Poetry Please

[rodaki]

Untranslatable Song
by Claudia Reder

"Everyone needs one untranslatable song."
--Juarroz



The song makes its imprint
in the air, making itself felt,
a felt world. Here, there,
the stunned silence
of knowing I will not remember
what I heard;

futures
that will never happen,
a fluidity we cannot achieve
except as a child
creating possibility.

This is the untranslatable song
hidden in the earth.

 

[chingching]

I have this excerpt wirtten down but I never wrote down the title and I cant remember where I got it but its by TS Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.


You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,

You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know

You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess

You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

 

[anemos]

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.


Robert Graves

 

[Trojina]

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labour in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonley offices ?



Robert Hayden

 

[rodaki]

found nursery rhymes and on the struggle of words

She sells seashells,

By the seashore.

The shells she sells,

Are surely seashells.

So if she sells shells,

On the seashore,

I'm sure she sells,

Seashore shells.


________________



ooh, I am gonna catch'em, them ethereal words and wrap them
in the whitest of whites,
tame them in sweet clear sentences,
cook them
in crisp solid paragraphs
and offer them,
to be tasted and turned
between lips and tongue,
meaning and imagery
emptiness and blooming
hand-crafted thought ..

 

[Trojina]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zEVZGuU3BU

on a roll with Shakespeare

 

[Trojina]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNo8rZRY9JI

 

[chingching]

where have all the poets gone, long time passing...

 

[Tohpol]

where have all the poets gone, long time passing...

Pour forth the dream wine my Love
Break bread with me and be still,
Sit down in the auburn grass
And banish the poison pill,

Take my hand and look ahead my love
Know my faith was a slow-borne attrition
Hold to the present and feel the pulse
Coursing with Life and the soul's ignition,

Claim the horizon and trace its line,
Become the waves and the ebb and flow
Reach to its limits and singularity,
Return to me so I may bestow:

All that was and could ever be
The ghost in my vision and love set free.

 

[chingching]

ohhh!!! love it!

 

[chingching]

Well I went to library and loaned selected works of thoreau and read this poem which is 56 all over.

The Departure.

In this roadstead I have ridden,
In this covert I have hidden;
Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me,
And I hid beneath their lee.

This true people took the stranger,
And warm-hearted housed the ranger;
They received their roving guest,
And have fed him with the best;

Whatsoe'er the land afforded
to the stranger's wish accorded;
Shook the olive, stripped the vine,
And expressed the strengthening wine.

And by night they did spread o'er him
What by day they spread before him;
That good-will which was repast
Was his covering at last.

The stranger moored him to their pier
without anxiety or fear;
By day he walked the sloping land,
By night the gentle heavens he scanned.

When first his bark stood inland
To the coast of that far Finland,
Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore
the weary mariner to restore.

And still he stayed from day to day
If he their kindness might repay;
But more and more
The sullen waves came rolling towards the shore.

And still the more the stranger waited,
The less his argosy was freighted,
And still the more he stayed,
The less his debt was paid.

So he unfurled his shrouded mast
To receive the fragrant blast;
And that sane refreshing gale
Which had wooed him to remain
Again and again,
It was that filled his sail
And drove him to the main.

All day the low-hung clouds
Dropt tears into the sea;
And the wind amid the shrouds
Sighed plaintively.

- Henry Thoreau

 

[rodaki]

some afternoons are like

By yi-ching lin

some afternoons are like
that – chiseled, golden-
ratioed – when the formula
for calculating the slope
of our inclinations
lies hidden
.

 

[pocossin]

some afternoons are like

By yi-ching lin

some afternoons are like
that – chiseled, golden-
ratioed – when the formula
for calculating the slope
of our inclinations
lies hidden
.

"It was one of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before one, in which many events may happen, a large portion of our natural life, though it was already half spent when I started."
--Thoreau on the way to Baker Farm.

 

[Trojina]

it was one of those afternoons to peel very slowly

like a banana or a grape

or a purple shadow



Trojan

 

[rodaki]

(a purple shadow)

. . leisurely sliding

over the thin ridge

of a freshly burst green

giving the tempo way

 

[Trojina]

One, two ! One, two ! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back






3rd verse Jabberwokky
Lewis Carroll

 

[hilary]

Presenting

Today only
In concert

Exultant skies,
Sweet-sharp leaf scent,
Long shadows in the wind.

Birds like butterflies
And white campion with
A last poppy, glowing.

Today only now only.

 

[precision grace]

Today I said
cello music is the sexiest
Friends scoffed, confused

They have not heard
the sound
of the soul plucked just right

yet

Maybe, one day
They will.

 

[jilt]

strange attractor

after a lot of chaos theory and Fritjof Capra I wrote this poem. I did some poetry in english, but after learning more and more of that beautiful and rich language I lost my guts. The poem is about alder-trees behind our house

Strange attractor

She was standing there in frozen lush,
her trunks and twigs
in dance to end the wintertrance
attracted strangely by the gravity of starlight,
life as yours and mine,
as the tides do with the moon.

Not properly dressed for that occasion,
I felt so perfectly cold in late midnight-frost from march,
and above,
in moonhalo,
an hasty jet was seen.

The skies are large around.

 

[chingching]

have been watching all the thinking allowed you tube clips since the one in the shamanism thread and found this gem, with this poem:

Lost

A native American Elder was asked,

“What shall we do if we get lost?”

Stand still. The trees before you and the bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is a place called here,

and you must treat it as a powerful stranger

both asking to know and be known.

Listen. The forest whispers,

“I have made this place, you can leave and return once again

saying, here.”

No two trees are the same to Raven,

no two branches the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you,

you are truly lost.

Stand still. Listen.

The forest knows where you are.

Let it find you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=XO0OjtThqyI

 

[chingching]

one more... This one reminds me of 5.6, I found it surfing the net and the site doesnt give ti a title

This being human is a guest-house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

Who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Jalrudin Rumi

 

[chingching]

has this one been posted here already? (sorry for the onslaught found a website with a collection of poems )

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood

and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth;

then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim,

because it was grassy and wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same,

and both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:

two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

 

[bamboo]

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.


Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.


Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.


Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

—Naomi Shihab Nye from Words Under Words: Selected Poems

 

[Trojina]

Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of the gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.




T.S. Eliot The Waste Land

 

[erivas]

Bamboo, thanks for the insightful poem with wonderful imagery! Keep up the good work! By the way, does it have a title?

__________

Sarah at
flv to avi converter

 

[chingching]

This is an excerpt not a poem, but the words are so heartening I thought I'd pop it in here anyway. Last paragraphs from Middlemarch, George Eliot

Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful.
They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling
amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great
feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the
aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is
so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.
A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming
a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her
heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial:
the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone.
But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are
preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present
a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.


Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were
not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus
broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great
name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around
her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world
is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so
ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the
number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

 

[anemos]

This found me the other day while pondering whether it was a mistake to say to someone that they are not perfect but not in a negative way. perfectly imperfect

"Perfection is inhuman. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love - and I mean love, not lust - is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real human peeks through, say, 'This is a challenge to my compassion.' Then make a try, and something might begin to get going." - Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

 

[answeredquestions]

Refuge of the Sea

And there is the soil
Strong and Solid.
Roots encased.
Dry
Before the river washes in
Restless and Raging
Stones abraded.
Wet propellers.

Its ever changing and moving Waters continue to rush in over secure ground,
wearing it away.
It’s mouth forever open and salivating.
Swallow !!!
Creating nurturance for new life’s crib.
Destroying the ground below.
Rocking.

Stones.
The pebbles and rocks stand firm to create a path unto which the waters movement follows.
Some pebbles stay
and some get washed away.

The water is not alone.
A boat sails in.
A big and sturdy boat made of thick wood.
The natural currents of the sea
test the boats stability.

An anchor is thrown.
It has slowly slid its way to the floor and through the dabrie,
As it hits the sand, it gives off noises and throws up bubbles.
Just as someone gets comfortable in a chair, it has sank in it’s place.
And the anchor grew eyes and looked up through the water at the sun glistening off the boat at the surface.

The Anchor submerged for the sake of the passengers on the boat.
And for it’s sun burned captain whom looks far into the horizon.

The Anchor’s new eyes cannot cry in all this water.


When I am riding the waves I am in touch with everything around but the ground.
There are so many unknown creatures of the sea, like me.

The boat rocks with the movement of this never ending motion.
Today it takes me to a cave.
Where I still float on through
Seeing rocks that surround me and encase my choppy thoughts.



By Me in 2001.

 

[jilt]

I was musing on the judgement


six

Why is it so difficult, what cult.
To speak, to write
with ease and eloquence.

The case, which case, which cause?
So graceful cracefull
seduce me
with complexity
to judge when all are right/
honest and upright/uptight/light

Believe me ladies and lords of dao,
lovely road
my eye
eyes,
aye!
oh yes, balls
where's the soul to rhyme with such great joi
to sing with,
to sling with.

all my haert,
its true,
the truest of them all,
to judge,
with eloquence
will rhyme with lines
we love so dear
will save
the saviour
transcend the irony,
the fate of lovers love

we follow,
give rules then
room and space amongst the others,
weave a judgement
for every word a poem
so much poetry

understand the drives of rightiousness,
responding listening

every ku'a
is going through 61 and 6

sixtyone

what is calling me,
my rightiousness and legitimation to use complex machines
to rant with automatic word
mac d700
i-love machines
they are my totem
they open up the paragraphs and chapters
of my life
of this life
of our life.

can i ride those spirits
high on electronics
can i ride that lust
and understand the pornographic undercurrent and the webs?
can i ride that love
a current
like a slow wave/?
Can i wield this burning fuel
for how long
can i still speak with you
when radiowaves fall silent for a while?

variations on 61

Wisdom to listen, fool to speak:
Listen
listen
Speak
speak
listen
listen

transformation O transformation
feedback X feedback

How would this rhyme to fu?

Transformation
transformation
feedback
feedback
transformation
transformation

or from active/passive?

Speak
speak
listen
listen
speak
speak

or from the hatched egg metaphor

ehhh
egg

hard
hard
soft
soft
hard
hard

egg ehhh
belongs

the heartchambers?
How can we compare heartrhytmn
with ying and yang,
with
the k'an of 29/
but how to write
yin and yang on it
we have to find out

ying
yang
ying
ying
yang
ying

strangely t'ai
is associated with
the flow
hmmm​

 

[Trojina]

Epiphany


London. The grimy lilac softness
Of an April evening. Me
Walking over Chalk Farm Bridge
On my way to the tube station.
A new father-slightly light-headed
With the lack of sleep and the novelty.
Next, this young fellow coming towards me.


I glanced at him for the first time as I passed him
Because I noticed (I couldn't believe it)
What I'd been ignoring


Not the bulge of a small animal
Buttoned into the top of his jacket
The way colliers used to wear their whippets-
But its actual face. Eyes reaching out
Trying to catch my eyes- so familiar !
The huge ears, pinched urchin expression -
The wild confronting stare, pushed through fear,
Between the jacket lapels.

'Its a fox- cub !'
I heard my own surprise as I stopped.
He stopped. 'Where did you get it ? What
Are you going to do with it ?'

A fox-cub
On the hump of Chalk Farm Bridge !


'You can have him for a pound.' 'But
Where did you find it ? What will you do with it ?'
'Oh, somebody'll buy him. Cheap enough
At a pound'. And a grin
What I was thinking
Was- what would you think ? How would we fit it
Into our crate of space ? With the baby ?
What would you make of its old smell
And its mannerless energy ?
As it grew up and began to enjoy itself
What would we do with an unpredictable,
Powerful, bounding fox ?
The long-mouthed flashing temperament ?
That necessary nightly twenty miles
And that vast hunger for everything beyond us ?
How would we cope with its cosmic derangements
Whenever we moved ?


The little fox peered past me at other folks,
At this one and at that one, then at me.
Good luck was all it needed
Already past the kittenish
But the eyes still small,
Round, orphaned-looking, woebegone
As if with weeping. Bereft
Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,
The dens life's happy dark. And the huge whisper
Of the constellations
Out of which Mother had always returned.
My thoughts felt like big, ignorant hounds
Circling and sniffing around him.


Then I walked on


As if out of my own life.
I let that fox-cub go. I tossed it back
Into the future
Of a fox-cub in London and I hurried
Straight on and dived as if escaping
Into the Underground. If I had paid
If I had paid that pound and turned back
To you , with that armful of fox -

If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage -
I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it ?
But I failed. Our marriage had failed.







By Ted Hughes from 'Birthdays Letters' which are all poems about his marriage to Sylvia Plath...and the poem is addressed to her