Quotations and Literature Forum

I thought it would be interesting to post selected poems. In 1999 I participated in an open mic poetry reading at Davis Kidd Booksellers (Cafe) in Jackson, Tennessee. This was my first public reading and I selected the following poem.

Solitude Late at Night in the Woods

By Robert Bly

I
The body is like a November birch facing
the full moon
And leading into the heavens.

In these leaves there is no ambition, no sodden body
no leaves.
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire.

II
My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
to the obedient earth
The trees shall be reaching all winter.

III
It is a joy to walk the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down and finding the soaked earth,
Giving off the odor that partridges love.

(In memory of Kenneth Yancey Ph.D. Lambuth College, Jackson, TN)

I wanted to ecourage those of you who read poetry to post some of your favorite poems or authors. The second poem that I ever read in public was The Immortals, by Herman Hesse. I don't have it handy but I will post it later. I also read Steppenwolf.

We used to have a monthly reading at Davis Kidd Booksellers Cafe in Jackson, Tennessee. Some of the poems contained some profanity so the manager of the bookstore stopped the readings. The Ramrod who moderated the readings was really peeved. He tried to get us back in business but it just didn't happen. He said the poetry reading was now "dead in the water." I was a "small fish" in a pond of poetic big fish but I enjoyed attending the readings.

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise:
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Thomas Dekker, 1570-1641 (not Lennon And McCartney)

_________________
Regards,
Lou
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.
— Bill Mauldin

Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:

--Wordsworth, Imitations of Immortality
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My 45th birthday rolled up at 11:00 a.m. today. "Show me a man who is not thankful and I will show you a man who is not happy." (?) I read that years ago but I neglected to note the author. A friend who is a scholar and a poet bought my lunch today. We ate Grinders (sandwiches) at Belacino's. Tonight I will have dinner (supper) with my family and I have requested a Blackberry Pie (instead of a cake).

Feliz Cumpleanos! (Don't know how to get a tilde over the "n" here.) Many happy returns, with lots of blackberry pie.

Happy Birthday Phantom, and Feliz Compleaños!

(Just showing off. The HTML for the eñe character is ˜.)

_________________
Michael Moncur
Owner and maintainer, The Quotations Page

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights: for when tired out with fun
He rest at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drownsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hill.

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Thanks for the bithtday wishes. After reading Keats I tinkered with writing some Odes of my own.

Ode to a Watermelon Patch, 1990
Ode to a Spanish Arch, 1991
Ode in Blue, 1991
Ode to a Mayfly Hatch, 1992
Ode to a Bottle of Coors, 1992
Ode to an Empty Quiver, 1999
The Iris & The Rose, 2000

Her lips are like Iris petals, her kiss is like a tender rose ...

Tags around [˜]? Doesn't look necessary: man˜ana. How do you get the tilde over the n? ˜n n˜ (I haven't got the hang of it. Give me another clue?)

It's just:No acutal tilde (~) involved. You have to enable HTML in your message - it's disabled in this one.

_________________
Michael Moncur
Owner and maintainer, The Quotations Page

ma˜nana

I am just using the code and tried placing before and after ene but can't get the placement over the letter n. I've done this successfully in Word, but never tried it in HTML, so I appreciate your tips.

Wait -- let me try one more thing: mañana

Bueno! Gracias, mgm.

I noticed that this poem was mentioned.

The Immortals, by Herman Hesse

The Immortals
Ever reeking from the vales of earth
Ascends to us life's fevered surge,
Wealth's excess, the rage of dearth,
Smoke of death-meals on the gallow's verge;
Greed without end, spasmodic lust;
Muderers' hands, usurers' hands of prayer;
Exhales in fetid breath the human swarm
Whipped on by fear and lust, blood raw, blood warm,
Breathing blessedness and savage heats,
Eating itself and spewing what it eats,
Hatching war and lovely art,
Decking out with idiot craze
Bawdy houses while they blaze,
Through the childish fair-time mart
Weltering to its own decay
In the glare of pleasure's way,
Rising for each new-born and then
Sinking for each to dust again.
But we above you ever more residing
In the ether's star translumined ice
Know not day nor night nor time's dividing,
Wear nor age nor sex for our device.
All your sins and anguih self-affrighting
your murders and lascivious delighting
Are to us but as a show
Like the suns that circling go
Let the longest frenzied life we spy,
And refresh ourselves thereafter
With the stars in order fleeing;
Our breath is winter in our sight
Fawns the dragon of the sky;
Cool and unchanging is our eternal being,
Cool and star bright is our eternal laughter


He has a suspicion of his alloted place in the world, a suspicion of the Immortals, a suspicion that he may meet himself face to face; and he is aware of the existence of that mirror in which he has such bitter need to look and from which he shrinks in such deathly fear.
~from Steppenwolf
Herman Hesse

A GIRL I KNEW


From the 1968 release "Steppenwolf"

Words and music by John Kay and Morgan Cavett

She used to dance when she had the chance and the time it didn't matter
At the end of her night was an endless flight
While her head, it was lost in the laughter

A girl I knew
Someone I used to talk to
When we'd meet in the middle of a room
A girl I knew
Her world a shade of blue
Someone I used to talk to

She used to sing in the night while her ring
It would sparkle like burgundy wine
And the people stopped and starred but pretend she's not there

She used to dance when she had the chance and the time it didn't matter
At the end of her night was an endless flight
While her head, it was lost in the laughter

_________________
Regards,
Lou
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.
— Bill Mauldin

The Night-piece: To Julia

HER eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 5

No Will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there 's none to affright thee. 10

Let not the dark thee cumber:
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee their light
Like tapers clear without number. 15

Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me;
And when I shall meet
Thy silv'ry feet,
My soul I'll pour into thee. 20

— Robert Herrick

_________________
Regards,
Lou
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.
— Bill Mauldin

Thanks to all for posting the poems. I epsecially wanted to thank Theno for posting the Immortals. It is 6:00 a.m. here at Camp Juniper and I am enjoying my coffee as I read this thread.

Sometimes it is not easy to select a poem for reading. The selection is often a reflection of the reader's taste in poetry and not necessarily a subject that would interest the audience at large. When you get a standing ovation then you know that you have made a superlative selection or a commanding delivery. When I first started attending the readings the norm was to read four or five lengthy poems. The crowds started getting smaller. Therafter the norm was to get up and read one or two good selections and then sit down. In December of 2000 I read a poem that was written by a friend who is more of a hunter than a poet. He had posted his recently written poem on a hunting forum and I read it at Davis Kid the next day. I guess that is the highest complement that you can pay a poet. I don't have it handy but I will post it later.

In January of 2001 I attempted to read The Creamation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service. The poem is written with a broken rhythm and is not easlily read without a whole lot of reharsal. I guess that If I wanted to make an understatement then I would say that it was not best reading. Nevetheless I just took it in stride and challked the experience up as a lesson in how not to read a poem. I have heard poems read that I thought deserved a standing ovation but I didn't want to look like a fool by being the only man standing so I just held my water.
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Cumulus, cirrus, stratus, nimbus--
The sky is deeper than the sea
And though the clouds be as puffs of albus
They sail above like ships of heaven.
"Fair weather friend." they say to me--
Then drift away with dignity.

Phantom Delta, 1992