Thirty finished nests
They are laying and venture out for food in my garden
I will know when they hatch
the chatter increases
It will be several weeks of swallows tending my garden
fifty hungry swallows then a hundred
and every one will have a mud puddle in the pasture next year
If I am here
Twenty years I made mud for them
On the Ides of March
and twenty years returned
the swallows to  Winfield

P-maker

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 72
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #47 on: May 09, 2020, 06:37:35 PM »
Bruce,

Saw a couple of swallows on this Mayday at noon.
Thought of your mud puddle scooped with a spoon.
Hope they will stay and build us a nest.
Home for their kids and place for a rest.

Tried to explain to the next of my kind.
That swallows fly with the winds of spring.
That they need a puddle of mud to build up a home.
That they are a key to this special biome.

Hope that my mud puddle put out at leisure
will become theirs and it would be a pleasure
if nest building efforts, flight, fight and bug eating spreads
were inspired by these - the ASIF threads.


sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1055
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Poetry
« Reply #48 on: November 03, 2020, 09:56:28 PM »
I can't believe i havent posted this yet:

Smart in Jubilate Agno:

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45173/jubilate-agno

sidd


sidd


Tom_Mazanec

  • Guest
Re: Poetry
« Reply #49 on: November 05, 2020, 01:21:18 PM »
Here is my favorite poem
J. R. R. Tolkien

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, on twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves,
And harps of gold, where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the heights,
The wind was moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread,
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale,
And men looked up with faces pale.
The dragon's ire, more fierce than fire,
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon.
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled the hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the Misty Mountains grim,
To dungeons deep and caverns dim,
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

The wind was on the withered heath,
But in the forest stirred no leaf:
There shadows lay be night or day,
And dark things silent crept beneath.

The wind came down from mountains cold,
And like a tide it roared and rolled.
The branches groaned, the forest moaned,
And leaves were laid upon the mould.

The wind went on from West to East;
All movement in the forest ceased.
But shrill and harsh across the marsh,
Its whistling voices were released.

The grasses hissed, their tassels bent,
The reeds were rattling—on it went.
O'er shaken pool under heavens cool,
Where racing clouds were torn and rent.

It passed the Lonely Mountain bare,
And swept above the dragon's lair:
There black and dark lay boulders stark,
And flying smoke was in the air.

It left the world and took its flight
Over the wide seas of the night.
The moon set sale upon the gale,
And stars were fanned to leaping light.

Under the Mountain dark and tall,
The King has come unto his hall!
His foe is dead, the Worm of Dread,
And ever so his foes shall fall!

The sword is sharp, the spear is long,
The arrow swift, the Gate is strong.
The heart is bold that looks on gold;
The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

On silver necklaces they strung
The light of stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, from twisted wire
The melody of harps they wrung.

The mountain throne once more is freed!
O! Wandering folk, the summons heed!
Come haste! Come haste! Across the waste!
The king of friend and kin has need.

Now call we over the mountains cold,
'Come back unto the caverns old!'
Here at the gates the king awaits,
His hands are rich with gems and gold.

The king has come unto his hall
Under the Mountain dark and tall.
The Worm of Dread is slain and dead,
And ever so our foes shall fall!

Farewell we call to hearth and hall!
Though wind may blow and rain may fall,
We must away, ere break of day
Far over the wood and mountain tall.

To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell
In glades beneath the misty fell.
Through moor and waste we ride in haste,
And whither then we cannot tell.

With foes ahead, behind us dread,
Beneath the sky shall be our bed,
Until at last our toil be passed,
Our journey done, our errand sped.

We must away! We must away!
We ride before the break of day!