/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4352713]

Good poems thread? Could use this to expand my limited knowledge of poetry.

Yes I did check the wiki so if I missed something then sue me.

[Anonymous No.4352721]

"I Am", John Clare

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

[Anonymous No.4352724]

"L'Ennemi", Charles Baudelaire

Ma jeunesse ne fut qu'un ténébreux orage,
Traversé çà et là par de brillants soleils;
Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage,
Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils.

Voilà que j'ai touché l'automne des idées,
Et qu'il faut employer la pelle et les râteaux
Pour rassembler à neuf les terres inondées,
Où l'eau creuse des trous grands comme des tombeaux.

Et qui sait si les fleurs nouvelles que je rêve
Trouveront dans ce sol lavé comme une grève
Le mystique aliment qui ferait leur vigueur?

— Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie,
Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous ronge le coeur
Du sang que nous perdons croît et se fortifie!

[Anonymous No.4352725]

Bloody men are like bloody buses--
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.

You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You're trying to read their destinations,
You haven't much time to decide.

If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.
Jump off, and you'll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.

[Anonymous No.4352727]

>>4352721
Thanks, any context behind this or?

Any more?

[Anonymous No.4352729]

"Infant Sorrow", William Blake

"My mother groan'd! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt.
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling bands;
Bound and weary I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast."

[Anonymous No.4352735]

Tonight I've watched

The moon and then
the Pleiades
go down

The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am

in bed alone

[Anonymous No.4352740]

Reviled and acclaimed,
Your voice wild and simple,
You're untranslatable
Into any language.
You will walk into oblivion
Like people into a temple.
I bless you for this.

[Anonymous No.4352746]

From doubt to certainty is but a breath,
A breath from unfaith's halting place to faith,
This precious breath then do you cherish, for
Life's sum is but a breath from birth to death.

[Anonymous No.4352753]

>>4352725

My true love hath my heart and I have hers:
We swapped last Tuesday and we felt elated
But now, whenever one of us refers
To “my heart,” things get rather complicated.
Just now, when she complained “My heart is racing,”
“You mean my heart is racing,” I replied.
“That’s what I said.” “You mean the heart replacing
Your heart my love.” “Oh piss off, Jake!” she cried.
I ask you, do you think Sir Philip Sydney
Got spoken to like that? And I suspect
If I threw in my liver and a kidney
She’d still address me with as scant respect.
Therefore do I revoke my opening line:
My love can keep her heart and I’ll have mine.

[Anonymous No.4352764]

"This Be The Verse", 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.

[Anonymous No.4352765]

>>4352713

Once upon a time, when Jack was little,

he wanted to be with his mummy all the time

and was frightened she would go away
later, when he was a little bigger,

he wanted to be away from his mummy

and was frightened that

she wanted him to be with her all the time
when he grew up he fell in love with Jill

and he wanted to be with her all the time

and was frightened she would go away
when he was a little older,

he did not want to be with Jill all the time

he was frightened

that she wanted to be with him all the time, and

that she was frightened

that he did not want to be with her all the time
Jack frightens Jill he will leave her

because he is frightened she will leave him.

[Anonymous No.4352768]

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.

[Anonymous No.4352774]

>>4352765

My mother loves me.

I feel good.

I feel good because she loves me.
I am good because I feel good

I feel good because I am good

My mother loves me because I am good.
My mother does not love me.

I feel bad.

I feel bad because she does not love me

I am bad because I feel bad

I feel bad because I am bad

I am bad because she does not love me

She does not love me because I am bad.

[Anonymous No.4352775]

"For Anne Gregory", W. B. Yeats

'Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
'But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'
'I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

[Anonymous No.4352790]

>>4352774

She wants him to want her

He wants her to want him
To get him to want her

she pretends she wants him
To get her to want him

he pretends he wants her

Jack wants Jill wants

Jill’s want of Jack Jack’s want of Jill

so so

Jack tells Jill Jill tells Jack

Jack wants Jill Jill wants Jack

a perfect contract”

[Anonymous No.4352797]

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

[Anonymous No.4352809]

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

[Anonymous No.4352815]

Seamus Heaney- The Underground

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
You in your going-away coat speeding ahead
And me, me then like a fleet god gaining
Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson
As the coat flapped wild and button after button
Sprang off and fell in a trail
Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station
After the trains have gone, the wet track
Bared and tensed as I am, all attention
For your step following and damned if I look back.

[Anonymous No.4352822]

>>4352775
Had I the heavens' 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.

The connection is Yeats being smoooooth.

[Anonymous No.4352838]

"Morning of Final Farewell" by Miyazawa Kenji

My little sister,
About to depart to a place far beyond before the day is out.
The sleet has fallen outside, and it's oddly bright.
(Gemme some ameyuju willyoo Kenj'ya.)

From the clouds of pale-red, that is all the more bleak,
The sleet comes a-dripping and a-drizzling down
(Gemme me some ameyuju willyoo Kenj'ya.)

Gathering the sleet snow for you to nibble on,
Inside two chipped porcelain bowls with
The junsai[water-shield]2 plant painted blue,
I, like a stray bullet,
Darted out into the dark of the [falling] sleet.
(Gemme me some ameyuju willyoo Kenj'ya.)

From the bismuth-colored dark clouds,
The sleet comes a-dripping and a-drizzling down.
Oh Toshiko,
At a time like this,
When you're on the brink of death,
You have asked me for a scoop-full of refreshing snow,
Thank you, my little sister, so giving and brave,
I too will continue ahead straight onward.
(Gemme some ameyuju willyoo, Kenj'ya)

In between the oh-so violent fevers and gasping,
You asked me to get
The last bowl-ful of snow, descended from the skies,
The realm of galaxies and suns and atmospheres...
.. Upon two quarry-blocks of granite,
where the sleet are lonesomely deposited,
I perched upon them precariously.
And from the glistening pine-boughs
Filled with cold transparent beads that maintain
The hoar-white, two-phase equilibria betwixt snow and water,
I shall take away the last food for my little sister.
The indigo-colored patterns on the familiar bowls that
We grew up with,
You'll be parted from them too, after today.
(Ora Orade Shitori egumo
[I'll just go off on my own I will])

It's true, you really are departing from us today,
Oh, within the enclosure of the patient's room,
On the other side of the dark folding-screen and mosquito nets,
You are burning away with pale blue light,
My little sister, so brave.
This snow is so awfully pure-white, wherever you might choose.
From those frightful, roiling skies,
This beautiful snow has come.
(I'm gonna be born again, and
next time, I'll make sure everything won't be so bad
I hurt so muuuch all the time.)

To those two bowl-fuls of snow you're eating,
I will now pray, from my heart.
Oh may this [snow] now turn into a heavenly ice cream
Providing you and everyone holy sustenance.
This I pray with all the ability I can muster.

[Anonymous No.4352840]

Needs some Dylan Thomas, I think.

Fern Hill


Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

[Anonymous No.4353017]

"Light", John Milton

Hail holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born,
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes then to th' Orphean Lyre
I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that rowle in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,
Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath
That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget
Those other two equal'd with me in Fate,
So were I equal'd with them in renown.
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men
Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair
Presented with a Universal blanc
Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou Celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

[Anonymous No.4353047]

found this gem the other day

A sinner's eye sees All
simple lids sew shut
joy with trample-reason

a Sinner, wrack'd with bare
awareness, wanes dead in jutting
waves of knowing.

A saintly eye sees Naught
fired mind aflash, beckon
light with fuck and gasp

a Saint, bathed in joy
unseeing, through blackened yearning
lives.