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My favourite poem is Oisin's Lament. It's very old (around 450 AD) and is the lamentation of Oisin son of Finn MacCumhail (MacCool anglecized) for his father while he was living with St. Patrick in a monastery...it's the most tragic poem there is; a once great warrior reduced to ascetism and suffering on behalf of a religion which has no meaning to him. I don't think it's the best poem there is, because I suppose a lot of the meaning and emotion which I see in it comes from me, rather than the actual poem...anyway here it is:

It is grief to me, O Patrick
Though God is gracious and loving,
To speak no more of Finn -
Most melancholy to me - and the Fenians.

Farewell to wooing and hunting
Farewell to drinking and sweet music,
Farewell to fightd and to battle,
Farewell, moreover, to sharp blades.

Farewell to speed and strength,
Farewell to slaughter and clean wounds,
Farewell to far lands and to returning,
Farewell to gifts and single-combate.

Farewell to feasts and the full cup,
Farewell to running and to leaping,
Farewell to the chase on every rugged hill,
Farewell to the fights of mighty men.

Alas, is not my grief a piteous tale,
That I am fasting in the church of the poor?
Scarce of bread and scant of food,
My body lacks all strength and power.

Farewell, O Finn, again and again,
A hundred times, O Fenian King!
For you indeed would conquer my thirst,
Unlike the thin porridge that holy clerics eat.

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens


This is supposed to be about how poetry doesn't have to be about anything, and how we read to much into poetry. I like it.

No spam, just as the thread title says. I just removed one, and I'd rather not remove anymore.

Thanks, Fable. I didn't even see it.

@Eminem: well, I never would have figured you to be a poet at heart! I esp. liked the Petrarchan sonnet--they are extremely difficult to do.

@Beowulf: I love WCW. They say a lot of his poems were so short because he was a doctor and wrote them on prescription pads. I love that. I've been meaning to read his poem/novel, Paterson.

@Fable: Yeats is wonderful. I'm gonna post of of his below this.

@Frogus: I'd like to read more old old poetry. Almost bought a book of Icelandic eddas the other day, but didn't have the cash. Somehow it made me think of this poem by Yeats. I believe Fergus was an Irish god/saviour who would lead his people to paradise. The poem figures strongly in James Joyce's Ulysses.

Who Goes With Fergus

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fears no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

I'm really enjoying this thread

And more importantly I re-found The Fall Of The House Of Usher.

Alone.

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then–in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life–was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.


Poe...

One of my earliest poems, written from the point of view of a world-weary wanderer who realizes he has "miles to go before he sleeps."


"A Wanderer's Prayer"


How many more miles must I walk alone
Before my journey's done
Before your rest I've won
Beyond the setting sun?

How many prairie grasslands untrodden
Or meadows unblemished
On the way I am led
Must I mar with my tread?

How many desolate paths must I follow
In silence, in sorrow
Today, and tomorrow?

How many more miles must I wander before
I come to your door
For rest to implore?

Days seem like years is this world that I roam...
Call to me, Lord - to you I shall come
For I am weary, lost, and far from home.

i just wanted to say that "song of myself" by walt whitman is a truly great poem. it is waaay to long to post here, my sig is a line in the poem.

An excerpt from "The Symphony" by Sydney Lanier
the whole poem is much too long to post here.

And then, as when from words that seem but rude
We pass to silent pain that sits abrood
Back in our heart's great dark and solitude,
So sank the strings to gentle throbbing
Of long chords change-marked with sobbing --
Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard
Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird,
Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred.
Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo!
Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow
Died to a level with each level bow
And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so,
As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go
To linger in the sacred dark and green
Where many boughs the still pool overlean
And many leaves make shadow with their sheen.
But presently
A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly
Upon the bosom of that harmony,
And sailed and sailed incessantly,
As if a petal from a wild-rose blown
Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone
And boatwise dropped o' the convex side
And floated down the glassy tide
And clarified and glorified
The solemn spaces where the shadows bide.
From the warm concave of that fluted note
Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float,
As if a rose might somehow be a throat:

Jose Garcia Villa

Villa was considered a "wild child" during the conservative pre-war years in my country. Two of his famous poems are the following:

The Emperor's New Sonnet









and The Bashful One






,





Not much with words, I know , but (to quote Sleepy) symbolically compelling.

@Maharlika: How ya doin? I just see the titles to the poems, no poem? Hope you can re-post!

@Tamerlane & T'Lainya: Both of your poems made me think of Swinburne. Swinburne often used dark topics like Poe. I love the rhyme and meter in the following poem, it sounds just like the sea. Queen Victoria said that Swinburne was the master of all English poets in rhyme and meter.

@Aragorn Returns: The following Swinburne poem is also reminiscent of Whitman's Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. The two were contemporaries. I know they knew of each other.

fragment from The Triumph of Time

I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea.
I will go down to her, I and none other,
Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me;
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;
O fair white mother, in days long past
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine,
Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,
Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
Those pure cold populous graves of thine,
Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,
Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;
My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,
I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,
As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips
With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days,
Were it once cast off and unwound from me,
Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,
Alive and aware of thy ways and thee;
Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,
Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam,
A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,
A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.

Fair mother, fed with the lives of men,
Thou are subtle and cruel of heart, men say
Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again;
Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.
But death is the worst that comes of thee;
Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea,
But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when,
Having given us love, hast thou taken away?

O tender-hearted, O perfect lover,
Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.
The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,
Shall they not vanish away and apart?
But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;
Thou are strong for death and fruitful of birth;
Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;
From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.

Originally posted by Beldin
@VDali: Something like that has been done several years ago by the Alan Parsons Project. The Album was called "Tales of Mystery and Imagination". Have you heard of it ? I like it (especially "The Raven" ) , but the details on that would belong into one of the current Music-related threads...

There is also a band called Sopor Aeternus who have done a number of Poe poems. They are quiet good if you can stand the extreme pretentiousness. Among my favourites there is The Sleeper.

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!?and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully?so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.


"Alone" is another one to my likeing, but I think it have been posted before, so I will spare you.

Originally posted by VoodooDali
I'd like to read more old old poetry. Almost bought a book of Icelandic eddas the other day, but didn't have the cash. Somehow it made me think of this poem by Yeats. I believe Fergus was an Irish god/saviour who would lead his people to paradise. The poem figures strongly in James Joyce's Ulysses.

Who Goes With Fergus

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fears no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

I am not an expert, but I am quite knowledgeable, and as far as I know there was never any 'god' called Fergus in Irish mythology...There are three famous ferguses though (In RL I am named after Fergus of the Sweet tongue ). There was Fergus of the Sweet Tongue, bard and poet to (aforementioned) Finn MacCumhail, Fergus the Chess Player, AFAIR he was one of the Tuatha De Danaan, or if not he was one of the legendary men decended from them. He was the same age as Conchobor, the wisest and best of Irish kings...Then there was Fergus MacRoich/MacRogh...he is the most famous, and I would imagine that the poem's about him. He was the boyhood tutor of Cuchulann, and one of the greatest warriors that there ever was. He played a central part in the Tain, and was the only warrior who faced Cuchulain (fighting against the people of Ulster) who was not killed.

Wild Plum, by Orrick Johns

They are unholy who are born
To love wild plum at night,
Who once have passedit on a road
Glimmering and white.

It is as though the darkness had
Speech of silver words,
Or as though a cloud of stars
Perched like ghostly birds.

They are unpitied from their birth
And homeless in men's sight
Who love, better than the earth,
Wild plum at night.

@ Voo, the other poem I posted was an excerpt from a 4 or 5 page poem that assigns voices to the instruments of the symphony. It's interesting in the ideals (he hates trade, greed and industrialism).

Originally posted by frogus
I am not an expert, but I am quite knowledgeable, and as far as I know there was never any 'god' called Fergus in Irish mythology...There are three famous ferguses though (In RL I am named after Fergus of the Sweet tongue ). There was Fergus of the Sweet Tongue, bard and poet to (aforementioned) Finn MacCumhail, Fergus the Chess Player, AFAIR he was one of the Tuatha De Danaan, or if not he was one of the legendary men decended from them. He was the same age as Conchobor, the wisest and best of Irish kings...Then there was Fergus MacRoich/MacRogh...he is the most famous, and I would imagine that the poem's about him. He was the boyhood tutor of Cuchulann, and one of the greatest warriors that there ever was. He played a central part in the Tain, and was the only warrior who faced Cuchulain (fighting against the people of Ulster) who was not killed.

I could never remember--haven't read a lot of Irish history. Right you are--it's Fergus MacRoigh. One website says that: Fergus ("virility") is also referred to as "the great horse", and many (phallic) marvels are ascribed to him. In one website on celtic mythology, it listed him as a deity, as well as Cuchulain. It reminds me of the legend of Robin Hood. While he was probably a real person, he is also the embodiment of pagan beliefs.
Some researchers believe he was a manifestation of the ancient King of the Wood. His name also has a phallic meaning. He was the consort of the virgin goddess of the hunt, the divine lover/son who died only to return again, as the greenery does each year. He rules Sherwood Forest, and is joined by Maid Marian, in her role as the May Queen, an archetype of the goddess in her virgin aspect.

At any rate, I do know that Who Goes With Fergus does deal with crossing from life to death and into paradise. Yeats gives him god-like qualities: for Fergus rules the brazen cars (sun & moon), the forest, the sea and the stars.

I am certain Fergus had no immortal lineage at all... He was descended from the men of Munster, neither Tuatha De Danaan nor Firbogl...he was certainly great in bed, but I think it ended there anyway, to keep us on track, here is Cuchulain's lament for Ferdia...they were like brothers when they were boys, but Ferdia unfortunately took sides with Medb during the Tain: (actually I'll just post an extract cos it's long)
this is just after Cuchulain has killed Ferdia

Ferdia, dead by their deceit,
our last meeting I lament.
You are dead and I must live
to mourn my eternal lost

When we were away with Scathac
learning victory overseas,
it seemed our friendship would remain
unbroken until the day of doom.

I loved the noble way you blushed,
and loved your fine, perfect form.
I loved your blue clear eye,
your way of speech, your skillfullness.

Your like, Daman's red son,
never moved to the tearing fray,
never was moved with manly wrath
nor bore shield upon his broad back.

Never till this very day,
Ferdia, did I ever find
your match for great deeds in battle
since I slew Aife's only son.

Medb's daughter Finnabair, (Finnabair tempted men into fighting against Ulster)
whatever beauty she may have,
was an empty offering,
a string to hold the sand, Ferdia.

...

It was all play, all sport,
until Ferdia came to the ford.
A like learning we both had,
the same rights, the same belongings,
the same good foster mother
- Her name was most honoured.

All play, all sport,
until Ferdia came to the ford.
The same force and fury we had,
the same feats of battle also.
Scathac awarded two shields,
one to me, one to Ferdia.

All play, all sport,
until Ferdia came to the ford.
Misery! A pillar of gold
I have levelled at the ford,
the bull of the tribe-herd,
braver than any man.

All play, all sport,
until Ferdia came to the ford
- Fiery and ferocious lion,
fatal, furious, flood-wave!

All play, all sport,
until Ferdia came to the ford.
I thought beloved Ferdia
would live forever after me
- yesterday, a mountain-side;
today, nothing but a shade.

I have slaughtered, on this Tain,
three countless multitudes;
choice cattle, choice men,
and horses, fallen everywhere!

The army, a huge multitude,
that came from cruel Cruachan
has lost between a half and a third,
slaughtered in my savage sport.

Never came to the battlefield,
nor did Banba's belly bear,
nor over sea or land came
a king's son of fairer fame.

Jose Garcia Villa poems...

Originally posted by VoodooDali
@Maharlika: How ya doin? I just see the titles to the poems, no poem? Hope you can re-post!

Hi Mama VooD! I just came from a week-long vacation in the islands of Koh Samui and Phuket, in the southern part of Thailand --- been away from the Internet and my Inboxes were full when I got back to clear them of spam.

About the poems... well you have it just there. The Emperor's New Sonnet is simply without words (c.f., Emperor's New Clothes --- get it?) My favorite, The Bashful One is just a comma at the end of the "supposed 4th or 6th line of the Emperor'sNewSonnet-like poem". It's simply that --- no letters in both poems.

Perhaps this does also belong in a music thread, but I feel like posting here.

Violeta Parra

Ya se va para los cielos
ese querido angelito,
a rogar por sus abuelos,
por sus padres y hermanitos.
Cuando se muere la carne,
el alma busca su sitio
adentro de una amapola
o dentro de un pajarito.

La tierra lo está esperando
con su corazón abierto;
por eso es que el angelito
parece que está despierto.
Cuando se muere la carne
el alma busca su centro
en el brillo de una rosa
o de un pececito nuevo.

En su cunita de tierra
lo arrullará una campana,
mientras la lluvia le limpia
su carita en la mañana.
Cuando se muere la carne
el alma busca su diana
en los misterios del mundo
que le ha abierto una ventana.

Las mariposas alegres
de ver al bello angelito
alrededor de su cuna
le caminan despacito.
Cuando se muere la carne
el alma va derechito
a saludar a la luna,
y de paso al lucerito.

¿Adónde se fue su gracia,
dónde se fue su dulzura?
¿Por qué se cae su cuerpo
como la fruta madura?
Cuando se muere la carne
el alma busca en la altura
la explicación de su vida
cortada con tan premura;
la explicación de su muerte,
prisionera en una tumba.
Cuando se muere la carne
el alma se queda oscura.


Always moves me.

*Bump*

I thought I'd bring this thread back to the surface, as I'm a lover of verse myself, like VooDoo Dali. I've written a good deal of poetry, though I've never circulated it beyond small groups of friends (I've never considered it a serious enough endeavor of mine to make the effort to publish it any further than that). Anyway, I'd love to see more poetry posted here; especially what SYMians themselves have written.

This is something I wrote last year while inspired by thoughts of the old Crusader ruins scattered about the Middle East.

Walls of Stone

Walls of stone in barren land, forgotten Keep of scorching sand,
Thy battlements raised long ago
To halt the creeping tide of woe.

Watch fires burned once through the night, a vigil ‘til the dawn’s first light
Cast beams upon warriors dark and grim,
Watchmen of the Heart within.

Once battle cries rang in thy halls and arrows rained upon thy walls
As torchlight blazed on the shields and spears
Of the demons of thy darkest fears.

“Defend the Heart!” thy lords would cry, as shining swords were held on high
Before their charge no foe could stand
Upon the blackened fields of the barren land.

Though assailed by demons fell and fey, thou kept the seething horde at bay;
For thy knights were swift, both strong and true,
Arrayed in mail of gleaming hue.

Alas, there came the endless night, the darkest hour of thy desperate plight;
For the grip of doom’s encircling hand
Closed upon thy Watchmen’s final stand.

Of their deeds no tale could ever tell, as they warred against the host of Hell;
They stood with shield and singing sword
To defend the Heart from the raging horde.

Amidst the tide of the surging flood, thy halls awash with crimson blood,
One by one, back to back,
They fell before the horde’s attack.

With a shout and desperate battle cry, thy lords unsheathed their swords to die,
And though many a foe fell by the shining blade,
‘Twas a battle to be won by aught man had made.

Thy warders fallen, thy four walls breached, to the Heart the demons lustfully reached;
And so thy ceaseless vigil might at last be done,
Were it not for the rays of the rising sun.

In the gloom there burned a fervent light, as the sun arose in the endless night;
Before his rays the mighty dragons quailed,
For by a blow the demonic horde had failed.

The shadows gave way to brilliant beams, and the din of war to dying screams,
And with the final blow blazed a searing flash,
That burned thy foes to dust and ash.

All lay silent within thy halls, and nary a soul stirred atop thy weathered walls;
For in the waste the arid kiss of death
Dries thy bones and steals thy breath.

------------------------------------------------

Yet thy tale did not end in an age long ago, forgotten by time and marked by woe;
For with the rising of the sun, the darkness passed,
And to the barren land came life at last.

In the silence of a misty morn soared a mourning dove, lost and forlorn,
For she sought a tree in the land below,
Amongst the rocks where no living thing could grow.

So at last she alighted upon thy walls, and looked upon thy bloodstained halls,
And in her tears she sighed, then cried aloud,
For the wounded Heart she had newly found.

Through starlit night and calm noontide, she remained steadfastly by thy side;
Her song soothed the wounds of thy fear and strife,
As the land below stirred slowly to life.

Sheath thy sword, o battered one, for at last thy vigil is truly done;
Loose thy gates to receive the land,
In thy distant realm of scorching sand.

@mental nomad: Tripe? Hardly. Not to me, anyway. That's quite a collection of thoughts.

I particularly like:

standing on the shore;
i look on the river Styx.
boy! am i thirsty.

I understand that thought. What a relief it would be.

It's peppered with humor here and there, but I think that serves to drive the thought even deeper. Beyond just enjoying it, I think I could identify with most of it.