Korean Job Discussion Forums

[flotsam]

[coldcrush]

Snap-Dragon

She bade me follow to her garden, where
The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup
Between the old grey walls; I did not dare
To raise my face, I did not dare look up,
Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in
My windows of discovery, and shrill �Sin.�

So with a downcast mien and laughing voice
I followed, followed the swing of her white dress
That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise
Of her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to press
The grass deep down with the royal burden of her:
And gladly I�d offered my breast to the tread of her.

�I like to see,� she said, and she crouched her down,
She sunk into my sight like a settling bird;
And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown
Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred
By her measured breaths: �I like to see,� said she,
�The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me.�

She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower,
Closing its crimson throat. My own throat in her power
Strangled, my heart swelled up so full
As if it would burst its wine-skin in my throat,
Choke me in my own crimson. I watched her pull
The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did float

Over my eyes, and I was blind�
Her large brown hand stretched over
The windows of my mind;
And there in the dark I did discover
Things I was out to find:
My Grail, a brown bowl twined
With swollen veins that met in the wrist,
Under whose brown the amethyst
I longed to taste. I longed to turn
My heart�s red measure in her cup,
I longed to feel my hot blood burn
With the amethyst in her cup.

Then suddenly she looked up,
And I was blind in a tawny-gold day,
Till she took her eyes away.
So she came down from above
And emptied my heart of love.
So I held my heart aloft
To the cuckoo that hung like a dove,
And she settled soft.

It seemed that I and the morning world
Were pressed cup-shape to take this reiver
Bird who was weary to have furled
Her wings in us,
As we were weary to receive her.

This bird, this rich,
Sumptuous central grain,
This mutable witch,
This one refrain,
This laugh in the fight,
This clot of night,
This core of delight.

She spoke, and I closed my eyes
To shut hallucinations out.
I echoed with surprise
Hearing my mere lips shout
The answer they did devise.
Again I saw a brown bird hover
Over the flowers at my feet;
I felt a brown bird hover
Over my heart, and sweet
Its shadow lay on my heart.
I thought I saw on the clover
A brown bee pulling apart
The closed flesh of the clover
And burrowing in its heart.

She moved her hand, and again
I felt the brown bird cover
My heart; and then
The bird came down on my heart,
As on a nest the rover
Cuckoo comes, and shoves over
The brim each careful part
Of love, takes possession, and settles her down,
With her wings and her feathers to drown
The nest in a heat of love.

She turned her flushed face to me for the glint
Of a moment. �See,� she laughed, �if you also
Can make them yawn.� I put my hand to the dint
In the flower�s throat, and the flower gaped wide with woe.
She watched, she went of a sudden intensely still,
She watched my hand, to see what I would fulfil.

I pressed the wretched, throttled flower between
My fingers, till its head lay back, its fangs
Poised at her. Like a weapon my hand was white and keen,
And I held the choked flower-serpent in its pangs
Of mordant anguish, till she ceased to laugh,
Until her pride�s flag, smitten, cleaved down to the staff.

She hid her face, she murmured between her lips
The low word �Don�t.� I let the flower fall,
But held my hand afloat towards the slips
Of blossom she fingered, and my fingers all
Put forth to her: she did not move, nor I,
For my hand like a snake watched hers, that could not fly.

Then I laughed in the dark of my heart, I did exult
Like a sudden chuckling of music. I bade her eyes
Meet mine, I opened her helpless eyes to consult
Their fear, their shame, their joy that underlies
Defeat in such a battle. In the dark of her eyes
My heart was fierce to make her laughter rise.

Till her dark deeps shook with convulsive thrills, and the dark
Of her spirit wavered like water thrilled with light;
And my heart leaped up in longing to plunge its stark
Fervour within the pool of her twilight,
Within her spacious soul, to grope in delight.

And I do not care, though the large hands of revenge
Shall get my throat at last, shall get it soon,
If the joy that they are searching to avenge
Have risen red on my night as a harvest moon,
Which even death can only put out for me;
And death, I know, is better than not-to-be.

- DH Lawrence

[ddeubel]

I used to like D.H. but that was before I read more extensively. Not saying that he doesn't offer anything (and especially admire his "Pansies", those short ones) but I just find he moans and dribbles on and disobeys one of the cardinal rules of poems as I find them -- saying things in a condensed fashion.

I like swimming but he is a lot to swim through. But then again, I haven't come through and can only wish to love as he seemingly did. Offering another....

[flotsam]

Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff:

Mondnacht

Es war, als h�tt der Himmel
Die Erde still gek��t,
Da� sie im Bl�tenschimmer
Von ihm nun tr�umen m��t.

Die Luft ging durch die Felder,
Die �hren wogten sacht,
Es rauschten leis die W�lder,
So sternklar war die Nacht.

Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Fl�gel aus,
Flog durch die stillen Lande,
Als fl�ge sie nach Haus.

[jajdude]

"The Broken Fall" reminds me of the Bob Dylan song, "Everything is Broken"


Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.

Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.

Bridge: Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.

Bridge: Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face

Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.

[daskalos]

In the Tavernas

by C.P. Cafavy

I wallow in the tavernas and brothels of Beirut.
I didn't want to stay
in Alexandria anymore. Tamides left me;
he went off to live with the Prefect's son to earn himself
a villa on the Nile, a mansion in the city.
It wouldn't have been fitting for me to stay in Alexandria.

I wallow in the tavernas and brothels of Beirut.
I live a vile life, devoted to cheap debauchery.
The one thing that sustains me,
like durable beauty, like perfume
that goes on clinging to my flesh, is this: Tamides,
most exquisite of young men, was mine for two years,
mine completely and not for a house or a villa on the Nile.

[joyfulgirl]

Consummation Of Grief


I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

-Bukowski

[jajdude]

Here's one I like by D. H. Lawrence
====================================

Piano


Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
to the old Sunday evenings at home, with the winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

[Cliff for King]

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

[jajdude]

Two from Ogden Nash


Lines on Facing Forty

I have a bone to pick with fate,
Come here and tell me girly,
Do you think my mind is maturing late,
Or simply rotting early.


Crossing the Border

Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.

[ddeubel]

Jajdude,

Thx you for the Dylan interlude. Man, that song, along with several others has that -- fly off the page -- quality. Like he is going to just start mumbling and speaking in tongues though everything he says is so clear. "It's alright Mama (I'm only bleedin') is one other that comes to mind.

I am glad someone mentioned Bukowski. When he is bad, he is really bad (most often and especially a lot of the later stuff they published of him) but when he hits it, not a clearer thought can exist. Here is my fav. and also one which like Dylan really almost flies off the page.

[atlhockey]

I think I used this one a half-dozen times in school when we had to memorize a poem....

[jajdude]

I'm just an ordinary fan, and I don't count for much,
But I'm for writing history with a true and honest touch.
It isn't often that I knock - I'll put you next to that -
But I must interpose a word on Casey at the Bat.

Oh, yes, I must admit it; the poem is a beaut.
Been runnin' through my thinker since our team got the chute.
I heard an actor fan recite it thirteen years ago;
He sort of introduced it in the progress of the show.

It made a hit from gallery, down to the parquet floor;
But now I've got to thinking, and that poem makes me sore.
I'd like to know why any fan should be so off his nut
About the Mighty Casey who proved himself a mutt.

The score, we're told, stood four to two, one inning left to play.
The Frogtown twirler thought he had things pretty much his way,
So in the ninth, with two men down, he loosened up a bit;
And Flynn scratched out a single, Blake let loose a two-base hit.

Then from the stand and bleachers there arose a mighty roar.
They wanted just that little hit they knew would tie the score.
And there at the bat was Casey, Mighty Casey, Mudville's pride;
But was the Frogtown slabster sent balloonin', terrified?

Now in the ninth, with two men down and Casey at the bat,
Most pitchers would have let him walk - we all are sure of that.
But Hagen was a hero, he was made of sterner stuff;
It's his kind who gets the medals and the long newspaper puff.

He knew the time had come for him to play a winning role.
He heard the fans a-yelling; it was music to his soul.
He saw the gleam of confidence in Mighty Casey's eye.
"I'll strike him out!" Hagen resolved. "I'll do it or I'll die!"

He stood alone and friendless in that wild and frenzied throng.
There wasn't even one kind word to boost his game along.
But back in Frogtown where they got the plays by special wire
The fans stood ready, if he won, to set the town on fire.

Now Hagen twirls his body on the truest corkscrew plan
And hurls a swift inshoot that cuts the corner of the pan.
But Casey thought the first ball pitched would surely be a ball,
And didn't try to strike it, to the great disgust of all.

Again the Frogtown twirler figures dope on Mudville's pride;
And Casey things the next will be an outshoot breaking wide.
But Hagen shot a straight one down the middle of the plate,
And Casey waited for a curve until it was too late.

A now the mighty slugger is a-hangin' on the string.
If another good one comes along, it's up to him to swing.
The jaunty smile, Hagen observed, has faded from his face,
And a look of straining agony is there to takes its place.

One moment Hagen pauses, hides the ball behind his glove,
And then he drives it from him with a sweeping long arm shove.
And now the air is shattered, and the ball's in the catcher's mitt,
For Casey, Might Casey, hadn't figured on the spit!

The Man Who Fanned Casey by Anonymous

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_case6.shtml

[IrishJen]

I thought I was going to be highly original with this until about two posts ago.




Parsley
Is gharsley.


Ogden Nash

[daskalos]

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman -- by Wallace Stevens

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.