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Poetry anyone?

#23
I'm telling you, do Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Come on, Rush actually wrote a song about this poem!


In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
 
#24
Well then as long as we're quoting poems wholesale that have been reworked into pop music, allow me to follow up from my suggestion above with an excerpt from The Waste Land, from the section called The Fire Sermon. Points if you know which song this was made into.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at her night bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene and foretold the rest_
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which are still unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
Click to expand...
 
#29
- Corridor of chameleons -

We're the carriers of a new anomaly; Fold, unfold. Bend, shift color.
Always turning our backs to the wind. Deaf to the inner voices screaming.
Purpose, profit, act only to gain. Blistered tounges from licking greedward.
Taste the enemy. Throw up their means. Swallow the bits that fit your needs.

Keep your eyes searching in all directions, scanning for opportunities
Off you go. Begin your climb. Aim for the topmost twig of lies.

Put on a shape to pass undisturbed. Pick a color to blend with surroundings.
Choose a voice suiting, appropriate for the never benignant purpose.
Spin your eyes to read the court. Smoothen your path before the start
Even out, fill the holes with the toxic clay of your rotting heart.

A contagious neuro-ego-disease. A virus sticking to liars.
We're the self-centered fuel to boost the new strain of fire.
Adapting, shifting, lacking opinion. Our numbers exceeding the billions.
Everly walking among ourselves down the corridor of chameleons.

Continue through the skein of boughs, navigate to keep you straight on track.
Make the right ramification-turns. Conceit will be your allied guide.
Climb the hierarchy ladders invisibly, veiled by the canvas of putrid dreams.
Every obstacle surmountable to the clouded vision you've conceived.

Scan the wall of truth for cracks. Your prey: the secrets hiding therein.
Feed upon its nourishing intestines to bring you forth in the "game"
With every single step taken on the road of games called success,
There's a fee for every lie. The currency: Your dissolving integrity.
Will you make it to the top of the tree? Is the fortune there to be found?
Chameleons are a short-lived breed. Maybe fate will find you dead on the ground.

Fate will tell.....

- Tomas Haake

;)
 
#40
Michael Jewels said:
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Forgive me, I'm OK now.

I've just done a Mozart; I've composed myself. :p

Mike :D
Click to expand...

Well, haiku IS tricky, like MOZt ART forms, you gotta ARRANGE it well, and if you mess up, you get no SYMPHONY, or maybe you're just the SAME PHONY, who FIDDLES with VIOLINce. :hiding: please don't hurt me oops! I think I left some BEETs in tHe OVEN.

So is someone that is concerned all the time a concernto?

d'oh!

:D
 

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