A Paradise of Poems
By Camellia Yang
A Paradise of PoemsJul 17, 2020
SPECIAL EPISODE: Live Rehearsal Session @VIC // Aveiro Arts House
This is a non-editing/filtering version of a live rehearsal session between me and João Grillo (guitarist).
One day later, we performed at Lovecraft Beer Lounge Aveiro :)
Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.
BGM by Katrina Stone - Digging Tunnels - Instrumental Version
The Course Of Life by Friedrich Holderlin
You too wanted better things, but love
forces all of us down. Sorrow bends us more
forcefully, but the arc doesn't return to its
point of origin without a reason.
Upwards or downwards! In holy Night,
where mute Nature plans the coming days,
doesn't there reign in the most twisted Orcus
something straight and direct?
This I have learned. Never to my knowledge
did you, all-preserving gods, like mortal
masters, lead me providentially
along a straight path.
The gods say that man should test
everything, and that strongly nourished
he be thankful for everything, and understand
the freedom to set forth wherever he will.
Let It Enfold You by Charles Bukowski
Final Story by Charles Bukowski
BGM by Aleksey Chistilin - The Story of One Life
Clouds and Waves by Rabindranath Tagore
Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
“We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon.”
I ask, “But how am I to get up to you ?”
They answer, “Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds.”
“My mother is waiting for me at home, “I say, “How can I leave
her and come?”
Then they smile and float away.
But I know a nicer game than that, mother.
I shall be the cloud and you the moon.
I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will
be the blue sky.
The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
“We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass.”
I ask, “But how am I to join you?”
They tell me, “Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves.”
I say, “My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?”
They smile, dance and pass by.
But I know a better game than that.
I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
laughter.
And no one in the world will know where we both are.
BGM by Nsee - Frozen Lake - Slowed and Reverbed
Writing by Charles Bukowski
often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that's
what it
is.
from blank gun silencer - 1991
BGM by Nsee - Bloom
The Sound of Trees by Robert Frost
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
Music by Break of Reality - Comfortable Silence
The Landscape by Don Paterson
The Landscape by Don Paterson
A Version
I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love is no longer those lilacs and roses whose breath filled the broad woods, where the sail of a flame lay at the end of each arrow-straight path.
I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love is no longer that storm whose white nerve sparked the castle towers, or left the mind unrhymed, or flared an instant, just where the road forked.
It is the star struck under my heel in the night.
It is the word no book on earth defines.
It is the foam on the wave, the cloud in the sky.
As they age, all things grow rigid and bright.
The streets fall nameless, and the knots untie.
Now, with this landscape, I fix; I shine.
Music by Diamonds And Ice - Blue
You Never Knew My Mind by Johnny Cash
YOU NEVER KNEW MY MIND
1967
I know you feel the way I change
But you can't change the way I feel
Sometimes I'm a stranger to you one of a kind
I chink some way you'll make it
Though you don't know how to take it You can't deal with how I'm thinkin'
Cause you never knew my mind
There were times of lots of laughter And you felt you understood me
We were carefree, open, honest
Loving easy, true and kind I suppose you never doubted then
That we had it all together
Then you say the changes painfully, and knew You never knew my mind
My silence holds the secrets when I answer, but don't answer
You didn't see me well enough to recognize the signs
You didn't want to know it's over
You never looked close enough to know
You never knew my mind
Music by Ardie Son - Sunken Days
Dreamland by Edgar Allan Poe
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE- out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by-
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
Music by Kyle Preston - Paragon
Life is Fine by Langston Hughes
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love—
But for livin' I was born
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry—
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!
Music by Tristan Barton - Full Bloom
Things that might have been by Jorge Luis Borges
I think about things that might have been and never were. The treatise on Saxon myths that Bede omitted to write. The inconceivable work that Dante may have glimpsed As soon as he corrected the Comedy's last verse. History without two afternoons: that of the hemlock, that of the Cross. History without Helen's face. Man without the eyes that have granted us the moon. Over three Gettysburg days, the victory of the South. The love we never shared. The vast empire the Vikings declined to found. The globe without the wheel, or without the rose. John Donne's judgment of Shakespeare. The Unicorn's other horn. The fabled Irish bird which alights in two places at once. The child I never had.
BGM: Simon Wester - Among Us
Meditation in Sunlight by May Sarton
In space in time I sit
Thousands of feet above
The sea and meditate
On solitude on love
Near all is brown and poor
Houses are made of earth
Sun opens every door
The city is a hearth
Far all is blue and strange
The sky looks down on snow
And meets the mountain-range
Where time is light not shadow
Time in the heart held still
Space as the household god
And joy instead of will
Knows love as solitude
Knows solitude as love
Knows time as light not shadow
Thousands of feet above
The sea where I am now
BGM: Simon Wester - Hope
Australia by A D Hope
A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: "we live" but "we survive",
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The World Cup by chatGPT (in George Orwell's style)
The World Cup, a global stage,
Where nations come to play,
A spectacle of skill and strength,
A test of will and might.
From distant lands they come,
These titans of the game,
To battle on the pitch,
In search of victory and fame.
For one bright month, the world will watch,
As players clash and scores are fought,
A drama of sweat and tears and blood,
A contest of both skill and luck.
And when the final whistle blows,
And the champion is crowned,
We'll look back on the tournament,
And all its highs and lows.
For the World Cup is more than just a game,
It's a celebration of the human spirit,
A triumph of will and determination,
A test of what we're truly worth.
p.s. this is an experiment with chatGPT read by @camelliayang
Football by chatGPT (in Winston Churchill's style)
Football, the beautiful game,
A source of passion and of shame,
A battle on the pitch of life,
Where heroes rise and villains thrive.
With leather ball and studded boots,
We chase and kick and score and hoot,
A symphony of cheers and groans,
As players clash and tackles flown.
For ninety minutes and beyond,
We fight for every inch of ground,
A contest of both mind and might,
Where victory is our sole delight.
So let us play with all our heart,
And never from the game depart,
For football is a noble art,
A test of strength, a test of spirit.
So let the whistle blow, my friends,
And let the match begin,
For football is a game that never ends,
A source of joy and sorrow and sin.
p.s. this is an experiment with chatGPT read by @camelliayang
A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe by Fernando Pessoa
II
My gaze is clear like a sunflower.
It is my custom to walk the roads
Looking right and left
And sometimes looking behind me,
And what I see at each moment
Is what I never saw before,
And I’m very good at noticing things.
I’m capable of feeling the same wonder
A newborn child would feel
If he noticed that he’d really and truly been born.
I feel at each moment that I’ve just been born
Into a completely new world...
I believe in the world as in a daisy,
Because I see it. But I don’t think about it,
Because to think is to not understand.
The world wasn’t made for us to think about it
(To think is to have eyes that aren’t well)
But to look at it and to be in agreement.
I have no philosophy, I have senses...
If I speak of Nature it’s not because I know what it is
But because I love it, and for that very reason,
Because those who love never know what they love
Or why they love, or what love is.
To love is eternal innocence,
And the only innocence is not to think...
8 March 1914
Countless lives inhabit us by Fernando Pessoa
Countless lives inhabit us.
I don’t know, when I think or feel,
Who it is that thinks or feels.
I am merely the place
Where things are thought or felt.
I have more than just one soul.
There are more I’s than I myself.
I exist, nevertheless,
Indifferent to them all.
I silence them: I speak.
The crossing urges of what
I feel or do not feel
Struggle in who I am, but I
Ignore them. They dictate nothing
To the I I know: I write.
© Translation: 1998, Richard Zenith
From: Fernando Pessoa & Co. – Selected Poems
Publisher: Grove Press, New York, 1998
Caged Bird by Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Messenger by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
SPECIAL EPISODE: Reading love poems by listeners
Last week, I invited you to share your favourite love poems.
Here are a few submissions by listeners, read in English, Chinese and German.
Enjoy :)
1. A love letter from the movie Green Book, read by Valerie Zhang
2. Lösch mir die Augen aus, read by Mr Liu (Lois Hong's dad)
3. A glimpse, read by Linda Leng
4. 致橡树 (To the Oak Tree), read by Jielin Liu
5. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? read by Monica Tong
6. On the beach, read by Ya Sun
Music by Cristof Walters
[SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT] Let's share the LOVE ❥(^_-)
Hello, my dear listeners.
I'm Camellia. The narrator of this podcast.
Thanks a lot for listening to my show over the past two years. I'm glad to have you along the journey with me to feel the beauty of those classic and modern poems.
Today is Chinese Valentine's Day, and I'd like to create a special episode featuring your favourite LOVE poetries. I'd like to invite you to read one of your favourite LOVE poems and send the audio recording to my email box (ymedianz@gmail.com). It can be in different languages and from various countries; as long as it's your favourite love poetry, that's good.
The recording quality doesn't need to be perfect, and you can use your mobile phone or computer to record. I'll collect all submissions early next week and make them into a special episode to post here with your name or any other links you'd like to include.
Thanks again for your love and support. I look forward to hearing back from your soon!
And here is one of my favourite love poems: Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Anywhere Out of the World by Charles Baudelaire
Life is a hospital where every patient is obsessed by the desire of changing beds. One would like to suffer opposite the stove, another is sure he would get well beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should be happy anywhere but where I am, and this question of moving is one that I am eternally discussing with my soul.
"Tell my, my soul, poor chilly soul, how would you like to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you would be as blissful as a lizard in the sun. It is a city by the sea; they say that it is built of marble, and that its inhabitants have such a horror of the vegetable kingdom that they tear up all the trees. You see it is a country after my own heart; a country entirely made of mineral and light, and with liquid to reflect them."
My soul does not reply.
"Since you are so fond of being motionless and watching the pageantry of movement, would you like to live in the beatific land of Holland? Perhaps you could enjoy yourself in that country which you have so long admired in paintings on museum walls. What do you say to Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts, and ships that are moored on the doorsteps of houses?"
My soul remains silent.
"Perhaps you would like Batavia better? There, moreover, we should find the wit of Europe wedded to the beauty of the tropics."
Not a word. Can my soul be dead?
"Have you sunk into so deep a stupor that you are happy only in your unhappiness? If that is the case, let us fly to countries that are the counterfeits of Death. I know just the place for us, poor soul. We will pack up our trunks for Torneo. We will go still farther, to the farthest end of the Baltic Sea; still farther from life if possible; we will settle at the Pole. There the sun only obliquely grazes the earth, and the slow alternations of daylight and night abolish variety and increase that other half of nothingness, monotony. There we can take deep baths of darkness, while sometimes for our entertainment, the Aurora Borealis will shoot up its rose-red sheafs like the reflections of the fireworks of hell!"
At last my soul explodes! "Anywhere! Just so it is out of the world!"
When a Heavy Lid of Low Sky by Charles Baudelaire
When a heavy lid of low sky
covers a soul moaning with ennui and fright,
and the whole horizon is rounded by
a black day pouring down, sadder than any night;
When the earth is turned to a muggy dungeon
where Hope is the shadow of a bat, feeling
with feeble, flapping wings along the grunge on
walls and bumping its head against a putrid ceiling;
When the crawling spiders of scattershot rains
drop cold bars that imprison us,
water trickles along the channels in our brains,
and the people around us feel poisonous—
the bells speak out suddenly with fury
and lance the sky with dreadful howls,
and frightened strays and exiles, sorry
and homeless, rage from deep within their bowels.
Long hearses roll, slow, silent, hypnotic,
through my soul. Hope, defeated, cries
out its atrocious anguish—despotic.
A black hood slides over my ferocious eyes.
The Poetry Reading by Charles Bukowski
at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the door
a dirty poem
somebody told me not to read dirty poems
here
it's too late.
my eyes can't see some lines
I read it
out-
desperate trembling
lousy
they can't hear my voice
and I say,
I quit, that's it, I'm
finished.
and later in my room
there's scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.
this then
will be my destiny:
scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since become tired
of.
and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.
Poetry Readings by Charles Bukowski
poetry readings have to be some of the saddest
damned things ever,
the gathering of the clansmen and clanladies,
week after week, month after month, year
after year,
getting old together,
reading on to tiny gatherings,
still hoping their genius will be
discovered,
making tapes together, discs together,
sweating for applause
they read basically to and for
each other,
they can't find a New York publisher
or one
within miles,
but they read on and on
in the poetry holes of America,
never daunted,
never considering the possibility that
their talent might be
thin, almost invisible,
they read on and on
before their mothers, their sisters, their husbands,
their wives, their friends, the other poets
and the handful of idiots who have wandered
in
from nowhere.
I am ashamed for them,
I am ashamed that they have to bolster each other,
I am ashamed for their lisping egos,
their lack of guts.
if these are our creators,
please, please give me something else:
a drunken plumber at a bowling alley,
a prelim boy in a four rounder,
a jock guiding his horse through along the
rail,
a bartender on last call,
a waitress pouring me a coffee,
a drunk sleeping in a deserted doorway,
a dog munching a dry bone,
an elephant's fart in a circus tent,
a 6 p.m. freeway crush,
the mailman telling a dirty joke
anything
anything
but
these.
She Was a Phantom of Delight by William Wordsworth
She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
Time to Come by Walt Whitman
O, Death! a black and pierceless pall
Hangs round thee, and the future state;
No eye may see, no mind may grasp
That mystery of Fate.
This brain, which now alternate throbs
With swelling hope and gloomy fear;
This heart, with all the changing hues,
That mortal passions bear—
This curious frame of human mould,
Where unrequited cravings play,
This brain, and heart, and wondrous form
Must all alike decay.
The leaping blood wili stop its flow;2
The hoarse death-struggle pass; the cheek
Lay bloomless, and the liquid tongue
Will then forget to speak.
The grave will take me; earth will close
O'er cold dull limbs and ashy face;
But where, O, Nature, where shall be
The soul's abiding place?
Will it e'en live? for though its light
Must shine till from the body torn;
Then, when the oil of life is spent,
Still shall the taper burn?
O, powerless is this struggling brain
To rend the mighty mystery;
In dark, uncertain awe it waits
The common doom, to die.
A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
Berkeley, 1955
My Sad Self by Allen Ginsberg
Sometimes when my eyes are red
I go up on top of the RCA Building
and gaze at my world, Manhattan—
my buildings, streets I’ve done feats in,
lofts, beds, coldwater flats
—on Fifth Ave below which I also bear in mind,
its ant cars, little yellow taxis, men
walking the size of specks of wool—
Panorama of the bridges, sunrise over Brooklyn machine,
sun go down over New Jersey where I was born
& Paterson where I played with ants—
my later loves on 15th Street,
my greater loves of Lower East Side,
my once fabulous amours in the Bronx
faraway—
paths crossing in these hidden streets,
my history summed up, my absences
and ecstasies in Harlem—
—sun shining down on all I own
in one eyeblink to the horizon
in my last eternity—
matter is water.
Sad,
I take the elevator and go
down, pondering,
and walk on the pavements staring into all man’s
plateglass, faces,
questioning after who loves,
and stop, bemused
in front of an automobile shopwindow
standing lost in calm thought,
traffic moving up & down 5th Avenue blocks behind me
waiting for a moment when ...
Time to go home & cook supper & listen to
the romantic war news on the radio
... all movement stops
& I walk in the timeless sadness of existence,
tenderness flowing thru the buildings,
my fingertips touching reality’s face,
my own face streaked with tears in the mirror
of some window—at dusk—
where I have no desire—
for bonbons—or to own the dresses or Japanese
lampshades of intellection—
Confused by the spectacle around me,
Man struggling up the street
with packages, newspapers,
ties, beautiful suits
toward his desire
Man, woman, streaming over the pavements
red lights clocking hurried watches &
movements at the curb—
And all these streets leading
so crosswise, honking, lengthily,
by avenues
stalked by high buildings or crusted into slums
thru such halting traffic
screaming cars and engines
so painfully to this
countryside, this graveyard
this stillness
on deathbed or mountain
once seen
never regained or desired
in the mind to come
where all Manhattan that I’ve seen must disappear.
New York, October 1958
Sonnet XXVI- I Lived With Visions by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come—to be,
Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendors (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts),
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.
If thou must love me... (Sonnet 14) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a 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, Belovèd, 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, through love's eternity.
After Summer Fell Apart by Yusef Komunyakaa
I can’t touch you.
His face always returns;
we exchange long looks
in each bad dream
& what I see, my God.
Honey, sweetheart,
I hold you against me
but nothing works.
Two boats moored,
rocking between nowhere
& nowhere.
A bone inside me whispers
maybe tonight,
but I keep thinking
about the two men wrestling nude
in Lawrence’s Women in Love.
I can’t get past
reels of breath unwinding.
He has you. Now
he doesn’t. He has you
again. Now he doesn’t.
You’re at the edge of azaleas
shaken loose by a word.
I see your rose-colored
skirt unfurl.
He has a knife
to your throat,
night birds come back
to their branches.
A hard wind raps at the door,
the new year prowling
in a black overcoat.
It’s been six months
since we made love.
Tonight I look at you
hugging the pillow,
half smiling in your sleep.
I want to shake you & ask
who. Again I touch myself,
unashamed, until
his face comes into focus.
He’s stolen something
from me & I don’t know
if it has a name or not—
like counting your ribs
with one foolish hand
& mine with the other.
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone by John Keats
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,
Bright eyes, accomplish’d shape, and lang’rous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise –
Vanish’d unseasonably at shut of eve,
When the dusk holiday – or holinight
Of fragrant-curtain’d love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight,
But, as I’ve read love’s missal through to-day,
He’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.
Within by Bianca Caruana
Nice to meet you, I said
I admire your strength
You have courage and patience
I once only dreamt
You stand tall and move forward with passion, yet grace
Your rivers are flowing, there is light on your face
And it emanates to all of the people around
And to me, I can see, there is something you’ve found
It’s something I was searching, a long while ago
A gem in the sand, a stone in the snow
I looked under, and over, past mountains, ‘round bends
And wandered, miles yonder, to the rainbow's end
The journey was thorough
But also quite long
I got tired and weathered
Lost the words to my song
May I ask you to help me
To teach me what you know
To move forward with strength
With the peace that you show
Well, you see, darling girl, you can pass rainbow’s end
And another, and another, it’s an infinite ascend
Or you can feel with your heart, put your toes in the sand
And know all you need is right where you stand
Life is here, it is now
You have more than you know
Look inside, not out there
Close your eyes and let go
Listen in to the sound of the voices within
The way trees talk to roots, and clouds talk to wind
There you’ll find all the answers you’ve been searching for
And the light that is dim will shine once more
Oh, thank you! I said, full of joy and much glee
Then I noticed
There was something familiar to me
I saw who she was
This woman was me
Kosmos by Walt Whitman
Who includes diversity and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth and the equilibrium also,
Who has not look’d forth from the windows the eyes for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing,
Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most majestic lover,
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the aesthetic or intellectual,
Who having consider’d the body finds all its organs and parts good,
Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these States;
Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in other globes with their suns and moons,
Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.
Insensibility by Wilfred Owen
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers.
But they are troops who fade, not flowers,
For poets’ tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling:
Losses, who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.
II
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance’s strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on armies’ decimation.
III
Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror’s first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small-drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men’s placidity from his.
VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever moans in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears.
In Warsaw by Czeslaw Milosz
What are you doing here, poet, on the ruins
Of St. John's Cathedral this sunny
Day in spring?
What are you thinking here, where the wind
Blowing from the Vistula scatters
The red dust of the rubble?
You swore never to be
A ritual mourner.
You swore never to touch
The deep wounds of your nation
So you would not make them holy
With the accursed holiness that pursues
Descendants for many centuries.
But the lament of Antigone
Searching for her brother
Is indeed beyond the power
Of endurance. And the heart
Is a stone in which is enclosed,
Like an insect, the dark love
Of a most unhappy land.
I did not want to love so.
That was not my design.
I did not want to pity so.
That was not my design.
My pen is lighter
Than a hummingbird's feather. This burden
Is too much for it to bear.
How can I live in this country
Where the foot knocks against
The unburied bones of kin?
I hear voices, see smiles. I cannot
Write anything; five hands
Seize my pen and order me to write
The story of their lives and deaths.
Was I born to become
a ritual mourner?
I want to sing of festivities,
The greenwood into which Shakespeare
Often took me. Leave
To poets a moment of happiness,
Otherwise your world will perish.
It's madness to live without joy
And to repeat to the dead
Whose part was to be gladness
Of action in thought and in the
Only two salvaged words:
Truth and justice.
Dreamwork Three by Jerome Rothenberg
a trembling old man dreams of a chinese garden
a comical old man dreams of newspapers under his rabbi's hat
a simple tavernkeeper dreams of icicles & fisheyes
a sinister tavernkeeper dreams of puddles with an angel of the law in every drop
the furrier's plump daughter is dreaming of a patch of old vanilla
the furrier's foreign daughter is dreaming of a hat from which a marten hangs
the proud accountant dreams of a trolleycar over the frozen river
the reluctant accountant dreams of his feet sleep in a fresh pair of red socks
the silly uncle dreams of a history written by a team of Spanish doctors
the uncle in the next apartment dreams of the cost of Katmandu
the retired gangster dreams of a right turn into a field of sacred lemons
the dancing gangster dreams of a carriage, a donkey, & a hand that holds the ace of spades
the grim man with a proposition dreams of his fingers entering a pair of gloves
the excited man with a proposition dreams of the letter E torn from the title of his poem
the remarkable elevator operator dreams of the marriage of karl marx
the easy elevator operator dreams of a seashell at the entry to the thirteenth floor
the candid photographer dreams of a wooden synagogue inside his brother's camera
the secret photographer dreams of a school of golden herrings drifting out to sea
the yiddish dadaist dreams of rare steaks & platonic pleasures
the rosy dadaist dreams that a honeycomb is being squashed against his face
the mysterious stranger dreams of a white tablecloth on which black threads are falling
the stranger whom no one sees dreams of his sister holding up a string of pearls
the asthmatic tax collector dreams of a row of sacred numbers
the rebellious tax collector dreams of a bathhouse set among old trees
the robust timber merchant dreams of a wind that blows inside the blacksmith's bellows
the sobbing timber merchant dreams that his hands have pressed the buttocks of his dreaming bride
the man with a fish between his teeth dreams of a famine for forty-five days
the man dressed in white dreams of a potato
the savage gentile dreams of a dancer with flashy lightbulbs on her shoes
the repentant gentile dreams of her fingers bringing honey to his lips
the fancy barber dreams that his hands massage the captain's neck
the silent barber dreams of a rooster with a thread tied to one leg
the salty bridegroom dreams of horses galloping they swirl around the bridegroom's house
the genuflecting bridegroom dreams of what his bride slides through her fingers he sees it white & trembling in the early sabbath light
the fat man in the derby dreams that it is spring that his seed soon will be falling through an empty sky
the ecstatic man in the derby dreams that if he dreams it his words will turn into flowers
A Paradise of Poets by Jerome Rothenberg
1
He takes a book down from his shelf & scribbles across a
page of text: I am the final one. This means the world will
end when he does.
2
In the Inferno, Dante conceives a Paradise of Poets & calls
it Limbo.
Foolishly he thinks his place is elsewhere.
3
Now the time has come to write a poem about a Paradise of Poets.
Out of the Window by Pratap Adhikary
Out of the window I see the heaven's divine shine
Proclaiming itself that the world belongs to mine
There stands the trees green and tall but as I look far in the mountains it seems very small
Out of the window I see the mankind where all in one chain are closely being bind
Performing their duties like heart hated soldiers carrying in their mind like enormous boulders
Out of the window I see wherever my eyes can go but it saddens me that today the world has turned into a bitter foe.
P.S. Happy birthday Pratap Adhikary!
Your lovely friend Gaurav wishes you a happy day and sends me this piece of the poem you wrote sitting next to him in class 11!
Enjoy!
Untitled by João Grillo
i become little
i become tiny
i become way bigger than myself
i become something i dont care to know for sure
splattered amid everything that's all around me
tied free and loose
bound by air
interconnected intent
This woven shared perception
holy
trancending meaning
being one
singular
but not alone
different and incomprehensible
yet plural, empathetic
cathartic
together in desire
P.S. My talented friend João wrote this piece. We are going to perform a poetry reading session in Aveiro, Portugal this weekend.
Ithaka by C. P. Cavafy
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
C. P. Cavafy, "The City" from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.
Source: C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)
In the Winter of My Thirty-Eighth Year by W. S. Merwin
It sounds unconvincing to say When I was young
Though I have long wondered what it would be like
To be me now
No older at all it seems from here
As far from myself as ever
Walking in fog and rain and seeing nothing
I imagine all the clocks have died in the night
Now no one is looking I could choose my age
It would be younger I suppose so I am older
It is there at hand I could take it
Except for the things I think I would do differently
They keep coming between they are what I am
They have taught me little I did not know when I was young
There is nothing wrong with my age now probably
It is how I have come to it
Like a thing I kept putting off as I did my youth
There is nothing the matter with speech
Just because it lent itself
To my uses
Of course there is nothing the matter with the stars
It is my emptiness among them
While they drift farther away in the invisible morning
The Answer by Robinson Jeffers
Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.
My Song by Rabindranath Tagore
This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like
the fond arms of love.
This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of
blessing.
When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in
your ear, when you are in the crowd it will fence you about with
aloofness.
My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams, it will
transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.
It will be like the faithful star overhead when dark night is
over your road.
My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes, and will carry
your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silent in death, my song will speak in
your living heart.
For Solitude by John O'Donohue
May you recognize in your life the presence,
power and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and belonging
connects you intimately with the rhythm of the
universe.
May you have respect for your own individuality and
difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is
unique, that you have a special destiny here, that behind the facade of your life
there is something beautiful and eternal happening.
May you learn to see your self
with the same delight,
pride, and expectation
with which God sees you in every moment.
Paris In Spring Poem by Sara Teasdale
The city's all a-shining
Beneath a fickle sun,
A gay young wind's a-blowing,
The little shower is done.
But the rain-drops still are clinging
And falling one by one --
Oh it's Paris, it's Paris,
And spring-time has begun.
I know the Bois is twinkling
In a sort of hazy sheen,
And down the Champs the gray old arch
Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight
Where the great acacias lean,
Oh it's Paris, it's Paris,
And the leaves are growing green.
The sun's gone in, the sparkle's dead,
There falls a dash of rain,
But who would care when such an air
Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing
Beside her window-pane,
When it's Paris, it's Paris,
And spring-time's come again.
Twitter:@camelliayang
Website: https://www.camelliayang.com/
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