Like The Burglar
Like the burglar who distracts
the guard dog with a piece of meat,
the poet, serving meager facts,
intends the words to be his treat.
The words are music that should wow
but their meanings’ mist and fog
if higher than the reader’s brow
may leave him barking like a dog.
TS Eliot in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, cited by Mark Ford reviewing Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form by Helen Vendler, compared the ostensible meaning of a poem to the bit of meat with which a burglar distract a guard dog.
3/22/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Venerable Stones
In the great house of the master stones
are venerable, and those we cast are often
cast only in a brave attempt to soften
the blows cast on our house, our pride, a clone.
The correspondences to all are clear
because our stones, just like our paradigms,
are copies of the master’s, as sincere,
but little more than prose we gild with rhymes.
David Orr reviews Helen Vendler’s “Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form” (“Vendler’s Yeats, ” NYT Book Review, May 11,2008) :
If “Our Secret Discipline” isn’t as strong as it could be, it’s because Vendler has thought deeply about Yeats’s use of form, but not about form apart from Yeats. And this isn’t surprising, really. Her great strength has always been her close reading of individual poets. If that causes her occasionally to find correspondences that don’t exist, well, what steward hasn’t wanted to find a world perfected in the venerable stones of the master’s great house?
5/11/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Some Silence, Some Words
Today somewhere a mirror broke
And a music of end splashed in the pages of time,
Someone lost his meanings in the broken mirror..
And an unending silence flowed
Many things happen silently, , ,
How the silent weeping of the lost meaning wander in the depth of the night, , ,
I unveil the sea of darkness...i find only silence
And the music of the end keeps on splashing around
Life is all about some silence and some words…
Far away a poet was looking for words, .
And a poem was seeking for its understanding, ,
for the heart where words dwell with meanings, ,
As long as they both were away everything was all right...
And when they met, , ,
the poet lamented on the end of words of the poem, , ,
and the poem on the unending silence of the poet, , , , ,
poems are not about understanding....
poet is not about words, , , ,
Nada Mas (only the poem)
Reader, your voice is the poem
you are the words; and
nothing more.
Reader, there is no poetry
unless you speak it.
Reader, there is no sound
you must find what it has to say.
Reader, seek the thought
rising from your soul.
Reader, look all about you, up and down
no one else has come this way.
Reader, there is no other poem
only you among the words of the word; and
nothing more.
poem by Smoky Hoss
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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For Molly, Concerning God
Is God the one who eats the meat
off the bones of dead people?
-Molly Miranda Jong-Fast, age 3 1/2
God is the one,
Molly,
whether we call him
Him,
or Her,
treeform or spewing
volcano,
Vesuvius or vulva,
penis-rock,
or reindeer-on-cave-wall,
God is the one
who eats
our meat,
Molly,
& we yield
our meat
up willingly.
Meat is our
element,
meat is our
lesson.
When our bodies fill
with each other,
when our blood swells
in our organs
aching for another,
body of meat,
heart of meat,
soul of meat,
we are only doing
what God wants
us to—
meat joining meat
to become insubstantial air,
meat fusing
with meat
to make
a small wonder
like you.
The wonder of you
is that you push
our questions
along into
the future—
so that I know
again
the wonder of meat
through you,
the wonder of meat
turning to philosophy,
the wonder of meat
transubstantiated
into poetry,
the wonder of
sky-blue meat
in your roundest eyes,
the wonder of
dawn-colored meat
in your cheeks & palms,
the wonder of meat
becoming
air.
You
are my theorem,
my proof,
my meaty metaphysics,
my little questioner,
my small Socrates
of the nursery-schoolyard.
To think that
such wonder
can come from meat!
Well then,
if God is hungry—
let Him eat,
let Her eat.
poem by Erica Jong
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Burglar Dog
I have a dog called Harry,
He’s a Maltese-Poodle cross,
I don’t know how I got him -
(He saw me coming! – Of course!)
The little rat sleeps on my couch
And scatters his bones about,
His hair’s all over the washing pile
And I’m constantly kicking him out.
Then he goes for the doggy wounded look,
And lies in the sun, outside,
Rolls in the grass and the prickles, waits
For my temper to subside.
I say – ‘Who spilt the rubbish, then,
All over the kitchen floor? ’
He sniffs – ‘It was the Burglar Dog.’
- Refuses to say any more.
The Burglar Dog, the Burglar Dog!
That’s all that I ever hear,
Whenever my steak goes missing
It’s the Burglar Dog, I fear.
He comes in the house while I’m in bed,
And Harry’s asleep on the couch,
Opens my packet of crinkle chips
And sneaks them out of the house.
He comes and he chews my slippers up
While Harry’s away, outside,
Performing his own ablutions
So he tells me - Bless my eyes!
Crapping all over the garden path
Where I walk, no doubt it’s him!
‘Not me – must be the Burglar Dog!
You must have let him in! ’
I’ve never seen this Burglar Dog
But I’m going to lie in wait,
Set up my digital camera then,
And catch this dog in the act;
But if it happens to be pure white,
All fluffy and one foot tall,
Harry will have some explaining to do -
Or I’ll take away his ball(s) !
25 December 2007
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Another Piece of Juicy Meat to Satisfy Me!
Don't fiddle with my love,
Or heartstrings.
To pluck them to get heated.
Then to walk out on a chemistry...
Just to get some empathy.
If you leave me with a final sting...
I could not forgive or forget,
Who did the giving.
And who will not be getting it!
I'm about to make up my mind...
I can get another to appreciate me!
I'm about to go out and find...
Another piece of juicy meat I know I'll love to eat!
A piece of juicy meat that's not a big tease.
Don't fiddle with my love,
Or heartstrings.
To pluck them to get heated.
Then to walk out on a chemistry!
Don't fiddle with my love,
Or heartstrings.
Just to get some empathy.
You wont get that not from me!
If you leave me with a final sting...
I could not forgive or forget,
Who did the giving.
And who will not be getting it!
I'm about to make up my mind...
I can get another to appreciate me!
I'm about to go and find...
Another piece of juicy meat to please all my needs!
Another piece of juicy meat to please all my needs!
Another piece of juicy meat to satisfy me!
Don'tcha know,
I'm about to make up my mind...
I can get another to appreciate me!
I'm about to go and find...
Another piece of juicy meat to please all my needs!
Another piece of juicy meat to please all my needs!
Another piece of juicy meat to satisfy me!
I'm about to make up my mind...
I can get another knowing,
What appreciation means!
I'm about to make up my mind...
I can get another to appreciate me!
Another piece of juicy meat to please all my needs!
Another piece of juicy meat to please all my needs!
Another piece of juicy meat to satisfy me!
Another piece of juicy meat to give up my seed.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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A Journey Of A Poet
A journey begins with
A thought in our mind
Words are chosen and formed.
Lines of poem
Well Written with meanings
With words of emotions and expressions
A poet starts with
An inspiration of mind,
An aspiration in soul mind
With reflection
On our life experience
We start to
Compose some
Wonderful poetry
Expressing our innermost thoughts
With deep contemplation
To put them in poetry words
A journey begins when
A poet takes his imagination
To a place where
No one ever dream or imagine before.
A poet's journey ends by
Writing another lovely poem
And deep reflection
A poet remains
As a poet
When he or she
Continue to
Write and Share
lovely poems with the world.
poem by Lawrence Hiung
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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You Do Not Have...
you do not have to
read me
for me to become
another poet
i am
and i can be
and i will be
even without you
and you are
and you can be
and you shall be
even without me
i am a poet
because i have decided to write the poems
and the poem shall be there forever
until the right reader comes along
the one who loves
a poem even without me
even without you
even without the world
this poem and that poem shall be
even without us
for these are words
and words shall be words even without the world
for it was the word which came first
and shall remain
till eternity.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Song of the Borderguard
The man with his lion under the shed of wars
sheds his belief as if he shed tears.
The sound of words waits -
a barbarian host at the borderline of sense.
The enamord guards desert their posts
harkening to the lion-smell of a poem
that rings in their ears.
-Dreams, a certain guard said
were never designd so
to re-arrange an empire.
Along about six o'clock I take out my guitar
and sing to a lion
who sleeps like a line of poetry
in the shed of wars.
The man shedding his belief
knows that the lion is not asleep,
does not dream, is never asleep,
is a wide-awake poem
waiting like a lover for the disrobing of the guard;
the beautil boundaries of the empire
naked, rapt round in the smell of a lion.
(The barbarians have passt over the significant phrase)
-When I was asleep,
a certain guard says,
a man shed his clothes as if he shed tears
and appeard as a lonely lion
waiting for a song under the shed-roof of wars.
I sang the song that he waited to hear,
I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet Acclaimd.
Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear, I sang,
believe, believe, believe, believe.
The shed of wars is splendid as the sky,
houses our waiting like a pure song
housing in its words the lion-smell
of the beloved disrobed.
I sang: believe, believe, believe.
I the guard because of my guitar
belive. I am the certain guard,
certain of the Beloved, certain of the lion,
certain of the Empire. I with my guitar.
Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear, I sing.
I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet on Guard.
The borderlines of sense in the morning light
are naked as a line of poetry in a war.
poem by Robert Duncan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Big Or Brief Poetry......!
Big or brief, what is poetry?
Poetry is......
Creating beauty out of blemish,
Making order out of disorder,
Producing meaning out of musical words,
Creating Universal truth out of trivialities,
Arranging points out of less known facts!
Is poetry just making rhythm and rhyme
Without meaning, life, force and taste,
Without free flowing musical words,
Without words of music, beauty, fun?
Poetry is free flowing river of words
With full of images, lively and lovely,
Transporting from this world to that world
Forgetting himself and readers here!
Just end rhyme is not enough to make it so;
Internal rhymes make music in rhythm
Making all enjoy music, meaning and ideas!
Poetry is the medium to say complex things
Not possible to say in other forms of language,
Saying unknown things using known things;
It is sound, substance, message and meaning!
And many more matters to many men in the world!
poem by Ramesh T A
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My poems is not Poetry
My Poems are not Poetry
Poetry rhythm is essential part
Communicative act of rhythms
Where words created music
An effect on the reader’s and listener
Words beginning with the same letter
And achieve a poetically effect.
My Poems has no rhythms
For the first time I don’t know
What to say and how to show.
Many words is not my style
Let me say, I like your smile
I don’t think I should like you,
Unfortunately I do.
I'm not sure now how to write
I lost my idea how, where words
Are used in away similar
Creating Music, where you find
Languages of rhymes
I write Prose but not Poetry
Using a regular rhythm
Where vast majority
Of languages spoken and written.
I try to be a barn, the muses were believed and inspire
I try to hard without success,
you already know, I guess.
Anyhow, it doesn’t matter
Usually I do not write
Things like this, I never tried,
for the first time I don’t know
what these lines should say or show.
Allegory, metaphor equated
Meaning lie outside the narrative
Acrostic phase when read together
Alliteration words same letter for poetical effect
Satire is a form of humour
Limerick is a short humorous poem.
And Honestly, I don’t regret
Things I did and words I said.
7. January 2008
poem by Mary Wismer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.
quote by Francis Ford Coppola
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Poetry by Meena Mustafa
My brain is a recorder
It stores all black and white
Each time I write a poem
It throws a different light
It makes the reader happy
At times it makes him sad
The love of poetry
And the poems that I have
Words pour like fountain
Imagination takes its place
On a journey to knowledge
Poetry we must embrace
Poetry is my refuge
And keeps me on the path
Expressions take new meaning
And words pour out at last.
Poetry is a song that sings to the soul
The rhythm of the words that a pen can hold.
poem by Meena Mustafa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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One Meat Ball
(l. singer-h.zaret)
The little man walked up and down
To find an eating place in town
He read the menu through and through
To see what fifteen cents could do
One meat ball, one meat ball
Well, he could afford but one meat ball
He told the waiter near at hand
A simple dinner he had planned
The guests were startled one and all to hear
That waiter loudly call
One meat ball, one meat ball
Well, this here gent wants one meat ball
Little man felt very bad
One meat ball was all he had
And in his dreams he hears that call
Ya gets no bread with one meat ball
One meat ball, one meat ball
Well, you get no bread with one meat ball
Well, he could afford but one meat ball
One meat ball, one meat ball
All he could afford was one meat ball
One meat ball
song performed by by Ry Cooder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Eye to Eye
A poet with an artist’s eye
can conjure words to set the scene.
Then with the words that he’ll supply
his reader feels as though he’s seen.
The same scene which the poet saw
Draws on his own experience
of things that he has seen before
though it makes little difference.
The message that the poet sent
is perhaps not the one received
The reader senses the intent
and finds the poem well conceived.
The picture which the reader gets
is the scene his own mind sets
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Modern Day Poet
I am the modern day poet you know
that must make words that easily flow.
For to just present words that ramble on
is to yield forth words that soon are gone.
They're gone from the listener and reader too,
who cannot reason or cannot view
how the words just seem to sit on a page
allowed to sit and yellow with age.
Words must be caressed and also thrive
to take on rhythms which come alive,
alive in the memory that through the ear
has taken it in and holds it dear.
And so in each poem I have my say.
And so in each poem my words do sway
back and forth like a front porch swing
giving my poem a magical ring.
I never allow dullness to come into play
for then my poem will be thrown away
into the piles of poems never read
because they're too hard to keep in the head.
So over and over it's become my style
to enchant the reader for a little while,
making them remember the lilting rhyme
that got into my head one word at a time.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Poetry Undefined
Poetry is a great many things
to each poet you see,
Poetry even has various meanings
as to what it is to me
Overall,
Poetry is the means
By which my heart communicates,
My mind finds the words
For these feelings and translates
Sometimes,
Poetry is my lover
My fantasies he fulfills
Beckoning me to crisp, white sheets
where my blacks and blues I spill
Or,
Poetry comes as a mysterious moon
appearing softly in the night,
age old secrets of the universe
he reveals to me with his light
See,
Poetry is my spirit
the connection to the Divine,
It lets me see what I am to be,
let’s me soar when I feel confined
So,
Don’t try too hard to define
What poetry really is
Just know that what you get from a poem
Is all a poet had to give
11.25.02
poem by Tamika Stubblefield
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Guardian Angel
Be my guard just for tonight, that is all Im asking for
Take me under your wing, I cant make it anymore
I am so full of fear, may you read a book to me
And when the shadows grow wont you stay with me
Will you be my guard tonight. that is all Im asking for
Will you be my guard tonight, that is all I need to know
Be my guard beside my bed, that is all I need to know
Will you please hold my hand, dont you ever let it go
All the wonders of the world for a little second more
I cant speak but cant you see, its your touch Im crying for
Will you be my guard tonight. that is all Im asking for
Will you be my guard tonight, that is all I need to know
Be my guard just until dawn, when I can hear the birds again
Im as helpless as can be, will you guard my little flame
If we never meet again, you shall always keep in mind
That you were my guard tonight, that you were my guard tonight
Will you be my guard tonight. . .
song performed by by Alphaville
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Without Poetry
WITHOUT POETRY
Without Poetry
Life can still have meaning
One need not be a poet
To live-
Life has poetry in so many other words
Words of Poetry are not all and all -
Yet with them
How much more meaningful in feeling
Our life can be-
Without a poem
It is possible-
With Poetry
Life is more.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Another Piece Of Meat
Music :rudolf schenker, herman rarebell
Lyrics:herman rarebell
Met her down at that tokyo place
Loved her pretty face
I said: hey, youre alright, so alright!
I was sitting in her car
She told me: youre a star and I know you.
She said: take me home.
I need love so strong
Come on and knock me out, oh!
Ive been too long alone
I want hot love, you know, and I need it now!
She said: hey, lets go, dont put on a show
Youre just another piece, another piece of meat
She said: hey, lets go, dont put on a show
Youre just another piece --
Another piece of meat.
Next day she took me out
To a rough kick boxing show
Violence really turned her on, oh no
She was screaming for more blood
Loved it more than any drug I couldnt stand it
I said: hey, lets go, dont put on a show
Youre just another piece, another piece of meat
Said: hey, lets go, dont put on a show
Youre just another piece --
Another piece of meat.
song performed by by Scorpions
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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