# Post a Poem



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I was listening to Schumann's Dichterliebe last night on youtube, and the words written by Heinrich Heine I found so beautiful and moving. I wanted to post one of his poems here. If there is a poem you wish to share for whatever reason, feel free. 

_
I hear the dear song sounding
That once my beloved sang.
And my heart wants to burst so strongly
From the savage pressure of pain.

A dark longing is driving me
Up into the heights of the woods
Where in my tears can be dissolved
My own colossal woe._


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Desires - Constantine Cavafy

Like beautiful bodies of the dead, who had not grown old
and they shut them with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum,
with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet --
that is how desires look that have passed
without fultillment; without one of them having achieved
a night of sensual delight, or a moonlit morn.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I've always rather liked this one by John Clare.

_An Invite to Eternity_

Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor life nor light to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity,
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not!

Say, maiden; wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be -
That was and is not - yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

More Heine:

_ Sie haben heut Abend Gesellschaft,
Und das Haus ist lichterfüllt.
Dort oben am hellen Fenster
Bewegt sich ein Schattenbild.

Du schaust mich nicht, im Dunkeln
Steh' ich hier unten allein;
Noch wen'ger kannst du schauen
In mein dunkles Herz hinein.

Mein dunkles Herze liebt dich,
Es liebt dich und es bricht,
Und bricht und zuckt und verblutet,
Aber du siehst es nicht._

Translation:

They have company coming this evening,
And the house is ablaze with light;
Up yonder a figure in shadow
Sweeps past by the windows bright.

Thou seest me not, - in the darkness
I stand here, under thy room, -
Still less canst thou see the darkness
Is shrouding my heart in gloom.

My dark heart loves thee, adores thee,
It loves, and it breaks for thee, -
Breaks, quivers, wells out its dear life-blood, -
But all this thou dost not see!


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## skalpel (Nov 20, 2011)

_'Sixpence a week,' says the girl to her lover,
'Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide
In me alone, she vowed. 'Twas to cover
The cost of her headstone when she died.
And that was a year ago last June;
I've not yet fixed it. But I must soon.

'And where is the money now, my dear?'
'O, snug in my purse... Aunt was so slow
In saving it -- eighty weeks, or near.'...
'Let's spend it,' he hints. 'For she won't know
There's a dance to-night at the Load of Hay.'
She passively nods. And they go that way._

Always quite liked Hardy's Satires of Circumstance. Short and sweet, dark and witty.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

dying is fine)but Death

?o
baby
i

wouldn't like

Death if Death
were
good:for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but

Death

is strictly
scientific
& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death

E. E. Cummings (who _did_ actually prefer his name with capitals)


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

The Centre of the Universe 

by Paul Durcan


Pushing my trolley about in the supermarket;
I am the centre of the universe;
Up and down the aisles of beans and juices,
I am the centre of the universe;
It does not matter that I live alone;
It does not matter that I am a jilted lover;
It does not matter that I am a misfit in my job;
I am the centre of the universe.

But I'm always here, if you want me -
For I am the centre of the universe.

I enjoy being the centre of the universe.
It is not easy being the centre of the universe
But I enjoy it.
I take pleasure in,
I delight in,
Being the centre of the universe.
At six o'clock a.m. this morning I had a phone call;
It was from a friend, a man in Los Angeles;
"Paul, I don't know what time it is in Dublin
But I simply had to call you:
I cannot stand LA so I thought I'd call you."
I calmed him down as best I could.

But I'm always here, if you want me -
For I am the centre of the universe.

I had barely put the phone down when it rang again,
This time from a friend in Sao Paulo in Brazil:
"Paul - do you know what is the population of Sao Paulo?
I will tell you: it is twelve million skulls.
Twelve million pairs of feet in one footbath.
Twelve million pairs of eyes in one fishbowl.
It is unspeakable, I tell you, unspeakable."
I calmed him down.

But I'm always here, if you want me -
For I am the centre of the universe.

But then when the phone rang a third time and it was not yet 6.30 a.m.,
The petals of my own hysteria began to wake up and unfurl.
This time it was a woman I know in New York City:
"Paul - Ney York City is a Cage",
And she began to cry a little over the phone,
To sob over the phone,
And from five thousand miles away I mopped up her tears.
I dabbed each tear from her cheek
With just a word or two or three from my calm voice.

I'm always here, if you want me -
For I am the centre of the universe.

But now tonight it is myself;
Sitting at my aluminium double-glazed window in Dublin city;
Crying just a little bit into my black tee shirt.
If only there was just one human being out there
With whom I could make a home? Share a home?
Just one creature out there in the night-
Is there not just one creature out there in the night?
In Helsinki, perhaps? Or in Reykjavik?
Or in Chapelizod? or in Malahide?
So you see, I have to calm myself down also
If I am to remain the centre of the universe;
It's by no means an exclusively self-centred automatic thing
Being the centre of the universe.

I'm always here, if you want me -
For I am the centre of the universe.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

this is my favourite poem. I read it out to my friends at school and people started filming me........


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Essay On The Personal 

by Stephen Dunn


Because finally the personal
is all that matters,
we spend years describing stones,
chairs, abandoned farmhouses—
until we're ready. Always
it's a matter of precision,
what it feels like
to kiss someone or to walk
out the door. How good it was
to practice on stones
which were things we could love
without weeping over. How good
someone else abandoned the farmhouse,
bankrupt and desperate.
Now we can bring a fine edge
to our parents. We can hold hurt
up to the sun for examination.
But just when we think we have it,
the personal goes the way of
belief. What seemed so deep
begins to seem naive, something
that could be trusted
because we hadn't read Plato
or held two contradictory ideas
or women in the same day.
Love, then, becomes an old movie.
Loss seems so common
it belongs to the air,
to breath itself, anyone's.
We're left with style, a particular
way of standing and saying,
the idiosyncratic look
at the frown which means nothing
until we say it does. Years later,
long after we believed it peculiar
to ourselves, we return to love.
We return to everything
strange, inchoate, like living
with someone, like living alone,
settling for the partial, the almost
satisfactory sense of it.


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## SnakeGnim12333 (Jun 26, 2020)

Sorry, but I could never understand 2010 culture. Were websites like these the popular social media platforms to post information that does not pertain to the primary website focus?


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

One of my favs..

*Kung walked
by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi
and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?
"Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery?
"Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the defences in order,"
And Khieu said, "If I were lord of a province
"I would put it in better order than this is."
And Tchi said, "I would prefer a small mountain temple,
"With order in the observances,
with a suitable performance of the ritual,"
And Tian said, with his hand on the strings of his lute
The low sounds continuing
after his hand left the strings,
And the sound went up like smoke, under the leaves,
And he looked after the sound:
"The old swimming hole,
"And the boys flopping off the planks,
"Or sitting in the underbrush playing mandolins."
And Kung smiled upon all of them equally.
And Thseng-sie desired to know:
"Which had answered correctly?"
And Kung said, "They have all answered correctly,
"That is to say, each in his nature."
And Kung raised his cane against Yuan Jang,
Yuan Jang being his elder,
For Yuan Jang sat by the roadside pretending to
be receiving wisdom.
And Kung said
"You old fool, come out of it,
"Get up and do something useful."
And Kung said
"Respect a child's faculties
"From the moment it inhales the clear air,
"But a man of fifty who knows nothng
Is worthy of no respect."
And "When the prince has gathered about him
"All the savants and artists, his riches will be fully employed."
And Kung said, and wrote on the bo leaves:
If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.
And Kung gave the words "order"
and "brotherly deference"
And said nothing of the "life after death."
And he said
"Anyone can run to excesses,
"It is easy to shoot past the mark,
"It is hard to stand firm in the middle."

And they said: If a man commit murder
Should his father protect him, and hide him?
And Kung said:
He should hide him.

And Kung gave his daughter to Kong-Tchang
Although Kong-Tchang was in prison.
And he gave his niece to Nan-Young
although Nan-Young was out of office.
And Kung said "Wan ruled with moderation,
"In his day the State was well kept,
"And even I can remember
"A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
"I mean, for things they didn't know,
"But that time seems to be passing.
A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
But that time seems to be passing."
And Kung said, "Without character you will
"be unable to play on that instrument
"Or to execute the music fit for the Odes.
"The blossoms of the apricot
"blow from the east to the west,
"And I have tried to keep them from falling." *


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Love After Love

By Derek Walcott


The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I recommend this fabulous poem (by our member EdwardBast) from the thread <Strange Deaths>:

There was a composer named Lully
Who in business was a bit of a bully
But then: a misplaced baton,
A bad infection came on,
And he died of a foot wound, most cruelly

Despite young Scriabin's ineptness
His mystic-chord music's infectious
But a boil on his lip
Paid for Sasha's last trip
To the Mysterium he went via sepsis

Not strange, but part of the set:

Robert Schumann composed to great fame
But in the end died confined and insane
For back then 'twas no joke:
One infelicitous poke
And foul syphilis devoured ones brain

*[ 1:30 ]*


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## Alinde (Feb 8, 2020)

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong,
Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

To a Young Child

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*Shine, Perishing Republic*
by Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly
long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening
center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught - they say -
God, when he walked on earth.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2020)

One of my favourite modern poems, by Ted Hughes: it has resonances for the Covid lockdown!!

*The Jaguar*

The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion

Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor's coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.

But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom -
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear -
He spins from the bars, *but there's no cage to him

More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel,
Over the cage floor the horizons come*.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Here lies the body of sign writer Joe
He fell through the hole in a capital O
It could have been worse
It could have been better
But he went as he came through a hole in a letter.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2020)

Algy saw the bear
And the bear saw Algy,
The bear had a bulge,
And the bulge was Algy.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2020)

I sent my soul through the invisible,
Some letter of the afterlife to tell,
And by and by my soul returned to me and answered,
'I myself am heaven and hell'.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

*The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
Edward Lear - 1812-1888*

· 
On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,
One old jug without a handle--
These were all his worldly goods,
In the middle of the woods,
These were all his worldly goods,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy Bo.

Once, among the Bong-trees walking
Where the early pumpkins blow,
To a little heap of stones
Came the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
There he heard a Lady talking,
To some milk-white Hens of Dorking--
"'Tis the Lady Jingly Jones!
On that little heap of stones
Sits the Lady Jingly Jones!"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.

"Lady Jingly! Lady Jingly!
Sitting where the pumpkins blow,
Will you come and be my wife?"
Said the Yongby-Bonghy-Bo.
"I am tired of living singly--
On this coast so wild and shingly--
I'm a-weary of my life;
If you'll come and be my wife,
Quite serene would be my life!"
Said the Yonghy-Bongby-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.

"On this Coast of Coromandel
Shrimps and watercresses grow,
Prawns are plentiful and cheap,"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
"You shall have my chairs and candle,
And my jug without a handle!
Gaze upon the rolling deep
(Fish is plentiful and cheap);
As the sea, my love is deep!"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.

Lady Jingly answered sadly,
And her tears began to flow--
"Your proposal comes too late,
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
I would be your wife most gladly!"
(Here she twirled her fingers madly)
"But in England I've a mate!
Yes! you've asked me far too late,
For in England I've a mate,
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Mr. Yongby-Bonghy-Bo!

"Mr. Jones (his name is Handel--
Handel Jones, Esquire, & Co.)
Dorking fowls delights to send
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Keep, oh, keep your chairs and candle,
And your jug without a handle--
I can merely be your friend!
Should my Jones more Dorkings send,
I will give you three, my friend!
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!

"Though you've such a tiny body,
And your head so large doth grow--
Though your hat may blow away
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Though you're such a Hoddy Doddy,
Yet I wish that I could modi-
fy the words I needs must say!
will you please to go away
That is all I have to say,
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!"

Down the slippery slopes of Myrtle,
Where the early pumpkins blow,
To the calm and silent sea
Fled the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
There, beyond the Bay of Gurtle,
Lay a large and lively Turtle.
"You're the Cove," he said, "for me;
On your back beyond the sea,
Turtle, you shall carry me!"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.

Through the silent-roaring ocean
Did the Turtle swiftly go;
Holding fast upon his shell
Rode the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
With a sad primeval motion
Towards the sunset isles of Boshen
Still the Turtle bore him well.
Holding fast upon his shell,
"Lady Jingly Jones, farewell!"
Sang the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Sang the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.

From the Coast of Coromandel
Did that Lady never go;
On that heap of stones she mourns
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
On that Coast of Coromandel,
In his jug without a handle
Still she weeps, and daily moans;
On that little heap of stones
To her Dorking Hens she moans,
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> *Shine, Perishing Republic*
> by Robinson Jeffers


Interesting. Back in 1980 (!) when I was living in Vancouver, I set three poems by Robinson Jeffers whose poetry had the west coast feel, as he lived by the Pacific Ocean.

*Natural Music*
by Robinson Jeffers

The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers,
(Winter has given them gold for silver
To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks)
From different throats intone one language.
So I believe if we were strong enough to listen without
Divisions of desire and terror
To the storm of the sick nations, the rage of the hunger smitten cities,
Those voices also would be found
Clean as a child's; or like some girl's breathing who dances alone
By the ocean-shore, dreaming of lovers.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Hickory Dickory Doc
The mouse ran up the alum block
The clock struck ten
I found shaving zen
Hickory Dickory Doc


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States.
*
On Turning Ten*

_The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light --
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible 
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed._


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

*There was a young Lady from Nottingham
Who had no manners or had forgotten them
While having tea at the vicars
She took off her knickers
Because she explained she felt hot in them…*


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Lady chatterley???


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Mary had a little lamb
Her father shot it dead
And now she goes to school with it
Between two slice of bread!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west,
He burst his new shirt when he threw out his chest!
(with apologies to Sir Walter Scott)


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Waken, lords and ladies, gay,
Today’s the day you get your pay!
(apologies again to Scott)


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

I think my shaving song just won the internetz...:trp:ut:


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

*Charles Bukowski
the riots*

I've watched this city burn twice
in my lifetime
and the most notable thing
was the arrival of the
politicians in the
aftermath
proclaiming the wrongs of
the system
and demanding new
policies toward and for the
poor.

nothing was corrected last
time.
nothing will be corrected this
time.

the poor will remain poor.
the unemployed will remain
so.
the homeless will remain
homeless

and the politicians,
fat upon the land, will live
very well.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

In spring slumber,
I'm unaware of daybreak, 
though everywhere I hear the tweet of birds. 
Last night came the sound of wind and rain; 
who knows how many flowers must have fallen?

- Meng Haoran


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

_The Narcissist's Prayer_

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did...

You deserved it.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Here's one for the violinists.

*The Fiddler, by Thomas Hardy*

The fiddler knows what's brewing
To the lilt of his lyric wiles:
The fiddler knows what rueing
Will come of this night's smiles!

He sees couples join them for dancing,
And afterwards joining for life,
He sees them pay high for their prancing
By a welter of wedded strife.

He twangs: "Music hails from the devil,
Though vaunted to come from heaven,
For it makes people do at a revel
What multiplies sins by seven.

"There's many a heart now mangled,
And waiting its time to go,
Whose tendrils were first entangled
By my sweet viol and bow!"


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Well, every once in awhile I will write a poem just for fun. I am just a novice, an amateur. But I'll post a few of mine here in case someone is curious to read them. I mostly write about sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, but also nature and philosophical issues. Anyway, here is post #1:

_Wheatfield With Crows_

There, lies
melancholy:
forces of renewal
beneath troubled skies--a wheatfield
with crows.

_Haunted Woods_

I ask the Live Oaks
at the edge of the forest,
"What are you hiding?"

_Beams Burst Bright Golden Yellow at Sunset_

Beams burst bright golden yellow at sunset
Like painted flames on a canvas of sky
Light glows forth from Odin's descending eye
Beams burst bright golden yellow at sunset!

Like painted flames on a canvas of sky
Clouds form cathedrals of purple and blue
From their shadows the sun's rays pierces through
Like painted flames on a canvas of sky

Clouds form cathedrals of purple and blue
Off in the distance, a sound of thunder
A flock of geese increases in number
Clouds form cathedrals of purple and blue

Off in the distance, a sound of thunder
Sparkling stars flicker dimly like lanterns
Crescent moon anxiously awaits its turn
Off in the distance, a sound of thunder

Beams burst bright golden yellow at sunset
Like painted flames on a canvas of sky
Light glows forth from Odin's descending eye
Beams burst bright golden yellow at sunset!

_Fantasy_

Cauldron stirred, the witches fly
Above the ancient barrows of the elves
Beneath the gibbous moon and starlit sky
The magic mirror reflects their future selves

Above the ancient barrows of the elves
Dragons guard their hoard with watchful eye
The magic mirror reflects their future selves
From its icy grasp they cannot hide

Dragons guard their hoard with watchful eye
Heroes lured into a fairy ring by the moor
From its icy grasp they cannot hide
Hang the horseshoe high above the door

Heroes lured into a fairy ring by the moor
Beneath the gibbous moon and starlit sky
Hang the horseshoe high above the door
Cauldron stirred, the witches fly


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

(continued from above) Post #2 of some of my poems:

_Public Garden_

Sun
lights
Back Bay
this morning--
Beacon Street's aglow.
Ducks and swans fly over Frog Pond
whose Winter's ice skaters are this Summer's remembrance.
Weeping willows sway like cattails.
A rose's perfume
enters my
Swan Boat
and
thoughts.

_Celestial Ascent_

appearing so soon
some hours after noon
dark skies
hear a robin's tune
above the lagoon
will rise
like a white balloon
seeing the full moon
a prize

_Marigolds_

Picking flowers from a field I feel
fuzz like whiskers on their petals--
orange-yellow, yellow-red
Inhaling scents of a
peppery fragrance
from their long leaves--
Mary's Gold
nature's
grace.

_Mantis: A Fable_

The harshest discipline will not alter
an evil person, their base nature
Consider how the mantis, once a mortal
man, prophet, whited sepulchre
a fortune teller unfulfilled
with courtship cast his covetous eyes
then begs for forgiveness
His victims prayed to the god who enraged
remade Him--a divine metamorphosis
into the bug we know today, the praying mantis.
And, despite divine condemnation
to suffer decapitation during copulation,
knowing this the mantis has not changed his ways


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Have A Nice Day - Spike Milligan.


'Help, help, ' said a man. 'I'm drowning.'
'Hang on, ' said a man from the shore.
'Help, help, ' said the man. 'I'm not clowning.'
'Yes, I know, I heard you before.
Be patient dear man who is drowning,
You, see I've got a disease.
I'm waiting for a Doctor J. Browning.
So do be patient please.'
'How long, ' said the man who was drowning. 'Will it take for the Doc to arrive? '
'Not very long, ' said the man with the disease. 'Till then try staying alive.'
'Very well, ' said the man who was drowning. 'I'll try and stay afloat.
By reciting the poems of Browning
And other things he wrote.'
'Help, help, ' said the man with the disease, 'I suddenly feel quite ill.'
'Keep calm.' said the man who was drowning, ' Breathe deeply and lie quite still.'
'Oh dear, ' said the man with the awful disease. 'I think I'm going to die.'
'Farewell, ' said the man who was drowning.
Said the man with the disease, 'goodbye.'
So the man who was drowning, drownded
And the man with the disease past away.
But apart from that,
And a fire in my flat,
It's been a very nice day.


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2020)

Last night upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there;
He wasn't there again today;
I wish that man would go away.


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2020)

Jacck said:


> _The Narcissist's Prayer_
> 
> That didn't happen.
> 
> ...


You've certainly got that right!!!


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

_A terrible infant, called Peter, 
sprinkled his bed with a gheter. 
His father got woost, 
took hold of a cnoost, 
and gave him a pack on his meter._

Poet: Jan van der Meulen AKA John O'Mill (1915-2005).
Teacher of English language and literature at a Dutch secondary school.
Language: 'Double Dutch'.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*Waiting for the Barbarians*

BY C. P. CAVAFY
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.
He's even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

[Update:The Barbarians Have Come!]


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Mary had a little lamp
She filled it with Benzine
She went to light her little lamp
and hasn't since been seen


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Torkelburger said:


> (continued from above) Post #2 of some of my poems:
> 
> _Public Garden_
> 
> ...


TB, have you ever set any of your poems to music?


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

mikeh375 said:


> TB, have you ever set any of your poems to music?


Yes, I have. I set _Wheatfield With Crows_ and _Haunted Woods_ to music for two separate contests a year apart about ten years ago. I lost both contests. It was for the same small chamber group that advertised on The Composer's Site. They wanted 1 minute miniatures or pieces that totaled 100 notes, whatever the composer chose (strange, I know). I made the pieces last 1 minute each.


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