POETRY

[Wintertime]

A "strange coincidence", to use a phrase
By which such things are settled nowadays.

—Lord Byron. Don Juan. Canto vi. Stanza 78.

 

[OdinTheAardvark]

This should really be sung to one of those dreary Country and Western tunes!

We went to school together,
Way down in the deep, deep south;
I fell in love with an angel
With the purtiest rosebud mouth.

At 13 we both left school
And I went to work on the farm;
I was the proudest young man in the village
With my angel on my arm.

Later we got married;
My angel was now my wife.
I thought we'd be together
For the rest of our natural life.

But then my angel left me -
Oh lordy how I missed her.
Now I'm lost, with only one question...
Is she still my sister?

 

[gonzerd]

The Strongest of the Strange
by Charles Bukowski

you won’t see them often
for wherever the crowds are
they
are not.
these odd ones, not
many
but from them
come
the few
good paintings
the few
good symphonies
the few
good books
and other
works.
and from the
best of the
strange ones
perhaps
nothing.
they are
their own
paintings
their own
music
their own
work.
sometimes i think
I see
them–say
a certain old
man
sitting on a
certain bench
in a certain
way
or
a quick face
going the other
way
in a passing automobile
or
there’s a certain motion
of the hands
of a bag-boy or a bag-
girl
while packing
supermarket
groceries.
sometimes
it is even somebody
you have been
living with
for some
time–
you will notice
a
lightning quick
glance
never seen
from them
before.
sometimes
you will only note
their existence
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone.
I remember
such a
one–
he was about
20 years old
drunk at
10 a.m.
staring into
a cracked
mirror
facing dreaming
against the
walls of
the world
where
did I
go?

 

[Wintertime]

I love, love, love that one, gonzerd.

I wrote this earlier so I figured I might as well share it.

She is fluid like temples in the jungle
Forbidden and lost to all but the old ones
Moon the only light through the canopy
Silence only broken by sweeping wings

 

[Wintertime]

Silent friend of many distances,
feel how your breath is still expanding space.
Let yourself peal among the beams
of dark belfries. Whatever preys

on you will grow strong from this nourishment.
Know transformation through and through.
What experience has been most painful to you?
If the drinking's bitter, turn to wine.

In this vast night, be the magic power
at your senses' intersection,
the meaning of their strange encounter.

And if the earthly has forgotten
you, say to the still earth: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am.

R M Rilke
fr. Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus
tr. A. Poulin Jr.

 

[Harrison]

Sometimes an echo is all you'll hear
when its dark and lonely
with nobody near.
Changing the pitch
from high to low,
sometimes an echo is all you'll know.

 

[apsie]

The following is not my work, I translated it from dutch, its written by someone close.
The grammar may not make perfect sense, but I don't think its supposed to.

You kiss me you soothe me
You hug me, comfort me
You catch me you want me
Infinitely unfear me

You call me you hear me
You save and disturb me
Believe me and rob me
Suffocate and stun me

You breathe and you live me
Shudder and tremble me
You trust me and see me
As a human being and keep me
From angry dreams
That show up around me
The lonely questions
Of finite happiness

I run alone now
And hold me when needed
In my mind and I seek you
in everything around me
but I think sometimes
so it is better
I can not help it
Sometimes I miss you

I kiss you, I soothe you
I'm deaf, and I extinguish you
You stay close to me
But in my head you rest

 

[Wintertime]

I give myself this today, my day in autumn.
I posted it another place early this morning, might as well share it here, too.

Day in Autumn
By Rainier Maria Rilke
Translated By Mary Kinzie

After the summer's yield, love, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,
and, along the city's avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

 

[gonzerd]

Charles Bukowksi - Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess me up?
you want to screw up the works?
you want to blow my book sales in Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him die
and we sleep together like that
with our secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

 

[Wintertime]

i met a genius

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.


it was the first time I'd
realized
that.






CB, from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, transcribed by me from the book beside me, so if there are typos, they are my doing.

 

[Wintertime]

They say when the student is ready
the teacher will appear.
But Teacher, I've been waiting
for thousands of years.

-me

 

[gonzerd]

Jack Kerouac - October in the Railroad Earth

 

[Graelwyn]

Girl In A Jar.

Girl in a jar,
pin through her core,
wings frozen tight,
furled,
their brightness dulled,
no light.

Girl in a jar,
filled with echoes of screams,
shards of fast fading dreams
swirl the confines of glass.

Face upward gaze,
eyes dimmed with pain,
'There's a way, there's a way'
but the path pulls away
as the echoes of screams
turn to splashes of rain.

Girl in a jar,
breathing cloud in the dark,
scraping dust from a heart
full of shadows and scars.


Faint whispered words
rippled silence, unheard,
'Is there anyone there?
Can you please set me free,
I would fly, but my wings
they are broken, you see?'

 

[Sass]

WHEN THE HEART

When the heart
Is cut or cracked or broken,
Do not clutch it;
Let the wound lie open.
Let the wind
From the good old sea blow in
To bathe the wound with salt,
And let it sting.
Let a stray dog lick it,
Let a bird lean in the hole and sing
A simple song like a tiny bell,
And let it ring.

- Michael Leunig.

 

[gonzerd]

Long time, no Bukowski...

Alone With Everybody by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom O' Bedlam)

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

 

[113]

SONNET 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

--Shakespeare

 

[gonzerd]

Roll the Dice by Charles Bukowski

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight
there is.

 

[JuniperBug]

I wrote a short poem a while back about my nightly depression (medication has since helped) but I haven't shared it with anyone yet.

At Night
Juniper


At night

The darkness

Swallows me

With dreams as deep

And distant as

The sea

Drinking hope

As sustenance

Does she


At night

Her retched

Despondency

Overwhelms

And interweaves

In me

And then

With reckless power

Releases me


My heart

Aglow

Shall not remain

For ebbs must flow

And passions soar

In vain

Till dusk

Uncaring, Cold

Begins again

 

[gonzerd]

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

[Sass]

Times and places


Open faces


Things that come out and go back.


Typed-out spaces


Undone laces


Their distinction is felt in their lack.


They flee and forbid


They never forgive


They take and they never say no.


When the spaces are filled


And the words are fulfilled


There really is nowhere to go.


The keys seal your fate


Delete


It’s too late


And you’ve lost to your virtual foe.