Category: Poetry from 1900 to 1999 AD

Cross
"My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.


If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
Im sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well.


My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I'm gonna die,
Being neither white nor black"?


Cross
Langston Hughes

My father used to say,
"Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow's grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat --
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth --
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint."
Nor was he insincere in saying, "Make my house your inn."
Inns are not residences.


Silence, by Marianne Moore

Grown-up
"Was it for this I uttered prayers,

And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,

That now, domestic as a plate,

I should retire at half-past eight"?


Grown-up
Edna St. Vincent Millay ( 1920 )

New Haven
:-)


bree
I've read little of Moore's poetry but after reading 'Silence', she will now move closer to the top of my 'to do'list!
jjorge

Je t'adore
"The other props are gone.

Sighing in one another's

Iron arms, propped above nothing.

We praise Love the limiter".



Je't'adore
Thomas Kinsella ( 1967 )

Anecdote of the Jar
"I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.


The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around , no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.



It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee".


Anecdote of the Jar
Wallace Stevens ( 1923 )

"Epitaph on a Tyrant"

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

-- W. H. Auden

Where Are The War Poets?
Where Are The War Poets?


They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom's cause.

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse-
That we who lived by honest dreams
defend the bad against the worse.

C. Day Lewis ( 1943 )

"The Planter's Daughter"

When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went --
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly,
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.
(Austin Clark 1896-1974))

Anecdote of the Jar
Anecdote of the Jar


I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took a dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Llike nothing else in Tennessee.

Wallace Stevens ( 1923 )

Miss Forbes


I met you on a cloudy
dark day and when you
smiled and spoke my
room was filled with sunshine

The way you smiled at me
has given my heart a
change of mood
and saved some part of
a day I had rued.


Robert Frost ( 1963)



This is the last poem written by Robert Frost. It was written while he was a patient at Peter Brent Brigham Hospital ( Boston ) on Jan. 9, 1963, two days before he died. The Miss Forbes of the title refers to Janet Forbes RN, who was substituting as Mr. Frost's private nurse on the Brighman's kidney unit.

SOURCE: Oncology Times Vol 24, No.12/December 2002

New Haven

Thanks for the poem and especially for the touching explanatory note that accompanied it.

I have numerous nurse friends (including one of my sisters) . If you don't mind I'll share it with them.

jjorge

LAUGHTER

That time you laughed
Fell over on the floor laughing

And then my laughter too caught fire
One blaze of both our laughing

Remembered across distances long after

Not gone not gone not altogether
Extinguished by the Ice Age of your death.

When you were living
It lingered in the world
Among things only put aside
In cupboards - letters, clothes,
Photographs taken on that journey
We went together

All now become
on one side -- yours -- pure absence
On mine, that vacuum
Nature, we are told, abhors:

Which now the memory of our laughing
Rushes in to fill.

(Stephen Spender)

Raggedyaggie

I love that poem!

I haven't read many poems by Stephen Spender but I like that one.

Got any more?

Thank you. Here's one by Stephen Spender I'm partial to because I love dolphins.

Dolphins

Happy, they leap
Out of the surface
Of waves reflecting
The sun fragmented
To broken glass
By the stiff breeze
Across our bows.

Curving, they draw
Curlicues
And serifs with
Lashed tail and fin
Across the screen
Of blue horizon -
Images
Of their delight
Outside, displayig
My heart within.

Across this dazzling
Meditteranean August morning
The dolphins write such ideograms:
With power to wake
Me prisoned in
My human speech
They sign:
"I AM"

I have but a few, but I'll try to find another short one to post here tomorrow.

Please do share this poem.

What's interesting is where I'm finding poetry buried away!

\


New Haven

Whaddaya mean?

buried in the garden?

....in an old safe deposit box?

...in your neglected memories?

Jjorge: Here's another Stephen Spender poem:

ROOM

This room's electric with those memories
Which, when he enters their invisible
Unanticipated zone, galvanize
His spirit to a shape his body had
Centuries, it seems, ago.
Open the door --

The room's ablaze with children
In their sloop made of two chairs
Where they play pirates.
Points of fire, their hair,
Their eyes of ice, their laughter
The clashing swords of angels guarding Eden.
'Come in!' they shout, and mean to say 'Get out!'

Then, standing at the window, seeing
Dusk absorb the green particulars
Of grass and trees, and make intenser
The glow of bricks and roses, he hears
Calling from the shrubbery, the voice
Of one long dead,
Poignant through the dark, that when she lived
He dared not answer.

Hi, Raggedy --

I just thought you'd like to know that there's someone else here who's enjoying the Spender poems, too. I know almost nothing about Spender except for one piece of trivia, which will have to be my contribution: Barry Humphries (a/k/a "Dame Edna Everage") is married to Spender's daughter. Now, there's a Christmas dinner I'd like to be a fly on the wall at!