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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 19, 2011 12:07:53 GMT -5
Poem of the Day "Lighthouse" by Alfred Corn
Pilot at the helm of a hidden headland it steers free from convergence with the freighter when fog and storm clouds gather
Sparking communiqué no full stop ends its broadcast performed in a three-sixty sweep the cycle burning up five solar seconds
Midnight eye that blinks away invisibility a high beam revealing as it scans whatever seas or ships return terra firma's landmark gaze
Bonus Poem: "Promised Land Valley, June '73"
The lake at nightfall is less a lake, but more, with reflection added, so this giant inkblot lies on its side, a bristling zone of black pine and fir at the dark fold of the revealed world. Interpret this fallen symmetry, scan this water and these water lights, and follow a golden scribble toward the lantern, the guessed boat, the voices that skip across sky to where we stand.
You are vanishing and so am I as everything surrenders color, falling silent to vision. Darkness rises to drown out the sky and silence names us to the asking boat.
Who echoes who in the black mirror? Riddles are answers here at the edge. And still, we can imagine some clear call, a spoken brilliance blazing the trail . . . ourselves moving out across the sky.
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 21, 2011 9:28:46 GMT -5
Hi Pegasus,
There's this, from The Bard, which I like -
Time is very slow for those who wait Very fast for those who are scared very long for those who lament Very short for those who celebrate But for those who love time is eternal.
Go well.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 21, 2011 10:47:30 GMT -5
Royston, that deserves a karma. Thanks.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 21, 2011 10:48:18 GMT -5
Poem of the Day "Along with Youth" by Ernest Hemingway in Complete Poems [Bixon Books]
A porcupine skin, Stiff with bad tanning, It must have ended somewhere. Stuffed horned owl Pompous Yellow eyed; Chuck-wills-widow on a biassed twig Sooted with dust. Piles of old magazines, Drawers of boy’s letters And the line of love They must have ended somewhere. Yesterday's Tribune is gone Along with youth And the canoe that went to pieces on the beach The year of the big storm When the hotel burned down At Seney, Michigan.
Bonus Poem (from the WW I poet) "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 22, 2011 12:18:34 GMT -5
I'm glad you liked it. It is something from Coleridge (Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834) from me today - GenevieveMaid of my love! sweet Genevieve! In beauty's light you glide along; Your eye is like the star of eve, And sweet your voice, as seraph's song. Yet not your heavenly beauty gives This heart with passion soft to glow: Within your soul a voice there lives! It bids you hear the tale of woe. When sinking low the suff'rer wan Beholds no hand outstretched to save, Fair, as the bosom of the swan That rises graceful o'er the wave, I've seen your breast with pity heave And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve! Go well.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 22, 2011 13:21:21 GMT -5
Royston, I really enjoy your selections. Our tastes in poetry seem to be quite similar. Thank you for sharing my poetry thread with me.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 22, 2011 13:23:04 GMT -5
Poem of the Day. "Nightmorningsky" by Peter Cooley
I'd like to see the tree as it once stood before me, childhood, the branch and leaf a single form of transport, ecstasy shaking my body I give to the leaves, the leaves return, my stare all interchange.
But that was when I had a sky to name since I had a belief in constancy like everyone. The sky was my background, the drama of the tree and me, one act, then three, then five, a Shakespearean play script. some tragic flaw in hero, heroine, yet to be discovered. But now the sky clouds even dawn with a black mist that falls from all things and all imaginings.
The tree in my backyard is caught in this. When I look for the sky it is still there but now a matter of my memory or prophecy. Where is the root, bough, stem set clearly against a morning, clearing?
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 23, 2011 11:16:38 GMT -5
What a lovely sentiment you express there, it's my pleasure to contribute to your, wide-ranging, poetry thread. And talking of 'wide-ranging' - today my contribution comes from beginning of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (of course its the Edward FitzGerald translation - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam). The Rubáiyát of Omar KhayyámI. Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light. II. Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky I heard a voice within the Tavern cry, "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry." III. And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted -- "Open then the Door! You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more." IV. Now the New Year reviving old Desires, The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. V. Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose, And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one Knows; But still the Vine her ancient ruby yields, And still a Garden by the Water blows. VI. And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine High piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine! Red Wine!" -- the Nightingale cries to the Rose That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine. Go well.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 23, 2011 14:12:23 GMT -5
cold warrior is another poetry lover, but he seldoms contributes any to the thread. I wish he would. I'm sure his selections would be just as varied and interesting as yours, Royston.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 23, 2011 14:14:57 GMT -5
Poem of the Day. "Bantams in Pine Woods" by Wallace Stevens in The Collected Poems [Vintage Books]
Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan Of tan with henna hackles, halt!
Damned universal cock, as if the sun Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.
Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal. Your world is you. I am my world.
You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat! Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,
Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs, And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.
Bonus Poem: "Anecdote of the Jar" by Wallace Stevens
I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 24, 2011 10:23:51 GMT -5
Hello Pegasus, the company of those who are like-minded is always nice.
To A Friend by Matthew Arnold
Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind? He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.
Much he, whose friendship I not long since won, That halting slave, who in Nicopolis Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his
My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole; The mellow glory of the Attic stage, Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.
Go well.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 24, 2011 13:27:37 GMT -5
Poem of the Day. "Another Elegy" by Jericho Brown
This is what your dying looks like. You believe in the sun. You believe I don't love you. Always be closing, Said our favorite professor before He let the gun go off in his mouth. I turned 29 the way any man turns In his sleep, unaware of the earth Moving beneath him, its plates in Their places, a dated disagreement. Let's fight it out, baby. You have Only so long left. A man turns In his sleep, so I take a picture. He won't look at it, of course. It's His bad side, his Mr. Hyde, the hole In a husband's head, the O Of his wife's mouth. Every night, I take a pill. Miss one, and I'm gone. Miss two, and we're through. Hotels Bore me, unless I get a mountain view, A room in which my cell won't work, And there's nothing to do but see The sun go down into the ground That cradles us as any coffin can.
Bonus Poem:
I spent what light Saturday sent sweating And learned to cuss cutting grass for women Kind enough to say they couldn't tell The damned difference between their mowed Lawns and their vacuumed carpets just before Handing over a five dollar bill rolled tighter Than a joint and asking me in to change A few light bulbs. I called those women old Because they wouldn't move out of a chair Without my help or walk without a hand At the base of their backs. I called them Old, and they must have been; they're all dead Now, dead and in the earth I once tended. The loneliest people have the earth to love And not one friend their own age—only Mothers to baby them and big sisters to boss Them around, women they want to please And pray for the chance to say please to. I don't do that kind of work anymore. My job Is to look at the childhood I hated and say I once had something to do with my hands.
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 25, 2011 10:25:51 GMT -5
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand; Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Go well.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 25, 2011 16:20:56 GMT -5
Poemo f the Day. "A Blessing" by James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 26, 2011 16:08:45 GMT -5
"I TRAVELLED AMONG UNKNOWN MEN" by william Wordsworth
I TRAVELLED among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee.
'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire; And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire.
Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 26, 2011 17:58:26 GMT -5
Another poet longing for England, Robert Browning.
Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England - now!
And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower, - Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 26, 2011 18:06:09 GMT -5
Poem of the Day "Summer" by Amy Lowell in Selected Poems [Library of America]
Some men there are who find in nature all Their inspiration, hers the sympathy Which spurs them on to any great endeavor, To them the fields and woods are closest friends, And they hold dear communion with the hills; The voice of waters soothes them with its fall, And the great winds bring healing in their sound. To them a city is a prison house Where pent up human forces labour and strive, Where beauty dwells not, driven forth by man; But where in winter they must live until Summer gives back the spaces of the hills. To me it is not so. I love the earth And all the gifts of her so lavish hand: Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds, Thick branches swaying in a winter storm, And moonlight playing in a boat's wide wake; But more than these, and much, ah, how much more, I love the very human heart of man. Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky, Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake Lazily reflecting back the sun, And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns. The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops The green crest of the hill on which I sit; And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer, The very crown of nature's changing year When all her surging life is at its full. To me alone it is a time of pause, A void and silent space between two worlds, When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps, Gathering strength for efforts yet to come. For life alone is creator of life, And closest contact with the human world Is like a lantern shining in the night To light me to a knowledge of myself. I love the vivid life of winter months In constant intercourse with human minds, When every new experience is gain And on all sides we feel the great world's heart; The pulse and throb of life which makes us men!
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Post by Royston Vasey on Aug 27, 2011 9:43:44 GMT -5
Hi Pegasus, It's more Wordsworth from me today -
Speak!
WHY art thou silent! Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant-- Bound to thy service with unceasing care, The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For nought but what thy happiness could spare. Speak--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine-- Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!
Go well.
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Post by Flying Horse on Aug 27, 2011 10:52:31 GMT -5
Poem of the Day. "Opal" by Amy Lowell
You are ice and fire, The touch of you burns my hands like snow. You are cold and flame. You are the crimson of amaryllis, The silver of moon-touched magnolias. When I am with you, My heart is a frozen pond Gleaming with agitated torches.
Bonus Poem: "Carrefour" by Amy Lowell
O You, Who came upon me once Stretched under apple-trees just after bathing, Why did you not strangle me before speaking Rather than fill me with the wild white honey of your words And then leave me to the mercy Of the forest bees.
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moxie
Not so new Crapster
SF Shades of Blues
Posts: 205
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Post by moxie on Aug 27, 2011 14:18:28 GMT -5
I memorized and recited the following poem in front of my eighth grade English class. That teacher, Miss W, was one of my favorites and I remember the poem to this day. "This poem from a 19th century English poet, William Dunkerley, writing under the pseudonym John Oxenham. Eloquently written, the poem’s message transcends the ages. We have choices in life. Take the high way or the right path; take the low way or the wrong path; or somewhere in-between. The choice is each ours to decideth." The Way To every man there openeth A Way, and Ways, and a Way, And the High Soul climbs the High Way, And the Low Soul gropes the Low, And in between, on the misty flats, To rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A High Way, and a Low. And every man decideth The way his soul shall go. John Oxenham *I just love the meaning behind this poem.
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