November
by Sarah Coolidge
Dry leaves upon the wall,
Which flap like rustling wings and seek escape,
A single frosted cluster on the grape
Still hangs--and that is all.
November
by Sarah Coolidge
Dry leaves upon the wall,
Which flap like rustling wings and seek escape,
A single frosted cluster on the grape
Still hangs--and that is all.





My recent Fav.
Mars as Bright as Venus
John Updike
O brown star burning in the east,
elliptic orbits bring you close;
as close as this no eye has seen
since sixty thousand years ago.
Men saw, but did not understand,
The sky a depthless spatter then;
goddess of love and god of war
were inklings in the gut for them.
Small dry red planet, when you loom
again,this world will be much changed:
our loves and wars,at rest, as one,
and all our atoms rearranged.
I always tear up...![]()
That's beautiful. I love those very short, concise poems too; they can be so powerful. This one gets me every time, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell (what a powerful statement about who really bears the brunt of wars):
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
William Carlos Williams wrote a lot of these tiny poems too. He was a doctor and wrote most of his poems on prescription pads, so they're these little prescription-pad-sized poems. They're so sensual.
Not my ATF, but this is a good one I haven't talked about before.
"Counting Sheep" by Russell Edson
A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He
wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture
for them.
They are like grains of rice.
He wonders if it is possible to shrink something
out of existence.
He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess,
if they have any sense of scale. Perhaps they think
the test tube is a glass barn ...
He wonders what he should do with them; they
certainly have less meat and wool than ordinary
sheep. Has he reduced their commercial value?
He wonders if they could be used as a substitute
for rice, a sort of wolly rice . . .
He wonders if he shouldn't rub them into a red paste
between his fingers.
He wonders if they are breeding, or if any of them
have died.
He puts them under a microscope, and falls asleep
counting them . . .
Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you'd poured--what?--even the rain.





To Be In Love (Gwendolyn Brooks)
To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there_
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.
I first read that poem about four or five years ago. It just stuck with me. Really resonated, etc. I thought "my god, that's exactly it". I also enjoy Larkin, and that sheep one is both cute and disturbing. Very nice.



An excerpt from
SAMSON AGONISTES
by John Milton
Note: Samson's sight has been extinguished, light is no more than a memory.
O first created Beam, and thou great Word,
Let there be light, and light was over all;
Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,
She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
*smiling* Youse SW peoples is amazing. And what are "utes" anyway?
so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you,do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self-love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was. Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd By Walt Whitman Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, Whispering I love you, before long I die, I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, For I could not die till I once look'd on you, For I fear'd I might afterward lose you. Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, Return in peace to the ocean my love, I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated, Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; Be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love. EVEryTHING by Nicole Blackman.. she's amazing. her book is called "blood sugar" Saul williams is nice too. the poem sirona posted by ee cummings is a favorite as well. I don't have a favorite though, that's like asking what someone's favorite song is, you can't choose





My favorite poem of the moment
Deer Dancer
Joy Harjo
Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the
hardcore. It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but
not us. Of course we noticed when she came in. We were Indian ruins. She
was the end of beauty. No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe we
recognized, her family related to deer, if that's who she was, a people
accustomed to hearing songs in pine trees, and making them hearts.
The woman inside the woman who was to dance naked in the bar of misfits
blew deer magic. Henry jack, who could not survive a sober day, thought she
was Buffalo Calf Woman come back, passed out, his head by the toilet. All
night he dreamed a dream he could not say. The next day he borrowed
money, went home, and sent back the money I lent. Now that's a miracle.
Some people see vision in a burned tortilla, some in the face of a woman.
This is the bar of broken survivors, the club of the shotgun, knife wound, of
poison by culture. We who were taught not to stare drank our beer. The
players gossiped down their cues. Someone put a quarter in the jukebox to
relive despair. Richard's wife dove to kill her. We had to keep her
still, while Richard secretly bought the beauty a drink.
How do I say it? In this language there are no words for how the real world
collapses. I could say it in my own and the sacred mounds would come into
focus, but I couldn't take it in this dingy envelope. So I look at the stars in
this strange city, frozen to the back of the sky, the only promises that ever
make sense.
My brother-in-law hung out with white people, went to law school with a
perfect record, quit. Says you can keep your laws, your words. And
practiced law on the street with his hands. He jimmied to the proverbial
dream girl, the face of the moon, while the players racked a new game.
He bragged to us, he told her magic words and that when she broke,
became human.
But we all heard his voice crack:
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"
That's what I'd like to know, what are we all doing in a place like this?
You would know she could hear only what she wanted to; don't we all? Left
the drink of betrayal Richard bought her, at the bar. What was she on? We all
wanted some. Put a quarter in the juke. We all take risks stepping into thin
air. Our ceremonies didn't predict this. or we expected more.
I had to tell you this, for the baby inside the girl sealed up with a lick of
hope and swimming into the praise of nations. This is not a rooming house, but
a dream of winter falls and the deer who portrayed the relatives of
strangers. The way back is deer breath on icy windows.
The next dance none of us predicted. She borrowed a chair for the stairway
to heaven and stood on a table of names. And danced in the room of children
without shoes.
"You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille With four hungry children and a
crop in the field."
And then she took off her clothes. She shook loose memory, waltzed with the
empty lover we'd all become.
She was the myth slipped down through dreamtime. The promise of feast we
all knew was coming. The deer who crossed through knots of a curse to find
us. She was no slouch, and neither were we, watching.
The music ended. And so does the story. I wasn't there. But I imagined her
like this, not a stained red dress with tape on her heels but the deer who
entered our dream in white dawn, breathed mist into pine trees, her fawn a
blessing of meat, the ancestors who never left.





Edit: Not really a poem, just a bunch of quotes.
Many people will walk in and out of your life,
But only true friends will leave
footprints in your heart.
To handle yourself, use your head;
To handle others, use your heart.
Anger is only one letter short of danger.
If someone betrays you once, it is their fault;
If they betray you twice, it is your fault.
Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.
He who loses money, loses much;
He who loses a friend, loses much more;
He who loses faith, loses all
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,
But beautiful old people are works of art.
Learn from the mistakes of others.
You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
Friends, you and me....
You brought another friend....
And then there were 3....
We started our group....
Our circle of friends....
And like that circle....
There is no beginning or end....
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.
Last edited by Vyanka; 12-12-2007 at 01:50 PM.




"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg
"Before I conceived you, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were here an hour, I would die for you. This is the miracle of life." -- Maureen Hawkins
"I just can't get over how much babies cry. I really had no idea what I was getting into. To tell you the truth, I thought it would be more like getting a cat." -- Anne Lamott
HOW did I miss this thread earlier today?
*scurries off to find all her favorite poems*
(Djoser, Ozymandias was one of my favorite poems to analyze in my Poetry class a few semesters ago--good choice!)
I think this is just about the most beautiful thing ever written....
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramourby Wallace Stevens
Light the first light of evening
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~
And this is another favorite that reminds me of so many shady people whom I have loved over the years:
The Loverby Charles Bukowski
at that apartment in east Hollywood
I was often with the hardest numbers
in town.
I don't speak as a misogynist.
I had other people ask me,
"what the hell are you doing, anyhow?"
they were floozies, killers, blanks
they had bodies, hair, eyes, legs,
parts
and often it was like
sitting with a shark dressed in a
dress, high heels, smoking, drinking,
swallowing pills.
the nights melted into days and the days
collapsed into nights
as we babbled on, sometimes
bedding down, badly.
because of the drink, the uppers, the
downers, I often imagined
things—say, this one was the
golden girl of the golden heart and
the golden way of laughter and love
and hope.
in the dim smokey light the long hair
looked better than it was, the legs
more shapely, the conversation not as
bare, not as vicious.
I fooled myself pretty well, I even
got myself to thinking that I loved
one of them, the worst one.
I mean, why the hell be negative?
we drank, drugged, stayed
together through sunset,
sunrise, played Scrabble for 8
or ten hours at a
stretch.
each time I went to piss she
stole the money she needed.
she was a survivor, the
bitch.
after one marathon session
of 52 hours of whatever we
were doing
she said, "let's drive to
Vegas and get married?"
"what?" I asked.
"let's drive to Vegas and
get married before we
change our minds!"
"suppose we get married,
then what?"
"then you can have it any
time you want it," she told
me.
I went in to take a piss
to let her steal the money
she needed.
and when I came out I opened
a new bottle of wine
and spoke no more of the
subject.
she didn't come around as
much after that
but there were others.
about the same.
sometimes there were
more than one.
they'd come in twos.
the word got out that
there was an old sucker
in the back court, free
booze and he wasn't
sexually demanding.
(although at times something
would overtake me and I
would grab a body and throw
in a sweaty horse copulation,
mostly, I guess, to see if
I could still do it.)
and I confused the mailman.
there was an old couch on
the porch and many a morning
as he came by I'd be sitting
there with, say, two of them,
we'd be sitting there,
smoking and
laughing.
one day he found me alone.
"pardon me," he said, "but can
I ask you something?"
"sure."
"well, I don't think you're
rich…"
"no, I'm broke."
"listen," he said, "I've been
in the army, I've been around
the world."
"yeah?"
"and I've never seen a man with
as many women as you have.
there's always a different one,
or a different pair…"
"yeah?"
"how do you do it?
I mean, pardon me, but you're kind
Of old and you're not exactly a
Casanova, you know?"
"I could be ugly, even."
he shifted his letters from one hand to the
other.
"I mean, how do you do it?"
"availability," I told him.
"what do you mean?"
"I mean, women like a guy who is always
around."
"uh," he said, then walked off to continue his
rounds.
his praise didn't help me.
what he saw wasn't as good as he thought.
even with them around there were unholy periods
of
drab senselessness, despair,
and worse.
I walked back into my place.
the phone was ringing.
I hoped that it would be a female
voice.
One of my favorite depressing/uplifting all-at-the-same-time poems:
Letter to a Poet
A mockingbird leans
from the walnut, bellies,
riffling whte, accomplishes
his perch upon the eaves.
I witnessed this act of grace
in blind California
in the January sun
where families bicycle on Saturday
and the mother with high cheekbones
and coffee-coloured iridescent
hair curses her child
in the language of Pushkin -
John, I am dull from
thinking of your pain,
this mimic world
which makes us stupid
with the totem griefs
we hope will give us
power to look at trees,
at stones, one brute to another
like poems on a page.
What can I say, my friend?
There are tricks of animal grace,
poems in the mind
we survive on. It isn’t much.
You are 4000 miles away &
this world did not invite us.
by Robert Hass.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]




I love the some of the work that's been mentioned already.
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I just read that Ozymandius is the name of Mrs. Coulter's daemon.
And, Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock has always been one of my favorites.




forgiving our fathers
by dick lourie
maybe in a dream: he's in your power
you twist his arm but you're not sure it was
he that stole your money you feel calmer
and you decide to let him go free
or he's the one (as in a dream of mine)
I must pull from the water but I never
knew it or wouldn't have done it until
I saw the street-theater play so close up
I was moved to actions I'd never before taken
maybe for leaving us too often or
forever when we were little maybe
for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous because there seemed
never to be any rage there at all
for marrying or not marrying our mothers
for divorcing or not divorcing our mothers
and shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth or coldness shall we forgive them
for pushing or leaning for shutting doors
for speaking only through layers of cloth
or never speaking or never being silent
in our age or in theirs or in their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it -
if we forgive our fathers what is left
20, by Neruda
PUEDO escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: " La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
It's just not nearly as cool in English...
I believe you Dottie and you have my support
Okay. I'm going to confess something. Ready?
I did not read this in a volume of poetry. I read it on the first page of a novel, you know? I know that technically, getting your literacy second hand makes you a rube. I hope you all still like me:
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter", he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Tis Stephen Crane.
For the rest - for my non-rube tastes that I found first hand, in a book dedicated to them:
W.H. Auden. I can't believe that nobody said this. It is THE voice of the 20th century, my friends. W.H. Auden and Britney Spears.
I have taught that the sky in all its zones is mortal and its substance was formed by a process of birth





I <3 that Stephen Crane bit, Jenny. So much. I was going to post it if no one else did.
My firstborn daughter's name is Estlin. As in Edward Estlin Cummings. I have an old vinyl album of ee reading his own works. It's amazing to hear them from his own mouth. He's easily one of my favorites. Have you ever read his plays?
I also have Christopher Lee reading Poe's "The Raven". It's as awesome as you imagine.
I also have a book called "Very Bad Poetry" that was a birthday gift a few years ago. It's a collection of truly awful awful stuff. Seriously. It makes the Vogons seem brilliant.
waffles are just pancakes with little squares on them.



PHENOMENAL WOMAN
by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to suit a model's fashion 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 steps
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 of 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 for my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.










For all I sought.
She's on the road of uncertainly
she said it herself.
It's not me just making it up.
The road is long
the road is dark.
I don't know how long it will
keep us apart.
For all I know
for all I sought.
I pushed her away.
It was all for not.
All the things I have done
All that I have bought
I would give it all away
for that one true thought.
That she is coming back
that everything is ok.
She just needs this time
to clear her own way.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."





+1000!!!!! I was gonna post that... heheh I love ginsberg so very much. When I was in high school, I did Oral Interp. using The Hobbit and Howl... made it to States and Nat'ls!! He has many fantastic poems... Howl just happens to be the most famous (infamous? hehe).
Djoser, +1 on Annabel Lee. Damn you people... now I'm gonna go sneak off to the school lib. today when I need to be in the computer lab working on multivariate analyses for my stats class. ugh.
Cementing you forever as the coolest. Wows.
I have a double cassette of him reading his work too! Really incredible, a whole new experience. My favorites in the recordings are "next to of course god america" and "anyone lived in a pretty how town". *sniff*
I also have some recorded Joyce and an incredible, huge box set called "A Century of Recorded Verse" that's got everybody, even a warbly old Yeats on wax cylinder.
That does sound awesome. I admit I am partial to The Treehouse of Horror rendition with James Earl Jones. Seriously, they did a good job with it!
"Before I conceived you, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were here an hour, I would die for you. This is the miracle of life." -- Maureen Hawkins
"I just can't get over how much babies cry. I really had no idea what I was getting into. To tell you the truth, I thought it would be more like getting a cat." -- Anne Lamott
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