A thread of poems

[Dash]

I'm tired.

The nakedness of my recent display is clothed only by the shy flush of shame. Anybody got an extra pair of pants I could borrow?

No foe is more terrible than he who has been your friend, and the wounds of a friend go deep indeed.

A bit poetry now, as an elegy for my lost clothing and my lost friend:

When in the soul of the serene disciple... ~Thomas Merton

When in the soul of the serene disciple
With no more Fathers to imitate
Poverty is a success,
It is a small thing to say the roof is gone:
He has not even a house.

Stars, as well as friends,
Are angry with the noble ruin.
Saints depart in several directions.

Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.

Here you will find
Neither a proverb nor a memorandum.
There are no ways,
No methods to admire
Where poverty is no achievement.
His God lives in his emptiness like an affliction.

What choice remains?
Well, to be ordinary is not a choice:
It is the usual freedom
Of men without visions.


Please share some poems with me.
:flower::flower2: :flower: :flower2: :flower:

[Daniel]

My love, this evening when I spoke with you,
and in your fact and actions I could read
that arguments or words you would not heed,
my heart I longed to open to your view.
In this intention, Love my wishes knew
and, though they seemed impossible, achieved:
pouring in tears that sorrow had conceived,
with every beat my heart dissolved anew.
Enough of suffering, my love, enough:
let jealousy's vile tyranny be banned,
let no suspicious thought your calm corrupt
with foolish gloom by futile doubt enhanced,
for now, this afternoon, you saw and touched
my heart, dissolved and liquid in you hands.

From the First Villancio,
Written for the Nativity of our Lord, Pueblo, 1689

Seraphim, come,
come hither and ponder
a Rose that, when cut,
lives all the longer.

So far from wilting
it will be revived
when cruelly tortured,
be fructified
by its own sweet moisture:
And thus to cut it
renews the wonder.
Gardeners, come,
come here and ponder
a Rose that, when cut,
lives all the longer.

From the Fifth Villancio,
Saint's Day of Catherine of Alexandria, Oaxaca, 1691

Sor Juana de la Cruz is one of the greatest mystical writers in Spanish literature. To escape marriage, she entered a convent, and, from her cell, poured out a river of brilliant work of every kind and kept up a series of passionate relationships with aristocratic women, including several succeeding vicereines. From The Essential Gay Mystics by Andrew Harvey.

[Zerbie]

Sor Juana de la Cruz is one of the greatest mystical writers in Spanish literature. To escape marriage, she entered a convent, and, from her cell, poured out a river of brilliant work of every kind and kept up a series of passionate relationships with aristocratic women, including several succeeding vicereines. From The Essential Gay Mystics by Andrew Harvey.[/FONT]

Daniel: Have you seen "Yo la pejor de todas?" I loved that movie! (I was busy relating to the heroine the entire time. Love it!)

Here are two poems by Edna St Vincent Millay (another writer I identify with, she reminds me of myself in some ways:

Tavern

I'll keep a little tavern
below the high hill's crest,
wherein all grey-eyed people
may set them down and rest.

There shall be plates a-plenty,
and mugs to melt the chill
of all the grey-eyed people
who happen upon the hill.

There sound will sleep the traveller
and dream his journey's end,
But I will rouse at midnight
the falling fire to tend.

Aye, 'tis a curious fancy -
but all the good I know
was taught me out of two grey eyes
A long time ago.

*** My favorite stanza of Millay's ends this next poem:

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must and sleep I will -and would that night were here!
But ah! - to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! - with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through -
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, - and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, -
And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
There's this little street, and this little house.

***
Both poems are found in "Renascence and other poems." Dover. ISBN 0486-26873-x

[Jennifer5]

I love love the ones already posted! They're great!:love:

I love poems, but these are 2 that I happen to still have in my inbox...

_________________
Have you ever met a person
that fulfilled you deep inside,
someone who has never failed you,
no matter what, at your side?

Someone who gives from their heart,
who brings sunshine all around,
always smiling and laughing,
never seeming down.

Have you ever listened to the wind blowing
restlessly through the night,
and heard the angel's whispers
helping you to see, when you've lost sight?

Have you ever given to someone
when you didn't have it to spare,
and felt so worthy inside,
that you didn't care?

You see my friend,
heavenly creatures surround you,
so listen closely to what they say,
and they'll bring you all life's riches
as they guide you along your way.

_______________
A hug can express an obvious emotion,
or one you never knew...
It can say, "I love you,"
or "Please don't go,"
"I'm sorry," or "I miss you."
A true expression from the heart,
A hug can pick you up,
when you feel you have fallen apart.
To help each other through the days
we otherwise could not bear,
or to let someone know you care for them,
and will always be there...
That's why a hug is so easy to share.
______________
There the more usual, simple poems... but I like them.:love:

[Vanessa White]

I love what is here so far. I always felt like I just couldn't "get" poetry. Then, I recently found out about and started reading Anne Sexton. Like many great writers, gone by her own hand way too soon, too young. But, again, a long version of one that just struck me as all powerful:

The Touch by Anne Sexton

For months my hand had been sealed off
in a tin box. Nothing was there but subway railings.
Perhaps it is bruised, I thought,
and that is why they have locked it up.
But when I looked in it lay there quietly.
You could tell time by this, I thought,
like a clock, by its five knuckles
and the thin underground veins.
It lay there like an unconscious woman
fed by tubes she knew not of.

The hand collapsed,
a small wood pigeon
that had gone into seclusion.
I turned it over and the palm was old,
its lines traced like fine needlepoint
and stitched up into the fingers.
It was fat and soft and blind in places.
Nothing but vulnerable.

And all this is metaphor.
An ordinary hand- just lonely
for something to touch
that touches back.
The dog won't do it.
Her tails wags in the swamp for a frog.
I'm no better than a case of dog food.
She owns her own hunger.
My sisters won't do it.
They live in school except for buttons
and tears running down like lemonade.
My father won't do it.
He comes with the house and even at night
he lives in a machine made by my mother
and well oiled by his job, his job.

The trouble is
that I'd let my gestures freeze.
The trouble was not
in the kitchen or the tulips
but only in my head, my head.

Then all this became history.
Your hand found mine.
Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot.
Oh, my carpenter,
the fingers are rebuilt.
They dance with yours.
They dance in the attic and in Vienna.
My hand is alive all over America.
Not even death will stop it,
death shedding her blood.
Nothing will stop it, for this is the kingdom
and the kingdom come.

[Dash]

Oh you all are so wonderful!:love:

Daniel...the mysticism in Sor Juana's poetry is captivating. I'm even more intrigued, after reading the first of your offerings, to see that it was written for the Nativity...wow! So I must go back again and walk with this ancient sister to experience (if I can) her ecstasy. One of my last classes at Northwestern was "Spanish Song." It was my introduction to the particular beauties of Spanish poetry and thought as well. I sang a set of songs by the Argentinian composer Guastavino...settings of poems by Fransisco de Quevedo. I'd say it was my favorite set from my recital, but that wouldn't be true because I loved everything I sang. :sing:

Zerbie...I really need to get a book of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry. I have only come across a few of hers, but each has been so beautiful. Yet to this point I have never taken seriously the nudge inside to pick up one of her books. There's a new Barnes & Noble in Evanston....

Jennifer...I'm delighted that you are reading poetry! Very precocious of you! Like Vanessa, I never understood poetry..certainly not at your age. I was an excellent reader, and always got very good grades in literature in high school, but consistently took home "C's" for any assignment that dealt with poetry. Sigh.... And, your "simple" poems express truths so simple that every heart can relate.

Vanessa...I was just thinking about hands before I hauled myself out of bed this morning. What a wonderful metaphor in Sexton's little "biography of a hand." As I said, it took me awhile to "get" poetry, and coincidentally, there was a hand in the first poem that I really ever understood...that transformed me:

All Souls' Day

Place on the table the fragrant Mignonettes*,
Bring the last red Asters,
And let us again speak of love,
As once in May.

Give me your hand, that I may secretly hold it,
And if anyone sees, it's all the same to me,
Just give me one of your sweet glances,
As once in May.

Every grave blooms and breathes perfume today,
One day in the year, yes, the dead are free,
Come to my heart, that I may have you again,
As once in May.

As once in May...
_________________
*Reseda odorata--A Mediterranean woody annual widely cultivated for its dense terminal spikelike clusters greenish or yellowish white flowers having an intense spicy fragrance.

The above is translated from German. A poem by Hermann von Gilm--"Allerseelen." I know it from the famous song setting by Richard Strauss. I was accompanying a mezzo-soprano in 1994, and I couldn't play the piano part. So, I sat down one day (not then a singer at all) and translated the German. I fell in love with the words, and immediately was able to play the music! How does that work?? It was a mystery to me!

A couple years ago The Art Institute of Chicago had an exhibit of old dageurreotype photography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype). One of the tiny little portraits was of "Two men smiling...secretly holding hands." Oh! It was so beautiful to see such love recorded from the 1800's!

Last year, I had only the second real love relationship of my life...for one happy month of May...with a man whose Italian last name translates to "beautiful May." Sigh.... :flower2:

[Zerbie]

God Dash! This whole thing is so beautiful!

Yes, Allerseelen. It went, for me, from being just another sentimental German poem to having a whole aura about it, in a few short moments. I used to go to Austria every summer for a summer program, and then the founders died within about a year or two of each other. I never met the first. There was a memorial concert in her honor, and those who had known her sang songs, one of them was Allerseelen. Then the other founder passed away very suddenly only a year or so later, and I need to add this - if it had not been for her, I would have never met my husband - and again we were singing to her memory. Now, whenever I even *think* of Allerseelen, I am standing in the back of the Festsaal, standing-room only concert, holding my husband's hand and remembering our friend. :pray: :dove:

For Spanish mysticism, let me totally recommend the movie 'Yo la peor de todas', it's about Sor Juana. English" "I the worst of all." Gripping film.

Now Dash. That old picture sounds beautiful!!!! Wish I could see it.

Also, I find it difficult to believe that with all your passion, affection, and openness, some lucky person hasn't utterly snapped you up by now! I'm sure Life has some tremendous happiness in store for you and some incredibly lucky guy.

[Mia14]

My favorite poet is Stevie Smith (http://www.steviesmith.org/poems.html). Here's one she wrote that I drew a picture (http://eve14.deviantart.com) to accompany:

My Heart Was Full
My heart was full of softening showers,
I used to swing like this for hours,
I did not care for war or death,
I was glad to draw my breath.


I also like this one:

Not Waving but Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

[Daniel]

Zerbie- I just know of this mystic poet from Andrew Harvey's book, which, unfortunately- Dash- is my only contact with her and where you can find a bit more of her.

This morning, as I was making breakfast and John was getting read to go off and play the organ, we listened to the radio broadcast of the Unitarian church across town where the sermon was about Walt Whitman, who, I was surprised to learn, was not criticised for his homoerotic/brotherly love poetry until after his death. We forget that the word homosexual wasn't invented until the 1880's. Before then, well, it was a different world. He is credited with having some sort of religious/illuminating experience which resulted in a remarkable series of works. Of course, to my mind, this means he fell in Love.



TO A CERTAIN CANTATRICE

Here, take this gift,
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,
One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress
and freedom of the race,
Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;
But I see what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as any.


FOR HIM I SING

For him I sing,
I raise the present on the past,
(As some perenial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)
With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself by them the law unto himself.

[Vortex]

Seems Daniel already beat me to Whitman. He is one of my favorite Poets as well.

Excerpt from: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman


Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul)
Is it indeed toward you mate you sing? or is it really to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.

O you singers solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there aroused, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.

[Zerbie]

Okay Daniel go rent 'Yo la pejor de todas', cool film about Sor Juana. I saw it a few years ago in grad school at one of their film showings, came home to my dorm room where I cried and cried.

I love Millay who reminds me of myself. But my favorite poet is the genius Federico Garcia Lorca. I'm surprised no one has mentioned him yet on this thread.

Even though I don't speak Spanish, I prefer to read his poems in the original Spanish because I can hear them then as he heard them. He was a music lover (played piano, loved Debussy and the wandering gypsies) and his poems are innately musical and rhythmic. Especially you singer gentlemen, Daniel and Dash, if you aren't acquainted with the Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, you want to be. It's 4 poems long, must be read in Spanish even if like me you don't know the language! He wrote them mourning the death of his friend who was a bullfighter, who died from being gored in the ring. It's too long to include here, but the first poem in the Llanto musically repeats the cadence:

A las cinco de la tarde. Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde.
(because bull fights always began at 5 in the afternoon.)

I'll type here a translation of the 4th poem, my favorite of these, hopefully even reading it in English you will see why it stops my breath:

Alma Ausente/Absent Soul

Neither the bull nor the fig tree knows you,
neither horses nor the ants of your home.
Neither child nor afternoon knows you
because you have died for all time.

Neither the stone knows you,
nor the black satin where you crumble.
Not even your silent memory knows you
because you have died for all time.

The autumn will come with its conches,
misted grapes and clustered hills,
but no one will want to see your eyes
because you have died for all time.

Because you have died for all time,
like all the dead of this Earth,
like all the forgotten dead
in a pile of rotting dogs.

No one will know you. No. But I will sing you.
I will sing for posterity your profile and your grace.
The maturity of your understanding.
Your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.
The sadness in your valiant joy.

Much time will pass before there is born,
if there ever is born,
an Andalusian so luminous, so rich in adventure.
I sing his elegance with words that moan,
and recall a sad breeze through the olive trees.

[Dash]

Mmmmmm....such wonderful stuff here! Mia...I bike to work along lake Michigan every morning. It's been a cranky lake this week, and your poor drowning swimmer is on my mind. I also found an old story I wrote a long time ago about floating around alone in the water while an imbecile never let me on board his ship. Too long to share here, though.

I really need to check out Whitman. I think I tried to read him too early, and developed a silly aversion. I was really into Longfellow, Keats and Tennyson when I tried to read Whitman...my taste then did not yet embrace his freedom of form.

Zerbie, I have the collected poems of Garcia Lorca. I believe you are right, it's good to read him in the Spanish. It's exhausting for me, but oh...how lovely.

Here's some Tennyson...stanzas from In Memoriam, written over a period of three years for his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly.
________________
LV

....

I falter where I firmly trod
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
_________________
LX

He past a soul of nobler tone;
My spirit loved and loves him yet,
Like some poor girl whose heart is set
On one whose rank exceeds her own.

He mixing with his proper sphere,
She finds the baseness of her lot,
Half jealous of she knows not what,
And envying all that meet him there.

The little village looks forlorn;
She sighs amid her narrow days,
Moving about the household ways,
In that dark house where she was born.

The foolish neighbors come and go,
And tease her till the day draws by;
At night she weeps, 'How vain am I!
How should he love a thing so low?'
_________________
LXXIV

As sometimes in a dead man's face,
To those that watch it more and more,
A likeness, hardly seen before,
Comes out--to some one of his race;

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,
I see thee what thou art, and know
Thy likeness to the wise below,
Thy kindred with the great of old.

But there is more than I can see,
And what I see, I leave unsaid,
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made
His darkness beautiful with thee.
_____________

[tdogg]

Not too well known, but this is one I would like read at the ceremony of my death:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush
I am the switft, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave
and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.

--Joyce Fossen


This one is nice too:

In safety and in Bliss
May all creatures be of a blissful heart
Whatever breathing beings there may be
Frail or firm...long or big...short or small
Seen or unseen, swelling far or near
Existing or yet seeking to exist
May all creatures be of a blissful heart
--Sutta Nipata 143-52

[Dash]

I went to the bookstore this afternoon, and picked up some Rumi, Anne Sexton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a new bilingual book of Michelangelo's poetry. Hooray! Also Zerbie, I watched "I the Worst of All." It was wonderful!!! Wow!

Another of my favorites from my favorite...Thomas Merton..
___________
Night-Flowering Cactus

I know my time, which is obscure, silent and brief
For I am present without warning one night only.

When sun rises on the brass valleys I become serpent.

Though I show my true self only in the dark and to no man
(For I appear by day as serpent)
I belong neither to night nor day.

Sun and city never see my deep white bell
Or know my timeless moment of void:
There is no reply to my munificence.

When I come I lift my sudden Eucharist
Out of the earth's unfathomable joy
Clean and total I obey the world's body
I am intricate and whole, not art but wrought passion
Excellent deep pleasure of essential waters
Holiness of form and mineral mirth:

I am the extreme purity of viriginal thirst.

I neither show my truth nor conceal it
My innocence is descried dimly
Only by divine gift
As a white cavern without explanation.

He who sees my purity
Dares not speak of it.
When I open once for all my impeccable bell
No one questions my silence:
The all-knowing bird of night flies out of my mouth.

Have you seen it? Then though my mirth has quickly ended
You live forever in its echo:
You will never be the same again.

[Dash]

This is from a book of Native American poems: Earth Always Endures.
___________________

Prayer to the Goddess

Stenátliha, you are good, I pray for a long life.
I pray for your good looks,
I pray for good breath,
I pray for good speech.
I pray for feet like yours to carry me through a long life,
I pray for a life like yours.
I walk with people, ahead of me all is well;
I pray for people to smile as long as I live.
I pray to live long.
I pray, I say, for a long life to live with you where the good people are.
I live in poverty.
I wish the people there to speak of goodness and to talk to me.
I wish you to divide your good things with me, as a brother.
Ahead of me is goodness. Lead me on.
____________

Apache...translated by Edward S. Curtis

Stenátliha (Woman without Parents) is the chief goddess of the Apache.

[Daniel]

I called through your door,
"The mystics are gathering
in the street. Come out!"

"Leave me alone.
I'm sick."

"I don't care if you're dead!"
Jesus is here, and he wants
to resurrect somebody!"

Rumi- The Essential Rumi- Coleman Banks, p.201

[Mia14]

Phenomenal Woman


Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

by Maya Angelou

[Mia14]

This site (http://www.poemhunter.com)has lots and lots of the classic poetry available to read and search through.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the top 500 poems and also a list of popular poets.

[Daniel]

For Blossom

Birdsong brings relief
to my longing.

I am just as estatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!

Please, universal soul, practice
some song, or something, through me!



The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.



Let your throat song
be clear and strong enough

to make an emperor fall full-length,
suppliant, at the door.



I have phrases and whole pages memorized,
but nothing can be told of love.

You must wait until you and I
are living together.

In the conversation we'll have
then...be patient..then.

[Dash]

Oh, Mia! Maya Angelou...there's another poet that I've got to explore!

Daniel, such exquisite Rumi!

Let your throat song
be clear and strong enough

to make an emperor fall full-length,
suppliant, at the door.

"Suppliant"...there's the theme of another post I must soon post.
___________________

More Native American song, from the Chippewa, translated by Frances Densmore:

All my heart is lonely
All my heart is full of sorrow.
My lover, my lover is departed.

Dark the sky at evening,
Sad the bird notes in the dawning.
My lover, my lover is departed.

He was all my sunshine,
His the beauty and the gladness.
Return, return, gladness and joy.

[Daniel]

Mia- Maya is wonderful- have not read enough of her- must admit hardly any!

Dash- I adore Rumi. My copy of The Essential Rumi has a near broken back. Open the book anywhere and the gospel of love fairly jumps out at you.

The Mouse and the Camel

A mouse caught hold of a camel's rope
in his two forelegs and walked off with it,
imitating the camel drivers,
The camel went along,
Letting the mouse feel heroic.
"Enjoy youself,"
he thought, "I have something to teach you, presently."

They came to the edge of a great river.
The mouse was dumbfounded.
"Step forward into the river. You are my leader
Don't stop here."
I'm afraid of being drowned."

The camel walked into the water. "It's only
just above the knee."
"Your knee! Your knee
is a hundred times over my head!
"Well, maybe you shouldn't
be leading a camel. Stay with those like yourself.
A mouse has nothing really to say to a camel."
"Would you help me get across."
"Get up on my hump, I am made to take hundreds like you across."

You are not a prophet, but go humbly on the way of the prophets,
and you can arrive where they are. Don't try to steer the boat.
Don't open a shop by yourself. Listen. Keep silent.
You are not God's mouthpiece. Try to be an ear,
and if you do speak, ask for explanations.

The source of your arrogance and anger is your lust
and the rootedness of that is in your habits.

Someone who make a habit of eating clay
gets mad when you try to keep them from it.
Being a leader can also be a poisonous habit,
so that when someone questions your authority,
you think, "He's trying to take over."
You may respond courteously, but inside you rage.

Always check your inner state
with the lord of your heart.
Copper doesn't know it's copper,
until it's changed to gold.

Your loving doesn't know its majesty
until it know its helplessness.

These gifts from the Friend, a robe
of skin and veins, a teacher within,
wear them and become a school,
with a greater sheikh nearby.

[Daniel]

The Lame Goat

You've seen a heard of goats
going down into the water.

The lame and dreamy goat
brings up the rear.

There are worried faces about that one,
but now they're laughing,

because look, as they return,
the goat is leading!

There are many different kinds of knowing.
The lame goat's kind is a branch
that traces back to the roots of presence.

Learn from the lame goat,
and lead the herd home.

Rumi

[Zerbie]

I went to the bookstore this afternoon, and picked up some Rumi, Anne Sexton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a new bilingual book of Michelangelo's poetry. Hooray! Also Zerbie, I watched "I the Worst of All." It was wonderful!!! Wow!
n.

Oh - no WAY!! I watched it yesterday too!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Dash]

Oh - no WAY!! I watched it yesterday too!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Did you just hearthe X-Files theme, like me? :shifty: :eek:

Anyway...I loved those two women! The Vicereine was so sensual, and Juana was perfect. When she took off her veil and the Vicereine kissed her, I cried!!

Course, I know...I cry at the drop of a hat. Hahahh!!!

[marutidas]

"Death is before me today:
Like the recovery of a sick man,
Like going forth into a
garden after sickness.

Death is before me today:
Like the order of myrrh,
Like sitting under a sail
in a good wind.

Death is before me today:
Like the course of a stream,
Like the return of a man
from the war-gally to his house.

Death is before me today:
Like the home that a man longs to see,
after years spent as a captive."

I dont know the poet who wrote this,
I just thought I would share it.

I like it because it was describing the gift of Death, to release from pain after a long life or end the battle with an unending sickness.
Hope you like it.

[marutidas]

Willam Shakespeare's sonnets IX and X

IX. Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consum'st thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow, and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.
Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unus'd, the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murderous shame com-
mits.

X. For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident;
For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O! change thy thought, that I may change my
mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

I do so love the Bard, he is still the one greatest Poets, even after four centuries.
His works reflected the some of the deepest contimplations of Love, Politics and Religion that I have ever seen.

[Dash]

Ahh...Maritudas...yes, the Bard's sonnets are too wonderful for any real comment by me. I first encountered them in 1997...sitting on the farm on a rainy summer afternoon. It's almost impossible for me to read his sonnets and not write poetry of my own. They have a power about them that leaks into me.

But...no bard tonight...a little Longfellow instead:

Suspiria

Take them, O Death! and bear away
Whatever thou canst call thine own!
Thine image, stamped upon this clay,
Doth give thee that, but that alone!

Take them, O Grave! and let them lie
Folded upon thy narrow shleves,
As garments by the soul laid by,
And precious only to ourselves!

Take them, O great Eternity!
Our little life is but a gust
That bends the branches of thy tree,
And trails its blossoms in the dust!

(I always hear this sung in my mind to the tune of Liszt's concert etude known as "Un sospiro." One day, I shall set it to song that way.)
____________

Becalmed

Becalmed upon the sea of Thought,
Still unattained the land it sought,
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails,
Lies waiting the auspicious gales.

On either side, behind, before,
The ocean stretches like a floor,--
A level floor of amethyst,
Crowned by a golden dome of mist.

Blow, breath of inspiration, blow!
Shake and uplift this golden glow!
And fill the canvas of the mind
With wafts of thy celestial wind.

Blow, breath of song! until I feel
The straining sail, the lifting keel,
The life of the awakening sea,
Its motion and its mystery!

[Daniel]

The following is part of a much larger poem, offered here as a message in a bottle to one floating across these pages. The rest of it can be found in The Essential Gay Mystics.

I showed her Heights she never saw-
"Woulds't climb?" I said.
She said- "Not so"-
"With me- I said- "With me?"
I showed her Secrets- Morning's Nest-
The Rope the Nights were put across-
And now- "Would'st have me for a Guest?"
She could not find her Yes-
And then, I brake my life- and Lo,
A Light, for her, did solemn glow,
The larger, as her face withdrew-
And could she, further, "No"?

Not "Revelation" - 'tis - that waits,
But our unfurnished eyes-

[Daniel]

Intrada
by Thomas Traherne http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/traherne.htm

An empty book is like an infant's soul in which anything may be written,
It is capable of all things but containeth nothing.
I have a mind to fill this with profitable wonders,
and with those things which shall show my love.
Things strange yet common, most high yet plain;
infinitely profitable, but not esteemed;
Truths you love but know not.

[Daniel]

Proud Songsters
by Thomas Hardy

The thrushes sing as the sun is going,
And the finches whistle in ones and pairs,
And as it gets dark loud nightingales
In bushes
Pipe, as they can when April wears,
As if all Time were theirs.
These are brand-new birds of twelve-months’ growing,
Which a year ago, or less than twain,
No finches were, nor nightingales,
Nor thrushes,
But only particles of grain,
And earth, and air, and rain.

It is nearing that time when I became a member of this forum- a year ago. These short days make me reflect on how everything is temporal and life precious, not to be wasted in fractious words or actions.

[Daniel]

The musical setting by Gerald Finzi, in his song cycle, Earth and Air and Rain, is magical.

Channel Firing

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

"All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

"That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening ....

"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need)."

So down we lay again. "I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,"
Said one, "than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!"

And many a skeleton shook his head.
"Instead of preaching forty year,"
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer."

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

-- Thomas Hardy

[Dash]

I saw this on Salon.com this week...

By Brian Turner

"Sadiq"
It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.

It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.

The article at Salon.com was titled Where's the Outrage, by Gary Kamiya (http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/01/16/antiwar/index.html)

There is an excerpt from another poem there by Brian Turner, which I really wanted to share here, but truthfully...it is painful. For those who can bear it, it's a good and necessary read; but I don't recommend it to very sensitive souls.

It's a cold winter and all my thoughts of struggle as a gay person are forgotten in shame and helpess rage at this foolish war.

[Daniel]

The poem, by Matthew Arnold (1822-88), was set by the great American composer Samuel Barber in 1936 for baritone and string quartet. While not an ant-war poem per se, the imagery therein certainly evokes the frustration that one experiences in watching history repeat itself.

And there is interesting analysis of this work at:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/touche4.html


The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


Great piece at Salon Dash. Thanks. The last sentence, a zinger, is right-on.

Like a candle in a window on this dark winter night, may our hearts hold fast to the inner light of compassion.

[Daniel]

When the mind is at peace
the world is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.

[Daniel]

If you look for the truth outside yourself,
if gets farther and farther away.
Today, walking alone,
I meet him everywhere I step.
He is the same as me,
yet I am not him.
Only if you understand it in this way
will you merge with the way things are.

[Daniel]

We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless is His Godhead).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning,
Do my words seem blasphemous? - Then
open your hearts to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seems to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, ireparably
damaged, is is Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
we awaken as the Beloved
in every last part our our body.

[bryanf]

The following are some poems during the time when I was going through many hard things and was also trying to hold on to my faith. Granted in truth they may not be all that good. But hey anyhow here they go

-----------------------------------------------------------
Title: Shadowdancers

Waking up. Is this what it means?
Coming and learning I can not stay where I don't belong.
Realizing the images before me are manipulated light.
Running through the darkness.

Show me the shadows. I will not tremble.

Waking up from the mindless sleep.
Coming and knowing who we really are.
Here in the shadows. Safely shaded.
So much more than we are willing to admit.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Title: Deep Cleaning

Please don't be afraid, of the screaming silence in our mind.
The dawn is on its way. The night is nearly over.
The pain that is part of you. That pain that is part of me.
When darkness fades away, the dawn will break screaming silence.

Wash it all the way. Wishing it all the way.
Hoping for another day. Staring at tomorrow.
Crying all the way. Scratching all the way.I
know I can not bear it all alone. You are not alone.

We are screaming all the way. The nightmares will not fade away.
Merely forgotten. Rejecting what is to unpleasant and to shameful.
Rejecting our memories. Please don't be afraid as the darkness fades.
The dawn will silence the screaming in our mind. Silently screaming.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Title: Marionettes

Where every body knows your name
Where nobody knows who you are
Where every body plays the game
Where your just another name

Standing there at the altar
Everybody knows your name
Trying to play their game
Where your just another name

Which mask will you wear today
To you its just another day
Where nobody knows your game
Which mask will you wear today

Will you live your life today
Where nobody knows your name
Where every body knows who you are
Where nobody plays the game

-----------------------------------------------------------
Title: Nigh

Do you still remember me
Has it been so long
Cold and torn, risen from the grave
I am not the same

My sins try to swallow me
Has it been so long
Pride and Arrogance, let me go.
I am not the same

Do I still remember you
Has it been so long
Cold and torn, risen from the grave
You are not the same

Your holiness consumes me
Has it been so long
Truth and love, hold me tight
I am not the same

Do they still remember me
Has it been so long
Cold and torn, risen from the grave
I am not the same

-----------------------------------------------------------
Title: Winter's Midnight

Self-Justified. Personally Redeemed. Self-Proclaiming. Methods and mechanics of keeping oneself imprisoned. Truth seems to be lost. Captivated and fascinated with words and claims that say I may never know. Comforting poison. Drinking from a fountain of lies. Laying cold in a shallow grave. Wholly depraved. Wholly lost. Secretly hoping for redemption. Secretly hoping for damnation. Clawing and digging for hope. Hope in something other than myself. Hope for something that may be found in within. Victim mentality. Messianic confusion. Super-hero complex. Merely delusional.

[Daniel]

bryanf- Good Stuff. Deep Stuff. Man-o-Man Have I Been There Nodding Of the Head Stuff.

'Deep Cleaning' - especially- brought this poem to mind- another poem about the dark night of the soul and the change that comes with Light. The tone of this one is kinda like the splash of cold water on one's face. Bracing.


Forget your life. Say God is great. Get up.
You think you know what time it is. It's time to pray.
You've carved so many little figurines, too many.
don't knock on any random door like a beggar.
Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where
you go on the street, the street
where everyone says, "How are you?"
and no one says How aren't you?

Tomorrow you'll see what you've broken and torn tonight,
thrashing in the dark, Inside you
there's an artist you don't know about.
He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you're causing terrible damage.
If you've opened your loving to God's love,
you're helping people you don't know
and have never seen.

Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,
if you know, if you've known it
from the beginning of the universe.

[bryanf]

Thanks man for the compliments

[bryanf]

Listen
I will still stand here
As long as you need me
Listen
I am a breath away

Its a promise to live with
From the shores to the mountains
A promise to be with
From the north to the south

Listen
For when they wane
And the night remains
Listen
I am a breath away

Someday, the stars will fall
And upon their soils we shall lay
Then a promise we will have, one day
From the east to the west

Listen
As the morning gazes
Upon the misty rain
I'll be a breath away

Listen
I'll be a breath away
a breath away

[bryanf]

You must be an angel
With that smile on your face
You must be an angel
'cause I am falling in love with you

Unconditional. Is my love for you.

There are days when I look above
And I feel you all around me.
It won't matter what your friends say about me
'cause it's not going to matter what they think
for my love is going to show you that our love is true.

Unconditional is my love for you.

You must be an angel
With that smile on your face
You must be an angel
'cause I am falling in love with you

I will be your good ole fashion lover boy
Even under pressure
I will show you some good ole fashion love
'cause I am in love with you

Unconditional is my love for you.
Ever under pressure, I am in love with you

There are days when I look above
And I feel you all around me
There are days when I look above
And I know we will break these chains
'cause it's not going to matter what they think of us
its not going to matter what they think of us
for our love is going to show'em that its true

Even under pressure, I am in love with you
Unconditionally true is my love for you

[bryanf]

I wonder where you are
are you somewhere feeling lonely
are you somewhere I can love you

I remember when you couldn't wait to see me
Now you hardly talk to me
I remember when you couldn't wait to love me
Now your flowers stay so dry

I wonder where you are
are you somewhere singing love songs
are you somewhere finding love

I remember when you whispered so softly
Now you hardly talk to me
I remember when it was so so simple
Now your memories haunt me

I love you. This I am sure.
Even if there is another you think of
So how can I tell you that I love you
When I have so much to say

I remember when you were lost on the way
Now your stays seem so far away
I remember when you would hide with me
Now I wish you were close to me

I am bound to wander down these streets
Baby I don't want to accept it
that there is no place we can go to
Baby let me hold you
I remember when you were mine
Now all I want to do is hold you

I wonder where you are
are you somewhere feeling lonely
are you somewhere I can love you

[bryanf]

Anyhow those 3 songs / poems I wrote a while back; now the humorous thing is i heard and inspired by a song back in 2004 when I wrote these pieces. Now the humorous thing is that I have actually now befriended the guy who wrote the song that inspired me. Funny how the world seems so small sometime.

[tpdncr4christ]

I need a story.
This void,
this darkness
is consuming me.

My life was once grandiose
and flourished
with majestic magnificence,
now I am alone,
stripped my story.

Only fragments remain,
small parcels of my life.
Memories exist in this place,
but they fade.

My life
becomes footprints
in the snow,
once deep
and defined,
but with the passing of time
shallow and diminished.

I need a story…
The urgency pulses through this nothingness,
shattering my soft memories with this harsh reality.

I need a story.

Without a story
I will dissolve into this abyss,
and cease to be.

I had a story.

I was once a great…

I was once a great…
I can no longer remember my sex.
I don't know if I was male or female…

I cannot remember my…
the word escapes me…

So this is death?
I had a story.
My story had
thoughts,
dreams,
reality.

Now I am here.
A dark senseless void
full of nothingness.

It isn't hell,
because it isn't
anything.

I need a story!

I feel the pain
as each moment
of my life is
pulled slowly
away from me;
it hurts just to hold on.

I must hold on.

Hold on for another story.
I had a story.
But my story has ended.
This is the end.
I need a story.

Or do we get only one story?
Are we left only with our fragments
till they are stripped away?

If I had known,
if I had only known
I'd get one story…
I would have lived my life.

I would have lived.
Now I am here,
at the end,
and I haven't a story.

I need a story.

I need a …

I can not…
The words are not there.
I am evaporating,
dissolving,
melting
into the darkness.

I cannot feel.
I cannot hear,
nor see,
nor taste
nor smell…
I am cut off from my …

I cannot know the word.
I cannot think the thought.

I need a …

I don't remember the word.
This is the end.
Waiting for the nothing to consume me.
Waiting for the end of my…

I had a …

This is the end.

I need a …

I need …

I …

…

[u-dog]

a person I am close to is suffering with Altzheimers disease. That poem could be as accurate and chilling a description of that horror as I have ever heard. Stripping away her story... unable to find her words... no longer knowing where she fits. its lonely and terrifying. Thanks Austin. I am going to send your poem to her daughter. though it will not comfort her, It may well give her a way to think about her mother's journey.

dave

[ctozrn]

I love Emily Dickinson. This is one of my favorites. It helps me now when I am going through hard times. We also use it with families in hospice, where I work.

Everyone needs hope.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops-at all-

And sweetest- in the gale- is heard-
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land-
And on the strangest Sea-
Yet, never in Extremity,
It asked a crumb-of, me.

[Alecto]

From one of my favorites:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-Auden


No matter how many times I read it, the third stanza always breaks my heart.

[Dash]

(I'm so far behind...:lol: )

In celebration of this half-way landmark (thanks Emproph for noticing), I present another ditty that I did a few years ago when I still did ditties like this...

I was a child
and you, my father took my upraised hands
lifting me above the waves
that rolled in from the gulf of Mexico

I laughed to dive at your feet
grasping handfuls of treasure shells
and sand that poured between my fingers

I am a child.
O my father! take my upraised hands
and lift me above the waves
that roll in from the great gulf!

Still laughing, I dive at your feet
grasping handfuls of treasure
and still the sand pours out between my fingers.

[Zerbie]

That's beautiful, Dash!

Happy 500. :D

[Daniel]

I HAVE SUCH A TEACHER

Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of poverty,
having nothing and wanting nothing.

I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,
clothed in red silk.
I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,
billions of simultaneous motions
moving in me.

A circle of lovely, quiet people
becomes the ring on my finger.

Then the wind and thunder of rain on the way.
I have such a teacher.

Rumi

[Emproph]

I think I have something in my eye... :'(

[Dash]

I've done a lot of study for that Hate Crimes legislation thread...and, well, some stories hit me every time I read them. I could have put this over in that thread, but I thought it would be a cold home.

A lovely Shepard hangs on a tree;
Sweet fruit dripping such sweetness
From bound wrists, and head, and eyes
Into the silenced earth.

After awhile he is taken down,
And the ragged, ruined tree is pulled;
The blame of eighteen hours
Has cracked its cross-laid branches.

In future years will grow the orphaned
Sapling of those fallen seeds
Whose lonely, yearly blooms will breathe
His young sweetness into Wyoming.

And yearly I will come with my
Migrant brothers… my poor sisters…
To fill our baskets with the sweet fruit
Of Matthew’s memory and his sorrow.

[Zerbie]

Oh Dash! :'( :love: :dove:


***
Have you thought of submitting that? A larger audience would certainly appreciate that, especially in light of the current furor over hate crimes.

[Dash]

Oh Dash! :'( :love: :dove:


***
Have you thought of submitting that? A larger audience would certainly appreciate that, especially in light of the current furor over hate crimes.

Nah...I'm still blowing my own nose. Haven't tried to write anything in forever...years really, but I read the wikipedia article and...

[dsdrane]

:'(

We should fear no evil: for Matthew is with us.