Poems and Poets

[Sven]

I've been reading a lot of poetry lately. I'm curious to know, those of you who are interested in and/or know much about poems and poets:

What are some of your favorite poems?
" " " " " " poets?

Recently, I've been much taken by Herbert and Donne and Eliot and Browning. I really like those English masters of meter, apparently. Browning's Last Duchess is way awesome:

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
the curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess's cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of you. She had
A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace--all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men--good! but thanked
Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will
Quite clear to such a one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse
--E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
the company below, then. I repeat
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine dowry will be disallowed
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity,
Which claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

[Mara]

I like poetry fairly well. I'm not an expert.

The lesser-known poet I'm always trying to push is Wilfred Owen. Big fan. He died quite young in the trenches of WWI, and wrote mostly war poems, but they are amazing.

[Raiders]

A bit canonical, and likely due to my lack of exposure (I'm more of a prose man) but I've always been very much a Whitman guy.

...

http://www.poetry-archive.com/o_pic.gifN the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

[D_Davis]

I like Wendell Berry.



The Peace of the Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

[D_Davis]

And some of the stuff from Clark Ashton Smith

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/

[Adam]

Not too big on most poetry, but through my last couple years of high school, I did delve pretty far into a lot of the bigger names from the beat generation. A lot of it is oh so much silly and nonsensical wankery, but there are good ones, too. Allen Ginsberg was my favorite because his stuff always seemed relatively more urgent or purposeful and I dug that. Plus, he could be really funny. Actually, I'm using a gigantic paperback of collected Ginsberg poems right now as a mousepad

I don't know if I have one favorite Ginsberg work, because this book I've got has hundreds and hundreds of them tucked away. Here's one I like, though...

Night Gleam

Over and over thru the dull material world the call is made
over and over thru the dull material world I make the call
O English folk, in Sussex night, thru black beech tree branches
the full moon shone at three AM, I stood in underwear on the lawn -
I saw a mustached English man I loved, with athlete's breast and farmer's
arms,
I lay in bead that night many loves beating in my heart
sleepless hearing songs of generations electric returning intelligent memory
to my frame, and so went to dwell again in my heart
and worship the Lovers there, love's teachers, youths and poets who live
forever
in the secret heart, in the dark night, in the full moon, year after year
over & over thru the dull material world the call is made.

[monolith94]

About halfway through the 1st Canto of Don Juan by Lord Byron right now, and I'm enjoying it pretty well. It's very odd, as the tone veers from humorous to serious to satirical to achingly romantic all quite pell-mell. And the way he uses rhyme scheme and meter is funny, but sometimes can be almost aggravatingly rigid…

[Sven]

About halfway through the 1st Canto of Don Juan by Lord Byron right now, and I'm enjoying it pretty well. It's very odd, as the tone veers from humorous to serious to satirical to achingly romantic all quite pell-mell. And the way he uses rhyme scheme and meter is funny, but sometimes can be almost aggravatingly rigid…

I was going to pick this up soon. Thanks for the perspective.

[bac0n]

I tend to be most impressed with poets who can say powerful and profound things with common words. Among them, I consider poet Billy Collins to be without peer.

I also am a huge fan of Russell Edson, on account of his poems being so batshit crazy. I have a book of his poems here with me at work, which I crack open when I need a smile put on my face.

[Hugh_Grant]

Huge poetry fan here. I'll list some favorites when I have more time, but great idea for a thread.

[SpaceOddity]

I like poetry fairly well. I'm not an expert.

The lesser-known poet I'm always trying to push is Wilfred Owen. Big fan. He died quite young in the trenches of WWI, and wrote mostly war poems, but they are amazing.

Lesser known?!?! He's curriculum.

[Mara]

Lesser known?!?! He's curriculum.

Not anywhere I ever went. I was taught one poem of his once, Dulce et Decorum Est, in college, and went and bought a book of his poetry based on that.

[lovejuice]

I tend to be most impressed with poets who can say powerful and profound things with common words. Among them, I consider poet Billy Collins to be without peer.
he's my favorite too. it's kinda nice when you can quote one still alive poet. he did give a speech and read his poem at my high school. very inspiring.

[Hugh_Grant]

Many intro to lit courses include Owen on the syllabus, and "Dulce..." is in most anthologies. He's definitely one of my favorites. I also like Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry."

A sampling of my favorites:

"Root Cellar" -- Roethke
"Living in Sin" -- Rich
"Ballad of Birmingham" -- Randall
"Those Winter Sundays" -- Hayden
"To an Athlete Dying Young" -- A.E. Housman (He's probably my favorite.)
"Funeral Blues" -- Auden
"Ars Poetica" -- MacLeish
"Aubade" -- Larkin
"Traveling through the Dark" -- Stafford (tears me up every time)
"Mid-Term Break" -- Heaney
"Ex-Basketball Player" -- Updike (often paired with the Housman in anthologies)

[Duncan]

The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke is my favourite poetry collection, and maybe my favourite book.

Also love Arthur Rimbaud and Wallace Stevens.

David Berman (song writer of the now defunct Silver Jews) has a book of poetry called Actual Air that I think is pretty swell.

Really dig Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen, and Coleridge's later stuff.

[Melville]

I haven't read a lot of poetry, but my favorite poems are The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by E. Fitzgerald, The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll, and The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. I also really like some of Baudelaire's stuff. Some of Keats', too, but only when read by Ben Whishaw.

[Hugh_Grant]

The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke is my favourite poetry collection, and maybe my favourite book.

My senior thesis compared/contrasted several translations of Rilke's Duino Elegies.

[Milky Joe]

stein, gertrude

dickinson, emily

yeats, w.b.

williams, william carlos

RUMI

others already mentioned (whitman)

[monolith94]

I really like "Home Burial" by Frost.

[Duncan]

My senior thesis compared/contrasted several translations of Rilke's Duino Elegies.

Nice. I've read a couple translations in full, and various translations of a few of the elegies. Couldn't say which one I thought worked best though.

[Benny Profane]

Edward Snow or David Young?

Which is better?

[Mara]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Gerard Manley Hopkins, who is a bit of a favorite.

Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

***

This is the one I find myself most often quoting, though:

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

[Hugh_Grant]

Oh! Forgot Hopkins' "God's Grandeur."

[Dead & Messed Up]

Big fan of William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Robert Browning, Edgar Allan Poe. Clearly not an imaginative poetry reader, but maybe I can fix that.

I'm reading and enjoying the Dhammapada. It's by this pretty cool guy, I don't know if anyone's heard of him...

...the BUDDHA.

[SpaceOddity]

For you film folk...

Frank O'Hara - Ave Maria

Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies
get them out of the house so they won't
know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by
silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you
must
they won't hate you
they won't criticize you they won't know
they'll be in some glamorous
country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or
playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
and didn't upset the peaceful
home
they will know where candy bars come
from
and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before
it's over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment
is in the Heaven on
Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made
the little
tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick
them up in the movies
they won't know the difference
and if somebody does it'll be
sheer gravy
and they'll have been truly entertained
either way
instead of hanging around the yard
or up in their room hating you
prematurely since you won't have done
anything horribly mean
yet
except keeping them from life's darker joys
it's unforgivable the latter
so don't blame me if you won't take this
advice
and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in
front of a TV set
seeing
movies you wouldn't let them see when
they were young

[SpaceOddity]

Not anywhere I ever went. I was taught one poem of his once, Dulce et Decorum Est, in college, and went and bought a book of his poetry based on that.

Everyone studies his poems in the UK.

[Llopin]

Very classical choices, I see.

Where's E.E. Cummings? What about non-english poetry? My favourites are Artaud, Pessoa and Leopoldo MarÃ*a Panero.

[Sven]

Very classical choices, I see.

Where's E.E. Cummings? What about non-english poetry? My favourites are Artaud, Pessoa and Leopoldo MarÃ*a Panero.

I have a difficult time with translated poetry.

[Melville]

Very classical choices, I see.

Where's E.E. Cummings? What about non-english poetry? My favourites are Artaud, Pessoa and Leopoldo MarÃ*a Panero.
E.E. Cummings is great. Do you exclude translated poetry when you say non-English poetry? At least four non-English poets/poems in translation have been listed thus far. But I agree with Sven that reading translated poetry is iffy; in my experience, the best translations are usually by other poets who largely make the poems their own (e.g., E. Fitzgerald's Rubayyat and Dryden's Aeneid).

[Mara]

Everyone studies his poems in the UK.

Glad to hear it. I think he's great.

And I can't handle translated poetry on any level. I can barely read translated novels. (Well, let's be honest. I almost never do. It bothers me too much.)

As for e. e. cummings, I feel he's a bit overrated. I've tried reading a number of his poems, and they mostly felt gimmicky after a while. The only one of his I really like is Buffalo Bill's.

(I can't duplicate the spacing, forgive me.)


Buffalo Bill's

defunct

who used to

ride a watersmooth-silver

stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

Jesus



he was a handsome man

and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

In Just-- is his most famous poem, and it's... okay, I guess. I just don't get into it much.

But the poet that was taught regularly in my college courses that I just hated is Wallace Stevens. I just can't stand him. Not sure if I can explain why... he just seems... smug?

[Mara]

I should perhaps mention that I really like William Blake. I might actually say that I love Blake. I once drove three hours to see an exhibit of original Blake prints and it was an amazing experience. I love that crazy, crazy man.

Speaking of crazy, anyone familiar with Christopher Smart? I often see the portion of his epic poem Jubilate Agno dedicated to his cat anthologized, but I've never read the whole thing, and I've always sort of meant to seek it out.

The cat portion of the poem ("For I Will Consider My Cat, Jeoffrey") is very quotable. Spoilered for length.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. from Jubilate Agno
by CHRISTOPHER SMART

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbor.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defense is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord's poor, and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can sit up with gravity, which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick, which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Icneumon rat, very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

For the electrical fire is the spiritual substance which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

[Duncan]

But the poet that was taught regularly in my college courses that I just hated is Wallace Stevens. I just can't stand him. Not sure if I can explain why... he just seems... smug?

Crazy. Honestly, I wrote a 90,000 word novel that took this poem as its starting point and yet somehow amounted to less:

"Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself"

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

[Hugh_Grant]

I like Stevens, but my students have traditionally hated him.

Poetry in translation: Like I've mentioned, I've done research on poetry translation, and of all the fictional genres, poetry is the one that fares worst in translation. I have no problem reading translated prose or drama, but poetry is another matter. Because so much depends on connotation, sound, ambiguity, there is something lost between languages.

[Wryan]

I was trying to find a place in the Lit forum for our own writing (wasn't there a writer's thread? maybe it's further down), but then I saw this thread and figured why not. I like a few of the poets mentioned so far--several of whom I'd have to read more as I don't really know their work. Here's a simple thing I wrote.


"A Youth"

A youth of whim and vigor soars
Past open, cracked and russet doors.
A breath he takes to bawl at will,
He lunges at a hawk and still,
With all his cav'rnous breath he roars.

The puff of purple, black and blue
Sits high above him, wide but true.
The air will pop with heat and pain.
He knows he must go back again
But shall lament his anger, too.

The fire eye is fuming red,
And just above the heather's head.
It seems a giant on its side,
With mountain mouth and face to hide,
But one last peek afore to bed.

Now ere the youth returns and goes
To sleep amid the lightning woes,
He lays a flower underground.
The trees will keep it never found,
Defended under dark'ning rows.

[Sven]

Frost, whom I have always written off, is now on my Awesome List:

"Out, Out--"


The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behing the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

[Qrazy]

I quite like Wallace Stevens also.

[Marley]

I'm a Milton enthusiast. Although Keats and Donne would make the top of the list as well.

[D_Davis]

This has been the inspiration for the upcoming Carl Sagan's Ghost album, Especially for Them:

L'invitation au voyage

Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe Ã* la douceur
D'aller lÃ*-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer Ã* loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant Ã* travers leurs larmes.

LÃ*, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l'ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l'âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

LÃ*, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l'humeur est vagabonde;
C'est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu'ils viennent du bout du monde.
— Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D'hyacinthe et d'or;
Le monde s'endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

LÃ*, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

— Charles Baudelaire

Invitation to the Voyage

My child, my sister,
Think of the rapture
Of living together there!
Of loving at will,
Of loving till death,
In the land that is like you!
The misty sunlight
Of those cloudy skies
Has for my spirit the charms,
So mysterious,
Of your treacherous eyes,
Shining brightly through their tears.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

Gleaming furniture,
Polished by the years,
Will ornament our bedroom;
The rarest flowers
Mingling their fragrance
With the faint scent of amber,
The ornate ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The oriental splendor,
All would whisper there
Secretly to the soul
In its soft, native language.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

See on the canals
Those vessels sleeping.
Their mood is adventurous;
It's to satisfy
Your slightest desire
That they come from the ends of the earth.
— The setting suns
Adorn the fields,
The canals, the whole city,
With hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep
In a warm glow of light.

There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

[B-side]

Shame this thread is so rarely touched. Anywho, I've just discovered by way of my latest film viewing of Abuladze's The Plea a Georgian poet named Vazha Pshavela, whose work is speaking to me in an incredible way right now. Here's a relatively short work of his titled A Solitary Word:

I breathed a word that grief had wrought.
It winged its flight into the air,
Then pierced the haunts and souls of men,
And left its tears and laughter there.
It was a word flung from a heart
That knew but misery and tears, —
A word that knew its lowly birth
In throes of agony and fears.
Though nursed by suffering and trial,
It spread and flourished in its flight,
And wondering I beheld it glow,
Adorned in sparkling jewels bright.
And soon upon a throne of gold
It ruled in radiance and might, —
The hope and faith of sunless hearts,
The darkened bosom's torch of light.
I marvelled at that vision fair,
The offspring of my passion's fires;
Resistless was its beauty as
It filled men's souls with strange desires.
I wondered much, and smiled to see
How over souls of men it reigned,
How it had sprung from misery
That birth with tears of blood had stained —
A solitary word of woe,
Abused, objected and profaned.

[Kurosawa Fan]

A portion of "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám"



But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub
coucht
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come
and go.

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in-- Yes--
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but
what
Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be
less.

While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyám the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker
Draught
Draws up to Thee--take that, and do not
shrink.

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and
slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and
Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd Thee down into the
Field,
He knows about it all--He knows--
HE knows!

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help--for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

[Kurosawa Fan]

A poem I ran into from Bukowski:

"my doom smiles at me"

there’s no other way:
8 or ten poems a
night.
in the sink
behind me are dishes
that haven’t been
washed in 2
weeks.
the sheets need
changing
and the bed is
unmade.
half the lights are
burned-out here.
it gets darker
and darker
(I have replacement
bulbs but can’t get them
out of their cardboard
wrapper.) Despite my
dirty shorts in the
bathtub
and the rest of my dirty
laundry on the
bedroom floor,
they haven’t
come for me yet
with their badges and their rules and their
numb ears. oh, them
and their caprice!
like the fox
I run with the hunted and
if I’m not the happiest
man on earth I’m surely the
luckiest man
alive.