Poetry Corner

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

The Green Automobile

If I had a Green Automobile
I'd go find my old companion
in his house on the Western Ocean
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

I'd honk my horn at his manly gate,
inside his wife and three
children sprawl naked
on the living room floor.

He'd come running out
to my car full of heroic beer
and jump screaming at the wheel
for he is the greater driver.

We'd pigrimage to the highest mount
of our earlier Rocky Mountain visions
laughing in each others arms,
delight surpassing the highest Rockies.

and after old agony, drunk with new years,
bounding toward the snowy horizon
blasting the dashboard with original bop
hot rod on the mountain

we'd batter up the cloudy highway
where angels of anxiety
careen through the trees
and scream out of the engine.

We'd burn all night on the jackpine peak
seen from Denver in the summer dark,
forestlike unnatural radiance
illuminating the mountaintop:

childhood youthtime age & eternity
would open like sweet trees
in the nights of another spring
and dumbfound us with love,

for we can see together
the beauty of souls
hidden like diamonds
in the clock of the world,

like Chinese magicians can
confound the immortals
with our intellectuality
hidden in the mist,

in the Green Automobile
which I have invented
imagined and visioned
on the roads of the world

more real than the engine
on a track in the desert
purer than Greyhound and
swifter than physical jetplane.

Denver! Denver! we'll return
roaring across the City & County Building lawn
which catches the pure emerald flame
streaming in the wake of our auto.

This time we'll buy up the city!
I cashed a great check in my skull bank
to found a miraculous college of the body
up on the bus terminal roof.

But first we'll drive the stations of downtown,
poolhall flophouse jazzjoint jail
w-horehouse down Folsom
to the darkest alleys of Larimer

paying respects to Denver's father
lost on the railroad tracks,
stupor of wine and silence
hallowing the slum of his decades,

salute him and his saintly suitcase
of dark muscatel, drink
and smash the sweet bottles
of Diesels in allegiance.

Then we go driving drunk on boulevards
where armies march and still parade
staggering under the invisible
banner of Reality --

hurtling through the street
in the auto of our fate
we share an archangelic cigarette
and tell each others' fortunes:

fames of supernatural illumination,
bleak rainy gaps of time,
great art learned in desolation
and we beat apart after six decades ...

and on an asphalt crossroad,
deal with each other princely
gentleness once more, recalling
famous dead talkes of other cities.

The windshield's full of tears,
rain wets our naked breasts,
we kneel together in the shade
amid the traffic of night in paradise

and now renew the solitary vow
we made each other take
in Texas, once:
I can't inscribe here ...
... ...
... ...

How many Saturday nights will be
made drunken by this legend?
How will young Denver come to mourn
her forgotten sexual angel?

How many boys will strike the black piano
in imitation of the excess of a native saint?
Or girls fall wanton under his spectre in the high
schools of melancholy night?

While all the time in Eternity
in the wan light of this poem's radio
we'll sit behind forgotten shades
hearkening the lost jazz of all Saturdays.

Neal, we'll be real heroes now
in a war between our xxxxs and time:
let's be the angels of the world's desire
and take the world to be with us before
we die.

Sleeping alone, or with companion,
girl or fairy sheep or dream,
I'll fail of lacklove, you, satiety:
all men fall, our fathers fell before,

but resurrecting that lost flesh
is but a moment's work of mind:
an ageless monument of love
in the imagination:

memorial built out of our own bodies
consumed by the invisible poem --
We'll shudder in Denver and endure
though blood and wrinkles blind our eyes.

So this Green Automobile:
I give you in flight
a present, a present
from my imagination.

We will go riding
over the Rockies,
we'll go on riding
all night long until dawn,

then back to your railroad, the SP
your house and your children
and broken leg destiny
you'll ride down the plains

in the morning: and back
to my visions, my office
and eastern apartment
I'll return to New York.

NY 1953

-- Ginsberg, Allen. Reality Sandwiches, p.11

The Green Bus

What time is it in your bedroom?
the streets are becoming the red sea
flushed through the white forest
where Gauguin was last seen saying goodbye

despair in America (and Europe) oh!
we are here on 53rd and 6th watching steel
change to ivy taxi's
sexy dreams pierce your left ventricle
your left wrist is broken,

but the time!
a wristwatch quickly sliding down the facade
it is 5 a.m.
time to anticipate
we anticipate
what we anticipate is a vision:
foresight among the fathers slowly withdrawing from the legion
seeking the insoluble answer of the waves I mean the streets
do you realize "I hate you" now you sneeze

(it isn't easy talking to you
through the brick genitals you're holding,
and I tremble without boots or wings,
sitting exhausted upon the serpent's breath

a fan moves in the sky you are a very happy person
it drips the sordid blood
it stops ... the heat!
it is 5 a.m. in the Warwick Coffee Shop
it is 5:10 in N.Y.
I am in N.Y....

"no more fiesta long Houston St." she remarked
"smear the river with doves and praise
the departing feathers"
*

(I don't know from your bedroom what you're thinking,
said the "person" do you want to take in a movie,
and go home after and f-uck maybe?

you are warm today and the climate
is happy and welcomed

shall we walk, then, to the park?
near the fountain?
shall we sit in the grass?

-- Carroll, Jim. Living at the Movies.

[ara87]

Re: Poetry Corner

20 years- Placebo

There are twenty years to go,
and twenty ways to know,
who will wear,
who will wear the hat.

There are twenty years to go,
the best of all i hope,
enjoy the ride,
the medicine show.

Thems the breaks,
for we designer fakes,
we need to concentrate on more than meets the eye.

There are twenty years to go,
the faithful and the low,
the best of starts,
the broken heart,the stone.

There are twenty years to go,
the punch drunk and the blow,
the worst of starts,
the mercy part,the phone.

Thems the breaks,
for we designer fakes,
we need to concentrate on more than meets the eye,

Thems the breaks,
for we designer fakes,
but it`s you i take 'cause you´re the truth, not I.

There are twenty years to go,
a golden age i know,
but all will pass,
will end too fast,you know.

There are twenty years to go,
and many friends i hope,
though some may hold the rose,
some hold the rope.

That´s the end and that´s the start of it,
That´s the whole and that´s the part of it,
That´s the high and that´s the heart of it,
That´s the long and that´s the short of it,
That´s the best and that´s the test in it,
That´s the doubt,the doubt,the trust in it,
That´s the sight and that´s the sound of it,
That´s the gift and that´s the trick in it,

You´re the truth,not i.

You´re the truth,not i.

[ara87]

Re: Poetry Corner

Black-Pearl Jams (Lyrics by Eddie Vedder)

Sheets of empty canvas,
Untouched sheets of clay,
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.

All five horizons revolved around her soul,
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn.

And all I taught her was everything,
I know she gave me all that she wore.
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds,
Of what was everything.
The pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

I take a walk outside,
I'm surrounded by some kids at play,
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear?

And twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can drop away..

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything?
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

All the love gone bad,
Turned my world to black,
Tattooed all I see,
All that I am,
All I'll be...

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,
I know you'll be a sun,
In somebody else's sky, but why?
Why, why can't it be, can't it be mine?

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

To Ellen, At The South

The green grass is growing,
The morning wind is in it,
'Tis a tune worth the knowing,
Though it change every minute.

'Tis a tune of the spring,
Every year plays it over,
To the robin on the wing,
To the pausing lover.

O'er ten thousand thousand acres
Goes light the nimble zephyr,
The flowers, tiny feet of shakers,
Worship him ever.

Hark to the winning sound!
They summon thee, dearest,
Saying; "We have drest for thee the ground,
Nor yet thou appearest.

"O hasten, 'tis our time,
Ere yet the red summer
Scorch our delicate prime,
Loved of bee, the tawny hummer.

"O pride of thy race!
Sad in sooth it were to ours,
If our brief tribe miss thy face,—
We pour New England flowers.

"Fairest! choose the fairest members
Of our lithe society;
June's glories and September's
Show our love and piety.

"Thou shalt command us all,
April's cowslip, summer's clover
To the gentian in the fall,
Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.

"O come, then, quickly come,
We are budding, we are blowing,
And the wind which we perfume
Sings a tune that's worth thy knowing."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Changed

From the outskirts of the town
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.

Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.

Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Brahma

IF the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Arrow and the Song

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

-- William Shakespeare

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Prayer In Bad Weather

by God, I don't know what to
do.
they're so nice to have around.
they have a way of playing with
the balls
and looking at the xxxx very
seriously
turning it
tweaking it
examining each part
as their long hair falls on
your belly.
it's not the f-ucking and sucking
alone that reaches into a man
and softens him, it's the extras,
it's all the extras.
now it's raining tonight
and there's nobody
they are elsewhere
examining things
in new bedrooms
in new moods
or maybe in old
bedrooms.
anyhow, it's raining tonight,
on hell of a dashing, pouring
rain.
very little to do.
I've read the newspaper
paid the gas bill
the electric co.
the phone bill.
it keeps raining.
they soften a man
and then let him swim
in his own juice.
I need an old-fashioned w-hore
at the door tonight
closing her green umbrella,
drops her green umbrella,
drops of moonlit rain on her
purse, saying "s-hit, man,
can't you get better music
than that on your radio?
and turn up the heat…"
it's always when a man's swollen
with love and everything
else
that keeps raining
splattering
flooding
rain
good for the trees and the
grass and the air…
good for things that
live alone.
I would give anything
for a female's hand on me
tonight.
they soften a man and
then leave him
listening to the rain.

-- Charles Bukowski



First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

-- Allen Ginsberg

December 1965

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

THE SWAN

ANDROMACHE, I think of you! The stream,
The poor, sad mirror where in bygone days
Shone all the majesty of your widowed grief,
The lying Simoïs flooded by your tears,
Made all my fertile memory blossom forth
As I passed by the new-built Carrousel.
Old Paris is no more (a town, alas,
Changes more quickly than man's heart may change);
Yet in my mind I still can see the booths;
The heaps of brick and rough-hewn capitals;
The grass; the stones all over-green with moss;
The débris, and the square-set heaps of tiles.

There a menagerie was once outspread;
And there I saw, one morning at the hour
When toil awakes beneath the cold, clear sky,
And the road roars upon the silent air,
A swan who had escaped his cage, and walked
On the dry pavement with his webby feet,
And trailed his spotless plumage on the ground.
And near a waterless stream the piteous swan
Opened his beak, and bathing in the dust
His nervous wings, he cried (his heart the while
Filled with a vision of his own fair lake):
"O water, when then wilt thou come in rain?
Lightning, when wilt thou glitter?"

Sometimes yet
I see the hapless bird -- strange, fatal myth--
Like him that Ovid writes of, lifting up
Unto the cruelly blue, ironic heavens,
With stretched, convulsive neck a thirsty face,
As though he sent reproaches up to God!

II.

Paris may change; my melancholy is fixed.
New palaces, and scaffoldings, and blocks,
And suburbs old, are symbols all to me
Whose memories are as heavy as a stone.
And so, before the Louvre, to vex my soul,
The image came of my majestic swan
With his mad gestures, foolish and sublime,
As of an exile whom one great desire
Gnaws with no truce. And then I thought of you,
Andromache! torn from your hero's arms;
Beneath the hand of Pyrrhus in his pride;
Bent o'er an empty tomb in ecstasy;
Widow of Hector -- wife of Helenus!
And of the negress, wan and phthisical,
T-ramping the mud, and with her haggard eyes
Seeking beyond the mighty walls of fog
The absent palm-trees of proud Africa;
Of all who lose that which they never find;
Of all who drink of tears; all whom grey grief
Gives suck to as the kindly wolf gave suck;
Of meagre orphans who like blossoms fade.
And one old Memory like a crying horn
Sounds through the forest where my soul is lost . . .
I think of sailors on some isle forgotten;
Of captives; vanquished . . . and of many more.

-- Charles Baudelaire

Sic Vita

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,
And sorrel intermixed,
Encircled by a wisp of straw
Once coiled about their shoots,
The law
By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out
Those fair Elysian fields,
With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth make the rabble rout
That waste
The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,
Drinking my juices up,
With no root in the land
To keep my branches green,
But stand
In a bare cup.

Some tender buds were left upon my stem
In mimicry of life,
But ah! the children will not know,
Till time has withered them,
The woe
With which they're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,
And after in life's vase
Of glass set while I might survive,
But by a kind hand brought
Alive
To a strange place.

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,
And by another year,
Such as God knows, with freer air,
More fruits and fairer flowers
Will bear,
While I droop here.

-- Henry David Thoreau

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

THE WORLDLING. *

OTHERS may with regret complain
That 'tis not fair Astrea's reign,
That the famed golden age is o'er
That Saturn, Rhea rule no more:
Or, to speak in another style,
That Eden's groves no longer smile.
For my part, I thank Nature sage,
That she has placed me in this age:
Religionists may rail in vain;
I own, I like this age profane;
I love the pleasures of a court;
I love the arts of every sort;
Magnificence, fine buildings, strike me;
In this, each man of sense is like me.
I have, I own, a worldly mind,
That's pleased abundance here to find;
Abundance, mother of all arts,
Which with new wants new joys imparts
The treasures of the earth and main,
With all the creatures they contain:
These, luxury and pleasures raise;
This iron age brings happy days.
Needful superfluous things appear;
They have joined together either sphere.
See how that fleet, with canvas wings,
From Texel, Bordeaux, London brings,
By happy commerce to our shores,
All Indus, and all Ganges stores;
Whilst France, that pierced the Turkish lines,
Sultans make drunk with rich French wines.
Just at the time of Nature's birth,
Dark ignorance o'erspread the earth;
None then in wealth surpassed the rest,
For naught the human race possessed.
Of clothes, their bodies then were bare,
They nothing had, and could not share:
Then too they sober were and sage,
Martialo ** lived not in that age.
Eve, first formed by the hand divine,
Never so much as tasted wine.
Do you our ancestors admire,
Because they wore no rich attire?
Ease was like wealth to them unknown,
Was't virtue? ignorance alone.
Would any fool, had he a bed,
On the bare ground have laid his head?
My fruit-eating first father, say,
In Eden how rolled time away ?
Did you work for the human race,
And clasp dame Eve with close embrace!
Own that your nails you could not pare,
And that you wore disordered hair,
That you were swarthy in complexion,
And that your amorous affection
Had very little better in't
Than downright animal instinct.
Both weary of the marriage yoke
You supped each night beneath an oak
On millet, water, and on mast,
And having finished your repast,
On the ground you were forced to lie,
Exposed to the inclement sky:
Such in the state of simple nature
Is man, a helpless, wretched creature.
Would you know in this cursed age,
Against which zealots so much rage,
To what men blessed with taste attend
In cities, how their time they spend ?
The arts that charm the human mind
All at his house a welcome find;
In building it, the architect
No grace passed over with neglect.
To adorn the rooms, at once combine
Poussin,Correggio the divine,
Their works on every panel placed
Are in rich golden frames incased.
His statues show Bouchardon's skill,
Plate of Germain, his sideboards fill.
The Gobelin tapestry, whose dye
Can with the painter's pencil vie,
With gayest coloring appear
As ornaments on every pier.
From the superb salon are seen
Gardens with Cyprian myrtle green.
I see the sporting waters rise
By jets d'eau almost to the skies.
But see the master's self approach
And mount into his gilded coach,
A house in motion, to the eyes
It seems as through the streets it flies.
I see him through transparent glasses
Loll at his ease as on he passes.
Two pliant and elastic springs
Carry him like a pair of wings.
At Bath, his polished skin inhales
Perfumes, sweet as Arabian gales.
Camargot at the approach of night
Julia, Gossin by turns invite.
Love kind and bounteous on him pours
Of choicest favors plenteous showers.
To the opera house he must repair,
Dance, song and music charm him there.
The painter's art to strike the sight,
Does there with that blest art unite;
The yet more soft, persuasive skill,
Which can the soul with pleasure thrill.
He may to damn an opera go,
And yet perforce admire Rameau.
The cheerful supper next invites
To luxury's less refined delights.
How exquisite those sauces flavor!
Of those ragouts I like the savor.
The man who can in cookery shine,
May well be deemed a man divine.
Chloris and Ægle at each course
Serve me with wine, whose mighty force
Makes the cork from the bottle fly
Like lightning darting from the sky.
Bounce ! to the ceiling it ascends,
And laughter the apartment rends.
In this froth, just observers see
The emblem of French vivacity.
The following day new joys inspires,
It brings new pleasures and desires.
Mentor, Telemachus descant
Upon frugality, and vaunt
Your Ithaca and your Salentum
To ancient Greeks, since they content them:
Since Greeks in abstinence could find
Ample supplies of every kind.
The work, though not replete with fire,
I for its elegance admire:
But I'll be whipped Salentum through
If thither I my bliss pursue.
Garden of Eden, much renowned,
Since there the devil and fruit were found,
Huetius, Calmet, learned and bold,
Inquired where Eden lay of old:
I am not so critically nice,
Paris to me's a paradise.

-- Voltaire
____________________
* This poem was written in 1736. It is a piece of humor
founded upon philosophy and the public good.

** The author of a treatise entitled " The French Cook."

-- Smollett, Tobias; Morley, John; Fleming, William F.; Gordon, Oliver. The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version [The Lisbon Earthquake and Other Poems], Vol. 36., pgs. 84-88 (1901)

SPLEEN

I am like the king of a rainy land,
Wealthy but powerless, both young and very old,
Who contemns the fawning manners of his tutors
And is bored with his dogs and other animals.
Nothing can cheer him, neither the chase nor falcons,
Nor his people dying before his balcony.
The ludicrous ballads of his favorite clown
No longer smooth the brow of this cruel invalid;
His bed, adorned with fleurs-de-lis, becomes a grave;
The lady's maids, to whom every prince is handsome,
No longer can find gowns shameless enough
To wring a smile from this young skeleton.
The alchemist who makes his gold was never able
To extract from him the tainted element,
And in those baths of blood come down from Roman times,
And which in their old age the powerful recall,
He failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins
Flows the green water of Lethe in place of blood.

-- Charles Baudelaire

— Aggeler, William. The Flowers of Evil.

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

The Song of the Partridge

The sun appears from behind the dark clouds

The partridge soars above the green hills

From the top of the green hills

The partridge brings greetings to all the flowers

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, colourful partridge

You have sewn your nest with flowers

With lilies and daffodils and other flowers

Your nest is filled with dew

You sleep and rise with songs and drums

Beautiful, beautiful, colorful partridge

Your wings are soft and colourful

You have a small beak and red feet

And with your red feet

You dance with the other birds

Beautiful, beautiful, colorful partridge

When you stand on the mossy rock

You sing psalms to the flowers

You make the hills and valleys cheer

You bring joy to the mournful sea

Beautiful, beautiful, colorful partridge

-- Gomidas



AZOLAN

AT VILLAGE lived, in days of yore,
A youth bred in Mahomet's lore;
His well-turned limbs were formed with grace,
With blooming beauty glowed his face;
His name was Azolan, with care
The Koran he had written fair;
Was on its study ever bent,
To get it all by heart he meant.
From the most early youth his breast
By zeal for Gabriel was possessed;
This minister of the most high
Descended to him from the sky.
"The zeal that in thy bosom glows,"
Said he, "thy guardian Gabriel knows:
To Gabriel gratitude is dear,
To make your fortune I'm come here;
You'll in short time as first divine
Of Medina and Mecca shine;
This, next to his place who is chief
Of all who hold the true belief,
Is the most high and wealthy station
In holy Mahomet's donation.
When you your duties once begin,
Honors on all sides will pour in;
But you a solemn oath must make
The whole sex female to forsake;
To lead a life most chaste, and ne'er
But through a grate to view the fair."
Too hastily the beauteous boy,
That he church treasures might enjoy,
Fell easily into the snare,
Nor of his folly was aware.
Our new-made imam was elate,
Seeing himself become so great;
His joy the salary enhanced,
Which was immediately advanced
by a clerk of important air,
Who with him still went share and share.
No joy can dignity supply,
Nor wealth, should love his aid deny.
Amina fair by chance he spies,
With youthful bloom and charming eyes;
He loves Amina, she in turn
For him feels love's flame equal burn.
Each morning as the day returned,
The youth, who with love's flames still burned,
Being by his cursed oath enchained,
Of his sad slavery complained,
Avowing freely in his heart,
That he had played a foolish part.
"Then, Medina, farewell," he cried,
"Mecca, vain pomp and foolish pride;
Amina, mistress of my breast,
We'll both live in my village blessed."
From heaven the archangel made descent,
Severely to reproach him bent:
The tender lover thus replies:
"Do but behold my mistress' eyes;
I find of me you've made a jest,
I'm by your contract quite distressed;
With all you gave I'll freely part,
I ask alone Amina's heart.
The prudent and the sacred lore
Of Mahomet I must adore;
Love's joys he grants to the elect,
Nay, he allows them to expect
Aminas and eternal love,
In his bright Paradise above.
To heaven again, dear Gabriel, go,
My zeal for you shall still o'erflow;
To the empyrean then repair;
Without my love I'd not go there."

-- Voltaire

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Ode on a Grecian Urn

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

-- John Keats

The Analysis of Yearning (Garod)

I know the dark need, the yearning, that want,
in the same way the blind man knows
the inside of his old home.

I don't see my own movements
and the objects hide.
But without an error or stumbling
I maneuver among them,
live among them,
move like the self-winding clock
which even after losing its hands
keeps ticking and turning
but shows neither minute nor hour.

And dangling between darkness and loneliness
I want to analyze this want
like a chemist
to understand its nature and profound mystery.
And as I try
there is laughter
from some mysterious tunnel,
laughter from an undescribable distance
from an unhearable distance.

A city sparrow with a liquid song
changes its ungreen life
into music from an unechoing distance,
an unhuntable distance.

And words start hurting me
as they mock, echo from the unhutable distance,
the merciless distance.

I walk from wall to wall
and the sound of my steps
seems to come from far away
from that merciless distance,
that impossible distance.

I am not blind
but I see nothing
around me, because
vision has detached itself
and reached that distance
that is impossibly far,
excessively far.

I run after myself;
incapable of ever reaching or
catching what I seek.

And this is what is called
want and longing or "garod."

-- Paruyr Sevak

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Cultural Exchange

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o'-Lanterns caper
And the wind won't wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off goind
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whisteles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going--
Yet Leontyne's unpacking.

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa--
Not of her own doing--
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.

Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we move dup to Mount Vernon.

In the pot begind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what's cooking?
What's smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.

You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.

Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over--
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power--

Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies--
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!

Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make haste!

-- Langston Hughes


Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

-- Langston Hughes