The poetry thread

[bachophile]

I always liked yabu’s death poem

What are clouds,
But an excuse for the sky?
What is life,
But an escape from death?

[Aqua Letifer]

Whispered the Rowan to the Oak
—Felix Dennis

The woods of our youth are failing,
even the mightiest rot,
Beetle and high wind take them
and soon they will be forgot,
Yet sadder than even the fading
of suns too eager to set
Is that you should fail to remember
what I can never forget.

Saplings of strangers surround us
to feather the winter sky,
Yet though you survive beside me,
you see with an empty eye,
Far better we fall and nourish
the land in a last duet
Than that you should fail to remember
what I can never forget.

[Mik]

Loving this thread. Fresh.

[Catseye3]

" . . . wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief."

Yes, indeed.

[Catseye3]

Note on the Felix Dennis poem:

"The Rowan tree has a long, sacred history. Since ancient times people have been planting a Rowan beside their home as in Celtic mythology it’s known as the Tree of Life and symbolises courage, wisdom and protection.

Look at the delicate leaves, perfectly symmetrical on either side of their stem. They freshly unfurl every Spring in bright green and resemble feathers: it’s not surprising that before the written word, the ancient world believed that these beautiful feather-leaves were created from a bird of prey."

https://thepresenttree.com/blogs/tree-meanings/rowan-tree-meaning

[Aqua Letifer]

He spent a shitload of money trying to repopulate the forests of England. He's kind of into trees.

[Catseye3]

What Now?
Gary Soto - 1952-

Where did the shooting stars go?
They flit across my childhood sky
And by my teens I no longer looked upward—
My face instead peered through the windshield
Of my first car, or into the rearview mirror,
All the small tragedies behind me,
The road and the road’s curve up ahead.

The shooting stars?
At night, I now look upward—
Jets and single-prop planes.
No brief light, nothing to wish for,
The neighbor’s security light coming on.

Big white moon on the hill,
Lantern on gravestones,
You don’t count.

[brenda]

Now I want a Rowan tree in my yard. I wonder if they are hardy to our climate. Not likely, but I will check.

[brenda]

@brenda said in The poetry thread:

Now I want a Rowan tree in my yard. I wonder if they are hardy to our climate. Not likely, but I will check.

It's a mountain ash tree, and definitely hardy to our growing zones in Minnesoooooota. The next question is whether this is the same ash tree being decimated by the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).

[brenda]

@brenda said in The poetry thread:

@brenda said in The poetry thread:

Now I want a Rowan tree in my yard. I wonder if they are hardy to our climate. Not likely, but I will check.

It's a mountain ash tree, and definitely hardy to our growing zones in Minnesoooooota. The next question is whether this is the same ash tree being decimated by the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).

"The mountain ash, or rowan, isn't a true ash. It belongs to the genus Sorbus instead of the genus Fraxinus. So far, the rowan has been safe from emerald ash borer attacks."

[Mik]

And another thread branches out, bearing unexpected fruit. .

[brenda]

@Mik said in The poetry thread:

And another thread branches out, bearing unexpected fruit. .

LOL

Moar poetry, please!

[Aqua Letifer]

Becoming a Redwood
—Dana Gioia

Stand in a field long enough, and the sounds
start up again. The crickets, the invisible
toad who claims that change is possible,

And all the other life too small to name.
First one, then another, until innumerable
they merge into the single voice of a summer hill.

Yes, it’s hard to stand still, hour after hour,
fixed as a fencepost, hearing the steers
snort in the dark pasture, smelling the manure.

And paralyzed by the mystery of how a stone
can bear to be a stone, the pain
the grass endures breaking through the earth’s crust.

Unimaginable the redwoods on the far hill,
rooted for centuries, the living wood grown tall
and thickened with a hundred thousand days of light.

The old windmill creaks in perfect time
to the wind shaking the miles of pasture grass,
and the last farmhouse light goes off.

Something moves nearby. Coyotes hunt
these hills and packs of feral dogs.
But standing here at night accepts all that.

You are your own pale shadow in the quarter moon,
moving more slowly than the crippled stars,
part of the moonlight as the moonlight falls,

Part of the grass that answers the wind,
part of the midnight’s watchfulness that knows
there is no silence but when danger comes.

[Catseye3]

I dunno about this one. There was a writer, now dead, Peg Bracken, who was pretty funny. She would have described this poem as being from the "Look Ma I can Write" school.

[George K]

I'm not much of a poetry person, and I am in awe of people who can do it and understand it.

However, one of my favorites has always been this, by ee cummings:

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

[Catseye3]

Cheer up, George; here's one for you:

The Octopus

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.

Ogden Nash

[Aqua Letifer]

@Catseye3 said in The poetry thread:

I dunno about this one. There was a writer, now dead, Peg Bracken, who was pretty funny. She would have described this poem as being from the "Look Ma I can Write" school.

There are personal preferences regarding poetry, and there's judging work on merit. I don't like a lot of Dana Gioia's stuff, but I'm sorry, no, saying he can write would be a massive understatement.

[Aqua Letifer]

@George-K said in The poetry thread:

I'm not much of a poetry person, and I am in awe of people who can do it and understand it.

However, one of my favorites has always been this, by ee cummings:

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

cummings is great. If you like such stuff, Spike Milligan might be up your street.

[ChatGPT]

Trees, tall and grand,
Nature's pillars strong and grand,
With branches reaching for the sky,
A sight that makes my heart take flight.

Leaves rustling in the breeze,
A symphony of green and ease,
Trunk rough and bark so deep,
A beauty that's impossible to keep.

Rooted deep in Mother Earth,
A symbol of unyielding worth,
A sanctuary for creatures small,
A home for one and all.

In spring they bud, in summer they thrive,
In fall they change, in winter they survive,
Trees, tall and grand,
Nature's beauty that we all understand.

[George K]

As I said, I'm not much of a poetry guy. I don't understand much of it, other than enjoying how words are put together.

Another one that I've always liked was one by Shakespeare. Sonnet 29:

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

"Haply" meaning "as if by chance."

What a wonderful turn of the phrase: "Trouble deaf heaven with my bootless (useless) cries." Not only is heaven not listening, but my pleas are a bother.

I love this sonnet.