American Poetry (original) (raw)

Sparrow [Mar. 1st, 2012|07:40 pm]american_poetry
Fly away, Silently singingFreedom searching Take flight on wings Made of stardust and cloudEscape the dirty, taunting manLet your aspirations be your guide into the unknown Let your sorrow keep you adrift Oh, sweet sparrow, whose voice haunts my soul Why do you touch the ground When you could live amongst clouds instead?Are humans more fun to watchAre they more fun to tease?With their heads in the clouds And meager thoughts flying aboutLike deformed childrenThey grow into monsters And they takeNever giving Are you disgusted by our useless Ideas?The fire or touching the sunThe lips pressed to windowsEyes searching for answers Where there are no questions Yes, we must seem so silly to youAnd cruel as wellIs it wrong to you that we blind you Ad make you sing?I’m sure you must not mind much, For it takes a willing subject to be caught By unskilled men’s handsBut sparrow If I couldI’d leave with you And leave this disserted no mans landTo forever be in your graceSparrow,Goodbye until we meet againI will always look to you as a friend
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(no subject) [Apr. 18th, 2006|11:25 pm]american_poetry
I managed to find the poem I asked for in this post, I simply went and asked my lecturer to copy it for me. and she admitted not really having heard of Harvey Shapiro as being a poet. I can't understand how a good poem like this can go unnoticed and unfound (I lost my faith in google.com). Anyway, here it is, read and judge.The Heart In the midst of words your wordless imageMarches through the precincts of my nightAnd all the structures of my language lie undone:The bright cathedrals clatter, and the moon -Topped spires break their stalks.Sprawled before that raid, I watch the townsGo under. And in the waiting dark, I looseLike marbles spinning from a childThe crazed and hooded creatures of the heart. -Harvey Shapirocrossposted to greatpoems community
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(no subject) [Apr. 12th, 2006|10:20 pm]american_poetry
Our Friendship(David Lehman) We have a name for it in the South: asshole buddies. It means we've known each other so long it doesn't matter that he's an asshole in my opinion or I'm an asshole in his opinion or whatever And I want you to know I'm not from the South and you're not my buddy and it doesn't matter
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David Lehmen is my new favorite poet... [Apr. 12th, 2006|10:12 pm]american_poetry
When A Woman Loves A Man(David Lehman) When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri.When she says quixotic she means mercurial.And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"she means, "Put your arms around me from behindas I stand disconsolate at the window."He's supposed to know that.When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginiaor he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading,or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and heis raking leaves in Ithacaor he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolateat the window overlooking the baywhere a regatta of many-colored sails is going onwhile he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.When a woman loves a man it is one-ten in the morning,she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzelsdrinking lemonadeand two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bedwhere she remains asleep and very warm.When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks.When she says, "We're talking about me now,"he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says,"Did somebody die?"When a woman loves a man, they have goneto swim naked in the streamon a glorious July daywith the sound of the waterfall like a chuckleof water ruching over smooth rocks,and there is nothing alien in the universe.Ripe apples fall about them.What else can they do but eat?When he says, "Ours is a transitional era.""That's very original of you," she replies,dry as the Martini he is sipping.They fight all the timeIt's funWhat do I owe you?Let's start with an apologyOk, I'm sorry, you dickhead.A sign is held up saying "Laughter."It's a silent picture."I've been fucked without a kiss," she says,"and you can quote me on that,"which sounds great in an English accent.One year they broke up seven times and threatened to do itanother nine times.When a woman loves a man, she wants him to meet her at theairport in a foreign country with a jeep.When a man loves a woman he's there. He doesn't complain thatshe's two hours lateand there's nothing in the refrigerator.When a woman loves a man, she wants to stay awake.She's like a child cryingat nightfall because she didn't want the day to end.When a man loves a woman, he watches her sleep, thinking:as midnight to the moon is sleep to the beloved.A thousand fireflies wink at him.The frogs sound like the string sectionof the orchestra warming up.The stars dangle down like earrings the shape of grapes
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help [Apr. 8th, 2006|11:30 pm]american_poetry
Hello,There is this poem that I came upon in one of my poetry exams and I liked it quite a lot, its name is "The Heart" and it's by Harvey Shapiro. Unfortunately I can't seem to be finding it anywhere (google is not being helpful at all), so I was wondering if any of you know/have it?I remember the last three lines,"And in the waiting dark,I loose Like marbles spinning from a child,The crazed and hooded creatures of the heart."I'd really appreciate if you could send it to me.Thanks.cross posted to great_poems community.
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(no subject) [Oct. 18th, 2005|10:24 am]american_poetry
Sylvia Plath - EdgeThe woman is perfectedHer deadBody wears the smile of accomplishment,The illusion of a Greek necessityFlows in the scrolls of her toga,Her bareFeet seem to be saying:We have come so far, it is over.Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,One at each littlePitcher of milk, now emptyShe has foldedThem back into her body as petalsOf a rose close when the gardenStiffens and odors bleedFrom the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.The moon has nothing to be sad about,Staring from her hood of bone.She is used to this sort of thing.Her blacks crackle and drag.
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(no subject) [Oct. 12th, 2005|02:36 am]american_poetry
Does anyone know if/where "Sailing Home from Rapallo" by Robert Lowell can be found online?
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Robert Bly [Oct. 9th, 2005|02:59 am]american_poetry
After Drinking All Night With a Friend, We Go Out in a Boat at Dawn to See Who Can Write the Best PoemThese pines, these fall oaks, these rocks,This water dark and touched by wind—I am like you, you dark boat,Drifting over water fed by cool springs.Beneath the waters, since I was a boy,I have dreamt of strange and dark treasures,Not of gold or strange stones, but the trueGift, beneath the pale lakes of Minnesota.This morning also, drifting in the dawn wind,I sense my hands, and my shoes, and this ink—Drifting, as all of the body drifts,Above the clouds of the flesh and the stone.A few friendships, a few dawns, a few glimpses of grass,A few oars weathered by the snow and the heat,So we drift toward shore, over cold waters,No longer caring if we drift or go straight.
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Pound [Sep. 29th, 2005|08:10 pm]american_poetry
Ballad of the Goodly FereBy Ezra PoundSimon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion.Fere=Mate, Companion.Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' allFor the priests and the gallows tree?Aye lover he was of brawny men,O' ships and the open sea.When they came wi' a host to take Our ManHis smile was good to see,"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spearsAnd the scorn of his laugh rang free,"Why took ye not me when I walked aboutAlone in the town?" says he.Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wineWhen we last made company,No capon priest was the Goodly FereBut a man o' men was he.I ha' seen him drive a hundred menWi' a bundle o' cords swung free,That they took the high and holy houseFor their pawn and treasury.They'll no' get him a' in a book I thinkThough they write it cunningly;No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly FereBut aye loved the open sea.If they think they ha' snared our Goodly FereThey are fools to the last degree."I'll go to the feast," quo' our Goodly Fere,"Though I go to the gallows tree.""Ye ha' seen me heal the lame and blind,And wake the dead," says he,"Ye shall see one thing to master all:'Tis how a brave man dies on the tree."A son of God was the Goodly FereThat bade us his brothers be.I ha' seen him cow a thousand men.I have seen him upon the tree.He cried no cry when they drave the nailsAnd the blood gushed hot and free,The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongueBut never a cry cried he.I ha' seen him cow a thousand menOn the hills o' Galilee,They whined as he walked out calm between,Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea,Like the sea that brooks no voyagingWith the winds unleashed and free,Like the sea that he cowed at GenseretWi' twey words spoke' suddently.A master of men was the Goodly Fere,A mate of the wind and sea,If they think they ha' slain our Goodly FereThey are fools eternally.I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-combSin' they nailed him to the tree.
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Elizabeth Bishop [Sep. 24th, 2005|09:34 pm]american_poetry
FloridaBy Elizabeth BishopThe state with the prettiest name,the state that floats in brackish water,held together by mangrave rootsthat bear while living oysters in clusters, and when dead strew white swamps with skeletons, dotted as if bombarded, with green hummockslike ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass. The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white,and unseen hysterical birds who rush up the scaleevery time in a tantrum.Tanagers embarrassed by their flashiness,and pelicans whose delight it is to clown;who coast for fun on the strong tidal currentsin and out among the mangrove islandsand stand on the sand-bars drying their damp gold wingson sun-lit evenings.Enormous turtles, helpless and mild,die and leave their barnacled shells on the beaches,and their large white skulls with round eye-socketstwice the size of a man's.The palm trees clatter in the stiff breezelike the bills of the pelicans. The tropical rain comes downto freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells:Job's Tear, the Chinese Alphabet, the scarce Junonia, parti-colored pectins and Ladies' Ears,arranged as on a gray rag of rotted calico, the buried Indian Princess's skirt;with these the monotonous, endless, sagging coast-lineis delicately ornamented.Thirty or more buzzards are drifting down, down, down,over something they have spotted in the swamp,in circles like stirred-up flakes of sedimentsinking through water.Smoke from woods-fires filters fine blue solvents.On stumps and dead trees the charring is like black velvet.The mosquitoesgo hunting to the tune of their ferocious obbligatos.After dark, the fireflies map the heavens in the marshuntil the moon rises.Cold white, not bright, the moonlight is coarse-meshed,and the careless, corrupt state is all black speckstoo far apart, and ugly whites; the poorestpost-card of itself.After dark, the pools seem to have slipped away.The alligator, who has five distinct calls:friendliness, love, mating, war, and a warning--whimpers and speaks in the throatof the Indian Princess.
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