fragment

[audesapere.livejournal.com]

what cannot be said
will get wept
--Sappho

(no subject)

[queenbritta.livejournal.com]

hola!
i am just dying to re-read "the crow" by ted hughes, but am stuck at work. Does anyone know of a site which has the full text or even just "the lovepet"? gracias for your help!

Pound

[bay-state-magi.livejournal.com]

SESTINA: ALTAFORTE

By Ezra Pound

LOQUITUR: En Bertans de Born. Dante Alighieri put this man in hell
for that he was a stirrer up of strife. Eccovi! Judge ye! Have I dug
him up again? The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. ``Papiols'' is his
jongleur. ``The Leopard,'' the device of Richard Coeur de Lion.

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

II

In hot summer I have great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
And the lightning from black heav'n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God's swords clash.

III

Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breat opposing!
Better one hour's stour than a year's peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there's no wine like the blood's crimson!

IV

And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears through the dark clash
And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His long might 'gainst all darkness opposing.

V

The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth's won and the swords clash
For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

VI

Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There's no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle's rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges 'gainst ``The Leopard's'' rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry ``Peace!''

VII

And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought ``Peace!''

"FOR THE LAST WOLVERINE," James Dickey

[elsabeta.livejournal.com]

They will soon be down

To one, but he still will be
For a little while    still will be stopping

The flakes in the air with a look,
Surrounding himself with the silence
Of whitening snarls. Let him eat
The last red meal of the condemned

To extinction, tearing the guts

From an elk. Yet that is not enough
For me. I would have him eat

The heart, and, from it, have an idea
Stream into his gnawing head
That he no longer has a thing
To lose, and so can walk

Out into the open, in the full

Pale of the sub-Arctic sun
Where a single spruce tree is dying

Higher and higher. Let him climb it
With all his meanness and strength.
Lord, we have come to the end
Of this kind of vision of heaven,

( As the sky breaks open )

Copyright © 1966 by James Dickey

"All Girls" by Richard Brautigan

[hipsunderhands.livejournal.com]

All Girls

All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.

Posted elsewhere, figured I'd repost here

[darkbarde.livejournal.com]

The Spring Poem
by Dave Smith

Every poet should write a Spring poem
-- Louise Glück

Yes, but we must be sure of verities
such as proper heat and adequate form.
That's what poets are for, is my theory.
This then is a Spring poem. A car warms
its rusting hulk in a meadow; weeds slog
up its flanks in martial weather. April
or late March is our month. There is a fog
of spunky mildew and sweaty tufts spill
from the damp rump of a back seat. A spring
thrusts one gleaming tip out, a brilliant tooth
uncoiling from Winter's tension, a ring
of insects along, working out the Truth.
Each year this car, melting around that spring,
hears nails trench from boards and every squeak sing.

Richard Brautigan's "The Final Ride"

[hipsunderhands.livejournal.com]

The Final Ride

The act of dying
is like hitch-hiking
into a strange town
late at night
where it is cold
and raining,
and you are alone
again.

Suddenly
all of the street lamps
go out
and everything
becomes dark,

so dark
that even the buildings
are afraid

of one another.

"A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne

[theotherchicago.livejournal.com]

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
-- Whose soul is sense -- cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

(no subject)

[strangeidea.livejournal.com]

Root Boy Slim, 1945-1993
John Balaban

Dead now, Foster MacKenzie III,
better known as Root Boy Slim,
lead singer and composeur
for the Sex Change Band.
His trademark "Liquor Store Hold-Up in Space,"
"Dating the Undead," and the popular
"Boogie 'Til You Puke"
rocked the '80s bar scene in D.C.,
his coked and uninsultable clientele.

Just the sight of him invited trouble.
Even his Post obituary misbehaved, saying
he was "overweight, dressed like a slob
and took delight in shocking his audiences."

I kept the clipping for a week,
then crumpled it, tossed it in the basket.
But plucked it out, alive in my hand
like some stunned sparrow,
some stoned songbird
fallen down a long chimney.

Challenges to Young Poets [Ferlinghetti]

[eirena.livejournal.com]

CHALLENGES TO YOUNG POETS
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

# Invent a new language anyone can understand.

# Climb the Statue of Liberty.

# Reach for the unattainable.

# Kiss the mirror and write what you see and hear.

# Dance with wolves and count the stars, including the unseen.

# Be naive, innocent, non-cynical, as if you had just landed on earth (as indeed you have, as indeed we all have), astonished by what you have fallen upon.

# Write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance level for hot air.

# Write an endless poem about your life on earth or elsewhere.

# Read between the lines of human discourse.

# Avoid the provincial, go for the universal.

# Think subjectively, write objectively.

# Think long thoughts in short sentences.

# Don’t attend poetry workshops, but if you do, don’t go to learn "how to" but to learn "what" (What’s important to write about).

# Don’t bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces.

# Resist much, obey less.

# Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage.

#.Write short poems in the voice of birds. Make your lyrics truly lyrical. Birdsong is not made by machines. Give your poem wings to fly to the treetops.

# The much-quoted dictum from William Carlos Williams,"No ideas but in things," is OK for prose, but it lays a dead hand on lyricism, since "things" are dead.

# Don’t contemplate your navel in poetry and think the rest of the world is going to think it’s important.

# Remember everything, forget nothing..

# Work on a frontier, if you can find one.

# Go to sea, or work near water, and paddle your own boat.

# Associate with thinking poets. They’re hard to find.

# Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking. "First thought, best thought" may not make for the greatest poetry. First thought may be worst thought.
.
# What’s on your mind? What do you have in mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.

# Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

# Question everything and everyone. Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and the status quo.

# Be a poet, not a huckster. Don’t cater, don’t pander, especially not to possible audiences, readers, editors, or publishers.

# Come out of your closet. It’s dark in there.

# Raise the blinds, throw open your shuttered windows, raise the roof, unscrew the locks from the doors, but don’t throw away the screws.

# Be committed to something outside yourself. Be militant about it. Or ecstatic.

# To be a poet at sixteen is to be sixteen, to be a poet at 40 is to be a poet. Be both.

# Wake up, the world’s on fire!

# Have a nice day.

(no subject)

[iamkatia.livejournal.com]

in four minutes you will be gone and i must tell you why. when
a star crashes, the angels are electrified. your life changes
in ways you can't imagine. When your dreams are perfect, they
run like machines and leave you dizzy. when you first discover
you're dying, everyone seems to be saying goodbye. when your
dreams are perfect, they run like machines. you must change your
life. you are never ready. you must change your life. you are
never ready. there are people you have to leave behind, they
just dirty up your mouth they don't value your treasure. you
fall down, you kiss up, you love them, it's not enough. they're
nothing special and you're such a gift. if you had no magic here
you'd be just like everyone else. imagine the tragedy. you must
change your life. you are never ready. you must change your life.
you are never ready. love is like crying like writing like dying
you've got to do it alone. i know it's tragic to be tender i
know it's dangerous to be kind i know it's vicious to care.
listen to me, i know what's going to happen to you. you don't
need a window, you need a fire escape, you'll need a skylight
to get to where you're going. i can't tell you where. and you
dream that you are hollow and you dream that you are whole
reconstruct what you remember and it comes out in pieces. you
must change your life. you are never ready. you must change your
life. you are never ready. those below you can't hold you up
everyone is gone gone gone everyone is gone gone gone. learn
to swim alone learn to fly. you must change your life. you are
never ready. you must change your life. you are never ready.
cast them off like long rope and learn to swim the dark water
alone. look up to the stars stars stars and know that this is
your sky now. lift your arms and go step forward in nureyev
leap blink fast and whirr over streets hover over trees speed
past taxis don't even bother to wave at the children who watch
you awestruck brushing past skyscrapers and looking up up slip
off the long skirt that slows you down and don't look back to
watch it billow to earth tell the cool jets and superman that
you're passing them feel your hair stream back wind blinding
you forcing your dry mouth open no one can touch you now get
out of this fucking world as fast as you can.

[nicole blackman]

"A Pact", by Ezra Pound

[redcord.livejournal.com]

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman —
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root —
Let there be commerce between us.

I just learned about this poet yesterday...

[mizraim.livejournal.com]

The Marionettes of Distant Masters

A pianist dreams that he's hired by a wrecking company to ruin a piano with his fingers . . .
On the day of the piano wrecking concert, as he's dressing, he notices a butterfly annoying a flower in his window box. He wonders if the police should be called. Then he thinks maybe the butterfly is just a marionette being manipulated by its master from the window above.
Suddenly everything is beautiful. He begins to cry.

Then another butterfly begins to annoy the first butterfly. He again wonders if he shouldn't call the police.
But, perhaps they are marionette-butterflies? He thinks they are, belonging to rival masters seeing whose butterfly can annoy the other's the most.

And this is happening in his window box. The Cosmic Plan: Distant Masters manipulating minor Masters who, in turn, are manipulating tiny butterfly-Masters who, in turn, are manipulating him . . . A universe webbed with strings!
Suddenly it is all so beautiful; the light is strange . . . Something about the light! He begins to cry . . .

- Russell Edson

"Poetry is a way of talking about things that frighten you" - Mick Imlah

[glass-doll.livejournal.com]

(poems about death, heaven and such)



On a Dark Night
by John F. Deane


On a dark night
When all the street was hushed, you crept
Out of our bed and down the carpeted stair;
I stirred, unknowing that some light
Within you had gone out, and I still slept.
As if, out of the dark air

Of night, some call
Drew you, you moved in the silent street
Where cars were white in frost. Beyond the gate
You were your shadow on a garage-wall.
Mud on our laneway touched your naked feet.
the dying elms of our estate

Became your bower
And on your neck the chilling airs
Moved freely, I was not there when you kept
Such a hopeless tryst. At this most silent hour
You walked distracted with your heavy cares
On a dark night while I slept.


============================================



Inside Our Dreams
by Jeanne Willis


Where do people go to when they die?
somewhere down below or in the sky?
"I can't be sure," said Grandad, "but it seems
They simply set up home inside our dreams."


=========================================



Eden Rock
by Charles Causley


They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Gernuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in sprigged dress
Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,
Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.
Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight
from an old H.P. sauce bottle, a screw
Of paper for a cork; she slowly sets out
The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

the sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
Over the drifted stream. My father spins
A stone across the water. Leisurely,

They beckon to me from the other bank.
I hear them call, "See where the stream-path is!
Crossing is not as hard as you might think."

I had not thought that it would be like this.

Crow Tyrannosaurus, Ted Hughes

[interminable.livejournal.com]

Creation quaked voices -
It was a cortege
Of mourning and lament
Crow could hear and he looked around fearfully.
The swift's body fled past
Pulsating
With insects
And their anguish, all it had eaten.
The cat's body writhed
Gagging
A tunnel
Of incoming death-struggles, sorrow on sorrow.

And the dog was a bulging filterbag
Of all the deaths it had gulped for the flesh and the
bones.
It could not digest their screeching finales.
Its shapeless cry was a blort of all those voices.
Even man he was a walking
Abattoir
Of innocents -
His brain incinerating their outcry.
Crow thought `Alas
Alas ought I
To stop eating
And try to become the light?'

But his eye saw a grub. And his head, trapsprung,
          stabbed.
And he listened
And he heard
Weeping

Grubs  grubs  He stabbed  he stabbed
Weeping
Weeping

Weeping he walked and stabbed
Thus came the eye's
          roundness
the ear's
          deafness.