The Poetry Thread.

[dubhlinn]

Good bit of crack concerning Poetry breaking out in the IFC.

I think though, that Poetry deserves it's own thread and it should let the IFC stick to ..whatever it sticks to.

So here's the crack...

A thread dedicated to Poetry. Post yer favourite, or not, poem here and see what happens...

I looked all over the place for this one but all I could find was an audio..

Hugh Macdiarmeds great work..

On my Fathers Grave.

http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennso ... 4-1969.mp3

The floor is open.

Slan,
D.

[izzarina]

oooOOOooo....this could get interesting....one of my favourites, by my favourite :

Symphony in Yellow
by Oscar Wilde

An omnibus across the bridge
Crawls like a yellow butterfly,
And, here and there, a passer-by
Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

[djm]

There's a whole Forum here dedicated to this drippy sort of detritis. It's called the Pictures of Flanges, Poems about Dental Hygiene, Recipes for Hummus Forum. Perhaps a kindly moderator would move this thread for you to where it belongs.

djm

[izzarina]

My poem wasn't about dental hygiene. So ppfffttttttt to you, Deej!

[dubhlinn]

Indeed..The Thames.

Makes poor little Anna Livia look like a stream.


Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth
Slan,
D.

[Dale]

There's a whole Forum here dedicated to this drippy sort of detritis. It's called the Pictures of Flanges, Poems about Dental Hygiene, Recipes for Hummus Forum. Perhaps a kindly moderator would move this thread for you to where it belongs.

djm

Nah.

[izzarina]

There's a whole Forum here dedicated to this drippy sort of detritis. It's called the Pictures of Flanges, Poems about Dental Hygiene, Recipes for Hummus Forum. Perhaps a kindly moderator would move this thread for you to where it belongs.

djm

Nah.

You rock, Dale

[izzarina]

Most people associate Poe with horrific tales full of terror, but he also wrote some of the most beautiful poetry ever.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

[djm]

Nah.

Fair enough. There's a forum dedicated to the religious so they don't get heckled. There's a forum dedicated to poetry so it doesn't get heckled. Anything here is fair game then, yes?

djm

[izzarina]

I've always liked how whimsical this one is:

To A Post Office Inkwell - Christopher Morley

How many humble hearts have dipped
In you, and scrawled their manuscript!
Have shared their secrets, told their cares,
Their curious and quaint affairs!

Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen,
Have moved the lives of unborn men,
And watched young people, breathing hard,
Put Heaven on a postal card.

[Innocent Bystander]

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame and meek
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand, and now they range
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better, but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall
And she caught me in her arms long and small,
Therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, 'Dear heart, how like you this?'

It was no dream, I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served,
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

[FJohnSharp]

very high on the list of poems I wish I'd written:

THE LANYARD

Billy Collins


The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly--
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

[dubhlinn]

That, FJohn, is superb.

Slan,
D.

[FJohnSharp]

also, it's National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) and participants are encouraged to write a poem a day for the whole month. But don't let that stop you. If you even want to write just one poem that would be in keeping with the spirit.

I usually peter out at about day 15 when the well runs dry and the springtime calls for my labors.

[dwest]

It's National Library Week next week. Dewey your community a favor go to the 800s and check-out poetry books, and don't return them.

A nurse is giving a young medical intern a tour of the hospital.
The intern approaches one bedridden patient and asks, “Why are you here?” The
patient replies, “Wee sleket cowerin’ timrous beastie/O, what a panic is in thy breastie.”
The intern moves on to the next bed and asks the same question, “Why are you
here?” The patient answers, “O, my luv is like a red, red, rose that’s newly sprung in June.”
The intern moves on to a third bed and asks again, “Why are you here” to which
the third patient replies, “The best laid plans of mice and men, may often gang awry.”
At this the intern turns to the nurse and asks, “What ward is this anyway.” And
the nurse answers, “It’s the Burns Unit.”