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Jan. 13th, 2006 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilanaI've actually been enjoying my New Year's habit of reading a poem every morning, but I'm heading off to Arisia today and it seemed silly to bring my whole poem-a-day book just for two pages. I don't want to go looking for poems online, because I don't want to read them ahead of time. So, if you've got a poem you like, post it here -- I figure I can print this out with reading it and bring it along to read this weekend. Thanks!
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 04:07 pm (UTC)When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
William Shakespeare
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 04:09 pm (UTC)ELETELEPHONY
once there was an elephant
who tried to use a telephant;
no no, I mean an elephone
who tried to use a telephone.
(Dear me I am not certain quite
that even now i've got it right)
how e'r it was he got his trunk
entangled in the telephunk
the more he tried to get it free,
the louder buzzed the telephee.
(i fear i'd better quit this song
of elehop and telephong.)
And another one
Date: 2006-01-13 04:20 pm (UTC)I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Langston Hughes
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
(I love the cadence of this one. Yum.)
Re: And another one
Date: 2006-01-17 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 04:21 pm (UTC)My peach party dress
Date: 2006-01-13 04:25 pm (UTC)Dunno if you're a Tori fan as well, but my tutorial partner at Oxford swears that "Precious Things" is a nod to "Love Song." Something between the "no one dared" and the aforementioned party dress.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 04:34 pm (UTC)Ooh, I like this game.
Date: 2006-01-13 04:22 pm (UTC)When I was a young man and very well thought of,
I couldn't ask aught that the ladies denied.
I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins
And never spoke love but I knew that I lied.
But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them know
The secret I shelter and savor and save.
I wait for the one who will see through my seeming;
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave."
The years drifted by me like clouds in the heavens;
The ladies flew by me like snow on the wind.
I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled,
And I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned.
But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them see
There's a part of me's pure as the whisk of a wave.
My lady is late, but she'll find I've been faithful;
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave."
At last came a lady both knowing and tender,
Saying, "You're not at all what they take you to be."
I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking
And she swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea.
And I say to myself, when there's time for a word,
As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved,
"Love may be strong; but a habit is stronger
And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved."
Peter Beagle, from The Last Unicorn
[By the way, Gilly--I'm still a little out of it from last night, and I definitely read your entry as my New Year's habit of reading porn every morning... *sigh* I'm not well.]
Re: Ooh, I like this game.
Date: 2006-01-17 12:26 am (UTC)The art of losing isn't hard to master
Date: 2006-01-13 04:43 pm (UTC)One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
-- Elizabeth Bishop
I have a book that you might enjoy. It's adult poems for kids, illustrated with works from the Met. Let me know if you'd like to borrow it someday.
Casabianca
Date: 2006-01-14 12:51 am (UTC)Casabianca
Love's the boy stood on the burning deck, trying to recite
"The boy stood on the burning deck."
Love's the son stood, stammering elocution
While the poorer ship, in flames, went down.
Love's the obstinate boy, the boat
Even the swimming sailors who
Would like a schoolroom platform, too,
Or an excuse to stay on deck and
Love's the burning boy.
Re: The art of losing isn't hard to master
Date: 2006-01-17 12:27 am (UTC)we will not live to settle for less
Date: 2006-01-13 04:54 pm (UTC)Adrienne Riche
(Leader of a woman's climbing team, all of whom died in a storm on
Lenin Peak, August 1974. Later, Shatayev's husband found and buried
the bodies.)
The cold felt cold until our blood
grew colder then the wind
died down and we slept
If in this sleep I speak
it's with a voice no longer personal
(I want to say *with voices*)
When the wind tore our breath from us at last
we had no need of words
For months for years each one of us
had felt her own *yes* growing in her
slowly forming as she stood at windows waited
for trains mended her rucksack combed her hair
What we were to learn was simply what we had
up here as out of all words that *yes* gathered
its forces fused itself and only just in time
to meet a *No* of no degrees
the black hole sucking the world in
I feel you climbing toward me
your cleated bootsoles leaving their geometric bite
colossally embossed on microscopic crystals
as when I trailed you in the Caucasus
Now I am further
ahead than either of us dreamed anyone would be
I have become
the white snow packed like asphalt by the wind
the women I love lightly flung against the mountain
that blue sky
our frozen eyes unribboned through the storm
we could have stitched that blueness together like a quilt
You come (I know this) with your love your loss
strapped to your body with your tape-recorder camera
ice-pick against advisement
to give us burial in the snow and in your mind
While my body lies out here
flashing like a prism into your eyes
how could you sleep You climbed here for yourself
we climbed for ourselves
When you have buried us told your story
Ours does not end we stream
into the unfinished the unbegun
the possible
Every cell's core of heat pulsed out of us
into the thin air of the universe
the armature of rock beneath these snows
this mountain which has taken the imprint of our minds
through changes elemental and minute
as those we underwent
to bring each other here
choosing ourselves each other and this life
whose every breath and grasp and further foothold
is somewhere still enacted and continuing
In the diary I wrote: *Now we are ready
and each of us knows it I have never loved
like this I have never seen
my own forces so taken up and shared
and given back
After the long training the early sieges
we are moving almost effortlessly in our love*
In the diary as the wind began to tear
at the tents over us I wrote:
*We know now we have always been in danger
down in our separateness
and now up here together but till now
we had not touched our strength*
In the diary torn from my fingers I had written:
*What does love mean
what does it mean "to survive"
A cable of blue fire ropes our bodies
burning together in the snow We will not live
to settle for less We have dreamed of this
all of our lives*
(1974)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 05:01 pm (UTC)You ask how many friends I have? Water and stone, bamboo and pine.
The moon rising over the eastern hill is a joyful comrade.
Besides these five companions, what other pleasure should I ask?
by Yun Seondo (1587-1671)
I will break the back of this long, midwinter night,
Folding it double, cold beneath my spring quilt,
That I may draw out the night, should my love return.
by Hwang Jin-i (1522-1565)
Pablo Neruda: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada
Date: 2006-01-13 05:38 pm (UTC)Cuerpo de mujer, blancas colinas, muslos blancos,
te pareces al mundo en tu actitud de entrega.
Mi cuerpo de labriego salvaje te socava
y hace saltar el hijo del fondo de la tierra.
Fui solo como un túnel. De mí huían los pájaros,
y en mí la noche entraba su invasión poderosa.
Para sobrevivirme te forjé como un arma,
como una flecha en mi arco, como una piedra en mi honda.
Pero cae la hora de la venganza, y te amo.
Cuerpo de piel, de musgo, de leche ávida y firma.
Ah los vasos del pecho! Ah los ojos de ausencia!
Ah las rosas del pubis! Ah tu voz lenta y triste!
Cuerpo de mujer mía, persistiré en tu gracia.
Mi sed, mi ansia sin límite, mi camino indeciso!
Oscuros cauces donde la sed eterna sigue,
y la fatiga sigue, y el dolor infinito.
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: transl. by W. S. Merwin
Date: 2006-01-13 05:46 pm (UTC)Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant' body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!
Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
Re: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: transl. by W. S. Merwin
Date: 2006-01-17 12:32 am (UTC)Re: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: transl. by W. S. Merwin
Date: 2006-01-17 05:00 am (UTC)I love Neruda. If you'd like to read more, I could lend you something. I have three collections of his poems.
Re: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: transl. by W. S. Merwin
Date: 2006-01-17 12:51 pm (UTC)Pablo Neruda: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada
Date: 2006-01-13 05:59 pm (UTC)Aquí te amo.
En los oscuros pinos se desenreda el viento.
Fosforece la luna sobre las aguas errantes.
Andan días iguales persiguiéndose.
Se desciñe la niebla en danzantes figuras.
Una gaviota de plata se descuelga del ocaso.
A veces una vela. Atlas, atlas, estrellas.
O la cruz negra de un barco.
Solo.
A veces amanezco, y hasta mi alma está húmeda.
Suena, resuena el mar lejano.
Éste es un puerto.
Aquí te amo.
Aquí te amo y en vano te oculta el horizonte.
Te estoy amando aún entre estas frías cosas.
A veces van mis besos en esos barcos graves,
que corren por el mar hacia donde no llegan.
Ya me veo olvidado como estas viejas anclas.
Son más triste los muelles cuando atraca la tarde.
Se fatiga mi vida inútilmente hambrienta.
Amo lo que no tengo. Estás tú tan distante.
Mi hastío forcejea con los lentos crepúsculos.
Pero la noche llega y comienza a cantarme.
La luna hace girar su rodaje de sueño.
Me miran con tus ojos las estrellas más grandes.
Y como yo te amo, los pinos en el viento,
quieren cantar tu nombre con sus hojas de alambre.
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: transl. by W. S. Merwin
Date: 2006-01-13 06:09 pm (UTC)Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.
The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.
Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.
Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.
The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 09:26 pm (UTC)Who most people thought was a bit silly.
She asked in her journal,
for poems eternal,
Now she's reading away tranquilly.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 09:58 pm (UTC)Some primal termite knocked on wood.
And tasted it. And found it good.
And that is why your cousin May
Fell through the parlour floor today.
--Ogden Nash
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 12:52 pm (UTC)this one really *begs* to be read aloud by someone with a rich, rolling voice
Date: 2006-01-14 01:08 am (UTC)Gerard Manly Hopkins
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Re: this one really *begs* to be read aloud by someone with a rich, rolling voice
Date: 2006-01-17 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 07:37 pm (UTC)Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they tiny heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet!