Aeneas carried his aged father on his back from the ruins of Troy and so do we all, whether we like it or not, perhaps even if we have never known them.
quote by Angela Carter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Epitaph on King Priam of Troy
Priam, the Trojan king
Lies in a great peace.
Lies he there
The city of Troy,
Where no more is joy.
Caused by Paris’s ploy,
Thought the city was a toy.
So brought the coil
And Troy, received it, as a spoil,
As the Greeks took the coil, away
And Troy, in ruins, alas.
poem by Deepta Protik Osman
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About Troy
1
Troy O Troy
an archeologist
will sift your ashes through his fingers
yet a fire occurred greater than that of the Iliad
for seven strings--
too few strings
one needs a chorus
a sea of laments
and thunder of mountains
rain of stone
--how to lead
people away from the ruins
how to lead
the chorus from poems--
thinks the faultless poet
respectably mute
as a pillar of salt
--The song will escape unharmed
It escaped
with flaming wing
into a pure sky
The moon rises over the ruins
Troy O Troy
The city is silent
The poet struggles with his own shadow
The poet cries like a bird in the void
The moon repeats its landscape
gentle metal in smoldering ash
2
They walked along ravines of former streets
as if on a red sea of cinders
and wind lifted the red dust
faithfully painted the sunset of the city
They walked along ravines of former streets
they breathed on the frozen dawn in vain
they said: long years will pass
before the first house stands here
they walked along ravines of former streets
they thought they would find some traces
a cripple plays
on a harmonica
about the braids of a willow
about a girl
the poet is silent
rain falls
poem by Zbigniew Herbert
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Carried Away
(barry gibb/albhy galuten)
There you are
Shiny as a morning star
Its a figure of speech
But youre still out of reach
You never told me loving you could be so wrong and right
And its gonna be a lonely night
I turn to you
You turn away
Youre looking at someone else
And here am i
Loving you more and more
Weve got an open door, my love
Oh let it be just a state of mind
And suddenly you appear
Im carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
Cest la vie
So you wanna play another part
Can you say goodbye
Can you live a lie
Shell never give you what I gave you was my breaking heart
Better than I ever knew
And if you can live without my love
Youre really gonna be alone
And here am i
Walking against the crowd
Calling your name out loud, my love
Oh let it be just a state of mind
And suddenly you appear
Im carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
Carried away
Baby there aint no final word
Ill be yours again
I got a world of tenderness
Yours until the end
Im carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
Im carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
Im carried away
To be carried away
song performed by by Olivia Newton-John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Silence No More
Aged 1
Aged 2
Aged 3
Aged 4
At 5 my life changed forever more,
Aged 6
Aged 7
Aged 8
Aged 9
By 10 he’d touched me a thousand times,
Aged 41
42
43
44
But now I’m not suffering in silence,
In silence anymore,
For now I’m chatting and talking,
Not crawling I’m walking,
Even though he’s still stalking,
I’m not suffering in silence,
Suffering in silence,
I’m not suffering in silence,
In silence no more.
poem by Darren Harris
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Happy Female Father’s Day
I patiently waited for another year,
For father’s day to come
To wish that special person a happy day
Happy father’s day, to my mom
The father figure, was very rare
Games together were numb
I wonder what a father’s love might be
Happy father’s day, to my mom.
So on this day set aside for dads,
I want to let you know
That you are the one I treasure most,
And to you my love I owe
Thank you for another father’s day,
I longed for this day to come,
Never knowing the love, of a visiting dad
Happy father’s day, to my mom
My mother dear, my mother dear,
You are the best, in every way
So I stand tall and wish for you
A happy female father’s day.
poem by Troy Brown
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Fall of Troy
Learnt from Chapman's Homer*
A story full of grace and glamour
Killings of Royals, warriors and multitude
Fall of Troy is
A melodrama of ancient attitude
Sans Merci, sans certitude
War that was waged in heaven
Amongst deities of love wedding and wisdom**
To be crowned as fairest of heavenly kingdom,
Poor Prince from Trojan race
Chose to settle that celestial FACE
Ah! This sin of Paris was un-forgiven
***Brought thousands ships towards Trojan haven.
The wall of Troy
Besieged by savage and sages
For term of ten years ages
Prince Hector the decent, daredevil
Embraced Achilles` wrath and kissed the peril.
Days and nights, round the clock
Trojans, Achaeans clashed like a giant rocks
Hector, Aeneas, Paris, Agenor and Sarpedon****
Achilles, Odysseus, Ajax, Patroclus and Agamemnon*****
For worthless love and fairy******
Troy lost her grace and glory
poem by Gulsher john
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We did it together. Not one individual carried this team.
quote by Troy Vincent
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar
1
The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball
In the May morning, in the Czar's garden,
Tossing it back and forth.
It fell among the flowerbeds
Or fled to the north gate.
A daylight moon hung up
In the Western sky, bald white.
Like Papa's face, said Sister,
Hurling the white ball forth.
2
While I ate a baked potato
Six thousand miles apart,
In Brooklyn, in 1916,
Aged two, irrational.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt
Was an Arrow Collar ad.
O Nicholas! Alas! Alas!
My grandfather coughed in your army,
Hid in a wine-stinking barrel,
For three days in Bucharest
Then left for America
To become a king himself.
3
I am my father's father,
You are your children's guilt.
In history's pity and terror
The child is Aeneas again;
Troy is in the nursery,
The rocking horse is on fire.
Child labor! The child must carry
His fathers on his back.
But seeing that so much is past
And that history has no ruth
For the individual,
Who drinks tea, who catches cold,
Let anger be general:
I hate an abstract thing.
4
Brother and sister bounced
The bounding, unbroken ball,
The shattering sun fell down
Like swords upon their play,
Moving eastward among the stars
Toward February and October.
But the Maywind brushed their cheeks
Like a mother watching sleep,
And if for a moment they fight
Over the bouncing ball
And sister pinches brother
And brother kicks her shins,
Well! The heart of man in known:
It is a cactus bloom.
5
The ground on which the ball bounces
Is another bouncing ball.
The wheeling, whirling world
Makes no will glad.
Spinning in its spotlight darkness,
It is too big for their hands.
A pitiless, purposeless Thing,
Arbitrary, and unspent,
Made for no play, for no children,
But chasing only itself.
The innocent are overtaken,
They are not innocent.
They are their father's fathers,
The past is inevitable.
6
Now, in another October
Of this tragic star,
I see my second year,
I eat my baked potato.
It is my buttered world,
But, poked by my unlearned hand,
It falls from the highchair down
And I begin to howl
And I see the ball roll under
The iron gate which is locked.
Sister is screaming, brother is howling,
The ball has evaded their will.
Even a bouncing ball
Is uncontrollable,
And is under the garden wall.
I am overtaken by terror
Thinking of my father's fathers,
And of my own will.
poem by Delmore Schwartz
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Troy Town
HEAVENBORN Helen, Sparta's queen,
(O Troy Town!)
Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
The sun and moon of the heart's desire:
All Love's lordship lay between.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Helen knelt at Venus' shrine,
(O Troy Town!)
Saying, “A little gift is mine,
A little gift for a heart's desire.
Hear me speak and make me a sign!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Look, I bring thee a carven cup;
(O Troy Town!)
See it here as I hold it up,—
Shaped it is to the heart's desire,
Fit to fill when the gods would sup.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“It was moulded like my breast;
(O Troy Town!)
He that sees it may not rest,
Rest at all for his heart's desire.
O give ear to my heart's behest!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“See my breast, how like it is;
(O Troy Town!)
See it bare for the air to kiss!
Is the cup to thy heart's desire?
O for the breast, O make it his!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Yea, for my bosom here I sue;
(O Troy Town!)
Thou must give it where 'tis due,
Give it there to the heart's desire.
Whom do I give my bosom to?
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Each twin breast is an apple sweet.
(O Troy Town!)
Once an apple stirred the beat
Of thy heart with the heart's desire:—
Say, who brought it then to thy feet?
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“They that claimed it then were three:
(O Troy Town!)
For thy sake two hearts did he
Make forlorn of the heart's desire.
Do for him as he did for thee!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Mine are apples grown to the south,
(O Troy Town!)
Grown to taste in the days of drouth,
Taste and waste to the heart's desire:
Mine are apples meet for his mouth.”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Venus looked on Helen's gift,
(O Troy Town!)
Looked and smiled with subtle drift,
Saw the work of her heart's desire:—
“There thou kneel'st for Love to lift!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Venus looked in Helen's face,
(O Troy Town!)
Knew far off an hour and place,
And fire lit from the heart's desire;
Laughed and said, “Thy gift hath grace!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Cupid looked on Helen's breast,
(O Troy Town!)
Saw the heart within its nest,
Saw the flame of the heart's desire,—
Marked his arrow's burning crest.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Cupid took another dart,
(O Troy Town!)
Fledged it for another heart,
Winged the shaft with the heart's desire,
Drew the string and said, “Depart!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Paris turned upon his bed,
(O Troy Town!)
Turned upon his bed and said,
Dead at heart with the heart's desire—
“Oh to clasp her golden head!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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In the ruins of your game
Im stuck in the ruins of your game.
I remember everthing clear as day.
You told me it would be a fun game.
Fun for you mabey.
It was sheer hell for me.
In the ruins of what you did.
I'm left in an everlasting pain.
It was left within the wake of what you did.
Im left within ruins.
Im in a shell of my self.
Im angry really bloody angry.
It all knaws away at me.
Eating its way through me.
Am I a bad person?
Was it my fault?
Is the unaswered questions.
In the ruins of what happened to me.
In the ruins of what you did.
Its left me me fucked up in the head.
Im a really fucked up person now.
It all in ruins.
Im a mess.
Im a bad person.
You left me in the ruins of your abuse.
Left me to pick up the peices.
You just luaghed at me all the time.
Amy Kerswell
poem by Amy Louise Kerswell
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Oaks Tutt
My mother was for woman's rights
And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
In order to learn how to reform the world.
I traveled through many lands.
I saw the ruins of Rome,
And the ruins of Athens,
And the ruins of Thebes.
And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
There I was caught up by wings of flame,
And a voice from heaven said to me:
"Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth!
Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
And I hastened back to Spoon River
To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
They all saw a strange light in my eye.
And by and by, when I taIked, they discovered
What had come in my mind.
Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate
The subject, (I taking the negative):
"Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World."
And he won the debate by saying at last,
"Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt
Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate:
'What is Truth?'"
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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When he Died
My father died
an unnatural death
the postmortem report says
with an infallible accuracy
highper tension resulting in an end
I saw my father
being carried away
by some people
I knew by my heart
My father said not a single word
I can not believe him to be so silent.
poem by Hribhu Dey
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About Eric
There is a similarity about them.
Eric, and my father.
Quiet men, who went about their lives
doing well for others.
Gentle men, who didn't seek rewards,
the doing would suffice.
When I talk with Eric,
memories of my father come flooding back.
The timbre of his voice,
an occasional gesture,
the size and shape of him.
I look forward to those moments joyously,
sometimes sadly.
My father's passing?
An unfathomable void.
To Eric, I repeat the words I spoke
the night my father died.
'Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
Eric Smith, friend and mentor, died on
January 4,2006 aged 92
poem by Jerry Hughes
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Father Of Night
Father of night, father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and father of rain.
Father of day, father of night,
Father of black, father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams.
Father of grain, father of wheat,
Father of cold and father of heat,
Father of air and father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As You Said
By jack bruce and pete brown
Lets go down to where its clean
To see the time that might have been.
The tides have carried off the beach.
As you said,
The sun is out of reach.
Lets go back to where its clean
To see what year it might have been.
The roads have carried off the smiles.
As you said,
To judge them at the trials.
Lets go back to now thats bad
To see the time we might have had.
The rails have carried off the trains.
As you said,
Ill never come again, again, again, again.
song performed by by Eric Clapton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As You Said
By jack bruce and pete brown
Lets go down to where its clean
To see the time that might have been.
The tides have carried off the beach.
As you said,
The sun is out of reach.
Lets go back to where its clean
To see what year it might have been.
The roads have carried off the smiles.
As you said,
To judge them at the trials.
Lets go back to now thats bad
To see the time we might have had.
The rails have carried off the trains.
As you said,
Ill never come again, again, again, again.
song performed by by Cream
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In The Name Of The Father
In the name of the Father,
Crusaders sallied forth
raping and murdering.
In the name of the Father,
the Vatican turned its back
on the holocaust.
In the name of the Father,
we assassinated Gandhi,
and Martin Luther King.
In the name of the Father,
the Irish killed one another,
and the British urged them on.
In the name of the Father,
paedophiles lurk behind
dog collars and cassocks.
In the name of the Father,
children are sold or enslaved.
In the name of the Father,
this a father I can do without.
poem by Jerry Hughes
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The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.
quote by Derek Walcott
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Father Sun
Strange imaginations, children hide your secrets well
Is it not temptation, makes you kiss and makes you tell?
Theres a traveler on the airwaves, and hes pleading for my heart
Light up all the candles, Im still in the dark
Hurry operator, get redemption on the line
Pull back the curtains, I think I recognize those eyes
If love is so criminal, then my penance due
cause Im still holding onto letters written straight to you
Oh, wont you save me, father sun, father sun
I need to tell you that my life is on the run
And now you know that youre the only one
Oh, please forgive me, father sun, father sun
I swore I needed you in the back of my mind
Laid the beads upon the table, right beside the wine
It seems that we say forever, but forevers just a word
And I will be coming back for you is all I heard
Oh, wont you save me, father sun, father sun
I need to tell you that my life is on the run
And now you know that youre the only one
Oh, please forgive me, father sun, father sun
Please dont forget me, father sun, father sun
I think I hear him whispering
Put your hand in my hand and you wont feel a thing
Oh, wont you save me, father sun, father sun
I need to tell you that my life is on the run
And now you know that youre the only one
Oh, please forgive me, father sun, father sun
Oh wont you save me, father sun, father sun
I need to tell you that my life is on the run
And now you know that youre the only one
Oh wont you save me, father sun, father sun
Oh wont you save me, father sun, father sun
Oh wont you save me, save me, save me, save me, save me, father sun
song performed by by Sheryl Crow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The New Knowledge
Early September, days are getting shorter and evenings longer;
the breeze that blew had pockets of cold air, a reminder of
things to come. Dawn when I got up looked into the mirror
and saw my father’s aged face. Lucid now and for once fully
conscious I had been asleep for forty years and lost the time
between youth and old age. In a foreign country and I could
no longer remember how I got here, or how to leave.
I pressed fingers to my cheeks, in quiet despair, finger marks
on inelastic skin that only slowly faded. Father, why did you
let me sleep so long, how can I now recapture my adult years?
A rumbling through the house, a picture in the living room
fell off the wall; it was of my mother and she looked so young.
The intensity of my reawaken consciousness overwhelmed me,
walls fell and naked I stood in the ruins of my unlived life
poem by Oskar Hansen
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