Poetry Corner

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

The Oobleck Spell of the Magic Men in Dr. Seuss' "Bartholomew and the Oobleck"

Oh, snow and rain are not enough!
Oh, we must make some brand-new stuff!
So feed the fire with wet mouse hair,
Burn an onion, burn a chair.
Burn a whisker from your chin
And burn a long sour lizard skin.
Burn yellow twigs and burn red rust
And burn a stocking full of dust.
Make magic smoke, green, thick and hot!
(It sure smells dreadful, does it not?)
That means the smoke is now just right
So quick! Before the day gets light,
Go, magic smoke! Go high! Go high!
Go rise into the kingdom's sky!
Go make the oobleck tumble down
On every street, in every town!
Go make the wondrous oobleck fall!
Oh, bring down oobleck on us all!

[MrHyeSev]

Re: Poetry Corner

1, 2, buckle my shoe.
3, 4, shut the door.
5, 6, pick up sticks.
7, 8, lay them straight.
9, 10, a BIG FAT HEN.

You should get an award for this poem.

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

"Poem of Perfect Miracles"

REALISM is mine, my miracles,
Take all of the rest—take freely—I keep
but my own—I give only of them,

I offer them without end—I offer them to you
wherever your feet can carry you, or your
eyes reach.


Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward
the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in
the edge of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in
the bed at night with any one I love,

Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of an
August forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the
air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of
stars shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-
moon in May,

Or whether I go among those I like best, and that
like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,

Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to
the opera,

Or stand a long while looking at the movements
of machinery,

Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or
the perfect old woman,

Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to
burial,

Or my own eyes and figure in the glass,
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me
miracles,

The whole referring—yet each distinct and in its
place.


To me, every hour of the light and dark is a
miracle,

Every inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is
spread with the same,

Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the
same;

Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs,
of men and women, and all that concerns
them,

All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion
of the waves—the ships, with men in them
—what stranger miracles are there?

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass, p. 279-281 (1856).

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

THE ANATOMY OF ROCK

The 1st electric wildness came
over the people
on sweet Friday.
Sweat was in the air.
The channel beamed,
token of power.
Incense brewed darkly.
Who could tell then that here
it would end?

One school bus crashed w/ a train.
This was the Crossroads.
Mercury strained.
I couldn't get out of my seat.
The road was littered
w/ dead jitterbugs.
Help,
we'll be late for class.

The secret flurry of rumor
marched over the yard &
pinned us unwittingly
Mt. fever.
A girl stripped naked on the
base of the flagpole.

In the restrooms all was cool
& silent
w/ the salt-green of latrines.
Blankets were needed.

Ropes fluttered.
Smiles flattered
& haunted.

Lockers were pried open
& secrets discovered.

Ah sweet music.

Wild sounds in the night
Angel siren voices.
The baying of great hounds.
Cars screaming thru gears
& shrieks
on the wild skid & slid
into dangerous curves.

Favorite corners.
Cheerleaders raped in summer
buildings.
Holding hands
& bopping towards Sunday.

Those lean sweet desperate hours.

Time searched the hallways
for a mind.
Hands kept time.
The climate altered like a
visible dance.

Night-time women.
Wondrous sacraments of doubt
Sprang sullen in bursts of fear & guilt
in the womb's pit hole
below
The belt of the beast

Morrison, Jim. Wilderness, vol.1, p. 27.

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

THE MURDERED TRAVELLER

by: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

WHEN spring, to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again,
The murdered traveller's bones were found,
Far down a narrow glen.

The fragrant birch, above him, hung
Her tassels in the sky;
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.

The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o'erhead,
And fearless, near the fatal spot,
Her young the partridge led.

But there was weeping far away,
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim.

They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,
When shouting o'er the desert snow,
Unarmed, and hard beset;--

Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead;

Nor how, when strangers found his bones,
They dressed the hasty bier,
And marked his grave with nameless stones,
Unmoistened by a tear.

But long they looked, and feared, and wept,
Within his distant home;
And dreamed, and started as they slept,
For joy that he was come.

So long they looked--but never spied
His welcome step again,
Nor knew the fearful death he died
Far down that narrow glen.

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

REALITY AND APPEARANCE

'Tis light makes colour visible: at night
Red, greene, and russet vanish from thy sight.
So to thee light by darkness is made known:
Since God hath none, He, seeing all, denies
Himself eternally to mortal eyes.
From the dark jungle as a tiger bright,
Form from the viewless Spirit leaps to light.


- R. A. Nicholson, 'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972.



On the Deathbed Go, rest your head on a pillow, leave me alone;
leave me ruined, exhausted from the journey of this night,
writhing in a wave of passion till the dawn.
Either stay and be forgiving,
or, if you like, be cruel and leave.
Flee from me, away from trouble;
take the path of safety, far from this danger.
We have crept into this corner of grief,
turning the water wheel with a flow of tears.
While a tyrant with a heart of flint slays,
and no one says, "Prepare to pay the blood money."
Faith in the king comes easily in lovely times,
but be faithful now and endure, pale lover.
No cure exists for this pain but to die,
So why should I say, "Cure this pain"?
In a dream last night I saw
an ancient one in the garden of love,
beckoning with his hand, saying, "Come here."
On this path, Love is the emerald,
the beautiful green that wards off dragonsnough, I am losing myself.
If you are a man of learning,
read something classic,
a history of the human struggle
and don't settle for mediocre verse.

- Kulliyat-i-Shams 2039

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Old Walt

Old Walt Whitman
Went finding and seeking,
Finding less than he sought
Seeking more than found,
Every detail minding
Of the seeking or the finding.

Pleasured equally
In seeking as in finding,
Each detail minding,
Old Walt went seeking
And finding.

- Langston Hughes

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

-- Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat

"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"--think some:
Others--"How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave music of a distant Drum!

-- Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat

And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean—
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

-- Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat

In spring if a houri-like sweetheart
Gives me a cup of wine on the edge of a green cornfield,
Though to the vulgar this would be blasphemy,
If I mentioned any other Paradise, I'd be worse than a dog.

-- Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

The Echoing Green



The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies;

The merry bells ring

To welcome the spring;

The skylark and thrush,

The birds of the bush,

Sing louder around

To the bell's cheerful sound,

While our sports shall be seen

On the Echoing Green.



Old John with white hair,

Does laugh away care,

Sitting under the oak,

Among the old folk.

They laugh at our play,

And soon they all say:

"Such, such were the joys

When we all, girls and boys,

In our youth time were seen

On the Echoing Green."



Till the little ones, weary,

No more can be merry;

The sun does descend,

And our sports have an end.

Round the laps of their mothers

Many sisters and brother,

Like birds in their nest,

Are ready for rest,

And sport no more seen

On the darkening Green.

-- William Blake

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost