Recommend a Poem

[Hard_Rom]

I prefer my poetry nice, short and simple. Quatrains are good. They're easy to remember.

Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
----------------------------------------------------
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, -- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness --
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
-----------------------------------------------------
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--This Life flies:
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once is blown for ever dies.
-----------------------------------------------------
Ah, make the most of what we may yet spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie;
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and -- sans End!

Omar Khayyam

 

[Tzara]

This is another poem from a book I was assigned to read. I think it is a very, very good poem. Possibly a great one:

The Potato Eaters
B. H. Fairchild

They are gathered there, as I recall, in the descending light
of Kansas autumn—the welder, the machinist, the foreman,
the apprentice—with their homemade dinners
in brown sacks lying before them on the broken rotary table.
The shop lights have not yet come on. The sun ruffling
the horizon of wheat fields lifts their gigantic shadows
up over the lathes that stand momentarily still and immense,

sleeping gray animals released from the turmoil,
the grind of iron and steel, these past two days.
There is something in the droop of the men's sleeves
and heavy underwater movements of their arms and hands
that suggest they are a dream and I am the dreamer,
even though I am there, too. I have just delivered the dinners
and wait in a pool of shadows, unsure of what to do next.

They unwrap the potatoes from the aluminum foil
with an odd delicacy, and I notice their still blackened hands
as they halve and butter them. The coffee sends up steam
like lathe smoke, and their bodies relax slowly
as they give themselves to the pleasure of the food
and the shop's strange silence after hours of noise,
the clang of iron and the burst and hiss of the cutting torch.

Without looking up, the machinist says something
to anyone who will listen, says it into the great cave
of the darkening shop, and I hear the words, life,
my life. I am a boy, so I do not know true weariness
but I can sense what these words mean, these gestures
when I stare at the half-eaten potatoes, the men,
the shadows that will pale and vanish as the lights come on.


Source: Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest​

The title alludes to, I think and assume, the famous Van Gogh painting of peasants clustered around a table in dim light, plain, almost monochromatic, humble, homey. Fairchild's poem plays off that and is remarkable in its language—I think there is only one metaphor in the poem ("sleeping gray animals") and one simile ("like lathe smoke"), yet the poem is vividly descriptive. The opening of stanza three is so beautifully descriptive as to die for:

They unwrap the potatoes from the aluminum foil
with an odd delicacy, and I notice their still blackened hands
as they halve and butter them. The coffee sends up steam
like lathe smoke, and their bodies relax slowly
as they give themselves to the pleasure of the food. . .​

What I really love about this poem is how it reminds me, as someone who sometimes depends too much upon metaphor and simile to try and liven up a poem, that simple, workmanlike description can carry a lot of intellectual weight.

So I not only recommend this poem to whomever, I recommend the entire book (Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest). Really good.

 

[Tzara]

This poem is from the book I'm currently reading and is recommended to anyone who loves baseball, likes baseball, or who at least enjoyed this year's World Series:

Baseballade
R. S. Gwynn

for Mike Peich

5:
Forget the Girl. Forget her dress
Billowing for the braying crowd.
Forget the way I answered, "Yes,
I have," when she described how loud
The troops had cheered. Forget my son,
Drug-wasted, and the cash I hid.
Remember 1941.
Remember me for what I did.

9:
Forget the boos, the Fenway press.
Forget the spitting, angry cloud
Beneath my cap. Forget that mess--
My kids, the frozen head, the bowed
Old timer signing bats who won
No rings. Remember me: The Kid.
Remember 1951.
Remember me for what I did.

7:
Forget the beer-blitzed laziness
In training that might have allowed
A few more seasons to address
The record books. Forget the proud
Man tottling when his days were done.
Forget the binged late-inning skid.
Remember 1961.
Remember me for what I did.

All:
Prince, let us rest, our bases run.
Shall flaws outlive us? God forbid.
Remember seasons in the sun.
Remember us for what we did.

Source: Dogwatch, 2014​

The form is a ballade, as the title suggests, a French import that I see I need to add to my thread on form. Gwynn is quite the master of form; the book cited includes examples of both Italian and Shakespearean sonnets, villanelle, terzanelle, rondeau, ballade (of course), cento, ballad, and curtal sonnet, as well as blank verse, Spenserian stanza, heroic couplet (complete with alexandrines), terza rima, and ottava rima. (Whew!)

Highly recommended for those interested in fixed form poetry.

 

[legerdemer]

Summer Dawn

by Charles Simic, from his book That Little Something


Just as the day breaks, it may be time
To slip away on foot
Carrying no belongings,
Leaving even your shoes behind
In some rooming house,
Or wherever you've hidden yourself away,

To look for another refuge,
Preferring at the moment
The open country, the interstate highway
Empty at this hour,
Or small-town cemeteries, where the birds
In the trees have fallen silent,

The minister has left the church unlocked.
You could enter and rest in its pews,
Or you could wade into a cornfield,
Swap clothes with a scarecrow,
Stretch out on the grass and have a long talk
With the first cloud of the new day.​

I have been on something of a Charles Simic kick, but this one in particular speaks to me.

 

[todski28]

Summer Dawn

by Charles Simic, from his book That Little Something


Just as the day breaks, it may be time
To slip away on foot
Carrying no belongings,
Leaving even your shoes behind
In some rooming house,
Or wherever you've hidden yourself away,

To look for another refuge,
Preferring at the moment
The open country, the interstate highway
Empty at this hour,
Or small-town cemeteries, where the birds
In the trees have fallen silent,

The minister has left the church unlocked.
You could enter and rest in its pews,
Or you could wade into a cornfield,
Swap clothes with a scarecrow,
Stretch out on the grass and have a long talk
With the first cloud of the new day.​

I have been on something of a Charles Simic kick, but this one in particular speaks to me.

Isnt it funny when a piece of writing sums up exactly to the emotion how you are feeling?

 

[Tzara]

Casey Kasem, RIP

This one is a long-distance dedication going out to Angie in the Blue Ridge Mountains from a young man down Memphis way:

In Memory of Willie B. Yeats, ASCAP/BMI
R. S. Gwynn

"You were silly like us."
—W. H. Auden

I will arise and go now
And go to Innisfree.
There's a nice Heartbreak Hotel there
Where I can stay for free.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

There's nine bean rows a'growin',
And bees loud in the glade.
The beds are kinda lumpy there
And the lightbulb's got no shade.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow.
If you got no peace try Innisfree
When you got no place to go.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

I hear lake water lapping
With low sounds by the shore.
I pop another Ambien,
Get up and bolt the door.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

Hey now, if your Maudie grieves you,
And you want your poems to sell,
Just board the boat to Innisfree
And Heartbreak Hotel.
You'll be so lonely you'll write poems.

Source: Dogwatch, 2014​

And the countdown continues. . . .

 

[Angeline]

This one is a long-distance dedication going out to Angie in the Blue Ridge Mountains from a young man down Memphis way:

In Memory of Willie B. Yeats, ASCAP/BMI
R. S. Gwynn

"You were silly like us."
—W. H. Auden

I will arise and go now
And go to Innisfree.
There's a nice Heartbreak Hotel there
Where I can stay for free.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

There's nine bean rows a'growin',
And bees loud in the glade.
The beds are kinda lumpy there
And the lightbulb's got no shade.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow.
If you got no peace try Innisfree
When you got no place to go.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

I hear lake water lapping
With low sounds by the shore.
I pop another Ambien,
Get up and bolt the door.

You make me so lonely, Maudie,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I write poems.

Hey now, if your Maudie grieves you,
And you want your poems to sell,
Just board the boat to Innisfree
And Heartbreak Hotel.
You'll be so lonely you'll write poems.

Source: Dogwatch, 2014​

And the countdown continues. . . .

Ah'm a-puttin on ma Daisy Dukes and a-chasin yew down fer Sadie Hawkins Day. Aw dern yew is takin. I'll jes slouch off toward Nashville instead.

 

[Piscator]

The River

Valerie Bloom

The River's a wanderer,
A nomad, a tramp,
He doesn't choose one place
To set up his camp.

The River's a winder,
Through valley and hill
He twists and he turns,
He just cannot be still.

The River's a hoarder,
And he buries down deep
Those little treasures
That he wants to keep.

The River's a baby,
He gurgles and hums,
And sounds like he's happily
Sucking his thumbs.

The River's a singer,
As he dances along,
The countryside echoes
The notes of his song.

The River's a monster
Hungry and vexed,
He's gobbled up trees
And he'll swallow you next.

I came across this lovely poem by happenstance and while the author is reading it as a children's poem, it is deep and apparently analyzed to death.
But it was new to me and I like it; in particular, the first stanza grabbed me.

 

[Angeline]

Tried and true

and ever timely.

The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

[Tzara]

George Starbuck was a fascinating man; a brilliant, though underappreciated poet; an important figure in the history of writing programs in the USA; and a particularly important figure in American civil liberties history.

Though he was a student at several of America's most prestigious universities (including Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and Harvard), he never earned a college degree. Despite this, he was a professor at various universities, running the University of Iowa Writers Workshop for six years and the creative writing program at Boston University for two decades.

He had an affair with Anne Sexton, later edited her first book (as well as Philip Roth's debut, Goodbye, Columbus), refused to sign a loyalty oath at SUNY Buffalo during the McCarthy era and won his case at the US Supreme Court.

So. Bright guy. Very bright guy.

I am recommending his poem "A Tapestry for Bayeux" to Annie (and, well, everybody), because (1) it is brilliant, and (2) does a lot of interesting things she might be interested in/advocates for.

For example: The poem is written in a consistent, though extremely odd, meter. Dactylic monometer. Extremely difficult to do. I don't mean to say here that Annie writes difficult meters, but merely want to point out she likes to write metrical poetry.

For example: Her Never Forgetting the Somme thread. Starbuck's poem is about D-Day, which is WWII instead of WWI, but just as awful and just as devastating as its earlier equivalent.

And there's one more thing--a particular Annie thing (though GP uses this often as well)--that I will put off talking about to give her and whoever else is interested some time to try and figure out. If no one figures it out, I'll talk about it in a few days.

Anyway, here's the poem:

A Tapestry for Bayeux
George Starbuck

I Recto

Over the
.....seaworthy
cavalry
.....arches a
rocketry
.....wickerwork:
involute
.....laceries
lacerate
.....indigo
altitudes,
.....making a
skywritten

filigree
.....into which,
lazily,
.....LCTs
sinuate,
.....adjutants
next to them
.....eversharp-
eyed, among
.....delicate
battleship
.....umbrages
twinkling an

anger as
.....measured as
organdy.
.....Normandy
knitted the
.....eyelets and
yarn of these
.....warriors’
armoring—
.....ringbolt and
dungaree,
.....cable and
axletree,

tanktrack and
.....ammobelt
linking and
.....opening
garlands and
.....islands of
seafoam and
.....sergeantry.
Opulent
.....fretwork: on
turquoise and
.....emerald,
red instants

accenting
.....neatly a
dearth of red.
.....Gunstations
issue it;
.....vaportrails
ease into
.....smoke from it—
yellow and
.....ochre and
umber and
.....sable and
out. Or that

man at the
.....edge of the
tapestry
.....holding his
inches of
.....niggardly
ground and his
.....trumpery
order of
.....red and his
equipage
.....angled and
dated. He.


II Verso

Wasting no
.....energy,
Time, the old
.....registrar,
evenly
.....adds to his
scrolls, rolling
.....up in them
rampage and
.....echo and
hush—in each
.....influx of
surf, in each

tumble of
.....raincloud at
evening,
.....action of
seaswell and
.....undertow
rounding an
.....introvert
edge to the
.....surge until,
manhandled
.....over, all
surfaces,

tapestries,
.....entities
veer from the
.....eye like those
rings of lost
.....yesteryears
pooled in the
.....oak of your
memory.
.....Item: one
Normandy
.....Exercise.
Muscle it

over, an
.....underside
rises: a
.....raggedy
elegant
.....mess of an
abstract: a
.....rip-out of
kidstuff and
.....switchboards, where
amputee
.....radio
elements,

unattached
.....nervefibre
conduits,
.....openmouthed
ureters,
.....tag ends of
hamstring and
.....outrigging
ripped from their
.....unions and
nexuses
.....jumble with
undeterred

speakingtubes
.....twittering
orders as
.....random and
angry as
.....ddt’d
hornets. Step
.....over a
moment: peer
.....in through this
nutshell of
.....eyeball and
man your gun.


Source: Bone Thoughts​

Six and Six 13-line stanzas of dactylic monometer. Pretty impressive.

Merry a couple of weeks before whatever holiday you celebrate, PF&Ders!

 

[AlliaPotestas]

I am not a poet but I love reading poetry, excuse my intrusion in the poets hangout but I couldn't resist when I saw the thread...

Toilet by Hugo Williams

I wonder will I speak to the girl
sitting opposite me on this train.
I wonder will my mouth open and say,
‘Are you going all the way
to Newcastle?’ or ‘Can I get you a coffee?’
Or will it simply go ‘aaaaah’
as if it had a mind of its own?

Half closing eggshell blue eyes,
she runs her hand through her hair
so that it clings to the carriage cloth;
then slowly frees itself.
She finds a brush and her long fair hair
flies back and forth like an African fly-whisk,
making me feel dizzy.

Suddenly, without warning,
she packs it all away in a rubber band
because I have forgotten to look out
the window for a moment.
A coffee is granted permission
to pass between her lips
and does so eagerly, without fuss.

A tunnel finds us looking out the window
into one another’s eyes. She leaves her seat,
but I know that she likes me
because the light saying ‘TOILET’
has come on, a sign that she is lifting
her skirt, taking down her pants
and peeing all over my face.

 

[greenmountaineer]

George Starbuck was a fascinating man; a brilliant, though underappreciated poet; an important figure in the history of writing programs in the USA; and a particularly important figure in American civil liberties history.

Though he was a student at several of America's most prestigious universities (including Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and Harvard), he never earned a college degree. Despite this, he was a professor at various universities, running the University of Iowa Writers Workshop for six years and the creative writing program at Boston University for two decades.

He had an affair with Anne Sexton, later edited her first book (as well as Philip Roth's debut, Goodbye, Columbus), refused to sign a loyalty oath at SUNY Buffalo during the McCarthy era and won his case at the US Supreme Court.

So. Bright guy. Very bright guy.

I am recommending his poem "A Tapestry for Bayeux" to Annie (and, well, everybody), because (1) it is brilliant, and (2) does a lot of interesting things she might be interested in/advocates for.

For example: The poem is written in a consistent, though extremely odd, meter. Dactylic monometer. Extremely difficult to do. I don't mean to say here that Annie writes difficult meters, but merely want to point out she likes to write metrical poetry.

For example: Her Never Forgetting the Somme thread. Starbuck's poem is about D-Day, which is WWII instead of WWI, but just as awful and just as devastating as its earlier equivalent.

And there's one more thing--a particular Annie thing (though GP uses this often as well)--that I will put off talking about to give her and whoever else is interested some time to try and figure out. If no one figures it out, I'll talk about it in a few days.

Anyway, here's the poem:

A Tapestry for Bayeux
George Starbuck

I Recto

Over the
.....seaworthy
cavalry
.....arches a
rocketry
.....wickerwork:
involute
.....laceries
lacerate
.....indigo
altitudes,
.....making a
skywritten

filigree
.....into which,
lazily,
.....LCTs
sinuate,
.....adjutants
next to them
.....eversharp-
eyed, among
.....delicate
battleship
.....umbrages
twinkling an

anger as
.....measured as
organdy.
.....Normandy
knitted the
.....eyelets and
yarn of these
.....warriors’
armoring—
.....ringbolt and
dungaree,
.....cable and
axletree,

tanktrack and
.....ammobelt
linking and
.....opening
garlands and
.....islands of
seafoam and
.....sergeantry.
Opulent
.....fretwork: on
turquoise and
.....emerald,
red instants

accenting
.....neatly a
dearth of red.
.....Gunstations
issue it;
.....vaportrails
ease into
.....smoke from it—
yellow and
.....ochre and
umber and
.....sable and
out. Or that

man at the
.....edge of the
tapestry
.....holding his
inches of
.....niggardly
ground and his
.....trumpery
order of
.....red and his
equipage
.....angled and
dated. He.


II Verso

Wasting no
.....energy,
Time, the old
.....registrar,
evenly
.....adds to his
scrolls, rolling
.....up in them
rampage and
.....echo and
hush—in each
.....influx of
surf, in each

tumble of
.....raincloud at
evening,
.....action of
seaswell and
.....undertow
rounding an
.....introvert
edge to the
.....surge until,
manhandled
.....over, all
surfaces,

tapestries,
.....entities
veer from the
.....eye like those
rings of lost
.....yesteryears
pooled in the
.....oak of your
memory.
.....Item: one
Normandy
.....Exercise.
Muscle it

over, an
.....underside
rises: a
.....raggedy
elegant
.....mess of an
abstract: a
.....rip-out of
kidstuff and
.....switchboards, where
amputee
.....radio
elements,

unattached
.....nervefibre
conduits,
.....openmouthed
ureters,
.....tag ends of
hamstring and
.....outrigging
ripped from their
.....unions and
nexuses
.....jumble with
undeterred

speakingtubes
.....twittering
orders as
.....random and
angry as
.....ddt’d
hornets. Step
.....over a
moment: peer
.....in through this
nutshell of
.....eyeball and
man your gun.


Source: Bone Thoughts​

Six and Six 13-line stanzas of dactylic monometer. Pretty impressive.

Merry a couple of weeks before whatever holiday you celebrate, PF&Ders!

This is pretty impressive, Tzara, both in images and meter. It took me a third reading for my mind's ear ro get used to the beat of the short lines. I also like the imaginative way the poet used "recto" and "verso."

 

[legerdemer]

Strange Fruit

This may not be news to anyone else on this board, but I just recently discovered the poem Strange Fruit (below) at an exhibition of work by Whitfield Lovell. The poet (and composer of the song) was Abel Meeropol, who also adopted and raised the two boys of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reading this incredibly moving poem in the context of the painting, then listening to Billie Holiday sing the song, and finally learning more about the poet, has been quite an exceptional experience.


Strange Fruit
by Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

 

[Piscator]

This may not be news to anyone else on this board, but I just recently discovered the poem Strange Fruit (below) at an exhibition of work by Whitfield Lovell. The poet (and composer of the song) was Abel Meeropol, who also adopted and raised the two boys of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reading this incredibly moving poem in the context of the painting, then listening to Billie Holiday sing the song, and finally learning more about the poet, has been quite an exceptional experience.

I'm familiar with the Billie Holiday rendition but didn't know it was a poem rather than poetic lyrics. The non-fiction section of the New York Times Book Review list of 100 significant books for 2016 includes Blood at the Root by P. Philips which concerns "a Georgia county which drove out its black citizens in 1912 and remained ll white for 80 years." And with your President- elect, what will the next 4 years bring?

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I too did not know "Strange Fruit" as a poem, only as a song. I love the following as an example of true erotica.

The Long Tunnel of Wanting You

From How to Save Your Own Life

This is the long tunnel of wanting you.
Its walls are lined with remembered kisses
wet & red as the inside of your mouth,
full & juicy as your probing tongue,
warm as your belly against mine,
deep as your navel leading home,
soft as your sleeping cock beginning to stir,
tight as your legs wrapped around mine,
straight as your toes pointing toward the bed
as you roll over & thrust your hardness
into the long tunnel of my wanting,
seeding it with dreams & unbearable hope,
making memories of the future,
straightening out my crooked past,
teaching me to live in the present tense
with the past perfect and the uncertain future
suddenly certain for certain
in the long tunnel of my old wanting
which before always had an ending
but now begins & begins again
with you, with you, with you.

© Erica Mann Jong

 

[AlliaPotestas]

Bone Pure - Sarah Jane Tipton

I kissed him, placed my hand
on his neck, traced a finger
between ridges of flesh, cupped
the hard globe of his shoulder.

He TICKLED me. Touched my belly,
licked my spine, bit the hairs
on my calves, bent me
PLAYFULLY.
- But he didn’t make love to me
he just invited me
- INVITED ME -
to bed.

I thought afterwards
what IS it with these men?
Do they think my virginity
is a pale narrow bone
turned to delicate precision,
such a brittle balance
that one strong warm motion
will snap it across the spine?
Do they think that I have
such a fragile equilibrium
my skin; white-tooth enamelled;
my smile; mere egg shell,
that sex will shatter me?

Perhaps he feared bone splinters
in my blood, sharp sharded demands
entering him fro warm red desire?

He needn’t have worried.
I just wanted to be rid
of this bone purity.
I wanted… sex.
He gave me only
‘come hither’ glances, mis-leading
statements, flirtation, withdrawal:
like an under-age school girl.

 

[Tzara]

I mentioned there was something else I wanted to talk about this poem:

A Tapestry for Bayeux
George Starbuck

I Recto

Over the
.....seaworthy
cavalry
.....arches a
rocketry
.....wickerwork:
involute
.....laceries
lacerate
.....indigo
altitudes,
.....making a
skywritten

filigree
.....into which,
lazily,
.....LCTs
sinuate,
.....adjutants
next to them
.....eversharp-
eyed, among
.....delicate
battleship
.....umbrages
twinkling an

anger as
.....measured as
organdy.
.....Normandy
knitted the
.....eyelets and
yarn of these
.....warriors’
armoring—
.....ringbolt and
dungaree,
.....cable and
axletree,

tanktrack and
.....ammobelt
linking and
.....opening
garlands and
.....islands of
seafoam and
.....sergeantry.
Opulent
.....fretwork: on
turquoise and
.....emerald,
red instants

accenting
.....neatly a
dearth of red.
.....Gunstations
issue it;
.....vaportrails
ease into
.....smoke from it—
yellow and
.....ochre and
umber and
.....sable and
out. Or that

man at the
.....edge of the
tapestry
.....holding his
inches of
.....niggardly
ground and his
.....trumpery
order of
.....red and his
equipage
.....angled and
dated. He.


II Verso

Wasting no
.....energy,
Time, the old
.....registrar,
evenly
.....adds to his
scrolls, rolling
.....up in them
rampage and
.....echo and
hush—in each
.....influx of
surf, in each

tumble of
.....raincloud at
evening,
.....action of
seaswell and
.....undertow
rounding an
.....introvert
edge to the
.....surge until,
manhandled
.....over, all
surfaces,

tapestries,
.....entities
veer from the
.....eye like those
rings of lost
.....yesteryears
pooled in the
.....oak of your
memory.
.....Item: one
Normandy
.....Exercise.
Muscle it

over, an
.....underside
rises: a
.....raggedy
elegant
.....mess of an
abstract: a
.....rip-out of
kidstuff and
.....switchboards, where
amputee
.....radio
elements,

unattached
.....nervefibre
conduits,
.....openmouthed
ureters,
.....tag ends of
hamstring and
.....outrigging
ripped from their
.....unions and
nexuses
.....jumble with
undeterred

speakingtubes
.....twittering
orders as
.....random and
angry as
.....ddt’d
hornets. Step
.....over a
moment: peer
.....in through this
nutshell of
.....eyeball and
man your gun.


Source: Bone Thoughts​

And it is this: it's is also an anagrammatic poem. With a rather scurrilous message. I'll be back in a day or two to talk about that.

 

[todski28]

I mentioned there was something else I wanted to talk about this poem:

A Tapestry for Bayeux
George Starbuck

I Recto

Over the
.....seaworthy
cavalry
.....arches a
rocketry
.....wickerwork:
involute
.....laceries
lacerate
.....indigo
altitudes,
.....making a
skywritten

filigree
.....into which,
lazily,
.....LCTs
sinuate,
.....adjutants
next to them
.....eversharp-
eyed, among
.....delicate
battleship
.....umbrages
twinkling an

anger as
.....measured as
organdy.
.....Normandy
knitted the
.....eyelets and
yarn of these
.....warriors’
armoring—
.....ringbolt and
dungaree,
.....cable and
axletree,

tanktrack and
.....ammobelt
linking and
.....opening
garlands and
.....islands of
seafoam and
.....sergeantry.
Opulent
.....fretwork: on
turquoise and
.....emerald,
red instants

accenting
.....neatly a
dearth of red.
.....Gunstations
issue it;
.....vaportrails
ease into
.....smoke from it—
yellow and
.....ochre and
umber and
.....sable and
out. Or that

man at the
.....edge of the
tapestry
.....holding his
inches of
.....niggardly
ground and his
.....trumpery
order of
.....red and his
equipage
.....angled and
dated. He.


II Verso

Wasting no
.....energy,
Time, the old
.....registrar,
evenly
.....adds to his
scrolls, rolling
.....up in them
rampage and
.....echo and
hush—in each
.....influx of
surf, in each

tumble of
.....raincloud at
evening,
.....action of
seaswell and
.....undertow
rounding an
.....introvert
edge to the
.....surge until,
manhandled
.....over, all
surfaces,

tapestries,
.....entities
veer from the
.....eye like those
rings of lost
.....yesteryears
pooled in the
.....oak of your
memory.
.....Item: one
Normandy
.....Exercise.
Muscle it

over, an
.....underside
rises: a
.....raggedy
elegant
.....mess of an
abstract: a
.....rip-out of
kidstuff and
.....switchboards, where
amputee
.....radio
elements,

unattached
.....nervefibre
conduits,
.....openmouthed
ureters,
.....tag ends of
hamstring and
.....outrigging
ripped from their
.....unions and
nexuses
.....jumble with
undeterred

speakingtubes
.....twittering
orders as
.....random and
angry as
.....ddt’d
hornets. Step
.....over a
moment: peer
.....in through this
nutshell of
.....eyeball and
man your gun.


Source: Bone Thoughts​

And it is this: it's is also an anagrammatic poem. With a rather scurrilous message. I'll be back in a day or two to talk about that.

I cant get through the poem, the discordant rhythm and short lines, short circuit my brain, and I forget what I'm actually reading..... I think this poem needs a warning label,
not for those with the intelligence of a lap dog

though I am interested in your next point

 

[greenmountaineer]

Two poems by Louise Bogan:


Women

Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead,
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts
To eat dusty bread.

They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass,
They do not hear
Snow water going down under culverts
Shallow and clear.

They wait, when they should turn to journeys,
They stiffen, when they should bend.
They use against themselves that benevolence
To which no man is friend.

They cannot think of so many crops to a field
Or of clean wood cleft by an axe.
Their love is an eager meaninglessness
Too tense, or too lax.

They hear in every whisper that speaks to them
A shout and a cry.
As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills
They should let it go by.


What I particularly like about this poem is how nuanced the irony is. Read at face value, it appears to be a put down of women, written by a woman. I think rather the poem is about is how rigid the role of women is in society. Bogan wrote the poem by the way in the twenties.

The first stanza alludes to women imprisoned: in the "hot cell of their hearts" and "eating dusty bread," at one time used to punish prisoners, and describing them as "content." As one who visited many prisons in my career, I remember how often I heard the word "institutionalized," meaning inmates, serving long sentences, "content" there because they couldn't make it on their own.

All the images of proper skills to get by in life are masculine: axes, cattle, outdoor labor. Their "benevolence" is ignored by men, but they continue to be benevolent. Their love is "eager meaningless."

I'm no expert at the "why and wherefore" of rhyme, but Bogan's use of it I find ironic too. The rhyming lines 2 and 4 in each stanza are short, and the 4th line rhyme abruptly ends in a period: a faint attempt at introducing something harmonic and soft.

Bogan, I've read, often wrote and bemoaned about how society separated the heart and the mind. Here's another one of her poems that puts women in a more powerful role:


The Dream

O God, in the dream the terrible horse began
To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows,
Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane,
And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose.

Coward complete, I lay and wept on the ground
When some strong creature appeared, and leapt for the rein.
Another woman, as I lay half in a swound
Leapt in the air, and clutched at the leather and chain.

Give him, she said, something of yours as a charm.
Throw him, she said, some poor thing you alone claim.
No, no, I cried, he hates me; he is out for harm,
And whether I yield or not, it is all the same.

But, like a lion in a legend, when I flung the glove
Pulled from my sweating, my cold right hand;
The terrible beast, that no one may understand,
Came to my side, and put down his head in love.

 

[Piscator]

Any bets if Rebecca Ferguson will sing at Trump's inaugeration?

This may not be news to anyone else on this board, but I just recently discovered the poem Strange Fruit (below) at an exhibition of work by Whitfield Lovell. The poet (and composer of the song) was Abel Meeropol, who also adopted and raised the two boys of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reading this incredibly moving poem in the context of the painting, then listening to Billie Holiday sing the song, and finally learning more about the poet, has been quite an exceptional experience.


Strange Fruit
by Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

 

[legerdemer]

Any bets if Rebecca Ferguson will sing at Trump's inaugeration?

I hope they invite her and that she does sing Strange Fruit for the occasion, with one caveat - it may be taken as a way to whitewash (pun intended) all the horrible stuff that'/ come out of his mouth and out of the campaign.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Any bets if Rebecca Ferguson will sing at Trump's inaugeration?

She turned it down because they wouldn't let her sing it.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

William Shakespeare
Sonnet 129

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action: and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

 

[Gibgirl]

The White Rose by Rebecca Faller

I found this poem very moving. Strangely the author has a hilarious novel out called "Renault 5" which is very funny and nothing like this. Versatile.


The White Rose by Rebecca Faller

Munich gave birth to many things;
The thirties and the forties, such splendid years for either side.
Oh the control and the fear. Oh the control and the fear.
‘And what did you do?’ they all asked at the end,
So their ghosts from the prison graves cried:
We are Der Einzelganger, the outsiders the troublemakers
We are children who entered the mouth of the wolf.
The Russian Steppes and Stalingrad, a naked limitless landscape
A call to all Germans, well those who saw their brothers die;
Cannon fodder in the snow, it turned them.
The last youth of their nation bleed to death
All for the hubris of untermensch.

She read Thomas Mann under the bed covers
They were making perfect German girls in summer camps
She was the perfect German girl,
But they didn’t know that yet.
My name is Sophie Scholl! Don’t you forget it! She wanted to scream.
And the troublesome youths rose,
The White Rose will not leave you in peace;
Graffiti on the hallowed Feldherrnhalle,
The suitcase full of notes slipped from her hands,
Truth fluttered down through the atrium
Geschwister Scholl, their time was up.

We will not leave you in silence or peace
Die rather than sin and apostatise
“Allen Gewalten sum Trotz sich erhalten”
Goethe, scrawled in pencil on his damp cell wall:
Despite the powers closing in, you must stand tall.
A mere three days and they were gone
No point of a judge, no point of a jury
The executioner is the only one needed here
And as the blade dropped down Hans cried
“Es lebe die Freiheit!”

The ominous slow beat of a drum,
The mournful second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth
They died so that Germany may live.

 

[Piscator]

The Runner

By: Freddington

The purpose of motion begins,
A clear mind, aware and in focus,
Ahead, the optical pathway lies empty and silent,
Slow at the start, breathing steady,
Stepping through the changes,
Favouring a motif,
Blowing hard,
As the intensity builds,
Conscious thoughts enter and leave,
The pace quickens,
The focus narrows,
Fatigue is discarded,
The finish line's in sight, and then it isn't,
Mind, fingers, and saxophone converge,
Accelerating together,
All differences abandoned,
Only the journey remains,
Travelling at light speed,
Towards the beginning,
The reason for Jazz,
The compulsion to build,
The need to create.

Came across this in an email from the Toronto Jazz station and it almost catches it.

Then too, I know there are others partial to jazz here.