Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
A Poem Thread
- Thread starter Angelus
- Start date
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“You must not be frightened
if a sadness
rises in front of you,
larger than any you have ever seen;
if an anxiety,
like light and cloud-shadows,
moves over your hands and over
everything you do.
You must realize that something is happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you,
that it holds you in its hand
and will not let you fall.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
if a sadness
rises in front of you,
larger than any you have ever seen;
if an anxiety,
like light and cloud-shadows,
moves over your hands and over
everything you do.
You must realize that something is happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you,
that it holds you in its hand
and will not let you fall.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Last edited:
Message in a Bottle
I watched it bobbing, up and down, moving slowly towards the beach.
After some time, I walked towards it, bent down and picked it up.
It was blue glass, with a cork in the opening.
I walked away from the water's edge with the bottle, and sat down out of the sun.
Removing the cork, I upended the bottle and a rolled up sheet of paper fell out.
Unrolling it, it was about letter-sized, I then read:
"Congratulations, you are reading this message,
Kindly roll it up again and put it back in the bottle, then replace the cork and return the bottle to the ocean.
Yours,
The Management"
I watched it bobbing, up and down, moving slowly towards the beach.
After some time, I walked towards it, bent down and picked it up.
It was blue glass, with a cork in the opening.
I walked away from the water's edge with the bottle, and sat down out of the sun.
Removing the cork, I upended the bottle and a rolled up sheet of paper fell out.
Unrolling it, it was about letter-sized, I then read:
"Congratulations, you are reading this message,
Kindly roll it up again and put it back in the bottle, then replace the cork and return the bottle to the ocean.
Yours,
The Management"
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“...great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”
Charles Bukowski
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”
Charles Bukowski
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
"The war. Here I was a virgin.
Could you imagine getting your
ass blown off for the sake of
history before you even knew
what a woman was? Or owned an
automobile? What would I be
protecting? Somebody else.
Somebody else who didn't give a
shit about me. Dying in a war
never stopped wars from
happening."
Charles Bukowski
Could you imagine getting your
ass blown off for the sake of
history before you even knew
what a woman was? Or owned an
automobile? What would I be
protecting? Somebody else.
Somebody else who didn't give a
shit about me. Dying in a war
never stopped wars from
happening."
Charles Bukowski
From, On Yor Marks: A Package of Punctuation
by Richard Armour, 1969
Unable to point or to say, "Over there,"
All the colon can do,
And it does it,
Is stare.
So here's a suggestion: go on, if you please,
To where it is looking, to see what it sees.
by Richard Armour, 1969
Unable to point or to say, "Over there,"
All the colon can do,
And it does it,
Is stare.
So here's a suggestion: go on, if you please,
To where it is looking, to see what it sees.
[via @NeglectedBooks↱]
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
“Love After Love
"The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.”
― Derek Walcott, Collected Poems, 1948-1984
"The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.”
― Derek Walcott, Collected Poems, 1948-1984
what if a much of a which of a wind
by e.e. cummings, 1944
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives truth to the summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)
—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man
what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
—whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,
it's they shall cry hello to the spring
what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't: blow death to was)
—all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live
by e.e. cummings, 1944
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives truth to the summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)
—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man
what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
—whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,
it's they shall cry hello to the spring
what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't: blow death to was)
—all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live
[via PoetryFoundation.org↱)
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Daniel Halpern
Appropriate Dress
Dear you know who you are:
You must be so relieved
to have, at last, the weight
of my affection off you.
Feathery at best, a cloak
for warmth, simple affection.
Gone are my fingers through your dark
spill of hair, the silken skin
of your shoulder aglow
in the light of candles,
your electricity, the flickering
flame, the small knob of heat
on a wick, white noise,
your breath breathless,
heart-scented,
echoing your pulse,
racing once, now stilled
to the gentle tapping
of residual water
hours after the rain,
hours after the storm.
Appropriate Dress
Dear you know who you are:
You must be so relieved
to have, at last, the weight
of my affection off you.
Feathery at best, a cloak
for warmth, simple affection.
Gone are my fingers through your dark
spill of hair, the silken skin
of your shoulder aglow
in the light of candles,
your electricity, the flickering
flame, the small knob of heat
on a wick, white noise,
your breath breathless,
heart-scented,
echoing your pulse,
racing once, now stilled
to the gentle tapping
of residual water
hours after the rain,
hours after the storm.
O. W. Grant
Registered Senior Member
The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
by Dr. Kent M. Keith
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
O. W. Grant
Registered Senior Member
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Two good questions
How about
1 2
as a answer to both?
Except I don't know if
1 2
would qualify as a poam
"Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes", a four-syllable couplet by Strickland Gillian, is often suggested as the shortest poem in the English language.
I could probably do shorter; the criteria seem arbitrary.
Lines on the Antiquity of Need
Fuck
Struck
Duck
Struck
Duck
Or:
Lines on the Antiquity of Need (Version Revision)
She
Said
No
Said
No
Lines on the Antiquity of Need (Charm Version)
He
Tried
Tried
I get the feeling that a poem is just a poem because we decide that they is what it is or should be.
That must change with time but I wonder if there is any core meaning that remains no matter what changes occur.
Does there have to be something that takes place to go under the radar of the rationality (of the audience, I suppose ...what about the author?)
That must change with time but I wonder if there is any core meaning that remains no matter what changes occur.
Does there have to be something that takes place to go under the radar of the rationality (of the audience, I suppose ...what about the author?)
On Shelter
by Anne Carson, 1991
You can write on a wall with a fish heart, it's because of the phosphorous. They eat it, there are shacks like that down along the river. I am writing this to be as wrong as possible to you. Replace the door when you leave, it says, now you tell me how wrong that is. How long it glows. Tell me.
by Anne Carson, 1991
You can write on a wall with a fish heart, it's because of the phosphorous. They eat it, there are shacks like that down along the river. I am writing this to be as wrong as possible to you. Replace the door when you leave, it says, now you tell me how wrong that is. How long it glows. Tell me.
[via The Yale Review↱]
The word "poem" comes from the French ca. 15th century, derived from a Greek word, ποιεῖν, a form of a word for the verb, "make"; its context included the verb, "create", and developed a post-Homeric application for constructed verse, which includes the verbs for composing or writing poetry, as well as the verb ""invent".
The core of poetry would seem to have to do with creative expression.