The Poetry thread

[bassybill]

This could possibly be a man card violation, but I care not. It's time for us TB folks to show our sentimental side.

The approaching New Year always reminds me of this poem by Thomas Hardy, which he wrote on New Year's Eve 1900.

Post your favourites if you've got any. I may add a couple more of my own later if a few people get this up and running nicely.

_________________________________



THOMAS HARDY
The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant;
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a fullhearted evensong
Of joy unlimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.


(December 31, 1900)

Best Wishes for 2010
Bill

[Pacman]

No man card violation there! My personal favorites:

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


and of course:

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


I'm also a huge fan of Shakespeare - all of you Atlanta TBrs, check out the Shakespeare Tavern!

[CrispyDelicious]

[Hoover]

At the risk of sounding puerile -- which would be a gross miscalculation of the author's intent imho -- I must cite the following poem by e.e. cummings as one of my absolute faves:

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a f*ck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a sh*t for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

[Bassman316]

THE ANATOMY OF ROCK

The 1st electric wildness came
over the people
on sweet Friday.
Sweat was in the air.
The channel beamed,
token of power.
Incense brewed darkly.
Who could tell them that here
it would end?

One school bus crashed w/ a train.
This was the Crossroads.
Mercury stained.
I couldn't get out of my seat.
The road was littered
w/ dead jitterbugs.
Help,
we'll be late for class.

The secret flurry of rumor
marched over the yard &
pinned us unwittingly
Mt. fever.
A girl stripped naked on the
base of the flagpole.

In the restrooms all was cool
and silent
with the salt-green of latrines.
Blankets were needed.

Ropes fluttered.
Smiles flattered
& haunted.

Lockers pried open
and secrets discovered.

Ah sweet music.

Wild sounds in the night
Angel siren voices.
The baying of great hounds.
Cars screaming thru gears
and shrieks
on the wild road
Where the tires skip & slide
into dangerous curves.

Favorite corners.
Cheerleaders raped in summer
buildings.
Holding hands
and bopping toward Sunday.

Those lean sweet desperate hours.

Time searched the hallways
for a mind.
Hands kept time.
The climate altered like a
visible dance.

Night-time women.
Wondrous sacraments of doubt
Sprang sullen in bursts
of fear and guilt
in the womb's pit hole
below
The belt of the beast


-Mr. Jim Morrison

[NoTalentHack]

Dance of the Poet

Dance, dance with fervor and feeling.
Dance to the music of your soul.
Move with grace, listen to your heart.
Take a pen in your hand and let it do the
dance.
The dance of a poet.
Without a thought.
No-that will steal your rhythm. (like a bad
drummer)
Follow the melody of your heart, your soul.
Listen, listen the
drums of your troubles,
the violins of your sorrow,
the flutes of your joy,
is the orchestra of your soul.
Do the dance of the poet.
Allow your emotions to choreograph the ink
onto the paper.
Dance poet, dance.

[bassybill]

Hoover, that's a classic. But you may want to mask the profanity more fully though, I wouldn't want one of my OT mod colleagues to have to ding you for it in a thread I started. I'm sure that folks will work out what you've edited.

One of my own faves is John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown", but I can't post it here.

CrispyDelicious - er, thanks.

Pacman - I'd heard the 2nd of your poems before (of course), but not the Frost one. Thanks, I like that a lot.

[bassybill]

Another classic, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. May be of interest to Watchmen fans.

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

[hbarcat]

There once was a man from Nantucket . . .

[Hoover]

Another favorite of mine, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[Hoover]

I used to read a lot of Richard Brautigan's poems and am especially fond of this one from 1970:

Your love
Somebody else needs it
I don't.

[bassybill]

I like a lot of Piet Hein's "Grooks" in the "short and to the point" category.

Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.

[ADbassman]

Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Jorie Graham, Jack Gilbert, and Terrance Hayes are some of my favorites. I've been doing poetry and fiction for years, so I love the stuff.

[nutso42]

The best example of poetry in history is taken from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

As read by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz....
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly?
thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchis
on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee,
my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

[bassybill]

Originally Posted by nutso42

The best example of poetry in history is taken from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

As read by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz....
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly?
thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchis
on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee,
my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

Nope - everyone knows that Vogon poetry is the 3rd worst in the Universe.

[nutso42]

That's true. The second worst is of course the Azgoths of Kria.

The worst is by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex England. Luckily, her work will be destroyed when the Earth explodes..... (2012 is it?)

[blendermassacre]

Originally Posted by bassybill

Pacman - I'd heard the 2nd of your poems before (of course), but not the Frost one. Thanks, I like that a lot.

I think that may be a factor of location. I'm fairly certain that every person to graduate highschool in the us knows that poem.

[dullsilver_mike]

I'm writing my thesis on Hilda Doolittle's early poetry right now. I think she's what they call a certified bad ass. Here's a short one that makes me feel better when I think of how it will hit 0 F tonight:
HEAT

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat--
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

Don't know why her contemporaries like Pound and Eliot get so much recognition and she's been largely overlooked. Well... I have suspicions of why, but it's still really lame that that's the case.

[MakiSupaStar]

Here's one of my favorites by Charles Bukowski

* **************...

naturally, we're all caught in
downmoods, it's a matter of
chemical imbalance
and an existence
which at times,
seems to forbid
any real chance at
happiness.

I was in a downmood
when this rich pig
along with his blank
inamorata
in this red mercedes
cut
in font of me
at racetrack parking.

it clicked inside of me
in a flash:
i'm going to pull that ****er
out of his car and
kick his
ass!

i followed him
into valet parking
parke behind him
and jumped from my
car
ran up to his
door
and yanked at
it.
it was
locked.
windows were
up.

i rapped on the window
on his side:
"open up! i'm gonna
bust your
ass!"

he just sat there
looking straight
ahead
his woman did
likewise.
they wouldn't look
at me.

he was 30 years
younger
but i knew i could
take him
he was soft and
pampered.

i beat on the window
with my fist:
"come on out, ****head,
or i'm going to start
breaking
glass!"

he gave a small nod
to his woman.

i saw her reach
into the glove
compartment
open it
and slip him the
.32

i saw him hold it
down low
and snap off the
safety.

i walked off
toward the clubhouse, it looked
like a damned good
card
that
day.

all i had to do
was
be there.

~charles bukowski

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

Here's one of my favorites by Charles Bukowski

Bukowski's awesome; I once gave a girlfriend a copy of his Love Is A Dog From Hell book for Christmas. It contained one of my faves, titled "Beer"

I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can f**k me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.