Share A Poet

[GuiltyPleasure]

This thread makes me feel so badly read - so many poets, so little time.

 

[theognis]

This thread makes me feel so badly read - so many poets, so little time.

You're not alone. But I think it's hard to beat this:

Sonnet CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-W. Shakespeare

 

[UnderYourSpell]

A wicked thought just crossed mind, did Shakespeare ever get told by his contemparies that this 'form' of writing was old hat and to move on into more modern stuff?!

 

[theognis]

A wicked thought just crossed mind, did Shakespeare ever get told by his contemparies that this 'form' of writing was old hat and to move on into more modern stuff?!

That is a wicked thought, but I'll bet he did, more or less. 'Times change, people don't' seems to be all too true.

 

[butters]

That is a wicked thought, but I'll bet he did, more or less. 'Times change, people don't' seems to be all too true.

this ^^

 

[Angeline]

posted in the wrong thread (cause I'm half awake). I'll come back and put a poem here!

 

[theognis]

this ^^

I suspect if we could go back in time and observe people of a thousand years ago, or ten thousand, perhaps even a hundred thousand, they would be basically the same as people are now. Just different around the edges.

 

[butters]

I suspect if we could go back in time and observe people of a thousand years ago, or ten thousand, perhaps even a hundred thousand, they would be basically the same as people are now. Just different around the edges.

i don't know about the hundred thousand - you may be right - but i do recall reading somewhere that the human brain development/skull shape/functioning and so on have been the same for the past 15,000 years. adversity breeds bigger brains as we learn ways to survive and flourish as a race.

 

[theognis]

i don't know about the hundred thousand - you may be right - but i do recall reading somewhere that the human brain development/skull shape/functioning and so on have been the same for the past 15,000 years. adversity breeds bigger brains as we learn ways to survive and flourish as a race.

Neanderthals had larger brains than modern people, so that's no guarantee of success. But then, I'm of the opinion they didn't really become extinct, in the biological sense. I think many of us carry their genes to this day.

 

[butters]

Neanderthals had larger brains than modern people, so that's no guarantee of success. But then, I'm of the opinion they didn't really become extinct, in the biological sense. I think many of us carry their genes to this day.

i'd lay money on it. you should have seen my first husband's browline - what a prominent bony ridge. and big knuckles. and he was short.

 

[theognis]

i'd lay money on it. you should have seen my first husband's browline - what a prominent bony ridge. and big knuckles. and he was short.

Ouch! No wonder he's your first husband, and not your current one.

 

[butters]

Ouch! No wonder he's your first husband, and not your current one.

erm, there is no current one. the first i was with for15 years, the second for 18 - the second one was very smart. just happened to be a conman as well, as i found out in the end. clearly i suck at making husband-choices.

 

[theognis]

erm, there is no current one. the first i was with for15 years, the second for 18 - the second one was very smart. just happened to be a conman as well, as i found out in the end. clearly i suck at making husband-choices.

They must not have been too bad; fifteen and eighteen years. But excellent foresight is a gift few have, especially when it comes to potential partners, it seems.

 

[fridayam]

A wicked thought just crossed mind, did Shakespeare ever get told by his contemparies that this 'form' of writing was old hat and to move on into more modern stuff?!

Well he got accused of pretty much every other contemporary artistic sin--why not that one too

 

[butters]

They must not have been too bad; fifteen and eighteen years. But excellent foresight is a gift few have, especially when it comes to potential partners, it seems.

i have the patience of a saint and a cheery disposition.

 

[theognis]

i have the patience of a saint and a cheery disposition.

I don't doubt you in the least.

 

[butters]

I don't doubt you in the least.

hahahaha

just

hahhahhaha

 

[fridayam]

i have the patience of a saint and a cheery disposition.

Isn't that why you are a Mod?

 

[bogusagain]

Years ago, maybe decades ago, I picked up a poetry book called The Escape Into You by Marvin Bell in a secondhand bookshop in east London for 1.50 pound. I'd never heard of him at the time and to my surprise the next evening he was on a little watched arts programme where he read a couple of poems from the book I just bought! Anyway, I loved the book and it's still one of my favourite poetry bundles and had a great influence on me. Since he's American I imagine most of you will know him.

Song of Social Despair by Marvin Bell

Ethics without faith, excuse me,
is the butter and not the bread.
You can’t nourish them all, the dead
pile up at the hospital doors.
And even they are not so numerous
as the mothers come in maternity.

The Provider knows his faults—
love of architecture and repair—
but will not fall into them for long:
he can’t afford the adolescent luxury,
the fellowship of the future
looks greedily toward his family.

The black keys fit black cylinders
in the locks in holes in the night.
He had a skeleton key once,
a rubber arm and complete confidence.
Now, as head of the family, he is
inevitably on the wrong side looking out.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Neanderthals had larger brains than modern people, so that's no guarantee of success. But then, I'm of the opinion they didn't really become extinct, in the biological sense. I think many of us carry their genes to this day.

some have not evolved at all and roam the internet many ending up in my PM box as did one today sheeshhhhh

 

[EroticOrogeny]

i don't know about the hundred thousand - you may be right - but i do recall reading somewhere that the human brain development/skull shape/functioning and so on have been the same for the past 15,000 years. adversity breeds bigger brains as we learn ways to survive and flourish as a race.

You wonder about the role of technology in our lives over the millennia, not just recently, but such significant once as control of fire.

 

[theognis]

some have not evolved at all and roam the internet many ending up in my PM box as did one today sheeshhhhh

I've no doubt you women have to deal with that from time to time.

 

[theognis]

You wonder about the role of technology in our lives over the millennia, not just recently, but such significant once as control of fire.

Technology has definitely contributed to our evolution, but I think it's possible it may also contribute to our devolution. We may become too dependent on machines to do our work, and even our thinking. It's already occurring, to some extent, I would say.

 

[vrosej10]

Hi Guys,

i am putting this one under poem, though it's a song lyric because in my opinion this is a poem. Every single time I hear this poem, it gets me in the gut. I think this song qualifies as a poem due to its concrete, imagist nature. I think it suceeds as an anti war piece because it is so concrete. It could have been written more abstractly, but it would not have been nearly as moving.



I Was Only 19 by Redgum

Mum and Dad and Denny saw the Passing out Parade at Puckapunal
(it was a long march from Cadets)
The 6th Battalion was the next to tour, and it was me who drew the card
We did Canungra - Shoalwater before we left

And Townsville lined the footpaths as we marched down to the Quay
This clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean
And there's me in me slouch hat with me S.L.R. and Greens
God help me, I was only 19

From Vung tau riding Chinooks, to the dust at Nui Dat
I'd been in and out of choppers now for months
But we made our tents a home, V.B. and pin ups on the lockers
And an Asian orange sunset through the scrub
And can you tell me Doctor why I still can't get to sleep?
And the night time's just a jungle dark and a barking M16
And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only 19

A four week operation, when each step can mean your last one on two legs
It was a war within yourself
But you wouldn't let your mates down 'til they had you dusted off
So you closed your eyes and thought about something else

Then someone yelled out 'Contact' and the bloke behind me swore
We hooked in there for hours, then a God Almighty roar
Frankie kicked a mine the day that Mankind kicked the moon
God help me, he was going home in June

I can still see Frankie drinking tinnies, in the Grand Hotel
On a 36 hour Rec leave in Vung Tau
And I can still hear Frankie, lying screaming in the jungle
'Til the morphine came and killed the bloody row

And the A.N.Z.A.C. legend didn't mention mud and blood and tears
And the stories that my Father told me, never seemed quiet real
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn't even feel
God help me, I was only 19

And can you tell me Doctor why I still can't get to sleep?
And why the Channel 7 chopper chills me to my feet?
And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only 19.


VB is a very low rent beer popular with the army. Slouch hat is the the distinctive hat Aussie soldiers wear.

 

[theognis]

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 damasked, 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.

-W. Shakespeare