On Tasso In Prison (Eugène Delacroix’s Painting)
The poet in his cell, unkempt and sick,
who crushes underfoot a manuscript,
measures, with a gaze that horror has inflamed,
the stair of madness where his soul was maimed.
The intoxicating laughter that fills his prison
with the absurd and the strange, swamps his reason.
Doubt surrounds him, and ridiculous fear,
hideous and multiform, circles near.
That genius pent up in a foul sty,
those spectres, those grimaces, the cries,
whirling, in a swarm, about his hair,
that dreamer, whom his lodging’s terrors bare,
such are your emblems, Soul, singer of songs obscure,
whom Reality suffocates behind four walls!
poem by Charles Baudelaire
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Related quotes
Happiness...
In this perfect world I feel a presence surrounding me,
I am embraced in the arms of a love so devine,
Her heart beats against mine, fingers caressing my soul,
In gasping breaths I inhale whispers of flawless passion,
A sweet nectar filling my lungs with intoxicating joy,
My soul soars higher than any man has dreamed,
My heart has been healed and my tears dried,
Serenity fills every corner of my existance,
Then suddenly I am wrenched back to reality,
For this is nothing more than a beautiful dream,
If only love could find this desolate soul,
Happiness could be ours for all of eternity...
Spread the love... The peace will follow...
poem by Cosmic Dreamer
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So What Can a Monkey Do
It's just insidious...
Too ridiculous and hideous to me.
To find some are nonbelieving,
In the obviousness of reality.
And the questions asked,
Persist...
Pertaining to the 'way' things happen as they do.
Making little sense when the evidence points back...
Into the face of the accuser.
You know the kind?
The one who creates the crime,
But not admit it.
It's just insidious...
Too ridiculous and hideous to me.
And too emotionally sacrificial I've become.
With too much topping of self serviced depreciation.
Aggrevated by the act of too much devotion shown!
This...
It's just insidious!
It's too ridiculous and hideous to me.
Even to make known...
What is felt and seen has been condoned!
So what can a monkey do?
'Only what a monkey can do!
Be a monkey! '
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Shackled By Our Own Beliefs
My soul is like a caged bird of paradise,
For I long to glide once more in open sky,
To gaze upon the face of this earth and smile,
To breathe in the very essence of all creation,
To see the beauty we all take for granted,
Yet I am incarcerated within lifes prison cell,
Like an angel who's wings have been clipped,
And in my daily life I learn to accept the shadows,
For as with us all I wear the blinkers of obedience,
Medeocrity has become the norm so I do not question,
As I watch the malevolent dance of demons I see no ill,
My dreams have faded and I merely exist within this nightmare,
Yet the voice of doubt screams loud within my soul,
I wrench at the shackles of deceit that restrain me,
For I have become aware that this life is but a lie,
We were all meant to be so very much more,
So I shall carry on hoping and dreaming,
That we may all find an end to this desperate night...
Spread the love... The peace will follow...
poem by Cosmic Dreamer
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Pop Singer
Never wanted to be no pop singer,
Never wanted to write no pop songs.
Never had no weird hair to get my songs over.
Never wanted to hang out after the show.
Pop singer (writing) of pop songs.
Never wanted to have my picture taken.
Now, who would want to look into these eyes?
Just want to make it real - good, bad or indifferent.
Thats the way that I live and thats the way that Ill die (as a)
Pop singer (of) pop songs.
Pop singer, writing of pop song.
Never wanted to be no pop singer,
Never want to write no pop songs.
Never wanted to have a manager over for dinner.
Never wanted to hang out after the show.
Pop singer, writing pop songs.
Never wanted to be no pop singer, of pop songs.
A pop singer.
Never wanted to write no pop songs.
song performed by by John Mellencamp
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Solitary Dreamer
I
In a solitary cell
Enclosed in a prism
My thoughts dwell
A soul in prison
II
I wish to transcend
the dreams of dream
and in spirit ascend
the light to God's gleam
III
O! the cells of the brain
have their limit
for my reason to blame
why my intellect's decrepit
IV
My soul in chains
My reason the gaoler
Its spirit drains
Into a morbid pallor
V
Will God still love me
In my humiliating jail?
Can love I be?
Or will I fail?
VI
Dream I do
In my solitary cell
And bid adieu
To my mind in hell…..
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Doubt
Lurking in the dark of night,
Doubt cowers from days light.
Our deepest fears doubt shall find,
All our troubles brought to mind.
I do not not seek out all of this pain,
Yet my mind wanders once again.
In doubts shadow I cannot be whole,
For doubt tattoo's misery upon my soul.
All my doubt shall imprison my heart,
And build a fence to keep us apart.
All my doubt shall taunt my soul,
So walls are built and we are not whole.
Doubts dark shadow touches me,
Prevents my heart from being free.
And the one thing my heart does know,
While doubt lives I shall not glow...
Spread the love... The peace will follow...
poem by Cosmic Dreamer
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As in a Pond
As in a pond that sleeps o'erhung by trees,
Two things at once in many a soul one sees :--
The sky, which points, the surface pure and calm,
With all its rays and clouds the heart to charm;
And then the depth, slime, hideous, dark, and dead,
Where foul black reptiles swarm, and vaguely tread.
poem by Victor Hugo
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My Soul
My soul cries for love
But only tears reply
My soul cries for attention
But only lonliness answers the door
My soul cries for a friend
Only to be ignored
By a stranger
My soul cries for hope
But despair with lies
Deceive the truth
Which blinds hope
My soul cries for warmth
As an artic freeze
Surrounding my soul
Entices it with the dance of death
My soul defeated
No longer cries
Accepts what it can't change
Lies still
Waiting to die
poem by Matt Mondschein
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The Dreamer's Poet
Dreamers dream
dreaming that
all their dreams are dreams;
and is reality then multiple-shaped
or itself a dream?
If dreams are things not real or true
or don't yet exist
then what does it mean for dreamer to
act upon the dream and bring it forth
into reality?
Was the dream just reality
not yet existent;
in waiting so to speak?
Or was it live
always there
waiting to be discovered?
Seems to me
this is much like a poem;
how the poem comes to be-
unless, of course,
the poet
is a dream too,
outside reality
paradoxical conundrum
don't you see?
And more:
could it be the Dreamer's Poet
in dreaming thus
creates the Poet
and the Poetry
both of which
become Reality
Thus?
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Funny Farm Frenzy
Welcome to the funny farm,
Let’s embrace in the steel embedded walls without harm,
Welcome to delusion, the land of charm,
Inside the walls is the realm of the most brilliant of men,
The schizophrenics, and the bi polars, everything torments them,
But inside the insane asylum, they escape from condemn,
The funny farm where you’re surrounded with laughter,
Through the air, the giggles are hidden beneath the rafters,
Constant delusion, from morning, afternoon and thereafter,
Manuscripts and portraits, the artistic minds inside the brilliant drafters,
The mentally ill the most creative of mind,
Inside the asylum, escaped from reality, their thoughts refined,
Inside the asylum, their life is left behind,
On the white walls where portraits and creative writing shine,
Without sunlight, they’re the creators of their own realm of divine,
Inside the white walls, in their delusion, their confined,
The funny farm where humor is their lifeline,
Welcome to delusion, the neverending dream,
Inside the asylum things are not what they seem,
To reality it’s a prison, to the patients it’s their regime,
But what happens when the walls blacken in the night?
The laughter fades and their humor turns to spite,
They crumble in the fear of darkness without the touch of sunlight,
And they realize something about them isn’t “right”,
Isolated from the world their trapped in the dark,
Only within the walls, is their adventure to embark,
Inside their asylum, a community of reality segregated apart,
Their lifeline, through vivid imagination they depart,
They cannot see the walls around them, it’s their everyday home,
Inside the closed doors, their only space to roam,
An everyday dream to separate from reality, the unknown,
But when the lights turn on, and the walls turn white, the asylum fills with glee,
The reality inside the funny farm, the walls they can’t see,
They open their mind to creativity and imagination where their free,
The most creative of the mind, the indulgence of the what reality can’t see,
Up and down inside the walls, the rollercoaster of the emotional cycle spree,
The novel written and painted inside the asylum, the neverending dream,
Beyond the walls where reality isn’t seen.
poem by Kurt Kacich
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Karate
Two people dressed in white
take steps around each other,
and around their middles
black bands are tied.
Like lightning bolts feet shoot out
are averted fast as thunder,
a fist is folded deadly
and held in a striking blow.
Shapes move like spectres in a dangerous dance,
eagles get wings with speed and course
and four eyes measures courage, measures speed,
measures soul, body and craft.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Sonnet LXI
Supposed to have been written in America.
ILL-omen'd bird! whose cries portentous float
O'er yon savannah with the mournful wind;
While, as the Indian hears your piercing note,
Dark dread of future evil fills his mind;
Wherefore with early lamentation break
The dear delusive visions of repose?
Why from so short felicity awake
My wounded senses to substantial woes?
O'er my sick soul thus rous'd from transient rest,
Pale Superstition sheds her influence drear,
And to my shuddering fancy would suggest
Thou com'st to speak of ev'ry woe I fear,
Ah! Reason little o'er the soul prevails,
When, from ideal ill, the enfeebled spirit fails!
poem by Charlotte Smith
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In the Sante
I
Before I got into my cell
I had to strip my body bare
I heard an ominous voice say Well
Guillaume what are you doing here
Lazarus steps into the ground
Not out of it as he was bid
Adieu Adieu O singing round
Of years and girls the life I led
II
I'm no longer myself in here
I know
I'm number fifteen in the eleventh
Row
The sunlight filters downward through
The panes
And on these lines bright clowns alight
Like stains
They dance under my eyes while my
Ears follow
The feet of one whose feet above
Sound hollow
III
In a bear-pit like a bear
Every morning round I tramp
Round and round and round and round
The sky is like an iron clamp
In a bear-pit like a bear
Every morning round I tramp
In the next cell at the sink
Someone lets the water run
With his bunch of keys that clink
Let the goaler go and come
In the next cell at the sink
Someone lets the water run
IV
How bored I am between bare wall and wall
Whose colour pales and pines
A fly on the paper with extremely small
Steps runs across these lines
What will become of me O God Who know
My pain Who gave it me
Have pity on my dry eyes and my pallor
My chair which creaks and is not free
And all these poor hearts beating in this prison
And Love beside me seated
Pity above all my unstable reason
And this despair which threatens to defeat it
V
How long these hours take to go
As long as a whole funeral
You'll mourn the time you mourned you know
It will be gone too soon like all
Time past
too fast too long ago
VI
I hear the noises of the city
In the turning world beyond me
I see a sky which has no pity
And bare prison walls around me
The daylight disappears and now
A lamp is lit within the prison
We're all alone here in my cell
Beautiful light Beloved reason
poem by Guillaume Apollinaire
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Poet's Soul
I read the poet's souls in the poems,
I read the poet's inner world.
Pulse beats louder, then duller,
And all my doubts are just hurled.
The sadness sometimes a kiss cover,
Then suddenly curled at my feet,
Giving the whole body a heat,
The warmth of a true lover.
Fever passes through nervous points,
Chill runs through the whole body,
I read the poet's souls in the poems,
And feel that the soul is haughty.
I delve into the words and their nature,
Understanding destroys the walls,
Now I would like to capture
The main idea and the poems calls.
I read and my joy is in full swing,
My own soul gets the wings,
I am ready to fly with the singer,
Like me the poet is a swinger.
I am with that one who dared
To plunge into the holy spring naked,
I am with that one who shared
An inspiration and was not faked.
I read the poet's souls in the poems.
But do I read the souls of reality or dream?
Let's deem that no one here and there lies,
And the law of poetry is always precise.
©Larisa Rzhepishevska (Odessa, Ukraine)
The 4th of April,2012
poem by Larisa Rzhepishevska
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Reasons To Be Beautiful
Love hangs herself
With the bedsheets in her cell
Threw myself on fires for you
10 good reasons to stay alive
10 good reasons that I cant find
Oh, give me a reason to be beautiful
So sick in his body, so sick in his soul
Oh, give me one reason to be beautiful
Oh, and everything I am
Love hates you
I live my life in ruins for you
And for all your secrets kept
I squashed the blossom and the blossoms dead
Oh, give me a reason to be beautiful
So sick in his body, so sick in his soul
Oh, and I will make myself so beautiful
Oh, and everything I am
Miles and miles of perfect skin
I swear I do, I fit right in
My love burns through everything
I cannot breathe
Miles and miles of perfect sin
I swear, I said, I fit right in
I fit right in your perfect skin
I cannot breathe
Hey, baby, take it all the way...down
Hey, baby, taste me anyway
Oh, you were born
So pretty oh summerbabe
Well never know...
And fading like a rose
Give me a reason to be beautiful
So sick in his body, so sick in his soul
Ill give you my body, just sell me your soul
Oh, and everything I am will be bought and sold
Oh, and everything I am will turn hard and cold
And they say in the end
Youll get bitter just like them
And they steal your heart away
When the fire goes out you better learn to fake
Its better to rise than fade away...
Hey you were right
Named a star for your eyes
Did you freeze did you weep
Turn to gold, baby, sleep
Hey honey mine
I was there all the time
And I weep at your feet
And it rains and rains
song performed by by Hole
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Don't Cry For Me
More than a dream
As I stare into your eyes
More than a cover
Overshadowed by your name
Chorus
Don’t cry for me
Don’t leave me now
Hope surrounds them,
Doubt surrounds me
Am I true?
Fear is life
But you’re fearless
Lost control, keep
Holding on
Don’t cry for me
End chorus
Flying, you’re flying
As I stay on the ground
And watch
More than a girl
Overshadowed by your name,
Your creations, your foundation
Don’t cry for me
Don’t leave me now
Hope surrounds them
Doubt surrounds me
Am I true?
Fear is life
But you’re fearless
Lost control, keep
Holding on
Don’t cry for me
You used to huddle near me
Warmed by my smile
I knew without a care in the world
You knew me through my silence
You liked me through my faults
You cared for me through my depressions
At some times
You even loved me, without a doubt
But now
Don’t cry for me
Don’t leave me now
Hope surrounds them
Doubt surrounds me
Am I true? Am I here?
Fear is life
But you’re fearless
Lost control, keep
Holding on
Don’t cry for me
Don’t cry for me
Don’t leave me now
Cause you know, deep down
I can’t do this anymore
Don’t cry for me
Song: The Cries of Today’s Children
I hear the cries of children,
Of children of the world; I Singer
The unwanted and unlucky,
The orphans and of streets!
I hear the cries of children,
Of children who want love;
The illiterate, sick, handicapped; II Singer
Poor, without any sheets!
I hear the cries of children,
Of children that must work; I Singer
To earn while young for family,
Have no place, time to play!
I hear the cries of children,
Of children war-ravaged;
Who know not what is joy in life, II Singer
Living in squalor, strife!
Let’s make this world for children,
A better place to live; I&II Singers together
With encouragement, dignity, * 2 times
And all love, we can give.
(
poem by John Celes
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Nora on the Pavement
As Nora on the pavement
Dances, and she entrances the grey hour
Into the laughing circle of her power,
The magic circle of her glances,
As Nora dances on the midnight pavement;
Petulant and bewildered,
Thronging desires and longing looks recur,
And memorably re-incarnate her,
As I remember that old longing,
A footlight fancy, petulant and bewildered;
There where the ballet circles,
See her, but ah! not free her from the race
Of glittering lines that link and interlace;
This colour now, now that, may be her,
In the bright web of those harmonious circles.
But what are these dance-measures,
Leaping and joyous, keeping time alone
With Life's capricious rhythm, and all her own,
Life's rhythm and hers, long sleeping,
That wakes, and knows not why, in these dance-measures?
It is the very Nora;
Child, and most blithe, and wild as any elf,
And innocently spendthrift of herself,
And guileless and most unbeguiled,
Herself at last, leaps free the very Nora.
It is the soul of Nora,
Living at last, and giving forth to the night,
Bird-like, the burden of its own delight,
All its desire, and all the joy of living,
In that blithe madness of the soul of Nora.
poem by Arthur Symons
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The Singer In The Prison
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!
RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong,
the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their
pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
The sun was low in the west one winter day, 10
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily
counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls--the keepers round,
Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation's criminal mass,
Calmly a Lady walk'd, holding a little innocent child by either hand,
Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical prelude,
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.
THE HYMN.
A Soul, confined by bars and bands, 20
Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;
Blinded her eyes--bleeding her breast,
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!
Ceaseless, she paces to and fro;
O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole! 30
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!
It was not I that sinn'd the sin,
The ruthless Body dragg'd me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The Body was too much for me.
O Life! no life, but bitter dole!
O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!
(Dear prison'd Soul, bear up a space,
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free, and bear thee home, 40
The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.
Convict no more--nor shame, nor dole!
Depart! a God-enfranchis'd Soul!)
The singer ceas'd;
One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o'er all those upturn'd
faces;
Strange sea of prison faces--a thousand varied, crafty, brutal,
seam'd and beauteous faces;
Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them,
While her gown touch'd them, rustling in the silence,
She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.
While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr'd, 50
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow'd, and moved
to weeping,
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy
childhood,
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
--A wondrous minute then--But after, in the solitary night, to many,
many there,
Years after--even in the hour of death--the sad refrain--the tune,
the voice, the words,
Resumed--the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,
The wailing melody again--the singer in the prison sings: 60
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought--a convict Soul!
poem by Walt Whitman
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Poet
Darkness,
behind the cloak.
Random words spewed
Subconscience thought,
so obscure their meaning
'Why would anyone want
to be a fuckin' poet? '
I ask.
Eerie blackness
within a wretched,
reckless soul
reveals the heart of men
but you,
eyes open, don't blink
'Why would anyone want
to be a fuckin' poet? '
I ask.
The day of light
when darkness passes
Brilliant stars
hide beyond the heavens.
But all you know is hell
'Why would anyone want
to be a fuckin' poet? '
I ask.
Be anything...,
a janitor,
a carpenter,
an accountant,
a fry cook.
Never become a poet.
Stay numb. It's easier.
Unless you want to feel.
Than be prepared for
internal turmoil.
Turmoil, most common
men could never bare.
'Why would anyone want
to be a fuckin' poet? '
I ask.
God knows, I'm not one.
They're all fuckin' sissy's.
Everyone knows that.
T. Labbe`