Poetry

[Wisdom3_1-9]

I love reading poetry to help get me through some tough times, so I went looking for some poetry threads. I thought about sharing some poetry that spoke to me. I found a few threads with original poems and didn't want to sully them with works that I just appreciate. I did find a posting of "Do Not Go Gently" by Dylan Thomas, which is powerful, but runs counter to how I really feel. Anyway, I thought maybe we could have a thread to share some of our favorite poems that aren't self-composed.

I keep a list of some of my favorite poems and about half of them are related to death! Then again, it's a pretty common theme in Western literary arts. Anyway, here's one that spoke to my loneliness today, written by an anonymous medieval monk.

The Desire for Hermitage

Ah! To be all alone in a little cell
with nobody near me;
beloved that pilgrimage before the last pilgrimage to death.
Singing the passing hours to cloudy Heaven;
Feeding upon dry bread and water from the cold spring.
That will be an end to evil when I am alone
in a lovely little corner among tombs
far from the houses of the great.
Ah! To be all alone in a little cell, to be alone, all alone:
Alone I came into the world
alone I shall go from it.

 

[Thatsthelot]

Alone With Everybody

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

C.Bukowski

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

Alone With Everybody
C.Bukowski

That was really powerful! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Deleted member 17949]

I am too low IQ for this but cool poems

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

I don't think that's true, @cryptic__egg!

Here's my favorite poem of all time. I might share some of my other favorites too in the coming days.

Five Ways to Kill a Man
by Edwin Brock

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,
shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch. All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man.
Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see
that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

 

[josainsplorgat]

2 of my favorite poems:


I Met A Genius
by bukowski

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

__ __ __

I went fishing with my family when I was five
By Tao Lin:

i went fishing with my family
my dad caught a turtle
my mom caught a snapper
my brother caught a crab
i caught a whale


that night we ate crab
the next night we ate turtle
the next night we ate snapper
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
the next night we ate whale
" "
-original poem is like 500x that last line lol

 

[Stavrogin]

The Book of Job, Chapter 3

1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

2 And Job spake, and said,

3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which build desolate places for themselves;

15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

Well, if we're quoting scripture, here's from the Book of Wisdom, from where I draw my username.

Wisdom 3:1-9
(Emphasis mine)

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.

For though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.

In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever. Those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect.

 

[ChoclateIsSweet]

Stray Birds
By Rabindranath Tagore

310
I dream of a star, an island of light,
Where I shall be born
And in the depth of its quickening leisure
My life will ripen its works
Like the ricefield in the autumn sun.

 

[Soul]

From the Archives: ‘The Labyrinth,’ a Poem by Jorge Luis Borges

In the April 1969 issue of The Atlantic, Borges conjured the sort of surreal, disorienting world for which he had become internationally renowned.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Sensei]

A World of Dew

A world of dew,

And within every dewdrop

A world of struggle.

- Kobayashi Issa

 

[Stavrogin]

DYLAN THOMAS

AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

 

[Sensei]

DYLAN THOMAS

AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

A masterpiece. Excellent choice.

 

[Thatsthelot]

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there.
I did not die.

 

[IBreathButNoMoreLive]

No Longer A Person

I am hollow
Empty
I am hollow there's nothing inside but a void in my chest
I tried my best
To believe in the impossible
To believe I was unstoppable
But I was only fooling myself
Blindly seeking the remaining pieces of hope
That ended up cutting me
Instead of comforting me
Too many tears have been shed
Too many words I have misread
Walking among the crowd, I am the face with the frown
Who has given up finding the pieces of my broken crown
How stupid was I not to be able to see
How stupid was I
To even believe...

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

Been immersing myself in a choral setting of an adapted old hymn text...


Blow ye the trumpet, blow,
Sweet is Thy work, my God, my King.
I'll praise my Maker with all my breath.
O happy is the man who hears.
Why should we start, and fear to die,
With songs and honors sounding loud.
Ah, lovely appearance of death.

 

[TheAmazingCriswell]

I keep a list of some of my favorite poems and about half of them are related to death!

Would you mind posting that list?
Here is a wonderful poem by Apollinaire:

Hôtel

Ma chambre a la forme d'une cage
Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre
Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages
J'allume au feu du jour ma cigarette
Je ne veux pas travailler — je veux fumer.

Literal translation:

My room is shaped like a cage
the sun passes its arm through the window
but I who wants to smoke to make mirages
I light my cigarette with the fire (i.e. light) of the day
I don't want to work - I want to smoke.