Category: poetry

Symbols in literature

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http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Symbols%20in%20Poetry%20and%20Literature.htm
Excerpts from “More Poems”
by A. E. Housman

XXIII

Crossing alone the nighted ferry
With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,
Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,
The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
And free land of the grave.

Charon’s ferry symbolizes the transition from life to death, or dying. The “one coin” is the obulus, which symbolizes death: the ultimate cost of mortal life. The river Lethe symbolizes forgetfulness, oblivion and concealment, as the dead are concealed from the living, and vice versa. The grave is also symbolic of death. In this poem the river Styx symbolizes death; although it is not explicitly named, we can infer it. In Greek mythology, Charon’s ferry carried the newly dead from the land of the living across the River Styx to Hades, the realm of the dead. It may interest Christians to know that Hades was not “hell,” as Hades incorporated heavenly regions such as the Elysian Fields and the Blessed Isles. Y

 
Sonnet 147
by William Shakespeare

My love is as a fever, longing still [1]
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest.
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are, [11]
At random from the truth vainly expressed,
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as Hell, as dark as night. [14]

This is one of Shakespeare’s famous “Dark Lady” sonnets. It employs simile, a type of metaphor in which comparisons are introduced by “like” or “as” (please refer to lines one, eleven and fourteen).

When thinking hurts

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My title has two meanings.One is that sometimes we have to think about a painful event or a person who has hurt us.Or even some past events…I recall pain when  I was told about Hitler and Stalin

On the other hand some of us  use thinking in words as a way of blocking painful emotions.whilst this  may work for a time,it may give  a lot of trouble when we need to deal with pain.Essentially we do not wish to “know” the truth in the full sense… we deceive ourselves and maybe others too

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201110/the-essential-guide-defense-mechanisms

William Blake wrote this poem

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine,

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

It is right it should be so;

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know,

Through the world we safely go.

I’ve been reading Sylvia Plath recently.I see that after her husband left her she went into a frenzy of activity.She had two very young children.was often ill with flu but she wrote all her most famous poems at this time;then she moved to London antd socialised a lot to prove she was not just a deserted wife.After this she became more, ill,there was a severe winter….then she crashed into the depths…I feel that  her frenzied writing was a way of not admitting her grief… and she got worn out and decided death was better.
Some of us who are quite cerebral are not in touch with  our bodies.We don’t feel that knife in the heart,the tears unshed,the anger that threatens… and eventually this cam lead to problems.,sometimes flu sometimes a breakdown,sometimes a broken marriage.and also the thinking can take on a life of its own so  it keeps us awake at night… and the feelings can come out in nightmares.So thinking can  be a curse.We all need defences at times but too much cuts us of from our own lives.And brooding and ruminating are very damaging to the mind and soul.Thinking is not wisdom

 

abstract war on terror.

A lovely poem that i am fond of

O sweet spontaneous

by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

prurient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee

, has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty, how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

Yet tigers spring and care not when we scream

Was this Earth designed for life or death,

When wired up cheetahs surf the desert sands

Seeking prey to stave off hunger’s wrath?

This hunt’s repeated over all our lands.

And in deep seas of green we find the curse

Of being pursuer or of becoming prey.

Blood in water looks to me much worse

Yet God requires that we should kneel and pray

Rare flowers can snatch and eat the striped bee

Programmed by genes to fertilize and feed.

I grieve a violent  God exacts a fee.

Loves to see his creatures as they bleed.

Nature soothes our souls when life’s all green.

Yet tigers spring and care not when we scream

This variegated colour

In between the  blackest and the bright,
Graded shades of grey and lilac lie.
These variegated  colours give delight.
And from my soul, I hear a  gentle sigh.

 

As we live, we dwell in mysteries;
Must take decisions based on  various views.
And unknown memories from our history
Bring out  the old , so misperceive the new.

 

For  true perception, we must humble be.
Not for moral reasons but for sight.
The emptiness   lets flood creative seas.
And allows  in  rays of  guiding golden  light.

 

We need to know we do not know at all.
And, trembling, hold  the doors of vision wide.
So gentle  should be judgements when we fail.
Then errors  we’ll appreciate, not hide.

 

We will  deal with life unknown, unclear;
Perception is  a better   guide than  fear

Reality’s too little or too much

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Between the wish for  changlessness and thrill,
We seldom will be satisfied for long.
Neither is controlled by human will.
As into  stormy life, we all are flung
Self-deception  shields us from our doubts
We choose to pre-select what we will see.
Pretend to know what our life’s  all about
In  our little boats  on stormy seas.
Then  later we choose danger for its spice
And with daring climb the mountain with no ropes
We resist the offer of    advice
Till ,with broken bones, we sadly mope.
Reality’s too little or too much
So ,on our path, our hearts will surely lurch

Across our mother’s universal face

The worst of wars occur within the home
The earth’s  a mother  whom we treat with scorn.
Although on foreign trips we   gormless roam
We care not how  our  holy mother’s torn.

The planes’ emissions do not disappear
Our waste  is thrown  to devastate   all space.
The universe is bounded like  a sphere
The noxious  decorates with  thoughtless trace.

 

The condoms and the women’s  bloody cloths
The petrol fumes,  the plastic bags, the base
Are scattered like a  demon’s  tortured wrath
Across our mother’s  universal  face
Can we avert    the death of earth, this  fate?
Will we dawdle  till it is too late?

 

Religion and extended metaphors

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Sarah Roby on religion and extended metaphors

Quote:

Reading poetry has since restored my faith in metaphor and how it can extend deeply and cleanly over individual poems, sequences and collections. While writing ‘The Recurrency of Peter Body’, I was interested in exploring the connection between the fallibility yet constancy of the human body and representations of Peter the Apostle. Fortunately for the poem, this connection struck me as obvious. And as I researched – returning to the King James Bible, reading the frescos of Masaccio and paintings of Caravaggio – the resonances revealed themselves, as if inevitably.

However metaphor is not an end in itself. I’m with Derrida in the belief that metaphor is “a basic way of knowing”. It’s active in pressing towards definition – through comparison – and hence towards understanding. So in the poem, for example, I’m also interested in where, in a secular society, we locate our ‘church’. If, as the poem suggests, we locate it with the individual – in the body – then what are the implications of this? It might suggest individualism, egotism maybe, hubris… which is kind-of

My dreams and love, like dying sparks.

When first I saw your soulful face,
I wished to dwell in your  embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.
To find a home for love without;
To fold my dreams all round about;
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.
I found my dreams were cast aside;
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled
As I lie sleepless in my bed.
What is the world when unadorned
With all that in my heart I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace.
As in a mother’s empty face.
On these grey rocks. my path is hard.
From paradise, my self is barred.
To struggle or to grief succumb,
When this dark day of mourning’s done?
Into His dazzling darkness dart
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery so fair.
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.
Thus my dreams will be transformed
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope,I’ll take an oath:
“That nothing in my life is waste;
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live again until we die”

What is poetry?

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http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/literature-and-creative-writing/literature/what-poetry/content-section-0

We have the Open University here and I find they have a lot of free courses.I think I will do one as we get into winter.There is a big range of topics/

With each image ,still your dreaming heart

 

To write a poem will take our entire heart
Our mind and soul, our body and our dreams.
With trepidation,take a pen and start

Let preconceptions , though well meant, depart
Creative work evades such plans and schemes
To write a poem will shake the entire heart

We travel lands unknown without a chart
With our courage, trust the dark unseen
For inspiration,take our pens and write

We bite the apple,bitter, hard and tart
Knowledge enters in its dream -like streams
To write a poem will move each living heart

No logic,reasoning, signs, however wrought
Will bring to life the holy pattern’s themes
With each image ,still your dreaming heart

The earth ,the oceans, seas, the sacred scenes
Where humans live out daily what life means
To write a poem , we need a mystic’s heart
In emptiness, we fill our pens,we start

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s poetry.Gooooood heavens.

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Poems are shorter
Shorter than a novel is.
Still – no one reads them.

Except for the ones
Written inside Birthday cards.
Sentiment’s valued.

And we remember
That poor lady of Shallot
Peeling onions.

And also repeat
Nursery rhymes and stories
For little children.

You see thy don’t know
It’s poetry,.Goood heavens.
That is not for me.

We Manage Most When We Manage Small

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Linda Gregg, 1942

What things are steadfast? Not the birds.
Not the bride and groom who hurry
in their brevity to reach one another.
The stars do not blow away as we do.
The heavenly things ignite and freeze.
But not as my hair falls before you.
Fragile and momentary, we continue.
Fearing madness in all things huge
and their requiring. Managing as thin light
on water. Managing only greetings
and farewells. We love a little, as the mice
huddle, as the goat leans against my hand.
As the lovers quickening, riding time.
Making safety in the moment. This touching
home goes far. This fishing in the air.

Oh, brilliant leaves

Oh, brilliant leaves are now turned duller red.
The first day of  our Brexit winter time.
From the sun  bright  colour had been  bled.

What seemed innate was stolen then instead
As life  is taken when we pass our prime
The  shimmering leaves are now turned brownish red

Oh,sadly  know the leaves  face  sudden  death
Torn from branches where  boys used to climb
All  the   foliage flies  in  one last breath

Mystics hear the still small voice   of God
When all is lost and meaning ‘s but a  line
Those   high leaves  for tramps shall make a bed

 
When we had it,what was it we had?
We hear the Word when we have paid the fine
Once  lovely leaves are now turned dull and dead
For  only sun   expressed  what had been  fed.

Continue reading “Oh, brilliant leaves” →

What I thought concealed

We may reveal more than we know when we talk about the weather and other safe topics

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When I cannot tell you how I feel
When I want to see you ,not  to speak,
I talk about the weather like a  fool

Sometimes when I’m tired I feel unreal
Or life seems lost and  meaning seems to leak
Then I  can not  tell you how I feel.

Some months have their winds to make misrule
Others  throttle  throats and freeze the cheeks
I talk about the weather ,as its cool.

We must keep moving or our blood congeals
So sheep must  on moorland  frosty, bleak
I don’t want to  lie for  life is real

When winter mocks our age I find it cruel
Yet you are old and for amusement look
I talk about  the sunshine like a  fool

Oh,happy   snowfalls keeping us from school
As on the ice we tumbled with loud shrieks
When I  cannor   tell you how I feel
The weather  stands for  what  I   have concealed

Almost good

The last time that he fell he broke  our lamp;
The lamp which we had bought on honeymoon
I often sketched it, to my brain it clamped
Enduring sleepless nights in cardiac room.

The canula had torn  my  vein unseen.
I never  knew my  sheets filled up with blood;
Saturated by  the god,morphine;
Had I died,  such end  felt  almost good

Though why  go to such lengths to get a high?
A paralysing pain ran down my neck.
I can  rise just   staring at the sky.
Without enduring such a savage wreck

The lamp is broken,shade propped up by wall
A painful memory of his fatal fall.

The lamp reminds me of his humorous love
Now my bony hands   wear his   dear gloves

 

 

The dream poet

 

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Someone said that in our dreams we write plays like Shakespeare which we can’t do in real life.I think dreams are like poetry.They use images,metaphors, and puns.
I dreamed my husband has bought me a house in Ealing [Healing?].And even if we don’t remember them they go on in their hidden life sorting out our daily impressions and excitements.Making play with them.
And sometimes those  who write poems will have an experience where there is more in their poem than they knew when they wrote it.Because the act of writing makes images come up from the dark fertile earth of our minds.I didn’t consciously think about the meaning of sleeping on winter leaves before I wrote the poem below.

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I have sifted earth"

I have  walked the  silent paths of grief
Sunless,dreary,cold and all alone.
I have   slept on beds of  winter leaves.

I  know  that death’s a greedy,grasping  thief.
Although my heart weeps and my joy has gone,
I have never felt I was deceived.

I have learned that human life is brief.
I have learned  by sorrow we’re undone.
I  have sifted earth and what’s beneath.

I  have felt  the dark emotions in me seethe
 I've   felt cruelly mocked by   glaring sun.
I  have  learned the geography of grief.

I wait in sorrow for my  life to cease
Yet   some are never loved by anyone
I have dreamed in beds of winter leaves

Unconsoled  grief  can make   us dumb
Into  our  hearts, we drag the ice  that numbs
I have walked the silent paths of grief
I have made my bed on winter leaves.

The cello has a tender singing voice

 

The cello has a tender singing voice

Allows the feelings which we cannot say.

Among composers,  Bach would  be my choice

The cello sings   rich lyrics  with her voice.

Rostropovich , Prague,he wept of course.

Soviet armies  marched, the Czechs  were  flayed.

The cello has a sorrowing truthful voice;

Speaks our feelings when we cannot pray.

That in this world there is an empty space,

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Underneath the weight of knowledge  learned
I seem to be reduced  and paralysed
For I had thought the painful loss would turn
And fill me with  his love unpetrified.

For a moment, we may often ask
When sudden shock invades the human heart
But “give me years” makes tangible the task
The grieving  must not end before it starts

That in this world there is an empty space,
Never to be filled but lived beside
Makes some  feel rage;afflicted by disgrace
Makes the themes  of grief and  pain elide.

I feel inert like marble on a beach
Light and absence will my sad heart  breach..

 

I miss the self

I miss the self that I became with you
I miss your gaze as  broad as any hawk’s
I miss   your words that were with love imbued

I miss  your heart  and all our loving new
I miss your humor and  your potent thought
I miss the self that I became with you

I miss the words we fashioned   from  our view
The new ideas by which truths were taught
I miss   your words that were with love imbued

I miss the imitations you could  do.
Politicians were with laughter caught
I miss the self that I became with you

So much more, the more our knowing grew
As the depths new understanding brought
I miss   your words that were with love imbued

Context,frame,perspective all made new
From   the  flesh a  tenderness   was lit.
I miss the self that I became with you
I miss   your words that  made our love   anew

Life is a film and love’s the bond.

I saw you look,I saw you stare
You liked the colour of my  hair.
I heard you speak,I felt  less bleak
Now I sit  near where you were.

I held your hand, on Southwold sands
Your hand was warm,who understands?
Your time was up,you won the lot.
I gave your grace to  those forgot.

I rode my bike,St Giles was dark
A car hit me  and I saw sparks.
You knew my name, we were the same
I saw real stars, when  shot by car.

I saw a hand turn in the sand
Life is a film and love’s the bond.
Your trust complete,I was your sweet
The end is here; it’s no defeat.

For life’s a tale we won’t bewail
You write along the  hidden trail.
Your narrative  can no more live
You  were yourself.,no more to give.

We knit the fabric  for the young
And with this gift our song is sung
The melody, sonorous be
For life is good and love is free

And yet I weep whilst I’m asleep
I wish to be with you so deep
Come back again,we’ll live the pain
We’ll weep till we  become the rain.

For fire burns and stomachs churn
We may not get what we have earned
Who is the judge,who keeps the ledge
Who will be when love’s  alleged?

In time to the music of the words

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http://www.poetryarchive.org/glossary/metre

“Like the rhythm in a piece of music, the metre is an underlying structure. Poets often slip in extra feet, or remove them, or change stress patterns around to prevent monotony, like playing rubato. (Sometimes a poem seems to be exploring how far a line can be pushed without losing all connection with the underlying metre.) This means that the discovery of a foot other than an iamb in the middle of what is otherwise iambic, say, does not stop the poem from being iambic; rather the attention ends up lingering at that point, so the word on the different foot ends up more powerful as it has the attention longer. An example of this can be found in Peter Dale’s ‘Half-Light’; he writes “I’m trying not to give another glance. / Lit window thirty years back up that path.” The first line is a perfectly regular iambic pentameter, but the second introduces an extra stress on “Lit”, so that what the speaker’s trying not to be drawn to seems more powerful, perhaps helping us empathise with him when he does look back and “catch her eye an instant””

 

Note  on  the word:iamb

An iamb /ˈaɪæm/ or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in “delay”).

Iamb (poetry) – Wikipedia

No woman

No woman ever can be what he dreams

Nor can they give comfort,not a  goad

Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes.

And rarely does he ever go abroad.

No food he eats will satisfy his tongue.

The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk.

He grumbles and will not admit to wrong.

I‘ve known more men than him of this same ilk.

No bed can be the right one for his sleep.

No sheets and pillows suit his wary skin.

He often has made gentle maidens weep

Crying out they’re  too fat or boney thin.’

Beware the man who never can adapt

For in own lone wishes he is trapped

The best villanelles of all time

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http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Villanelles.htm

 


One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop wrote a small handful of truly great poems such as “One Art,” “The Fish” and “The Armadillo,” and can probably be considered a major poet for those poems alone. “One Art” bends a few rules here and there, with good results, and manages to be both clever and moving at the same time: a considerable accomplishment.

Parting

You then revealed the face within your face
Tender,gentle, vulnerable and kind
Yet rarely do you feel secure or safe
Outside the sacred space of your own mind.

The look  eludes  the words  that might   describe
So rare  to let another see  our soul.
And when we ask,  the vulnerable defy
Sacred is the place  and high the toll

With pathos in your eyes, you went away
I  was standing on the platform by the train.
Unmoving,still,  I stood in silent prayer
As if you were near death and all was vain.

We hide ourselves  in fear of  wounds too deep,
Yet, all alone, the price may be too steep

 

 

A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent

You revealed the face within your face
Human,lonely,humbler than the ant
The pathos in your  eyes  made sad my gaze

The other  face,  phlegmatic, has no grace
With it ,you  appear  quite confident.
Yet you revealed to me  your  hidden face

I know now of the suffering of your days
A fear of tragic pasts  feared imminent
The pathos in your  eyes  made sad my gaze

The Lord says you’re his lamb and gives you grace.
Yet you must hide from men intolerant
You revealed the face within your face

Like Jesus, you were scourged and in disgrace
You   wandered feebly like  itinerants
The pathos in your  eyes  makes sad my  days

If God exists then would he not embrace
The lost, the lonely, even the vagrant?
You revealed the face within your face
The pathos in your  eyes  made  men seem base.

Give me your hands

 

I can’t love you
without loving the whole world too.
I can’t open my heart
unless everyone can be part

Wait for me.
I’m not afraid.
Wait for me.
I may be delayed.
I see you in my mind
Smiling, sad and kind.
I can’t love you
Unless I love the lost too.
Give me your hands
Outstretched across the  strands
We’re all one.
Life has begun

I have seen the face within your face

I have seen the face within your face
Humbled ,showing pain which  rent my heart
I have  felt the ache of your disgrace

You felt  worthless like a worm misplaced
Your heart was struck too  keenly by sharp darts
I  have seen  lthe face within your face

A child  whom no one  even once embraced
Your reticence and silence played its part
I have   shared the ache of your disgrace

A  bullied child who came last in the race
I  condemn men  blind , who had no heart
I have seen the  pain   hid deep inside your face

Then your  mask slid into  its  old place
You  caught the train  and re-lived this same hurt
I have   shared the ache of your disgrace

I hate the  people proud  but, to me ,base.
Who made your  soul and all your being smart
I have seen the face within your face
I have  known the ache of your disgrace

I will taste divine

Make my heart into a cottage pie.
Already it is minced and lies estranged
My enemies insult me with their lies
And my last will and testament is made.

An onion and a carrot chopped up fine,
Saute with these my heart till all are gold
With herbs and spices, I will taste divine
A mashed potato will a rooftop mould.

Do not forget my blood to use as sauce
Though now it’s cold, with garlic make it boil.
For what is gravy but the blood of choice
With sliced onion in ethereal olive oil?

O foes and devils eat me and you’ll be
Transformed into this self, your enemy

We don’t meet

We do not see new  people as they are
We clothe them in the dress of people past
Freud  gave names to  this and more bizarre
We still  do not see  people as they are
But “recognise”   in them  who we   look for
Reality   will  have them soon declassed
We do not see new  people as they are
We  embed in them  the love of people past.

This love unreal will soon give way to hate
They ought to be whom we wish them to be.
Then down on them, we bring the hand of fate
This love unreal will soon give way to hate
We do not even think it’s our mistake
Nor that from our desires they   should be    free
All  love unreal will  then become  our fate
They ought to  be our   longed for  fantasy.

He hung on me the clothes of his desire

I love him but he does not love me
Although he  did seduce me with his art
His    complex face I still may wish to see
I love him  so but he does not love me.
I puzzle over this anomaly
And wish the grief of lies  to leave my heart
I love him but he does not love me
Although he  did seduce me ,broke my heart

I detest him  yet for I was then unknown
He hung on me the clothes of his desire
And when I called him once on his i phone
He  labelled me a whore and  quite  unknown
His fantasy was not one I could own
Tried,judged ,condemned to perish in his fire
I detest him   hate him for I was then known
And knowing me, he sent me to my pyre