Thoughts On The Roman Palatine
In Apollo’s portico among the empty shelves,
Where nor gods nor poets spoke what emperors demand –
Virgil’s vast shrine to loved Gallus dead,
Ovid’s allegories of empire’s rape –
I sit and watch Cybele’s hippodrome,
Hear the squeal of chariots, the sweating horses,
And cheer them home, the red and white,
A single voice among the roaring past.
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Patches The Great
BEHOLD
AND BOW!
The greatness
of her majesty
Patches The Cat
She has terrorized couches
only to sharpen her claws
and conquered basements
when her litter box
was over populated
All have fell
under the charm
of her soft white fur
No one can resist the
enticing feel
And in the event
one should resist
a roaring demand
she will squeal
O Patches!
How you rule this kingdom
through your hedonism
You never lift a paw
You give command
by just laying around
Your bowl
should never be empty
and always be filled
with the best flavors in town
But if you should find
your bowl to be empty
(a tragic event)
O! The wrath
on our dinner plates
you will bestow
I am not her master
you see
I am her humble servant
O how I take pride
in the service
of serving
Patches The Great
poem by Justin Tallman Gonzalez
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No One To Welcome Me Home
Recorded by hank williams, sr.
Words and music by joe earls
[e] I went to the old home --- where I [a] once used to [e] roam
And all of my friends --- had [f#] evryone [b7] gone
How [e] sad and how drear --- no [a] voice did I [e] hear
There was no one --- to [b7] welcome me [e] home.
[e] no one --- to welcome me home;
Oh! no, no one --- to [f#] welcome me [b7] home
How [e] sad and how drear --- no [a] voice could I [e] hear
There was no one --- to [b7] welcome me [e] home.
I went to the old school --- where I once loved to play
And all of my playmates had every one gone
So lonesome and drear --- no voice did I hear
There was no one --- to welcome me home.
No one - to welcome me home
There was one --- to welcome me home
But, when I behold --- that mansion of gold
Therell be someone --- to welcome me home.
song performed by by Hank Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If Only Flowers Spoke
if only flowers spoke
wouldn't each petal
flow as a precious tear
on our cheeks?
if only flowers spoke
won't we hang our heads
in shame for the savage act
in normal parlance, a rape?
if only flowers spoke
will we ever lay our hand
on them even to offer
to the dumb gods?
we go on
for flowers are silent
and so are gods
and we, insensitive!
poem by Indira Babbellapati
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They Spoke To Me Of God....
they spoke to me of god,
and small things burning on piles of leaves.
while cast aside nests lay weeping,
in silent tribute to forgotten paths.
empty cages with doors flung open,
cigarette butts on temple floors.
footprints from nowhere to nothing,
canned thoughts on dusty shelves.
it's easy to say peace will come,
not so easy to take the arms.
while crippled poets walk past burning huts,
and aircraft carriers meditate on troubled waters.
children's faces drift through dreamless sleep,
bodies gathered by passing squirrels.
yes, they spoke to me of god...
as if they really knew!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Hold On Lynette The Horses Are Coming
Lynette was a beautiful baby
A true joy to her ma and pa
Free from oriningal sin she was
The whole family was in awe
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
One day she woke with fever
There was snow and wind and cold
The car was stuck at the end of the drive
To the doctor they could not go
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
Quick hook-up the team and the sleigh
By horse she'll surely make it
Hold on Lynette the horses are coming
Let's take some time to say how much we love you
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
Manes a flyin' tales a whippin'
The horse's plowed right through
Muscles a bulgin' and hides a sweating
Let's take some time to say how much we love you
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
Well by horse they surely made it
By horse they surely did
Just in time to tell them
There was nothing they could do for her
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
She was loved loved loved
Well, for all those ma's and pa's out there
Who've lost their little ones
This songs not about a child dying
It's of a parent's love
One day on earth is just the same
as one year or fifty or a hundred
The only difference my friends
Is in the love you been giving and receiving
Love love love
Love love love
Love love love
Love love love
Hold on Lynette the horses are coming
Let's take some time to say how much we love you
poem by Atty Davis
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Rejected
Alas ! I have lost my God,
My beautiful God Apollo.
Wherever his footsteps trod
My feet were wont to follow.
But Oh ! it fell out one day
My soul was so heavy with weeping,
That I laid me down by the way ;
And he left me while I was sleeping.
And my soul awoke in the night,
And I bowed my ear for his fluting,
And I heard but the breath of the flight
Of wings and the night-birds hooting.
And night drank all her cup,
And I went to the shrine in the hollow,
And the voice of my cry went up :
' Apollo ! Apollo ! Apollo ! '
But he never came to the gate,
And the sun was hid in a mist,
And there came one walking late,
And I knew it was Christ,
He took my soul and bound it
With cords of iron wire,
Seven times round He wound it
With the cords of my desire.
The cords of my desire,
While my desire slept, ,
Were seven bands of wire
To bind my soul that wept.
And He hid my soul at last
In a place of stones and (ears,
Where the hours like days went past
And the days went by like years.
And after many days
That which had slept awoke,
And desire burnt in a blaze,
And my soul went up in the smoke.
And we crept away from the place
And would not look behind,
And the angel that hides his face
Was crouched on the neck of the wind.
And I went to the shrine in the hollow
Where the lutes and the flutes were playing,
And cried : ' I am come, Apollo,
Back to thy shrine, from my straying.'
But he would have none of my soul
That was stained with blood and with tears,
That had lain in the earth like a mole,
In the place of great stones and fears.
And now I am lost in the mist
Of the things that can never be,
For I will have none of Christ
And Apollo will none of me.
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
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Dead Poets
dead poets; old cars
junked in heaps
in front of
abandoned houses...
empty mailboxes
rusting to the
ground...
empty swings creaking
in the late evening breeze;
a bottle of wine,
half-empty,
moans in the shadows.
the fields have been picked,
nothing left, but sweat stained dirt....
even the embers have grown cold,
and the pot is empty.
the sounds and smells of living
linger by unmarked stones...
dead poets; old cars...
running on empty!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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On The Conflagration Of The Po
Why is, and whence, the Po in flames? and why
In consternation do its borderers raise
Imploring hands to mortal men around
And Gods above? Are Gods implacable?
Or men bereft of sight at such a blaze?
Apollo hath no more a son; his breath
Is stifled, and smoke only fills the air
Where once was fire, and men to men were true.
Fierce ones and faithless now approach the waste,
Who look transversely with an evil eye,
And scowl and threaten, and uplift the sword,
And, if they lower it, 'tis but to grasp more
And more of amber left on either bank. Apollo hates the land he once so loved,
Nor swan is seen nor nightingale is heard
Nigh the dead river and affrighted vale,
For every Nymph shed there incessant tears,
And into amber hardened all they shed.
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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The Book-Worm
Come hither, Boy, we'll hunt to Day
The Book-Worm, ravening Beast of Prey,
Produc'd by Parent Earth, at odds
(As Fame reports it) with the Gods.
Him frantick Hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand Authors Lives:
Thro' all the Fields of Wit he flies;
Dreadful his Head with clust'ring Eyes,
With Horns without, and Tusks within,
And Scales to serve him for a Skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the Bards of antient Time,
Or down the Vale of Fancy go
To tear some modern Wretch below:
On ev'ry Corner fix thine Eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his Teeth a Passage eat:
We'll rouse him from the deep Retreat.
But who the Shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis Sacred Virgil as I live!
From Leaf to Leaf, from Song to Song,
He draws the tadpole Form along,
He mounts the gilded Edge before,
He's up, he scuds the Cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate Brute, whose Teeth abuse
The sweetest Servants of the Muse.
(Nay never offer to deny,
I took thee in the Fact to fly.)
His Roses nipt in ev'ry Page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy Rage.
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's Sparrow dies:
Thy rabid Teeth have half destroy'd
The Work of Love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's Locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for ev'ry single Deed,
Relentless Justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a Victim to the Nine,
My self the Priest, my Desk the Shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred Altar here;
Hold, Boy, thy Hand out-run thy Wit,
You reach'd the Plays that D---s writ;
You reach'd me Ph---s rustick Strain;
Pray take your mortal Bards again.
Come bind the Victim,—there he lies,
And here between his num'rous Eyes
This venerable Dust I lay,
From Manuscripts just swept away.
The Goblet in my Hand I take,
(For the Libation's yet to make)
A Health to Poets! all their Days
May they have Bread, as well as Praise;
Sense may they seek, and less engage
In Papers fill'd with Party-Rage.
But if their Riches spoil their Vein
Ye Muses, make them poor again.
Now bring the Weapon, yonder Blade,
With which my tuneful Pens are made.
I strike the Scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the Wound;
The sacred Altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he's dead.
How like the Son of Jove I stand,
This Hydra stretch'd beneath my Hand!
Lay bare the Monster's Entrails here,
To see what Dangers threat the Year:
Ye Gods! what Sonnets on a Wench?
What lean Translations out of French?
'Tis plain, this Lobe is so unsound,
S--- prints, before the Months go round.
But hold, before I close the Scene,
The sacred Altar shou'd be clean.
Oh had I Sh---ll's Second Bays,
Or T---! thy pert and humble Lays!
(Ye Pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never miss'd your Works till now)
I'd tear the Leaves to wipe the Shrine,
(That only way you please the Nine)
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the Songs of D---y do.
Rent from the Corps, on yonder Pin,
I hang the Scales that brac't it in;
I hang my studious Morning Gown,
And write my own Inscription down.
‘This Trophy from the Python won,
‘This Robe, in which the Deed was done,
‘These, Parnell glorying in the Feat,
‘Hung on these Shelves, the Muses Seat.
‘Here Ignorance and Hunger found
‘Large Realms of Wit to ravage round;
‘Here Ignorance and Hunger fell;
‘Two Foes in one I sent to Hell.
‘Ye Poets, who my Labours see,
‘Come share the Triumph all with me!
‘Ye Criticks! born to vex the Muse,
‘Go mourn the grand Ally you lose.
poem by Thomas Parnell
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Gods
Gods of the white man,
Gods of the black man,
Gods of the almond shade
all of these Gods
have done one thing,
made the people afraid.
Gods of the red man,
Gods of the brown man
Gods of the yellow hue,
all of these Gods
have done the same
divided them into
Separate people
who've been led to believe
their God is the holy one
to save their souls
and pardon them
and deliver them
from earthly sin.
How can there be
so many Gods?
Isn't there only one?
One for every single soul
born unto this earth.
He's every color that there is
since the world's begun.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Rape Me
Rape me
Rape me my friend
Rape me
Rape me again
I'm not the only one (4x)
Hate me
Do it and do it again
Waste me
Rape me my friend
I'm not the only one (4x)
My favorite inside source
I'll kiss your open sores
Appreciate your concern
You'll always stink and burn
Rape me
Rape me my friend
Rape me
Rape me again
I'm not the only one (4x)
Rape me (rape me) (8x)
Rape me
song performed by by Nirvana from In Utero
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Single Red Rose
A single red rose
lays on a grave,
for someone buried there.
It spoke of love,
that would always remain strong,
even though the loved one was now gone.
It spoke of something lasting,
beyond our living days.
Tells the story about love
that never ever fades away.
The love that seeds devotion,
even after death.
That single red rose spoke to me,
of all the things, we cherish most,
and how much each of us.
Would like to have
that loving care,
with a single red rose for all to see and share.
14 June 2007
poem by David Harris
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The Journey Of A Poem Compared To All The Sad Variety Of Travel
A poem moves forward,
Like the passages and percussions of trains in progress
A pattern of recurrence, a hammer of repetetiveoccurrence
a slow less and less heard
low thunder under all passengers
Steel sounds tripping and tripled and
Grinding, revolving, gripping, turning, and returning
as the flung carpet of the wide countryside spreads out on
each side in billows
And in isolation, rolled out, white house, red barn, squat silo,
Pasture, hill, meadow and woodland pasture
And the striped poles step fast past the train windows
Second after second takes snapshots, clicking,
Into the dangled boxes of glinting windows
Snapshots and selections, rejections, at angles, of shadows
A small town: a shop's sign - GARAGE, and then white gates
Where waiting cars wait with the unrest of trembling
Breathing hard and idling, until the slow~descent
Of the red cones of sunset: a dead march: a slow tread and heavy
Of the slowed horses of Apollo
- Until the slowed horses of Apollo go over the horizon
And all things are parked, slowly or willingly,
into the customary or at random places.
poem by Delmore Schwartz
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The Rape Of The World
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
How can we stand aside
And watch the rape of the wold
This the beginning of the end
This the most heinous of crimes
This the deadliest of sins
The greatest violation of all time
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
We all are witness
To the rape of the world
Youve seen her stripped mined
Youve heard of bombs exploded underground
You know the sun shines
Hotter than ever before
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
We all are witness
To the rape of the world
Some claim to have crowned her
A queen
With cities of concrete and steel
But there is no glory no honor
In what results
From the rape of the world
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
We all are witness
To the rape of the world
She has been clear-cut
She has been dumped on
She has been poisoned and beaten up
And we have been witness
To the rape of the world
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
How can we stand aside
And watch the rape of the world
If you look youll see it with your own eyes
If you listen you will hear her cries
If you care you will stand and testify
And stop the rape of the world
Stop the rape of the world
Mother of us all
Mother of us all
Mother of us all
Mother of us all
song performed by by Tracy Chapman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Homer And Laertes
Laertes: Gods help thee! and restore to thee thy sight!
My good old guest, I am more old than thou,
Yet have outlived by many years my son
Odysseus and the chaste Penelope.
Homer: Hither I come to visit thee and sing
His wanderings and his wisdom, tho my voice
Be not the voice it was.
Laertes: First let us taste
My old sound wine, and break my bread less old,
But old enough for teeth like thine and mine.
Homer: So be it! I sing best when such good cheer
Refreshes me, and such a friend as thou.
Laertes: Far hast thou wandered since we met, and told
Strange stories. Wert thou not afraid some God
Or Goddess should have siez'd upon thy ear
For talking what thou toldest of their pranks.
Homer: They often came about me while I slept
And brought me dreams, none painful, none profane;
They loved thy son, and for his sake loved me.
Laertes: Apollo, I well know, was much thy friend.
Homer: He did not treat me quite as Marsyas
Was treated by him: lest he should, I sang
His praise in my best chaunt: for Gods love praise.
Laertes: Have they enricht thee? for I see thy cloak is ragged.
Homer: Ragged cloak is poet's garb.
Laertes: I have two better; one of them for thee.
Penelope, who died five years ago,
Spun it; her husband wore it only once
And but one year, the anniversary
Of their espousal.
Homer: Wear it will I not,
But I will hang it on the brightest nail
Of the first temple where Apollo sits,
Golden-hair'd, in his glory.
Laertes: So thou shalt
If so it please thee: yet we first will quaff
The gift of Bakkos, for methinks his gifts
Are quite as welcome to the sons of song
And cheer them oftener.
(Girl enters.)
Maiden! come thou nigh
And sit thee down, and thou shalt hear a song
After a while which Gods may listen to;
But place the flask upon the board and wait
Until the stranger hath allaid his thirst,
For poets, grasshoppers, and nightingales
Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist.
Homer: I sang to maidens in my prime; again
(But not before the morrow) will I sing:
Let me repose this noontide, since in sooth
Wine, a sweet remedy for weariness,
Helps to uplift its burden.
Laertes: Lie then down
Along you mat bestrown with rosemary.
And, Agatha, do thou bring speedily
The two large ewers, and fill brimfull the bath
Capacious; that of brass; Penelope's
Own bath, wherein she laught to see her boy
Paddle, like cygnet with its broad black oars,
Nor shunn'd the chilly water he threw up
Against her face . . he who grew soon so sage!
Then do thou, maiden, from hot cauldron pour
Enough to make it soothing to the feet;
After, bring store of rushes, and long leaves
Of cane sweet-smelling, from the inland bank
Of that famed river far across the sea
Opposite, to our eyes invisible.
Be sure thou smoothen with both hands his couch
Who has the power to make both young and old
Live throughout ages.
Agatha: And look well throughout?
Laertes: Aye, aye, and better than they lookt before.
May thou rest well, old wanderer! Even the Gods
Repose, the Sun himself sinks down to rest.
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Vast Empire And Fallen Throne.
A vast empire surrounds us
But we stand with the fallen throne and
Confounded and crestfallen we are.
Our empire of amasses; not of accumulations!
Our empire of ownership; not of master-hood!
Our empire of intelligence; not of erudition!
The throne lies down with its jewels gone,
It lies at our feet and none can pick it up.
We feel on our skull the shame of past.
Our throne of civilisation; not of progress!
Our throne of peace; not of harmony!
Our throne of diamonds; not of copper
The empire will swell and explode next
And our throne will lie buried ever.
The empire will thereafter turn into a planet of its own
And go on the orbit of might and moss and
Our throne will join the fossils down deep!
The ides of the present remain told aloud!
poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
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Rape...
A horrible crime
Rape.....loss of innocence,
didn't have a choice,
Nobody heard my voice,
memory of the past,
hope it crosses my mind
erases out of my memory,
so i don't have to remember the past
i wish she didn't tell me to go to the park
so I would still have it
my innocence i mean
I used to be so clean
now i'm violated, unclean and dirty
and the guilt is killing me
even though its not my fault
i feel as though it is
when she left something told me to go i could have left
I should have listened to that voice
and ran.....but no.....i choose to stay
and he accomplished his mission
what he set out to do
i was only 13 years old.....he was 16
i hated every minute of it
I closed my eyes and imagined I was invisible
but he took all the invisibility
inside of me and i still remember the day
the scene keeps playing in my head like a movie
Rape.....didn't have a choice
Rape.....nobody heard my voice.
poem by Brittany Mischel
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The Rainbow
Watch the white dawn gleam,
To the thunder of hidden guns.
I hear the hot shells scream
Through skies as sweet as a dream
Where the silver dawn-break runs.
And stabbing of light
Scorches the virginal white.
But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,
And I thank the gods that the dawn is beautiful still.
From death that hurtles by
I crouch in the trench day-long,
But up to a cloudless sky
From the ground where our dead men lie
A brown lark soars in song.
Through the tortured air,
Rent by the shrapnel's flare,
Over the troubleless dead he carols his fill,
And I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.
Where the parapet is low
And level with the eye
Poppies and cornflowers glow
And the corn sways to and fro
In a pattern against the sky.
The gold stalks hide
Bodies of men who died
Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.
I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.
When night falls dark we creep
In silence to our dead.
We dig a few feet deep
And leave them there to sleep -
But blood at night is red,
Yea, even at night,
And a dead man's face is white.
And I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill,
And I look at the stars - for the stars are beautiful still.
poem by Leslie Coulson
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Dear Lorca
Dear Lorca,
These letters are to be as temporary as our poetry is to be permanent. They will establish the bulk, the wastage that my sour-stomached contemporaries demand to help them swallow and digest the pure word. We will use up our rhetoric here so that it will not appear in our poems. Let it be consumed paragraph by paragraph, day by day, until nothing of it is left in our poetry and nothing of our poetry is left in it. It is precisely because these letters are unnecessary that they must be written.
In my last letter I spoke of the tradition. The fools that read these letters will think by this we mean what tradition seems to have meant lately—an historical patchwork (whether made up of Elizabethan quotations, guide books of the poet’s home town, or obscure bits of magic published by Pantheon) which is used to cover up the nakedness of the bare word. Tradition means much more than that. It means generations of different poets in different countries patiently telling the same story, writing the same poem, gaining and losing something with each transformation—but, of course, never really losing anything. This has nothing to do with calmness, classicism, temperament, or anything else. Invention is merely the enemy of poetry.
See how weak prose is. I invent a word like invention. These paragraphs could be translated, transformed by a chain of fifty poets in fifty languages, and they still would be temporary, untrue, unable to yield the substance of a single image. Prose invents—poetry discloses.
A mad man is talking to himself in the room next to mine. He speaks in prose. Presently I shall go to a bar and there one or two poets will speak to me and I to them and we will try to destroy each other or attract each other or even listen to each other and nothing will happen because we will be speaking in prose. I will go home, drunken and dissatisfied, and sleep—and my dreams will be prose. Even the subconscious is not patient enough for poetry.
You are dead and the dead are very patient.
Love,
Jack
poem by Jack Spicer
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Burying He Dead Man
they are burying the dead today
a loved one
with Parkinson's disease
they all wear white and they look
all too well for the mourning
of the dead
they fly white balloons
they sing the songs for the dead
ah, the living knows
how to socialize an event
with all the metaphors
i am watching and i am sighing
asking 'what is the fuss about this empty shell? '
afraid that they will call another one a freak
i mix with the crowd and has become another unknown.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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