Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tommynomad]

"Paradise Lost" by John Milton.

The flaming Seraph fearless, though alone
Encompass'd round with foes, thus answerd bold.

O alienate from God, O spirit accurst,
Forsak'n of all good; I see thy fall
Determind, and thy hapless crew involv'd
In this perfidious fraud, contagion spred
Both of thy crime and punishment: henceforth
No more be troubl'd how to quit the yoke
Of Gods messiah; those indulgent Laws
Will not be now voutsaf't, other Decrees
Against thee are gon forth without recall;
That Golden Scepter which thou didst reject
Is now an Iron Rod to bruise and breake
Thy disobedience. Well thou didst advise,
Yet not for thy advise or threats I fly
These wicked Tents devoted, least the wrauth
Impendent, raging into sudden flame
Distinguish not: for soon expect to feel
His Thunder on thy head, devouring fire.
Then who created thee lamenting learne,
When who can uncreate thee thou shalt know.

(near the end of book 5)

[anjucat]

This has always been my fave: "The Men that don't Fit In", by Robert Service.


There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb in the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight, they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say, "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only an fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
At a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day with a hope that is dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

____________________________________

Good idear fer a post there. Poems is good.

[igotthisguitar]

HOWL
For Carl Solomon

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
ment roofs illuminated ...

http://www.ginzy.com/Poems.html#Howl

[Lizara]

The Wasteland, by T.S. Eliot.

WAY too long to post here. I also like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Or pretty much anything else by Eliot.

[ddeubel]

Quote:

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes http://plagiarist.com/poetry/2443/ Too hard to pick a favorite, but this one is powerful and is as relevant today as when Hughes wrote it in 1938. Great thread, by the way

I dig Hughes also. Very underrated poet, as so many great ones are. I also love Auden (especially to W.B. Yeats) and Irving Layton (the Bull Calf, for Musia's Grandchildren.) but yeah hard to pick a winner. Gyorgy Faludy's "Ode to the Moon -- ave luna, una morituri, te salutante" stands in my mind with the best of the 20th century.

But I like brevity. Short and to the point, economy. don't like much of Bukowski but this small one really gets to me . Also means something to me, being a teacher...

I met a genius

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

My fav. Langston Hughes poem......

[captain kirk]

Aint saying Robert Frost is my fav poet but I love trees and nature and he does a good job being a peaceful spokesman for same.

http://www.ketzle.com/frost/snowyeve.htm

http://www.ketzle.com/frost/birches.htm

[Don Gately]

"You Can Have It" by Phillip Levine
"Love Is Not All" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

[Nowhere Man]

Nice to see this thread back on the block.

Don,
Can you give us a link?

While I'm at it, I'll toss out another fav:

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/desiderata.html

[schwa]

I studied under some fine poets in university & seriously tried my hand at it myself, with mediocre results. Good poets are a special breed! Focused my grad studies on appreciating the greats, from ancient to modern.

Years later, I have just one book of poetry on my bookshelf: The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barkes translation. I've owned this book many times & given it away just about as often. 13th century Sufi mystic meets deft modern interpreter. Fresh & fun to read, bottomless in its implications.

But my contribution to this thread is an old & overlooked little gem by some anonymous genius:

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Beat that for simplicity, artfulness, & memorability. Heres an interesting Buddhist take on it: http://www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Misc/boat.html

[peemil]

"There once was a man from Nantucket."

[Don Gately]

[cypher]

[cwemory]

Top topic.

Blackberrying
Sylvia Path

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks ---
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

[C.M.]

William Blake is indeed rock-solid. I seem to spend much of my time slumming around the 19th century. I love (and at times hate) Walt Whitman; Herman Melville is fine; for later material, I often go for D.H Lawrence (I can't seem to shake that Lawrence thing ). Phillip Larkin is exceptional. Tried Dylan Thomas but got nowhere...though I really enjoy the lusty reading Rodney Dangerfield gives to that one Thomas poem (you know the one) in the movie BACK TO SCHOOL.

[Xerxes]

I really like reading verse aloud and Dylan Thomas is great for that, as is the one below. Great thread.

I tried to start a thread, now really buried, for people who wanted to post their own verse. You still can here: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=51844&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 in the "Post here if you're hammered and let's see what transpires" thread.