En.Citatepedia^®.ro

Literary Envy

LITERARY ENVY

Not Shakespeare
Not Tolstoy
Not Kafka Joyce Proust
Not Keats Yeats Wordsworth
Not Hopkins Dickinson
Not Whitman
Not I.B. Singer
Not Hemingway
Not Bellow
Not even Philip Roth
Updike or Salinger.

Not any of the writers
Whose work I love and admire.

Not even the living names now
Who will cease to be
Names In Time.

Like the great mass of mankind
When I die
I will not be in the Consciousness
Of future generations.

I will not be.
I will be ‘not’.

I

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I Learned My Literature As Myself

I learned my Literature as myself-
Kafka was my soul
In the days of my early anxiety-
Joyce was my soul
Also in literary striving -
Wordsworth my soul in calm and love of nature-
Salinger my soul
Bellow my soul
Singer my soul
Soul after soul

But when I came to write
Near the end
After all the meaning
I and all the other souls together conspired
A voice perhaps my own?

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Emily Dickinson Is Not Borges

EMILY DICKINSON IS NOT BORGES

Emily Dickinson is not Borges
And Borges is not Kafka
And Kafka is not Dickens
And no one is Shakespeare-

Each one is only one self
Except for those who are many selves
And those who are many selves
Do not know
Who they themselves are-

Lear is not Falstaff
And Falstaff is not Hamlet
And Hamlet is not Shakespeare
And Shakespeare is not Donne-

No one is anyone but themselves
And even those who are really ‘someone'
Are not all the others who also are-

And we who are nothing at all?
What are we?
We are not nothing at all.

We are not great
And no one will remember our names
But we are still here now
Reading Borges and Dickenson and Kafka and Shakespeare
And wondering how and why
There are those in a world of their own
With names of their own
They themselves will never completely know.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Bellow Can Only Be Bellow

BELLOW CAN BE ONLY BELLOW

Bellow can only be Bellow
Kierkegaard-Kierkegaard
Kafka- Kafka
Joyce- Joyce
Borges- Borges
Pessoa-Pessoa
There is only one of each of us-
And no matter how many pages we write
And how many names we give ourselves and our own characters
No matter how many styles we invent
Each one is only one-

And so this small poem too
Will not be for anyone else
Any more or other
Than so much else
Which has already failed to give me the kind of name
Only the truly great have-.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Sonnet In Old Age

THE SONNET IN OLD AGE

If to the sessions of sweet silent thought
one summons memories of sonnets long reread in mind
unsprings the blasted lyrics Time has left unpaged
dreams of other nights and other days
in quiet places long since lost in youth
where little lines embodied- Glory, Beauty, Truth.

Then Shakespeare Donne Keats,
Hopkins Milton Wordsworth Yeats
Obscuring lesser names and smaller shades
Inspire with dearer dearer life
Tranquillity's reflection
in old age,
Consoling our last moments
in God's praise.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Literary Hypocrisy

Truly I say unto you if Keats,
Shelley, William Shakespeare,
William Wordsworth, Walt
Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe;
were having this very day a poetry
reading down at your local Walmart;

you would be running running racing
to hear every precious precise poetic word
with your tongue hanging out in an orgy
of localized literary
emotive appreciative
expectation yet great

rare contemporary
poets of future recognized statute
walk unseen unappreciated ignored
among you while you thumb
your nose failing to understand
all ages have artists transcendent

poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Tribute Disproportionate

We read biography of living writers
same constantly repeated theme
'my favourite writers are...' then
listed iconic names immortalized

revered generations centuries
following final fallen interment
dead dead dead dead dead all

all dead shades passed on
yet in life unlike docile you
they had virile interaction
with living vibrant writers

in friendships esteemed
entrusting correspondence
creation hallowed personal

each caring supporting
others pulse contemporary
literary genius interacting
with creative artistic purpose

not ranting subserviently
totally engrossed in themes
past recognizing vital importance
relevant in spirit of age embodied

poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I Take From Wordsworth The Love of Calm Beauty

I TAKE FROM WORDSWORTH THE LOVE OF CALM BEAUTY

I take from Wordsworth the Love of Calm Beauty-
From Coleridge distracted searching for an Idea of it all-
From Borges the Pleasure in stories of Mind-
From Hopkins Alliteration’s passion in Poetry's Despair-
From Dickinson enigmatic perceiving of Infinity not found-
From Shakespeare more than I can name or hear-
From Psalms the God I Need and I Fear.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I Lost The Music Of My Poetry

I LOST THE MUSIC OF MY POETRY

I lost the music of my poetry
I tried to hear it again
In old lines of my own,
Or in the lines of more musical poets-
Tehillim and Kohleth
Stevens and Keats, Hopkins Wordsworth and Dickinson-
Shakespeare-

But I heard no music of my own
Perhaps I have never really had
A music of my own.

Perhaps all I have had
Is what I have here-

Short lines of prose
Which also have their rhythm-
But are not true poems
And certainly do not sing together
As my soul would.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Not Every Poem Knows How To Say Its Own Name Properly

NOT EVERY POEM KNOWS HOW TO SAY ITS OWN NAME PROPERLY

Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly-
There are poems that have no name
And poems that are named by others who have not written them-
There are poems whose names make them what they are
And poems whose names contradict and belie them-
Many poems have their first lines as their names
And these poems often are as memorable as one line only-
Great poems and good poems can be nameless
Or can have unforgettable names.

Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly -
Poems are poems are poems
And names are names are names
And sometimes they meet and are one
And live happily ever after-
But there are times when perhaps
They never should have met each other at all.

Poems have their names
And names have their poems
But sometimes they love each other
And truly are one.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Boring Internet Literary Forums

Like me do you find Internet Poetry Forums a bit of a bore
A five minute browse there seems seems enough little more
For me one who is not known to be bright
I do like more humor and less complex subject matter than those who delight

In discussing poets who took life so seriously such as Eliot and Poe
Their legends in death even does seem to grow
And though their poems quite great it does seem fair to say
That their words will not have you laughing all day.

They seldom mention Burns the poet who laughed at life
The children he fathered not all to Jean Armour his wife
Yet he loved all of his offsprings and none of them did disown
'Tis from such a person a true legend has grown.

And they seldom do mention the great Oscar Wilde
For his sexuality by snobbish rednecks reviled
Reading Jail's most famous inmate people like him so rare
As a humorist and writer one beyond compare.

I've just mentioned two great literary names here yet there are many more
Marvellous writers in their works humor to the fore
On internet literary forums their names seldom mentioned if ever at all
Though their humor and pathos worthy of recall.

Though many with what I say here will choose to disagree
The internet literary forums seem boring to me
And though my opinion on them as on many things may seem quite wrong
Five minutes in there for me does seem quite long.

poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I Did Not Need Or Want To Be Anyone But Myself

I DID NOT NEED OR WANT TO BE ANYONE BUT MYSELF

I did not need or want to be anyone but myself-
But was my self a self worth being?
I did not want to be Wallace Stevens
I did not want to be Wordsworth
I did not want to be Hopkins or Dickinson or Blake or Yeats-
They were all who they were
And a blessing to many-

I just want to be who I am
But am I a self worth being?
Or am I just a person
Whose name is namelessness?

I suppose I can live with my own namelessness
And my not being one of those with a real name-
I suppose I can live with being only who I am
However unworthy that is

Name or not, nameless or not
After all
I am only who I am -
And I will only pass this way one time-
Name or not.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I Want My Name So Much To Be A Name

I WANT MY NAME SO MUCH TO BE A NAME

I want my name so much to be a name-
But when I am gone
What will that name mean to me?

Your name too
What will it mean
In the great distances?

Names and more names
Only G-d knows.
God has many names
And no name
And only One Name

Why should I insist so much
On my own name?
When only God can know
All the Names
Even God’s own.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Words Against Death

WORDS AGAINST DEATH

All the immortals are moral:
Tubercular Kafka spared Treblinka
Lunatic Nietzsche banging a piano to oblivion
Great Tolstoy escaping to a railroad coach,
Gentle Yeats frigid at Ben Bulben.

What lives is a work and that imperfectly:
A thousand bankrupt eyes ferreting the hearts of dead poets
Seeking confirmation for some strange emotion,
Doing the work in the course, being ‘intellectual’,
Satisfying a wicked ambition for
Knowledge or Love or Understanding.

Do these absurd gropings constitute an adequate remembrance?
And if they do, if deep within the heart of some wise reader
There lurks a true Nietzschean spirit,
Will Nietzsche live because of it?
Is Remembrance no matter how deeply touched by love,
Ever Resurrection?

Where K broods over a Ledean body,
Where that daring tightrope walker confuses wise old Karataev
(at Borodino or in the land of Zarathustra)
there the great poets live:

Could it have been,
That Kafka knowing this, sought vainly to preserve himself
When with deep ambivalence he willed his writings
to the flames?

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Envy and Admiration

Oh how I envy my sister
Every time she talks
Every time she walks
Every time she goes somewhere
I envy my sister every minute of the day

She talks like there’s no stopping her
She owns her walk all the time
She gets to have freedom to go wherever she wants
She gets to drive when she wants to
She is the lucky sister that I very much envy

But yet I still admire her with all of my heart
I admire her for her strength
I admire her for her willingness to speak out
I admire her for her ability to stand out in the crowd
She is the sister that I admire every minute of the day

How can I envy and admire her both?
She makes my insides fill with jealousy
But yet she fills my heart and brain with admiration
After confessing this, I still feel envy and admiration for my older sister…will it ever end? ? ?

poem by Casey Lyon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Their Kind Of Words

AND I DON’T HAVE / THEIR KIND OF WORDS

And I don’t have
Their kind of words.
Keats, Hopkins, Stevens
Shakespeare, Dickinson.
I don’t have
Their kind
Of Poetry.
A higher deeper
More beautiful poetry-
I don’t have it.

I have simple words
And a tired old soul
And a love of God,
And a singing in the wilderness

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

You can change the names

You can change the names
of places and call them,
what you want.

My people who life there,
will still be living there
next year and for many years more.

You can change the personnel
that work for the city
and the inadequate delivery of services
and corruption,
will in time make you
pay a handsome bill.

You can change the names of streets,
and fashion them
to your heroes.

Never could you undo
the acts of those
whose names they originally bared
and everyone that uses them
will still know
what they were called before.

Without fixing the roads
people will remember
about the holes in Slovo street
and the dead robots in Mandela drive,
which will keep them alive

You can change the names of airports
for its better that way,
that the world knows
that they coming
to an new country
that’s has fallen years behind,
from where it was before.

poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals.

quote by Joyce Maynard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Man Gave Names To All The Animals

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
He saw an animal that liked to growl,
Big furry paws and he liked to howl,
Great big furry back and furry hair.
Ah, think Ill call it a bear.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
He saw an animal up on a hill
Chewing up so much grass until she was filled.
He saw milk comin out but he didnt know how.
Ah, think Ill call it a cow.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
He saw an animal that liked to snort,
Horns on his head and they werent too short.
It looked like there wasnt nothin that he couldnt pull.
Ah, think Ill call it a bull.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
He saw an animal leavin a muddy trail,
Real dirty face and a curly tail.
He wasnt too small and he wasnt too big.
Ah, think Ill call it a pig.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
Next animal that he did meet
Had wool on his back and hooves on his feet,
Eating grass on a mountainside so steep.
Ah, think Ill call it a sheep.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago.
He saw an animal as smooth as glass
Slithering his way through the grass.
Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake . . .

song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

I'm very influenced by landscapes, not so much the way places look as the way the names sound. In this country we've got so many cultures, and the place names - the Spanish names and the Indian names, which are so incredibly musical.

quote by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Faces & Names

Faces and names, I wish they were the same
Faces and names only cause trouble for me
Faces and names
If we all looked the same and we all had the same name
I wouldnt be jealous of you or you jealous of me
Faces and names
I always fall in love with someone who looks
The way I wish that I could be
Im always staring at someone who hurts
And the one they hurt is me
Faces and names, to me theyre all the same
If I looked like you and you looked like me
Thered be less trouble you see
Faces and names, I wish theyd go away
Id disappear into that wall and never talk
Talk, not talk
I wish I was a robot or a machine
Without a feeling or a thought
People who want to meet the name I have
Are always disappointed when they meet me
Faces and names, I wish they were the same
Faces and names only cause problems for me
Faces and names
Id rather be a hole in the wall
Looking out on the other side
Id rather look and listen, listen and not talk
To faces and names
If I had a breakdown when I was a kid
I lost my hair when I was young
If you dress older when youre not
As your really age you look the same
If we all looked the same, we wouldnt play these games
Me dressing for you and you dressing for me
Undressing for me
Faces and names, if they all were the same
You wouldnt be jealous of me or me jealous of you
Me jealous of you, me jealous of you
Your face and your name
Your face and your name
Faces and names
Faces and names

song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!