Poetry

[Allama]

This is a thread for, simply speaking, poems.  Post poems you fancy or poems you wrote yourself and discuss them, if you please.

I'll start us off with a classic; Pablo Neruda.  A staple of the world of poetry, his works are excellent in the original Spanish or in English.  I'll post in English, as most of us probably wouldn't understand it other wise.  ^_^

Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

[Solnath]

I'd love to contribute great poetry, but Taijituans' Finnish seems a bit... rusty.

So, I'll contribute mediocre poetry:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
In the Soviet Union,
Poems write you!

[LLANYDERN]

ooh I'll have to dig out some shamus heany for you..... do you think Beowolf would be too long  

[Allama]

ooh I'll have to dig out some shamus heany for you..... do you think Beowolf would be too long  

Yes, but feel free to do it anyway!

[LLANYDERN]

okay I'll type it up on my lap top tonight and get it up tommorow.....

[Solnath]

Copying it from a free ebook would be a tad easier, don't you think?

[Delfos]

http://pintopc.home.cern.ch/pintopc/www/FPessoa/FPessoa.html

Fernando Pessoa claimed the best poet of Iberian Peninsula of the XX century

here's poems in english:

Alentejo Seen From The Train

Nothing with nothing around it
And a few trees in between
None of wich very clearly green,
Where no river or flower pays a visit.
If there be a hell, I've found it,
For if ain't here, where the Devil it is?

Alentejo is a part of Portugal, desert-like and gets over 40º Celsius most of the time. still...a very pretty hell. My last Hamster died in Alentejo from the heat, so imagine how hot it is. ah, and thanks for making it warmer with global warming. more:

Meantime

Far away, far away,
   Far away from here...
There is no worry after joy
   Or away from fear
Far away from here.

Her lips were not very red,
   Not her hair quite gold.
Her hands played with rings.
   She did not let me hold
Her hands playing with gold.

She is something past,
   Far away from pain.
Joy can touch her not, nor hope
   Enter her domain,
   Neither love in vain.

Perhaps at some day beyond
   Shadows and light
She will think of me and make
   All me a delight
   All away from sight.

Anyway, if you knew Portuguese you would understand how good this guy is.

[Tatar]

Numan Celebicihan was the best poet and writer of the Tatars.Here's poems in English.

FAREWELL TATARNESS!

Farewell, Tatarness, I am heading towards the war,
My horse's head already turned towards the next world.
I've lived for you Tatarness, and if I die without you,
How will I enter the Paradise that is empty so.


The mountains turned over and the rivers overflew,
Not only we, but even the angels are shocked at how things go.
The young were shaken and the maidens were battered,
Abandoning their children, the mothers fled to deserts.


A clean life behind me, front of me is death.
I doubt my dark path will last any longer.
Not fearing any danger, not being frightened of shadows,
Stretches out my arm, uttering the word" Tatar" at my last breath.

He tells the First World War in this poem

[Anniane]

Yay for poetry! Here's the first poem that comes to mind:


pity this busy monster, manunkind

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
                          A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

- e. e. cummings

[Varkour]

I'm a fan of Wilfred Owen...

Greater Love

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft, -- -
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft, -- -
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

1917

[Talmann]

Here's something I wrote. It's not good, as I am not a writer in the slightest, but it's something.

T'were I a man of all the hours
And every second, too,
I would use ev'ry ounce of my powers
To come and be with you.
To love, to live,
To see, to give,
All life's best moments deftly thrive
When man and woman together be.
For all eternity,
Peace there lies.

Also: W00t! First self-written poetry here.

[Slaughts]

"Bushida's Outcome"
by: C/Cpl. Daniel Hood

The air is so cold
Blessed wind spawned by the divine
The grass tickling my toes
I thus pace towards the village
Knowing fully well of what is to come

Eager souls pratice with their wooden blades
A thousand hoofs gallop in unison below
Patient hunters fire their arrows of skill
Young children observe and cheer
Yet they do not realize the discipline of it all

I walk towards the glorious shrine
Cheery blossom trees add to the beauty
A band of us walk in
Holy aura cleansing our minds
For I feel no evil sins within me

My kin's honor flows through my veins
Metal skin becoming my new skeleton
I gather my eternal friend of death
And I travel to the heretic lands
Swarms of black riders flank my sides

The heretics are in mass
Ready to deliever the dreadful coup de grace
Rain of death landing all around
Then the Rising Sun shines our swords
This is the way of the warrior
This is the way of the samurai!

I was in a Japanese mood when I wrote this.

[Nightloser]

Maaaan...i loved Beowulf....and also Canterbury Tales...not that was a piece of art

[Eientei]

This is a poem about a kind of spiritual ecstasy, written by Rumi, a famous Sufi poet, in the 13th century.  He had a skill for writing on spiritual themes without getting preachy, and for reaching into the real nature of humanity.  If you can, try to find Coleman Barks' translations of his works.



    God has given us a dark wine so potent that,
    drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

    God has put into the form of hashish a power
    to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

    God has made sleep so
    that it erases every thought.

    God made Majnun love Layla so much that
    just her dog would cause confusion in him.

     There are thousands of wines
    that can take over our minds.

    Don't think all ecstacies
    are the same!

    Jesus was lost in his love for God.
    His donkey was drunk with barley.

    Drink from the presence of saints,
    not from those other jars.

    Every object, every being,
    is a jar full of delight.

    Be a conoisseur,
    and taste with caution.

    Any wine will get you high.
    Judge like a king, and choose the purest,

    the ones unadulterated with fear,
    or some urgency about "what's needed."

    Drink the wine that moves you
    as a camel moves when it's been untied,

    and is just ambling about.