/lit/ - Literature

Hey, talk about coincidence. Your pic is related to my favorite poem.

J'arrive où je suis étranger

Rien n'est précaire comme vivre
Rien comme être n'est passager
C'est un peu fondre comme le givre
Et pour le vent être léger
J'arrive où je suis étranger

Un jour tu passes la frontière
D'où viens-tu mais où vas-tu donc
Demain qu'importe et qu'importe hier
Le coeur change avec le chardon
Tout est sans rime ni pardon

Passe ton doigt là sur ta tempe
Touche l'enfance de tes yeux
Mieux vaut laisser basses les lampes
La nuit plus longtemps nous va mieux
C'est le grand jour qui se fait vieux

Les arbres sont beaux en automne
Mais l'enfant qu'est-il devenu
Je me regarde et je m'étonne
De ce voyageur inconnu
De son visage et ses pieds nus

Peu a peu tu te fais silence
Mais pas assez vite pourtant
Pour ne sentir ta dissemblance
Et sur le toi-même d'antan
Tomber la poussière du temps

C'est long vieillir au bout du compte
Le sable en fuit entre nos doigts
C'est comme une eau froide qui monte
C'est comme une honte qui croît
Un cuir à crier qu'on corroie

C'est long d'être un homme une chose
C'est long de renoncer à tout
Et sens-tu les métamorphoses
Qui se font au-dedans de nous
Lentement plier nos genoux

O mer amère ô mer profonde
Quelle est l'heure de tes marées
Combien faut-il d'années-secondes
A l'homme pour l'homme abjurer
Pourquoi pourquoi ces simagrées

Rien n'est précaire comme vivre
Rien comme être n'est passager
C'est un peu fondre comme le givre
Et pour le vent être léger
J'arrive où je suis étranger

Louis Aragon

>>1177378
what am i reading

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away"

>>1177380
french stuff apparently. and I don't have a favorite poem as I am not an elitist faggot.

>>1177380
eh

this is the only poem I actually like.

As the dim twilight shrouds
The mountain's purple crest,
And Summer's white and folded clouds
Are glowing in the west,
Loud shouts come up the rocky dell,
And voices hail the evening-bell.

Faint is the goatherd's song,
And sighing comes the breeze;
The silent river sweeps along
Amid its bending trees -
And the full moon shines faintly there,
And music fills the evening air.

Beneath the waving firs
The tinkling cymbals sound;
And as the wind the foliage stirs,
I see the dancers bound
Where the green branches, arched above,
Bend over this fair scene of love.

And he is there, that sought
My young heart long ago!
But he has left me - though I thought
He ne'er could leave me so.
Ah! lover's vows - how frail are they!
And his - were made but yesterday.

Why comes he not? I call
In tears upon him yet;
'Twere better ne'er to love at all,
Than love, and then forget!
Why comes he not? Alas! I should
Reclaim him still, if weeping could.

But see - he leaves the glade,
And beckons me away:
He comes to seek his mountain maid!
I cannot chide his stay.
Glad sounds along the valley swell,
And voices hail the evening-bell.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Song of Savoy"

>>1177383
I don't even like poetry that much and I think you're a cunt.

>>1177382
don't you like the rime of the ancient mariner?
shit's awesome bro

Chaucer - Ted Hughes

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . ."
At the top of your voice, where you swayed on the top of a stile,
Your arms raised—somewhat for balance, somewhat

To hold the reins of the straining attention
Of your imagined audience—you declaimed Chaucer
To a field of cows. And the Spring sky had done it
With its flying laundry, and the new emerald
Of the thorns, the hawthorn, the blackthorn,

And one of those bumpers of champagne
You snatched unpredictably from pure spirit.
Your voice went over the fields towards Grantchester.
It must have sounded lost. But the cows
Watched, then approached: they appreciated Chaucer.

You went on and on. Here were reasons
To recite Chaucer. Then came the Wyf of Bath,
Your favorite character in all literature.
You were rapt. And the cows were enthralled.
They shoved and jostled shoulders, making a ring,

To gaze into your face, with occasional snorts
Of exclamation, renewed their astounded attention,
Ears angling to catch every inflection,
Keeping their awed six feet of reverence
Away from you. You just could not believe it.

And you could not stop. What would happen
If you were to stop? Would they attack you,
Scared by the shock of silence, or wanting more-?
So you had to go on. You went on-
And twenty cows stayed with you hypnotized.

How did you stop? I can’t remember
You stopping. I imagine they reeled away-
Rolling eyes, as if driven from their fodder.
I imagine I shooed them away. But
Your sostenuto rendering of Chaucer

Was already perpetual. What followed
Found my attention too full
And had to go back into oblivion.

>>1177378
wow that's awesome
my personal favorite is "C'est ainsi que les hommes vivent" as adapted into a song by Léo Ferré.

but this one rocks too. I think it's the best thing I've ever read about od age and the flow of time.

>>1177395
GREAT JOB
EARTHWORM JIM

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

>>1177378
>>1177400
why so french?

>>1177408
I really hate William Carlos Williams. Even his name makes me want to wax my balls.

>>1177373
so you begin a poetry thread with a hollywood movie quote
trolly troll trolled

>>1177373
>posts an awful quote from a movie
>"sounds like poetry to me"

Pablo Neruda - A callarse

Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.

Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningún idioma,
por un segundo detengámonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Sería un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estaríamos juntos
en un inquietud instantánea.

Los pescadores del mar frío
no harían daño a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraría sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrían un traje puro
y andarían con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inacción definitiva:
la vida es sólo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unánimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamás
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos enseñe
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contaré hasta doce
y tú te callas y me voy.

Penis in his hand

A penis in his hand
Is left limp after minutes
Pounding pounding
hammer till your hearts content
I am one with the swinging hammer
the anvil and the claim
I am one with the monkey
and the whale that eats flesh meat
Hello my incessant whores of children
Eat from the palm of my hand
Kiss my fingers and devour my salt
This is love

>>1177426

i lol'd uncontrollably, god help me

>>1177431
:D lot's of love for my poem!

I tend to be a funny poet and shitty at the same time is a skill

There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track
Over the hill, and strained to see
The fields that teased my memory.
This tree, that wall—I knew them well,
And all the roofs and orchards fell
Familiarly upon my mind
As from a past not far behind.
I knew what shadows would be cast
When the late moon came up at last
From back of Zaman’s Hill, and how
The vale would shine three hours from now.
And when the path grew steep and high,
And seemed to end against the sky,
I had no fear of what might rest
Beyond that silhouetted crest.
Straight on I walked, while all the night
Grew pale with phosphorescent light,
And wall and farmhouse gable glowed
Unearthly by the climbing road.
There was the milestone that I knew—
“Two miles to Dunwich”—now the view
Of distant spire and roofs would dawn
With ten more upward paces gone. . . .

There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track,
And reached the crest to see outspread
A valley of the lost and dead:
And over Zaman’s Hill the horn
Of a malignant moon was born,
To light the weeds and vines that grew
On ruined walls I never knew.
The fox-fire glowed in field and bog,
And unknown waters spewed a fog
Whose curling talons mocked the thought
That I had ever known this spot.
Too well I saw from the mad scene
That my loved past had never been—
Nor was I now upon the trail
Descending to that long-dead vale.
Around was fog—ahead, the spray
Of star-streams in the Milky Way. . . .
There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track.


Lovecraft

>Do not go gentle into that good night / Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot

Too lazy to post it here, not to mention it's probably too long.

bump

So Abram rose and clave the wood and went,
and took with him fire and a knife
and as they soujourned both together Isaac, the first born spoke and said:
"Behold the preparations, fire and iron, but where is the lamb for this burnt offering?"
Then Abram bound the youth and builded parapets and trenches there.
He stretched forth the knife to slay his son, when Lo' and angel came out of heaven and said:
"Lay not a hand upon the lad, nor do anything to him, Behold a ram caught in a thicket by its horns, offer the ram of pride instead"

But Abram would not so and slew his,
and half the seed of Europe one, by one.

WORSENING SITUATION, by John Ashbery

Like a rainstorm, he said, the braided colors
Wash over me and are no help. Or like one
At a feast who eats not, for he cannot choose
From among the smoking dishes. This severed hand
Stands for life, and wander as it will,
East or west, north or south, it is ever
A stranger who walks beside me. O seasons,
Booths, chaleur, dark-hatted charlatans
On the outskirts of some rural fete,
The name you drop and never say is mine, mine!
Some day I'll claim to you how all used up
I am because of you but in the meantime the ride
Continues. Everyone is along for the ride,
It seems. Besides, what else is there?
The annual games? True, there are occasions
For white uniforms and a special language
Kept secret from the others. The limes
Are duly sliced. I know all this
But can't seem to keep it from affecting me,
Every day, all day. I've tried recreation,
Reading until late at night, train rides
And romance.
One day a man called while I was out
And left this message: "You got the whole thing wrong
From start to finish. Luckily, there's still time
To correct the situation, but you must act fast.
See me at your earliest convenience. And please
Tell no one of this. Much besides your life depends on it."
I thought nothing of it at the time. Lately
I´ve been looking at old-fashioned plaids, fingering
Starched white collars, wondering whether there’s a way
To get them really white again. My wife
Thinks I’m in Oslo- Oslo, France, that is.

>>1179068
bound the youth with belts and straps*

>>1178653
2nded, so I'll post the first few lines

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

Can't possibly pick a favourite, but this one has been in mind a lot lately.

By Ray Hsu

Your primary thought
is not why this year, but
how good fruit may feel

on the tongue, how tender
this earthy leftover
you pace around and disturb

with your touch. Solitary
tiny things. They're not seeds.
But all this matters to you.

>>1179079

I took a class with that guy once

He dresses funny

The last time I posted The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock the thread died.

;_;

>>1179080
Goofy guy, but great poet. I've seen him read a few times, he's entertaining.

Chorus Sacerdotum

Fulke Greville

O wearisome condition of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity;
Created sick, commanded to be sound.
What meaneth nature by these diverse laws?
Passion and reason, self-division cause.
Is it the mark or majesty of power
To make offenses that it may forgive?
Nature herself doth her own self deflower
To hate those errors she herself doth give.
For how should man think that he may not do,
If nature did not fail and punish, too?
Tyrant to others, to herself unjust,
Only commands things difficult and hard,
Forbids us all things which it knows is lust,
Makes easy pains, unpossible reward.
If nature did not take delight in blood,
She would have made more easy ways to good.
We that are bound by vows and by promotion,
With pomp of holy sacrifice and rites,
To teach belief in good and still devotion,
To preach of heaven’s wonders and delights;
Yet when each of us in his own heart looks
He finds the God there, far unlike his books.

Some Yeats here:

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing, 5
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame, 10
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran 15
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands; 20
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Mine is a line from Mephisto in Faust. The line is german so i don't know what it says in the english translations. It goes something like this:

I'm the spirit that negates constantly
And it does so justifiably
cause everything that arises
is ought to perish someday
thus, it would be better if nothing would come to existence in the first place
That's why everything you refer to as sin, destruction or evil
is my actual identity

AA T
LOVELESS- Crisis Core
by ~TwilightChaser417

Loveless - Prologue
When the war of the beasts brings about the world’s end
The goddess descends from the sky
Wings of light and dark spread afar
She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting


Loveless - Act I
Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess
We seek it thus, and take it to the sky
Ripples form on the water’s surface
The wandering soul knows no rest


Loveless - Act II
There is no hate, only joy
For you are beloved by the goddess
Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds
Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul
Pride is lost
Wings stripped away, the end is nigh


Loveless - Act III
My friend, do you fly away now?
To a world that abhors you and I?
All that awaits you is a somber morrow
No matter where the winds may blow
My friend, your desire
Is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess
Even if the morrow is barren of promises
Nothing shall forestall my return


Loveless - Act IV
My friend, the fates are cruel
There are no dreams, no honor remains
The arrow has left the bow of the goddess
My soul, corrupted by vengeance
Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey
In my own salvation
And your eternal slumber
Legend shall speak
Of sacrifice at world’s end
The wind sails over the water’s surface
Quietly, but surely.


Loveless - Act V -Made by Genesis-
Even if the morrow is barren of promises
Nothing shall forestall my return
To become the dew that quenches the land
To spare the sands, the seas, the skies
I offer thee this silent sacrifice

>>1177413
i agree, as a poet too

Autumn Job

-

Girls from school halls
bring me out, up to their rooms
in the teens of the fall
rain and wind to mop and broom
-
Girls from little classes
little girl steps and talks slow
she makes progress as she passes
on a love that I don’t know
-
Girls from leafy walkways
at night as I am leaving
invite me to their hallways
at twenty they think I’m teasing
-
Girls from windows on the road
in cars that I don’t know
wheels belly-out, low with a load
look like black clouds, about to blow
-
I am a cousin and a brother
and with you I assume
that you have looked from one to another
but I’ve no time with this floor and broom
-
Girls in color around the trees
by the pumpkin colored field
wait around and hide for me
to show me all that I should feel
-
It is autumn and like a flame
I’m blue within the reddening blooms
girls from school are warmed the same
but I have work with mop and broom

>>1179078
Adding from memory:

In the room the women come and go
talking of Michelangelo

>>1179970

You better leave this board. now.

>>1179975
disregard this post, please
it goes like this in final revision:
Autumn Job
-
Girls from school halls
bring me out, up to their rooms
in the teens of the fall
rain and wind to mop and broom
-
Girls from little classes
little girl steps and talks slow
she makes progress as she passes
on a love that I don’t know
-
Girls from leafy walkways
at night as I am leaving
invite me to their hallways
at twenty they think I’m teasing
-
Girls from windows on the road
in cars that I don’t know
wheels belly-out, low with a load
like leaned back crows about to blow
-
I'm in an autumn and then another
in an overlapping loom
i have good time to be a brother
but I’ve no time with this floor and broom
-
Girls in color around the trees
beside the pumpkin colored field
wait around and hide for me
to show me all that I should feel
-
It is autumn and like a flame
I’m blue within the reddening blooms
girls from school are warmed the same
but I have work with mop and broom

keeeping this alive:

John Donne - Death be not proud

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

FUCK OFF DEATH

Dream Dust


Gather out of star-dust,

Earth-dust,

Cloud-dust,

Storm-dust,

And splinters of hail,

One handful of dream-dust,

Not for sale.
- By Langston Hughes

fifteen songs
all half as long
Van Morrison's CD
i stole it and bothered
the collection of my father
Van Morrison's Astral Weeks
closed speakers in the closed car
and soon my street is fifty far
i roll wind-in; my windows down
in June farmer's fields i just lay
hear from my car Van sometimes say
specs of stories that act around
out on top of dry flat corn
flute whistles loud as the horn
and sound high through the wideness
song and song and start again
together tunes; old family friend
Astral Weeks comes warm and darkless

>>1180075
also this one:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Ted Kooser

wanna see how rhymes should be made??
JOHN KEATS CAN RHYME
God of the golden bow,
And of the golden lyre,
And of the golden hair,
And of the golden fire,
Charioteer
Of the patient year,
Where---where slept thine ire,
When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
Thy laurel, thy glory,
The light of thy story,
Or was I a worm---too low crawling for death?
O Delphic Apollo!

The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,
The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;
The eagle's feathery mane
For wrath became stiffen'd---the sound
Of breeding thunder
Went drowsily under,
Muttering to be unbound.
O why didst thou pity, and beg for a worm?
Why touch thy soft lute
Till the thunder was mute,
Why was I not crush'd---such a pitiful germ?
O Delphic Apollo!

The Pleiades were up,
Watching the silent air;
The seeds and roots in Earth
Were swelling for summer fare;
The Ocean, its neighbour,
Was at his old labour,
When, who---who did dare
To tie for a moment, thy plant round his brow,
And grin and look proudly,
And blaspheme so loudly,
And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now?
O Delphic Apollo!

You've all read The Raven. No need to post the whole thing.

These are all the poets /lit/ knows? Come on! There must be more people who read poetry.

A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General
Jonathan Swift


His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we’re told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
’Twas time in conscience he should die
This world he cumbered long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that’s the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow’s sighs, nor orphan’s tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died.

Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing’s a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turned to that dirt from whence he sprung.

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art