The Poetry Corner

A place to post some of your favourite works old and new by artists both famous and not.

She Had A Death In Me
By: Joan Houlihan

Quote :

She had a death in me, knees drawn up
and my bowl and cloth rinsed through with her.
As morning takes night, field closes the hare,
and ay would burrow into her.

Over the alter, catalpas rattle,
shadow and bother the branch.
Is this her white? Dress me.
Her rain? Wash me with that.
Her bowl? Feed me empty.
Her colding? Ay am forgot.

Then mask me the g'wen, hers skin
being mine, and body that pools
in the brine of her, rivers the silt and stone of her
wrapt in the warm of hers fell.
She were the watcher and tender of pures
when the wet grass shined with quiet
and ay lean to the mouth hole: ay, mother.

October
By Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
one from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if the were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the all.

ravengrim wrote:

October
By Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
one from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if the were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the all.

I always loved that poem by Robert Frost.

Me too,but most of my favorite poems are about Autumn or Fall.There's something about watching the land change in that short time between hot and freezing that I miss living in the tropics.
The Love of October
By W. S. Merwin

A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819 Original Version

By... John Keats

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

DANCING REMAINS
Rev. Rebecca Guile Hudson

Starving cats shriek to a full, hopeless moon
The thick air drips with decay and rank ruin
Feral dogs scream, adding pain to the chorus
Extending an invite to those gone before us

Fred Astaire and Miss Rogers they clearly are not
As they stumble and scrabble up through Hadean rot
Their eyes wormy sockets, foul-toothed, dangling jaws
Macabre click-click-clicking sounds a hellish applause

Dry bones clack-clacking, grotesque, face to face,
Partner holds partner in hideous embrace
These skeletal dancers reek a rancid perfume
Unsure and undead, their lives re-resume

Their clattering waltz is relentless and jerky
As they dance to hell’s music, unrhythmic and murky
The conductor’s malevolent, ghoulish, reviled
His empty eyes glitter, black flames burning wild

Clarinets scrape the nighttime with fractals of silence
As violins offer melodies of mayhem and violence
Percussion and horns build a battlefield wall
‘Til there is no escape from the dead dancers’ ball

The Damned
By: Roddy Lumsden

Quote :

Kitten curious, or roaring down drinks
in Soho sumps, small hours tour buses,
satellite station green rooms, or conked

out in the bathtubs of motorway hotels,
there you were, with muck-about kisses,
sharking for the snappers, before hell

opened up for you and weeping sores
of after fame appeared, the haphazardry
and dwindling after three limelit years,

recognized with catcalls, wads of spit,
a nightclub fist, the scant camaraderie,
melts fast, like your flat on Air Street,

the Lhasa Apso pups, the wraps and lines
of chang, the poster pull-outs, fake tan
smiles. It's paunch and palimony time

on Lucifer's leash. But for a madcap few
who cling, thin soup, one pillow Britain
is simmering with hatred, just for you.

Never Alone
by Rodney Belcher


I feel you in the morning
When at first I awake
Your thought is with me
With each decision I make

You'd been around forever
Since the first breath I took
Now I have to go on alone
But for love, I need not look

Cause by what you bestowed
In our short time together
Will last in my heart
Forever and ever

Although you've left
And now walk above
I'm never alone
I'm wrapped in your love

Enjoy now your long waited reward
Feel peace that your love continues on
What was taught to me, will be taught to mine
Cause you live on in me even after you've gone

From W. B. Yeats' "A Prayer for my Daughter":

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

September by John Updike

The breezes taste of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.

Ode to Autumn
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

A Violent Affair

Such a fool
Why doesn't she just leave him?
He taunts her
He haunts her
Causing her so much pain
Surely he isn't worth it
Not the way he treats her
Love is a gift
Not a weapon
Used in torture
She can't see that
She clings in hope
Love is blind they say
But I didn't realize
What they meant
Until today....
Tears are all he gives her
Sorrow is all she feels
Anguish, anxiety and anger
Is all they can create between them
It's so useless,
Why doesn't she just leave him?

Elizabeth Silke ~ 1986

By far one of my favorite poets ever, and these words are probably my favorite of his. I remember reading these and connecting to them so strongly.


Robert Browning

....at times I almost dream.
I too have spent a life the sages' way,
and tread once more familiar paths.
Perchance,
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance ages ago;
and in that act, a prayer.
For one more chance went up so earnest,
so...
Instinct with better light let in by death,
that life was blotted out-not so completely,
but scattered wrecks enough of it remain.
Dim memories, as now,
when once more seems,
the goal in sight again...

I've got 2 to post today; both are translated from the original languages. The first one is especially beautiful if you're getting out of a relationship.

Juan Ramon Jimenez, "I Unpetalled You"

I unpetalled you, like a rose,
to see your soul,
and I didn't see it.

But everything around
-- horizons of lands and seas --
everything, out to the infinite,
was filled with a fragrance,
enormous and alive.


This one, I'm just posting because I love Hafiz and his sense of playful spiritualism.

Hafiz, "Then Winks"

Everything is clapping today. Light, sound, motion. All movement.
A rabbit I passed pulls a cymbal from a hidden pocket and winks.
This causes a few planets and I to go nuts and start grabbing each other.
Someone sees this, calls a shrink.
Tries to get me committed for being too happy.
Listen: this world is the lunaticsphere. Don't always agree it's real.
Even with my feet upon it and the postman knowing my door,
My address is somewhere else.

I was listening to some Loreena McKennitt this morning. She set one of Shakespeare's pieces to music.

"Cymbeline"

Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
Nor the furious winters' rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' th' great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
Care no more to clothe and to eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.

All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee and come to dust.

Spoiler:

I'm reading a new vampire novel by Steven walker called Desmodus, and he has a poem in the beginning that I can't get out of my mind - it's so macabre, I adore it!

Mutilation and castration
shouldn't be for sport
If we don't eat the chunks of meat
this game we should abort
It's fun to hear the screams
of agony and pain
but what a waste if we can't taste
the bodies that were slain

lol, it really fits with the story

All right, now it's in my head:

Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.