Poetry

[madmurdoc]

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.
W.B. Yeats

 

[tjameson]

My wife is a poet. She's currently in her last year of a masters program at St. Mary's College of California. She has an amazing mind and is very precise in her words. Ill ask her if I can post some work up.

 

[joeahearn]

Tjameson,
My best friend teaches at St Mary's. Small world!

 

[crazypipe]

On Prayer

Kahlil Gibran
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.

But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,

And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,

"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."

 

[brewshooter]

I used to know quite a number of fine poems and limericks. There was this really great one celebrating the exploits of a particular man from Nantucket. I wish I could remember how that went.

 

[tjameson]

Here is one I wrote awhile back.
Amber shifts gray

Midnight sky brightens in blinks

To d'or morning haze

Then quickly to cumulous couplings

Reflecting past presents

Past life, lives

Cast off in pooling conciousness

Collected from descending bodily impressions

In the moss bed

infinite remembrance

Frequencies of faint abstraction

Solidify to sinuous spines

Coats of browning birch bark

Forests whispering in resounding

Solidarity, amid the wash of universal

Calamitous peace

Slipping in small measure

Out cracks in the creek bed crossing

Nature nurtures nothing

Naturally we remember

all is nothing nowhere

 

[smokeybear]

I my self was a poet had a few published ill put them up tomorrow for you guys might as well share them.

 

[ichbinmuede]

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,

The full round moon and the star-laden sky,

And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,

Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.
And then you came with those red mournful lips,

And with you came the whole of the world's tears,

And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,

And all the burden of her myriad years.
And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,

The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,

And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves

Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.
-W.B. Yeats, The Sorrow of Love
I'm also a Yeats sort of guy. Just can't get enough of the dark sort of spin that he was capable of putting on things.

 

[brian64]

@Teddy: Thanks for the Gibran post...significant insights to meditate on therein.
Ancient Sufi proverb:
God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man.
(or at lest potentially awakens in man, I would add...imo, none of us are actually awake)

 

[hobie1dog]

Too deep for me.

 

[smokeybear]

i wrote this for my high school sweetheart, It must have been pretty good cause shes now my Wife :rofl:
I Shall Not Pick
By Andrew Askandar
I've picked many Flowers,

I've smelt many peddles,

But none were abloom.
Until I came upon a Rose,

Blooming, showing off its beauty,

Opening its peddles as if,

Inviting me to its sweet herbal scent.

As if, it was opening itself to me.
Then it hit me like sunlight breaking

Through the forest trees,

This is a Rose I shall not pick,

But shall admire and be thankful,

For this Rose not only bloomed in my eyes,

But bloomed inside of me.

 

[spartan]

Roses are red,

Violets are red,

Daisies are red,

Sunflowers are red,

Oh my God my garden is on fire.
-Unknown

**********************************************
I'm no poet. But I'm liking what I see. I do love the way Cradle Of Filth puts dark poetry to interesting music... ::

 

[scottishjohn]

That is a beautiful poem that you wrote smokeybear. A very insightfull and sensitive person you are. Hang on to her, she is a keeper! If the poem led to your eventual union she too is very insightfull and sensitive. These type of people are rare in this world.

 

[smokeybear]

Since you all seem to be in the darker poems here's my version of dark its one of me later pieces (college)
The Last Remaining Light,

The Moon as evil as it Seems.

Do I run towards It,

Or standout the silent Screams.
The eyes of creatures gaze at me,

They might attack me Soon.

I trip on the root of a tree,

As I ran towards the Moon.
The warm inviting Moonlight quickly froze,

Leaving cold and at the tip of Evils Nose.
And in this light i can see,

I am in Evils sight as the Enemy.

But with this light,

I shall Stand and Fight,

For No Evil Can Touch Me.
By Andrew Askandar

 

[smokeybear]

That is a beautiful poem that you wrote smokeybear. A very insightfull and sensitive person you are. Hang on to her, she is a keeper! If the poem led to your eventual union she too is very insightfull and sensitive. These type of people are rare in this world.

Thank you Very much Scottishjohn for your very kind words im really touched and i appreciate it.

 

[smokeybear]

Just wrote this, figured im due for a poem about my pipe.
Pipe Therapy
Pack and lite,

hope for no bite.

Tamp and Dottle,

Pour from the Bottle.

Sit back and smell,

Ah..All is well"

 

[rhogg]

For me poetry is like a mirror that reflects the soul. That is why I quit writing it. When it comes I give in, but I am often left with more questions than answers. Scary to think that you fear your own truths. Sometimes life is easier if it is only lived. Maybe I should continue to let my inner therapist do what he does best. Great thread. I am constantly amazed by the thoughts this place provokes.

 

[hodirty]

Gotta love that one, smokey. I never could write it, but I sure enjoy it.

 

[dizzieranddizzier]

not mine, but I found this recently:

For you alone -

Bob Hicok
One knows the world is falling

slightly faster than rising,

this is why one has the second beer

or tries to stretch the triple

into a love affair. One is called out

at home and asks the ump

how anyone can know anything

for sure and is told it's the little hat

the umpire wears that makes all

the epistemological difference

in the world. One is pleased

by this news and the tails of comets

and the various enthusiasms of children

in playgrounds when they gather

their shrieks into a single

ululation holding up the sky.

One knows the sky is not actually

held up by this joy but one needs

to take a stab at meaning before meaning

takes a swing at one. One dreams

of less violence for oneself and others

and of growing old with a cane

because one wants to think

one is standing in the middle

of a great party, or that osprey

are pending, or that love

something something. One says a lot

that makes little sense, like one believes

in peace an hour before one wants

to punch the Secretary of Defense

in the nose. But one

can only speak for oneself

and others and people

who don't exist and dogs.