Literature Poems

[Cerebellion]

I haven't read nearly enough Sexton. I've seen her books and thumbed through them, but haven't picked them up. I think I shall remedy that soon enough.

Last one for me today:

Lady Lazurus - Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot ------
The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart---
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

 

[Rosie1]

Oh, wow. I started writing my other post and then went to look for that poem, and got busy with other work. Came back and there's more poetry posted!
I'm going to have to subscribe to this thread.

 

[Dedalus]

The Doctors are enamel

and

The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.

LOVE.

 

[Dedalus]

I'm a big fan (reading it, and writing it). I haven't written anything in a long time, though.
I had a Creative Writing class in high school, and had to follow a bunch of the rules (iambic pentameter, and others), but I think I mostly like doing free verse or experimenting with my own rules/exercises.

I want to share one called On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica by Jill Alexander Essbaum. I always get a kick out of this one. It's a short piece, but I'll put it in spoilers since it is an "adult" poem, or whatever.

Spoiler

She stood before him wearing only pantries
and he groped for her Volvo under the gauze.
She had saved her public hair, and his cook
went hard as a fist. They fell to the bad.
He shoveled his duck into her posse
and all her worm juices spilled out.
Still, his enormous election raged on.
Her beasts heaved as he sacked them,
and his own nibbles went stuff as well.
She put her tong in his rear and talked ditty.
Oh, it was all that he could do not to comb.

I've also been getting into Charles Bukowski a bit. But I'll read just about anything.

 

[Cerebellion]

I'm a big fan (reading it, and writing it). I haven't written anything in a long time, though.
I had a Creative Writing class in high school, and had to follow a bunch of the rules (iambic pentameter, and others), but I think I mostly like doing free verse or experimenting with my own rules/exercises.

I want to share one called On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica by Jill Alexander Essbaum. I always get a kick out of this one. It's a short piece, but I'll put it in spoilers since it is an "adult" poem, or whatever.

Spoiler

She stood before him wearing only pantries
and he groped for her Volvo under the gauze.
She had saved her public hair, and his cook
went hard as a fist. They fell to the bad.
He shoveled his duck into her posse
and all her worm juices spilled out.
Still, his enormous election raged on.
Her beasts heaved as he sacked them,
and his own nibbles went stuff as well.
She put her tong in his rear and talked ditty.
Oh, it was all that he could do not to comb.

I've also been getting into Charles Bukowski a bit. But I'll read just about anything.

That is the best thing I have read in forever. Well played.

 

[Rosie1]

"Nature" is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.

Emily Dickinson

 

[Rosie1]

Glenn Close reads the poem 'I Like For You To Be Still' by Pablo Neruda:
I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true

 

[Renee1]

Oh my gosh Neruda *sigh*

I want "I want to do with you what the spring does with the cherry trees" tattooed on my left thigh.

 

[Renee1]

 

[AeryFairy]

Some of my favourite poems are actually songs, but the lyrics read like poetry to me. Here's one of my favourites:

Digits dial digits, dialtone, monotone
Has she been feigning sleeping?
Framing she's been all alone
Downslide on the sidewalk,
I'm a distant ring
Out of body, out of body,
Pick me up, oh answer me

I just hurried over
Worried sick you might be sick
Gates are courting airplanes,
and clocks divorcing ticks,
Before I left, thought I'd see you
At the show, you didn't show
You didn't message, you didn't call
You didn't know, didn't you know?
I'm a liar too
That's why I think I understand you

Someone from your building holds for me a door,
I'm in your lobby, your elevator
I'm on your floor, the second floor
I can hear you now,
With my ear pressed to the paint,
You're playing that cassette tape
That you took from me to take to Iowa,
That was near three years ago,
Now I'm back up in that moment
Playing that yard sale Casio

I sang to you from a red room
"Together we'll grey, grey, grey"
Does he sing to you as well?
Much better, most would say
I hear him laughing now
But I prefer this to the silence
When your lips are sealed against his
Or he fills your thighs with kisses
Or just for instance
He's clawing your fat,
Pushing your breaths into the mattress
You'll love a good many men
And loving me ain't gonna stop all of them
Like Adam we are flawed
In the image of our gods
Of our fathers, who never bothered
To consider they were not the only ones
Faith, oh faith, is a way to believe lies that we need
Then to be faithful is to be truthless
But that's more than I need to say
Oh just don't run off and get married
And I'll surely be okay
'Cause I love you
May love a good many yous
Gotta go now,
Pack my suitcase,
Glad that you're okay,
And I love you, happy birthday,
I'll see you in sixteen days.

-The Matches, From 24C

 

[KLS52]

Love this.

 

[Envy]

I may try something, but only if you promise not to laugh.

 

[Cerebellion]

I don't see why anyone would laugh...unless you're trying to be funny, that is.

 

[Rosie1]

Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

 

[KLS52]

Forgive mY laziness...didn't want to type them out so I took a picture with my cell phone.

Two poems I used to read a lot from Best Loved Poems of the American People:

 

[Envy]

I don't see why anyone would laugh...unless you're trying to be funny, that is.

well, I just can't see them as anything else than substandard.

 

[KLS52]

We are, most likely, our own worst critic.

 

[PTree15]

Ohhhh, great thread. I love to read poetry and a like to write it, but I'm not that good at it . My stuff reads more like song lyrics than actual poetry, I think, and like others here, I tend to be on the dark side of it. Writing has always been cathartic for me, so I tend to write more when I'm miserable or angry . Here is one of my favorites:


Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known---cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all---
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, my own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle---
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me---
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads---you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

[Spidergrrl]

One of my favourites:
Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes by Billy Collins
First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer's dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

 

[Cerebellion]

Dirge

Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,— the holy ones,
Who trod with me this lonely vale,
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.

My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place.

They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,
They treated nature as they would.

They colored the horizon round,
Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
All echoes hearkened for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf
Which once our childhood knew
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine warbler
Singing aloft in the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!
What he singeth to me?
Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
The heavy dirge divine.

Go, lonely man, it saith,
They loved thee from their birth,
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
There are no such hearts on earth.

Ye drew one mother's milk,
One chamber held ye all;
A very tender history
Did in your childhood fall.

Ye cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.

Ralph Waldo Emerson​