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Books & Poems
Share books and poems that you have read or are reading.
Permanence In Change
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If only this early blessing
Could last a single hour!
But the warm west wind is shaking
Over me a rain of flowers.
Shall I take pleasure in the leaves
Whose shade I once enjoyed?
Soon a storm will scatter sheaves
Through autumn’s trembling void.
If you want to grasp the fruit then,
Hurry now and take your share!
Some of it’s begun to ripen,
Some is germinating there:
Swiftly and with every shower
There’s change along the valley’s rim,
Alas, in the selfsame river
A second time you cannot swim.
You yourself too! What was standing
Firm as rock before your sight,
Wall and Palace, now you’re seeing
With ever-changing eyes.
Wasted now are those lips
Kisses healed once long ago
And the feet now that skipped
On cliffs like mountain goats’.
And the hand that gently moved,
That articulated structure,
Generously, to do good,
Shows a different nature.
And what now in their place
Calls itself by your name,
To the elements in haste
Flows like water, as it came.
Let the end and the beginning
Gather themselves into one!
Let your own self go flying
Swifter than all these objects can!
Give thanks that the Muses’ art
Promises one unfading thing,
The Meaning in your Heart,
And the Form in your Being.
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The Steppe
--Boris Pasternak
How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whining through space.
The hayricks line up with the clouds,
volcano after volcano, they fade.
Grown silent, damp, the boundless steppe,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.
The mist overtakes us, washes, a sea,
and burrs are clinging to stockings, today
it’s lovely to tramp the steppe’s shore,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.
Is that a rick in the mist? Who knows?
Is that one ours? Yes, it’s found.
There! Yes, that’s it all right, though.
The rick, and the mist, and the steppe all round.
And the Milky Way slants towards Kerch,
like a path that cattle have stamped on.
Go past the houses, you’ll lose your breath,
on every side, broad, broad horizons.
Shadowy midnight stands by the way,
strewn with stars, that touch every verst,
and you can’t cross it, beyond the fence,
without trampling the universe.
When did the stars sweep down so low,
midnight sink so deep in tall grass,
and drenched muslin, afraid, aglow,
long for a dénouement at last?
Let the steppe judge, and night decide.
When, if not in the Beginning,
did Mosquitoes whine, Ants ride,
and Burrs go clinging to stockings?
Close them, my darling! Or go blind!
The whole steppe’s as before the Fall:
All, drowned in peace, like a parachute,
like a heaving vision, All.
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This ain't bad. Nice nature poetry (sonnets & haiku) and photography:
http://goo.gl/08ncGR
snowflakes and sunlight
are like unforeseen prisms
so beyond our might
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Ask Me No More
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
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Eldorado
Edgar Allan Poe
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
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A Poem About An Old Prison Man
Charles Manson
Waiting on Death Row
People coming in overalls
Taking me to the gas chamber
Scuffling of feet
They took him down the hallway
Feeling everyone's heartbeat
The central control of the soul
Batons and retro-tons
Ingrown toenails
One time all around you
All round you, bump-bump
Save my air, save my air
My air, my air
Air, water, trees
Machines eating the night
Energy moving
Nuclear fires
Burning reactors on my gate
Fires of hell are burning
Come home
Can you see
Can you say
That you say
That you really love this place?
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I do enjoy some Pasternak...
Balloon by Tatiana Ryckman
My limbs are too short
even for me.
They don’t fit their sleeves and pant legs. So
I’ve got cuffs around my wrists and ankles,
they ebb and
flow like pockets, like handbags, like
trick-or-treat baskets.
They balloon into
balloons that carry lint and dust
and other balloons
bits of chocolate my wallet a pack of
smokes; keys to things I don’t want
to open, keys to things I’ve forgotten, to wine; a lock
of someone’s sister’s hair,
both of my balled fists and
all of the items I meant to pick up
at the grocery store
last week, but left on a scrap of paper instead.
There’s one line of a shredded note and that thing that broke
off my car,
an email from my grandmother that says
health fails
and seeds for next spring,
that cat I loved most and a book to read
while waiting in lines in obvious places.
This height is a thing I wear like a house
then bring around to your apartment
that I fill with my smallness,
waiting to see if I’ll fit.
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The Falls Of The Passaic
Washington Irving
In a wild, tranquil vale, fringed with forests of green,
Where nature had fashioned a soft, sylvan scene,
The retreat of the ring-dove, the haunt of the deer,
Passaic in silence rolled gentle and clear.
No grandeur of prospect astonished the sight,
No abruptness sublime mingled awe with delight;
Here the wild floweret blossomed, the elm proudly waved,
And pure was the current the green bank that laved.
But the spirit that ruled o'er the thick tangled wood,
And deep in its gloom fixed his murky abode,
Who loved the wild scene that the whirlwinds deform,
And gloried in thunder and lightning and storm;
All flushed from the tumult of battle he came,
Where the red men encountered the children of flame,
While the noise of the war-whoop still rang in his ears,
And the fresh bleeding scalp as a trophy he bears:
With a glance of disgust, he the landscape surveyed,
With its fragrant wild-flowers, its wide waving shade;
Where Passaic meanders through margins of green,
So transparent its waters, its surface serene.
He rived the green hills, the wild woods he laid low;
He taught the pure stream in rough channels to flow;
He rent the rude rock, the steep precipice gave,
And hurled down the chasm the thundering wave.
Countless moons have since rolled in the long lapse of time,
Cultivation has softened those features sublime;
The axe of the white man has lightened the shade,
And dispelled the deep gloom of the thicketed glade.
But the stranger still gazes, with wondering eye,
On the rocks rudely torn, and grooves mounted on high;
Still loves on the cliff's dizzy borders to roam,
Where the torrent leaps headlong, embosomed in foam.
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http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/32...c329604663.jpg
"This 1960s spy story has far more depth and character development than the Bond novels that were more or less contemporaneous. The use of the unreliable first person narrator was risky but actually worked well, adding an extra layer of uncertainty to the described events." -- Stuart Aken
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