All 16 entries tagged Poetry

Embrace Life

From the trees on the mountain
to the wind blowing past the sea,
the sand in the desert
and the pebbles on the shore,
they are all singing the same tunes
full of life and longing.

"Embrace life!" they cry
"open your heart,
and let the world into your soul".

The baby ducks in the lake
following their mother faithfully,
and the birds in the sky
soaring above the clouds,
are humming the same notes
full of meaning and hope.

"Embrace life!" they say
"look around you
there's beauty everywhere you look".

Listen to the trees
and the whispering wind,
the elements and the birds.
For they know the secret
to the elixir of life.

: 10 Feb 2006 15:42 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

where the twain meet

To calm her mind she focused it
on symmetry and shapes:
the ruby red wine
sparkling and swirling like drops of blood-nectar
fascinated her,
almost more than the act of drinking.
She held the glass interminably
swirling this way and that
admiring the beauty
of clear glass and ruby liquid
juxtaposed against her cream hand.

The oval of the oil burner
the flickering flame
encased in the frame
of the imposing black dome

Poetry in an image
reality as art?
or the transference of art into reality?

: 28 Jan 2006 10:48 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

camouflage

The purple flower is dark
it entices you, draws you into its trap
now you think its harmless
beautiful, full of possibilities
delirious in its scent
you forget all else.

But beware,
it unleashes its tendrils
that bind you in its grasp
and slowly choke you

that which was once beautiful
now consumes you
overpowers you, you cannot let go
neither free nor bound
hanging in limbo
the purple flower triumphs over you.

: 14 Dec 2005 15:14 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Invictus — William E Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

: 28 Nov 2005 18:33 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

As I Walked Out One Evening

Wystan Hugh Auden

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

I think these may possibly be some of the most beautifully cynical lines ever written...

: 17 Nov 2005 21:14 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Preludes

Follow-up to My Favourite Poems from Geetu's blog

This poem conjures up beautiful images in my mind, like a black-and-white silent film. One can see the vacant, empty roads, the dark alleyways, somewhere a clock chimes midnight. The streets are bare, it is a cold, windy, winter night; scraps of stray paper fly about, whispering with the yellpwed mist. A lonely carriage draws up on the cobbled street, waits by the solitary lamp casting a yellowed glow into the night, the only sound the impatient stamping of the horse.

Don't you just love Eliot?

: 14 Nov 2005 15:52 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

My Favourite Poems

To start with, this is my all-time favourite, by my favourite poet, TS Eliot:

Preludes

I

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II

The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

: 14 Nov 2005 15:47 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Illusions

A web of green,
spreading through the mist
beckoning, calling,
as it slowly twists

over the expanse of soft peach,
culminating in the wrist.
One short line of dark green
stands out, all it needs is one quick slit.

: 13 Nov 2005 22:38 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Fall of Yugoslavia

Dream palaces
dashed to rubble
within minutes, lost.

The futility of false foundations
weak, self-serving, small-minded
those who fought for the preservation

of the ‘Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes’
grand vision or hopeless failure
was its demise inevitable?

Meteoric rise to power
of that unscrupulous statesman.
At his feet lies Yugoslavia’s grave.

: 11 Nov 2005 21:34 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

untitled

Surging through my veins
the black poison of pain
hurt and sorrow
Prickly, like black rain.

Someone give me a knife
let me sever the vein
watch the poison pour out
No more rain.

: 31 Oct 2005 14:30 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem