Depression in Early Spring
Meathooks, notebooks,
the whole city sky palely flaming
& spectral bombs
hitting that patch of river
I see from my eastern window.
The poets are dead, the city dying.
Anne, Sylvia, Keats
with his passionate lungs,
Berryman jumping from the bridge & waving,
all the dreamers dead
of their own dreams.
Why have I stayed on as Horatio?
Anne sends poems from the grave,
Sylvia, letters.
John Keats's ghostly cough
comes through the wall board.
What am I doing here?
Why contend?
I am a corpse who moves a pen that writes.
I am a vessel for a voice that echoes.
I write a novel & annihilate whole forests.
I rearrange the cosmos by an inch.
poem by Erica Jong
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Sylvia's Death
For Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in a tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about raising potatoes
and keeping bees?)
what did you stand by,
just how did you lie down into?
Thief -
how did you crawl into,
crawl down alone
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we wore on our skinny breasts,
the one we talked of so often each time
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death that talked like brides with plots,
the death we drank to,
the motives and the quiet deed?
(In Boston
the dying
ride in cabs,
yes death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
who beat on our eyes with an old story,
how we wanted to let him come
like a sadist or a New York fairy
to do his job,
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,
and since that time he waited
under our heart, our cupboard,
and I see now that we store him up
year after year, old suicides
and I know at the news of your death
a terrible taste for it, like salt,
(And me,
me too.
And now, Sylvia,
you again
with death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
And I say only
with my arms stretched out into that stone place,
what is your death
but an old belonging,
a mole that fell out
of one of your poems?
(O friend,
while the moon's bad,
and the king's gone,
and the queen's at her wit's end
the bar fly ought to sing!)
O tiny mother,
you too!
O funny duchess!
O blonde thing!
poem by Anne Sexton
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To John Keats, Poet, At Spring Time
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year's song and next year's bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.
And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death's dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.
'John Keats is dead,' they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.
poem by Countee Cullen
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You Sleep Alone
What dark sea holds thee from me
We have felt the grave of Keats
Young dying poetry
Gather the garlands of the womb
Smothered in first love
Concepts as wet as Monroe
Invent yourself
I need nipples that write
The wind is not sullen but free
Precarious thorns in the quill
Crows as blue as Matisse
Immortality in ink
You are invisible but here
You carry a lamp of Sylvia Plath
Walk the oak floors
Shut out the expected
Embrace the deep quiet you
There in your mind comes I
Your candle aglow
My fingers are words
We dance like the stars
Bards of sanity gone
Balm of dreams whisper
I must leave before you realize
You sleep alone
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Ballade Of Queen Anne
The modish Airs,
The Tansey Brew,
The SWAINS and FAIRS
In curtained Pew;
Nymphs KNELLER drew,
Books BENTLEY read, -
Who knows them, who?
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
We buy her Chairs,
Her China blue,
Her red-brick Squares
We build anew;
But ah! we rue,
When all is said,
The tale o'er-true,
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
Now BULLS and BEARS,
A ruffling Crew,
With Stocks and Shares,
With Turk and Jew,
Go bubbling through
The Town ill-bred:
The World's askew,
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
ENVOY.
Friend, praise the new;
The old is fled:
Vivat FROU-FROU!
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
poem by Andrew Lang
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His Sweetheart
Sylvia's lattices were dark
Roses made them narrow.
In the dawn there came a Spark,
Armèd with an arrow:
Blithe he burst by dewy spray,
Winged by bud and blossom,
All undaunted urged his way
Straight to Sylvia's bosom.
'Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia!' he
Like a bee kept humming,
'Wake, my sweeting; waken thee,
For thy Soldier's coming!'
Sylvia sleeping in the dawn,
Dreams that Cupid's trill is
Roses singing on the lawn,
Courting crested lilies.
Sylvia smiles and Sylvia sleeps,
Sylvia weeps and slumbers;
Cupid to her pink ear creeps,
Pipes his pretty numbers.
Sylvia dreams that bugles play,
Hears a martial drumming;
Sylvia springs to meet the day
With her Soldier coming.
Happy Sylvia, on thee wait
All the gracious graces!
Venus mild her cestus plait
Round thy lawns and laces!
Flora fling a flower most fair,
Hope a rainbow lend thee!
All the nymphs to Cupid dear
On this day befriend thee!
'Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia!' hear
How he keeps a-humming,
Laughing in her jewelled ear,
'Sweet, thy Soldier's coming!'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Sylvia
(words & music by g. stephens - l. reed)
These long lonely evenings
Here I am on the phone
Wondering if she will call
She said she would write me
cause she knows Im alone
But I hear nothing at all
Im waiting for a word of love from sylvia.
You think shed never heard of love my sylvia,
But when Im with her lord, I forgive her
cause shes more than the whole world to me
Theres nothing like a word of love from sylvia
The only one Im thinking of is sylvia
Feeling so sad now, Ill be so glad now
If I just had my sylvia with me
That old weepin willow
Seems to whisper her name
Why did she go away
The tears on my pillow
Theyre not hard to explain
Theres nothing else I can say
Im waiting for a word of love from sylvia.
You think shed never heard of love my sylvia,
But when Im with her lord, I forgive her
cause shes more than the whole world to me
Theres nothing in the world like sylvia
The only one Im thinking of is sylvia
Feeling so sad now, Ill be so glad now
If I just had my sylvia with me
song performed by by Elvis Presley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tale of Three Cities
New York blasted London blasted
Singapore -
Ripped off each other's metaphoric balls,
Crumbling walls.
Priapic city monoliths -
Blue-sky scraping bastards -
Shout about their height (but really length) .
V8 arseholes didn't care -
Pumping shit into the air,
So long as they were always there to
Fart aloud a smoggy cloud,
Laughing at the weak asthmatic,
Humoured that it seems traumatic.
Watch the greedy cities oozing
Chair-bound fat committees, though they
Look a bunch of titties as they
Waffle on about the pound.
Ever thought to look around and see
That they were dead?
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
city city city city city city
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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In Love With You
Walk this shore of love with me
This shoreline of elegant dreams
Unconventional like jagged rocks
Underground like a winter spring
Some are hurt and must survive
We are the moral ground
Caught between need and honor
Half moon out my window
It is late and you haunt me
Keats knew he was dying
I visited his grave in Rome
Buried by noble Shelley
Poets are troubled waters
Poets are roses in love
Perhaps we shall never meet
Our words like satin sheets
I am in love with you
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Sylvia's Mother
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's busy,
too busy to come to the phone .
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's trying
to start a new life of her own.
Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's happy...
So why don't you leave her alone?'
And the operator says
'Forty cents more, for the next three minutes.'
Please Mrs. Avery, I've just got to talk to her
I'll only keep her a while
Please Mrs. Avery, just want to tell her
Goodbye !
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's packing,
she's gonna be leaving today.
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's marrying
a fellah down Galveston way .
Sylvia's mother says 'Please don't say nothing
to make her start crying and stay.'
And the operator says
'Forty cents more, for the next three minutes.'
Please Mrs. Avery, I've just got to talk to her
I'll only keep her a while
Please Mrs. Avery, just want to tell her
Goodbye !
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia's hurrying,
she's catching the nine'o'clock train.
Sylvia's mother says:'Take your umbrella,
cause Sylvie it's starting to rain.'
And Sylvia's mother says 'Thank you for calling
and Sir won't you come back again ?'
And the operator says
'Forty cents more, for the next three minutes.'
Please Mrs. Avery, I've just got to talk to her
I'll only keep her a while
Please Mrs. Avery, just want to tell her
Goodbye !
poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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City of Death
The city reminded her
Of a room full of dark flies;
The constant sound of buzzing;
The frightening hitting of
Bodies against the sides; but
Something more disturbing was
Brought to mind: the memory
Of Mr Danzinki who
Died in a room up on Eastside,
And no one found him for months
On end, and the flies got in
And laid their seeds, and they came
To fruition and buzzed in
Turn, and when his rescuers
Opened the door of the room,
There was that awful smell of
Decomposition, and a
Swarm of flies, and the image
That someone told her as a
Child of the sickening find,
Took up residence in her
Mind and stayed there, and somehow
Related to the city, and
The whole buzz and noise of the
Place, and maybe some dying
Corpse down there in the moving
Throng, and a sense of death and
Dying in the city's air.
poem by Terry Collett
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I Write Poems For Poets
I WRITE POEMS FOR POETS
I write poems for poets
Our situation as poets-
The longings the feelings
We so need to express-
The love of language-
The hunger for recognition-
The frequent rejection-
The kind word of a reader that moves-
Poems for poets
We as we each are
All so different-
And we as we share
Words and worlds
We hope to have read.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Dead Poet's Harmony
I saunter this earth, in soul's dead
Digesting their beauty and what they said
Poets weaved my fate and mine destiny
With their song and beautiful harmony
I follow them as they follow me
Inside of me, inside of thee
Dead poets live in immortality..
And sing through we for an eternity..
It is in Keats internal rhyme, my poem's enzyme
Yeats Irish mist where my sentiment exist
Shakepeare's sonnets write my life's true love
Poe's raven stalks in the shadows of my woes
And behind Emerson's mind, my mind transcends
And from all Poets pain, my soul descends…
Every song must be sung, and every poem must be shone
As we saunter earth, and resurrect birth
To the dead poet's souls of our destiny
As we all write in their harmony
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Having a ciggi on the wall
Upon the wall of death I scowl,
where the City air is foul,
so what does it matter if I inhale
I'm going to die soon, anyhow.
The local factory joins in too
its chimneys billow smoke anew
that make the locals cough and spew,
while rushing by to catch the tube.
The wall's my death bed, truth be known
not comfortable or soft or warm
as all my lungs fill up with grime,
this city life's a bloody crime.
poem by Ruth Walters
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A Pig's-Eye View Of Literature
The Lives and Times of John Keats,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron
Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats.
poem by Dorothy Parker
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Sylvia
Whoa, oh, oh, yeah
Mmm, hmm sylvia
You know youre getting to me now
Mmm, mmm, mmm, sylvia
You gently touched my heart somehow
Yesterday you made me happy as a child at play
Just like the summer sun that warms my heart
And move on, now you are gone
Whoa, oh, oh, sylvia
Youre everything that I adore
That sweet song, that caught a spark in me more
Tenderly thats how you whisper that you loved me
As if a raindrop kissed my ear and disappeared, now you are gone
Oh, oh, oh, yeah
You know I love my little sylvia
Whoa, oh, oh, yeah
And yesterday I feel in love with you all the way
Tenderly you lit a spark in my heart, now you are gone
Mmm, hmm, sylvia
I gently miss sylvia
Im crazy bout ya, sylvia
You know I love my little sylvia
song performed by by Stevie Wonder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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After Reading Sylvia Plath's Riddle In Nine Syllables
sylvia, the elephant is inside your
tummy, you have become a melon growing and crawling in tendrils
a ponderous house
a red fruit
you have eaten a bag of green apples
and rode a train without stopping
to an exit
sylvia, i may not understand the nine syllables
inside you
for i am a man without
these syllables
sylvia i put two syllables somewhere
and it grows into three just three
there was bleeding and i saw it
i took her to the hospital and she was put into a sleep
and she was finally made to appear
clean to me
she was numb and speechless to the window panes
there was frost
and there was that bird which flew away since then
from her forehead
now, sylvia look at me
i was the man who only had three syllables
look at me in this sentence
i am a comma, i am a period.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Cooum
Near the cinema
Stripping women
Of their souls
The river quietly breathes
Stoic like a saint
Though dying of the city's sins
On the bridge the harlot
Too weary to walk the streets
Stands staring at the waters
Mourning the river
She had lost in her hamlet
Where it skipped like a girl
Without a care
Frothing foaming giggling
Unlike the river here
Dying of the city's sins
poem by Prabhakar Subramaniam
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Gone Fishing
Sylvia searched the whole house over
Calling out her lover's name...
He was not there, oh no ~ oh no,
He was hooked on the fishing game.
Down to the water he had gone,
Whether the sport was right or wrong!
The river was his hideaway,
So peaceful, on a warm summer's day.
Sweet Sylvia disliked the hobby,
Thought the fish could feel the pain.
She saw them struggle for their freedom
But Sylvia would never complain.
Now to wait three hours, or more.
Until that key turned in the door,
And he would greet his Sylvia dear
All laden down with his fishing gear.
And tomorrow morning may well be the same
'cause he was hooked on the fishing game.
poem by Joyce Hemsley
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All The Poems Remain Written Where They Once Never Were
ALL THE POEMS REMAIN WRITTEN WHERE THEY ONCE NEVER WERE
All the poems remain written where they once never were
The grass and the skies of Whitman form lines in the mind of Baudelaire
The trees and dark cities of the distance form single sounds in the heart of the poet who cares
Night is more than darkness and day more than an early setting out
Each thing influences the other and calls back its own origins and end
We are going somewhere we will never know whether we write eternal lines or not
Over everywhere can be heard in the morning light the selfsame sound that through the heart of Ruth burned the alien corn
Keats is not dead, and Borges is not dead and Kafka is not dead and Wordsworth and all those who wrote great lines are not dead
Poetry is the last first eternity of the living word
And those who can hear the sounds of others greater than themselves in their own lines know
We are all writing down this last poem for ourselves and no one else
Though as we go to pray each morning the minyan tells us secretly
All our prayers together are more than any single poem can be alone
In the grey long distance where no one hears any poem at all
God writes and rewrites for us all the book of the stars in which dread is no longer a name
And beauty bright bright beauty is heard and reechoed as more than we will ever be
God is the only Poetry in the End
God is the Only One who never will be dead..
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The poetry of the earth is never dead.
quote by John Keats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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