Ola,

Let's see the poems that you read. And reread. And again because they somehow spoke to you. Here is one I've read and enjoyed countless times.

What Came to Me
-by Jane Kenyon

I took the last
dusty piece of china
out of the barrel.
It was your gravy boat,
with a hard, brown
drop of gravy still
on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.

dyam, I feel like crying every time I finish this poem.
mG.

yeah Rosie, Salinger's book is one of the all time greats for the aimless young ones. Read it sometime ago so I do not remember much. It may be time for a reread. talking about prose, here is a sample of Roger's story. He is a friend, teacher and my mentor.

From Roger Hart's story- "My Stuff"

It's good to talk to a dog, tell them stories. They pick up more than you think. I tell Doris things. I tell her about Jake skating between my legs, and how soccer season is over. No more games, I say.

We walk along the tracks and there are things I want to tall her that I don't know words for. "Look, look," I say, pointing to the sky. Millions of stars. Millions. I sit on the rails, pull Doris to my side. Doris puts her cheek, smooth and soft, against mine, her breath warm, our eyes on the night sky. Orion, Lyra, The Big Dipper. I show her Polaris, the North star, and explain that it's the one to use if she's ever lost.

The cold from the rail I'm sitting on creeps through my pants, my butt goes tingly then numb, and I tell Doris it's time for us to move on. Six in the morning, stumbling down the tracks, me and Doris, chunky gravel loose undefoot, cold December kicking off Lake Erie. The moon huge at the end of the rails.

Doris. What a dog. I could say, fetch moon, and she'd try. She'd bounce on those hind legs and snap at the cold night air until she passed out. I could tell Doris to fetch the moon but I don't. Doris is young and doesn't understand distance.

--------

mG.

also check out the thread- Roger Hart's Erratics.

I am haunted everytime I read the following poem. Goes to show life is just a pit of sorrow.

by Bruce Weigl.

Song of Napalm
For my Wife

After the storm, after the rain stopped pounding,
We stood in the doorway watching horses
Walk off lazily across the pasture's hill.
We stared through the black screen,
Our vision altered by the distance
So I thought I saw a mist
Kicked up around their hooves when they faded
Like cut-out horses
Away from us.
The grass was never more blue in that light, more
Scarlet; beyond the pasture
Trees scraped their voices into the wind, branches
Criss-crossed the sky like barbed wire
But you said they were only branches.

Okay. The storm stopped pounding.
I am trying to say this straight: for once
I was sane enough to pause and breathe
Outside my wild plans and after the hard rain
I turned my back on the old curses. I believed
They swung finally away from me . . .

But still the branches are wire
And thunder is the pounding mortar,
Still I close my eyes and see the girl
Running from her village, napalm
Stuck to her dress like jelly,
Her hands reaching for the no one
Who waits in waves of heat before her.

So I can keep on living,
So I can stay here beside you,
I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings
Beat inside her until she rises
Above the stinking jungle and her pain
Eases, and your pain, and mine.

But the lie swings back again.
The lie works only as long as it takes to speak
And the girl runs only as far
As the napalm allows
Until her burning tendons and crackling
Muscles draw her up
Into that final position
Burning bodies so perfectly assume. Nothing
Can change that, she is burned behind my eyes
And not your good love and not the rain-swept air
And not the jungle green
Pasture unfolding before us can deny it.

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

Please reread it:)
mG.

MindGames, can I also request a poem? Its called "Metamorphosis". One of my teacher, Mr. Smith talked about it years ago, I remember nothing besides his saying the poem has a much deeper meaning and is unique. I don't even know who the author is :(

Confused "Leisure" happens to be one of my fav poem too. Ty for putting it up. Ty to MG too for putting it up earlier in the same thread.

My Fav,

The Canvas

Surreal it looks with secrets veiled
Depiction it seems to be of lifeýs tale
Revealing eyes and surreptitious smile
Blows every heart with force of the gale

Benevolence of love and malevolence of hate
Disgruntled soul with satisfied remains
Looks of a voyager lost on his trail
Portrays them all with colors and pale

Canvas it is from my memory lane
Gorgeous it looks like a rainbow before rain
Sealed with the compassion pictured in my brain
Cherished the image with pride and pain

By,
me :)

meera, there are too many poems titled "metamorphosis." here is one:

Metamorphosis
by Charles Bukowski


a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
noe I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can't even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.

----

mr.smith may have been talking about the long poem titled "Metamorphoses" by the classical Greek author Ovid. That should be pretty deep. Or there is one of the most famous short story by Franz Kafka called "Metamorphosis" which is really awesome. But he said a poem, hmmm... how about emailing mr.smith and finding out? please do that, we have to know.

nerd, good one, keep them coming.

Ola, I was rummaging through my old diary and I came across the following samples from Sherwood Anderson's collection of connected stories "Winesburg, Ohio." dyam, may 2000 seems like yesterday.

From - The Teacher

If you want to be a writer you'll have t stop fooling with words. It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it's time to be living. I don't want to frighten you but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say.

From- Death

Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night. You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life. If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft winds blow, the long hot day of dissappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses.

From - Sophistication

There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens: he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the worls, seeing, as though they marched in processing before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and afian disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication had come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merealy a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the wind, a thing like corn to wilt in the sun. He shivers and looks eagerly about. The eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he prefers that the other be a woman that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.

From- Departure

He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.


----:)
mG.

Here is something from one of our highschool texts:

The Echoing Green

-by William Blake

The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring,
To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells cheerful sound.
While our sports shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.

Old John, with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say,
Such such were the joys
When we all girls & boys.
In our youth time were seen,
On the Echoing Green.

Till the little ones weary
No more can be merry
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end:
Round the laps of their mothers.
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest.
Are ready for rest;
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.

Here is another one:

Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead

- by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
ýShe must weep or she will die.ý

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her kneeý
Like summer tempest came her tearsý
ýSweet my child, I live for thee.ý

Oh god.... how many of nepali women must be currently going thru what the dead warrior's wife had to go thru

Thank you MindGames for putting up that poem. Mr. Smith left the school when I was in class 4 and no news of him after that. I think its a different poem but the above one was good too !!

eeeh...its already been posted up rahecha...:(

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is also one of my fav poem...
esp. those last lines..
"Miles to go before i Sleep,
and miles to go before i sleep."

just in these two lines, we can capture our whole life :)

khatraaa poem..

great post mind games :)

Ola, me poor and dreamy heart and poor in pockets likes this poem.

He Wishes For Cloths of Heaven
By W B Yeats

Had I the heavensý embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

----

Ola, pran jaye but sleep na aayeee...it is almost 5am so here is:

Insomnia

The moon in the bureau mirror
looks out a million miles
(and perhaps with pride, at herself,
but she never, never smiles)
far and away beyond sleep, or
perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,
she'd tell it to go to hell,
and she'd find a body of water,
or a mirror, on which to dwell.
So wrap up care in a cobweb
and drop it down the well

into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.

- Elizabeth Bishop

-----
dyam...mG.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack,
the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for
you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

awwwww forgot to mention ,the above poem is ....O Captain My Captain by Walt Whitman
one of my all time favourite.Very poignant .

Celebrating Nerudaýs 100th anniversary today....

The Song of Despair


The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilotýs dread, fury of a blind diver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed the infinite tenderness,
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief was my desire of you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was the voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still broke in currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only the tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one.


From Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, by Pablo Neruda

Ola, disco, thanks a lot for the lovely poem and reminding Neruda's Centennial. great lines:

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!


mG.

MG, last time there was a controversy in Sajha, someone used the below line in their poem without citing and the line struck in my mind,

"when you talk to God, you are called (forgot the word)
When God talks back to you, you are called schizophrenic"

Do you know what the title of the poem this line has been taken from??

The lines were touching, so wanted to read the full poem.

Sorry I seem to keep bothering u with my qs.

I got it, I got it, yayyyyyyyyyyy

Wanted to share it will u all too, just a piece

If you talk to God, you are praying;
If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist;
If God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic.

--Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin,
Anchor/Doubleday, Garden City, NY. 1973, Page 113