Poetry of Sadness

That poem is haunting, Letty.

'November,' Simon Armitage:

We walk to the ward from the badly parked car
With your grandma taking four short steps to our two.
We have brought her here to die, and we know it.

You check her towel, soap and family trinkets,
pare her nails, parcel her in the tough blankets
and she sinks down into her incontinence.

It is time, John.In their pasty bloodless smiles
in their slacked chests, their stunned brains and their baldness,
and in us John, we are almost these monsters.

You're shattered. You give me the keys and I drive
through the twighlight zone, past the famous station
to your house, to numb ourselves with alcohol.

Inside, we feel the terror of dusk begin.
Outside, we watch the evening falling again,
and we let it happen. We can say nothing.

Sometimes the sun spangles and we feel alive.
One thing we have to get, John, out of this life.

And another, before I forget it..

Drom: I'm copying "November" to my poetry collection. Thank you.

On an earlier thread, Bree posted this poem, one that I find very moving. I experienced it. Perhaps you have too.

The answering machine by Linda Pastan

I call and hear your voice
on the answering machine
weeks after your death,
a fledgling ghost still longing
for human messages.

Shall I leave one, telling
how the fabric of ours lives has been ripped before
but that this sudden tear will not
be mended soon or easily?

In your empting house, others
roll up rugs, pack books,
drink coffee at your antique table,
and listen to messages left
in a machine haunted

by the timbre of your voice,
more palpable than photographs
or fingerprints. On this first day
of the first fall without you,
ashamed and resisting

but compelled, I dial again
the number I know by heart,
thankful in a diminished world
for the accidental mercy of machines,
then listen and hang up.

Wow, Raggedy: I have one of those, too! How long have you been keeping a collection? I have met S.A. many times: one of the good things about him is that he can assume so many identities, so his poetry is always very varied...

That poem is harrowing indeed. It has happened to me. The worst thing, though, was when my great-grandmother said, over the phone, 'you'll soon be old enough to come over to Ireland and visit me.' Those were the last words she ever uttered to me, and she died soon. I was not even bought a ticket to see her before being put to rest, but that is life, I suppose.

'Love songs in age'

She kept her songs, they kept so little space,
The covers pleased her:
One bleached from lying in a sunny place,
One marked in circles by a vase of water,
One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,
And coloured, by her daughter -
So they had waited, till, in widowhood
She found them, looking for something else, and stood

Relearning how each frank submissive chord
Had ushered in
Word after sprawling hyphenated word,
And the unfailing sense of being young
Spread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein
That hidden freshness sung,
That certainty of time laid up in store
As when she played them first. But, even more,

The glare of that much-mentionned brilliance, love,
Broke out, to show
Its bright incipience sailing above,
Still promising to solve, and satisfy,
And set unchangeably in order. So
To pile them back, to cry,
Was hard, without lamely admitting how
It had not done so then, and could not now.

And now I'll add that Philip Larkin poem.
How wonderful that you met Simon Armitage.

With the exception of "Pocket" books of verses and several poems I jotted down in a notebook while in my teens (which I can't find), I didn't really begin a "collection" until I came to A2K. There have been several poetry threads here and I copied my favorites to my Microsoft Works. Oh, and I bought two Elizabeth Spires poetry books and Linda Pastan, Stephen Spender and Sarah Teasdale within the past two years.

It was while I was checking out an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem on the net, that I came across "Savage Beauty" .

It's a wonderful idea, Raggedy; I do not think that there is such a thing as a surfeit of poetry. I do something similar; I enter poems into my log whenever one takes my fancy, and I also do a thought from Shakespeare every day... it's just force of habit, I guess. I have been putting more and more into it since becoming active over here; it is amazing what one can come across.

What is your favourite, would you say, of those poetry books that you bought recently?

Oh, if you would take all but one away from me, I'd keep "Now the Green Blade Rises", poems of Elizabeth Spires. When Bree posted "My Mother's Doll" and "Now the Green Blade Rises", I felt as if Elizabeth Spires had written the poems just for me. There are many poets I enjoy, but Spires was a surprise package. There are so many poems posted on A2K that are new and exciting to me, but I have a soft spot for Spires - perhaps, too, because she renewed my interest in poetry.

Anyone who can renew an interest in poetry is almost as special as the first poet whom you truly loved . Those are amazing poems that you mentioned...

This poem, Marina, by TS Eliot, is told from the perspective of Pericles in the Shakespeare play of the same name.

Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the humming-bird, meaning
Death
Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death

Are become insubstantial, reduced by a wind,
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger --
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye

Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.

Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.

wow you are really good
wow you are really good . with the poems and stuff in new to this one just thougth i would throw that in the mix whats the deal with the pm just a bunch of pepole runing around i don't get it what is that for lol sorry didn't know where to go to ask.

hardcore

Sara Young 4/1/2003

I remember it, even if you don't
I always will
I hold the memory in my heart still
Maybe I should forget but I can't
You left me with a love that grew
All along I guess I knew
I was just another one to you.

Now mixed up thoughts fill my head
It's too late to straighten them out
Cause I never thought someone like you
would ever come about.
What do you expect me to do
At night your kiss still haunts me through
I was just another one to you.

I would give anything to hear your voice
Calling the name that's mine
But you'll move on and so will I at some point in time.
You used me now I know it's true
Your out of my life I'll start anew
I was just another one to you.

SHADOWS


A shadow is cast
As my heart gives in,
Forever it will last
In heaven or in sin

Blinded by darkness
I search my soul
Only to see sadness
Consume me whole

Lost in despair
I live in vain
I have yet to care
Num from pain

My heart forsaken
In this holy time
Another love taken--
Another crime


by: Calvin Kong

Lost Spirit



Standing in the pouring rain
Old feelings coming out
Knowing nothing would be the same
And yet I know what its about,

Couldn't stop the pain from coming
As my tears began to fall
Running out of places to hide
Standing hurt and lost above all,

Hearing voices mumble and stutter
The saddened lonely cries
Trying to get away from them as they mutter
But I'm held bound by unseen ties,

Shaking with greater fear
At what I have to see
As the rain fell down making things unclear
Just wanting my captors to let me be,

I just want to get away
Leave the dangerous feelings behind
To forget the voices and what they had to say
Before I lost my mind,

When I opened my clenched shut eyes
To find I wasn't where I thought I was
I kept on blinking a thousand tries
I'll never understand what my mind does,

To find myself in an empty room
With nothing but my presence within it
To find my self in no danger or doom
It must have been some lost spirit
by Rachel Duran

(moved to poems of disdain)

You can or you can't

It has become a truly sad day when, in fact there is no way
A man can build himself a wall, where no one sees over it, so tall.
He'd linger in his space awhile, contemplations, with a smile
To be alone-- that quiet time. If you're connected, you know-- Prime!

Not finding any of that here; nor a prospect even near
I think I'll look another path and pray I do not incur wrath.
There's a saying when a gal plays craps
"Oh 7 come 11, and I will win may-haps"!
And when I do, my gambling is through
I sadly feel SURE it's fine with all of you.
OK... 7 come 11

Got it



so long

Heart we will forget him