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Post by rosabelbelieve on Jan 31, 2008 1:36:19 GMT
We already have a thread for original poetry, so I thought maybe I'd make one for other people's.  Is this board a good place for that, or would Other Topics be better? I wasn't sure  I'm interested to see what people's inspirations are. Her are some of mine: Mana Aboda
Beauty is the marking-time, the stationary vibration, the feigned ecstasy of any arrested impulse unable to reach it's natural end.
Mana Aboda, whose bent form
The sky in arched circle is,
Seems ever for an unknown grief to mourn.
Yet on a day I cry:
"I weary of the roses and the singing poets-
Josephs all, not tall enough to try."
( T. E. Hulme) The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
(William Carlos Williams) Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, Et Les Unze Mille Vierges
Ursula, in a garden, found
A bed of radishes.
She kneeled upon the ground
And gathered them,
With flowers all around
Blue, gold, pink and green.
She dressed in red and gold brocade
And in the grass an offering made
Of radishes and flowers.
She said, "My dear,"
Upon your altars
I have placed
The marguerite and coquelicot
And roses
Frail as April snow;
But here," she said,
"Where none can see,
I make and offering, in the grass,
Of radishes and flowers."
And then she wept
For fear the Lord would not accept.
The good lord in His garden sought
New leaf and shadowy tinct,
And they were all His thought.
He heard her low accord,
Half prayer and half ditty,
And He felt a subtle quiver,
That was not heavenly love,
Or pity.
This is not writ
In any book.
(Wallace Stevens) |
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Jan 31, 2008 3:51:09 GMT
Orchard
I saw the first pear
as it fell-
the honey-seeking, golden banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees.
The honey-seeking
paused not,
the air thundered with their song,
and I alone was prostrate,
O rough-hewn
god of the orchard
I bring you an offering-
do you, alone unbeautiful,
son of the god,
spare us from loveliness:
these fallen hazel-nuts,
stripped late of their green sheaths,
grapes, red-purple,
their berries
dripping with wine,
pomegranates already broken,
and shrunken figs
and quinces untouched,
I bring you as an offering.
(H.D.)Tannis, have you ever heard of H. D.? She did a lot of poems that related to Greek mythology.
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
(William Carlos Williams)Meditation
A wise man,
Watching the stars pass across the sky,
Remarked:
In the upper air the fireflies move more slowly.
(Amy Lowell)
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Post by tannis on Feb 1, 2008 2:18:20 GMT
Hello Rosabelbelieve, Your poems are lovely - thank you for sharing them. I am also enjoying your 'song cycle' approach to TD as a metaphorical experience. And this Favorite Poems is a great idea for a thread... I have not heard of H.D., but found the extract below which I really like... And 'This Is Just To Say' is always delightful... from Helen in Egypt
by H. D.Did her eyes slant in the old way? was she Greek or Egyptian? had some Phoenician sailor wrought her? was she oak-wood or cedar? had she been cut from an awkward block of ship-wood at the ship-builders, and afterwards riveted there, or had the prow itself been shaped to her mermaid body, curved to her mermaid hair? was there a dash of paint in the beginning, in the garment-fold, did the blue afterwards wear away? did they re-touch her arms, her shoulders? did anyone touch her ever? Had she other zealot and lover, or did he alone worship her? did she wear a girdle of sea-weed or a painted crown? how often did her high breasts meet the spray, how often dive down? |
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 1, 2008 2:26:53 GMT
I just got her collected poetry, and it struck me as something you might like.  I'm glad you like the poems! |
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 2, 2008 3:07:49 GMT
More poems-- I'm going to keep posting them until some other people do! ;D I Love My Love
by Helen Adam
In the dark of the moon the hair rules.
--Robert Duncan
There was a man who married a maid. She laughed as he led her home.
The living fleece of her long bright hair she combed with a golden comb.
He led her home through his barley fields where the saffron poppies grew.
She combed, and whispered, "I love my love." Her voice like a plaintive coo.
Ha! Ha!
Her voice like a plaintive coo.
He lived alone with his chosen bride, at first their life was sweet.
Sweet was the touch of her playful hair binding his hands and feet.
When first she murmured adoring words her words did not appall.
"I love my love with a capital A. To my love I give my All.
Ah, Ha!
To my love I give my All."
She circled him with the secret web she wove as her strong hair grew.
Like a golden spider she wove and sang, "My love is tender and true."
She combed her hair with a golden comb and shckled him to a tree.
She shackled him close to the Tree of Life. "My love I'll never set free.
No, No.
My love I'll never set free."
Whenever he broke her golden bonds he was held with bonds of gold.
"Oh! cannot a man escape from love, from Love's hot smothering hold?"
He roared with fury. He broke her bonds. He ran in the light of the sun.
Her soft hair rippled and trapped his feet, as fast as his feet could run,
Ha! Ha!
As fast as his feet could run.
He dug a grave, and he dug it wide. He strangled her in her sleep.
He strangled his love with a strand of hair, and then he buried her deep.
He buried her deep when the sun was hid by a purple thunder cloud.
Her helpless hair sprawled over the corpse in a pale resplendent shroud.
Ha! Ha!
A pale resplendent shroud.
Morning and night of thunder rain, and then it came to pass
That the hair sprang up through the earth of the grave, and it grew like golden grass.
It grew and glittered along her grave alive in the light of the sun.
Every hair had a plaintive voice, the voice of his lovely one.
"I love my love with a capital T. My love is Tender and True.
I'll love my love in the barley fields when the thunder cloud is blue.
My body crumbles beneath the ground but the hairs of my head will grow.
I'll love my love with the hairs of my head. I'll never, never let go.
Ha! Ha!
I'll never, never let go."
The hair sang soft, and the hair sang high, singing of loves that drown,
Till he took his scythe by the light of the moon, and he scythed that singing hair down.
Every hair laughed a liting laugh, and shrilled as his scythe swept through.
"I love my love with a capital T. My love is Tender and True.
Ha! Ha!
Tender, Tender, and True."
All through the night he wept and prayed, but before the first bird woke
Around the house in the barley fields blew the hair like billowing smoke.
Her hair blew over the barley fields where the slothfull poppies gape.
All day long all its voices cooed, "My love can never escape,
No, No!
My love can never escape."
"Be still, be still, you devilish hair. Glide back to the grave and sleep.
Glide back to the grave and wrap her bones down where I buried her deep.
I am the man who escaped from love, though love was my fate and doom.
Can no man ever escape from love who breaks from a woman's womb?"
Over his house, when the sun stood high, her hair was a dazzling storm,
Rolling, lashing o'er walls and roof, heavy, and soft, and warm.
It thumped on the roof, it hissed and glowed over every window pane.
The smell of the hair was in the house. It smelled like a lion's mane,
Ha! Ha!
It smelled like a lion's mane.
Three times round the bed of their love, and his heart lurched with despair.
In through the keyhole, elvish bright, came creeping a single hair.
Softly, sftly, it stroked his lips, on his eyelids traced a sign.
"I love my love with a capital Z. I mark him Zero and mine.
Ha! Ha!
I mark him Zero and mine."
The hair rushed in. He struggled and tore, but wherever he tore a tress,
"I love my love with a capital Z," sang the hair of the sorceress.
It swarmed upon him, it swaddled him fast, it muffled his every groan.
Like a golden monster it seized his flesh, and then it sought the bone,
Ha! Ha!
And then it sought the bone.
It smothered his flesh and sought the bones. Until his bones were bare
There was no sound but the joyful hiss of the sweet insatiable hair.
"I love my love," it laughed as it ran back to the grave, its home.
Then the living fleece of her long bright hair, she combed with a golden comb.
(Helen Adam)Creepy, isn't it? I just found this one today, and I don't know much at all about the poet. I found it striking, though. |
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 3, 2008 3:42:19 GMT
More poems...
Green
The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.
She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, like flowers undone
For the first time, now for the first time seen.
(D. H. Lawrence)
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear
anything, I can't see anything -
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,
the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker -
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.
And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing -
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet -
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt
swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?
One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.
(Mary Oliver)
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Post by tannis on Feb 3, 2008 13:58:00 GMT
Hello Rosabelbelieve, Enjoying your poetry - 'Cherry' is so delicate and 'Columbines' reminds me of harvest festival. THE GOLD KEY
by Anne Sexton, 1971The speaker in this case is a middle-aged witch, me- tangled on my two great arms, my face in a book and my mouth wide, ready to tell you a story or two. I have come to remind you, all of you: Alice, Samuel, Kurt, Eleanor, Jane, Brian, Maryel, all of you draw near. Alice, at fifty-six do you remember? Do you remember when you were read to as a child? Samuel, at twenty-two have you forgotten? Forgotten the ten P.M. dreams where the wicked king went up in smoke? Are you comatose? Are you undersea? Attention, my dears, let me present to you this boy. He is sixteen and he wants some answers. He is each of us. I mean you. I mean me. It is not enough to read Hesse and drink clam chowder, we must have the answers. The boy has found a gold key and he is looking for what it will open. This boy! Upon finding a nickel he would look for a wallet. This boy! Upon finding a string he would look for a harp. Therefore he holds the key tightly. Its secrets whimper like a dog in heat. He turns the key. Presto! It opens this book of odd tales which transform the Brothers Grimm. Transform? As if an enlarged paper clip could be a piece of sculpture. (And it could.) THE RED SHOES
by Anne Sexton, 1972I stand in the ring in the dead city and tie on the red shoes. Everything that was calm is mine, the watch with an ant walking, the toes, lined up like dogs, the stove long before it boils toads, the parlor, white in winter, long before flies, the doe lying down on moss, long before the bullet. I tie on the red shoes. They are not mine. They are my mother's. Her mother's before. Handed down like an heirloom but hidden like shameful letters. The house and the street where they belong are hidden and all the women, too, are hidden. All those girls who wore the red shoes, each boarded a train that would not stop. Stations flew by like suitors and would not stop. They danced like trout on the hook. They were played with. They tore off their ears like safety pins. Their arms fell of them and became hats. Their heads rolled off and sang down the street. And their feet - oh God, their feet in the market place - their feet, those two beetles, ran for the corner and then danced forth as if they were proud. Surely, people exclaimed, surely they are mechanical. Otherwise... But the feet went on. The feet could not stop. They were wound up like a cobra that sees you. They were elastic pulling itself in two. They were islands during an earthquake. They were ships colliding and going down. Never mind you and me. They would not listen. They could not stop. What they did was the death dance. What they did would do them in. ARIEL
by Sylvia Plath, 1965Stasis in darkness. Then the substanceless blue Pour of tor and distances. God's lioness, How one we grow, Pivot of heels and knees! - The furrow Splits and passes, sister to The brown arc Of the neck I cannot catch, Nigger-eye Berries cast dark Hooks - Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else Hauls me through air - Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels. White Godiva, I unpeel - Dead hands, dead stringencies. And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child's cry Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow, The dew that flies Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red Eye, the cauldron of morning. Ariel was the blithe spirit who yearned for release in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Ariel was also the name of the horse Plath sometimes rode on Dartmoor near the Devon village where she and Ted Hughes had bought an old church rectory the year before. |
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 3, 2008 17:17:22 GMT
Thank you, Tannis. I really like these. I'm guessing Anne Sexton must be one of your favorite poets? I've only read a little of her work, but this makes me interested to read more. |
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 5, 2008 3:25:37 GMT
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
(Wallace Stevens) I thought I'd post this because of the many times the blackbird appears in Kate's work.
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 7, 2008 3:04:58 GMT
Chansons Innocentes: I
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
(E. E. Cummings)
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 10, 2008 5:31:56 GMT
Sea Rose
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,
more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem --
you are caught in the drift.
Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
Hilda Doolittle
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 14, 2008 2:14:55 GMT
Peter Quince at the Clavier
I
Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna;
Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt
The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.
II
In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.
Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.
She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.
A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned --
A cymbal crashed,
Amid roaring horns.
III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.
They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;
And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.
Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.
And then, the simpering Byzantines
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.
IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind --
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.
Wallace Stevens Anyone else? I'm running out of poets! 
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Feb 20, 2008 23:41:40 GMT
writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Williams-WC.htmlWilliams is one of my favorite poets, and it's very interesting to hear him read some of his poems out loud. I particularly like the interview about halfway down the page from The Mary Margaret Mcbride show.
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Post by tannis on Feb 24, 2008 8:32:53 GMT
Orphic Hymn to the Sun
Hear, golden Titan, whose eternal eye
With broad survey, illumines all the sky.
Self-born, unwearied in diffusing light,
And to all eyes the mirror of delight:
Lord of the Seasons, with thy fiery car
And leaping coursers, beaming light from far:
With thy right hand the source of morning light,
And with thy left the father of the night.
Agile and vig'rous, venerable Sun,
Fiery and bright around the heav'ns you run.
Foe to the wicked, but the good man's guide,
O'er all his steps propitious you preside:
With various-sounding, golden lyre, 'tis thine
To fill the world with harmony divine.
Father of ages, guide of prosp'rous deeds,
The world's commander, borne by lucid steeds.
Immortal Jove [Zeus], all-searching, bearing light,
Source of existence, pure and fiery bright;
Bearer of fruit, almighty lord of years,
Agile and warm, whom ev'ry power reveres.
Great eye of Nature and the starry skies,
Doom'd with immortal flames to set and rise;
Dispensing justice, lover of the stream,
The world's great master, and o'er all supreme.
Faithful defender, and the eye of right,
Of steeds the ruler, and of life the light:
With sounding whip four fiery steeds you guide,
When in the car of day you glorious ride.
Propitious on these mystic labours shine,
And bless thy suppliants with a life divine.
Orphic Hymn to the Moon
Hear, Goddess queen, diffusing silver light,
Bull-horn'd, and wand'ring thro' the gloom of Night.
With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide
Night's torch extending, through the heav'ns you ride:
Female and male, with silv'ry rays you shine,
And now full-orb'd, now tending to decline.
Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon,
Whose amber orb makes Night's reflected noon:
Lover of horses, splendid queen of night,
All-seeing pow'r, bedeck'd with starry light,
Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife,
In peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:
Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend,
Who giv'st to Nature's works their destin'd end.
Queen of the stars, all-wise Diana, hail!
Deck'd with a graceful robe and ample veil.
Come, blessed Goddess, prudent, starry, bright,
Come, moony-lamp, with chaste and splendid light,
Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays,
And pleas'd accept thy suppliants' mystic praise.
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Post by tannis on Feb 24, 2008 10:19:15 GMT
Orphic Hymn 33 To Apollo
BLEST Pæan [Apollo], come, propitious to my pray'r,
Illustrious pow'r, whom Memphian tribes revere,
Slayer of Tityus, and the God of health,
Lycorian Phœbus, fruitful source of wealth.
Spermatic, golden-lyr'd, the field from thee
Receives it's constant, rich fertility.
Titanic, Grunian, Smynthian, thee I sing,
Python-destroying, hallow'd, Delphian king:
Rural, light-bearer, and the Muse's head,
Noble and lovely, arm'd with arrows dread:
Far-darting, Bacchian, two-fold, and divine,
Pow'r far diffused, and course oblique is thine.
O, Delian king, whose light-producing eye
Views all within, and all beneath the sky:
Whose locks are gold, whose oracles are sure,
Who, omens good reveal'st, and precepts pure:
Hear me entreating for the human kind,
Hear, and be present with benignant mind;
For thou survey'st this boundless æther all,
And ev'ry part of this terrestrial ball
Abundant, blessed; and thy piercing sight,
Extends beneath the gloomy, silent night;
Beyond the darkness, starry-ey'd, profound,
The stable roots, deep fix'd by thee are found.
The world's wide bounds, all-flourishing are thine,
Thyself all the source and end divine:
'Tis thine all Nature's music to inspire,
With various-sounding, harmonising lyre;
Now the last string thou tun'ft to sweet accord,
Divinely warbling now the highest chord;
Th' immortal golden lyre, now touch'd by thee,
Responsive yields a Dorian melody.
All Nature's tribes to thee their diff'rence owe,
And changing seasons from thy music flow
Hence, mix'd by thee in equal parts, advance
Summer and Winter in alternate dance;
This claims the highest, that the lowest string,
The Dorian measure tunes the lovely spring.
Hence by mankind, Pan-royal, two-horn'd nam'd,
Emitting whistling winds thro' Syrinx fam'd;
Since to thy care, the figur'd seal's consign'd,
Which stamps the world with forms of ev'ry kind.
Hear me, blest pow'r, and in these rites rejoice,
And save thy mystics with a suppliant voice.
-----
Orphic Hymn 36 to Artemis
Hear me, Jove's [Zeus'] daughter, celebrated queen,
Bacchian and Titan, of a noble mien:
In darts rejoicing, and on all to shine,
Torch-bearing Goddess, Dictynna divine [Artemis];
O'er births presiding, and thyself a maid,
To labour-pangs imparting ready aid:
Dissolver of the zone, and wrinkl'd care,
Fierce huntress, glorying in the Sylvan war:
Swift in the course, in dreadful arrows skill'd,
Wandering by night, rejoicing in the field:
Of manly form, erect, of bounteous mind,
Illustrious dæmon, nurse of human kind:
Immortal, earthly, bane of monsters fell,
'Tis thine; blest maid, on woody hills to dwell:
Foe of the stag, whom woods and dogs delight,
In endless youth who flourish fair and bright.
O, universal queen, august, divine,
A various form, Cydonian pow'r, is thine:
Dread guardian Goddess, with benignant mind
Auspicious, come to mystic rites inclin'd
Give earth a store of beauteous fruits to bear,
Send gentle Peace, and Health with lovely hair,
And to the mountains drive Disease and Care.
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Is this board a good place for that, or would Other Topics be better? I wasn't sure 
I'm interested to see what people's inspirations are. Her are some of mine:
I'm glad you like the poems! 