Author Topic: Poetry Page (Read 724973 times)

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #40 on:** February 04, 2009, 06:11:24 PM »

Welcome to our Poetry Page.
FairAnna and Barbara will alternate creating a focus for us - In the past the poetry page was a haven for those of us who listen to words that open our hearts, and imagination, and allowed our feelings be known about the poems we share - We are looking forward to continuing that tradition.

This month we will focus on the Sonnet.
Let's discover how a Sonnet is constructed and let's share the Sonnets that open our hearts. Since Valentine's Day is in February a Love Sonnet would be a lovely gift for us.

Here are a few links to help us understand the Sonnet and its history.

Sonnet Central

About the Sonnet

Origins of the Sonnet

How to Write a Sonnet

Discussion Leaders: BarbStAubrey & Fairanna

Babi · « **Reply #41 on:** February 05, 2009, 09:07:39 AM »

This one is old and well-known, but it's a favorite of mine. From Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

"If Thou Must Love Me"

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile - her look - her way
Of speaking gently, - her trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" --

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, - and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, throught love's eternity.

fairanna · « **Reply #42 on:** February 05, 2009, 11:14:54 AM »

Barbara funny I have read this poem many times but I never really considered it well Being here made me do just that ..I have others who can say they think I am wrong or offer other ideas about its meaning,,,,,it seems the poet is telling death not to be proud because he is there for everyone in the end.,,,I see a smug death when dealing with fragile humanity ...but he reminds death he isnt the last thing that happens.,..we pass on to another life...and there in that new place death does not exist ever...and so in the end humanity goes on forever but death is no more...his life was brief but humanity remains... does anyone else have an opinion

?

ALF43 · « **Reply #43 on:** February 05, 2009, 12:45:03 PM »

It is wonderful to see you ladies leading the Poetry discussion, once again, for all of us.

Thank you fairAnna for your beautfully written poem. It speaks to me!!! In actuality, it screamed at me.

fairanna · « **Reply #44 on:** February 05, 2009, 01:33:51 PM »

Here I am on a very cold day , the temp is 25 , the wind chill 19 which is unusual for this area..I was supposed to go out but decided my task can wait ,,so I am warmed my heavy robe and researching sonnets I found one and hope you lile it too..

Spenserian sonnet.
The first poet known to modify Petarch’s form, Sir Edmund Spenser kept the structure but introduced an abab-bcbc-cdcd-ee rhyme scheme.

From Amoretti
Edmund Spenser (c. 1552-1599)
What guile is this, that those her golden tresses

She doth attire under a net of gold;
And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses,
That which is gold or hair, may scarce be told?
Is it that men’s frail eyes, which gaze too bold,
She may entangle in that golden snare;
And being caught may craftily enfold
Their weaker hearts, which are not yet well aware?
Take heed therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare
Henceforth too rashly on that guileful net,
In which if ever ye entrapped are,
Out of her bands ye by no means shall get.
Folly it were for any being free,
To covet fetters, though they golden be.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #45 on:** February 05, 2009, 02:14:30 PM »

ah is that our sweet revenge do you think Anna - that death is avenged when humanity continues

I like the idea however I also like the idea of embracing death as a friend since we will all meet death -

Reminds me of the old childhood story to learn how a person will react during danger - if a bear comes on your path while taking a walk what would you do and I remember my son saying he would give the bear a piece of candy -

I think that is where I am with death - rather then making death smug or haughty which says death has power over me - hmmm maybe so but I would rather we be friends, death and I, so that we can walk together towards my dropping my human form.

Last month I had the most astonishing revelation from a dying homeless man - my friend Charlotte and I were at our monthly visit to Mary House where the homeless can go to die so they do not have to die on the streets

Father Rick from St. Ed's says mass and afterwards we all partake of a pot luck supper - There are as many as 20 and as few as 10 present during these evenings.

During Mass, said around the big table, after the Gospel there is about 15 minutes of discussion with most everyone contributing and this young [about 35] year old with broken English, using a tone as if checking with Father Rick if he is on target says; we are all Spirit - that we know how to be spirit - we are on this earth in a physical form to learn how to become human - that it is only during a life on earth we have the opportunity to learn to be human.

I was blown away with this thought and it has held me in its grasp ever since - they young man died two weeks ago but he made a lasting impression on my thinking.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #46 on:** February 05, 2009, 02:15:19 PM »

Alf - so glad to see you poke your nose in - thanks for your thoughts.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #47 on:** February 06, 2009, 03:48:26 AM »

Virginibus Puerisque . . .
Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

I care not that one listen if he lives
For aught but life's romance, nor puts above
All life's necessities the need to love,
Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives.
But sometime on an afternoon in spring,
When dandelions dot the fields with gold,
And under rustling shade a few weeks old
'Tis sweet to stroll and hear the bluebirds sing,
Do you, blond head, whom beauty and the power
Of being young and winsome have prepared
For life's last privilege that really pays,
Make the companion of an idle hour
These relics of the time when I too fared
Across the sweet fifth lustrum of my days.

Babi · « **Reply #48 on:** February 06, 2009, 08:55:10 AM »

FAIRANNA, I also thought Donne's poem meant that death is not truly a victor, that the spirit lives on.

Quote

"I also like the idea of embracing death as a friend since we will all meet death-"

BARB, I once read a similar expression of this idea as being part of a Southwestern Indian's beliefs. (Don't remember the details, sorry) He said that a true warrior thinks of death as a friend standing always just behind his shoulder; that if one lives life as though death may come at any moment, it adds much to the way one lives. This is, of course, a paraphrase that reflects my memory of the idea.

I read this Masefield sonnet several times, and though I was caught by the images of his 'probing' and searching, I confess I do not understand the poem.
Any opinions on this?

SONNET
FLESH, I have knocked at many a dusty door,
Gone down full many a midnight lane,
Probed in old walls and felt along the floor,
Pressed in blind hope the lighted window-pane,
But useless all, though sometimes when the moon
Was full in heaven and the sea was full,
Along my body's alleys came a tune
Played in the tavern by the Beautiful.
Then for an instant I have felt at point
To find and seize her, whosoe'er she be,
Whether some saint whose glory doth anoint
Those whom she loves, or but a part of me,
Or something that the things not understood
Make for their uses out of flesh and blood.

fairanna · « **Reply #49 on:** February 06, 2009, 10:17:19 AM »

Babi I understand the Indian belief as well. A few days before my husbands death we were trying to help him and he pushed us away and said LET ME GO HOME LET ME GO HOME now I knew he was speaking of his heavenly home and true we were trying to keep him here ..for us ...that night I held him as usual and said a prayer when I said amen to my outward prayer I added a silent prayer that we understood he needed to be with God and said we were ready and later that night he died quietly in his sleep,

I think that some poems are written at a time when death seems to reign...ie plagues, war, pestilence and perhaps Donne wrote his poem with that in mind..this made me think of another poem

it seems to be in the same thought wave

the poem you posted I understand

Alexander Pope - The Dying Christian to His Soul
Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?

,,,in fact I think we all do in various ways....we want to live life to the fullest ....we want to know and understand it all a lust for life , an eagerness to know it all .....not just the love of a person but of all things...and sometimes all that eludes us ..I am enjoying reading and trying to comprehend the poet and the poem something we miss when we read alone....

Added: on July 24th, 2005 at 4:58 AM | Viewed: 1851 times | Comments (1)

Babi · « **Reply #50 on:** February 07, 2009, 09:32:12 AM »

Quote

"Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life."

That does say it quite beautifully, doesn't it? However, FAIRANNA, if you understand the poem I posted, please explain it to me. $:-\$

fairanna · « **Reply #51 on:** February 07, 2009, 09:56:53 AM »

Babi well I had split my comments and this was what I was saying about the poem you posted....some days I am a "bit" ditsie ...

,,,in fact I think we all do in various ways....we want to live life to the fullest ....we want to know and understand it all a lust for life , an eagerness to know it all .....not just the love of a person but of all things...and sometimes all that eludes us ..I am enjoying reading and trying to comprehend the poet and the poem something we miss when we read alone....

Babi · « **Reply #52 on:** February 07, 2009, 10:28:29 AM »

FAIRANNA, I read your remarks and re-read the poem, and feel I understand it a bit better now. He was looking for the Beautiful, of whatever kind, and from whatever source. That makes sense to me.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #53 on:** February 08, 2009, 06:10:35 PM »

Remember - Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad

fairanna · « **Reply #54 on:** February 08, 2009, 08:45:17 PM »

Barbara I have read Rossetti and I love the last lines of this poem....I have told my family if I should die here in my home I want no tears but for them to gather in the living and turn on lights on the Christmas tree I have left ready now for six years ...and tell all the funny stories...and I WILL BE GLAD

below is what is called a modern day sonnet ...it is freer in rhythm and I am glad to know that some poems I have read or written are sonnets too....

Swan Song by Gerald Stern
A bunch of old snakeheads down by the pond
carrying on the swan tradition -- hissing
inside their white bodies, raising and lowering their heads
like ostriches, regretting only the sad ritual
that forced them to waddle back into the water
after their life under the rocks, wishing they could lie again
in the sun

and dream of spreading their terrifying wings;
wishing, this time, they could sail through the sky like
horses,
their tails rigid, their white manes fluttering,
their mouths open, their sharp teeth flashing,
drops of mercy pouring from their eyes,
bolts of wisdom from their foreheads.

I think a lot of people reach that stage where they wish they had done things differently...

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #55 on:** February 08, 2009, 09:44:17 PM »

ah yes, but I have decided that after an experience is when we are smarter so of course if we had those smarts going into the experience we would have made a different decision - how we chastise ourselves don't we or we wish we had a different life -

My good friend turns 90 next month and while we were at the Conversation Cafe at Seaton Cove talking about What we are becoming she acknowledged that she now has limitations that keep her from doing the things that brought such satisfaction and joy into her life - I realized that we all have limitations regardless our age - and that our dreams are often greater then our reality will permit - I guess for those of us with large imaginations it is like being in the candy factory and having to limit our sampling so we do not end up ill - and then trying to choose one or two from such an array - life can be a tease can't it.

this is not a Sonnet but how pertinant although reading it you have to put your wry and ironic face on or else it sounds like a monster talking.

Frustration

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

Dorothy Parker

And then a Sonnet by Milton from another more polite era

XVI

When I consider how my light is spent,
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite

fairanna · « **Reply #56 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:20:34 PM »

Parker was a rather disgruntled person I think ..she has sharp wit and I have always felt she was not really a happy person....Milton's last line must have been used in many speeches because I recognize it .....

my surgery is scheduled early Tues so I have no idea when or how quickly my new lens will work so many have given glowing words about their surgery but since I am having a nearsighted lens inserted to go with my farsighted one I am a bit concerned how quickly it will work if it does well I shall come in and say HURRAH !!!!

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #57 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:21:44 PM »

wishing you a HURRAH

Babi · « **Reply #58 on:** February 09, 2009, 09:54:20 AM »

I was pleased to read the Milton sonnet and discover the source of "They also serve who only stand and wait". More than once I have heard that line quoted in a military setting, where soldiers are rushed to some place where they then just stand, or sit, and wait, and wait, and wait!

I read some of Thomas Hardy's sonnets. He uses a somewhat different form, but the content tends to be as gloomy as his prose. Here is one of them, somewhat lighter than others.

III

I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will!
And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye
That he did not discern and domicile
One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!

I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime
Of manhood who deal gently with me here;
Amid the happy people of my time
Who work their love's fulfilment, I appear

Numb as a vane that cankers on its point,
True to the wind that kissed ere canker came:
Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint
The mind from memory, making Life all aim,
My old dexterities in witchery gone,
And nothing left for Love to look upon.

fairanna · « **Reply #59 on:** February 09, 2009, 10:14:31 AM »

Wow that poem sounds like an old person who is accepting his age and the things left behind,....
There are times I feel the same way...and am so glad I have memories to cherish because sometimes that is all one ends with ...

I have a book of all of his poems waiting to share when whatever month we look into his works ....well I am busy with eye drops etc and the only thing I will have to get up at six am tomorrow to be at the hospital by 8 and no breakfast before I go,,,I am hungry already...warmer here than usual for this time of the year and the robins in my yard promise spring is near...hopefully...

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #60 on:** February 09, 2009, 03:07:06 PM »

Rest and sleep good tonight Anna to build up your nerves - you will be fine - really!

Spring is around the corner here as well...

Sonnet 98

by William Shakespeare (1609)

From you have I been absent in the spring
When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

Babi · « **Reply #61 on:** February 10, 2009, 08:38:23 AM »

Which encourages me to post a favorite Shakespeare sonnet:

[u]XXX[/u]

When to the sessions of sweet silent thouight
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's
waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #62 on:** February 10, 2009, 12:46:03 PM »

Oh Babi - I have not ever read this one and it is soooo perfect - thank you, thank you - I must read it over and over - so true - and yet, there are small reminders of loss that this poem suggests to me I would be better finding another reaction then to repeat the moans, tears, and unrequited longings of my past...

Hope Anna is doing well - she is on my mind this morning...

pike99 · « **Reply #63 on:** February 10, 2009, 09:37:29 PM »

I like to read poetry ,mostly to myself,but sometimes out loud when others are around. I guess that goes back to high school days when the English teachers would either read aloud to the class or the students would read aloud. I especially liked the discussions that would follow. Does that sort of activity stiil happen today?
I read New Yorker Magazine for the poems and will sometimes cut them out to save in a file.
Poems seem to touch deeply in a way that defies description. I was just re-reading some poems of Kenneth Patchen from books that I collected in the 70's.
One of my favorite contemporary poets is Mary Oliver. I love the imagery in her nature poems.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #64 on:** February 10, 2009, 11:51:25 PM »

So glad you posted Pike - I wonder as well if children hear poetry in school as we did when we were young. We were still of the generation where we memorized poems but not the long ones that my parents were memorizing when they where in grade school.

Pike, this month we are focusing on the Sonnet - so please if you find a Sonnet in your collection or online would you share it with us -

Each month we focused on either a poet or a type of Poetry - Next month, if Anna is up to it, her plan is to focus us on the work of Thomas Hardy.

Here is a Sonnet from another poet we focused on a couple of years ago

Glanmore Sonnets
by Seamus Heaney

Soft corrugations in the boortree's trunk,
Its green young shoots, its rods like freckled solder:
It was our bower as children, a greenish, dank
And snapping memory as I get older.
And elderberry I have learned to call it.
I love its blooms like saucers brimmed with meal,
Its berries a swart caviar of shot,
A buoyant spawn, a light bruised out of purple.
Elderberry? It is shires dreaming wine.
Boortree is bower tree, where I played 'touching tongues'
And felt another's texture quick on mine.
So, etymologist of roots and graftings,
I fall back to my tree-house and would crouch
Where small buds shoot and flourish in the hush.

Babi · « **Reply #65 on:** February 11, 2009, 09:51:11 AM »

PIKE, I enjoyed the occasional opportunity to read out loud, too. I remember finding a couple of sonnets..I thought they were by Shakespeare, but I can't find them now... that were wickedly funny. Some faithless female was getting the needle with all of Shakespeare's skill. I and my listeners got a good laugh from them.

BARB, one of my fond memories of school was the woman who would come in to teach poetry. She liked to read us those 'poems that tell a story', and I still remember portions of them.

I had never heard of a 'boortree', but the name caught my imagination.
I went searching, and found this...too good not to share.

But elder has always been a plant of mystery and controversy, clouded in superstition and folklore, associated with fairies and magic. In the countryside, mature cut-back elder is valued as a sturdy basis for hedging while small boys once used the soft-centred twigs as pea-shooters to direct shots at their companions.

This opportunist bush/tree and haunt of old graveyards, rubbish heaps, roadsides and drains has always swung between the poles of acceptability and usefulness, and distaste. The young leaves have a stale smell yet the flowers are fragrant. Its very anatomy is contradictory: too big to be a bush, too small to be a tree. The roots and heartwood are as hard as ebony, its branches soft and pithy.

There is folklore that places it as the wood of the Cross, or of the tree from which Judas hanged himself! There is an old Scottish verse that goes: "Boor-tree, boor-tree, crookit rung/ Never straight and never strong/ Ever bush and never tree/ Since Our Lord was nailed to ye."

Some country folk would have a bush near the door to ward off evil, although a more practical reason would be to keep flies away. Cattle will loiter under elders seeking rest from summer insects. Perhaps it has to do with the smell of the leaves.

fairanna · « **Reply #66 on:** February 11, 2009, 09:52:47 AM »

A report to all is in the following poem HURRAH

I had forgotten how clear colors used to be
How special to stand in front of the mirror's
Glass , beneath a brilliant light and see
Behind me on the wall, paintings bright and clear
A small embroidered verse and read it's message
As if it were close and near, outside the window
Some wild vine had climbed the tree and now
Each leaf and tendril again appeared
No longer with a touch of gray but brilliant hues
How special it is to be my age and see
As if I am the twenty two I often claim to be
How medical science has reached a time
When instead of the thick and heavy lens
Used in the past , cataracts can be denied
And light and color and shape can
Bring the world once more into plain view......

a thank you for Dr Spellman and his crew....

anna alexander February 10, 2009, 10:26 PM

Babi · « **Reply #67 on:** February 11, 2009, 10:30:19 AM »

How wonderful, Fairanna! Both the poem and the splendid results. I know Dr. Spellman and 'his crew' will cherish that poem.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #68 on:** February 11, 2009, 01:57:55 PM »

Great Anna - just Great - and yes, wonderful poem - I am so pleased for you...

interesting bit about the tree/bush Babi - I had not heard about the elder - so many folktails that we no longer take to heart and when was the last time you saw a young boy with a sling shot sticking out of his back pocket.

fairanna · « **Reply #69 on:** February 11, 2009, 08:57:27 PM »

I found a link to a place where a Shakespearen sonnet is shown and then what they call an English Translation now what do you think of them

Shakespeare's Sonnet 83: I Never Saw That You Did Painting Need

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumb;
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
Than both your poets can in praise devise.

Sonnet 83: Translation to modern English

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've never thought that representations of you need elaboration, so I haven't described your beauty in elaborate verse. I could see - or thought I could see - that you were above the skills of any poet. Therefore, I've made no effort to represent you so that you yourself, by virtue of your very existence, would be able to demonstrate how far short modern verse would come in representing quality - the real quality that you possess. You regarded my silence as a fault, but I'm proud of it because my silence doesn't detract from your beauty, whereas others destroy it by trying to bring it to life. There's more life in one of your beautiful eyes than all of your poets can invent in their praise of you.

Babi · « **Reply #70 on:** February 12, 2009, 08:56:38 AM »

Personally, I think the modern version of Sonnet 83 is more understandable, but hardly convincing as an excuse to the lady.

A sonnet about sonnets, by the brilliant Christina Rosetti:

"Sonnets are full of love..."

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

fairanna · « **Reply #71 on:** February 14, 2009, 10:00:27 AM »

No sonnet but just a poem written in 1995 ---found this year while going through boxes of old papers. written on lined paper and the card near...Happy Valentine Day to everyone because I know each of you are remembered by someone special as well....

Valentines Day 1995

Last year your card addressed to my love on Sweethearts Day
Is cherished more this year
It was the omega of ones
That marked days back then
I am still your sweetheart
Just as you are mine-
NOTHING has changed
I am still blessed by the memory of your smile -
It warms my heart .
I know somewhere you still say
"You are my love on Sweetheart's Day"

written on the date above by
anna alexander for her Bob
who left her in March 1994
to return to "His Home"

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #72 on:** February 15, 2009, 03:18:54 AM »

Here is an old friend -- Pablo Neruda

Love Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #73 on:** February 15, 2009, 03:39:27 AM »

This is a photo of the lake and volcano not far from Quitratue in a place called Villarrica in Southern Chile - Quitrature is flatter with a stream flowing through from the snow melt
http://tiny.cc/o0ZO4

Babi · « **Reply #74 on:** February 15, 2009, 10:40:07 AM »

BARB, I find myself wondering just what a 'savage harvest' is, and what it's color would be?

fairanna · « **Reply #75 on:** February 15, 2009, 11:28:27 AM »

Barbara thanks for the poem ..neruda has a special way of saying what he wants to convey...his poetry stirs me in unexpected ways...this is a passionate man in all ways..even his socks speak to him...he helps me to notice what life and the world offers ....

Babi a savage harvest.. what comes to my mind are the miles of corn stalks emptied of corn and the stalks browning in the sun...the miles of wheat across the prairies like an ocean waving its golden sunwarmed offering....I see the hands deep tanned and perhaps a bit worn from living ...but to the poet special because they were used to live not pale and manicured and kept in a hothouse ...I dont know each poet and each poem and each reader sees differently ..what it means to each is up to the person and I can only share what I see and feel when I read a poem What do you see

??

PS an the color or an almond is very deep tan ....

fairanna · « **Reply #76 on:** February 15, 2009, 11:40:01 AM »

Barbara I checked out the photo and had to laugh at the remark that a woman is like a volcano I am laughing at the idea right now and funny but that is the first thing I thought when I looked at the photo...a volcano often looks calm and serene but just dont set it off ...I am remembering when we visited Pompeii that the people there were buried under many feet of ash....it was such a stupendous thought as we walked the streets and saw the homes that had been uncovered.and that a lot of the surgical instruments are like ones we still use ...I often think NOTHING is truly new...by the way my eye is working so well .I must ask him when I go in for my next checkup what process he used ...there are more than one according to the literature they gave me ...God Bless all

Babi · « **Reply #77 on:** February 16, 2009, 08:48:35 AM »

Thanks for your reply, ANNA. 'Harvest' usually makes me think of corn and wheat fields, too. It is the 'savage harvest' that threw me. I'd like to ask him what he meant by that.

Here is a very modern sonnet, though it's subject goes back a long and painful way...

American Sonnet (10)
by Wanda Coleman

after Lowell

our mothers wrung hell and hardtack from row
and boll. fenced others'
gardens with bones of lovers. embarking
from Africa in chains
reluctant pilgrims stolen by Jehovah's light
planted here the bitter
seed of blight and here eternal torches mark
the shame of Moloch's mansions
built in slavery's name. our hungered eyes
do see/refuse the dark
illuminate the blood-soaked steps of each
historic gain. a yearning
yearning to avenge the raping of the womb
from which we spring

fairanna · « **Reply #78 on:** February 16, 2009, 10:18:40 AM »

Babi regardless of how far you may have advanced I would think remembering how you came to America through slavery has to give one pain....I know when I read the story of the potato famine in Ireland that brought my ancestors here I can almost hate the English since they were the landlords and they refused to give help and allowed millions to starve to death because they didnt want them to become dependent on them ..I am truly glad we are becoming a melting pot ...well enough of my thinking but will just share a sonnet ,...oh yes it is hard to understand "savage" harvest but then neruda was Chilean and it meant something to him and his readers so perhaps it is understandable we dont understand ;-)

At a Lunar Eclipse

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

Thomas Hardy

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #79 on:** February 19, 2009, 01:54:43 PM »

with Charles Lamb's name coming up in the current Fiction Discussion I looked and sure enough here is a Sonnet written by Charles Lamb.

A timid grace sits trembling in her eye

A timid grace sits trembling in her eye,
As loath to meet the rudeness of men's sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light
That steeps in kind oblivious ecstasy
The care-crazed mind, like some still melody:
Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess
Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness,
And innocent loves, and maiden purity:
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart
Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind:
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart
Of him who hates his brethren of mankind.
Turned are those lights from me, who fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.

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