Like the Sweet Apple

Like the sweet apple that reddens
at the end of the bough -
Far end of the bough -
Left by the gatherer's swaying,
Forgotten, so thou
Nay, nor forgotten, ungotten
Ungathered (till now)

Sappho (interpreted by Henry Vete de Stacpoole)

quote:

Originally posted by Wayfarer:
I found this while looking for an avatar to go with my new name.
Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane is one of my favorite poets. He's got this really visceral way of baring a subject down to the bare bone and pinning the wriggling beast to a board and defining it in just a few simple words. His style is the penultimate in poetry, for me.

quote:

Originally posted by aitapata:

quote:

Originally posted by Wayfarer:
I found this while looking for an avatar to go with my new name.
Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane is one of my favorite poets. He's got this really visceral way of baring a subject down to the bare bone and pinning the wriggling beast to a board and defining it in just a few simple words. His style is the penultimate in poetry, for me.

Then whose style of poetry is the ultimate for you? Love love love Stephen Crane, btw.

My favorite poet is Aaron Fogel. I had him in college (and had a huge crush on him) and bought his book of poems out of curiosity. I wasn't expecting to actually read it because books of poetry tend to collect dust on my bookshelf, even though I love poetry -- it's just that novels are more satisfying and there's less effort involved. But, to my surprise, I did read it from start to finish and was engaged the entire time.

Hah, whoops! Sometimes I get a word in my head that isn't what I think it is.

Like I said, I came across that browserily but I then had a look for some other things by him. I like what i've read so far...

Gwendolyn MacEwen's collection of poems, JP. She was a Canadian poet and knew how to draw upon mythology in an incredible way. Often, they are very mystical and even sensual poems.

I would look at "Dark Pines Under Water," "The Shadow-Maker," "A Poem in Braille," her Lawrence of Arabia poems, and the ones on ancient Egypt. There are many others as well, but those are the ones that stand out the most in my mind. I memorized the first two poems. It is excellent stuff and "Dark Pines" is very meditative and even spiritual in nature.

One of my favorite lines:

"I want to do to you what spring does to the cherry trees."
-Pablo Neruda.

Neruda's "Poetry" is one of my favorites, I have it memorized in my head but I don't know the line breaks.

Steve Martin:

The pendulum swings to the left
The pendulum swings to the right
The past was driven by horses
The future is driven by light

The mistakes of the past are over
The Modern waits to be met
Say good-bye to the age of indifference
And say hello to the age of regret.

from "Picasso at the Lapin Agile."

here be an Emily Dickinson poem that I can quote by heart—if I sing it to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." try it!

Tell all the truth but tell it slant
The truth in circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise

As lightning to the children eased
With explanations kind
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind

I've been reading Blind Date with Cavafy. If you're looking for something new and wonderful, I give this collection three thumbs up.

quote:

Originally posted by ZoneSeek:
One of my favorite lines:

"I want to do to you what spring does to the cherry trees."
-Pablo Neruda.

Neruda's "Poetry" is one of my favorites, I have it memorized in my head but I don't know the line breaks.

I only recently started reading Neruda's stuff - it has definately been moving me lately. Sometimes I think we don't "discover" some writers until we need them.

They just read this on the radio, for the upcoming Burns Night, and it's ever so pretty!

To A Mouse.
On turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785.
(Robert Burns)

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

yay! one of my favorite misquoted poems! *applauds*

"Listen to me, Catullus, and listen to me good, this is the Truth"

by Steve Fellner.

You said lesbia was proof
a benevolent god existed.

Don't be so naive, Catullus:
all love goes badly so accept

miracles are nothing
more than accidents we like.

*******

"The tomb of Eve"

By Steve Fellner.

At the Tomb of Eve,
there is a booth
where you put a coin
in a slot and ask the Mother
of Mankind a question
through a tube. The men in line
squint, try to see through the curtains
which reveal nothing more
than a profile of an unremarkable
woman: slender nose, long, thin
neck, perhaps a bald head.
She never moves, stunned
by the predictability
of the questions. "Do you think
Adam would be considered
a good catch these days?" you want
to ask. But instead you say,
"Does God truly forgive us for our sins?"
She sighs and then says
nothing. For the first time
you want to believe
this Eve is a normal woman,
divorced, stuck with a kid.
This is her part time job. You imagine
her sitting on a bench inside the booth.
She's filing her nails, combing her girl's hair
as she half-listens to you ask,
"Was it really worth it?"
Her kid begins to cry, says she wants
to go home. Eve doesn't hear
you repeat yourself
for the third time. She's thinking
about everything she needs to do:
laundry, carpool, housecleaning, meeting
her lover who never seems tempted
in the least to leave his wife.
"So was it worth it?" you ask.
"Every penny," she mumbles
a moment after another coin falls
into her girl's palm.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aitapata,

This is awesome stuff, and I am taking notes Thank you all and keep them coming!

Here's one from me.
"It Matters What We Believe"
by Sophia Lyon Fahs

quote:

Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.

Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.

Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children's days with fears of unknown calamities.

Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.

Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies.

Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.

Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction.

Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.

Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.

Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and ignite the feeling of personal worth.

Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.

Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.

Sillypunks recent visit to Dover reminded me of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach."

quote:

"Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold"

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

And that, in turn, always reminds me of "Dover Bitch."

quote:

Dover Bitch
by Anthony Hecht

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.'
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come.
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.

I love the first one for the imagery and the moon and the water and the "darkling plains" and the quiet pronunciation in the last line. I love the second one because it really gets into the people.... You see the darkened honeymoon suite with Matthew at the window, talking and musing, and then you see his bride, exasperated on the bed and then they both freeze and this guy (who, in my mind, looks a lot like John Cleese) walks into the room and turns to the camera and tells you what *really* is going on.

I read this for the first time almost ten years ago, and it still gives me goosebumps.

Little Boy Blue by Eugene Fields

THE little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
The little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there?

to counter the Amy-mod's bleak modernism, I give you...

from "Meditation XVII"

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

-- John Donne

Charles Bukowski. Robert Frost. WB Yeats. WH Auden. Tori Amos song lyrics. Kate Bush's too. Ted Hughes (but not Sylvia Plath).

Most recent good discovery is Theodore Roethke

quote:

The Geranium

When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine--
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The things she endured!--
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.


Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me--
And that was scary--
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.


But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.