Erudition And Despair
Erudition and despair,
thriving symbiotically,
synergistically, a pair
devoid of what, erotically,
might seize the readers by the guts,
consume in their banality
and soi disant finality
my work with ifs and ans and buts.
All my insights merely heightened
awareness of how incomplete
were my attempts be enlightened,
seeking goals I could not meet.
If were not so erudite,
perhaps I could give up despair,
but though God’s great, and always right,
that doesn’t mean He must be fair.
Richard Bernstein, reviewing Lyndall Gordon's 'T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life' (W. W. Norton) ('Portrait of a Visionary In a Heap of Broken Images, ' the NYT, August 18,1999) writes:
'Unlike the artist, Eliot does not criticize an actual world but creates a 'phantasmal' world of lust, filth, boredom and malice on which he gazes in fascinated horror, ' she writes. Ms. Gordon also argues that the work has largely been misread. Critics have 'fastened on his despair and erudition, ' she argues, and in so doing they have missed the 'visionary alternative' that Eliot presented in the poem, the 'possibility of regeneration'.
8/18/99,1/19/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Related quotes
But Don't Despair
Despair, if you must –
But how's it going to pull you through?
Despair, when you trust
Naught since then there's naught to do.
Despair, should you thrust
Aside your pride, your self-esteem.
And so despair, if it's dust,
The only substance that you deem.
Despair, when a gust
Of slightly breeze can break your stance.
And do despair, when lust
Is your interpretation of romance.
But don't despair, if you can care
About the plight of any other being.
And you can focus on the help,
Support, and altruistic further actions
For the seeing. Be believing,
As despair will start receding
All around – simply since you found
A way to steer you clear
From this: the very cause of your despair!
So give to others; give them all a helping lift:
Despair, you'll find will disappear –
And that has got to be a well-deserved
And saintly gift!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
Rain of despair
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despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
despair despair despair despair despair despair despair
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Despair Is Darkness
DESPAIR IS DARKNESS
Despair is darkness-
Despair is death inside and death in the world and death in one’s own sad soul-
Despair is no way out -
Despair is the place where one is forever stuck -
Despair is the realization that one has done what one could – and one is not going anywhere else-
Despair is the admission of failure-
Despair is no sign of help anywhere around-
Despair is so much lost-
Despair is one‘s life is over-
Despair is regret-
Despair is the sense that one will never have the time to have another chance -
Despair is ‘it’s finished’-
Despair is no way out-
Despair is going down and more down and more dark and more afraid all the time -
Despair is the scream which hurts and does not stop the hurting -
Despair is the understanding that even Death will not save one -
Despair is that the pain will never end-not even with death.
Despair is no way out again and again and again- without end.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Despair Of The Early Morning
DESPAIR OF THE EARLY MORNING
Despair of the early morning
Despair of the darkness
Despair of the Despair
Despair of Old Age
Despair of the road closed
Despair of nothing to do
Despair of nowhere to go
Despair of endless errands
Despair of money running out
Despair of the message of Despair
One transmits to those one loves.
Despair that has to be resisted
Despair that the light of the day
Will help me overcome
Despair I will pray my way out of
Despair I will in the course of the day
Sometime overcome.
Not the great Despair
The unending Despair
The final Despair.
The small Despair of who I am and where I am now.
The Despair that still can be resisted,
By the writing of a few awkward lines
Early in the morning.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.
quote by George Eliot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Meet My Despair
Meet my despair,
She doesn't even show signs of care.
She knows she'll be my destruction,
That's the meaning behind her construction.
Meet my despair,
You can taste the foul death in the air.
She smirks at the cause of my untimly death,
It makes her lose her frigid breath.
Meet my despair,
She's my burden to bear.
She'll dance on my grave,
Ah, she's so brave.
Meet my despair,
her name's.357 magnum.
She's truly lovely.
She's truly mine,
My despair.
poem by Steven Elsner
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But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
quote by George Eliot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
George Eliot in Middlemarch
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Despair Is Not The End Of The World
DESPAIR IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD
Despair is not the end of the world
We go on in all our hopelessness
and all our frustration and all our pain
We go on-
Because what alternative
Do we have really?
Death is not a happy option
And loneliness at this stage
Even worse pain-
Tolerance is now the holy word
Forbearance Patience
Stoic quiet -
Despair is not the end of the world
But it’s not lovely either
We go on thinking maybe some day some how
It will be better
It will-
But not that much.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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In Memory Of The Unknown Poet, Robert Boardman Vaughn
But the essential advantage for a poet is not, to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
T. S. ELIOT
It was his story. It would always be his story.
It followed him; it overtook him finally—
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
Probably at the end he was not yet sorry,
Even as the boots were brutalizing him in the alley.
It was his story. It would always be his story,
Blown on a blue horn, full of sound and fury,
But signifying, O signifying magnificently
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
I picture the snow as falling without hurry
To cover the cobbles and the toppled ashcans completely.
It was his story. It would always be his story.
Lately he had wandered between St. Mark’s Place and the Bowery,
Already half a spirit, mumbling and muttering sadly.
O the boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
All done now. But I remember the fiery
Hypnotic eye and the raised voice blazing with poetry.
It was his story and would always be his story—
The boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
poem by Donald Justice
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The World Does Not Need Another Poem Of Despair
THE WORLD DOES NOT NEED ANOTHER POEM OF DESPAIR
The world does not need another poem of Despair-
Complaint-
The world needs Kindness Joy Love Hope.
And who will give it to them?
Somewhere else young voices begin to be heard
While the old and sad fade away.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.
quote by T.S. Eliot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Whether In Joy Or Despair
Whether in joy or despair
God is always at our side
And we never feel alone
In His great friendly love.
Our world is something
That few people understand
How all things work
The way God had planned.
He dwells high over us
And sees everything we do
And whether in joy or despair
He help us to get through.
poem by Guido Berardi
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You know that it is only through work that you can achieve anything, either in college or in the world.
quote by Charles William Eliot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You are My Teacher
If I should meet you
on the dusty road of life
Do not despair
for I am your teacher
If you should stumble
while crossing my muddy path
Do not despair
for you are my teacher
If we should cry alone
and falter in hurricane winds
Do not despair
for they are our teachers
If our souls should meet again
with tattered and worn-out shoes
Do not despair
for we have not learned
poem by Antoinette Kopperfield
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The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
quote by George Eliot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Defensione Sui
When a poet writes the words
floating in a sea of hopelessness and despair
he does not mean
that he goes around
with a big black raincloud over his head
he intends to convey
to his readers if he has any
and to himself if he has not
that we all despair at times
but does not intend them to think
that he is in a permanent state
of desiring to kill himself
and waiting for death to come
he does mean
that when the poem came to him
he was in a room with a large number of people in it
which he found conducive to poetic thoughts
and he could not hear what people were saying
because of the noise
but he did not immediately write it down
because someone started talking to him
but he wrote the words down that evening
by which time he felt fine
and he was not feeling particularly sad in any case
it was a metaphor
(Tuesday,8th November,2005.)
poem by David Mitchell
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My Heart Writes
Unending words flow through me
like streams of water-
My heart writes not to tell
the world Im broken,
that he should shed some tears for me.
But it writes to tell
the world my failures...
and that somehow
he would learn from them.
Broken words that know forever
flow through me like streams of water-
My heart writes not to show
the world I need him,
and that he should praise me more.
But it writes to tell
the world the lessons
I wish I knew before.
poem by Jessel Jane Tevar
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My Despair Comes And Goes
My Despair comes and goes
It is not the ultimate despair,
The despair of those who have forever lost hope
The despair of those who have lost what they never will regain
The despair of those for whom there is no way out
No way to begin again
No hope in any way forever
My Despair comes and goes
It is a small Despair compared to many others
When I am in it of course
I believe it like theirs Hopeless forever hopeless
But then a new day begins,
Or a friendly voice says a friendly word
Or something good and positive happens
Or the weather changes
Or some hurt goes away
Some sign comes
And slowly slowly
I am not there anymore.
My Despair comes and goes
It is not the worst Despair
Not yet-
Yesterday I was in Despair
Today I am almost already not
I pray my writing this
Will help some despairing reader feel
They too will hope again.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Poor Baby
Pain, pain, pain
The baby is in pain
That’s how the baby came
From a womb full of drugs
Rigid, restless, screams
The Mom is not there
She doesn’t care
Despair, despair, despair
Life is not fair
poem by Maren Louise
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Can A Poem Be Written Of Total Despair?
CAN A POEM BE WRITTEN OF TOTAL DESPAIR?
Can a poem be written of total despair?
Of life which has lost its meaning completely?
Can a poem be written of such sadness
That it pains night and day?
Can a poem be so deep in darkness
it will never yield light?
Or is the poem itself the sign
That the darkness is not dark forever
And the pain can go away
And despair too will have its own death
And life will once again begin to believe in itself
Even if only shakily?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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