I cannot take the laurels of my sanctimony until I am only a ladel passing time
Through the mouth, taste the salt, through the tongue, taste my heart
Though my ability, taste my tears, through my stability, take my lemon
Far away far away this happiness is drifting to a storm that is looming
To a time I will be able to enjoy this rainy weather and finally focus on me
Finally create a living thing that breathes and sinks and croaks to be free
Finally able to hullaballoo about whatevah the hell I be
Toppling toppling telling time by the rise of the moon
The wave of my flag and understand finally an okay me.
It takes time, dear, to give a novel breath.
(It is late and I am waking up early tomorrow and I am behind on work, my husband is sick, I am tip-toeing along with NaNoWriMo and I miss my family. Okay, so I put that last part in about missing my family because I needed to put the 'and' in that horribly constructed sentence. Of course I miss my family, I always miss my family, but now I'm just getting pitiful. Sweet dreams all).
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Monday, November 15, 2010
Lorca - Sonnet about the Letter
My innermost of loves, my waking death,
in vain I still await your written word,
watching this flower wilt. I swear,
I'd give you up before I lose my sense.
It's air that is immortal; stone is dumb,
incapable of knowing shadow or
avoiding it. My deeply buried
heart rejects the frozen honey shed by the moon.
And yet I suffered over you. I gashed
my veins, at once a tiger and a bird,
white lilies dueling jaws about your waist.
So saturate my lunacy with words
or leave me finally to live in peace,
my soul's long night eternally devoid of stars.
Of all the poems I have set to memory, this one has stuck with me with a fervor. I think I understand Lorca's absolute crazy passion and even though I have someone in my life who is my "Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly", it doesn't ease the dread of rehearsals starting up again that will keep him from me from 7:30 Am to 11:30 pm. Until March.
So I have that for which Lorca longs, in a sense, but in another, I know in two weeks I will duly wish for my love to saturate my lunacy with time.
Pasted from http://webdelsol.com/Marlboro_Review/lorca.html
in vain I still await your written word,
watching this flower wilt. I swear,
I'd give you up before I lose my sense.
It's air that is immortal; stone is dumb,
incapable of knowing shadow or
avoiding it. My deeply buried
heart rejects the frozen honey shed by the moon.
And yet I suffered over you. I gashed
my veins, at once a tiger and a bird,
white lilies dueling jaws about your waist.
So saturate my lunacy with words
or leave me finally to live in peace,
my soul's long night eternally devoid of stars.
Of all the poems I have set to memory, this one has stuck with me with a fervor. I think I understand Lorca's absolute crazy passion and even though I have someone in my life who is my "Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly", it doesn't ease the dread of rehearsals starting up again that will keep him from me from 7:30 Am to 11:30 pm. Until March.
So I have that for which Lorca longs, in a sense, but in another, I know in two weeks I will duly wish for my love to saturate my lunacy with time.
Pasted from http://webdelsol.com/Marlboro_Review/lorca.html
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Carl Sandberg - Passers-by
(As I am just now finishing work for the day, only to go back tomorrow probably before the sun goes up, only someone like Carl Sandberg helps me realize that even though Atlas would like to, he doesn't always shrug. This is why.)
PASSERS-BY
Out of your many faces
Flash memories to me
Now at the day end
Away from the sidewalks
Where your shoe soles traveled
And your voices rose and blend
To form the city's afternoon roar
Hindering an old silence.
Passers-by,
I remember lean ones among you,
Throats in the clutch of a hope,
Lips written over with strivings,
Mouths that kiss only for love.
Records of great wishes slept with,
Held long
And prayed and toiled for. .
Yes,
Written on
Your mouths
And your throats
I read them
When you passed by.
Pasted from
PASSERS-BY
Out of your many faces
Flash memories to me
Now at the day end
Away from the sidewalks
Where your shoe soles traveled
And your voices rose and blend
To form the city's afternoon roar
Hindering an old silence.
Passers-by,
I remember lean ones among you,
Throats in the clutch of a hope,
Lips written over with strivings,
Mouths that kiss only for love.
Records of great wishes slept with,
Held long
And prayed and toiled for. .
Yes,
Written on
Your mouths
And your throats
I read them
When you passed by.
Pasted from
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Wasting Form
On stage, on screen, in lyric, stroke, step,
You were the pulse of my veins, the catch of my breath.
I wasted Meisner for you and the stage
But only the stage remembers.
You were the pulse of my veins, the catch of my breath.
I wasted Meisner for you and the stage
But only the stage remembers.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Random Angle - Oscar Wilde
My husband is opening a show about Oscar Wilde this weekend. I'm pretty excited, and have actually been excited for over a month now, I would say. I had definitely known of Wilde and read some of his more famous works in the past, but when Michael started reading the script, which is primarily of Wilde's trials, my interest was piqued.
I love when Michael is in a new show, becuase that's a great excuse for me to read up on the playwright or subject for at least a month to gain some insight for when I see the show. Since his foray into a play about Jazz musicians at the fall of Jazz and the rise of Elvis, both Michael and I have become avid Jazz lovers. His graduate thesis on George Bernard Shaw also inclined me to his other works and an admiration for his mind. No matter the topic: drugs, certain types of comedy, period pieces, etc, it's a great chance to take in culture and knowledge.
So, reading up on Oscar Wilde has been a treat. I have reviewed poems, listened to audiobooks, took in his De Profundis (his first work after his stint in jail near the end of his life) and watched Wilde - the biopic, masterfully portrayed by Stephen Fry (though a little shocking at points).
One poem that has been particularly striking to me has been a poem reflecting on his time in jail, "A Ballad of Reading Gaol"
Considering that this man was prosecuted for 'gross indecency' (what they described his primarily homosexual acts), and considering the lifestyle I grew up with (primarily conservative christian), he brings some interesting takes on life and sin and god.
Here are some excerpts I thought particularly interesting, though I would say that reading excerpts (especially of a poem) is never as good as the whole thing:
I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
The man who had to swing.
They think a murderer's heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God's kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.
Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?
But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man's despair.
So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
That God's Son died for all.
The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
Whom Christ came down to save.
This too I know—and wise it were
If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
How men their brothers maim
I love when Michael is in a new show, becuase that's a great excuse for me to read up on the playwright or subject for at least a month to gain some insight for when I see the show. Since his foray into a play about Jazz musicians at the fall of Jazz and the rise of Elvis, both Michael and I have become avid Jazz lovers. His graduate thesis on George Bernard Shaw also inclined me to his other works and an admiration for his mind. No matter the topic: drugs, certain types of comedy, period pieces, etc, it's a great chance to take in culture and knowledge.
So, reading up on Oscar Wilde has been a treat. I have reviewed poems, listened to audiobooks, took in his De Profundis (his first work after his stint in jail near the end of his life) and watched Wilde - the biopic, masterfully portrayed by Stephen Fry (though a little shocking at points).
One poem that has been particularly striking to me has been a poem reflecting on his time in jail, "A Ballad of Reading Gaol"
Considering that this man was prosecuted for 'gross indecency' (what they described his primarily homosexual acts), and considering the lifestyle I grew up with (primarily conservative christian), he brings some interesting takes on life and sin and god.
Here are some excerpts I thought particularly interesting, though I would say that reading excerpts (especially of a poem) is never as good as the whole thing:
I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
The man who had to swing.
They think a murderer's heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God's kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.
Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope's sight?
But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man's despair.
So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
That God's Son died for all.
The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
Whom Christ came down to save.
This too I know—and wise it were
If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
How men their brothers maim
Monday, October 4, 2010
Random Angle
In an effort to slowly get back to writing and expressing through art in different forms, I have been thinking about the pieces of art that have made the most impact. So, a little delving into the pieces that formed me:
1. Chopin - The Pianist, directed by Roman Polaski, (some say) was slow in the first act, marvelous the second act. I think that I was just mesmorized by the soundtrack the whole way through. I attest that Looney Tunes made me love the magic of classical music. I never really laughed at it, I always just listened. Then, in highschool I read A Clockwork Orange, which piqued my distaste of classical music (interestingly enough. The government didn't really bother me til later). It was The Pianist (specifically, Chopin) that brought me back to the magic of classical music.
2. Dylan Thomas - Probably when I was too young to understand Thomas' poetry, I was handed a book of 23 of his poems. Nothing special, except that I have not read and re-read someone's poetry as much as his. A little excerpt (by Dylan Thomas, "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower"):
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age;
That blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
3. Flute Greatest Hits. No kidding. I got this album in Jr High, and I have since been striving to learn each piece that was on that album. One piece, Dance of the Blessed Spirits, by Gluck, is the only piece that I have had memorized for over 10 years. You also can't imagine my disappointment when I found out that Maple Leaf Rag by Gershwin wasn't written for flute (remember this is Jr High, I wasn't exactly well-versed in classical music). I'm still a little baffled why 1) it's on this album, and 2) if it's one of Flute's Greatest Hits, I still haven't found a rendering for flute. Se la vi.
1. Chopin - The Pianist, directed by Roman Polaski, (some say) was slow in the first act, marvelous the second act. I think that I was just mesmorized by the soundtrack the whole way through. I attest that Looney Tunes made me love the magic of classical music. I never really laughed at it, I always just listened. Then, in highschool I read A Clockwork Orange, which piqued my distaste of classical music (interestingly enough. The government didn't really bother me til later). It was The Pianist (specifically, Chopin) that brought me back to the magic of classical music.
2. Dylan Thomas - Probably when I was too young to understand Thomas' poetry, I was handed a book of 23 of his poems. Nothing special, except that I have not read and re-read someone's poetry as much as his. A little excerpt (by Dylan Thomas, "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower"):
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age;
That blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
3. Flute Greatest Hits. No kidding. I got this album in Jr High, and I have since been striving to learn each piece that was on that album. One piece, Dance of the Blessed Spirits, by Gluck, is the only piece that I have had memorized for over 10 years. You also can't imagine my disappointment when I found out that Maple Leaf Rag by Gershwin wasn't written for flute (remember this is Jr High, I wasn't exactly well-versed in classical music). I'm still a little baffled why 1) it's on this album, and 2) if it's one of Flute's Greatest Hits, I still haven't found a rendering for flute. Se la vi.
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