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  1. coreylane

    coreylane New Member

    Location:
    US
    wow, great poems, I loved!
     
  2. DamnitAll

    DamnitAll Wait... what?

    Location:
    Central MD
    First thing I've written in a long-ass time. No title as of yet, and it's likely still a work in progress.

    I dreamed that I wrote you a poem,
    asked you to teach me
    about scar tissue, the healing process
    of unfeeling
    once I have felt more than I can bear
    before learning to feel again

    The mechanics of it—
    skin shivering into itself under
    your fingers, your lips,
    a strand of your hair grazing my cheek
    from above—
    go beyond the languages I have mastered

    Inhaling oxygen to generate
    energy, needed
    with increasing demand,
    to envelop you
    exhaling my name, feverish,
    limbs blending one against another—
    a covalent tension,
    a molecular fusion in languages
    I don't understand, only I know—

    I love you
    with hunger
    and need.
     
    • Like Like x 4
  3. redravin

    redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

    Location:
    North
    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: a waste of desert sand;
    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
    Wind 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
     
    • Like Like x 3
  4. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Last night I was reading some non-fiction of his. It must have been quite controversial in his day.
     
  5. redravin

    redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

    Location:
    North
    He kicked ass that's for sure.
    If only he'd been as aggressive about his support for the Irish Rebellion,
     
  6. Street Pattern

    Street Pattern Very Tilted

    This is a poem I can recite from memory (perhaps a slightly different version, as noted in bold type above).

    I remember once, in some online discussion, someone asked why GWB was so appealing to people.

    I responded with a line from the above:

    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2014
    • Like Like x 3
  7. Levite

    Levite Levitical Yet Funky

    Location:
    The Windy City
    I love Yeats. Beautiful poems, just lovely use of language. His poems based in Irish myth are superb, I think-- "The Hosting of the Sidhe," the two Cuchulainn poems, "Under Ben Bulben," "The Two Kings," and all the others. And I adore his love poems and his pastorals and such. Two of my WBY favorites:

    Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland

    The old brown thorn-trees break in two high over Cummen Strand,
    Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand;
    Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies,
    But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes
    Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
    The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea,
    And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say.
    Angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat;
    But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet
    Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
    The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-na-Bare,
    For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air;
    Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood;
    But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood
    Is Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.

    Who Goes With Fergus?

    Who will go drive with Fergus now,
    And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
    And dance upon the level shore?
    Young man, lift up your russet brow,
    And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
    And brood on hopes and fear no more.
    And no more turn aside and brood
    Upon love's bitter mystery;
    For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
    And rules the shadows of the wood,
    And the white breast of the dim sea
    And all dishevelled wandering stars.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  8. redravin

    redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

    Location:
    North
    This was the one my grandfather liked to quote, usually after a number of Guinness.
    An Irish Airman Forsees His Death

    I KNOW that I shall meet my fate
    Somewhere among the clouds above;
    Those that I fight I do not hate,
    Those that I guard I do not love;
    My county is Kiltartan Cross,
    My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
    No likely end could bring them loss
    Or leave them happier than before.
    Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
    Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
    A lonely impulse of delight
    Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
    I balanced all, brought all to mind,
    The years to come seemed waste of breath,
    A waste of breath the years behind
    In balance with this life, this death.
    William Butler Yeats
     
    • Like Like x 1
  9. Street Pattern

    Street Pattern Very Tilted

    This poem, by Michigan poet Will Carleton, first published in 1872, helped inspire the "Townsend Plan" for old-age relief, and therefore helped bring about Social Security.

    Carleton's poem is based on real people he met at the poor farm in Hillsdale County, Michigan.


    Later, he wrote a sequel to this, in which she is rescued from the poor house by the supposed black sheep of the family. Note that she has "half a dozen" children, but only mentions five by name.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2014
    • Like Like x 1
  10. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    My own...

     
    • Like Like x 1