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Martialis is always nice since he reminds me of the fact that people were exactly the same back then as now: Mentula cum doleat puero, tivi, Naevole, culus, non sum divinus, sed scio quid facias. (The boy's cock is sore, Naevolus, as is your behind. I'm no diviner but I know what you do.) Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod bracchia vellis, quod cincta est brevibus mentula tonsa pilis, hoc praestas, Labiene, tuae - quis nescit? - amicae. cui praestas, culum quod, Labiene, pilas? (You pluck smooth your chest, legs, and arms, and your cock is surrounded by hairs clipped short. This you do, Labienus, for your female friend, as we all know. For whom, then, Labienus, do you pluck the hair from your arse?)
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# ? Dec 14, 2013 01:15 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:16 |
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If I Could Write Words - Spike Milligan If I could write words Like leaves on an autumn forest floor, What a bonfire my letters would make. If I could speak words of water, You would drown when I said 'I love you.’
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# ? Dec 14, 2013 05:21 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixgbtOcEgXgErnst Jandl posted:Schtzngrmm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMCHfGA508M Konstantin Simonov posted:Жди меня, и я вернусь. translation posted:Wait for me, and I'll come back!
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# ? Dec 14, 2013 06:31 |
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Meditations in an EmergencyFrank O'Hara posted:Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French? Alternatively, the whole of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart (not that Elizabeth Smart) is marvelous and a favorite of mine.
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# ? Dec 14, 2013 07:29 |
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I'm not huge on poetry, but there are a few I really like. Perhaps my favorite, A Radio With Guts Charles Bukowski it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street I used to get drunk and throw the radio through the window while it was playing, and, of course, it would break the glass in the window and the radio would sit there on the roof still playing and I'd tell my woman, "Ah, what a marvelous radio!" the next morning I'd take the window off the hinges and carry it down the street to the glass man who would put in another pane. I kept throwing that radio through the window each time I got drunk and it would sit there on the roof still playing- a magic radio a radio with guts, and each morning I'd take the window back to the glass man. I don't remember how it ended exactly though I do remember we finally moved out. there was a woman downstairs who worked in the garden in her bathing suit, she really dug with that trowel and she put her behind up in the air and I used to sit in the window and watch the sun shine all over that thing while the music played.
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# ? Dec 14, 2013 15:39 |
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Everything else I wanted to mention has been taken, so Only in silence the word, Only in dark the light, Only in dying life: Bright the hawk's flight On the empty sky. - Ursula K. Le Guin
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# ? Dec 14, 2013 15:49 |
quote:Once there was a man quote:I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh; I have been called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the world goes dim and cold. I am a hero.
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# ? Dec 16, 2013 19:56 |
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Not my favourite but a good one that hasn't been quoted (I think...) "Funeral Blues" W.H. Auden quote:Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
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# ? Dec 18, 2013 00:39 |
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Spanish Manlove posted:The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834) A fun thing to do is to read this whole thing to the tune of Gilligan's Island
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# ? Dec 19, 2013 22:28 |
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If you cast your bread on water It returns a thousand fold Or so it says in the Bible That's what I've been told So I cast my bread on water It was spotted by a froggy And all the bits he didn't eat Just floated back all soggy Fozaldo has a new favorite as of 09:11 on Dec 20, 2013 |
# ? Dec 19, 2013 22:53 |
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You have so many relationships in this life Only one or two will last You go through all this pain and strife Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast So hold on to the ones who really care In the end they'll be the only ones there When you get old and start losing your hair Can you tell me who will still care? Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose You can plant any one of those Keep planting to find out which one grows It's a secret no one knows Can you tell me? You say you can but you don't know. Can you tell me which flower's going to grow? Can you tell me if it's going to be a daisy or a rose? Can you tell me which flower's going to grow? Can you tell me? You say you can but you don't know. Trustfund. has a new favorite as of 23:30 on Dec 19, 2013 |
# ? Dec 19, 2013 23:28 |
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Vladimir Mayakovsky posted:
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# ? Dec 19, 2013 23:38 |
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A) Wait for Me - Read by Laurence Olivier B) I prefer this Simonov poem (more or less from the same time and place, but with a very different emphasis): Константин Симонов - Убей его! quote:Если дорог тебе твой дом, quote:Konstantin Simonov - KILL HIM
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# ? Dec 20, 2013 00:21 |
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Leonard Cohen "A thousand kisses deep" 1. You came to me this morning And you handled me like meat. You´d have to live alone to know How good that feels, how sweet. My mirror twin, my next of kin, I´d know you in my sleep. And who but you would take me in A thousand kisses deep? 2. I loved you when you opened Like a lily to the heat. I´m just another snowman Standing in the rain and sleet, Who loved you with his frozen love His second-hand physique - With all he is, and all he was A thousand kisses deep. 3. All soaked in sex, and pressed against The limits of the sea: I saw there were no oceans left For scavengers like me. We made it to the forward deck I blessed our remnant fleet - And then consented to be wrecked A thousand kisses deep. 4. I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat. But the Means no longer guarantee The Virtue in Deceit. That truth is bent, that beauty spent, That style is obsolete - Ever since the Holy Spirit went A thousand kisses deep. 5. (So what about this Inner Light That´s boundless and unique? I´m slouching through another night A thousand kisses deep.) 6. I´m turning tricks; I´m getting fixed, I´m back on Boogie Street. I tried to quit the business - Hey, I´m lazy and I´m weak. But sometimes when the night is slow, The wretched and the meek, We gather up our hearts and go A thousand kisses deep. 7. (And fragrant is the thought of you, The file on you complete - Except what we forgot to do A thousand kisses deep.) 8. The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then it´s done - Your little winning streak. And summoned now to deal With your invincible defeat, You live your life as if it´s real A thousand kisses deep. 9. (I jammed with Diz and Dante - I did not have their sweep - But once or twice, they let me play A thousand kisses deep.) 10. And I´m still working with the wine, Still dancing cheek to cheek. The band is playing "Auld Lang Syne" - The heart will not retreat. And maybe I had miles to drive, And promises to keep - You ditch it all to stay alive A thousand kisses deep. 11. And now you are the Angel Death And now the Paraclete; And now you are the Savior's Breath And now the Belsen heap. No turning from the threat of love, No transcendental leap - As witnessed here in time and blood A thousand kisses deep.
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# ? Dec 22, 2013 06:33 |
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Aww, you guys have taken so many of the good ones! Someone posted some William Carlos Williams on the first page, but didn't post "This is Just to Say" and I should have known it would get taken before I could post. Since that was claimed, here is Robert Frost's "Mending Wall." Robert Frost posted:Something there is that doesn't love a wall, Edit: Actually, I might as well post my second favorite Williams Carlos Williams poem. This is "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" William Carlos Williams posted:According to Brueghel alpha_destroy has a new favorite as of 08:59 on Dec 22, 2013 |
# ? Dec 22, 2013 08:48 |
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A. E. Housman OH, when I was in love with you, Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by, And nothing will remain, And miles around they ’ll say that I Am quite myself again.
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# ? Dec 22, 2013 11:31 |
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Women's Rights? posted:Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath I wanted to link this, which is Sylvia Plath reading it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esBLxyTFDxE She's super intense, and it's awesome. Here's another Russian one, since some folks here seem to be into that and I don't really have anyone to talk about Russian poetry to IRL. занавес, The Curtain, by Marina Tsvetaeva. Водопадами занавеса, как пеной -- Хвоей - пламенем - прошумя. Нету тайны у занавеса от сцены: (Сцена - ты, занавес - я). Сновиденными зарослями (в высоком Зале - оторопь разлилась) Я скрываю героя в борьбе с Роком, Место действия - и - час. Водопадными радугами, обвалом Лавра (вверился же! знал!) Я тебя загораживаю от зала, (Завораживаю - зал!) Тайна занавеса! Сновиденным лесом Сонных снадобий, трав, зeрн... (За уже содрогающейся завесой Ход трагедии - как - шторм!) Ложи, в слезы! В набат, ярус! Срок, исполнься! Герой, будь! Ходит занавес - как - парус, Ходит занавес - как - грудь. Из последнего сердца тебя, о недра, Загораживаю. - Взрыв! Над ужа - ленною - Федрой Взвился занавес - как - гриф. Нате! Рвите! Глядите! Течет, не так ли? Заготавливайте - чан! Я державную рану отдам до капли! (Зритель бел, занавес рдян). И тогда, сострадательным покрывалом Долу, знаменем прошумя. Нету тайны у занавеса - от зала. (Зала - жизнь, занавес - я) I'm not even close to good enough to try to translate it. e: Housman's great, I like his conversational style. When I was One and Twenty is great.
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# ? Dec 30, 2013 02:45 |
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Red Green posted:We hitch the horse up to the sleigh, like grandfather used to do.
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# ? Dec 31, 2013 18:02 |
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Pablo Neruda Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example,'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.
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# ? Jan 1, 2014 22:33 |
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Robert Louis Stevenson, Heather Ale From the bonny bells of heather They brewed a drink long-syne, Was sweeter far than honey, Was stronger far than wine. They brewed it and they drank it, And lay in a blessed swound For days and days together In their dwellings underground. There rose a king in Scotland, A fell man to his foes, He smote the Picts in battle, He hunted them like roes. Over miles of the red mountain He hunted as they fled, And strewed the dwarfish bodies Of the dying and the dead. Summer came in the country, Red was the heather bell; But the manner of the brewing Was none alive to tell. In graves that were like children’s On many a mountain head, The Brewsters of the Heather Lay numbered with the dead. The king in the red moorland Rode on a summer’s day; And the bees hummed, and the curlews Cried beside the way. The king rode, and was angry, Black was his brow and pale, To rule in a land of heather And lack the Heather Ale. It fortuned that his vassals, Riding free on the heath, Came on a stone that was fallen And vermin hid beneath. Rudely plucked from their hiding, Never a word they spoke: A son and his aged father— Last of the dwarfish folk. The king sat high on his charger, He looked on the little men; And the dwarfish and swarthy couple Looked at the king again. Down by the shore he had them; And there on the giddy brink— “I will give you life, ye vermin, For the secret of the drink.” There stood the son and father And they looked high and low; The heather was red around them, The sea rumbled below. And up and spoke the father, Shrill was his voice to hear: “I have a word in private, A word for the royal ear. “Life is dear to the aged, And honour a little thing; I would gladly sell the secret,” Quoth the Pict to the King. His voice was small as a sparrow’s, And shrill and wonderful clear: “I would gladly sell my secret, Only my son I fear. “For life is a little matter, And death is nought to the young; And I dare not sell my honour Under the eye of my son. Take him, O king, and bind him, And cast him far in the deep; And it’s I will tell the secret That I have sworn to keep.” They took the son and bound him, Neck and heels in a thong, And a lad took him and swung him, And flung him far and strong, And the sea swallowed his body, Like that of a child of ten;— And there on the cliff stood the father, Last of the dwarfish men. “True was the word I told you: Only my son I feared; For I doubt the sapling courage That goes without the beard. But now in vain is the torture, Fire shall never avail: Here dies in my bosom The secret of Heather Ale. --- The Russian translation (by Marshak) is really really good. Из вереска напиток Забыт давным-давно, А был он слаще меда, Пьянее, чем вино. В котлах его варили И пили всей семьей Малютки-медовары В пещерах под землей. Пришел король шотландский Безжалостный к врагам. Погнал он бедных пиктов К скалистым берегам. На вересковом поле На поле боевом Лежал живой на мертвом И мертвый на живом. Лето в стране настало, Вереск опять цветет, Но некому готовить Вересковый мед. В своих могилах тесных В горах родной земли Малютки-медовары Приют себе нашли. Король по склону едет Над морем на коне, А рядом реют чайки С дорогой на равне. Король глядит угрюмо И думает: "Кругом Цветет медовый вереск, А меда мы не пьем." Но вот его вассалы Заметили двоих - Последних медоваров, Оставшихся в живых. Вышли они из-под камня, Щурясь на белый свет, - Старый горбатый карлик И мальчик пятнадцати лет. К берегу моря крутому Их привели на допрос, Но никто из пленных Слова не произнес. Сидел король шотландский Не шевелясь в седле, А маленькие люди Стояли на земле. Гневно король промолвил: - Плетка обоих ждет, Если не скажете, черти, Как вы готовите мед! Сын и отец смолчали, Стоя у края скалы. Вереск шумел над ними, В море катились валы. И вдруг голосок раздался: - Слушай, шотландский король, Поговорить с тобою С глазу на глаз позволь. Старость боится смерти, Жизнь я изменой куплю, Выдам заветную тайну,- Карлик сказал королю. Голос его воробьиный Резко и четко звучал. - Тайну давно бы я выдал, Если бы сын не мешал. Мальчику жизни не жалко, Гибель ему нипочем. Мне продавать свою совесть Совестно будет при нем. Пусть его крепко свяжут И бросят в пучину вод И я научу шотландцев Готовить старинный мед. Сильный шотландский воин Мальчика крепко связал И бросил в открытое море С прибрежных отвесных скал. Волны над ним сомкнулись, Замер последний крик. И эхом ему ответил С обрыва отец-старик: - Правду сказал я, шотландцы, От сына я ждал беды, Не верил я в стойкость юных, Не бреющих бороды. А мне костер не страшен, Пусть со мною умрет Моя святая тайна, Мой вересковый мед.
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# ? Jan 3, 2014 01:23 |
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A D&D Poem:General Patton - "Through a Glass, Darkly" posted:Through the travail of the ages,
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# ? Jan 5, 2014 03:12 |
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I see that some Frank O'Hara poems have already been posted, but here's one of my favourites as read by O'Hara himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDLwivcpFe8 quote:Having a Coke with You Another favourite of mine: Robert Graves - Counting the Beats quote:You, love, and I, And one more for good measure! John Darnielle - sacred worlds quote:the choruses on the new blind guardian album
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# ? Jan 6, 2014 04:49 |
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…And Although the Little Mermaid Sacrificed Everything to Win the Love of the Prince, the Prince (Alas) Decided to Wed Another Judith Viorst I left the castle of my mer-king father, Where seaweed gardens sway in pearly sand. I left behind sweet sisters and kind waters To seek a prince’s love upon the land. My tongue was payment for the witch’s potion (And never would I sing sea songs again). My tail became two human legs to dance on, But I would always dance with blood and pain. I risked more than my life to make him love me. The prince preferred another for his bride. I always hate the ending to this story: They lived together happily; I died. But I have some advice for modern mermaids Who wish to save great sorrow and travail: Don’t give up who you are for love of princes. He might have liked me better with my tail.
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# ? Jan 6, 2014 05:18 |
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Johne Donne's "The Canonization"John Donne posted:THE CANONIZATION. Splodygirl posted:"Spring fall: to a young child" Gerard Manley Hopkins posted:AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
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# ? Feb 12, 2014 16:07 |
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I love poetry as much for how it sounds as for the imagery, and Hopkins has some good stuff. The Leaden Echo is really fun to read out loud. The Leaden Echo HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away? Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep, Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey? No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there's none, Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair, Do what you may do, what, do what you may, And wisdom is early to despair: Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done To keep at bay Age and age's evils, hoar hair, Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay; So be beginning, be beginning to despair. O there's none; no no no there's none: Be beginning to despair, to despair, Despair, despair, despair, despair. --- We've had some Yeats and The Second Coming is great and all, but by far my favorite Yeats poem is The Fiddler of Dooney. It's just really... life-affirming, I guess? The Fiddler of Dooney WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Moharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their books of prayer; I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo fair. When we come at the end of time, To Peter sitting in state, He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate; For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance, And the merry - love the fiddle; And the merry - love to dance: And when the folk there spy me, They will all come up to me, With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’ And dance like a wave of the sea. LogicNinja has a new favorite as of 21:29 on Feb 12, 2014 |
# ? Feb 12, 2014 21:26 |
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My dad's infatuated by Alaskan wilderness and frozen tundra. Jack London was a favorite of his throughout my childhood. However, there was one poem he told me quite often, and I still have the first two lines memorized after all these years. It's still sets an amazing mood and you can feel the cold. And it's rather spooky. The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service quote:There are strange things done in the midnight sun
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# ? Mar 24, 2014 14:31 |
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Onionbro, by aspiring writer In search for purpose, he walks this land Obstacles cover his path. Be it gate of iron, or castle heavily manned. Clad in armour, iconic and round He greets you with a laugh. Even if lost in thought, he's happy you're around. With help from a hero, he soldiers on Though thankless he is not. Always giving a small reward, just before he's gone. That is, untill, when last you meet Again, him lost in thought. With many hungry chaos eaters, just below his feet. His purpose was, as you might have guessed To be a hero of his own. But you do all the dirtywork, when he is put to test. Yet you decide, ironically, the route his life will go When down the cliff he's thrown. Might that be why, we all with glee, love our onionbro?
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 19:03 |
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Never have I that toxic wine imbibed Nor its beguiling bind my mind proscribed Its pungent potency never mine to taste Its romantic oblivion never mine to face For the unmistakable beacon I seek is clarity My senses' apprehensions must ring with verity But in wine's wake, cognizance has no place In heart and mind and soul remain no trace Of anything at all that can be called reality 'tis a mere escape from one's own mortality Never have those noxious fumes my lungs besieged Nor their delusive plumes my yet unlived life seized In truth, though they're meant to calm the nerve A less noble purpose does their wafting serve No intent have I to barter away the moments of strife For the grip wherewith the smoke chokes my life The remainder of your days will their haze arrest As their sinister wisps encompass your breast The brief relief afforded's not worth the price For before you know it, you'll be dead in a trice
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# ? Mar 28, 2014 01:52 |
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There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out. I hosed it. Oh! - Bluebird by Andrew Dice Bukowski.
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# ? Mar 29, 2014 00:54 |
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The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen --the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly-- I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. --It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip --if you could call it a lip grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels-until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go. I also like Frame by Adrienne Rich Winter twilight. She comes out of the lab- oratory, last class of the day a pile of notebooks slung in her knapsack, coat zipped high against the already swirling evening sleet. The wind is wicked and the busses slower than usual. On her mind is organic chemistry and the issue of next month’s rent and will it be possible to bypass the professor with the coldest eyes to get a reference for graduate school, and whether any of them, even those who smile can see, looking at her, a biochemist or marine biologist, which of the faces can she trust to see her at all, either today or in any future. The busses are worm-slow in the quickly gathering dark. I don’t know her. I am standing though somewhere just outside the frame of all of this, trying to see. At her back the newly finished building suddenly looks like shelter, it has glass doors, lighted halls presumably heat. The wind is wicked. She throws a glance down the street, sees no bus coming and runs up the newly constructed steps into the newly constructed hallway. I am standing all this time just beyond the frame, trying to see. She runs her hand through the crystals of sleet about to melt on her hair. She shifts the weight of the books on her back. It isn’t warm here exactly but it’s out of that wind. Through the glass door panels she can watch for the bus through the thickening weather. Watching so, she is not watching the white man who watches the building who has been watching her. This is Boston 1979. I am standing somewhere at the edge of the frame watching the man, we are both white, who watches the building telling her to move on, get out of the hallway. I can hear nothing because I am not supposed to be present but I can see her gesturing out toward the street at the wind-raked curb I see her drawing her small body up against the implied charges. The man goes away. Her body is different now. It is holding together with more than a hint of fury and more than a hint of fear. She is smaller, thinner more fragile-looking than I am. But I am not supposed to be there. I am just outside the frame of this action when the anonymous white man returns with a white police officer. Then she starts to leave into the windraked night but already the policeman is going to work, the handcuffs are on her wrists he is throwing her down his knee has gone into her breast he is dragging her down the stairs I am unable to hear a sound of all of this all that I know is what I can see from this position there is no soundtrack to go with this and I understand at once it is meant to be in silence that this happens in silence that he pushes her into the car banging her head in silence that she cries out in silence that she tries to explain she was only waiting for a bus in silence that he twists the flesh of her thigh with his nails in silence that her tears begin to flow that she pleads with the other policeman as if he could be trusted to see her at all in silence that in the precinct she refuses to give her name in silence that they throw her into the cell in silence that she stares him straight in the face in silence that he sprays her in her eyes with Mace in silence that she sinks her teeth into his hand in silence that she is charged with trespass assault and battery in silence that at the sleet-swept corner her bus passes without stopping and goes on in silence. What I am telling you is told by a white woman who they will say was never there. I say I am there. Frame is one of the saddest poems I've ever read. It's too bad the formatting didn't copy, I don't want to go through and italicize all the parts that are supposed to be italicized but rest assured some parts are supposed to be italicized.
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# ? Mar 29, 2014 01:02 |
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Trying to Name What Doesn't Change by Naomi Shihab Nyequote:Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t change
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# ? Mar 29, 2014 05:15 |
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Real men like Tabasco Sauce They use it everyday To be a man, $3.99 Is a miniscule price to pay. Real men like Tabasco Sauce It goes real good on fries The manliest of men Like to squirt it in their eyes. Real men like Tabasco Sauce Only the weak fall for its pains. The coolest men that ever lived Have bled it from their veins. Real men like Tabasco Sauce They like it nice and thick. I guess I'll never be a real man, As to it I'm allergic.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 07:01 |
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Here's a bush ballad from Australian poet and author A.B. "Banjo" Patterson that every Australian educated child will be intimately familiar with: The Man from Snowy River There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around That the colt from old Regret had got away, And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound, So all the cracks had gathered to the fray. All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far Had mustered at the homestead overnight, For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are, And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight. There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup, The old man with his hair as white as snow But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up - He would go wherever horse and man could go. And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand, No better horseman ever held the reins; For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand, He learnt to ride while droving on the plains. And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast, He was something like a racehorse undersized, With a touch of Timor pony - three parts thoroughbred at least - And such as are by mountain horsemen prized. He was hard and tough and wiry - just the sort that won't say die - There was courage in his quick impatient tread; And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye, And the proud and lofty carriage of his head. But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay, And the old man said, "That horse will never do For a long a tiring gallop - lad, you'd better stop away, Those hills are far too rough for such as you." So he waited sad and wistful - only Clancy stood his friend - "I think we ought to let him come," he said; "I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end, For both his horse and he are mountain bred. "He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side, Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough, Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride, The man that holds his own is good enough. And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home, Where the river runs those giant hills between; I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam, But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen." So he went - they found the horses by the big mimosa clump - They raced away towards the mountain's brow, And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump, No use to try for fancy riding now. And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right. Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills, For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight, If once they gain the shelter of those hills." So Clancy rode to wheel them - he was racing on the wing Where the best and boldest riders take their place, And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face. Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash, But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view, And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash, And off into the mountain scrub they flew. Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black Resounded to the thunder of their tread, And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead. And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way, Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide; And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day, No man can hold them down the other side." When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull, It well might make the boldest hold their breath, The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full Of wombat holes, and any slip was death. But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head, And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer, And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed, While the others stood and watched in very fear. He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet, He cleared the fallen timber in his stride, And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat - It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride. Through the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground, Down the hillside at a racing pace he went; And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound, At the bottom of that terrible descent. He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill, And the watchers on the mountain standing mute, Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still, As he raced across the clearing in pursuit. Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet, With the man from Snowy River at their heels. And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam. He followed like a bloodhound on their track, Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home, And alone and unassisted brought them back. But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot, He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur; But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot, For never yet was mountain horse a cur. And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise Their torn and rugged battlements on high, Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze At midnight in the cold and frosty sky, And where around The Overflow the reed beds sweep and sway To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide, The man from Snowy River is a household word today, And the stockmen tell the story of his ride...
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# ? Apr 2, 2014 07:59 |
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My favorite poem is probably Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning. I'll not post it in its enterity here for the sake of brevity, but it's a good read, if thick. I'm also a fan of the Song of the Mad Minstrel by Robert E. Howard (Yes, the creator of Conan the Barbarian), which is less expansive. Though I really cherished it in my teen years, when I thought I hated everything, it still holds up as quite well written: Robert E Howard posted:I am the thorn in the foot, I am the blur in the sight;
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# ? Apr 4, 2014 17:34 |
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Inspector Zenigata posted:Adrienne Rich Adrienne Rich is really good. I like What Kind of Times Are These There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light— ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear. And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it’s necessary to talk about trees.
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# ? Apr 11, 2014 20:22 |
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Madrugada (or Before the Dawn) by Federico García Lorcaquote:
Song of the Rider (1860, also by Lorca) quote:In the black moon
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 00:19 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxc0VNOVes
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 00:54 |
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Us Together George Johnston I do not like anything the way I like you in your underwear I like you and in your party clothes o my in your party clothes and with nothing on at all you do not need to wear a thing at all for me to like you and you may talk or not talk I like you either way nothing makes me feel so nearly at home on Earth as just to be with you and say nothing.
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# ? Apr 12, 2014 14:19 |
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quote:1914 V: The Soldier
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# ? Apr 15, 2014 04:18 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:16 |
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Some great poems in this thread :3Paul Durcan — The Death by Heroin of Sid Vicious posted:There — but for the clutch of luck — go I. In fact, poetry is generally brilliant. Tomas Transtromer — Tracks posted:2 a.m.: moonlight. The train has stopped So hard to choose just a few. Stephen Dunn — Mother, Father, Robert Henley who hanged himself in the ninth grade, et al posted:I’ve sensed ghosts more than once, Okay, another. Fleur Adcock posted:There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. Maybe just one more, my favourite poet... Simon Armitage — Gooseberry Season posted:Which reminds me. He appeared
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# ? Apr 16, 2014 20:31 |