Poems

[Soulpieced]

Alright, I have to find a poem to read in class for tomorrow. Can't be too long (1-3 minutes to read). Anyone have any ideas of a good one, or where to find some choices?

[Celexei]

A Stick of Incense
By: W.B. Yeats 1938
Whence did all that fury come,
From empty tomb or Virgin womb?
St.Joseph thought the world would melt
But liked the way his finger smelt.

[HarmNone]

This is one of my favorites, Peam. It allows for a very impressive emotional delivery, if you are up to it. ;)

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
by Edgar Allan Poe
1827

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep–while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

HarmNone

[GSTamral]

One of my favorite poems:

"Comfortably Numb" - Roger Waters

[HarmNone]

Heh. Here's another you might like. I think you could fit it into three minutes, but you'd have to time it to be sure.

By Robert Service

The Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

HarmNone always gets a chuckle out of this one :D

[Artha]

Just read a section or two from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

[Soulpieced]

Thanks HarmNone, I'm probably gonna use the Edgar Allen Poe one.

[i remember halloween]

poems suck

[HarmNone]

Good choice, Soulpie! Delivered correctly, that one can earn you some major points. ;)

HarmNone

[Latrinsorm]

Bells - Poe. You'll have to give it some gas, but it's wicked hot if you can get through it.

[Ambrosia]

The Cremation of Sam McGee
I love that poem!:thumbsup:

[HarmNone]

Originally posted by Latrinsorm
Bells - Poe. You'll have to give it some gas, but it's wicked hot if you can get through it.

I have done that one, too, Latrinsorm. I agree. It can bring down the house if performed well. :)

HarmNone

[Artha]

The Rime takes a bit of patience, but it's totally the BEST POEM EVER.

[Varsus]

I woke early one morning,

The earth lay cool and still,

When suddenly a tiny bird perched on my window sill,

He sang a song so lovely, so carefree and so gay,

That slowly all my troubles began to slip away.

He sang of far off places, of laughter and of fun,

It seemed his very thrilling, brought up the morning sun.

I stirred beneath the covers, crept slowly out of bed,

Then gently shut the window, and crushed his fucking head.

I’m not a morning person


-Varsus (not by me, but damn funny)

[Back]

Since you are on Poe and short recital poems, I'll offer The Raven. Dramatic enough in its rythym to lend even the meekest voice a sound of impending doom, then eerie silence.

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Artha
The Rime takes a bit of patience, but it's totally the BEST POEM EVER. The only thing good about the Rime is that it was on the Scathe Zombies card. Crappy card, but the marinating was cool.

[Soulpieced]

Damn black decks... scathe zombies, pah.

[Edited on 4-29-2004 by Soulpieced]

[HarmNone]

Originally posted by Backlash
Since you are on Poe and short recital poems, I'll offer The Raven. Dramatic enough in its rythym to lend even the meekest voice a sound of impending doom, then eerie silence.

The Raven is a wonderful performance piece, but it is so often done that one risks being duplicated when doing it for a class assignment. :(

HarmNone

[AnticorRifling]

Use the poems Marvin the robot wrote in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. I think it was while he was plugged into the Krikitt master computer....Hell let me find it.

[AnticorRifling]

FOUND IT!!

Marvin the robot's poem:

Now the world has gone to bed,
Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see by infared,
How I hate the night.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
Try to count electric sheep,
Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
How I hate the night.


:cool:


*edit: Had to put the V in Marvin...

[Edited on 4-29-2004 by AnticorRifling]

[Back]

Originally posted by HarmNone

Originally posted by Backlash
Since you are on Poe and short recital poems, I'll offer The Raven. Dramatic enough in its rythym to lend even the meekest voice a sound of impending doom, then eerie silence.

The Raven is a wonderful performance piece, but it is so often done that one risks being duplicated when doing it for a class assignment. :(

HarmNone

Yes, I suppose hearing Poe's own voice for over a hundred years can get somewhat repetative. Imagine how Sheakspear must feel.

[TheEschaton]

Use some Emily Dickinson, that'll score points. This one has a bit of a rhythym to it, and it's morbid. What more can you want?:

Because I could not stop for Death
Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 't is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

--------------------------------------------------------

My favorite poem is Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", but that's entirely too long for 3 minutes.

Hmmmm.....go with Dickinson. Or Poe. Forget the Bells, the tintinabulation is hard to get right on short practice. ;) You need to measure it just right. If you want Poe, I'd suggest Annabel Lee, and stay away from the Raven for HN's reasons of overuse.

----------------------------------

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by TheEschaton
Use some Emily Dickinson, that'll score points. Ugh, Dickinson. Better her than that hack Whitman, I guess.

I totally remember us doing the Prufrock thing in class, but I totally don't remember anything about it. I'm pretty sure my drunk of a teacher (he was the man) just enjoyed saying the name Prufrock.

[TheEschaton]

This is Prufrock. Long, but worth it. I have an MP3 of Eliot reciting it, too.

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . . 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old … 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me. 125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[Latrinsorm]

<<In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

Oh yeah, I remember that now. It gains a lot of unintentional humor if you start slurring the words, by the way. :D

[Ravenstorm]

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.


Raven

Poetry sucks.

One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
They stood back to back and faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,
The deaf policeman heard the noise,
And shot them dead, those two dead boys,
If you don't believe my lie is true,
Go ask the blind man, he saw it too.

"I see," said the blind man.
As he picked up his hammer and saw.

[Mistomeer]

"somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond" and "i sing of olaf, glad and big" by ee cummings are cool
the death of the ball turret gunner by randall jarrell might be a little short

[ElanthianSiren]

Originally posted by Stanley Burrell
Poetry sucks.

One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
They stood back to back and faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,
The deaf policeman heard the noise,
And shot them dead, those two dead boys,
If you don't believe my lie is true,
Go ask the blind man, he saw it too.

"I see," said the blind man.
As he picked up his hammer and saw.

I'm curious as to how many people agree. I know I'd rather read poetry than watch tv, and I also know I'm too late for SP's class, but I figured I'd toss up a few of my favorites anyway cuz I'm proactive like that (even if I tend to be slow on the uptake occasionally).

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire,
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that, for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice.


479
-E. Dickinson.

She dealt her pretty words like Blades --
How glittering they shone --
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone --

She never deemed -- she hurt --
That -- is not Steel's Affair --
A vulgar grimace in the Flesh --
How ill the Creatures bear --

To Ache is human -- not polite --
The Film upon the eye
Mortality's old Custom --
Just locking up -- to Die.


-Melissa

[Ravenstorm]

I like this one as well:

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/c-eight/france/poem.htm

It's not that it's such a wonderful poem, though it is a good one, but it's the history behind it that appeals to me. That the events actually happened and were witnessed lends it a greater sense of tragedy.

Raven

[Ravenstorm]

Oh! And we can't forget this one:

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley

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 Might, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Raven

[Artha]

The Rime (http://eserver.org/poetry/ancient-mariner.html). It's long enough to need 7 parts, but it's ubergood.

Best poem\story ever= The cask of Amontillado

[AnticorRifling]

Read Hyperion Cantos. All of you.