Arts & Humanities Poetry

[MWPP]

Share some of your favourite poems
These are fun on the surface , but have an amazing complexity and more serious undertones (oldies but goodies )
http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44688

These are very sad
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57041
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html


https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/05/20/kate-tempest-progress/
A topical HM to this contemporary one from Q&A- (Kate Tempest's Progress)
I don't even agree with it all but the passionate rendition is worth a watch!)

 

[exe ex machina]

If you want the answer
If you want the truth
Look inside your empty soul
There you'll find the noose

 

[Procrastinator35]

Always loved Rudyard Kipling:

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.

 

[BALKAN]

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep
by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

 

[Mofra]

Roses are red,
Violets are Glorious
No not sneak up on
Oscar Pistorius

 

[BALKAN]

This one was introduced to me by Kanye West (*puts on hater blockerz*) called Strange Fruit. Great poem written in the 30's by Abel Meeropol about the lynchings of black people in the US. Performed by Billie Holiday but this version by Nina Simone is more beautiful and haunting IMO (and is also the one that Kanye sampled)



Strange Fruit
by Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

 

[Mofra]

 

[Bomberboyokay]

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep
by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

My grandpa died in the very early hours of this morning and I really needed to read this. Thanks, Balkan.

 

[Gough]

Sorry to hear that Mebby. *hugs*

 

[Procrastinator35]

Roses are red,
Violets are Glorious
No not sneak up on
Oscar Pistorius

The Blade Gunner.

'Poor little road-runner, never bothered anyone.'

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Sorry to hear that Mebby. *hugs*

Thanks G

 

[little graham]

kookaburra sitting on the electric wire
jumpin up and down
with his balls on fire.
ha ha kookburra
ha ha kookburra
How hot you arse must be.

 

[Procrastinator35]

This one was introduced to me by Kanye West (*puts on hater blockerz*) called Strange Fruit. Great poem written in the 30's by Abel Meeropol about the lynchings of black people in the US. Performed by Billie Holiday but this version by Nina Simone is more beautiful and haunting IMO (and is also the one that Kanye sampled)



Strange Fruit
by Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

One of the best & most eerily haunting posts/vids I've read & seen.

Kudos.

FOTY award delineated.

 

[Gough]

I love Richard Burton reading this. I got food poisoning at Dylan Thomas' old local in Laugharne.

 

[Procrastinator35]

 

[Demosthenes]

Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good.
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlour floor today.

 

[exe ex machina]

There once was a man from Nantucket
With a **** so long he could suck it
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin
If my ear were a c'nt i'd f'ck it

 

[exe ex machina]

My favorite poet of all-time #1...

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself": http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45477

 

[exe ex machina]

My favorite poet of all-time #2...

Antonin Artaud

Here Where I Stand

Here where I myself stand / a man
I stand
what I myself do / a man
I do
there is nothing more
there will never be anything more

than that.​

There is no science, no wisdom,
life has been lost from the day one single thing
became known.
I am not of your world,
mine is on the other side of all that is, knows itself, is
conscious, desires and acts.
It's entirely another thing.
There science, knowledge,
envy, desire and its attractions are unknown.
As for ass, I have never been able to understand how it
could cause an erection, suck with the tongue, fill the cheeks,
wet the ganglions.
It's not only its illusory power of attraction that
I deny
it's the raison d'etre of what is at bottom and which doesn't exist
except as a windbag attraction, so to speak, thick
and poisonous
like that of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ

*​

Myself Antonin Artaud
I am a pure spirit
and I make my body

rise​

looking at it as I do
like all the asses of the holy spirit of God
who believe that man is a double
composed of a

wellrounded spirit​

and then of a body,

an organism​

that is

regulated
by the spirit​

of master eternity on high.
Now myself Antonin Artaud
this self who has done these impossible labors of Hercules
here where there is no here
where one advances backwards
and where

the self​

is really
what has burned
and become very chic
and confident
because of the bruises
of general resistance.
I am precisely the only one knowing the something that's in
the presence of bodies.
What is the body?
It's this

a-um
this ah-na
this a ha
this ha mah
this ah-mah​

which isnt ma
but la-h-
which isn't ah ou ha

but SL --​

It isn't worthy of God
to be a body
to have a body.
Who is it who is worthy of being

SLASHED?​

The slasher.
For not making any compromise

any contact
even smell
(above all smell)​

with said matter,
and for not being afraid of said matter
in directing things to the mass of a black fat
in order to re-enter the black fat
with a will absolutely detached and scorning:
this is the black fat rich with life
and not the holy spirit;
it is there that one is a man
only a man.

And then?​

Then I have to have

a whole
body which
which isn't
a spiritual body
but a man's body
which moreover
is not a being,
which is the true body
of the absolute slash.​

How will this body be made?
It will be made in such a way
that the problem of the elimination of matter
will be in it originally

eliminated,​

without nastiness, without bestiality, without spirituality,

without the needle work of the initiates.​

I am stupid the moment I assume an air of discourse
it is with my breath

and my breath​

and my hand that I've always made

my body whole​

and suppressed every thing

and every being​

and my breath​

does what it does
to stop the life of beings
who are not me
and will return to me everything they put on themselves
which my breath makes into the real world and things.

The machinery
and the style
of its action,
I know them,
not better than others
but
I am the only one
to know them
that's all.​

Tremor of delirium swelling with life around
my ego, which is only a speck of dust, the distant shadow of
a vapor facing myself.
This quivering

trembling
loving
magnetizing
magnetic
warmth​

of the magic of human shit
is only a fart of false crap
facing the authentic power

of myself,​

which will be definitively re-instated in me
when I recover my absolute virginity.
This isn't true
because it isn't correct
it isn't me who has lost my virginity.
Because what the hell do I
myself

Antonin Artaud​

have to do with all this assiness of being
and the logic of the mind?
I only know one hazy thing
and I know it very hazily
and that's that

myself
Antonin Artaud​

I am the master of things
that it's myself
who's made them and makes them
and what I know now
is that all things have come out by chance
and that they fancy themselves able to not re-enter
but there is another thing I know
not hazily but lucidly
and that's that things

and beings​

ineluctably obey the commandment of my breath
and that any opposition, any detour, ends up in a
frightening

shock in return
for all I will.​

No matter what kind of ass I am
I'm always less
than any man alive.
The dead put up a bad fight,
you have to be alive to struggle
and now it's Antonin Artaud
who has the umpteen power.
For he is a living mystery
and it's not the crabs of the mind and beings crawling on
him that will stop him from plumbing his depths
and realizing himself

just as he is.​

Little yes-men who think about life
believe they think about life
fancy they know what life is

shit.
Well,​

I stuff the devil who fancies he
knows life between my thighs
and encrust a nail in the c'nt of the ear
of the left cheek of his arseh*le
because he's the living-end of asses.
I don't believe in anything
I only believe in one thing
that my profound power will not restore me
but will establish me

myself
Antonin Artaud​

so as to know myself, feel myself, desire myself.
The fact is I have a hunch about myself and guess
rather than feel myself
because what I feel in me

are the others.​

I saw that the world was lost
but one must have time to do one thing to escape above
all and especially the devil.
The power which will come to me and sweep everything will be

nothing more​

than the sumtotal of all the shots fired by me for
9 years,
in that there must be a mass important enough to counterbalance the
mass of being having been constituted,
it will constitute a powder without precedent and without name,
strong enough to allow me to set up the passage

from me to myself
my present ego to my past self,​

Hercules having unhooked humanity.
Now the passage is in myself
in the length of my own body
which the ganglionic clots block

by scientificism
functional physiology​

and the beings fancying themselves set up in the non-nameable of
the potential of the whole capacity
which one designates by sigmas.
Imbeciles who still fancy themselves sustained by the influx of
life, shit,

the imperceptible mind,​

who rush into pruritus
and withdraw in order not to be infected
and disease comes out of it anyway
because in withdrawing they attain what they have never
yet succeeded in seizing,
which would be my self,

are asses.​

 

[Procrastinator35]

 

[Duritz]

"You are an idiot,
You are a bitch,
You shit me to tears...
I'm goin' down the pub."

- Mick, Idiot Box

 

[Illinois Nazi]

Roses are red
Violets are glorious
Don't try to sneak up
On Oscar Pistorius

 

[BALKAN]

Roses are red,
Violets are Glorious
No not sneak up on
Oscar Pistorius

Roses are red
Violets are glorious
Don't try to sneak up
On Oscar Pistorius

Is there an echo in here

 

[Scotland]

There was a young girl from Warringah
Who used to dream about old Mal Meninga
She said 'Mal's hairy back,
makes me moist in the crack,
and it helps when I rotate me finger'