Poetry Corner

Mudder_s_Mudder · October 4, 2007, 9:19am

And from Yeats, a poem for our times. I love the jarring “slouches” in the last line.

The Second Coming

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 Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the 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?

Yeats again, the famous epitaph from “Under Ben Bulben”:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

From Donne’s “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”:

Our two souls therefore, which are one, 
Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion, 
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

garland · October 4, 2007, 9:26am

Mmom, great Yeats poems!

On that same study abroad trip to Ireland/England that I met S. Heaney, one of our assignments was to memorize all of “Under Ben Bulben” which we then recited down toward the churchyard from the top of Ben Bulben (which doesn’t really make sense, but it seemed to at the time.) the day we made the climb happened to be my birthday, and it sticks out as one of the coolest moments in my life.

atomom · October 4, 2007, 9:29am

Too long to post the whole thing, but here is the end of

Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

mathmom · October 4, 2007, 9:29am

The balloon poem made me think of this one:

James James Morrison Morrison

James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George DuPree
Took great care of his mother though he was only three
James James said to his mother:
“Mother,” he said, said he
“You must never go down to the end of the town,
if you don’t go down with me.
Don’t ever go down to the end of the town,
if you don’t go down with me.”

James James Morrison’s mother put on her golden gown
James James Morrison’s mother, she drove to the end of the town
James James Morrison’s mother
She said to herself, said she
“Well, I can get down to the end of the town
And be back in time for tea.
Well, I can get down to the end of the town
And be back in time for tea.”
King John put up a notice: "Lost, stolen or strayed,
James James Morrison’s mother,
She seems to have been mislaid
Wandering vaguely all about quite of her own accord
She tried to get down to the end of the town–
Forty shillings reward.
She tried to get down to the end of the town–
Forty shillings reward.

James James Morrison Morrison, commonly known as “Jim”
Said to his other relations not to go blaming him
For James James said to his mother
“Mother”, he said, said he
“Don’t ever go down to the end of the town,
If you don’t go down with me.
You must never go down to the end of the town,
If you don’t go down with me.”

Now James James Morrison’s mother,
She hasn’t been heard of since,
King John sent down to give his regrets,
And so did the queen and the prince,
King John, somebody told me,
Said to a man he knew,
“If people go down to the end of the town,
Well what can anyone do?
If people go down to the end of the town,
Well what can anyone do?”

from AA Milne

and from my grandfather Frederick Winsor’s A Space Child’s Mother Goose:

This is the theory that Jack built.

This is the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the constant K
that saved the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the erudite verbal haze
cloaking the constant K
that saved the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the turn of a plausible phrase
that thickened the erudite verbal haze
cloaking the constant K
that saved the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is chaotic confusion and bluff
that hung on the turn of a plausible phrase
that thickened the erudite verbal haze
cloaking the constant K
that saved the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the cybernetics and stuff
that calculates through the chaotic confusion and bluff
that hung on the turn of a plausible phrase
that thickened the erudite verbal haze
cloaking the constant K
that saved the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the button to start the computer
to run the cybernetics and stuff
that calculates through the chaotic confusion and bluff
that hung on the turn of a plausible phrase
that thickened the erudite verbal haze
cloaking the constant K
that saved the summary
based on the mummery
hiding the flaw
that lay in the theory that Jack built.

This is the young grad student who couldnt be cuter
who pushed the button and started the computer
and ran the cybernetics and stuff
and calculated through without the confusion
exposing the bluff that hung on the turn of the plausible phrase
and, shredding the erudite verbal haze
cloaking the constant K,
wrecked the summary
based on the mummery,
exposing the flaw.
And demolished the theory that Jack built.

Alumother · October 4, 2007, 9:32am

Paradise Lost - John Milton. My favorite part. Edited a little bit to bring some words to modern spellings.

Nevertheless he so endur’d, till on the Beach
Of that inflamed Sea, he stood and call’d
His Legions, Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades
High overarch’t imbowr; or scatterd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce Winds Orion arm’d
Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast, whose waves o’erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian Chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursu’d
The Sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating Carcases
And broken Chariot Wheels, so thick bestrown

Abject and lost lay these, covering the Flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call’d so loud, that all the hollow Deep
Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates,
Warriers, the Flowr of Heav’n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits; or have ye chos’n this place
After the toil of Battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav’n?

Basically, Satan saying get off your butts all you fallen angels. and all the hollow Deep of Hell resounded.

garland · October 4, 2007, 9:36am

Mathmom–I adore “James James…etc”. I can still hear my Mom’s voice reading that, and read it many times to my own kids.

garland · October 4, 2007, 9:37am

How about some Shakespeare:

Sonnet 116

“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 prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.”

The music of that is just beautiful.

garland · October 4, 2007, 9:41am

And one from Keats ( I had such a crush on him! :))

BRIGHT Star, would I were steadfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

(written shortly before his death at 25 from TB–as was the spooky poem of his JHS posted earlier.)

Alumother · October 4, 2007, 9:43am

My mother also recited James James Morrison Morrison to me as a child. I can also still hear her voice saying the words. Of course I am lucky and she is still alive and well so maybe I could call her and ask her to say it to me again. Haha. She would probably ask me if something was wrong:).

garland · October 4, 2007, 9:48am

Yes, Alum, I am also lucky to still have my Mom alive and well, but it has definitely been a while since she read poetry to me!

SBmom · October 4, 2007, 9:49am

atomom, you posted two of my very favorites!! I LOVE “tis not to late to seek a newer world.” Here are two for you:

Sudden Light
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

<pre><code> I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
</code></pre>

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

<pre><code> You have been mine before, -
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
</code></pre>

Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.

<pre><code> Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time’s eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death’s despite,
</code></pre>

And day and night yield one delight once more?

Robert Browning (1812-1889)
TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

<pre><code> I

I WONDER do you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

II

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

III

Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

IV

Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles,—blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope
I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air—
Rome’s ghost since her decease.

VI

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!

VII

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?

                              VIII

I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O’ the wound, since wound must be?

IX

I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs,—your part my part
In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul’s warmth,—I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak—
Then the good minute goes.

XI

Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?

XII

Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The old trick! Only I discern—
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
</code></pre>

Mudder_s_Mudder · October 4, 2007, 9:51am

Haha! Poetry, like youth, is wasted on the young!

Garland, I too have stood in that churchyard. For a Yeats fan, which I am, it is transcendant. How oddly ironic (which I have no doubt the master himself would wryly appreciate) that the bones interred there might not even be his.

Atomom, I have a wonderful CD, “Now And In Time To Be,” that I was lucky to get while it was still available. Most of the cuts are Yeats’ poems set to music by contemporary Irish artists like Van Morrison and The Cranberries. One of the selections is Yeats himself reciting “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” And for you, Garland, Richard Harris does “Under Ben Bulben.” Sublime.

SBmom · October 4, 2007, 9:53am

Alumother, one of my favorite classes at Brown was a whole semester on Paradise Lost-- with a crazy passionate professor who’d done her dissertation on it and brought it to life like you would not believe.

SBmom · October 4, 2007, 9:56am

“gold to aery thinness beat” is an incredible image

SBmom · October 4, 2007, 10:01am

Another beloved poem, so simple and so moving:

The Conjugation of the Paramecium by Muriel Rukeyser

This has nothing
to do with
propagating

The species
is continued
as so many are
(among the smaller creatures)
by fission

(and this species
is very small
next in order to
the amoeba, the beginning one)

The paramecium
achieves, then,
immortality
by dividing

But when
the paramecium
desires renewal
strength another joy
this is what
the paramecium does:

The paramecium
lies down beside
another paramecium

Slowly inexplicably
the exchange
takes place
in which
some bits
of the nucleus of each
are exchanged

for some bits
of the nucleus
of the other

This is called
the conjugation of the paramecium.

Mudder_s_Mudder · October 4, 2007, 10:35am

Ah, SBmom, don’t get me started on the metaphysical poets! I won’t be able to stop…

I’ve always liked this little song by the Beatles, which strikes me as a modern variation on the theme:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,oh
You were only waiting for this moment to arise, oh
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

I had an English lit prof in college who insisted no one under the age of 25 should be allowed to read “Paradise Lost” on the grounds that they simply hadn’t lived long enough to be able to understand it. :)

scansmom · October 4, 2007, 10:52am

“Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The old trick! Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.”

While glancing over the last few posts before reading them more closely, this verse JUMPED out at me! I thought for a moment that a CC’er had finally revolted against off-track “threads.” To my relief, that was not the case.

I do love Browning though. But then, it’s always been easier for my Aspergery brain to follow the “flow” of the more metered rhythmic patterns when making sense of the metaphor and symbolism hidden within the words. And only THEN could I move on to deciphering the deeper emotion or meaning. One of the reasons I have difficulties following modern verse. It DOES take a lot of energy to decipher truths that suddenly seem - not so universal?

Ironically perhaps, I tried my hand at writing a bit of poetry during my late teens/early adult years; technique was not so difficult (it’s easy to copy or develop rhythmic patterns) but I always struggled with those darn metaphors (I know 'em when I read 'em but could never get them to come out right). Here’s the beginning of one that I actually still remember (my “response” to John Donne. With perhaps a little influence from Simon & Garfunkel):

“No Way Out”

I am an island apart from all.
I am free. I don’t regret
this alienation behind a wall.
My mind is clear. I am happy. Yet
when I see others so unlike me
and it is said of them that they
are what we all should strive to be
I begin to wonder if I am okay.
I know I am. I’m sure they’re wrong.
Yet still there lingers one small doubt
as I feel myself carried along
the bridge that leads to no way out.

Of course, now I can see that I was not that “different” from any other teenager, after all! ;)

spoonyj · October 4, 2007, 11:17am

One of my favorite lines from Emily Dickinson:

“Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we need of hell”

Also, I’m so glad someone mentioned Merrill. Don’t have time to quote it now, but “Days of 1964” is a poem I go back to again and again; it’s one of the most beautiful love poems I’ve ever read.

SBmom · October 4, 2007, 11:39am

Here is a poem that is all about rhythm…

Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu - by Wallace Stevens

That would be waving and that would be crying,
Crying and shouting and meaning farewell,
Farewell in the eyes and farewell at the centre,
Just to stand still without moving a hand.

In a world without heaven to follow, the stops
Would be endings, more poignant than partings, profounder,
And that would be saying farewell, repeating farewell,
Just to be there and just to behold.

To be one’s singular self, to despise
The being that yielded so little, acquired
So little, too little to care, to turn
to the ever-jubilant weather, to sip

One’s cup and never to say a word,
Or to sleep or just to lie there still,
Just to be there, just to be beheld,
That would be bidding farewell, be bidding farewell.

One likes to practice the thing. They practice,
Enough, for heaven. Ever-jubilant,
What is there here but weather, what spirit
Have I except it comes from the sun?

Alumother · October 4, 2007, 12:43pm

If songs count:

Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen (covered by Jeff Buckley among others)

I’ve heard there was a secret chord
that David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, Do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor Fall, The major lift,
The baffled king composing, hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne
she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the halleujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby I’ve been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What’s real and going on below
but now you never show it to me, do you?
Well remember when I moved in you
the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsa_xWLOghg[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsa_xWLOghg</a>

Somehow music changes the too poignant of short poems into catharsis. For me.

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