Poetry Jam

#2
#2
From Christmas in India by Rudyard Kipling:
High noon behind the tamarisks - the sun is hot
above us -
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner - those who tell
us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
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#4
#4
Some Charles Bukowski

A Radio With Guts


it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I'd tell my woman,
"Ah, what a marvelous radio!"
the next morning I'd take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I'd take the window
back to the glass man.
I don't remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
there was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.
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love the ending (no pun intended)
 
#8
#8
I don't know,
but I've been told
a green grasshopper
got a red azzhole.

How's that?:)
 
#9
#9
therealUT said:
That was fantastic. Thank you for that.
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:hi:

Bukowski is awesome. If you haven't read any or much I'd suggest starting with Post Office or Women (both novels).

For poetry try "Love is a Dog from Hell".

One of my favorite CB quotes

"Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing."
— Charles Bukowski
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#10
#10
A little bit of James Kavanaugh, anyone?
There Are Men Too Gentle

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle too live among wolves
Who devour them with appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men to gentle too live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

Unafraid To Be Free

Finally unafraid to be free,
Ready to surrender all the illusions of
recognition and external securities,
Living off the sky and earth like soaring
eagles and braying burros,
Trusting in a Power even beyond Dow Jones
and hoarded retirement.
Finally ready to live like the noble animal that I am-
Without masters or servants, with dignity dependent on no one,
Content to know that I am God's child, and
only good has been prepared for me.
When I am not afraid to release all that my life
and culture taught me to prize.
To abandon fears once and for all, to discard the
anxieties of a lifetime like a suit that no longer fits,
To be afraid of no one, beholden to no one,
dependent on no one
Save the few who know and love me as I am,
and the God Who alone gives meaning and joy
to the madness of my life.
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I also love his "Will You Be My Friend" poem.
 
#11
#11
Another from CB - much more of a downer

"there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant."
— Charles Bukowski (Love is a Dog From Hell: Poems, 1974-1977)
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#13
#13
Rumi, anyone?
Who Says Words With My Mouth

Who looks out with my eyes? What is
the soul? I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
That's fine with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.

They say there's no future for us. They're right.
Which is fine with us.

Real value comes with madness,
matzoob below, scientist above.

Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief

disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises.
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#14
#14
volinbham said:
:hi:

Bukowski is awesome. If you haven't read any or much I'd suggest starting with Post Office or Women (both novels).

For poetry try "Love is a Dog from Hell".

One of my favorite CB quotes
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Awesome you'd bring up CB. I just got Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame this week after reading Post Office. Love his work.
 
#15
#15
CSVol said:
Awesome you'd bring up CB. I just got Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame this week after reading Post Office. Love his work.
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Don't know that one - I'll check it out.

Women is my favorite. It has the humor of Post Office but is without the endless misery of Ham on Rye or Factotum.

Like most CB stories is mildly fictionalized autobiography about sex, drinking, gambling, destitution, brief redemption and pure day to day living.
 
#19
#19
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

-John Donne
 
#22
#22
*

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK

by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)


I enjoyed that as a student and teacher.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#23
#23
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those spirits dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
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R.W. Emerson.
 
#25
#25
My Heart's In The Highlands

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

Robert Burns
 
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