I'm really missing my poetry people and I don't know why we've dried up. Anyway - aching bones with the onset of cold weather here, prompts me to offer:-



Recalculating

By Paul Muldoon

I

Arthritis is to psoriasis as Portugal is to Brazil.
Brazil is to wood as war club is to war.
War is to wealth as performance is to appraisal.
Appraisal is to destiny as urn is to ear.

Ear is to grasshopper as China is to DDT.
Tea is to leaf as journalist is to source.
Source is to leak as Ireland is to debt.
Debt is to honor as arthritis is to psoriasis.

II

Wait. Isn't arthritis to psoriasis as Brazil is to Portugal?
Portugal is to fado as Boaz is to Ruth.
Ruth is to cornfield as wave is to particle.

III

Particle is to beach as pebble is to real estate.
Realty is to reality as sky is to earth.
Earth is to all ye know as done is to dusted.

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.

Arthur Guiterman

frog, thankyou, so much. That did make me laugh and just when I needed it. You know, lots of little trifling things going wrong and making me feel grumpy, nothing major.

No idea why the previous poems reminded me of this one, and it's an extreme change of tone. I like this because I once made a study of Wordsworth. My classmates thought me hopeless, spending so much time on a writer so lacking any hint of cool, the one Romantic who seemed difficult to like.

MUTABILITY

From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail:
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

hmmmm....much to chew on here......hor outward forms that bear the longest date? drop like the tower sublime? I think that I get that only those who are innocent or pure can hear the sad music, but I'm afraid that this one flies almost completely over my head...

it is interesting though and I am going to be thinking on it for a while yet.

oopsie....reposted.
Delete

I'm with froglipz, if understanding "Mutability" were on an English comprehension test I would fail miserably. But great poem anyway ... reading it and stumbling about in the dark makes me think about understanding/interpreting poetry generally .. and I sometimes wonder if its best to parse each word and phrase and look hard for meaning or to let the poem wash over you as a whole and try to grasp the overall meaning ... ? or maybe both in combination? or maybe its just hours of study that I fail to spend, preferring instead to watch football or something equally dissolute ??? But, dissolution aside, I will ponder this poem and maybe do a little reading up.

Thanks for taking so well the abrupt change in direction. I think it's no different with poetry than with fiction or even nonfiction--we gravitate to some of it more than the rest. The remainder we might try to appreciate, without feeling that strong connection of liking. With older poems in particular, or with poets who used some archaic meanings (like Wordsworth), there can be obstacles, though here they're less than with a lot of Shakespeare. It's also great to switch from extreme high seriousness, as in "Mutability," to a totally different attitude on the same subject, as in the playful, almost laugh-out-loud "On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness." But no one could ever accuse Wordsworth of playfulness.

In the poem I posted, just in the first four lines are two words that might throw us off unless we know how Wordsworth used them. "Dissolution" means something like "dissolving," "crumbling away." It doesn't have the connotation here that it has for us of moral dissipation or debauchery. "Awful" means awesome or awe-inspiring rather than "bad." So for the right person, described in lines 5-6, dissolution and change make a music that is always tuneful though sad. It can be heard by those who keep themselves apart, who are detached, contemplative observers of life and who don't fill up their days with distracting "over-anxious care." Although Truth never changes, all its appearances ("outward forms") are always changing, and even the most seemingly permanent seem nothing more lasting than morning frost, when looked at in within the enormity of time. I love the last five lines, especially, and think the final line of this two-sentence sonnet is one of the best of the poetry I know.

MUTABILITY

From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail:
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

Thankyou DWill. That explanation has helped my understanding. I was interpreting disolution as today's, meaning 'disolute'. So the poem seemed a bit preachy - but it isn't is it?

This one is not a happy poem, but it has been on my mind for several days...

The Second Coming

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- William Butler Yeats