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Among mine is this from Archy and Mehitabel (1927) by Don Marquis. Archy is a poet who has been reincarnated as a cockroach and now sneaks onto Marquis’ typewriter at night to write verse. (Being a cockroach, Archy can't operate the shift key on the typewriter -- he jumps on each individual key to type -- and so all his verse is written without capitalization or punctuation.) In this excerpt, Archy asks a moth: why do you like light bulbs and flames so much?
the lesson of the moth
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
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Jul 23, 2016, 17:04 pm
(This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2016, 17:05 pm by Philidor. Edited 1 time in total.)
Oh, hell, yes. Archy and Mehitabel has long been among my favorite reads. Here's one I love. Typically wild humor, but ending with a wonderfully chill insight:
one of the most
pathetic things i
have seen recently
was in intoxicated person
trying to fall
down a moving stairway
it was the escalator at
the thirty-fourth street
side of
pennsylvania station
he could not fall down as
fast as it
carried him up again but
he was game he kept on
trying he was
stubborn about it
evidently it was part of
his tradition habit and
he did not intend to
be defeated this time i
watched him for an hour
and moved sadly away thinking
how much sorrow
drink is responsible for the
buns by great men
reached and kept
are not attained
by sudden flight but they
while their companions slept
were falling upwards
through the night
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(Jul 23, 2016, 15:26 pm)workerbee Wrote: Among mine is this from Archy and Mehitabel (1927) by Don Marquis. Archy is a poet who has been reincarnated as a cockroach and now sneaks onto Marquis’ typewriter at night to write verse. (Being a cockroach, Archy can't operate the shift key on the typewriter -- he jumps on each individual key to type -- and so all his verse is written without capitalization or punctuation.) Interesting.... Never heard of it. I would, however go with one by Wallace Stevens.
The Plain Sense of Things
"After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things.....
....It is difficult to choose even an adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
....Required as necessity requires."
A very good and a very accessible poem. It was my introduction to him.
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It's very short, but Ibadan by J. P. Clark has been one of my favourites since I read it as a child.
Ibadan,
running splash of rust
and gold-flung and scattered
among seven hills like broken
china in the sun.
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I always liked Poe the best.
--------
The Bells
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1849)
I.
HEAR the sledges with the bells --
Silver bells !
What a world of merriment their melody foretells !
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night !
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight ;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells --
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding bells
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells !
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight !
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon !
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells !
How it swells !
How it dwells
On the Future ! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells --
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells !
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells --
Brazen bells !
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells !
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright !
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -- now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells !
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair !
How they clang, and clash, and roar !
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air !
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows ;
Yet, the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells --
Of the bells --
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells --
In the clamour and the clangour of the bells !
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells --
Iron bells !
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels !
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy meaning of their tone !
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -- ah, the people --
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone --
They are neither man nor woman --
They are neither brute nor human --
They are Ghouls: --
And their king it is who tolls ;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells !
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells !
And he dances, and he yells ;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells --
Of the bells :
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells --
Of the bells, bells, bells --
To the sobbing of the bells ;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells --
Of the bells, bells, bells --
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells --
Bells, bells, bells --
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
-----------------------
Also pretty much anything by Emily Dickinson.
------------
Because I could not stop for Death (479)
1830 - 1886
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –
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A Psalm of Life
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
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This poem is special because its very uplifting, written under appalling conditions.
For the sake of resonant valor of ages to come,
for the sake of a high race of men,
I forfeited a bowl at my father's feast,
and merriment, and my honor.
On my shoulders pounces a wolfhound age,
But no wolf by blood am I;
better, like a fur cap, thrust me into the sleeve
of warmly coated fur-coated Siberian Steppes,
--so that I may not see the coward, the bit of soft muck,
the bloody bones on the wheel,
so that all night the blue fox furs may blaze
for me in their pristine beauty.
Lead me into the night where Enisey flows,
and the pine reaches upto the star,
because no wolf by blood am I,
and injustice has twisted my mouth.
- Osip Mandelshtam, Nabokov (trans.)
Interested people may consult (or google) Nadezhda Mandelshtam's tenacious memoir Hope against Hope and/or Clarence Brown's book on Mandelshtam.
If nothing else, workerbee had uploaded a Mandelshtam torrent long ago.
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Aug 25, 2016, 09:45 am
(This post was last modified: Aug 25, 2016, 09:47 am by Horisarte. Edited 1 time in total.)
Poem No. #31 From Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali
'PRISONER, TELL me, who was it that bound you?'
'It was my master,' said the prisoner. 'I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power, and I amassed in my own treasure-house the money due to my king. When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my lord, and on waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'
'Prisoner, tell me who was it that wrought this unbreakable chain?'
'It was I,' said the prisoner, 'who forged this chain very carefully. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.'
__
I've uploaded this as a retail epub as well.
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When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes (Sonnet 29)
William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
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Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
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