A Poem Thread

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"When I sit to take a bath
I'm always moved to wonderment,
That what chills the finger not a bit
Is so frigid upon the fundament."

Ogden Nash
 
Jack and Jill
Went down the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Because everyone knows you need a very long rope to lower a pail from up on a hill and a pail of water is easier to collect from a stream
Jack did not fall down
And break his crown
Because the ground is level so
Jill did not come tumbling after
Because she also was on level ground

Up Jack did get - not, he had no need, as stated he did not fall down
And home did trot - not, had no need
And went to bed - not, as he had home did trot - not
To mend his head - not, as he had not home did trot etc etc etc
With vinegar and brown paper - not
See above why not

:)
 
Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep
By Mary Elizabeth Frye

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 sun 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.
 
(Dredged up from the fringe media aftermath of the U.S., not Chilean, 9/11)

Mode Of Failure

At the moment of failure, just when that flaw now somehow chosen key
has fit its customary role in tales sure to find themselves soon
amended by demand of contingency's illusory need,
the first affected floor gives into the air beneath the second shoe,
which is that floor itself in fall; and not the top, and not the bottom,
and not the center of levels, not any marked or noted place
one could in hope have known, pretend to have shied from
in good time, saved others by foreboding's glory's grace.

No omen had risen from the awkwardness and table clutter
of diplomacy's cutlery and negotiation's enabling lies to face
to face, some oceans over, the assumptions' wide subvocal mutter
unnoticed, and without bearing regardless, the floor unknown in any case.
What seemed inevitability in approach stepped off all sense,
and found no sense, and had no story after, no life in words
such as we lived and will live, such as a single lifetime lends
to living, then and then and now just stopped, and nothing towards.

We do not know how the tower of Babel fell, what piled it down,
sowed confusion of tongue among all witnesses, blighted all
with estrangement, sent each to their own understanding and separate town
with a story, a story of an old God and a new building, untellable.
Words fail the blow of the old hammer anyway, fail the split of ways,
and these the common words. New redundancies of incomprehension
a teller's slight of mind, a show of what it is to live through days
of talking as anyone does all day any day now, and after one stroke never again.

The God's eye CAT scan view shows only, at first, a small blurred patch
where the little void began: the missed step, the puzzled grope,
the sudden bloom of almost fear, throat's almost mild panic's catch
at what had always been and walled and routed, what had no need of hope
but founded other's, braced the outward lean. And they say that little blur
marks nothing fell itself - a burst and bleed soon caught, the wound a nick -
but what has pulled the pin on desperation, pronounced what sending will echo sure
and avalanche in damage; make of skill and story rubble, storied tower broken brick.
 
Last edited:
born 19.6.32 -deported 24.9.42

Undesirable you may of been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.

As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.

Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
terror, so many routine cries.

(I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true)

September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

This is plenty. This is more than enough.

Geoffrey Hill
 
Childish Nonsense?

The boy stood on the burning deck, (true, boys tend to do risky things like that)
his feet were full of blisters, (true, they would be)
the fire burnt his trousers off, (true, it would)
he should have worn his sisters. (true, her trousers would have been burnt off instead)

One fine day in the middle of the night, (true/false)
two dead men got up to fight, (true/false)
back to back they faced each other, (true/false)
drew their swords and shot each other. (true/false)
 
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