Do you read poetry? Do you have a favorite poem?

 

Ode to music

Do you ever feel totally rushed
or you are deeply hurt in your soul,
when nothing goes right and nothing seems right,
and the naked misery comes over you -
then let music caress your soul
and let the breath of sound caress your senses.

Close your eyes and see through the haze
and enjoy the heavenly, musical art.
Sink deep into the dream of the spheres
and your sorrow disappears - you hardly notice it.

The wounds and all your scars will heal,
and you see the world in brighter colors.
you forget your worries and all your pain -
with the music, peace enters your heart.

Immerse yourself in the sea of sounds
and think of the good and the beautiful.
With music you can never be lonely.
Where there is music - there can be no evil!

Willy Meurer (1934 - 2018), German-Canadian businessman, aphorist and publicist, M.H.R. (Member of the Human Race), Toronto

 

Klapaucius: Have it compose a poem- a poem about a haircut! But lofty, nobel, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter "s"!

Trurl's Machine:
Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
Silently scheming,
Sightlessly seeking
Some savage, spectacular suicide.

Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad

 

(Original text)
Hommage à Eric Satie

Madame Henri Rousseau
monte en ballon captif
Elle tient un arbrisseau
Et le douanier Rousseau
prend son apéritif

L'aloès gonflé de lune
Et l'arbre à fauteuils
Et ce beau costume
Et la belle lune
Sur les belles feuilles

Le lion d'Afrique
Son ventre gros comme un sac
Au pied de la République
Le lion d'Afrique
Dévore le cheval de fiacre

La lune entre dans la flûte
Du charmeur noir
Yadwigha endormie écoute
Et il sort de la douce flûte
Un morceau en forme de poire.

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) (France)

 

The Wisdom of Clowns

Heckle and haw did the crowd so unruly
But for one name and one face how they jeered
Some laughed out loud ‘till they were crying
‘Till the name and the face did appear
Enchanted to stage by the limelight
Up curtain his shadow grew tall
Like some monster all arms and clawed monstrous hands
The crowd hushed, now not certain at all
Issued forth from the mouth of the speaker
But paused...for the mob to calm down
For ‘tis words that are sometime not spoken
That gives rise to the wisdom of clowns

 

I've not read too much poetry, but I have read some T.S. Eliot, and of course my favourite is The Hollow Men.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

And the ending is a true classic:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

 

Ode to Spot

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

 

Really?

 

This Be The Verse
By Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

 

The Drunkard's Song - Rainer Maria Rilke (many translations but this is my favourite)

It wasn't in me. It went out and in.
I wanted to hold it. It held with wine.
(I no longer know what it was.)
Then, wine held this and held that for me
Till I came to depend on him
Totally.
Like an ass.

Now, I'm playing his game, and he deals me out
With a sneer on his lips and maybe, tonight...
He will lose me to death, that boor.
And when he wins me, filthiest card in the deck,
He'll take me and scratch the scabs on his neck,
And then toss me
Into the shit.



[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] - E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)



The Laughing Heart - Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

 

Last edited: Mar 24, 2025

It's probably because I'm hungry but the only one I can remeber most of the words to at the moment is address to a Haggis.
It's mostly the first verse. How many bits of litriture are out there with a first line containing the words "sausage face".

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm :
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' heads will sned,
Like taps o' thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!

Address to a Haggis - Robbert Burns (1786)

Also I don't read poetry, I hear it.
It's too hard to guess the rhythm when reading text.

 

Last edited: Mar 24, 2025

Evadné by René Char

L'été et notre vie étions d'un seul tenant
La campagne mangeait la couleur de ta jupe odorante
Avidité et contrainte s'étaient réconciliées
Le château de Maubec s'enfonçait dans l'argile
Bientôt s'effondrerait le roulis de sa lyre
La violence des plantes nous faisait vaciller
Un corbeau rameur sombre déviant de l'escadre
Sur le muet silex de midi écartelé
Accompagnait notre entente aux mouvements tendres
La faucille partout devait se reposer
Notre rareté commençait un règne
(Le vent insomnieux qui nous ride la paupière
En tournant chaque nuit la page consentie
Veut que chaque part de toi que je retienne
Soit étendue à un pays d'âge affamé et de larmier géant)

C'était au début d'adorables années
La terre nous aimait un peu je me souviens.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple of imperfect English translations:

Summer and our life, we were fused
Fields devoured the hues of your perfumed clothes
Restraint and passion declared a truce
Maubec Castle was sinking in loam
Soon the ring of its lyre would cease
The violence of plants made us reel
A crow—gloomy rower—veering from the fleet
On the quartered noon of silent flint
Beat time with tender wings for our detente
Nowhere were signs of the sickle
Our rarity ushered in a new reign
(Insomniac wind that ripples the lids of our eyes
While turning each night the consenting page
Desires each part of you I retain
Be deployed to a land of famished age and towering dripstone)

This at the start of endearing years
I recall the earth loved us a little.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The summer and our lives were made of the same putty.
The countryside was eating away the colour of your fragrant skirt.
Greed and coercion had reconciled.
The Maubec chateau was sinking down in clay.
Soon the rolling sound of its lyre would founder.
The violence of plants was making us flicker.
A crow, dark rower, deviating from the squad,
On the dumb noon split-up silex,
Was accompanying our soft gestured harmony.

Everywhere, the sickle needed a rest.
Our rarity was launching a reign.
(The insomnious wind that wrinkles our eyelids
by turning every night the accepted page
Wants each part of you that I withhold
To be as wide as a hungry-age country and a giant tear-vase).

That all occurred at the start of adorable years.
The land loved us a little, I remember.

 

Pauline Barrett by Edgar Lee Masters

Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon's knife!
And almost a year to creep back into strength,
Till the dawn of our wedding decennial
Found me my seeming self again.
We walked the forest together,
By a path of soundless moss and turf.
But I could not look in your eyes,
And you could not look in my eyes,
For such sorrow was ours — the beginning of gray in your hair,
And I but a shell of myself.
And what did we talk of? — sky and water,
Anything, 'most, to hide our thoughts.
And then your gift of wild roses,
Set on the table to grace our dinner.
Poor heart, how bravely you struggled
To imagine and live a remembered rapture!
Then my spirit drooped as the night came on,
And you left me alone in my room for a while,
As you did when I was a bride, poor heart.
And I looked in the mirror and something said:
"One should be all dead when one is half-dead —
Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love."
And I did it looking there in the mirror —
Dear, have you ever understood?

 

Warning: Cesare Pavese's poetry might be unbearably heavy for a sensitive soul.

Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi
questa morte che ci accompagna
dal mattino alla sera, insonne,
sorda, come un vecchio rimorso
o un vizio assurdo. I tuoi occhi
saranno una vana parola,
un grido taciuto, un silenzio.
Così li vedi ogni mattina
quando su te sola ti pieghi
nello specchio. O cara speranza,
quel giorno sapremo anche noi
che sei la vita e sei il nulla.

Per tutti la morte ha uno sguardo.
Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi.
Sarà come smettere un vizio,
come vedere nello specchio
riemergere un viso morto,
come ascoltare un labbro chiuso.
Scenderemo nel gorgo muti.

--------------------------------------------------------------
English translations:

When death comes, it will have your eyes-
This death that is always with us,
From morning till evening, sleepless,
Deaf, like an old remorse
Or some senseless bad habit. Your eyes
Will be an empty word,
A stifled cry, a silence;
The way they appear to you each morning,
When you lean into yourself, alone,
In the mirror. Sweet hope,
That day we too shall know
That you are life and you are nothingness.

For each of us, death has a face.
When death comes, it will have your eyes.
It will be like quitting some bad habit,
Like seeing a dead face
Resurface out of the mirror,
Like listening to shut lips.
We’ll go down into the vortex in silence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Death will come with your eyes—
this death that accompanies us
from morning till night, sleepless,
deaf, like an old regret
or a stupid vice. Your eyes
will be a useless word,
a muted cry, a silence.
As you see them each morning
when alone you lean over
the mirror. O cherished hope,
that day we too shall know
that you are life and nothing.

For everyone death has a look.
Death will come with your eyes.
It will be like terminating a vice,
as seen in the mirror
a dead face re-emerging,
like listening to closed lips.
We'll go down the abyss in silence.

 

DET ER DEN DRAUMEN
Det er den draumen me ber på
at noko vedunderleg skal skje,
at det må skje –
at tidi skal opna seg
at hjarta skal opna seg
at dører skal opna seg
at berget skal opna seg
at kjeldor skal springa –
at draumen skal opna seg,
at me ei morgonstund skal glida inn
på ein våg me ikkje har visst um.

Olav H. Hauge (1908–1994) - Norway






Λακωνικόν

Ο καημός του θανάτου τόσο με πυρπόλησε, που η λάμψη μου επέ-
στρεψε στον ήλιο.
Κείνος με πέμπει τώρα μέσα στην τέλεια σύνταξη της πέτρας και του
αιθέρος
Λοιπόν, αυτός που γύρευα, είμαι.
Ω λινό καλοκαίρι, συνετό φθινόπωρο
Χειμώνα ελάχιστε
Η ζωή καταβάλλει τον οβολό του φύλλου της ελιάς
Και στη νύχτα μέσα των αφρόνων μ' ένα μικρό τριζόνι κατακυρώνει
πάλι το νόμιμο του Ανέλπιστου.

Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) - Greece

 

this can get one out of a jam every now and then...

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
By William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

and when you think you can't get things right no matter what you do, there is always E.E. Cummings advice to fall back on.


100 Selected Poems by E. E. Cummings


Nobody Loses All The Time
nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added

my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scruptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)

 

what happens when you stop talking to yourself - Alan Watts