Share A Poet

[UnderYourSpell]

"The Dream"

You have been given a dream - a purpose for being here... And in each life, it is up to you to make a difference... To leave joy, smiles and laughter as you pass the people by... To touch a life and leave an imprint of love... This is your task-your challenge-your pursuit.
It will be up to you when all has been said and done... Whether you accomplish your purpose for being on this earth. Some may try to hinder that purpose or even thwart it... But if you really hold on to the dream, you will see it through. No one can really affect your dreams unless you allow them to. No one can change your dreams unless you give your dreams to them.

Never settle for anything less than your purpose. Never go back on your word - make it count for more than just words. And when you lay your head down at night, you will find peace. Not only within yourself but with the dream that lives within you. And at the end if you are granted a chance to look back... You will smile for you will have lived your dream and your purpose will have been fulfilled.


Poem by Marsha B. Smith

 

[Amanda_Mc]

As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other

As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other


As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
on floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood
lies

oh my love, my golden lark, my soft long doll
Your lips have splashed my dull house with print of flowers
My hands are crooked where they spilled over your dear
curving

It is good to be weary from that brilliant work
It is being God to feel your breathing under me

A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning.....
Don't let anyone in to wake us

Kenneth Patchen

 

[tungtied2u]

Boris Pasternak

Beloved, with the spent and sickly fumes
Of rumour's cinders all the air is filled,
But you are the engrossing lexicon
Of fame mysterious and unrevealed,

And fame it is the soil's strong pull.
Would that I more erect were sprung!
But even so I shall be called
The native son of my own native tongue.

The poets' age no longer sets their rhyme,
Now, in the sweep of country plots and roads,
Lermontov is rhymed with summertime,
And Pushkin rhymes with geese and snow.

And my wish is that when we die,
Our circle closed, and hence depart,
We shall be set in closer rhyme
Than binds the auricle and the heart.

And may our harmony unified
Some listener's muffled ear caress
With all that we do now imbibe,
And shall draw in through mouths of grass.

1931
Translated by Andrew Bromfield

 

[bogusbrig]

Carolyn Forche

She's not perfect but she used to be a looker when she young! Although I really like her poetry, my problem with her is that her poetry is too personal and doesn't seem to care about deeper reasons for the conflicts that seem to interest her. She seems to readily to accept her friends are right and their causes are right. What also makes me question her, she must have been pretty well off to fly all over the world to countless conflict zones After reading her book The Country Between Us, I felt she must be collecting causes and lovers she could look upon romantically for the sake of her poetry. Ironically as the colonel says in the poem below Something for your poetry, no? he said..

Still she'd a very good read.


The Colonel

What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistolon the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.


http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2007/05/colonel-by-caroline-forche.htmlhttp://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2007/05/colonel-by-caroline-forche.html

 

[twelveoone]

Blue Girls
-John Crowe Ransom


Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished -- yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.

 

[twelveoone]

following stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem "For All To Know"

Someone will ask later, sometimes
searching for a name, his own or someone else's
why I neglected his sadness or his love
or his reason or his delirium or his hardships:
and he'll be right: it was my duty to name you,
you, someone far away and someone close by,
to name someone for his heroic scar,
to name a woman for her petal,
the arrogant one for his fierce innocence,
the forgotten one for his famous obscurity.
But I didn't have enough time or ink for everyone

Four, count 'em. Four concrete things.
Riddle me this, Batman.

 

[twelveoone]

Hayden Carruth

Thy sting sufficeth, Death. If Heidegger first
saw through the human consequence of Darwin's
dread, the ingenious flight from Thee, his daring
nevertheless was only everyone's coarsest
intuition. Sufficiently, Death, thou partest
lovers -- Cindy, how then I shall be abhorrent! --
as sufficiently hath thine oppression driven
all history in a flat-out surge from "durst not"
to "civilization," to thwarted Being. Death,
shall we thank thee? Cindy and I can love,
love more than sufficiently, driven by Thee
to extremest sexual refinement in our wrath
and anguish. We do give thanks, we do. Reprove
us not if we give lamely and philosophically.

Well maybe sting

 

[twelveoone]

The Enemy

The Enemy

I think of my gone youth as of a stormy sky
Infrequently transpierced by a benignant sun;
Tempest and hail have done their work; and what have I? —
How many fruits in my torn garden? — scarcely one.

And now that I approach the autumn of my mind,
And must reclaim once more the inundated earth —
Washed into stony trenches deep as graves I find
I wield the rake and hoe, asking, "What is it worth?"

Who can assure me, these new flowers for which I toil
Will find in the disturbed and reconstructed soil
That mystic aliment on which alone they thrive?

Oh, anguish, anguish! Time eats up all things alive;
And that unseen, dark Enemy, upon the spilled
Bright blood we could not spare, battens, and is fulfilled.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)
translation of L'Ennemi— Charles Baudelaire

L'Ennemi

Ma jeunesse ne fut qu'un ténébreux orage,
Traversé çà et là par de brillants soleils;
Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage,
Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils.

Voilà que j'ai touché l'automne des idées,
Et qu'il faut employer la pelle et les râteaux
Pour rassembler à neuf les terres inondées,
Où l'eau creuse des trous grands comme des tombeaux.

Et qui sait si les fleurs nouvelles que je rêve
Trouveront dans ce sol lavé comme une grève
Le mystique aliment qui ferait leur vigueur?

— Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie,
Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous ronge le coeur
Du sang que nous perdons croît et se fortifie!

 

[twelveoone]

My june is soir, footballs my tenous orange,
traversed in travail on a table in Soldad

 

[Angeline]

following stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem "For All To Know"

Someone will ask later, sometimes
searching for a name, his own or someone else's
why I neglected his sadness or his love
or his reason or his delirium or his hardships:
and he'll be right: it was my duty to name you,
you, someone far away and someone close by,
to name someone for his heroic scar,
to name a woman for her petal,
the arrogant one for his fierce innocence,
the forgotten one for his famous obscurity.
But I didn't have enough time or ink for everyone

Four, count 'em. Four concrete things.
Riddle me this, Batman.

Batman once told me he doesn't consider Neruda a real poet (I disagreed). Just sayin.

 

[RhymeFairy]

Litany
by Billy Collins


You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
—Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.






I see so much beauty and love and
... harmony here. Love it ... Just me ~~

 

[twelveoone]

Batman once told me he doesn't consider Neruda a real poet (I disagreed). Just sayin.

The Joker is the one to listen to...

I have mixed feelings about Neruda, some of it because of bad translations, some of it because of his style, he can be good. If I knew Spanish I might consider him excellent. I remember seeing W.S. Merwin's translations and being impressed. I don't know if Robert Pinsky translated him, that would be of interest.

Just sayin back...

ps I put it up because of an ongoing disagreement with Senna Jawa, our secret

 

[twelveoone]

The Litanies of Satan

O thou, of all the Angels loveliest and most learned,
To whom no praise is chanted and no incense burned,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O Prince of exile, god betrayed by foulest wrong,
Thou that in vain art vanquished, rising up more strong,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou who knowest all, each weak and shameful thing,
Kind minister to man in anguish, mighty king,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou that dost teach the leper, the pariah we despise,
To love like other men, and taste sweet Paradise,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou, that in the womb of Death, thy fecund mate,
Engenderest Hope, with her sweet eyes and her mad gait,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou who upon the scaffold dost give that calm and proud
Demeanor to the felon, which condemns the crowd,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou that hast seen in darkness and canst bring to light
The gems a jealous God has hidden from our sight,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou to whom all the secret arsenals are known
Where iron, where gold and silver, slumber, locked in stone,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou whose broad hand dost hide the precipice from him
Who, barefoot, in his sleep, walks on the building's rim,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou who makest supple between the horses' feet
The old bones of the drunkard fallen in the street,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou who best taught the frail and over-burdened mind
How easily saltpeter and sulphur are combined,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou that hast burned thy brand beyond all help secure,
Into the rich man's brow, who tramples on the poor,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou, who makest gentle the eyes and hearts of whores
With kindness for the wretched, homage for rags and sores,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Staff of the exile, lamp of the inventor, last
Priest of the man about whose neck the rope is passed,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou, adopted father of those fatherless
Whom God from Eden thrust in terror and nakedness,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Prayer

Glory and praise to thee, Satan, in the most high,
Where thou didst reign; and in deep hell's obscurity,
Where, manacled, thou broodest long! O silent power,
Grant that my soul be near to thee in thy great hour,
When, like a living Temple, victorious bough on bough,
Shall rise the Tree of Knowledge, whose roots are in thy brow!

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

the problems of translations...
check this out

http://fleursdumal.org/poem/191

 

[Angeline]

The Litanies of Satan

O thou, of all the Angels loveliest and most learned,
To whom no praise is chanted and no incense burned,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O Prince of exile, god betrayed by foulest wrong,
Thou that in vain art vanquished, rising up more strong,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou who knowest all, each weak and shameful thing,
Kind minister to man in anguish, mighty king,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou that dost teach the leper, the pariah we despise,
To love like other men, and taste sweet Paradise,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou, that in the womb of Death, thy fecund mate,
Engenderest Hope, with her sweet eyes and her mad gait,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou who upon the scaffold dost give that calm and proud
Demeanor to the felon, which condemns the crowd,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou that hast seen in darkness and canst bring to light
The gems a jealous God has hidden from our sight,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou to whom all the secret arsenals are known
Where iron, where gold and silver, slumber, locked in stone,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou whose broad hand dost hide the precipice from him
Who, barefoot, in his sleep, walks on the building's rim,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou who makest supple between the horses' feet
The old bones of the drunkard fallen in the street,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou who best taught the frail and over-burdened mind
How easily saltpeter and sulphur are combined,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Thou that hast burned thy brand beyond all help secure,
Into the rich man's brow, who tramples on the poor,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou, who makest gentle the eyes and hearts of whores
With kindness for the wretched, homage for rags and sores,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Staff of the exile, lamp of the inventor, last
Priest of the man about whose neck the rope is passed,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

O thou, adopted father of those fatherless
Whom God from Eden thrust in terror and nakedness,

Satan, have pity upon me in my deep distress!

Prayer

Glory and praise to thee, Satan, in the most high,
Where thou didst reign; and in deep hell's obscurity,
Where, manacled, thou broodest long! O silent power,
Grant that my soul be near to thee in thy great hour,
When, like a living Temple, victorious bough on bough,
Shall rise the Tree of Knowledge, whose roots are in thy brow!

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

the problems of translations...
check this out

http://fleursdumal.org/poem/191

Did I ever tell you that my therapist is a descendent of Edna St.Vincent Millay? If I did, my apologies for repeating myself. He (my therapist) isn't a poet at all though he reads some. I found it very funny when I found out though. Awfully serendipitious.

 

[Bill Dada]

HOW TO WRITE A HAIKU
by Mike Topps

A well-known American poet was asked how to compose a haiku.

"The usual method is three lines," Ron explained. "The first line contains five syllables; the second line, seven syllables; the third line, five syllables. One of my poems illustrates this:

First: five syllables
Second: seven syllables
Third: five syllables

 

[RhymeFairy]

Parody of a LOVER

Sweethearts, we felt the same pleasure,
So deeply were we involved. You sensed my desire,
And I guessed your heart. Serene years went by
Harmonious ase lute and harp.
Good times did not keep me company,
Midway we grew grew distant like Antares and Orion.
You separated south of northern hills,
I separated south of the river.
Happy joy no longer sought,
Heavy thoughts, how to bear them?
My eyes carry the charm of your image fair,
My eyes hold the beauty of your clear voice.
Through the day endless memories surge,
Far into night I sigh in lonely grief.
When you departed on circuit
And said we must part, tears soaked my coller.
Please hounour me with your jade footsteps,
One look is more then a thousand in gold.


~~ LI CH' UNG (b. AD 323 )

 

[RhymeFairy]

this is passion ....

Sudden Light



I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,--
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?


~~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

[champagne1982]

Jesseca Cornelson How to Leave a Woman at the Caveat Lector Journal's online archive site. I really like this poem, hope you do, too.

 

[RhymeFairy]

Clenched Soul


We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.


~~ Pablo Neruda

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Brad Johnson at Mannequin Envy

http://www.mannequinenvy.com/Johnson.html

 

[Anschul]

This is actually the one that got me started...

SONNET 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.[/color]

 

[Angeline]

I've recently spent some time reading this poet. I know a few of us have commented on her submissions in the new poems reviews, but it struck me last night how really, really good she is. Spend some time reading through her submissions page and you'll see what I mean.

 

[shy slave]

I love this poem it allows everyone the power to be as brilliant as we can be, without feeling guilty at our own achievements.




A Return to Love


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be?

Brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.


We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.


As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

 

[RhymeFairy]

Broken Dreams
by William Butler Yeats

There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake - that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's putting on
Burdensome beauty - for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.
Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, "Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.'
Vague memories, nothing but memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.
You are more beautiful than any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always brimming lake
Where those What have obeyed the holy law
paddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed,
For old sake's sake.
The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have
ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.

 

[RhymeFairy]

We all, at some time, reach back to our roots. I ran across this and had to share. Said with passion and love, imho ~~




If You Forget Me


I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.


~ Pablo Neruda