"Untitled"
"Cage of Unemployment"
[I dwell in Possibility]
"Marks"
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
"Ozymandias"
"Love and Death"
"Perfect Moment"
"Ode to Joseph Cambell"
"Too Far to Walk"
"Wulf and Eadwacer"
"Daddy"
"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed"
"Man Begot" and "Changing"
"Many and More"
"Love Not Me"
"A Thousand Years with Solitude"
"I Love You....Now I'll Go"
Poem by Night Temptress
"The Revelation"
Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to marriage of true minds admit impediments
"The world is too much with us; late and soon"
"O Me! O Life!"
"She walks in beauty"
"When We Two Parted"
"A Woman's Answer to the Vampire"
"The Tapestry Weaver"
"Jenny Kissed Me"
This poem is a contribution from one of my email pals in Anatolia, Turkey.
I'm putting it up as-is, so if there are grammatical errors, they're his.
But before you judge, be aware that English is not his first language.
(Untitled)
~~Mehmet Noneed
Top This is an interesting poem submitted by an email pal of mine who wishes to remain anonymous. Just consider him "A Stranger Who's Been There." "Cage of Unemployment"
[I dwell in Possibility--] ~~Emily Dickenson
"Marks" ~~Linda Pastan
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" ~~Randall Jarrell, 1945
"Ozymandias" ~~Percy Bysshe Shelley Top
"Love and Death" ~~Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Here is the solitary poem written by a man who does not feel confident in his abilities as a poet. I, however, know better. He has creations bottled inside him that need releasing, though he may not realize them yet. *hugs and smiles to my friend*
"Perfect Moment" ~~BAM!!!
"Ode to Joseph Cambell" ~~Taum Landsman
" Too Far To Walk" ~~Taum Landsman
"Wulf and Eadwacer"
Our fate is forked.
Wulf is on one island, I on another
Our fate is forked.
It was rainy weather, and I wept by the hearth,
Wulf, my Wulf, it was wanting you
Do you hear, Eadwacer? Our whelp ~~unknown, early English poetry
"Daddy"
Daddy, I have tried to kill you--
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
In the German tongue, in the Polish Town
Says there are a dozen or two.
It stuck in a barbed-wire snare.
An engine, an engine
The snows of Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
I have always been scared of you,
Not God but a swastika
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And a love of the rack and the screw.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
There's a stake in your fat black heart ~~Sylvia Plath
"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" ~~Adrienne Rich
"Man Begot" and "Changing"
~~Maya Angelou
"Many and More"
I have want of a friend.
There are few, some few,
I have need of a friend.
There is one and only one
And that one is my love. ~~Maya Angelou
"Love Not Me" ~~Anonymous
"A Thousand Years with Solitude"
We are like the ancient seamen: ~~Charles Simic
"I Love You...Now I'll Go" The following is a poem written by a good friend of mine back in my hometown to his wife. Unfortunately, as way leads on to way, this poem applies to his life now as well. ~~GSE ~~Night Temptress
"The Revelation" ~~Coventry Patmore
Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to marriage of true minds admit impediments ~~William Shakespeare "The world is too much with us; late and soon" ~~William Wordsworth "O Me! O Life!" ~~Walt Whitman
"She walks in beauty" ~~Lord Byron
"When We Two Parted" ~~Lord Byron
"A Woman's Answer to the Vampire" ~~Felicia Blake
"The Tapestry Weaver" ~~Anson C. Chester
"Jenny Kissed Me" ~~Leigh Hunt
A young man searches through the years, his vision blocked by
now-dried tears.
Wondering where the years have gone, wondering more what he's done
wrong.
Why does it seem that he must fail when other, lesser men succeed?
When he so much that's great can do, why will noone his proud cries
heed?
To any man like this one, to work is not a chore.
It is instead a pleasure, as 'twas in days of yore.
When people worked not just because they had to earn their bread,
But also because, if they couldn't work, they'd rather be dead.
And dead is how a jobless man feels now, if he's made right.
When work you seek but cannot find, you're in a tunnel with no light.
It cuts inside when your "friends" chide, "You'd find work if you
really tried."
You want to scream, "I am, you dope!"
I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House then Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--
Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To Gather Paradise--
My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I'm average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly until my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I dies they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies , whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
What time the moon was gathering light
Love paced the plots of thymy Paradise,
And all about him roll'd his lustrous eyes;
When, turning round a cassia, full in view,
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew,
And talking to himself, first met his sight:
"You must be gone," said Death, "These walks are mine."
Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight;
Yet ere he parted said,"This hour is thine:
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath,
So in the light of great eternity
Life eminent creates the shade of death;
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall,
But I shall reign forever over all."
A beautiful summer/fall day…
the sun shining down upon you,
as you drive down the freeway…
Not enough traffic to slow you down,
but enough to give you the impression
of speed and freedom as you pass sedans and mini-vans…
The top down, wind zipping past your ears and through your hair…
The radio playing the perfect music to go with your mood…
Is there a better feeling in the world?
Nothing else matters as you live in the moment…
Dancing in your seat…
Singing the words…
mumbling lyrics you don't know…
The normal worries of everyday life are forgotten in these golden moments…
not a single thought in your head…
only a warm feeling in your chest and a smile on your face…
Its like God has smiled upon you
and granted perfect peace for a few moments…
Traffic, the weather, the music…
all totally out of your control…
all together to build perfection…
You're not even realizing the pure beauty of the moment until it is gone…
the radio moves to commercial ending it all…
Your smile disappearing…
frantically trying to get the feeling back…
changing stations, hearing other songs that you like…
but not perfect… annoying you even more…
Reaching your exit and moving on…
traffic and problems flood back into your mind
as you exit into real life…
As you step out of your car, an amazing thing happens…
Remnants of the perfect moment push their way over your thoughts…
an inward smile spreads through your body,
as you make your way inside…
A smile on your face as you accept the small gift you received…
no longer sad that it has gone…
I walk upon a meadow
feeling the power of grace.
I walk upon the meadow
looking upon the face of g-d.
I walk upon the meadow
with a hero with a "thousand faces."
Visions, quests and wannabees
Too Far To Walk.
Lush green Godesses a "man-beast"
Too Far to Run.......
I walk within my visions....
stepped off my quest...
I begin to walk....."don't run."
The men of my tribe would treat him as game:
if he comes to the camp, they will kill him outright.
Mine is a fastness: the fens girdle it,
and it is defended by the fiercest men.
If he comes to the camp, they will kill him for sure.
thinking of my Wulf's far wanderings;
One of the captains caught me in his arms.
It gladdened me then; but it grieved me too.
that made me sick, your seldom coming,
the hollowness at heart; not the hunger I spoke of.
Wulf shall take to the wood.
What was never bound is broken easily,
our song together.
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach du.
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
So I could never tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy-ancestress and my weird luck
And my Tarot pack and my Tarot pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
With your luftwaffe, your gobbledegoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--
So black no sky could peek through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of a foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkamph look
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stomping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head til morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet it knows it's boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
The man who is a bigot
is the worst thing God has got,
except his match, his woman,
who is really Ms. Begot.
It occurs to me now,
I never see you smiling
anymore. Friends
praise your
humor rich, your phrases
turning on a thin dime.
For me your wit is honed
to killing sharpness.
But I never catch
you simply smiling anymore.
These are many and more
who would kiss my hand,
taste my lips,
to my lonliness lend
their bodies' warmth.
who would give their names
and fortunes rich
or send first sons
to my ailing bed.
who will give the air
from his failing lungs
for my body's mend.
Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part:
No, nor for a constant heart!
For these may fail or turn to ill:
So thou and I shall sever.
Keep therefore a true woman's eye,
And love me still, but know not why,
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever.
Toward evening
When it stops snowing
Our homes rise
High above the earth
Into that soundless space
Where neither the bark of a dog
Nor the cry of a bird reaches.
Our bodies are the ocean
And the silence is the boat
God has provided
For our long and unknown journey
I love you so much, I want to hold on when you travel to and fro'
But very often to show your love a person must let go...
Happiness can measure love, and how much you're recieving...
So if it makes you happy, I will now be leaving.
But if it seems we were to be....
and you come to find your way to me...
I'll be there with open arms
and a heart, 'till then, that's bleeding...
2/1/92
Once Upon a time, ... T/two souls became F/friends
E/each with broken hearts ... E/each with bitter ends.
Spirits, once tattered ...Torn from betrayal
T/their comfort and love ... Began this fairy tale.
Through affection and play ... T/their hearts became O/one
He pulled her to the dark ... she showed Him the sun
And in time, T/their friendship ... became a love that grew
Not from lust and deceit ... But a desire so true
T/they stand before U/us now ... Not only a Dom and a sub
but T/two souls merged as O/one ... Sharing passion and love
And so this tale unfolds. ... and I am sure with much laughter
W/we will share with T/them ... T/their happily ever after
for Dark One and tangerine
An idle poet, here and there,
Looks around him; but, for all the rest,
The world, unfathomably fair,
Is duller than a witling's jest.
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
They lift their heavy lids, and look;
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,
They read with joy, then shut the book.
And some give thanks, and some blaspheme
And most forget; but, either way,
That and the Child's unheeded dream
Is all the light of all their day.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:--
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met--
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.
A fool there was, and she lowered her pride,
(Even as you and I),
To a bunch of conceit in a masculine hide-
We saw the faults that could not be denied,
But the fool saw only his manly side,
(Even as you and I).
Oh, the love she laid on her own heart's grave,
With care of her head and hand,
Belongs to the man who did not know,
(And now she knows that he never could know),
And did not understand.
A fool there was and her best she gave,
(Even as you and I),
Of noble thoughts, of gay and grave,
(And all were accepted as due to the knave),
But the fool would never her folly save
(Even as you and I).
Oh, the stabs she hid, which the Lord forbid,
Had ever been really planned,
She took from the man who didn't know why,
(And now she knows he never knew why),
And did not understand.
The fool was loved while the game was new
(Even as you and I),
And when it was played, she took her cue,
(Plodding along as most of us do),
Trying to keep his faults from view
(Even as you and 1).
And it isn't the ache of the heart, or its break
That stings like a white-hot brand-
It's learming to know that she raised the rod,
And bent her head to kiss the rod
For one who could not understand.
Let us take to our heart a lesson, no braver lesson can be,
From the ways of the tapestry weavers, on the other side of the sea.
Above their head the pattern hangs, they study it with care,
And as to and fro the shuttle leaps their eyes are fastened there.
They tell this curious thing besides, of the patient, plodding weaver;
He works on the wrong side evermore, but works for the right side ever.
It is only when the weaving stops, and the web is loosed and turned,
That he sees his real handiwork, that his marvelous skill is learned.
Ah, the sight of its delicate beautyl It pays him for all its cost.
No rarer, daintier work than his was ever done by the frost!
Then the Master bringcth him golden hire and giveth him praise as well,
And how happy the heart of the weaver is, no tongue but his can tell.
The years of man are the looms of God, let down from the place of the sun,
Wherein we all are weaving, till the mystic web is done,
Weaving blindly but weaving surely, each for himself his fate;
We may not see how the right side looks, we can only weave and wait.
But, looking above for the pattern, no weaver hath need to fear;
Only let him look clear into Heaven-the perfect Pattern is there.
If be keeps the face of the Saviour forever and always in sight,
His toil shall be sweeter than honey, and his weaving is sure to be right.
And when his task is ended, and the web is turned and shown,
He shall hear the voice of the Master; it shall say to him, "Well donel"
And the whitc-winged angels of heaven, to bear him thence shall come down,
And God shall give him gold for his hire-not coin, but a crown!
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Jenny kissed me!Back to The Poet's Corner
