Poems

[kaen]

A good poem can really put some shit into perspective, post your favourites

 

but please try and keep them shortish, no two page epics, they are fucking awful

 

a poem should get its point across without rambling into sini

 

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

 

 

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 

 

[Guest Gary C]

Fuck, hadn't read that in years. Terrifying.

[Guest Coalbucket PI]

Stevie Smith - My Muse

 

My Muse sits forlorn

She wishes she had not been born

She sits in the cold

No word she says is ever told.

 

 

Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy?

She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy

When I am happy I live and despise writing

For my Muse this cannot but be dispiriting.

[Guest sine]

Death in Leamington.

 

 

She died in the upstairs bedroom

By the light of the ev'ning star

That shone through the plate glass window

From over Leamington Spa

 

Beside her the lonely crochet

Lay patiently and unstirred,

But the fingers that would have work'd it

Were dead as the spoken word.

 

And Nurse came in with the tea-things

Breast high 'mid the stands and chairs-

But Nurse was alone with her own little soul,

And the things were alone with theirs.

 

She bolted the big round window,

She let the blinds unroll,

She set a match to the mantle,

She covered the fire with coal.

 

And "Tea!" she said in a tiny voice

"Wake up! It's nearly five"

Oh! Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness,

Half dead and half alive.

 

Do you know that the stucco is peeling?

Do you know that the heart will stop?

From those yellow Italianate arches

Do you hear the plaster drop?

 

Nurse looked at the silent bedstead,

At the gray, decaying face,

As the calm of a Leamington ev'ning

Drifted into the place.

 

She moved the table of bottles

Away from the bed to the wall;

And tiptoeing gently over the stairs

Turned down the gas in the hall.

 

John Betjeman.

[spratters]

There was an old man from Nantucket

His cock was so long he could suck it

He said with a grin

As he wiped off his chin

If my ear was a cunt I could fuck it!

[Guest Babar]

*covers ears, just in case*

[Guest Iain C]

September Song by Geoffrey Hill

 

born 19.6.32 - deported 24.9.42

 

Undesirable you may have been, untouchable

you were not. Not forgotten

or passed over at the proper time.

 

As estimated, you died. Things marched,

sufficient, to that end.

Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented

terror, so many routine cries.

 

(I have made

an elegy for myself it

is true)

 

September fattens on vines. Roses

flake from the wall. The smoke

of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

 

This is plenty. This is more than enough.

[Guest Iain C]

This is one of my favourite war poems, I think you'll like this one kaen, it certainly gets to the point.

 

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell

 

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till 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 died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

[Guest Iain C]

This is one of the best and most famous poems of the holocaust. Paul Celan was a Romanian Jew who lost his family in Nazi forced labour camps, and was imprisoned in one himself. He survived but committed suicide in 1970.

 

Death Fugue (Todesfuge) by Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger

 

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown

we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night

we drink and we drink it

we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined

A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete

he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he whistles his pack out

he whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a grave

he commands us strike up for the dance

 

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink in the morning at noon we drink you at sundown

we drink and we drink you

A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamith we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined.

 

He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot you others sing now and play

he grabs at the iron in his belt he waves it his eyes are blue

jab deeper you lot with your spades you others play on for the dance

 

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink you at noon in the morning we drink you at sundown

we drink you and we drink you

a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents

 

He calls out more sweetly play death death is a master from Germany

he calls out more darkly now stroke your strings then as smoke you will rise into air

then a grave you will have in the clouds there one lies unconfined

 

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany

we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink you

death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue

he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true

a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete

he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air

he plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamith

[Guest mafted]

i love this quirkiness..

 

Black Curtains

 

Cancel the wedding renounce all the vows

I shall suck on those kisses ride on a cow

To the monastery high over there in the clouds

Silent for 25 years

I saw you collide with the history teacher

Watched finger tips brush over coffee and Nietzche

If he is your type who am I to beseech you

To stay here for 25 years

You tell him I cared say I was earthy

Steadfast and honest but not really worthy

See how I feel when you're bleeding for mercy

Maybe in 25 years

Stones in my heart there's a lump in my throat

Spare a cent for the misfit dime for his goat

I'll love you and leave you my favorite coat

Had it for 25 years

 

 

-Edward Ka-Spel (the Tear Garden)

[Guest sine]

Evolution-Langdon Smith

[Fred McGriff]

kaen skull fucks the chav he just mashed

by fred mcgriff

 

shards of bone, oxygenated blood pulp

sinewy shredded muscle

exposed like pornography

warm receptive brains

like coming home

[Guest Babar]

Sonnet of the Asshole

 

 

 

 

Dark and wrinkled like a violet carnation,

It sighs, humbly nestling in the moss still moist from love

That follows the descent of sweet white cheeks

Down to their edge.

 

Filaments like tears of milk

Have wept beneath the cruel south wind

That drives them back across the little clots of russet clay,

And disappeared there where the slope has called them.

 

My Dream has often kissed its opening;

My Soul, that envies mortal intercourse

Has chosen this to be its wild and musky nest of sobs.

 

It is the swooning olive and the sweet cajoling flute

The tube through which celestial creamy pralines tumble down

Female Promised Land rimmed round with dew!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden and wrinkled like a budding violet

It breathes, gently worn out, in a tangled vine

(Still damp with love), on the soft incline

Of white buttocks to the rim of the pit.

 

Thin streams like rivers of milk ; innocent

Tears, shed beneath hot breath that drives them down

Across small clots of rich soil, reddish brown,

Where they lose themselves in the dark descent...

 

My mouth always dribbles with its coupling force;

My soul, jealous of the body's intercourse,

Makes it tearful, wild necessity.

 

Ecstatic olive branch, the flute one blows,

The tube where heavenly praline flows,

Promised Land in sticky femininity.

 

-translated by Paul Schmidt

Sonnet in Praise of the Butthole

 

 

 

 

Dark and puckered like a tiny violet eye

It breathes, obscurely lurking in a mossy froth

Still humid from love that follows the curving soft

Slope of snowy ass just past the crease of thigh.

 

A few glistening threads running like milky tears

Have wept past the rough hot wind pushing them away,

Getting beyond those little gnarls of ruddy clay

To lose their way where the echoing downslope veers.

 

In dream I often find my suck-hole on the job;

My soul, so jealous of palpable fuckery,

Says this is its musky tear-duct, its nest of sobs.

 

It's the swoon-diving olive and the flute cajoled,

The pipeline where the celestial praline flows,

Feminine Promised Land in the moistening fold.

 

- translated by Dennis J. Carlile

Obscure and wrinkled like a purple eyelet,

 

 

 

 

It breathes, humbly tapi among foam

Humide encor of love which follows the soft escape

Of the white Buttocks to the heart of its hem.

 

Similar filaments with milk tears cried,

Under the cruel southerly wind which pushes back them

A through small russet-red marl clots,

To go itself to lose where the slope called them.

 

My Dream was often brought together with its suction cup;

My heart, of the material coitus jealous, made of

It its fawn-coloured drip and its nest of sobs.

 

It is the pâmée olive, and the flute caline

It is the tube where goes down the celestial one dresses:

Female Chanaan in enclosed moistnesses!

 

- Babelfish

 

all of them

[J3FF3R00]

kaen skull fucks the chav he just mashed

by fred mcgriff

 

shards of bone, oxygenated blood pulp

sinewy shredded muscle

exposed like pornography

warm receptive brains

like coming home

 

There is no line in here about drywall.

[Dementia]

 

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

I whip my hair back and forth

[kaen]

kaen skull fucks the chav he just mashed

by fred mcgriff

 

shards of bone, oxygenated blood pulp

sinewy shredded muscle

exposed like pornography

warm receptive brains

like coming home

 

There is no line in here about drywall.

drywall is a given

[Guest Z_B_Z]

ill probably get shit for posting some charles bukowski, but...

 

 

Dinosauria, We

 

 

Born like this

Into this

As the chalk faces smile

As Mrs. Death laughs

As the elevators break

As political landscapes dissolve

As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree

As the oily fish spit out their oily prey

As the sun is masked

We are

Born like this

Into this

Into these carefully mad wars

Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness

Into bars where people no longer speak to each other

Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

Born into this

Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die

Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty

Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed

Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

Born into this

Walking and living through this

Dying because of this

Muted because of this

Castrated

Debauched

Disinherited

Because of this

Fooled by this

Used by this

Pissed on by this

Made crazy and sick by this

Made violent

Made inhuman

By this

The heart is blackened

The fingers reach for the throat

The gun

The knife

The bomb

The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god

The fingers reach for the bottle

The pill

The powder

We are born into this sorrowful deadliness

We are born into a government 60 years in debt

That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt

And the banks will burn

Money will be useless

There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets

It will be guns and roving mobs

Land will be useless

Food will become a diminishing return

Nuclear power will be taken over by the many

Explosions will continually shake the earth

Radiated robot men will stalk each other

The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms

Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground

The sun will not be seen and it will always be night

Trees will die

All vegetation will die

Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men

The sea will be poisoned

The lakes and rivers will vanish

Rain will be the new gold

The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind

The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases

And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition

The petering out of supplies

The natural effect of general decay

And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard

Born out of that.

The sun still hidden there

Awaiting the next chapter.

 

 

heres one by a guy named steve richmond

 

i tore my nails into

my stomach ripping a hole

big enough to put my hand

into me with blind fingers

feeling between intestines

and liver for the flower of

me, until i found it pulling

it out, holding it in my bloody

right hand until my left hand

got ahold of my soul, and i

took the two and smashed them

together until they became a

solid piece of total beauty

for me to throw with all

my strength into the

stars

[Guest fiznuthian]

kaen skull fucks the chav he just mashed

by fred mcgriff

 

shards of bone, oxygenated blood pulp

sinewy shredded muscle

exposed like pornography

warm receptive brains

like coming home

 

LOL dude

[Atop]

here is one by me about hurricanes eating America:

 

American Policy Leftovers

Rome never held a flame to what the mighty eagle accomplishes,

The talons that rip, the atomic fire that burns, the birth of universes through techno-illogical devancements......

The humans live at no expense large enough...

No cost great enough.....

no Costco big enough.........

While the mother knows all, sees all, feels all and retaliates while most of the humans live blindly.......

frivolously.....

vicariously through a viral nature...

Babylon wasn't big enough, the oceans aren't dirty enough, the hydrogen bomb isn't devastating, ENOUGH!

So the armpit of the world will be flattened by the most beautiful shape known to the mind,

the spiral......

All of the armpit's rich elitist pig oil money, all of its industry and all of its poverty.....

is to be drowned by a spiral.....

The mother knows......

she is angry,

so sit back,

relax,

get fat,

watch the 18 wheelers go floating by.....

Like clouds is a cesspool sky........

The eagle has landed and broken its wing......

Now the archangels and demons together shall sing...........

 

 

 

love,

 

 

 

Akkad the Orphic Priest

[Guest Beefuncle]

I See The Boys Of Summer - Dylan Thomas

 

I see the boys of summer in their ruin

Lay the gold tithings barren,

Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils;

Theire in their heat the winter floods

Of frozen loves they fetch their girls,

And drown the cargoed apples in their tides.

 

These boys of light are curdlers in their folly,

Sour the boiling honey;

The jacks of frost they finger in the hives;

There in the sun the frigid threads

Of doubt and dark they feed their nerves;

The signal moon is zero in their voids.

 

I see the summer children in their mothers

Split up the brawned womb's weathers,

Divide the night and day with fairy thumbs;

There in the deep with quartered shades

Of sun and moon they paint their dams

As sunlight paints the shelling of their heads.

 

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing

Stature by seedy shifting,

Or lame the air with leaping from its hearts;

There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse

Of love and light bursts in their throats.

O see the pulse of summer in the ice.

 

II

 

But seasons must be challenged or they totter

Into a chiming quarter

Where, punctual as death, we ring the stars;

There, in his night, the black-tongued bells

The sleepy man of winter pulls,

Nor blows back moon-and-midnight as she blows.

 

We are the dark deniers, let us summon

Death from a summer woman,

A muscling life from lovers in their cramp,

From the fair dead who flush the sea

The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp,

And from the planted womb the man of straw.

 

We summer boys in this four-winded spinning,

Green of the seaweed's iron,

Hold up the noisy sea and drop her birds,

Pick the world's ball of wave and froth

To choke the deserts with her tides,

And comb the county gardens for a wreath.

 

In spring we cross our foreheads with the holly,

Heigh ho the blood and berry,

And nail the merry squires to the trees;

Here love's damp muscle dries and dies,

Here break a kiss in no love's quarry.

O see the poles of promise in the boys.

 

III

 

I see the boys of summer in their ruin.

Man in his maggot's barren.

And boys are full and foreign in the pouch.

I am the man your father was.

We are the sons of flint and pitch.

O see the poles are kissing as they cross.

 

The website I copied this from gave it a 9.3 user rating, that kind of rating system for art and music is hilarious.

 

Fuck you Pitchfork

[Guest Iain C]

I'm a huge fan of Dylan Thomas. This is one of my favourite poems, it's on a similar theme to that one, and there's a beautiful recording of him reading it:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1xLuTbBdrA

 

At this time of year I tend to listen to Under Milk Wood obsessively. It's probably the greatest drama ever written for radio - not that I know a great deal about radio drama. But I do know it practically word for word and I never get tired of it.

[Guest Beefuncle]

I'm a huge fan of Dylan Thomas. This is one of my favourite poems, it's on a similar theme to that one, and there's a beautiful recording of him reading it:

 

 

At this time of year I tend to listen to Under Milk Wood obsessively. It's probably the greatest drama ever written for radio - not that I know a great deal about radio drama. But I do know it practically word for word and I never get tired of it.

 

Under milk wood is incredible, I've never actually listened to it or seen which is ridiculous because Dylan Thomas is my favourite poet i've only read it.

 

I tried giving it to some it of my mates it just wrecked there heads.

 

First Voice's monologues are some of the most amazing passages ive ever read, so poetic yet descriptive.

 

Here's another one of my favourite poets, Christopher Marlowe. He was a medieval spy as well as a poet/playwright. He was stabbed to death with a fork or something like that in a pub his death was very mysterious, his life was really interesting its definitely worth a read.

 

HERO AND LEANDER

 

by Christopher Marlowe

 

FIRST SESTIAD

 

On Hellespont, guilty of true-love's blood,

In view and opposite two cities stood,

Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune's might;

The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.

At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,

Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,

And offered as a dower his burning throne,

Where she should sit for men to gaze upon.

The outside of her garments were of lawn,

The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;

Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove,

Where Venus in her naked glory strove

To please the careless and disdainful eyes

Of proud Adonis, that before her lies.

Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,

Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.

Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,

From whence her veil reached to the ground beneath.

Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves

Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives.

Many would praise the sweet smell as she passed,

When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast;

And there for honey bees have sought in vain,

And, beat from thence, have lighted there again.

About her neck hung chains of pebblestone,

Which, lightened by her neck, like diamonds shone.

She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind

Would burn or parch her hands, but to her mind,

Or warm or cool them, for they took delight

To play upon those hands, they were so white.

Buskins of shells, all silvered used she,

And branched with blushing coral to the knee;

Where sparrows perched of hollow pearl and gold,

Such as the world would wonder to behold.

Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,

Which, as she went, would chirrup through the bills.

Some say for her the fairest Cupid pined

And looking in her face was strooken blind.

But this is true: so like was one the other,

As he imagined Hero was his mother.

And oftentimes into her bosom flew,

About her naked neck his bare arms threw,

And laid his childish head upon her breast,

And, with still panting rocked, there took his rest.

So lovely fair was Hero, Venus' nun,

As Nature wept, thinking she was undone,

Because she took more from her than she left,

And of such wondrous beauty her bereft.

Therefore, in sign her treasure suffered wrack,

Since Hero's time hath half the world been black.

 

Amorous Leander, beautiful and young,

(whose tragedy divine Musaeus sung,)

Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none

For whom succeeding times make greater moan.

His dangling tresses, that were never shorn,

Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,

Would have allured the vent'rous youth of Greece

To hazard more than for the golden fleece.

Fair Cynthia wished his arms might be her sphere;

Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there.

His body was as straight as Circe's wand;

Jove might have sipped out nectar from his hand.

Even as delicious meat is to the taste,

So was his neck in touching, and surpassed

The white of Pelop's shoulder. I could tell ye

How smooth his breast was and how white his belly;

And whose immortal fingers did imprint

That heavenly path with many a curious dint

That runs along his back, but my rude pen

Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men,

Much less of powerful gods. Let it suffice

That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes,

Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his

That leaped into the water for a kiss

Of his own shadow and, despising many,

Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.

Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen

Enamoured of his beauty had he been.

His presence made the rudest peasant melt

That in the vast uplandish country dwelt.

The barbarous Thracian soldier, moved with nought,

Was moved with him and for his favour sought.

Some swore he was a maid in man's attire,

For in his looks were all that men desire,

A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye,

A brow for love to banquet royally;

And such as knew he was a man, would say,

"Leander, thou art made for amorous play.

Why art thou not in love, and loved of all?

Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall."

 

The men of wealthy Sestos every year,

(For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,

Rose-cheeked Adonis) kept a solemn feast.

Thither resorted many a wandering guest

To meet their loves.

[Guest Iain C]

I've just checked and it's all on youtube...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy0srtmv3og

 

this is the version i have on my ipod - the 1963 richard burton recording. i've heard it said that the original 1954 burton recording is better, but i haven't listened to it - apparently the big difference is that the original version ommitted a few scenes (such as the children's nursery rhyme, which i'm actually really fond of).

 

if you've read it on the page but haven't listened to it, you're really missing out.

[chassis]

Under Milk wood really fucked me up in the head. Maybe it was reading it that was so abstract.