Job Discussion Forums

[Sashadroogie]

In the Mists

Wondrous to wander through mists!
Parted are bush and stone:
None to the other exists,
Each stands alone.

Many my friends came calling
then, when I lived in the light;
Now that the fogs are falling,
None is in sight.

Truly, only the sages
Fathom the darkness to fall,
Which, as silent as cages,
Separates all.

Strange to walk in the mists!
Life has to solitude grown.
None for the other exists:
Each is alone.


Hermann Hesse

[Sashadroogie]

The Truce of the Bear

Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in --
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless -- toothless, broken of speech,
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over the story, ending as he began:
"Make ye no truce with Adam-zad -- the Bear that walks like a Man!

"There was a flint in my musket -- pricked and primed was the pan,
When I went hunting Adam-zad -- the Bear that stands like a Man.
I looked my last on the timber, I looked my last on the snow,
When I went hunting Adam-zad fifty summers ago!

"I knew his times and his seasons, as he knew mine, that fed
By night in the ripened maizefield and robbed my house of bread.
I knew his strength and cunning, as he knew mine, that crept
At dawn to the crowded goat-pens and plundered while I slept.

"Up from his stony playground -- down from his well-digged lair --
Out on the naked ridges ran Adam-zad the Bear --
Groaning, grunting, and roaring, heavy with stolen meals,
Two long marches to northward, and I was at his heels!

"Two long marches to northward, at the fall of the second night,
I came on mine enemy Adam-zad all panting from his flight.
There was a charge in the musket -- pricked and primed was the pan --
My finger crooked on the trigger -- when he reared up like a man.

"Horrible, hairy, human, with paws like hands in prayer,
Making his supplication rose Adam-zad the Bear!
I looked at the swaying shoulders, at the paunch's swag and swing,
And my heart was touched with pity for the monstrous, pleading thing.

"Touched witth pity and wonder, I did not fire then . . .
I have looked no more on women -- I have walked no more with men.
Nearer he tottered and nearer, with paws like hands that pray --
From brow to jaw that steel-shod paw, it ripped my face away!

"Sudden, silent, and savage, searing as flame the blow --
Faceless I fell before his feet, fifty summers ago.
I heard him grunt and chuckle -- I heard him pass to his den.
He left me blind to the darkened years and the little mercy of men.

"Now ye go down in the morning with guns of the newer style,
That load (I have felt) in the middle and range (I have heard) a mile?
Luck to the white man's rifle, that shoots so fast and true,
But -- pay, and I lift my bandage and show what the Bear can do!"

(Flesh like slag in the furnace, knobbed and withered and grey --
Matun, the old blind beggar, he gives good worth for his pay.)
"Rouse him at noon in the bushes, follow and press him hard --
Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad.

"But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to fear,
When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near;
When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise,
When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes;

"When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer
That is the time of peril -- the time of the Truce of the Bear!"

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless, asking a dole at the door,
Matun, the old blind beggar, he tells it o'er and o'er;
Fumbling and feeling the rifles, warming his hands at the flame,
Hearing our careless white men talk of the morrow's game;

Over and over the story, ending as he began: --
"There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that looks like a Man!"

Rudyard Kipling

[Sashadroogie]

Morning

The rose's bud had blossomed out
Reaching out to touch the violet
The lily was waking up
And bending its head in the breeze

High in the clouds the lark
Was singing a chirruping hymn
While the joyful nightingale
With a gentle voice was saying -

'Be full of blossom, oh lovely land
Rejoice Iverian's country
And you oh Georgian, by studying
Bring joy to your motherland.'


Soselo

[sicklyman]

[Sashadroogie]

Can't beat a good Stalinist poem. Especially one extolling the virtues of academic labour. One would have to be a fool to argue with this poet's sentiments, eh?

[Sashadroogie]

A few tried, but it didn't end well...

[Sashadroogie]

To the Moon

Move tirelessly
Do not hang your head
Scatter the mist of the clouds
The Lord's Providence is great.
Gently smile at the earth
Stretched out beneath you;
Sing a lullaby to the glacier
Strung down from the heavens.
Know for certain that once
Struck down to the ground, an oppressed man
Strives again to reach the pure mountain,
When exalted by hope.
So, lovely moon, as before
Glimmer through the clouds;
Pleasantly in the azure vault
Make your beams play.
But I shall undo my vest
And thrust out my chest to the moon,
With outstretched arms, I shall revere
The spreader of light upon the earth!

Soselo

[Sashadroogie]

The Kremlin Highlander

We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
But if people would talk on occasion,
They should mention the Kremlin Caucasian.

His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits,
And his accurate words are as heavy as weights.
Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming,
And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming.

But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen,
And he plays with the services of these half-men.
Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing,
He’s alone booming, poking and whiffing.

He is forging his rules and decrees like horseshoes –
Into groins, into foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
Every killing for him is delight,
And Ossetian torso is wide.

Osip Mandelstam.

[it'snotmyfault]

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no Inner Resources."

I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

John Berryman

[johnslat]

This Be the Verse

by Philip Larkin

"They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f*cked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself."

For those who believe poetry should be affirming, I offer a couple of alternate versions:

This Be The Converse

by Richard Kell

"They buck you up, your mum and dad,
Or if they don't they clearly should.
No decent parents let the bad
They've handed on defeat the good.

Forebears you reckon daft old farts,
Bucked up in their turn by a creed
Whose homely mixture warmed their hearts,
Were just the counsellors you need.

Life is no continental shelf:
It lifts and falls as mountains do.
So, if you have some kids yourself,
They could reach higher ground than you."

and

This Be The Converse
by Adrian Mitchell


"They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad,
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself."

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

How sharper than a serpent's tooth
To hear your child make such a fuss.
It isn't fair—it's not the truth—
He's fu*ked up, yes, but not by us.

- J R Harris

[Sashadroogie]

Hops

Beneath the willow wound round with ivy
we take cover from the worst
of the storm, with a greatcoat round
our shoulders and my hands around your waist.

I've got it wrong. That isn't ivy
entwined in the bushes round
the wood, but hops. You intoxicate me!
Let's spread the greatcoat on the ground.

Dr Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)

[Sashadroogie]

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.


Seamus Heaney

[Sashadroogie]

A Russian Song

LACE and roses in the forest morning shine,
Shrewdly the small spider climbs his cobweb line.

Dews are diamonding and blooming faery-bright.
What a golden air! What beauty! Oh, what light!

It is good to wander through the dawn-shot rye,
Good to see a bird, a toad, a dragon-fly;

Hear the sleepy crowing of the noisy cock,
And to laugh at echo, and to hear her mock.

Ah, I love in vain my morning voice to hurl,
Ah, off in the birches, but to glimpse a girl,

Glimpse, and leaning on the tangled fence, to chase
Dawn’s unwilling shadows from her morning face.

Ah, to wake her from her half-surrendered sleep,
Tell her of my new-sprung dreams, that lift and leap,

Hug her trembling *beep* that press against my heart,
Stir the morning in her, hear its pulses start.


Igor Severyanin

[Sashadroogie]

ХИРОСИМА


Город прославился так:
Вышел
военный чудак,
старец
с лицом молодым.
'Парни,-
сказал он,-
летим!
Мальчики,
время пришло,
Дьявольски нам повезло!..'
В семь сорок девять утра
все было так, как вчера.
'Точка...-
вздохнул офицер,-
чистенько
вышли
на цель...'
В восемь двенадцать утра
сказано было:
'Пора!..'
В восемь пятнадцать,
над миром взлетев,
взвыл торжествующе
дымный клубок!
Солнце зажмурилось,
похолодев.
Вздрогнули оба:
и 'боинг',
и бог!..
Штурман воскликнул:
'Ой, как красиво!..'
В эту секунду
в расплавленной мгле
рухнули
все представленья о зле.
Люди узнали,
что на Земле
есть Хиросима.
И нет Хиросимы.

Роберт Рождественский