To The Stone-Cutters
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Going Home On The Northern Pacific
The way home for me was eastbound
on the Northern Pacific from California
riding coach (pillow furnished for a fee)
and reading paperback books -
everything from Robinson Jeffers
'...stones have stood for a thousand years,
and pained thoughts found the honey
of peace in old poems.'
to Denise Levertov's Illustrious Ancestors
'...poems direct as what the birds said,
hard as a floor, sound as a bench,
mysterious as the silence when the tailor
would pause with his needle in the air.'
even the obscure Ray Durem
'...I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.'
I got off when the train reached Chicago
a soldier home from the war
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Going Home On The Train
The way home for me was eastbound
on the Northern Pacific from California
riding coach (pillow furnished for a fee)
and reading paperback books -
everything from Robinson Jeffers-
'...stones have stood for a thousand years,
and pained thoughts found the honey
of peace in old poems.'
to Denise Levertov's ILLUSTRATED ANCESTORS
'...poems direct as what the birds said,
hard as a floor, sound as a bench,
mysterious as the silence when the tailor
would pause with the needle in the air.'
including the obscure Ray Durem -
'...I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.'
I got off when the train reached Chicago-
an obscure soldier home from war.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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In a Greek Amphitheatre: George Seferis, poet
Noon here in hot summer in this quarter-sphere of stepped stone;
the smell of herbs rolling down from the mountainside,
the light so strong that it seems to have bleached away all thought;
time is taking a siesta.
come sit with me here in this almost deserted amphitheatre
which has stood for more than two thousand years,
only the bees are quietly moving,
searching the flowers which grow between these huge blocks of stone
which someone quarried, someone brought here,
someone acted out the world upon, some many sat
and were moved to fear and tears;
someone ate olives, spat the pits between the blocks of stone;
now an olive tree bears witness,
its bleached roots like an arthritic climber,
splitting the stone blocks with the insistence of history.
‘Memory, wherever you touch it,
hurts’…
merciful gods might have removed these stones
with two thousand years of rain, of wind, of searing sun,
so that the insistence of history might not be
so painful to a Greek.
The only other figure in this huge amphitheatre -
you see him down there? In the white hat
and dark suit of summer cloth? He’s a poet;
but is his mind too, sitting in the audience? Or is he
on the stage? Is he
living the play; the hero with a tragic flaw,
the chorus commenting, the tragedy unfolding?
In Greek, the same word means martyr
and means witness.
He was born a Greek in a Greek colony;
at 22, the Turks flung them out;
he sailed in wine-dark seas of wars and occupations;
and when the sailor sailed into the port to take his place in his immortal court,
found Greece, not celebrating peace, but Greek fighting Greek;
the cruellest of wars.
It was not Odysseus but Greece itself
that wandering, had not yet come home;
the harbours boatless; silent the shepherd's flute;
the olive groves untended; hives deserted;
grapes that never tasted wine; figs that burst uneaten;
Olympia's grass, all silent and untrodden;
temples empty, marble columns
their cool beauty empty-armed without their worshippers.
Here at noon, the summer heat pressing and intense,
the air still, a bee passing across our laps
as we sit here on the higher tier;
a dark-suited poet, witness, martyr,
like an olive tree between hard stone,
suffers the playing out, the painful beauty
like a dark thought at noon,
the insistence of history.
‘Memory, wherever
you touch it, hurts.’
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Epitaph
No matter how he toil and strive
The fate of every man alive
With luck will be to lie alone,
His empty name cut in a stone.
Grim time the fairest fame will flout,
But though his name be blotted out,
And he forgotten with his peers,
His stone may wear a year of years.
No matter how we sow and reap
The end of all is endless sleep;
From strife a merciful release,
From life the crowning prize of Peace.
poem by Robert William Service
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A Word To The Unwise
Charles Main, of Main & Winchester, attend
With friendly ear the chit-chat of a friend
Who knows you not, yet knows that you and he
Travel two roads that have a common end.
We journey forward through the time allowed,
I humbly bending, you erect and proud.
Our heads alike will stable soon the worm
The one that's lifted, and the one that's bowed.
You in your mausoleum shall repose,
I where it pleases Him who sleep bestows;
What matter whether one so little worth
Shall stain the marble or shall feed the rose?
Charles Main, I had a friend who died one day.
A metal casket held his honored clay.
Of cyclopean architecture stood
The splendid vault where he was laid away.
A dozen years, and lo! the roots of grass
Had burst asunder all the joints; the brass,
The gilded ornaments, the carven stones
Lay tumbled all together in a mass.
A dozen years! That taxes your belief.
Make it a thousand if the time's too brief.
'Twill be the same to you; when you are dead
You cannot even count your days of grief.
Suppose a pompous monument you raise
Till on its peak the solar splendor blaze
While yet about its base the night is black;
But will it give your glory length of days?
Say, when beneath your rubbish has been thrown,
Some rogue to reputation all unknown
Men's backs being turned-should lift his thieving hand,
Efface your name and substitute his own.
Whose then would be the monument? To whom
Would be the fame? Forgotten in your gloom,
Your very name forgotten-ah, my friend,
The name is all that's rescued by the tomb.
For memory of worth and work we go
To other records than a stone can show.
These lacking, naught remains; with these
The stone is needless for the world will know.
Then build your mausoleum if you must,
And creep into it with a perfect trust;
But in the twinkling of an eye the plow
Shall pass without obstruction through your dust.
Another movement of the pendulum,
And, lo! the desert-haunting wolf shall come,
And, seated on the spot, shall howl by night
O'er rotting cities, desolate and dumb.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Diamond
OK, be cynical – say,
why, it’s only a piece of dead wood
that found itself trapped when
the earth’s crust heaved a sigh…
be cynical - say,
it didn’t ask for you to
dig it up - buried there
recovering from the shock…
be cynical - say,
anyway, it looked like a pebble then
until a man so cleverly polished it..
be cynical – say,
it’s nothing of itself – all it does
is to reflect the light that’s always all around..
be cynical – say,
we’d only value it as a piece of glass,
if smart guys didn’t fix it for them to seem rare,
and silly girls say, look, it proves he loves me…
now just look at this diamond..
what use is your mind
when your eye and your heart
get on so well without it?
poem by Michael Shepherd
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R.I.P. (Rock In Peace)
Aaaaaah
Leave me alone
Like a dog with a bone
Like a stone that's been thrown
Let me be on my own
Let me rock
Let me rock
Let me rock
Let me rock in peace
Outta my way
Got a boogie to play
Every dog has his day
Rock 'n' roll's here to stay
Let me rock
Let me roll
Let me rock
Let me rock in peace
Ohhh, feels good, Mumma Mumma
Just like I knew it would
I get my kicks
Outta playin' my licks
Outta layin' my chicks
Down on Route 66
Let me rock
Let me rock
Let me rock
Let me rock in peace
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
Just let me rock
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna rock
Let me rock in peace
Oooh, that feels good
Hey Mumma
Just like I knew it would
Outta my way
Got a boogie to play
Every dog has his day
Rock 'n' roll's here to stay
Let me rock
Let me roll
Let me rock
Let me rock in peace
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna rock
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna rock
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
Ohhh rock
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna rock
Let me rock in peace
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
Like Little Richard
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
Oh Jerry Lee
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
Aah Chuck baby, c'mon
(Rock, rock, rock in peace)
I wanna rock
Let me rock in peace
song performed by by AC-DC
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On the Sale by Auction of Keat's Love-Letters
These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret and apart,
And now the brawlers of the auction-mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price! I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart,
That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat.
Is it not said, that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God's wonder, or his woe?
poem by Oscar Wilde
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Loitering with a Vacant Eye
Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And stedfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look would say,
"We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."
Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard:
"What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.
Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I stept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
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A Saxon Epitaph
The earth builds on the earth
Castles and towers;
The earth saith of the earth:
All shall be ours.
Yea, though they plan and reap
The rye and the corn,
Lo, they were bond to Sleep
Ere they were born.
Yea, though the blind earth sows
For the fruit and the sheaf,
They shall harvest the leaf of the rose
And the dust of the leaf.
Pride of the sword and power
Are theirs at their need
Who shall rule but the root of the flower
The fall of the seed.
They who follow the flesh
In splendour and tears,
They shall rest and clothe them afresh
In the fulness of years.
From the dream of the dust they came
As the dawn set free.
They shall pass as the flower of the flame
Or the foam of the sea.
The earth builds on the earth
Castles and towers.
The earth saith of the earth:
All shall be ours.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Anzac Square: What The Digger Said
Said the Digger: 'Soon forgot! Soon forgot, the deeds of war.
Better so, may be. . . Why not?
Beauty fades and laurels rot;
Last year's roses are no more.
Fame?' the one-armed Digger said,
'What of glory when you're dead?'
'Stone and brass,' the Digger said. 'Stone and brass: tho' these endure,
Marble flaunting o'er my head
Would be dead, as I'd be dead.
How may any man be sure
That the hearts of men shall hold
Memories of tales once told?
This alone I surely know: earth I am, and earth shall be,
Only Mother Earth can show,
When I go where all men go,
Aught of this that had been me.
Mother Earth, once stained so red,
She must know,' the Digger said.
'Would you raise, in braggart heaps, stone, cold stone, to mark the fame
Of full many a man who sleeps
Where the earth of Anzac keeps
Guard o'er legions lacking name
Plinth and pillar reared to show
Pomp and pride they cannot know?
'They ask no portentous pile, boasting to a heedless sky,
Stirring men a little while,
Subject, then, for sigh or smile,
Not for this do soldiers die,
With our passing let Pride be,
All we ask is Memory:
'Memory of such fair worth as a fighting man may claim,
And a plot of hallowed earth
In the city of our birth:
Earth that bears a hallowed name.
Let it be envisioned there:
Anzac worth in Anzac Square.
'Memory,' the Digger said. 'If so be the city judge
Soldiers worthy, who have bled.
Worthy of her love, the dead,
Shall the city, then, begrudge
One wide acre of her soil
For who saved the whole from spoil?
'Here, it may be, by God's grace, our son's sons may sit at last,
In the People's market place,
Knowing truly, as they trace
Memory of me long past,
'Tis enshrined forever there:
Anzac worth in Anzac Square.'
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Enan
did i tell you
that a poet was not born in a day?
oh, it takes a lifetime
to become one,
it takes a thousand years
of sensitivity
to feel the thorns of a worm
the skin of the porcupine
it will take another thousand years
to tell which is green
which is blue
from the blind eyes of the
fingers
i must tell you
the poems may have come
not in trickles
for they come not but in a flash flood
in a flash of lightning
stabbing the mountains
in the roar of thunder in the bellies
of the tigers
oh well, they have all been there
we only need to discover.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Rain drops fall from heaven
Tears swelling up in my eyes every night
Rain drops fall from heaven
Simply a walking disguise in the light
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wondering when i will be alright
Rain drops fall from heaven
Growing so weak no energy to fight
Rain drops fall from heaven
Losing all hope in my mind
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing that i could simply unwind
Rain drops fall from heaven
As time goes love makes me blind
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing i didn't have to leave her behind
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wanting to make everything right
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing i could see her in sight
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing I had the strength to fight
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing i could hold her tight
Rain drops fall from heaven
Never knowing if she remembers me
Rain drops fall from heaven
Never know if we were meant to be
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing i had more time to see
Rain drops fall from heaven
My family that always loved me
Rain drops fall from heaven
Thinking back to the times we had
Rain drops fall from heaven
Smiles and laughter but yet so sad
Rain drops fall from heaven
Just sitting here all alone
Rain drops fall from heaven
Wishing i was way back home
Rain drops fall from heaven
Now the only thing that is on my mind
Rain drops fall from heaven
Is the memories i have way back in time
Rain drops fall from heaven
The tears from my eyes and deep inside
Rain drops fall from heaven
Matches the drops that come from the sky
Rain drops fall from heaven
If you could even begin to wonder why
Rain drops fall from heaven
It is simply those tears from lies
Rain drops fall from heaven
Every time it rains i stare to the clouds
Rain drops fall from heaven
Hoping one day she will simply fall
Rain drops fall from heaven
Right into my arms where she belongs
Rain drops fall from heaven
So that i can sing her a song
Rain drops fall from heaven
A song that tells her how i feel
Rain drops fall from heaven
A song that is nothing but real
Rain drops fall from heaven
That will be the day that will bring me joy
Rain drops fall from heaven
Too bad it wont happen to this boy
Rain drops fall from my eyes 24/7
poem by Joshua Thomas Gage
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Honey Don't
Well how can you say you will when you won't,
Say you do, baby, when you don't?
Tell the truth now, is love real?
But oh well honey don't, well honey don't,
Honey don't, honey don't, honey don't
I say you will when you won't, oh honey, don't.
Well i love you, baby, and you ought to know
I like the way you wear your clothes,
Everything about you is so doggone sweet,
You got that sand all over your feet.
[oh, rock on george, one time for me.]
[i feel fine.]
[i'm sad.]
Well sometimes i love you on a saturday night,
Sunday morning you don't look right.
You've been out painting the town,
Uh baby, been stepping around.
[oh, rock on george, for ringo one time.]
song performed by by Beatles
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Out of Pompeii
1 She lay, face downward, on her beaded arm,
2 In this her new, sweet dream of human bliss,
3 Her heart within her fearful, fluttering, warm,
4 Her lips yet pained with love's first timorous kiss.
5 She did not note the darkening afternoon,
6 She did not mark the lowering of the sky
7 O'er that great city. Earth had given its boon
8 Unto her lips, love touched her and passed by.
9 In one dread moment all the sky grew dark,
10 The hideous rain, the panic, the red rout,
11 Where love lost love, and all the world might mark
12 The city overwhelmed, blotted out
13 Without one cry, so quick oblivion came,
14 And life passed to the black where all forget;
15 But she,—we know not of her house or name,—
16 In love's sweet musings doth lie dreaming yet.
17 The dread hell passed, the ruined world grew still,
18 And the great city passed to nothingness:
19 The ages went and mankind worked its will.
20 Then men stood still amid the centuries' press,
21 And in the ash-hid ruins opened bare,
22 As she lay down in her shamed loveliness,
23 Sculptured and frozen, late they found her there,
24 Image of love 'mid all that hideousness.
25 Her head, face downward, on her bended arm,
26 Her single robe that showed her shapely form,
27 Her wondrous fate love keeps divinely warm
28 Over the centuries, past the slaying storm,
29 The heart can read in writings time hath left,
30 That linger still through death's oblivion;
31 And in this waste of life and light bereft,
32 She brings again a beauty that had gone.
33 And if there be a day when all shall wake,
34 As dreams the hoping, doubting human heart,
35 The dim forgetfulness of death will break
36 For her as one who sleeps with lips apart;
37 And did God call her suddenly, I know
38 She'd wake as morning wakened by the thrush,
39 Feel that red kiss across the centuries glow,
40 And make all heaven rosier by her blush.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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Epitaph For A Poet
His poems in millions sold
The poet lies here dead and cold!
Here lies the poet
Who through toil and sweat
Played word games,
Wrote many poems.
From his heart deep thoughts
Poured out in lots
Creations of his mind
Made his readers blind.
How was he as a person?
It’s mostly unknown
His own comforts he did embrace
Little he cared for others’ happiness
With mortal temptations he was bewitched
Never followed the values he preached.
Small lapses (or are they?) for a poet so great
Aloof in life, he lies solitary in death!
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay
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Cynical Days
Another years gone by,
The worlds grown older,
Sometimes I heave a sigh,
People grow colder.
Every day I do my best to show,
I can make it in this world I know,
But all the bad thoughts that people bring,
My faith in human natures
Getting pretty thin.
Help me get through these cynical days.
Help me get through my cynical ways.
You say its just a passing phase,
Youve got to help me get through, these cynical days.
Another see through scheme,
People are shallow.
The dark nights closing in,
My dark thoughts follow.
I try and make my world a better place,
(my efforts seem in vain),
But Im competing in a human race,
(falling deeper down the drain),
That value things that just dont count,
Makes me wonder what its all about.
Help me get through these cynical days.
Help me get through my cynical ways.
You say its just a passing phase,
Youve got to help me get through these cynical days.
Yeah, you say its just a passing phase,
Youve got to help me get through these cynical days.
Yeah, you say its just a passing phase,
Youve got to help me get through these cynical days.
Yeah, you say its just a passing phase,
Youve got to help me get through these cynical days.
Cynical days.
Cynical days.
song performed by by Xtc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My inspirational poets
Let me think of the Vietnamese literature
let me miss the poet named Ba Huyen Thanh Quan
Who is so lovely and so warm.
As her romantic love poems are so clever and
forever for thousand years.
Let me dream of Nguyen Du
in the romantic love story of Lady called Kieu
that is so fantastic love life
and the beautiful nature 's lovely way
still lives in his poems forever.
Let my soul sinks in their marvelous poems
that are so simple and so beautiful for thousand years
AS my childhood fills all of their poems
that let me stirs the emotion never forget.
To their beautiful poems are forever and always.
poem by Natasa Tocuc
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I Remembered The Rain
I remembered the rain...
the day we sat together
watching the rain drops dancing before us
on the window before our eyes
I remembered your face...
the expression in your eyes
the frown on your brow
looking at the rain dancing before your eyes
I remembered you...
looking at me
with that soft, pained, wistful look in your eyes
knowing in the midst of the rain, around us
that you were trying to remember me
so that you would not forget my face
on the day we were finally apart
All that we ever had was the rain...
that day
And what we remembered
of each other's face in the shadow of the rain that day...
Now, without you...
I hear the rain...
only the rain, and remembering your eyes
that soft, pained, wistful look in your eyes
tearing me apart, crushing my heart
As I remember you...
The Illuminated Stone
Once there was a rock
holding onto a Blackened sky
'Twas one night when
moon said to Rock
Let me light you...
'No' said rock
'this can not
for I am but a stone,
that was thrown
and landed in the sky.'
'It frightens me here Moon
for see' said Rock 'I cannot fly'
'A Stone? ' laughed Moon 'You need not fly
for you rock, you are a star'
'NO said Rock
this I'm not
I'm ordinary by far'
Moon shone bright
and shed his light
on Rock
and in no time it appeared
that rock might just be
the star Moon predicted,
so here was Rock
still in shock
for everyone started to stare.
'Moon stop that light'
asked Rock
'for you don't understand
I really am just a stone
and a ugly stone I am'
Rock knew of all the
sharp edges and holes and shreds,
caused by much erosion,
for stones are not pebbles
small and smooth,
that lays in soft riverbeds.
Moon grew fond
of Rock
and spent night after night
talking to Rock,
all the time shining his light.
Rock looked past Luna's flame
and found there something plain
this made Rock feel safe with Luna
and started feeling lighter night by night
and as time passed by
Rock and Luna became one
outshining even Sun.
Moon as all man knows
is a bright shining fellow
full of Romance for lovers
and a light for a traveler's road...
he even turns the tides,
but a little known fact,
is that Luna is the cause,
of mental Lunacy.
If this you doubt,
just walk on a full moon's eve,
into a Looney house,
for there you'll perceive
just what happens,
to many who have
one to many times to much,
by Luna's light been touched.
Ask even the howling wolf
who warns, on full moon nights
his fellow wolverine canine,
not to much at full moon stare.
One day perchance,
Rock found this little factling out
and realised how so many, many
laughed at Rocks illuminated faults,
so Rock tried with all Rocks might
to get out of Luna's pure light,
but everywhere that Rock tried to go,
Luna would send his burning flame
illuminating more and more
of Rock's stone of shame.
Rock tried for the longest time
to get away from the Luna once so dear,
but one day Rock began to fear
that Luna will never stop
and that day by day,
Luna's light was not just
illuminating mistakes,
but eroding even more
ugliness into the already unsightly Rock.
One day after much wiggling and fight
Rock came loose from
the blackened sky
and down to earth
Rock tumbled
Rock back to earth did fly,
a hump of burnt out
starlight stone,
and came to rest within
a selfmade crater.
Rock cried and cried
for Moon she missed
but knew that Moon's light
was deluding, not just everyone else
arround it, but most all
the Lunatic man
living on the moon.
poem by Michelle Melody
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