Poetry Appreciation Thread

[crusader1234]

you'll get through eventually im sure

[Theologian in Training]

[b]Snow Patrol[/b]

[b][i]Run[/b][/i]

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All i want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='crusader1234' date='Jun 14 2004, 12:15 AM'] you'll get through eventually im sure [/quote]
I'm certainly trying...even included one of my one to break it up a bit...<sigh>

Do me a favor, when I am working tommorrow, if you remember, give it a bump or two

[Theologian in Training]

[b]Gary Jules[/b]

[b][i]No Poetry[/b][/i]

"There's no poetry between us"
Said the paper to the pen
Something's burning in the attic
That her tongue will not defend
Through the arc of conversation
Past the teeth behind the smile
Down the miracle mile
To the bottom of the ladder
Paint your eyes and hide the tatters
What's the matter baby?
Could we go downtown
To the middle of the world?
You were always such a pretty girl
And you told me I was beautiful
"There's no poetry between us"
Said the paper to the pen
"And I get nothing for my trouble
But the ink beneath my skin"
If your clothes are getting weary
And your soul's gone out of style
Blame the miracle mile
And the bottom of the ladder
Paint your eyes and hide the tatters
What's the matter baby?
...I'm coming too

[Theologian in Training]

The heck with it, this keeps getting buried, so I am going back to posting poetry by poets...A beautiful poem about the death of Lady Day: Billy Holiday

[b]Frank O' Hara[/b]

[b][i]The Day Lady Died[/b][/i]

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

[Theologian in Training]

[b]Edgar Allen Poe[/b]

[b][i]Annabel Lee[/b][/i]

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

[Theologian in Training]

[b]Rainer Maria Rilke[/b]

[b][i]The Last Supper[/b][/i]

They are assembled, astonished and disturbed
round him, who like a sage resolved his fate,
and now leaves those to whom he most belonged,
leaving and passing by them like a stranger.
The loneliness of old comes over him
which helped mature him for his deepest acts;
now will he once again walk through the olive grove,
and those who love him still will flee before his sight.

To this last supper he has summoned them,
and (like a shot that scatters birds from trees)
their hands draw back from reaching for the loaves
upon his word: they fly across to him;
they flutter, frightened, round the supper table
searching for an escape. But he is present
everywhere like an all-pervading twilight-hour.

[Theologian in Training]

[b]Louise Gluck[/b] (The current Poet Laureate of the United States)

[b][i]The Parable of Faith[/b][/i]

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps
the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not
duplicitous; he has tried to be
true to the moment; is there another way of being
true to the self?

The lady
hides her face, somewhat
assisted by the shadows. She weeps
for her past; when one has a secret life,

one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear
the grief of his lady: his
is the generous heart,
in pain as in joy.

[i]Do you know
what forgiveness mean? it mean
the world has sinned, the world
must be pardoned --[/i]

[Theologian in Training]

[b]Louise Gluck[/b]

[i][b]Lullaby[/i][/b] Not the most theologically correct poem, but quite interesting

My mother's an expert in one thing:
sending people she loves into the other world.
The little ones, the babies--these
she rocks, whispering or singing quietly. I can't say
what she did for my father;
whatever it was, I'm sure it was right.

It's the same thing, really, preparing a person
for sleep, for death. The lullabies--they all say
don't be afraid, that's how they paraphrase
the heartbeat of the mother.
So the living grow slowly calm; it's only
the dying who can't, who refuse.

The dying are like tops, like gyroscopes--
they spin so rapidly they seem to be still.
Then they fly apart: in my mother's arms,
my sister was a cloud of atoms, of particles--that's the difference.
When a child's asleep, it's still whole.

My mother's seen death; she doesn't talk about the soul's integrity.
She's held an infant, an old man, as by comparison the dark grew
solid around them, finally changing to earth.

The soul's like all matter:
why would it stay intact, stay faithful to its one form,
when it could be free?

[Theologian in Training]

Where's Colleen, Crusader, or Azriel when you need them. Also, too bad Laudate is no longer here, he would have definitely contributed to this thread...well, I will have to let it sink to the third or fifth page until I get back from the hospital tommorrow...<sigh> Poetry is just not appreciated anymore

[Theologian in Training]

:wavey:

[Colleen]

I'm here! I'm here! I've just been having trouble thinking of good poems!

So let's start with a very funny one (it's no great literary work, but hey, it's a poem, and it's fun!):


[b]Jack Prelutsky[/b]

[i][b]Homework! Oh Homework![/b][/i]


Homework! Oh, Homework!
I hate you! You stink!
I wish I could wash you away in the sink,
if only a bomb
would explode you to bits.
Homework! Oh, homework!
You're giving me fits.


I'd rather take baths
with a man-eating shark,
or wrestle a lion
alone in the dark,
eat spinach and liver,
pet ten porcupines,
than tackle the homework,
my teacher assigns.


Homework! Oh, homework!
you're last on my list,
I simple can't see
why you even exist,
if you just disappeared
it would tickle me pink.
Homework! Oh, homework!
I hate you! You stink!



Better poems to follow.

[Colleen]

[b][i]Sea-Fever[/i][/b]

[i]John Masefield -- former English Poet Laureate[/i]


I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

[Colleen]

[i][b]The Rainbow[/b][/i]

[b]William Wordsworth[/b]

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

[Theologian in Training]

Just to let you know, you need not limit it to poetry alone, you can use other mediums like songs or ballads..anything that uses the written word to make the ordinary extraordinary

Thank you though, t'is a breath of fresh air. I never knew about Masefield either. Thanks again