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5116. justears - 12/20/2003 9:05:20 AM I've always liked this poem by Emily Dickinson and use it as a reference when I think about pseudo-justifications for war.
SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host 5
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear 10
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.
5117. RickNelson - 12/20/2003 9:43:54 AM Good to read a post justears.
I've been reading various poems this week.
A few I ponder
and here I wonder
if n'er blue
then what hue?
Robert Frost:
A LATE WALK-
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
5118. NuPlanetOne - 1/1/2004 6:06:24 AM Resolution: New Levis and a Carton of Marlboros
New Year’s day two thousand four
Has arrived on time at least I’m sure
Today’s Thursday. I had some dreams
On Wednesday it seems and I swore
To the Gods and the Devil once more
I will change. Set goals. Beat the odds
Re-arrange my priorities. Complete and get
Some direction. But now it is three and
I can already see that resolutions made
Are like jeans that fade with washing
And look better with time. Easy to wear
Put on year after year until it is clear
You need new ones. Desires are the same
Some wishes fit well and no one can tell
You’ve had them before. My dreams
Have faded, torn and frazzled. But they
Fit! A hole at the knee. Busted zipper
Yet they keep me going. Keep me dazzled
Tried and trusted. As if a new sudden hope
Could alter me in an instant. Nope!
I like the old ones. So my new wishes
And dreams will just be different looking
Schemes. Unfaded. And as the years go by
With the washing and the wearing, like my
Jeans, these promises will fit. And no one
Will notice come Sunday, I really didn’t quit
Smoking.
5119. arkymalarky - 1/1/2004 6:29:43 AM Hey, a Nu Year's poem! It must be a harbinger of a great 2004! 5120. wonkers2 - 1/1/2004 9:07:31 AM Justears, why don't you post some of your own poems? 5121. justears - 1/2/2004 11:09:58 AM OK Wonkers, Thanks for asking. Here's a short one:
High View
Stone other self, you watch on high view,
Solemn, indifferent, adamantine
While I alternately rage and whine,
Search rubble and slime
For any clue. 5122. wonkers2 - 1/2/2004 1:35:11 PM Not bad! I think I understand what you're saying and have similar feelings from time to time. 5123. ScreamingSin - 1/2/2004 2:59:41 PM Happy New Year, Motie Poties. I like this one lotsa
ONE IS ONE by Marie Ponsot
Heart, you bully, you punk, I'm wrecked, I'm shocked
stiff. You? you still try to rule the world - though
I've got you: identified, starving, locked
in a cage you will not leave alive, no
matter how you hate it, pound its walls
& thrill its corridors with messages.
Brute. Spy. I trusted you. Now you reel & brawl
in your cell but I'm deaf to your rages,
your greed to go solo, your eloquent
threats of worse things you (knowing me) could do.
You scare me, bragging you're a double agent
since jailers are prisoners' prisoners too.
Think! Reform! Make us one. Join the rest of us,
and joy may come, and make its test of us. 5124. angel-five - 1/2/2004 3:23:16 PM the heavens are in autumn,
and spring will never come again
as ours does writhing up from snow
awakening the death of trees
within the blooming kernel seed,
all that comes once comes again
except in heaven
where the center can no longer hold
and summer's fire no longer burns the blood
and thrills the mind. Such things burn down
to coals, cinders that in their heart
remember when they were growing green.
They know their season's call,
at last to sleep, but not to dream.
The City on the Hill comes bleak,
our best intentions brick on brick
unfinished jagged against the sky,
the high water mark of our rising
receding back to lap within the well
with quiet voices answering each turn,
not loud, barely discerned.
Our prayers blow down the streets
like drifting leaves long turning brown,
scentless but for air, mounding
at the gates of town. Leave a candle
to burn before you go, these places
deserve better than to fall away
into their own unmade dreams.
Heaven's in the autumn, child,
and with winter comes the end. 5125. ScreamingSin - 1/2/2004 3:31:11 PM to sleep, but not to dream
hmmm 5127. ScreamingSin - 1/2/2004 4:27:20 PM - 5128. arkymalarky - 1/3/2004 1:26:25 AM Wonderful revival of the Poetry thread! PLEASE keep it up! 5129. justears - 1/3/2004 6:04:25 AM A recent effort:
I hadn’t realized just how much I hated it,
That monstrous Bavarian Tower
Easily a fascist’s last redoubt,
Across the valley on top of the line of hills
Which separate us from Twain and Steven’s city,
Heublein erected his erection signifying
His passion for his wife,
A magnate’s hubris:
Why not interrupt the horizon
To declare my love?
Until one day,
Gazing across our feminist fields
On a snowy day,
It disappeared in the gray mist and white snow.
5130. wonkers2 - 1/3/2004 6:05:30 AM Very nice! 5131. justears - 1/3/2004 6:37:34 AM Thanks Wonk....perhaps it is a bit dependent on having seen the edifice described. 5132. wonkers2 - 1/3/2004 12:26:49 PM I think I got the idea--not one of your favorite pieces of architecture. 5133. RickNelson - 1/5/2004 11:27:54 AM NuplanetOne,
I like the way arky greeted your poem. I have just recovered, as of today, from 7 days of mild flu symptoms. Right through the new year. I missed all reverie.
Today, reading hear is like a reverie for me. Yours is another of the life shown poems. Relating with symmetrical compostion a nuance of thought. I sought a bit of poetic philosophy, but I gathered none was meant. A relay of thought and consideration does show a lively, though not fervent resolution.
Good luck, if you're trying to quit. 5134. RickNelson - 1/5/2004 11:30:16 AM justears,
High View recalls many an adventure of mine.
'nuf said, for me.
and your 'recent effort' is very good. I concur with Wonkers2. 5135. RickNelson - 1/5/2004 12:02:51 PM Dear angel-five
There may be a few newbies unaware of your history. I write this to temp anyone to browse your work.
This latest, (or is it new?) is grabbing my attention. I've read it three times so far. It fits my current inclinations at present, which are to study forms of metaphysical poetry. I'm looking at the discerning of nuance via the given elements and criterion that develop the choice of thought. This is largely a concept of time, but environment is a part I'm fascinated by. I read of seas, valleys, mountains, cities and towns; Death and life, marriage and birth, etc... towards understanding what the author strove as feeling, meaning, rhetoric and poetic style.
I hope others reading this do not consider this and leave their thoughts hanging without a post.
Furthering poetic fluidity is very important to me right now. I'm discovering the nature of metaphysical, philosophical and natural feelings, which relate to expression and style within a poem. There is a vaste range of time-line to encounter, from Ancient, Dante, Rumi, Donne, Keats, and my ever goading Eliot. The range moves on to ee cummings and W.C.W., M. Moore, Marjoribanks grandfather, Komunyakaa and Pinsky. The last a matter of sound study.
I could post poem after poem.
Happy New Year to all.
5136. Macnas - 1/5/2004 4:18:20 PM Happy New Year Rick, hope you clobber that flu and are fighting fit for the year to come.
Prelude
Still south I went and west and south again,
Through Wicklow from the morning till the night,
And far from cities, and the sights of men,
Lived with the sunshine, and the moon's delight.
I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds,
The grey and wintry sides of many glens,
And did but half remember human words,
In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.
J.M.SYNGE
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