Poems, Verses, Literature; Share And Recommend!

[Mr.Grieves]

People are reading less and less these days, or limiting their reading to 160 characters, and it's a real tragedy that poetry and literature seems to be increasingly falling to the wayside. I figured it would be nice if we shared with one another the poems, versus and literature which we enjoy or has had an impact on our lives, perhaps pertinent to the content of this website, perhaps just things you hope for those present to read and hear.
I was recently gifted a copy of Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', a poem I've not read before by an extremely controversial poet of the late 50's early 60's, partly but not exclusively because he was openly gay in a time when that was generally unacceptable. Here's an excerpt from it that I think many frequent VC readers might find of interest.


What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

 

[Mr.Grieves]

Some choice excerpts from 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam', an interpretative translation by Edward Fitzgerald, an English poet who- rather than translate word for word- relayed the themes and intent of Omar Khayyam's writing in a lyrical and gorgeous way. Omar Khayyam was a Persian renaissance-man of the early 1100's; a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, a poet, and a bit of heathen. Much of his poems are about how little time on earth we have, and enjoying it while you can (with a cup of wine in particular) rather than devoting our time and lives to otherworldly things.
-------
XIII
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
------
LXIX
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.


LXX
The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all--He knows--HE knows!


LXXI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.


LXXII
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help--for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
-------
LXXXII
As under cover of departing Day
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away,
Once more within the Potter's house alone
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.


LXXXIII
Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall;
And some loquacious Vessels were; and some
Listen'd perhaps, but never talk'd at all.


LXXXIV
Said one among them--"Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta'en
And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again."


LXXXV
Then said a Second--"Ne'er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy,
And He that with his hand the Vessel made
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy."

LXXXVI
After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"


LXXXVII
Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot--
I think a Sufi pipkin-waxing hot--
"All this of Pot and Potter--Tell me then,
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"


LXXXVIII
"Why," said another, "Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."


LXXXIX
"Well," Murmur'd one, "Let whoso make or buy,
My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry:
But fill me with the old familiar juice,
Methinks I might recover by and by."

His Tomb:

 

[Tatilina]

 

[Tatilina]

RELIGION
Wrapped in the arms of nature, a breath and breast to rest upon,
I am one with the energy flowing from the male and female elements.
I do not fear my creation, my parent bore not a sinner into this world,
They bore a life to tend to the harmony of nature, not a destruction of it.
From my hands became the power to manipulate my world, it is mine,
To do no harm, to use these hands to heal, to help, to empower others.
My voice does not sing in chapels, it speaks to the particles of life, energy.
Institutions have no place for me, for I am among the trees, swaying in leaves.
I harvest the energies of objects, drawing in the positive nutrients they deliver.
There is history to the craft that I have not put to memory, my body knows,
It is in my blood, the connection between me and the moon,
no bookstore self help nor religious books could ever explain the belief.
Would a witch by any other name be feared or respected, I seek not that label.
Pagan, history thrives on bare bones that brought magic into this world,
The roots of witchcraft, smothered by invading investments of other religions.
I do not know the teaching of such, but I know the Earth and she speaks.
I create my universe from the powers she allows me to have, I earn my life.
Love, that is what makes religion, love for self and for others, true love,
And with the rituals I respect that harmonious flow, from the love of me outwards,
With this hands speaking in rhythm with my heart, I evoke the powers,
Inside the energy of my aura as I stand beside you, you will know, you are loved.

Beltane
At the beginning of May, it is a new spring.
It is time to see renewal of everything.
To the native peoples and the diaspora,
flowers and vines reappear in a plethora.
The daytime sun is climbing higher in the sky.
To the restraint of winter cold, we bid goodbye.

Thus, the Sabbath of Beltane is upon us.
My Wiccan doll reappears and looks fabulous.
A full moon and stars shine in the darkness of night.
I can barely see her through a bonfire’s faint light.
With her long flowing red hair and her cool green eyes,
into my very soul, she appears to tantalize.
There is nothing bad with her. In fact, she is good.
Her coven gathers in the middle of the wood.
Dancing sky-clad with the others around the fire,
she purifies the smoke with boughs of juniper.
These actions are sending my emotions higher.
Do I dare reveal myself and blow my cover?

What a Walpurgis Night celebration I see!
When the esbat is over, spend some time with me.

https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/best/wiccan

 

[Serveto]

The Second Coming
(W. B. Yeats)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?​

 

[Mr.Grieves]

On a darker note, here's an excerpt from 'A City of Dreadful Night', by a mid 1800's Scottish poet, James Thomson. A long and incredibly bleak poem, it's an expression of misery and pessimism in the face of soulless urban environments and the perceived cruelties of humanity. Pretty heavy stuff, but poignant and pretty gorgeously written.


While I still lingered on that river-walk,
And watched the tide as black as our black doom,
I heard another couple join in talk,
And saw them to the left hand in the gloom
Seated against an elm bole on the ground,
Their eyes intent upon the stream profound.

"I never knew another man on earth
But had some joy and solace in his life,
Some chance of triumph in the dreadful strife:
My doom has been unmitigated dearth."

"We gaze upon the river, and we note
The various vessels large and small that float,
Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat."

"And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil
Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth;
But homely love with common food and health,
And nightly sleep to balance daily toil."

"This all-too-humble soul would arrogate
Unto itself some signalising hate
From the supreme indifference of Fate!"

"Who is most wretched in this dolorous place?
I think myself; yet I would rather be
My miserable self than He, than He
Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace.

"The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou
From whom it had its being, God and Lord!
Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred
Malignant and implacable! I vow

"That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled,
For all the temples to Thy glory built,
Would I assume the ignominious guilt
Of having made such men in such a world."

"As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign,
At once so wicked, foolish and insane,
As to produce men when He might refrain!

"The world rolls round for ever like a mill;
It grinds out death and life and good and ill;
It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.

"While air of Space and Time's full river flow
The mill must blindly whirl unresting so:
It may be wearing out, but who can know?

"Man might know one thing were his sight less dim;
That it whirls not to suit his petty whim,
That it is quite indifferent to him.

"Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith?
It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath,
Then grinds him back into eternal death."

 

[Mr.Grieves]

A great Canadian songwriter and poet, Leonard Cohen is one of my personal heroes. The writer of many hit songs which have been covered to death since, such as the classic 'Hallelujah', he gave up public life and celebrity to become a literal monk on the mountain. During that time his long-time manager robbed him blind, stealing from him an upwards of 5 million dollars and leaving him entirely broke. While convicted of the theft and ordered to pay back some 9 million dollars, his manager evaded authorities for years and never paid the money back. Eventually this brought Cohen down off the mountain to tour again in his old age, and quite rapidly he found his fortune again thanks to fans starving for his prose. He passed away November of last year, but not before releasing another and perhaps his most haunting album, called 'You Want it Darker'.
While still on the mountain however, he wrote a series of idle poems that were assembled into 'The Book of Longing', truly one of my favorite works of all time. The first poem from 'The Book of Longing' is one the readers here may well enjoy/identify with. The second from the same book is one I just find stunning.


S.O.S 1995

Take a long time with your anger,
sleepyhead.
Don’t waste it in riots.
Don’t tangle it with ideas.
The Devil won’t let me speak,
will only let me hint
that you are a slave,
your misery a deliberate policy
of those in whose thrall you suffer,
and you are sustained
by your misfortune.
The atrocities over there,
the interior paralysis over here-
Pleased with the better deal?
You are clamped down.
You are being bred for pain.
The Devil ties my tongue.

I am speaking to you,
‘friend of my scribbled life’.
You have been conquered by those
who know how to conquer invisibly.
The curtains move so beautifully,
lace curtains of some
sweet old intrigue:
the Devil tempting me
to turn away from alarming you.

So I must say it quickly:
Whoever is in your life,
those who harm you,
those who help you;
and those whom you do not know –
let them off the hook,
help them off the hook.
Recognize the hook.
You are listening to Radio Resistance.

Seisen is Dancing

Seisen has a long body.
Her shaved head
threatens the skylight
and her feet go down
into the vegetable cellar.
When she dances for us
at one of our infrequent celebrations,
the dining hall
with it's cargo of weightless monks and nuns,
bounces around her hips
like a hula-hoop.
The venerable old pine trees
crack out of sentry duty
and get involved,
as do the San Gabriel mountains
and the flat cities
of Claremont, Upland
and the Inland Empire.
And ocean speaks to ocean
saying, What the hell,
let's go with it, rouse ourselves.
The Milky Way undoes its spokes
and cleaves to Seisen's haunches,
as do the worlds beyond,
and worlds unborn,
not to mention darkest holes
of brooding anti-matter,
and random flying mental objects
like this poem,
fucking up the atmosphere.
It's all going round her hips,
and what her hips enclose;
it's all lit up by her face,
her ownerless expression.
And then there's this aching fool
over here, no, over here
who thinks that
Seisen's still a woman,
who's trying to find a place to stand
where Seisen isn't Dancing.

 

[Kung Fu]

1 Say: He is Allah, the One!
2 Allah, the eternally Besought of all!
3 He begetteth not nor was begotten.
4 And there is none comparable unto Him.

-Surah 112: The Unity

 

[Serveto]

On a darker note, here's an excerpt from 'A City of Dreadful Night', by a mid 1800's Scottish poet, James Thomson. A long and incredibly bleak poem, it's an expression of misery and pessimism in the face of soulless urban environments and the perceived cruelties of humanity. Pretty heavy stuff, but poignant and pretty gorgeously written.

Although you did warn us, I need some Prozac, or, better yet, some Ludlow beer, after that one (not). Speaking of bleak, it reminds me of this (excerpt), written not long afterward, on the British Isles, down at Oxford, which, in modern style, describes the unenviable fate of a Shropshire or even, yes, some American lad, who wakes up from yet another drunken binge only to find that his world, besotted and benumbed as it is by alcohol, is no more improved ...

Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff
(A.E. Housman)

And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half-way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

​

 

[mecca]

Leonard Cohen

I like him.

 

[Mr.Grieves]

I like him.

He's the man!

 

[Serveto]

Published British poet, Rick Holland, recently worked with veteran ambient artist, Brian Eno, to release an album, filled with what has been called "poetronica." This one is narrated by a female, whose name I do not know, perhaps just freshly graduated from drama school, with what impresses me as perfect elocution.

 

[grateful servant]

Look Homeward, Angel
Thomas Wolfe
​

A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.

Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

O waste of lost, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this weary, unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”