poetry

[melwalton]

The t shirt post by Klondike put me in mind of some poems that might get a smile:

"Go to father', she said, when I asked her to wed, 'Cause she knew that I knew that her father was dead.
She knew, too, that I knew of the life he had led;
So. she knew that I knew what she meant when she said, ;'GO TO FATHER!'

He kissed and told but that's alright, the guy he told phoned me, last night.

I didn't write these, I'm sorry to say that I don't know who did. They go back, at least, sixty years.

Anyone recall those Burma shave signs that were all over the roads in the 30s?

Don't stick your elbow out too far, it might go home in another car.

Speed to burn, started kissin', fault was hern, fun'ral his'n

I'd likev to hear others. Anyone? .... mel

[laffite]

Final words of Paradise Lost
John Milton

The so-called parents of mankind go their own way

.. whereat
In either hand the hastening angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
**

[Masha]

Little earthworm in the ground,
You see no sight; you hear no sound.
You gnaw out tunnels down beneath
Without the benefit of teeth.

Without a foot, or arm, or hand.
We are behooved to understand —
Just why, with attributes so few,
They named a planet after you.
—Johnny Hart

[EP Millstone]

Résumé
Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp
Guns aren’t lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful . . .

You might as well live

[laffite]

Sorry Dodie

Nor razor, nor river, nor acid, nor drugs
Nor guns, nor nooses, nor gas
Will deter those who want to pass
Away

[Swithin]

Time to get back to some serious poetry:

Making toast by the fireside,
Nurse fell in the fire and died.
And what makes it ten times worse,
All the toast was burned with nurse.

[EP Millstone]

Alone
Edgar Allan Poe

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

[EP Millstone]

I guess this is the best I can do, did it college, part of my English assignments. In lieu of a disgusting selfie, here is my poem . . .

Very impressive, Thompson!

Who are your influences? (I won't ask what are your influences or what influences you were under when you crafted that composition.)

Thanks for presenting Mr. Aquila's ode to a peanut butter sandwich.

Try this one on for size:

The Emperor of Ice Cream
Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

[laffite]

I guess this is the best I can do, did it college, part of my English assignments. In lieu of a disgusting selfie, here is my poem:

He could chew up pain anytime at first
and right down the hatch (no sweat) just
like the cola recovery of the healthy.
Sturdy, he only shook when iced up
and then with hands steady as clocks, he
could tick out the town with the best of ‘em.

Landscapes lined with undisciplined holes
deep and undiagnosed, somehow lent fair
warning to an even fairer unconscious . . .
These dreams are not what they’re supposed to be
like his pals too ready to call it quits
cut off (eighty-sixed) without a blink of the stuff.

Frozen he tripped down the split ravine
and twitched like the Mexican jumping bean
trapped in the skin of his own predicament.
The same old woman strikes domino matches
for the masquerade. She opens up the place
and guides the glass of brotherhood to his lips.

Thompson, I hereby declare you Poet Laureate for SSO.

[laffite]

Ezra Pound I can’t follow, can’t follow James Joyce, can’t follow Eliot’s The Waste Land. I do like Bukowski, EP, I’ve read the cannon, but his prose is superior to his poetry, IMO. John Berryman with his Dream Songs I dig. But I’m not a poet. I’ve written three decent poems in 66 years, that’s divisible, three into 66. Or is it 66 into three?

Nobody can understand The Waste Land.

[Andree]

That's why ol' T.S. was gracious enough to provide notes for TWL. After reading those everything will be revealed and be
crystal clear.


Ignotum per ignotius

und so weiter, perfide Missouri!

Shabuma, Shebuma, ditty, ditty

cornstarch.

[EP Millstone]

A Dash of Nash
(Ogden, that is)

The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk
One end is moo, the other, milk

Reflections on Ice-Breaking
Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker

The Octopus
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus
If I were thou, I'd call me Us

Crossing the Border
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends

Requiem
There was a young belle of Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes
She drawled, When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!

[Swithin]

I do like Bukowski, EP, I’ve read the cannon, but his prose is superior to his poetry, IMO.

Many years ago in London (1987) I went to a movie because it sounded like the sort of film that might not be come to NY. I was deeply moved by it and can honestly say it's the best Belgian film I've ever seen. (It actually did come to the U.S. as the first Flemish-Belgian film to do so.)

It's called Crazy Love and is based on writings by Charles Bukowski. The film was championed by a few American celebrities but was considered too controversial for the masses. (Necrophilia has never been a crowd pleaser.)

Here's one of the best scenes, and particularly touching, in the context of the film:

[laffite]

A Thunderstorm In Town

Thomas Hardy

She wore a 'terra-cotta' dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom's dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.

'''

[Swithin]

To continue the Hardy connection, at the top of The Return of the Native, Hardy quotes this poem by Keats, which is an excerpt from Endymion:

“To Sorrow I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind."