A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

kitchenkid

Question

by Fred Johnston

Old lovers often want to know
Where did the good of old love go
In which space beneath the heart
Did the death of old love start
Could it have been solved or cured
With incantation or resolving word:
But we who live in the age of treason
Are fools to look to love for reason
There is no button we can press
That offers the broken dead redress
So how can something mad as love
As mad as soldiers on the move
Conform to potions, ritual, prayer
When so much blood hangs in the air?

Rory Gallagher

Sudden veer of wind and rain
Showering misery through the land,
The warlords are clashing anew--
Yet another Golden Millet Dream.
Red banners leap over the Ting River
Straight to Lungyen and Shanghang.
We have reclaimed part of the golden bowl
And land is being shared out with a will.

Mao Zedong.

donegal_man

Touched By An Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free

Maya Angelou

Swiper the fox

Piano

D H Lawrence (1885 - 1930)

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.



In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.



So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

wreade1872

IX
It is full strange to him who hears and feels,
When wandering there in some deserted street,
The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels,
The trampling clash of heavy ironshod feet:
Who in this Venice of the Black Sea rideth?
Who in this city of the stars abideth
To buy or sell as those in daylight sweet?

The rolling thunder seems to fill the sky
As it comes on; the horses snort and strain,
The harness jingles, as it passes by;
The hugeness of an overburthened wain:
A man sits nodding on the shaft or trudges
Three parts asleep beside his fellow-drudges:
And so it rolls into the night again.

What merchandise? whence, whither, and for whom?
Perchance it is a Fate-appointed hearse,
Bearing away to some mysterious tomb
Or Limbo of the scornful universe
The joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions
Of all things good which should have been our portions,
But have been strangled by that City's curse.

Just one section of the awesome 'City of Dreadful Night' by James Thomson.

In direct contradiction to the intent of this topic, this poem will NOT keep the melancholy away :P. In fact 'Melencolia' is the patron saint of the City of Dreadful Night .

wreade1872

CVII
Mingled and marvellous grows the fray,
And in Roland's heart is no dismay.
He fought with lance while his good lance stood;
Fifteen encounters have strained its wood.
At the last it brake; then he grasped in hand
His Durindana, his naked brand.
He smote Chernubles' helm upon,
Where, n the centre, carbuncles shone:
Down through his coif and his fell of hair,
Betwixt his eyes came the falchion bare,
Down through his plated harness fine,
Down through the Saracen's chest and chine,
Down through the saddle with gold inlaid,
Till sank in the living horse the blade,
Severed the spine where no joint was found,
And horse and rider lay dead on ground.
"Caitiff, thou camest in evil hour;
To save thee passeth Mohammed's power.
Never to miscreants like to thee
Shall come the guerdon of victory."

CVIII
Count Roland rideth the battle through,
With Durindana, to cleave and hew;
Havoc fell of the foe he made,
Saracen corse upon corse was laid,
The field all flowed with the bright blood shed;
Roland, to corselet and arm, was red
Red his steed to the neck and flank.
Nor is Olivier niggard of blows as frank;
Nor to one of the peers be blame this day,
For the Franks are fiery to smite and slay.
"Well fought," said Turpin, "our barons true!"
And he raised the war - cry, "Montjoie" anew.

Couple of stanza's from the 'Song of Roland' (11th century). I just love the way he chops a knight completely in half and killed the horse too :lol . Now thats a proper magic sword .

Dave!

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

W.B. Yeats

I
THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out Of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

tomasocarthaigh

kitchenkid wrote: »

Question

by Fred Johnston

Old lovers often want to know
Where did the good of old love go
In which space beneath the heart
Did the death of old love start
Could it have been solved or cured
With incantation or resolving word:
But we who live in the age of treason
Are fools to look to love for reason
There is no button we can press
That offers the broken dead redress
So how can something mad as love
As mad as soldiers on the move
Conform to potions, ritual, prayer
When so much blood hangs in the air?

"To They Who Invoke the Wrath of Higgins"

Kevin Higgins, whose satires are often terse,
Will never forgive others who praise Fred Johnstons verse!

tomasocarthaigh

"Wild Flowers"

So how do I put into words
What leaves me simply speechless
And how do I tell the world
About somebody like this
Whose love I crave ,still all the more
The more I know her heart
I’d put some shape on it if I could
But it’s hard know where to start

See my baby she, she makes me feel
Like there ain’t nothin’, impossible to achieve
And even when I, screw it all up big style
Oh my baby she ,she makes me still believe
And never in my, wildest dreams would I
Have bestowed on myself, a love that’s so strong
See somethin’ like this, I never knew could exist
But in my baby’s kiss, I’ve been proven so wrong

Won’t lie about it ,we can fight with the best
No mercy shown and rarely asked for
But bark and bite both ,come battles end
Are gentle too in equal measure
Grows sweeter still to me ,as each season softly
Lets the light and the shade of two lives combine
To stand up to the sun and what storms may come
Like wild flowers at home,’ gainst a hilltop skyline

They say Ali’s eyes were never home to fear
Well I’ll tell you now, no way I’ll mirror that
Even at the,”what if..”,of ever losin’ her
I just know there’d be no comin’ back
I’d be like a shadow stranded behind
From one world’s end back in forty five
Still there to see, but no sign of me
Cos’ some things, you just don’t survive

Oh never in my wildest dreams would I
Have bestowed on myself a love that’s so strong
See somethin’ like this, I never knew could exist
But in my baby’s kiss, I’ve been proven so wrong
Grows sweeter still to me, as each season softly
Lets the light and the shade of two lives combine
To stand up to the sun and what storms may come
Like wild flowers at home, ’gainst a hilltop skyline

Like wild flowers at home ,’gainst a hilltop skyline.

www.AnthonySullivan.biz

And here is one I wrote earlier!

Are Mankind But Savages Still



/// Dedicated to the rape victims in India and Kenya ///

Are mankind but savages still
On others forcing our will
In war, in peace, using rape
To degrade, denying escape
Why do they do this, why cause pain
To innocent women, again and again,
India, Kenya, world apart
Whats wrong with love that comes from the heart
Why done in gangs to a passer by
I ask the question again… why?
Chucked down a well, hung from a tree
What satisfaction in such sex can there be?
What sort of a man can think himself great
By committing such an act of hate?
No self appointed Conchobar has the right to treat a woman like Medb
Cast her to one side to end up in the grave
What sort of woman rears her sons to be
Such sort of men, what sort of culture and country?

And some more verses to peruse...


Lest a Man Fall Foul of the Midnight Court

Prayer Before Reading the Koran

Trouble By Two

Swiper the fox

That Actor Kiss
By Michael Hartnett

I kissed my father as he lay in bed
in the ward. Nurses walked on soles of sleep
and old men argued with themselves all day.
The seven decades locked inside his head
congealed into a timeless leaking heap,
the painter lost his sense of all but grey.
That actor kiss fell down a shaft too deep
to send back echoes that I would have prized—
‘29 was’ 41 was ‘84,
all one in his kaleidoscopic eyes
(he willed to me his bitterness and thirst,
his cold ability to close a door).
Later, over a drink, I realised
that was our last kiss and, alas, our first.

LizzieJones

St. Patrick’s Day

BY JEAN BLEWETT

There’s an Isle, a green Isle, set in the sea,
Here’s to the Saint that blessed it!
And here’s to the billows wild and free
That for centuries have caressed it!

Here’s to the day when the men that roam
Send longing eyes o’er the water!
Here’s to the land that still spells home
To each loyal son and daughter!

Here’s to old Ireland—fair, I ween,
With the blue skies stretched above her!
Here’s to her shamrock warm and green,
And here’s to the hearts that love her!

LizzieJones

The Igloo

BY MATTHEW SWEENEY

Outside the igloo he waited
for an invitation to come inside.
There was no knocker, no doorbell.
He coughed, there was no reply.

He crouched down and peered in.
He felt the warm air from a fire
pat his cheeks and ruffle his hair.
Hello he said quietly and repeated it.

The frost in his toes urged him in,
so did the pain in his gut. His knees
one by one welcomed the snow
and brought him into the warmth.

He stood up and breathed deeply.
He held a foot up to the flames
then swapped it for the other foot.
He lay down on the polar bear rug

but a smell yanked him upright again
and led him to a dresser of  bone
where a bowl sat with a cover on it.
He lifted this to reveal dried meat.

He grabbed a chunk and tore at it
with his teeth. It was reindeer.
He devoured all that was in the bowl
and went looking for some more.

He found none, but there was a bottle
of firewater which he swigged.
He swigged again and left it down.
He lay on the bearskin and fell asleep.

Source: Poetry (April 2014).

wreade1872

Alienation

His solid flesh had never been away,
For each dawn found him in his usual place,
But every night his spirit loved to race
Through gulfs and worlds remote from common day.
He had seen Yaddith, yet retained his mind,
And come back safely from the Ghooric zone,
When one still night across curved space was thrown
That beckoning piping from the voids behind.

He waked that morning as an older man,
And nothing since has looked the same to him.
Objects around float nebulous and dim -
False, phantom trifles of some vaster plan.
His folk and friends are now an alien throng
To which he struggles vainly to belong.

Taken from 'Fungi from Yuggoth' by H.P. Lovecraft.

czechlin

There's a poem that I learnt many moons ago stuck in my head for the past few days. I couldn't find any proper English translation so I combined the few amateurish ones I did find and it doesn't do it the justice really (even though it's very simple) but I need to get it out of my system, I hope you don't mind.


"For a bit of love I would roam the world"

by Jaroslav Vrchlický

For a bit of love I would roam the world,
I would go bareheaded and would go barefoot,
I’d walk on the ice – eternal May in my soul,
I’d walk in the storm - yet hear the blackbirds singing,
I’d walk trough the desert – with pearls of dew in my heart.
For a bit of love I would roam the world,
as one, who sings begging at the door.

Ulmus

Love Without Hope
Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.
-- Robert Graves

Think of this if you suffer with a one-sided crush, infatuation.

tomasocarthaigh

L-Plate Lover


Ken Hume


Darling, I’m an L-Plate Lover
With a provisional license to rediscover
How to drive the car of romance
Re-start the engine before I get the chance
To get out of the car and run
Wouldn’t be the 1st time that I’ve done
That, so why don’t you hop in beside me
In the passenger seat so that you can guide me
Because you’ve a full license and have driven
This road before; been hurt; have forgiven
Teach me when to accelerate; when to slow down
When to hit the brakes and to look around
When to turn right; when to turn left
When to listen and what to say next
When to pull over to the side of the road
How to translate the rules and the code
Of the mysterious driver that is the female
Because it’s a driving test I don’t want to fail.


And now, one of my own...

What We Do Is Who We Are

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds – George Elliot -

By our deeds let us be known
They make us what we are as men
And others judge our deeds
And they judge us then
For words are like the weather
That is coming tomorrow: we do knot know
For just because its promised
Will not make the wind blow.

We can choose to do what it is we do
That much is true enough
And we can make it our destiny
Be it smooth or be it rough
But when we need the help of another
Will they of our intent be assured or afraid:
They judge us by the deeds we have done
And those, the man as he is today, they have made!!!

Lady of the Sweetest Smile
Clock Ticks on the Wall

jazz101

Tomas, I love your contributions to this thread.

Dave!

Posted by bluewolf in another forum, and I really like it


Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

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 sunlight 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.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

donegal_man

Does it matter?-losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter?-losing you sight?
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter-those dreams in the pit?
You can drink and forget and be gald,
And people won't say that you’re mad;
For they know that you've fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit.

Siegfried Sassoon

Dave!

The Last Laugh
BY WILFRED OWEN

‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.

Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,

The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain!

Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!

And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.


And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud

Leisurely gestured,—Fool!

And the splinters spat, and tittered.

‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,

Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.


And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.

Harry Angstrom

Money, by Philip Larkin

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
"Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
You could get them still by writing a few cheques."

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
They certainly don’t keep it upstairs.
By now they’ve a second house and car and wife:
Clearly money has something to do with life

In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire:
You can’t put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down
From long french windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

Niall Keane

On Passing the New Menin Gate (Siegfried Sassoon)

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
the unheroic dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride
'Their name liveth for ever', the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
as these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

Niall Keane

Annie

by Dermot Healy

The sea is on nights.
The horizon is an empty factory floor,
If you step outside
You’ll see the day shift.

Pass the night shift
On the second shore,
The lights from the airport
Stream across the bed of the ocean

But someone has missed the bend for home.
They kept going
Till they could go

No longer. Stand at Annie-Come-Ashore
You’ll see the ship grounded
Like a Casino at Ballincar,
Love, with all its lights on.

And in the third house from the left
I’m stuck high and dry
In a fiction that won’t end
And a love affair that ended.

Like the stranded Poles I’m waiting
For the high waters of late September
To make me buoyant again,
To fill each side of me,

Till then I’m here
Unable to carry on.
Mark me on the second beach
Waiting for the pilot

Or on prom at night,
Watching the silent gulls in a gale,
Hundreds, falling in one behind the other,
Just above the water, for hours,

Steadfastly.

Harry Angstrom

Five O'Clock Shadow, by John Betjeman

This is the time of day when we in the Men's ward
Think "one more surge of the pain and I give up the fight."
When he who struggles for breath can struggle less strongly:
This is the time of day which is worse than night.

A haze of thunder hangs on the hospital rose-beds,
A doctors' foursome out of the links is played,
Safe in her sitting-room Sister is putting her feet up:
This is the time of day when we feel betrayed.

Below the windows, loads of loving relations
Rev in the car park, changing gear at the bend,
Making for home and a nice big tea and the telly:
"Well, we've done what we can. It can't be long till the end."

This is the time of day when the weight of bedclothes
Is harder to bear than a sharp incision of steel.
The endless anonymous croak of a cheap transistor
Intensifies the lonely terror I feel.

LeonardNelson

Dave! wrote: »

Posted by bluewolf in another forum, and I really like it


Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

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 sunlight 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.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

I like it too. Down to the heart.

ivytwine

Dave! wrote: »

Posted by bluewolf in another forum, and I really like it


Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

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 sunlight 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.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Really needed that. Thank you.

Niall Keane

EPIC by PATRICK KAVANAGH, 1938


I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided : who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was most important ? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said : I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

Dave!

Was just flicking through the recently relaunched PoetryArchive.org, and they've got a recording of Kavanagh reading "Epic"

Enjoy

http://poetryarchive.org/poem/epic

Dave!

The Applicant - Sylvia Plath

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit -

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of <i>that</i>?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

Dave!

Evidently Chickentown

John Cooper Clarke

The fcuking cops are fcuking keen
To fcuking keep it fcuking clean
The fcuking chief's a fcuking swine
Who fcuking draws a fcuking line
At fcuking fun and fcuking games
The fcuking kids he fcuking blames
Are nowhere to be fcuking found
Anywhere in chicken town

The fcuking scene is fcuking sad
The fcuking news is fcuking bad
The fcuking weed is fcuking turf
The fcuking speed is fcuking surf
The fcuking folks are fcuking daft
Don't make me fcuking laugh
It fcuking hurts to look around
Everywhere in chicken town

The fcuking train is fcuking late
You fcuking wait you fcuking wait
You're fcuking lost and fcuking found
Stuck in ****ing chicken town

The fcuking view is fcuking vile
For fcuking miles and fcuking miles
The fcuking babies fcuking cry
The fcuking flowers fcuking die
The fcuking food is fcuking muck
The fcuking drains are fcuking ****ed
The colour scheme is fcuking brown
Evidently chicken town

The fcuking pubs are fcuking dull
The fcuking clubs are fcuking full
Of fcuking girls and fcuking guys
With fcuking murder in their eyes
A fcuking bloke is fcuking stabbed
Waiting for a fcuking cab
You fcuking stay at fcuking home
The fcuking neighbors fcuking moan
Keep the fcuking racket down
This is fcuking chicken town

The fcuking pies are fcuking old
The fcuking chips are fcuking cold
The fcuking beer is fcuking flat
The fcuking flats have fcuking rats
The fcuking clocks are fcuking wrong
The fcuking days are fcuking long
It fcuking gets you fcuking down
Evidently chicken town


This performance is amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKIgsR5W6k