top ten in poems
Feb. 5th, 2003 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spokeonly i couldn't cut it down to 10. (sigh) so, i just put them all in anyway, behind cuts to spare people. i listed author's name where i know it...
1. Seagulls
Robert Francis
Between the under and the upper blue
All day the seagulls climb and swerve and soar,
Arc intersecting arc, curve over curve.
And you may watch them weaving a long time
And never see their pattern twice the same
And never see their pattern once imperfect.
Take any moment they are in the air.
If you could change them, if you had the power,
How would you place them other than they are?
What we have labored all our lives to have
And failed, these birds effortlessly achieve:
Freedom that flows in form and still is free.
2. The Stone
"And will you cut a stone for him,
to set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him-
a stone for him?" she said.
3 days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead-
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of the warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired-
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired...
A flash, a shock,
A rumbling fall...
And, broken, 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all
I went to break the news to her:
And I could hear my own heartbeat
With dread of what my lips might say;
But some poor fool had sped before;
And, flinging wide her father's door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet;
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard
And when I came, she stood alone-
A woman, turned to stone.
And, though no words at all she said,
I knew that all was known.
Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh or moan.
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept.
She could not sleep.
3 days, 3 nights,
She did not stir
3 days, 3 nights
Were one to her,
Who never closed her eyes,
From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall-
Her tearless, staring eyes,
That seeing nought, saw all.
The fourth night when I came from work,
I found her at my door
"And will you cut a stone for him?"
She said: and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;
And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stone,
And, as she waited patiently,
I could not bear to feel
Those still, grey eyes that followed me,
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me,
And curdled the warm blood in me,
Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And pierced my marrow like cold steel.
And so I rose, and sought a stone;
And cut it, smooth and square;
And, as I worked, she sat and watched,
Beside me, in her chair
Night after night, by candlelight
I cut her lover's name
Night after night, so still and white,
And like a ghost she came;
And sat beside me, in her chair,
And watched with eyes aflame.
She eyed each stroke,
And hardly stirred:
She never spoke
A single word;
And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet-stroke.
With eyes still ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,
She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath;
And every stroke my chisel cut,
Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiseling,
Together, I and Death.
And when at length the jod was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,
As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name; and with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door;
And never crossed my threshold more.
Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.
3. The Shadow People
By Francis Ledwidge
Old lame Bridget doesn’t hear
Fairy music in the grass
When the gloaming’s on the mere
And the shadow people pass:
Never hears their slow, grey feet
Coming from the village street
Just beyond the parson’s wall,
Where the clover globes are sweet
And the mushroom’s parasol
Opens in the moonlit rain.
Every night I hear them call
From their long and merry train.
Old lame Bridget says to me,
“It’s just your fancy, child.”
She cannot believe I see
Laughing faces in the wild,
Hands that twinkle in the sedge,
Where the finny minnows quiver,
Shaping on a blue wave’s ledge
Bubble foam to sail the river.
And the sunny hands to me
Beckon ever, beckon ever.
Oh! I would be wild and free
And with the shadow people be.
4. The Secret Sits
We dance around in a ring and suppose
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows
5.The Secret Song
Who saw the petals
fall from the rose?
I, said the spider,
But nobody knows
Who saw the sunset
flash on a bird?
I, said the fish,
But nobody heard
Who saw the fog
come over the sea?
I, said the sea-pigeon,
Only me
Who saw the first
green light of the sun?
I, said the night owl
The only one
Who saw the moss,
creep over the stone?
I, said the gray fox,
All alone.
6. The Fool and The Poet
Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet
(grins) damn right!
7.The Castle
All through the summer at ease we lay,
And daily from the turrent wall
We watched the mowers in the hay
And the enemy half a mile away
They seemed no threat to us at all
For what, we thought, had we to fear?
With our arms and provender, load on load,
Our towering battlements, tier on tier,
And friendly allies drawing near
On every leafy summer road
Our gates were strong, our walls were thick
So smooth and high, no man could win
A foothold there, no clever trick,
Could take us, have us dead or quick
Only a bird could have got in.
What could they offer us for bait?
Our captain was brave and we were true...
There was a little private gate,
A little wicked wicket gate
The wizened warder let them through.
Oh then our maze of tunneled stone
Grew thin and treacherous as air,
The cause was lost without a groan
The famous citadel overthrown,
And all its secret galleries bare.
How can this shameful tale be told?
I will maintain until my death
We could do nothing, being sold;
Our only enemy was gold,
And we had no arms to fight it with.
i love this poem. i really, really love this poem. but someday, i will write a story wherein i'm rewriting the end of this.
8. My Life Closed Twice Before It Closed
Emily Dickenson
My life closed twice before its close
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unviel
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless
As these that twice befell
Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we nee of hell.
most of Dickenson, i don't get. blink blink blink. but i like this one!
9. maggie and milly and molly and may
ee cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may
went to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she forgot all her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while chasing bubbles and
may come home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world, and as large as alone
for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it is always ourselves we find in the sea.
i can recite this by heart.
10. Merlin
O Merlin in your crystal cave
Deep in the diamond of the day,
Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away
The furrow drawn by Adam's finger
Across the meadow and the wave
Or a runner who will outrun
Man's long shadow driving on,
Burst through the gates of history,
And hang the apple on the tree?
Will your sorcery ever sho
The sleeping bride shut in her bower,
The day wreathed in its mound of snow,
And Time locked in his tower.
fantasy, origins unknown. but it is very pretty!
11. Erat Hora
Ezra Pound
'Thank you, whatever comes' And then she turned
And, as the ray of sun on changing flowers
Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,
Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes-
One hour was sunlight and the most high gods
May not make boast of any greater thing
Than to have watched that hour as it passed
bittersweet memory
12. Child On Top Of A Greenhouse
Theodore Roethke
The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
my feet crunching splinters of glass and dried putty
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like crocuses
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with light
A few white clouds all rushing eastward
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses
And everyone, everyone, pointing up and shouting
vivid imagery
13. Art Review
Recently displayed at the Times Square station, a new
Vandyke on the face cream girl
(Artist unknown. Has promise, but lacks the brilliance shown
by the great masters of the Elevated ages.)
The lastest wood carving in a Whelan telephone booth, titled
"O Mortal Fools WA 9-50 90," shows 2 winged hearts
above an ace of spaces.
(His meaning is not entirely clear, but this man will go far.)
A charcoal nude in the rear of Flatbush Aneam's Bar and
Grill, "Forward to the Brotherhood of Man," has been
boldly concieved in the great tradition.
(We need more, much more of this.)
Then there is the chalk protrait, on the walls of the waterfront
warehouse, of a gentleman wearing a derby hat.
"Bleeker Street Mike is a double crossing rat."
(Morbid, but powerful. Don't miss.)
Know then by these portents, know all men by these signs
and omens, by those simple thumbprints on the throat of
time
Know that Pete, the people's artist, is ever watchful,
That Tuxedo Jim has passed amoung us, and was much
displeased, as always
That George the ghost, (no man has ever seen him) and Billy
the Bicep Boy will neither bend nor break,
That Mr.Herkness of Sunnyside still hopes for the best, and
has not lost his human touch,
That Phantom Phil, the Master of them all, has come and
gone, but will return, and all is well.
fun poem. about graffiti artists. :) yes, graffiti is art!
1. Seagulls
Robert Francis
Between the under and the upper blue
All day the seagulls climb and swerve and soar,
Arc intersecting arc, curve over curve.
And you may watch them weaving a long time
And never see their pattern twice the same
And never see their pattern once imperfect.
Take any moment they are in the air.
If you could change them, if you had the power,
How would you place them other than they are?
What we have labored all our lives to have
And failed, these birds effortlessly achieve:
Freedom that flows in form and still is free.
2. The Stone
"And will you cut a stone for him,
to set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him-
a stone for him?" she said.
3 days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead-
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of the warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired-
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired...
A flash, a shock,
A rumbling fall...
And, broken, 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all
I went to break the news to her:
And I could hear my own heartbeat
With dread of what my lips might say;
But some poor fool had sped before;
And, flinging wide her father's door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet;
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard
And when I came, she stood alone-
A woman, turned to stone.
And, though no words at all she said,
I knew that all was known.
Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh or moan.
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept.
She could not sleep.
3 days, 3 nights,
She did not stir
3 days, 3 nights
Were one to her,
Who never closed her eyes,
From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall-
Her tearless, staring eyes,
That seeing nought, saw all.
The fourth night when I came from work,
I found her at my door
"And will you cut a stone for him?"
She said: and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;
And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stone,
And, as she waited patiently,
I could not bear to feel
Those still, grey eyes that followed me,
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me,
And curdled the warm blood in me,
Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And pierced my marrow like cold steel.
And so I rose, and sought a stone;
And cut it, smooth and square;
And, as I worked, she sat and watched,
Beside me, in her chair
Night after night, by candlelight
I cut her lover's name
Night after night, so still and white,
And like a ghost she came;
And sat beside me, in her chair,
And watched with eyes aflame.
She eyed each stroke,
And hardly stirred:
She never spoke
A single word;
And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet-stroke.
With eyes still ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,
She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath;
And every stroke my chisel cut,
Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiseling,
Together, I and Death.
And when at length the jod was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,
As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name; and with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door;
And never crossed my threshold more.
Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.
3. The Shadow People
By Francis Ledwidge
Old lame Bridget doesn’t hear
Fairy music in the grass
When the gloaming’s on the mere
And the shadow people pass:
Never hears their slow, grey feet
Coming from the village street
Just beyond the parson’s wall,
Where the clover globes are sweet
And the mushroom’s parasol
Opens in the moonlit rain.
Every night I hear them call
From their long and merry train.
Old lame Bridget says to me,
“It’s just your fancy, child.”
She cannot believe I see
Laughing faces in the wild,
Hands that twinkle in the sedge,
Where the finny minnows quiver,
Shaping on a blue wave’s ledge
Bubble foam to sail the river.
And the sunny hands to me
Beckon ever, beckon ever.
Oh! I would be wild and free
And with the shadow people be.
4. The Secret Sits
We dance around in a ring and suppose
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows
5.The Secret Song
Who saw the petals
fall from the rose?
I, said the spider,
But nobody knows
Who saw the sunset
flash on a bird?
I, said the fish,
But nobody heard
Who saw the fog
come over the sea?
I, said the sea-pigeon,
Only me
Who saw the first
green light of the sun?
I, said the night owl
The only one
Who saw the moss,
creep over the stone?
I, said the gray fox,
All alone.
6. The Fool and The Poet
Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet
(grins) damn right!
7.The Castle
All through the summer at ease we lay,
And daily from the turrent wall
We watched the mowers in the hay
And the enemy half a mile away
They seemed no threat to us at all
For what, we thought, had we to fear?
With our arms and provender, load on load,
Our towering battlements, tier on tier,
And friendly allies drawing near
On every leafy summer road
Our gates were strong, our walls were thick
So smooth and high, no man could win
A foothold there, no clever trick,
Could take us, have us dead or quick
Only a bird could have got in.
What could they offer us for bait?
Our captain was brave and we were true...
There was a little private gate,
A little wicked wicket gate
The wizened warder let them through.
Oh then our maze of tunneled stone
Grew thin and treacherous as air,
The cause was lost without a groan
The famous citadel overthrown,
And all its secret galleries bare.
How can this shameful tale be told?
I will maintain until my death
We could do nothing, being sold;
Our only enemy was gold,
And we had no arms to fight it with.
i love this poem. i really, really love this poem. but someday, i will write a story wherein i'm rewriting the end of this.
8. My Life Closed Twice Before It Closed
Emily Dickenson
My life closed twice before its close
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unviel
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless
As these that twice befell
Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we nee of hell.
most of Dickenson, i don't get. blink blink blink. but i like this one!
9. maggie and milly and molly and may
ee cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may
went to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she forgot all her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while chasing bubbles and
may come home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world, and as large as alone
for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it is always ourselves we find in the sea.
i can recite this by heart.
10. Merlin
O Merlin in your crystal cave
Deep in the diamond of the day,
Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away
The furrow drawn by Adam's finger
Across the meadow and the wave
Or a runner who will outrun
Man's long shadow driving on,
Burst through the gates of history,
And hang the apple on the tree?
Will your sorcery ever sho
The sleeping bride shut in her bower,
The day wreathed in its mound of snow,
And Time locked in his tower.
fantasy, origins unknown. but it is very pretty!
11. Erat Hora
Ezra Pound
'Thank you, whatever comes' And then she turned
And, as the ray of sun on changing flowers
Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,
Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes-
One hour was sunlight and the most high gods
May not make boast of any greater thing
Than to have watched that hour as it passed
bittersweet memory
12. Child On Top Of A Greenhouse
Theodore Roethke
The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
my feet crunching splinters of glass and dried putty
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like crocuses
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with light
A few white clouds all rushing eastward
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses
And everyone, everyone, pointing up and shouting
vivid imagery
13. Art Review
Recently displayed at the Times Square station, a new
Vandyke on the face cream girl
(Artist unknown. Has promise, but lacks the brilliance shown
by the great masters of the Elevated ages.)
The lastest wood carving in a Whelan telephone booth, titled
"O Mortal Fools WA 9-50 90," shows 2 winged hearts
above an ace of spaces.
(His meaning is not entirely clear, but this man will go far.)
A charcoal nude in the rear of Flatbush Aneam's Bar and
Grill, "Forward to the Brotherhood of Man," has been
boldly concieved in the great tradition.
(We need more, much more of this.)
Then there is the chalk protrait, on the walls of the waterfront
warehouse, of a gentleman wearing a derby hat.
"Bleeker Street Mike is a double crossing rat."
(Morbid, but powerful. Don't miss.)
Know then by these portents, know all men by these signs
and omens, by those simple thumbprints on the throat of
time
Know that Pete, the people's artist, is ever watchful,
That Tuxedo Jim has passed amoung us, and was much
displeased, as always
That George the ghost, (no man has ever seen him) and Billy
the Bicep Boy will neither bend nor break,
That Mr.Herkness of Sunnyside still hopes for the best, and
has not lost his human touch,
That Phantom Phil, the Master of them all, has come and
gone, but will return, and all is well.
fun poem. about graffiti artists. :) yes, graffiti is art!
