En.Citatepedia^®.ro

Stone Cottages

You built your stone cottages
Without any windows,
No light for your memories
No doors for your soul;
You’ve long kept your pillages
Deep-dug in foundations
Your meadows and villages
Too far from your home.

The shadows of verities
Loom large on verandahs
To strut at the terraces,
Assault your grim walls;
But all of your sureties
Are locked in your cottages
And all your serenity
In dark, airless halls.

Your lines cross your messages
In treks round old workings,
Your mind lines the precipice
That quickens your pride,
Your darkness is born of
Young dreams and old wreckages,
Short schemes and long yearnings
You’ve always denied.

23 May 1978

poem by David Lewis Paget
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House Or Window Flies

These little window dwellers, in cottages and halls, were always
entertaining to me; after dancing in the window all day from sunrise
to sunset they would sip of the tea, drink of the beer, and eat of the
sugar, and be welcome all summer long. They look like things of mind
or fairies, and seem pleased or dull as the weather permits. In many
clean cottages and genteel houses, they are allowed every liberty to
creep, fly, or do as they like; and seldom or ever do wrong. In fact
they are the small or dwarfish portion of our own family, and so many
fairy familiars that we know and treat as one of ourselves.

poem by John Clare
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Wych Elm

Green is the wych-elm
Torn is the tiding,
Ghosts in the old country
Surely are riding,
Deep lie the shadows
On dull days in waiting,
Trace the old harmonies
Long in creating,
Sharp is the memory,
Dark is the will,
Lost for all seasons
In some rippling rill.

Long did he wander,
He that in I
Took to the meadows,
Gazed at the sky,
Rambled by rivers and
Rolled in the corn,
He that in I was
When we were new-born,
Fled by the wych-elm
Where age and old sin
Awaited his passing
That he would come in.

He that came in as
The I that went by him
Smiled in some greeting
That caught my tongue tying,
Reached for the reins of
His dapple-grey gelding,
Rode through the seasons
That never had ending,
Squandered the meadows
And trampled the corn,
Serving the wych-elm of
Both of us born.

Now I return with
The lines in our faces,
Searching for shadows of
Both of our traces,
Hoping for comfort or
Words of some kindness,
Lost in the echoing
Creed of my blindness,
Shadows of him that I
Tore from within me,
Left by the wych-elm
To steal that he lent me.

Green is the wych-elm
Torn is the tiding,
Ghosts of the old country
Surely are riding,
Out by the meadow
A child that waylays me,
Speaks to me once, and that:
‘You have betrayed me! ’
Turns at the river to
Gaze at the sky,
Rides away slowly,
He that was I.

Nothing is left for
My bitter eye brightly,
Nothing but shades that
Return to me nightly,
Seasons that flickered, that
Galloped and fled me,
Schemes and ambitions that
Always misled me…
But no-one could ever do
More to dismay me
Than he that was I, saying:
‘You have betrayed me! ’

5 April 1978

poem by David Lewis Paget
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Why Am I Needing This?

I am not those dark days lived.
To perform an existing within shadows.
I am not,
One who sits comfortably...
Fixed to fears,
Of my own image appearing...
On walls that I visit forelorned.

I can not accept a misery imposed upon me.
I can not accept...
My own reflection hinting with signs of neglect.

I am the light that brightly shines...
On the other side of closed windows.
I am the light that brightly shines...
Beyond closed and locked doors,
My mind has been convinced...
I'm needing more to restrict my addictions.
I'm needing more of this...
To keep and explore!

'I am not those dark days lived',
I say.
'I am not that one existing,
Within the restriction of shadows.'

I am the light that brightly shines...
On the other side of closed windows.
I live beyond closed and locked doors!
And yet I am a victim,
Of my own self inflicting addictions.
Why am I needing this...
To keep adventured and explored?

'Why am I needing this?
Why from it I just can't quit? '

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Within The Shadows Of My Mind

There are lots of memories locked away
within the shadows of my mind.
Memories of childhood years gone by
and they are located in the dark recesses
awaiting one day to escape from
within the shadows of my mind.
We tend to hide away
the sad things in our lives,
locking them away
never to see again the light of day.
We wish not to resurrect
all their sadness and pain.
Therefore, we store them away
within the shadows of our mind.
In the shadows, hold many tragedies
of which we do not want to relive.
The pain grows constantly
just thinking of them again.
So as I close each chapter
of my life as it unfolds
the memories that bring
the most pain are locked away
within the shadows of my mind.

5 September 2008

poem by David Harris
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Sea and Shore

‘Why do you tear at
My towers and my turrets,
My walls and my pillars
My barrs and my beach;
And mutter like musings
Of untoward poets,
And scatter your silences
Out of my reach? ’

‘Why do you surge and
Assault in your anger
The fortress I built for
My lady asleep,
And slowly dismiss each
Dispute you remember
By wearing each stone
From the base of the Keep? ’

‘What is the torment that
Claws at the crofters,
The meadows, the rookeries
Close to your door,
And where is the mistress
As sweet and as soft as
The ripples you listlessly
Waste by the shore? ’

II

‘I’ll balk and I’ll beat
At your very foundations,
I'll tear down your turrets
And pillars of stone,
The lady that sleeps at
The edge of my oceans
Was mine when your acres
Were torn from my throne.’

‘But time has not told
All the tales of my fathoms
And constant I am
To the love that I keep,
Each year I assault and
Encroach your dominions,
Your towers and your turrets,
Your castle and keep.’

III

‘Long may you surge and
Assault my defences,
Beat in your anger
At granite and slate,
The lady that sleeps has
No further pretences,
Your labour of love
A millennium late.’

IV

‘Now shall I fume at
My lady’s defection and
All her deceptions
From headland and Tor,
Love is as false as
Your petty foundations
When love may be left
Beating up on the shore.’

28 June 1979

poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Hospital

Large, heavy, wooden, daunting doors
loom before my eyes as I enter.
An empty side office, reception
with old fashioned filing cabinets,
dark now, glass shutters, closed.
Another heavy door in front of me,
this one leads to a wide, cold floored corridor.
I baulk, want to turn heel, go home.

The black and white tiling, lofty ceiling,
does nothing but repulse me.
More heavy, locked doors
with tiny, peep hole windows, all barred.
Screaming, faint screaming echoes,
ghost like, as it drifts towards me
gradually getting louder.
I reach a wide, stone staircase.

Everything's locked and bolted,
no one passes and the screaming echoes.
Asylums, those old mental hospitals,
where we still send the forgotten
to live out their lives and rot.
You wouldn't ever call this home
and the world outside rolls on
as the traffic drifts by.

poem by Ruth Walters
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To His Muse

Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home;
Where thou mayst sit, and piping, please
The poor and private cottages.
Since cotes and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.
There with the reed thou mayst express
The shepherd's fleecy happiness;
And with thy Eclogues intermix:
Some smooth and harmless Bucolics.
There, on a hillock, thou mayst sing
Unto a handsome shepherdling;
Or to a girl, that keeps the neat,
With breath more sweet than violet.
There, there, perhaps such lines as these
May take the simple villages;
But for the court, the country wit
Is despicable unto it.
Stay then at home, and do not go
Or fly abroad to seek for woe;
Contempts in courts and cities dwell
No critic haunts the poor man's cell,
Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read
By no one tongue there censured.
That man's unwise will search for ill,
And may prevent it, sitting still.

poem by Robert Herrick
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I Am A Poet Of Short Lines

I am a poet of short lines-
Of lines that are phrases,
Of lines that are small and broken-

I am a poet of short lines-
Of impatience and small breath,
Of hurrying and not taking time-

I am a poet of short lines-
Of condensation and conciseness,
Of maximum meaning in minimum space-

I am a poet of short lines
Short ones.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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All Day Long/I Have Been Walking And Thinking

ALL DAY LONG / I HAVE BEEN WALKING AND THINKING

All day long
I have been walking and thinking
Trying to write a poem.

And the lines are not lines
And the poem is not a poem
And the poet is not a poet.

And as the Jerusalem winter wind
Quickens my soul
And the sun flashes at me
The beauty of this world,
I know I have wasted my life
On what was beyond me.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead

This is the house. On one side there is darkness,
On one side there is light.
Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns—
O, any number—it will still be night.
And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward
To long sonorous halls.
And here is spring forever at these windows,
With roses on the walls.

This is her room. On one side there is music—
On one side not a sound.
At one step she could move from love to silence,
Feel myriad darkness coiling round.
And here are balconies from which she heard you,
Your steady footsteps on the stair.
And here the glass in which she saw your shadow
As she unbound her hair.

Here is the room—with ghostly walls dissolving—
The twilight room in which she called you 'lover';
And the floorless room in which she called you 'friend.'
So many times, in doubt, she ran between them!—
Through windy corridors of darkening end.

Here she could stand with one dim light above her
And hear far music, like a sea in caverns,
Murmur away at hollowed walls of stone.
And here, in a roofless room where it was raining,
She bore the patient sorrow of rain alone.

Your words were walls which suddenly froze around her.
Your words were windows,—large enough for moonlight,
Too small to let her through.
Your letters—fragrant cloisters faint with music.
The music that assuaged her there was you.

How many times she heard your step ascending
Yet never saw your face!
She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter,
Till silence swept the place.
Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . .
You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.

A certain rose-leaf—sent without intention—
Became, with time, a woven web of fire—
She wore it, and was warm.
A certain hurried glance, let fall at parting,
Became, with time, the flashings of a storm.

Yet, there was nothing asked, no hint to tell you
Of secret idols carved in secret chambers
From all you did and said.
Nothing was done, until at last she knew you.
Nothing was known, till, somehow, she was dead.

How did she die?—You say, she died of poison.
Simple and swift. And much to be regretted.
You did not see her pass
So many thousand times from light to darkness,
Pausing so many times before her glass;

You did not see how many times she hurried
To lean from certain windows, vainly hoping,
Passionate still for beauty, remembered spring.
You did not know how long she clung to music,
You did not hear her sing.

Did she, then, make the choice, and step out bravely
From sound to silence—close, herself, those windows?
Or was it true, instead,
That darkness moved,—for once,—and so possessed her? . . .
We'll never know, you say, for she is dead.

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Journeys end

The stream meanders to and fro.
Here where the cattle come to drink
the yellow cowslips gaily grow.

The weeping willows stooping low
adorn the banks on either side.
The stream continues in its flow.

Past meadows where the cattle graze
and fields where corn is ripening
but here and there red poppies blaze.

The stream now to a river grown
now deep and wide; it gathers strength
Its purpose to itself unknown.

Past cottages which stand alone.
Small villages and market towns
and bridges built of weathered stone.

It has become a thoroughfare
which slices through the city’s heart
With rush and bustle everywhere.

The docks and quays and factories
confine the river in its course.
There is no grass there are no trees.

The river flows on turgidly
until at last it gains release
and flows into the open sea.

But in the distance still the stream
meanders gently to and fro
Where cowslips nod and lovers dream.

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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A Poet Became His Own Poetry

A POET BECAME HIS OWN POETRY

A poet became his own poetry
And all he could be
Was lines and lines and lines
Inside and outside
Lines and more lines
Off- rhymes
Finding a phrase
A metaphor
Hearing listening
To sounds
His own mind made.

A poet became his own poetry
And went into the long sleep
Of being only what he wrote.
No one can know how
Reading these lines now
The poet and the poetry live
without themselves.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Pigeon

I've picked up your name from the floor
and held it for long on the palm of my hand
watching it gently peck its lines
until there remained nothing not a single crumb
and your name well fed slept for a while
in lines of death in lines of life
in lines of the head and lines of the heart
in intricate patterns that sealed me for too long

there was a lullaby I wanted to sing
but I was not able to open my mouth
for fear you'll wake up and disappear
and I promised myself I would never dropp you again

poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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Out Of Exile

When I first came to this island
that I called by own name
I was happy in this fortress,
in my exile I remained
But the hours grew so empty
and the ocean sent her waves
In the figure of a woman
and she pulled me out to sea
Chorus
When you come down to take me home
send my soul away
When you come round you'll make me whole
send my soul away
On the altar of a sunrise
was a wedding in the waves
And inside her shown a young light
from her labor I was saved
Though I've traveled long in darkness
in her harvest I'm embraced
Chorus
When you come down to take me home
send my soul away
When you come round you'll make me whole
send my soul away
Now the spires and the gables
grow in orchards to the sky
And the blessings on my table
multiply and divide
Chorus
When you come down to take me home
send my soul away
Yeah when you come round you'll make me whole
send my soul away
Yeah when you come down to take me home
when you come round you'll make me whole
Yeah when you come round to take me home
Send my soul away
send my soul away
Send my soul away
send my soul away

song performed by by Audioslave
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Prayer In Open D

(emmylou harris)
Theres a valley of sorrow in my soul
Where every night I hear the thunder roll
Like the sound of a distant gun
Over all the damage I have done
And the shadows filling up this land
Are the ones I built with my own hand
There is no comfort from the cold
Of this valley of sorrow in my soul
Theres a river of darkness in my blood
And through every vein I feel the flood
I can find no bridge for me to cross
No way to bring back what is lost
Into the night it soon will sweep
Down where all my grievances I keep
But it wont wash away the years
Or one single hard and bitter tear
And the rock of ages I have known
Is a weariness down in the bone
I use to ride it like a rolling stone
Now just carry it alone
Theres a highway risin from my dreams
Deep in the heart I know it gleams
For I have seen it stretching wide
Clear across to the other side
Beyond the river and the flood
And the valley where for so long Ive stood
With the rock of ages in my bones
Someday I know it will lead me home

song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Since The Last Goodbye

(chris rainbow - lead vocal)
The hours, the minutes seem to fly
And since the last goodbye
You and I came a long way
The nights, too short to fill with sleep
Or falling in too deep
Seem so far away now
Memories, all we share between us
Everything we were, all that we remain
But memories somehow came between us
Breaking up two minds that were one and the same
The years are moments passing by
No time to wonder why
You and I went the wrong way
The days too short to fill with dreams
Or question what it means
Are a part of me now
Remember all the leaves were falling
Walking hand in hand, standing in the rain
Remember distant voices calling
Whispers in the dark, I can hear them again
Since the last goodbye
Its all the wrong way round
Since the last goodbye
Its all the wrong way round
Memories, all we share between us
Everything we were, all that we remain
But memories somehow came between us
Breaking up two minds that were one and the same
Since the last goodbye
Its all the wrong way round
Since the last goodbye
Its all the wrong way round

song performed by by Alan Parsons Project
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pengellen

Each winter the grey-greying streets of Pengellen
Fall silent as dampness creeps in at the hearth,
And miners and men speak in whispers of heaven,
Of darkness and penance, of copper and dearth.

No children are seen on the streets of Pengellen,
Each wife fears her shadow, and hurries inside,
While mirrors have long been discarded, forgotten
That no man may see what his God may decide.

For so it was once that the men of Pengellen
Were busy and purposeful, masters of time,
The wealth that they won taught that greed was forgiven
Though every man feared, and was ruled by the mine.

For deep in the earth with a pick or a chisel,
A shovel, an oath in a gaelic discourse,
They quarried the bowels of some God-awful midden
To pile the green copper in place of the gorse.

So pitted the surface from shaft to Pengellen,
So pitted and scorched that no flower would grow,
And brown was the landscape, and scarred was the bracken
That burst from the copper-green dirt down below.

While every stone cottage gleamed white in Pengellen
To mock at the bracken that patently lied,
For every small child played as happy as heaven
As if they believed they had God on their side.

The copper ran deeper than deep flowing runnels,
The miners would blast, and then pump and shore up,
‘Til some had remarked, ‘were the heavens so tunnelled
The mine would arrive with the first taken up.’

And higher and high were the skimps by Pengellen
‘Like mountains by men’ was the miner’s assent,
Their pride went in hand with their wealth and their women,
And Godless and grim was the worship they spent.

They drilled to the sixty and six hundredth level,
With six levels more to blast out, pump and shore,
No man could have known that the deeper he tunnels,
The darker the horror he finds at his door.

They ranged at the back as the copper was falling,
Stood silent in shock at some evil refrain,
As into the light groped the Prince of the Morning
From where he’d been cast in his thousand year chain.

The miners streamed back to the streets of Pengellen,
They crowded the Kirk that had never been filled,
And prayed to the Lord they had always forsaken,
Then went to their cottages, locked themselves in.

While stamping and raging the length of Pengellen
He called for an anvil to shatter his chain,
The mist and ill wind that had told of his coming
Were never to lift from Pengellen again.

These sixty long years have brought change to Pengellen
No child has grown old and no miner has died,
They fast on a bread that is flat and unleavened,
And drink brackish water for penance beside.

The cottages now are both damp and rat-ridden,
Are grey and neglected, and empty of cheer,
And deep-dense the mist that encloses the midden
Pengellen is lost for the best of each year.

While whispered at evens are long supplications
White-faced behind windows both bolted and barred,
And dearth is a thousand years waiting to happen,
While green is a colour considered ill starr’d.

29 February 1984

poem by David Lewis Paget
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Walls

Walls of stone and walls of brick,
Some walls thin and some walls thick,
Walls so high and walls so low,
Walls to hide and walls to show.

Walls quite short and walls quite tall,
Some walls, last well, some walls fall,
Walls for comfort, walls of hate,
Walls for security, walls ornate.

Some as a barricade, some to support,
Walls of wood and walls of iron wrought,
Walls as a barrier, walls to enclose,
Some are to sit on, some to lean and doze.

Walls we build ourselves, these aren't good,
Walls for privacy, walls that have stood,
So many years through weather foul or fine,
Walls, that are yours, walls that are mine.

Brick by brick they are built to last,
Whether built now or in the past,
They shelter us from so many things,
And shield us from whatever this life brings.

poem by Ernestine Northover
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Show Tune II

That's the long and short of it
now you know
how I've been waiting all these years
where I'm coming from
that's the long and short of it.

That's the long and short of it
now you see
just how hot hot jazz was
how it turned about, my bookcase
that's the long and short of it.

That's the long and short of it
now you know
that my arrest record's
not my best record
that's the long and short of it.

That's the long and short of it
now you see
how the Past's like a love
you can neither leave nor live
that's the long and short of it

That's the long and short of it
now you know
it was no gun in my pocket
it was a rocket
that's the long and short of it.

That's the long and short of it
and you're wond'ring dear
how I kept so pure
hull, it was easy
that's the long and short of it.

That's the long and short of it
now you see
so bounce your head
into bed
that's the long and short of it.

That's the long and short of it
read the blues
in these tattoos
make a song of it
that's the short and long of it.

How I wish
there was a bridge-
then I could burn it;
or the train
of a refrain
then I could board it
but there isn't
no there isn't, so...

poem by Morgan Michaels
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All Nite Long

If only the music would keep on playing
If only I could dance with you
If only I could keep on singin
All nite long, all nite long
If only we could dance toghether
All nite long, all nite long
If only we could keep this feelin
Make it last all nite long
Waitin for the next wave
Wonder whats it gonna be
Waitin for the next
All nite long, all nite long
Whoa oo oh the dawn comes up like thunder
Somebody give me a light I need a little
Help thru the darkness
Just a little light
Enough to get me home
All nite long, all nite long, all nite long
Sometimes the musics a doorway
Out of the darkness into the light
Climb the dream I can make you dream
All nite long, all nite long
See the ruins of a once mighty castle
A land where the sun casts no shadow
Sings and wonders the sund of thunder
All nite long, all nite long
Step into the sky you wont
Fall Ill tell you why
You got to be a sky rider
All nite long, all nite long
Whoa oo oh your love come up like thunder
Somebody give me a light I need a little
Help thru the darkness
Just a little light
Enough to get me home
All nite long, all nite long, all nite long
I can read your mind an I know
What youre thinkin
I can see your mind just as clear as my own
The pictures I see they all tell a story
Bout where we been and where were goin
Tonite if only the music would keep on playing
Tonite if only I could dance with you
Tonite if only we could keep on singin
All nite long, all nite long, all nite long
Tonite keep on singin dancin
Take me home
Bring it home
Tonite
All nite long

song performed by by Jefferson Starship
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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