Mmm. Wasn’t sure if there was a place to post some poetry that we enjoy. One of my favorite ones is actually from Mister Poe. I’ll post some more as I come across new ones I enjoy, and I’ll post older ones that I found interesting as well. Alone by Edgar Allen Poe “ From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw— I could not bring my passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow— I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still— From the torrent, or the fountain— From the red cliff of the mountain— From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by— From the thunder, and the storm— And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view—
Empty beer cans on the road Are ugly, many say But at night, reflecting bright They safely guide the way * Burma Shaves Alfred E Newman Mad Magazine - 1968
Welp totally forgot about this thread. Here’s a bit of an excerpt I like and use sometimes to encourage people who are - solitary and unsatisfied with their job etc - not exactly a poem. Letters to a Young Poet - Rilke 1929 What is happening to your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it, and not lose too much time or too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people. Who says that you have any attitude at all?- I know, your profession is hard and full of things that contradict you, and I foresaw your lament and knew that it would come. Now that it has come, there is nothing I can say to reassure you, I can only suggest that perhaps all professions are like that, filled with demands, filled with hostility toward the individual, saturated as it were with the hatred of those who find themselves mute and sullen in an insipid duty. The situation you must live in now is not more heavily burdened with conventions, prejudices, and false ideas than all the other situations, and if there are some that pretend to offer a greater freedom, there is nevertheless note that is, in itself, vast and spacious and connected to the important Things that the truest kind of life consists of. Only the individual who is solitary is placed under the deepest laws like a Thing, and when he walks out into the rising dawn or looks out into the event-filled evening and when he feels what is happening there, all situations drop from him as if from a dead man, though he stands in the midst of pure life. What you, dear Mr. Kappus, now have to experience as an officer, you would have felt in just the same way in any of the established professions; yes, even if, outside any position, you had simply tried to find some easy and independent contact with society, this feeling of being hemmed in would not have been spared you. - It is like this everywhere; but that is no cause for anxiety or sadness; if there is nothing you can share with other people, try to be close to Things; they will not abandon you; and the nights are still there, and the winds that move through the trees and across many lands; everything in the world of Things and animals is still filled with happening, which you can take part in; and children are still the way you were as a child, sad and happy in just the same way. ———— Letters to a Young Poet is a collection of ten letters written by Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old officer cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. Wikipedia
This is my own stuff, from back when I first met my wife. She was so exceptional that I had to write my thoughts down. It's some of my favorite stuff because it reminds me of the first moments I had with the woman who would eventually marry me and give me my own children. [From Day 1] She's mysterious. It's what strikes me most about her. She even looks mysterious. It's like she knows something I don't, and really wants to tell me, but can't. I don't know how else to describe it. She's not stupid. She thinks she is, but that's her mistake. Like dad always said, you can't be funny and dumb. Like dad always said, you can see the light in their eyes. The first thing she did was make me laugh. It was so unexpected. She is so unexpected. She doesn't belong there. She's a sweet girl, beneath all the mystery. I like her. [2] I sense so much in her past. Like me, there is something haunted about her. I'm terrified at what it is. I know her job is tough enough. The people who have had tough lives are my people. I can smell them. Maybe that's part of why I'm drawn to her. The sensation is a bit stronger this time - I want to reach out to her. She's a human being. For my own sake, it's selfish: First, I want to find out more about her. She is far more than she seems. Second, I want to make her feel good. Even if I'm selfish, it matters that I want to make her feel good. In her sweetest moments, she shines like a sun. I feel it all the way in my chest. If I made her laugh, if she smiles at something I said, if I sense I made her feel good in some small way, I swell with pride. Why is that? She is physically elegant. I admire the way she moves. [3] It's so hard to keep looking back when she looks me in the eyes. I feel every second of that eyecontact pulling me closer. She isn't afraid to look right at me. It's hypnotizing, mesmerizing, and warm. That's what makes it so terrifying. I love the way it makes me feel. I notice it's me breaking eyecontact, often. I don't want to like her this much. I don't know what she's thinking, it's so hard to perceive. But I sense that it's kind. Her grandpa was a good man. She used to swim. I like talking to her. [4] She pulled my pants down a little bit to see the logo on my thigh - with a clever double hand grip. I've only seen that grip in grappling. I still can't keep eyecontact with her for too long. It feels surreal. She's angelic, and unknowable. I don't know what she's thinking. She likes Bishop Gunn. Shine was the only song she asked about. That's cool. For a minute, she swung me back and forth, like a slow dance, to Shine. It was a genuine moment. She makes me feel so good. She said "Oppa!" when she jumped back on the bed. We don't have a word for that in my language. There is so much power in the little things she does. The way she gives me a little squeeze, sometimes, when she hugs me. How she rubbed my hand, when we lay together. The sound of her voice, when I asked her what kind of mom she would be, was so powerful with love. 'A nice mom!'. She nodded into my chest when I said I was a good man. I will not forget it. She can give a strength that men can only get from women. The fantasy of being cherished, by something so gentle and kind, is enough to last for a day. I wonder what she would be like if she were truly in love with me. The real woman. What she would be like, after five years of love. After ten. With children. With a home. What endless strength I can draw from the idea of a loving family. I've learned from this that I must find a wife, now. Have children of my own, now. This sensation of joy, of comfort, of empathy. I must seek it. It feels just as good to give it as to get it. Has she made it easier or harder for me? I can’t tell.
I'm.... Big on poems but indecisive on favorites. I'll go with the one that I've got stuck up there today. Sea - Rudy Francisco. Today, I am just a sea trying to make peace with all the wreckage inside of its stomach. Hoping someone will accept me broken ships and all.
Charles Bukowski - You Know and I Know and Thee Know that as the yellow shade rips as the cat leaps wild-eyed as the old bartender leans on the wood as the hummingbird sleeps you know and I know and thee know as the tanks practice on false battlefields as your tires work the freeway as the midget drunk on cheap bourbon cries alone at night as the bulls are carefully bred for the matadors as the grass watches you and the trees watch you as the sea holds creatures vast and true you know and I know and thee know the sadness and the glory of two slippers under a bed the ballet of your heart dancing with your blood young girls of love who will someday hate their mirrors overtime in hell lunch with sick salad you know and I know and thee know the end as we know it now it seems such a lousy trick after the lousy agony but you know and I know and thee know the joy that sometimes comes along out of nowhere rising like a falcon moon across the impossibility you know and I know and thee know the cross-eyed craziness of total elation we know we finally have not been cheated you know and I know and thee know as we look at our hands our feet our lives our way the sleeping hummingbird the murdered dead of armies the sun that eats you as you face it you know and I know and thee know we will defeat death.
Another favorite. William Blake. Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat. What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Clatter. Neil Hilborn. It is impossible to imagine a color you have not seen. Instead of dying, the jellyfish simply ceases to move. I complete five crosswords a day because it stops the panic. Trucks are downshifting on Main Street. Hair is partially composed of cyanide. Napalm is just gasoline and plastic. I am just carbon and bad timing.
A collection of bathroom wall poetry thru different eras would be interesting. It should be in the Smithsonian.