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Topography Analysis
Here is an all time favorite poem of mine and it is a replay (I've posted it before). It might be more a sex poem than a love poem, but I think I can make a case for it's appearance here.
Topography Analysis
After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly form the left my
moon rising slowly form the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Sharon Olds
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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Quote:
Topography Analysis
That is great, except I am not really sure that I understand it. Here is another e.e. cummings poem which has also used the rain theme.
i have found what you are like by E. E. Cummings
i have found what you are like
the rain,
(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields
easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike
the air in utterable coolness
deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned
newfragile yellows
lurch and.press
-in the woods
which
stutter
and
sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
your kiss
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Unrequited Love
Unrequited Love --
Abraham Cowley:
"A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain."
Robert Burns' poem "Anna, Thy Charms" catches it succinctly:
"Anna, thy charms my bosom fire,
And waste my soul with care;
But ah! how bootless to admire,
When fated to despair!
Yet in thy presence, lovely Fair,
To hope may be forgiven;
For sure 'twere impious to despair
So much in sight of heaven."
Alfred Edward Housman wrote a poem inspired by his life-long unrequited love for his best friend Moses Jackson:
"He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder
And went with half my life about my ways."
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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A favorite activity, and I am always grateful when life affords me the time, is to chase from one word/idea to the next, following a scarlet thread, that turns to indigo, to emerald, that only I can see -- stitching them into something new and useful (or maybe just for my amusement). The internet has revolutionize this little game of mine. I keep thinking how fun it would be to have a website that I could map out my journeys with links, words and images. This morning's tour led me to Ravi Shankar's poem about winter -- the last 2 stanza (which I will come back to) somehow sent me to a bio of William Carlos Williams, a favorite poet of mine -- to his poem (new to me) A Love Song -- here is the 2nd stanza:
The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.
I was delighted that the color of love is saffron!
Now, back to Shankar - the last two stanza of his poem, "From December to February."
denied its radiant cradle and suspended a steely scythe.
But we who were born in this season have learned the myths
of its severity, its impervious heart. We will walk
by the river and into the night together. After all, we were
once the infants suited for this frosted earth and frozen air.
We became the children who accepted the chilblains of their own
creations, their small arms feathered with soft flakes, their bodies
lying in an imitation of angels, as ours lie in another shape.
I have always loved winter, as a girl it was my favorite season. I have always attributed my love of winter to the fact that my birthday is Feb. 12th. My mom, has told me that she would bundle me up, put me in the carriage and park me on the front porch for "air." Who knew that infants need "air." Somehow, I figure all that frosty air fortified me, body and soul.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
Last edited by Saffron on Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Must make one last comment on the Williams poem -- here's the stanza, with attention to the last line:
I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.
Hell of a line, don't you think? Haven't you been just there? I love it!
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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Thanks, Saffron, for all your wanderings this morning. Thinking of yellow love, here is the first stanza from a poem, not really about love, but it reminded me of the yellow, yellow, yellow.
Ode To The Lemon
by Pablo Neruda (first stanza)
From blossoms
released
by the moonlight,
from an
aroma of exasperated
love,
steeped in fragrance,
yellowness
drifted from the lemon tree,
and from its plantarium
lemons descended to the earth.
I especially like 'from an aroma of exasperated love'
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Nice follow up, Realiz -- right in the spirit of my morning's meander.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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saffron
Quote:
right in the spirit of my morning's meander.
I picked up your word "meander" which always makes me think of meandering streams and I found this Thoreau poem .. has some nice colour references too, "moments of an azure hue" ..
Winter Memories
Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring stew them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievences.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On the every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of winter past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnwort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial, - purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter's task again.
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Here is a Russian love poem translated to English by Vladimir Nabocov.
Last Love by Fyodor Tyutchev
Love at the closing of our days
is apprehensive and very tender.
Glow brighter, brighter, farewell rays
of one last love in its evening splendor.
Blue shade takes half the world away:
through western clouds alone some light is slanted.
O tarry, O tarry, declining day,
enchantment, let me stay enchanted.
The blood runs thinner, yet the heart
remains as ever deep and tender.
O last belated love, thou art
a blend of joy and of hopeless surrender.
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Thanks for posting HDT, Giselle! And Realiz, what a tender love poem. What a lovely thought that love at the end of ones life might just be as tender and intense as that of love in ones youth, when it is all new and excitement. This is not the view we generally see in the USA.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 2638 Images: 5 Location: Round Hill, VA
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Hate Poem
Just for fun!
Hate Poem
Julie Sheehan
I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.
Look out! Fore! I hate you.
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I'm digging
from under by third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.
A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.
My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant "good morning": hate.
You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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A Love Poem
Author unknown
Collards is green, my dog's name is Blue
And I'm so lucky to have a sweet thang like you.
Yore hair is like corn silk a-flapping in the breeze.
Softer than Blue's and without all them fleas.
You move like the bass, which excite me in May.
You ain't got no scales but I luv you anyway.
Yo're as satisfy'n as okry jist a-fry'n in the pan.
Yo're as fragrant as "snuff" right out of the can.
You have some'a yore teeth, for which I am proud;
I hold my head high when we're in a crowd.
On special occasions, when you shave under yore arms,
Well, I'm in hawg heaven, and awed by yore charms.
Still them fellers at work, they all want to know,
What I did to deserve such a purdy, young doe.
Like a good roll of duct tape, yo're there fer yore man,
To patch up life's troubles and fix what you can.
Yo're as cute as a junebug a-buzzin' overhead.
You ain't mean like those far ants I found in my bed.
Cut from the best cloth like a plaid flannel shirt,
You spark up my life more than a fresh load of dirt.
When you hold me real tight like a padded gunrack,
My life is complete; Ain't nuttin' I lack.
Yore complexion, it's perfection, like the best vinyl sidin'.
Despite all the years, yore age, it keeps hidin'.
Me 'n' you's like a Moon Pie with a RC cold drank,
We go together like a skunk goes with stank.
Some men, they buy chocolate for Valentine's Day;
They git it at Wal-Mart, it's romantic that way.
Some men git roses on that special day
From the cooler at Kroger. That's impressive," I say.
Some men buy fine diamonds from a flea market booth.
"Diamonds are forever," they explain, suave and couth.
But for this man, honey, these won't do.
Cause yor'e too special, you sweet thang you.
I got you a gift, without taste nor odor,
More useful than diamonds......IT'S A NEW TROLL'N MOTOR!
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Sorry for one more Emily Dickinson poem -- I can't help it.
My River
My river runs to thee.
Blue sea, wilt thou welcome me?
My river awaits reply.
Oh! Sea, look graciously.
I'll fetch thee brooks
From spotted nooks.
Say, sea,
Take me!
The funny thing is that when I first read this poem I read the first line of the last stanza as:
I'll fetch thee books
Just goes to show you where my head and heart are! What better thing could you bring your love anyway?
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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giselle wrote:
Not sure I get "spotted nooks" though?
A "nook" is a hidden or secluded spot. In Massachusetts, which is a hilly place (I think) with tree-covered brooks in small valleys -- brooks are in nooks. The nooks are "spotted", that is, dappled with sunlight. My reading.
Oh, I forget the important part: Emily was freckled, wasn't she?
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