Bring us a poem

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Please do not saturate the thread with unendless lists of poems in one single post. One post = One poem. Thank you in advance!

 

I'll start first with this beautiful 1963 poem from an admirable American lady: poet Louise Bogan.

 

The Dragonfly

 

You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger,
Grappling love.

 

Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon your body and wings.

 

Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.

 

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.

 

And you fall
With the other husks of summer.

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

A war poem? Ok...

 

That one is by Herman Melville (a poem dated April, 1862)

 

Shiloh: A Requiem

 

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,

The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,

The forest-field of Shiloh—
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight

Around the church of Shiloh—
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there—
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve—
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.

 

 

[J2_Trupobaw]

• The Old Pilot

  by Donald Hall

  
  He discovers himself on an old airfield.
  He thinks he was there before,
  but rain has washed out the lettering of a sign.
  A single biplane, all struts and wires,
  stands in the long grass and wildflowers.
  He pulls himself into the narrow cockpit
  although his muscles are stiff
  and sits like an egg in a nest of canvas.
  He sees that the machine gun has rusted.
  The glass over the instruments
  has broken, and the red arrows are gone
  from his gas gauge and his altimeter.
  When he looks up, his propeller is turning,
  although no one was there to snap it.
  He lets out the throttle. The engine catches
  and the propeller spins into the wind.
  He bumps over holes in the grass,
  and he remembers to pull back on the stick.
  He rises from the land in a high bounce
  which gets higher, and suddenly he is flying again.
  He feels the old fear, and rising over the fields
  the old gratitude. In the distance, circling
  in a beam of late sun like birds migrating,
  there are the wings of a thousand biplanes.

[343KKT_Kintaro]

That was so great Trupobaw! Thank you! (remembers the scene in the Japanese anime "Porco Rosso", when the title character ascends to the heavens and glimpses the destiny of dead pilots). Is this Donald Hall... that one?

[DD_Arthur]

For all the forum cat lovers;

 

Daylong this tomcat lies stretched flat

As an old rough mat, no mouth and no eyes.

Continual wars and wives are what

Have tattered his ears and battered his head.

Like a bundle of old rope and iron

Sleeps till blue dusk. Then reappear

His eyes, green as ringstones: he yawns wide red,

Fangs fine as a lady’s needle and bright.

A tomcat sprang at mounted knight,

Locked round his neck like a trap of hooks

While the knight rode fighting its clawing and bite.

After hundreds of years the stain’s there

On the stone where he fell, dead of the tom:

That was at Barnborough. The tomcat still

Grallochs odd dogs on the quiet,

Will take the head clean off your simple pullet,

Is unkillable. From the dog’s fury,

From gunshot fired point-blank he brings

His skin whole, and whole

From owlish moons of bekittenings

Among ashcans. He leaps and lightly

Walks upon sleep, his mind on the moon.

Nightly over the round world of men,

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry.

 

Good old Ted

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Thanks Arthur, loved it. What does "bekittenings" mean ?

[DD_Arthur]

45 minutes ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

Thanks Arthur, loved it. What does "bekittenings" mean ?

He’s a Tom cat. He’s out on the prowl at night to meet lady cats.?

 

 

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

3 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

He’s a Tom cat. He’s out on the prowl at night to meet lady cats.?

 

 

Makes sense! Thank you Arthur. There's another one with cats, you may know it: "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", by T. S. Eliot. I never read it. Maybe some day, why not.

 

I posted a pair of American literature poems, let's go now to the purest of the English tradition with a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated 1818:

 

Ozymandias

 

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

 

 

[von_Tom]

I posted this as two posts but it merged.

 

von Tom

 

 

Refugees

 

Brian Bilston

 

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(now read from bottom to top)

 

 

 

Three Postcards

 

Brian Bilston

 

The first came from Weston-Super-Mare

with the Grand Pier- newly-built - in view,

shining, stretching out into the distance,

and the sea, an unknowable blue.

 

Unfamiliar, that neat hand of his, the black fountain pen.

But he was the one; she knew that even then.

 

The one after that she received two years on:

Tidworth station, as viewed from Church Hill.

A row of thatched cottages in the foreground,

the barracks beyond, then the fields, silent, still.

 

She propped it against a vase on their mantelpiece,

a wedding present from her niece.

 

The last was a busy port scene from Boulogne,

a censor-passed, heaven-sent souvenir.

'Crossing rough - but I made it!' he'd written.

‘When it’s over: perhaps we can all come here!'

 

She pressed it to her stomach, the baby moved once more.

The telegram had arrived the day before.

 

 

 

 

Postcard 1 - from her husband to be.

Postcard 2 - from her husband doing military training.

Postcard 3 - from France, but delivered after the telegram telling his wife of his death on the front line (World War I).

 

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by von_Tom

[Heliopause]

"Summer grasses,

All that remains

Of soldiers dreams"

[343KKT_Kintaro]

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (by Randall Jarrell, 1980)

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

 

 

[DD_Arthur]

3 minutes ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

(by Randall Jarrell, 1980)

? Randall Jarrell died in 1965.

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Thx Arthur, I didn't know that. I simply noted the date mentioned in poetryfoundation.org, a pubication date I guess.

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Another one by Louise Bogan...

 

Night (The Blue Estuaries, 1968)

 

The cold remote islands
And the blue estuaries
Where what breathes, breathes
The restless wind of the inlets,
And what drinks, drinks
The incoming tide;

Where shell and weed
Wait upon the salt wash of the sea,
And the clear nights of stars
Swing their lights westward
To set behind the land;

Where the pulse clinging to the rocks
Renews itself forever;
Where, again on cloudless nights,
The water reflects
The firmament's partial setting;

—O remember
In your narrowing dark hours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart.

 

 

[ST_Catchov]

Them poems are supposed to rhyme eh innit?

 

There once was a fella called Hunt

Wot went to the war up the Front

He met a fair maiden 

Wot wuz up for some tradin' ....

 

And he caught a disease

Like yer wouldn't believe

Coz 'e laid 'er, the silly old bunt

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Is'nt today Christmas?

 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (by Robert Frost)

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 

[Bonnot]

Darling it's April

Gallants and princes

conquering at will

mistress and provinces

will tire gods

from their noisy exploits

 

till this months of autumn

where fall together

redish leaves and kings

 

Sorry, I forget the author as I'd read this scores years ago...and I translated from French as I could !

It's just to say I appreciate Your idea to include Poesy here    ?

 

 

PS: It is perhaps from Guillaume Apollinaire , but I can't find where - if somebody knows ...

Edited December 26, 2022 by Bonnot

[Chief_Mouser]

Going back to cats, and Old Possum's in particular...

 

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
    It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
    Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
    All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
    Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
    But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
    A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
    Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
    Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
    Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
    And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
    But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
    The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
    Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
        His ineffable effable
        Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

 

Ours was called Sooty, then Footyput, and then the one that he never told us... actually, he had about forty names, but those three are the main ones.

 

[Irishratticus72]

We invariably call ours "What the hell is that in your mouth", "Stop scratching the sofa", and "Jesus, your breath stinks, what have you been eating".

[busdriver]

Alfie the Christmas Tree

 

 

[Chief_Mouser]

4 hours ago, Irishratticus72 said:

 "Jesus, your breath stinks, what have you been eating".

 

Loaves and fishes?

[LukeFF]

Here lies Jack,

Who smoked some crack,

Now he's never coming back 

[DD_Arthur]

3 hours ago, busdriver said:

Alfie the Christmas Tree

 

Set design by Bob Ross?

[Bonnot]

9 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Here lies Jack,  ......

 

Good idea again :  the "HAIKU" chapter.....????

much better if original and your own brand   ?

[LukeFF]

17 hours ago, Bonnot said:

much better if original and your own brand   ?

 

Somehow I remember first coming across this in a drawing someone did in my 7th grade class - which would make that around 1990/1991. ? 

 

How I can remember such useless information is beyond me. ? 

[Bonnot]

12 hours ago, LukeFF said:

How I can remember such useless information is beyond me.

 

If you grow old and older, you'll find yourself full of poems, sentences, faces, phone or car numbers longtime forgotten....and it is not always pleasant  ( in my own mind )...

afternoon I was a bit sleeping and I clearly saw on the wall a framed watercolour which was removed years ago   !

well, Macbeth suffered  certainly more than we......?

[planesyplanesy]

I read this in a book about the Great Air War over 40 years ago and I still remember it!

 

If by some delightful chance while your flying over France

some old Boch machine you meet very slow and obsolete 

don't turn round to watch your tail, tricks like that are getting stale

just put down your bally nose and murmur chaps....here goes!!

 

Planesy

[Eonel]

I wrote a poem the other day

But it was rubbish so I threw it away

[Bonnot]

That's close to Haiku ???

[343KKT_Kintaro]

The Dream (Louise Bogan, 1954)

 

O God, in the dream the terrible horse began
To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows.
Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane,
And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose.

 

Coward complete, I lay and wept on the ground
When some strong creature appeared, and leapt for the rein.
Another woman, as I lay half in a swound,
Leapt in the air, and clutched at the leather and chain.

 

Give him, she said, something of yours as a charm.
Throw him, she said, some poor thing you alone claim.
No, no, I cried, he hates me; he's out for harm,
And whether I yield or not, it is all the same.

 

But, like a lion in a legend, when I flung the glove
Pulled from my sweating, my cold right hand,
The terrible beast, that no one may understand,
Came to my side, and put down his head in love.

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

The Trees (Philip Larkin)

 

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

 

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

The Bat (by Emily Dickinson, published 1896)

 

The bat is dun with wrinkled wings
Like fallow article,
And not a song pervades his lips,
Or none perceptible.

 

His small umbrella, quaintly halved,
Describing in the air
An arc alike inscrutable,—
Elate philosopher!

 

Deputed from what firmament
Of what astute abode,
Empowered with what malevolence
Auspiciously withheld.

 

To his adroit Creator
Ascribe no less the praise;
Beneficent, believe me,
His eccentricities.

[PhilthySpud]

An Irish Airman foresees his Death

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

[Irishratticus72]

On 4/9/2023 at 12:24 PM, PhilthySpud said:

An Irish Airman foresees his Death

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

We had to learn "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by heart in primary school, I was able to recite it in under 9 seconds, as I have an impediment that causes me to speak rapidly. I still have PTSD when I see the name Yeats anywhere.

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 

(by Robert Frost)

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

On 4/9/2023 at 1:24 PM, PhilthySpud said:

An Irish Airman foresees his Death

 

 

Unavoidably makes me think about the film "Memphis Belle" (1990).