→ text; anonymous

[thephix]

The newest Transports are arriving now, I suppose, and I imagine they're overwhelmed enough, without being bombarded by the... occasionally more distressing network posts we have on here. They'll have more than enough time to get adjusted to how terrible things are here, but perhaps a reprieve is in order, for both the new arrivals and ourselves, considering how things have been over the past several months.

A young woman mentioned poetry a few days ago, and I took it as inspiration to find the poetry section at the library. It's been interesting to discover poetry from worlds entirely unlike my own, and I thought we might share some of our favorites, if anyone has any. Snippets of prose are more than acceptable, if that's your preferred medium.

I'll start, shall I?



In the first version, Persephone
is taken from her mother
and the goddess of the earth
punishes the earth—this is
consistent with what we know of human behavior,

that human beings take profound satisfaction
in doing harm, particularly
unconscious harm:

we may call this
negative creation.

Persephone's initial
sojourn in hell continues to be
pawed over by scholars who dispute
the sensations of the virgin:

did she cooperate in her rape,
or was she drugged, violated against her will,
as happens so often now to modern girls.

As is well known, the return of the beloved
does not correct
the loss of the beloved: Persephone

returns home
stained with red juice like
a character in Hawthorne—

I am not certain I will
keep this word: is earth
"home" to Persephone? Is she at home, conceivably,
in the bed of the god? Is she
at home nowhere? Is she
a born wanderer, in other words
an existential
replica of her own mother, less
hamstrung by ideas of causality?

You are allowed to like
no one, you know. The characters
are not people.
They are aspects of a dilemma or conflict.

Three parts: just as the soul is divided,
ego, superego, id. Likewise

the three levels of the known world,
a kind of diagram that separates
heaven from earth from hell.

You must ask yourself:
where is it snowing?

White of forgetfulness,
of desecration—

It is snowing on earth; the cold wind says

Persephone is having sex in hell.
Unlike the rest of us, she doesn't know
what winter is, only that
she is what causes it.

She is lying in the bed of Hades.
What is in her mind?
Is she afraid? Has something
blotted out the idea
of mind?

She does know the earth
is run by mothers, this much
is certain. She also knows
she is not what is called
a girl any longer. Regarding
incarceration, she believes

she has been a prisoner since she has been a daughter.

The terrible reunions in store for her
will take up the rest of her life.
When the passion for expiation
is chronic, fierce, you do not choose
the way you live. You do not live;
you are not allowed to die.

You drift between earth and death
which seem, finally,
strangely alike. Scholars tell us

that there is no point in knowing what you want
when the forces contending over you
could kill you.

White of forgetfulness,
white of safety—

They say
there is a rift in the human soul
which was not constructed to belong
entirely to life. Earth

asks us to deny this rift, a threat
disguised as suggestion—
as we have seen
in the tale of Persephone
which should be read

as an argument between the mother and the lover—
the daughter is just meat.

When death confronts her, she has never seen
the meadow without the daisies.
Suddenly she is no longer
singing her maidenly songs
about her mother's
beauty and fecundity. Where
the rift is, the break is.

Song of the earth,
song of the mythic vision of eternal life—

My soul
shattered with the strain
of trying to belong to earth—

What will you do,
when it is your turn in the field with the god?

Comments

Video;

[100hearts]

That's an ironic use of words. What better way to christen the arrival of new transports than verses laced with subjugation and the destruction of innocence?

permatext; permanon

[thephix]

[Oh, it's him.]

There's comfort in catharsis.

And the question is what's important.

text, anonymous.

[bumbles]

I really like the line,
"that there is no point in knowing what you want
when the forces contending over you
could kill you."

It's awful, but it's kind of cool.

( "Kind of cool." He's not good at this stuff. He likes the resonance of it, the feeling, but isn't sure how to articulate it. It reminds him of himself, of Max. It reminds him over anyone with magic, anyone with family. )

Why is that one one of your favourites?

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

I imagine it strikes a chord with a lot of people, especially those accustomed to war.

[Which isn't what they all are, but enough of them, she thinks, that people will understand.]

I've always been fond of Persephone, and I like that it isn't sugarcoated.

[After a moment, she adds:]

I like that she sounds bitter.

video; and the obnoxiousness continues

[reconnaissance]

If this is who I think it is, and that does mean much 'cause I still dunno who you are, why are you being anonymous over poetry?

( People are strange. Of all the things to be anonymous about, really. Really. )

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

It is.

People are more honest when they don't have to put their name to something.

text;

[velveteened]

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
Often have I been to it,
Even to its highest tower,
From whence the world looks black."

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment."

And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, -- the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

text;

[skort]

I generally prefer prose to poems, but I am pretty fond of Christopher Logue's "Come to the Edge."

"Come to the edge," he said.
"We’re comfortable back here," they said.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We’re too busy,” they said.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“It’s too high,” they said.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We’re afraid,” they said.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We’ll fall,” they said.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
And they did.

And he pushed them.
And they flew.


It's probably one of my favorite Terran poems.

private; anon; voice

[thephix]

I do hope you're not planning to push anyone off a cliff, Miss Zor-El.

[She's teasing, assuming Kara will recognize her voice.]

anon text;

[5055034455]

[Guess who's annoyed that he had to go to the library to find this in full...!

He has better things to memorize than poetry, okay.]

Robert Frost's "Mending Wall":

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

anon text;

[thephix]

I feel as though I'm in middle school again.

[It'd be playful, if tone worked in text.]

Why do you like this one?

[text]

[demonbloodblade]

This is a trail-song, sometimes sung or chanted while travelling.

So as you shiver in the cold and the dark,
Look into the fire and see in its spark—
My eye
Watching over you.

As you walk in the wind’s whistling claws.
Listen past the howling of the wolf’s jaws.
My song
Comes to you.

And when you’re lost in trackless snow,
Look up high where the eagles go.
My star
Shines for you.

In deep, dark mine or on crumbling peak,
Hear the words of love I speak.
My thoughts
Are with you.

You are not forsaken.
You are not forgotten.
The North cannot swallow you.
The snows cannot bury you.
I will come for you.

Faerûn will grow warmer,
And the gods will smile
But oh, my love, guard yourself well—
All this may not happen for a long, long while.

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

Thank you for sharing that. Are you from a version of Earth? The name Faerûn isn't familiar to me.

[hejhej]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

[reconnaissance]

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[thephix]

I hope my death is not stolen from me
by a fiery blast of Fahrenheit or Celsius
or another calculatable accuracy.

I will gladly relinquish all the pleasures of daily
bread, the pride and dreams of art—even pulse;
but I hope my death will not be taken from me.

Actually, it is a modest policy;
little there to discuss as to solace
or in the way of privacy.

A valued moment of self-possession? Might it be
something to embrace more than to expulse?
I hope my death will not be pried from me.

My end is not to be just a cause in a public sea
of scientists teaming against a disease,
a private point in a welter of piracy.

After all, won't it fundamentally and rightly
be mine and no one else's? I hope my death is
not taken from me; better, it be
an appointment kept in a private sea.

text; permanon

[motherofnemesis]

not really a poetry person but

I have taken the blueprint of your back for granted
as if the sidewalk were not an altar
and the sound of the shower not a hurricane
bearing down – there is no ceremony for this.
the night goes on in spite of the rain, much
like the mail. make me a bullet of a mouth,
sex love and money on the radio. not a bullet,
a gun. not a gun, a harbor. to hold you, against
this, against the night with its sirens and batons,
I fly down the block to you and the lights, in
harm’s way, all sixteen muscles of my tongue
pulled, meat for the men who don’t love you.
my love, ink is fool's armor. your good luck
works on no one in uniform. if it's true
that bone is harder than steel, make me
a building, a garden of calcium
and mineral in bloom, deadbolt
of a spine, you coming home whole,
the apartment of my head on your bulletless
chest / each time the cry of fight goes up
on the street I remember your hand, the man
rocking back on his heels, his mouth
a sidelong oval shocked into quiet
at last, his pale hand torn from your forearm --
love, lay your burden down, here, tell me how
to make this body a safehouse and not
a prison, how hold your hand when its every lifting
is an act of self-defense, how take the knife from you
and not call it murder, or surrender – the cabdriver,
the cop, the woman gripping her purse
on the L train conspire -- you are already
a weapon. I am no building, no shield,
less than cotton between the violent night
and your skin, less than teeth
ground down to bonedust
small, white as I am.

permatext; permanon

[thephix]

Another person and I were discussing violent types of love poems, which I think this could be considered.

Who is it by?

anon text;

[isnotalone]

[The poem does make her feel a little upset as she is the current Land Goddess of her homeworld. If only she could accept the protagonist of the poem. It might be best if I don't take this too close to heart., was all she could ponder to herself.]

That sounds like a great idea! I really do love poetry! Although, my poem choice might not be as deep as yours, but it does hit a little close to home.

As I gaze into his liquid gold eyes,
Poetry radiates from his warm soul
His lips brush mine and I soar through the skies
Passion seizes me; I loose my control
An amalgam of thoughts pierce through my mind
There is love, trust, yet I feel petrified
I know destiny; our fate’s intertwined
But what if he’s a dream, one I’m denied?
A thousand years I could spend with those suns
Amid his presence I’ve conquered all realms
I’ve witnessed beauty that forever stuns
And have basked beneath his forest of elms
Then and there, I grasp truth with clarity
He’s in my arms; there’s no obscurity.

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

[She's still not sure how she feels about love poems.]

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, 
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain 
Under my head till morning; but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain 
For unremembered lads that not again 
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. 
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, 
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, 
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: 
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, 
I only know that summer sang in me 
A little while, that in me sings no more.

[voice]

[highfrequency]

"It is missing the point to think that the martial art is solely in cutting a man down. It is not in cutting people down; it is in killing evil. It is the stratagem of killing the evil of one man and giving life to ten thousand."

It's not poetry, I guess, more like a quote. But it means a lot to me.

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

What about those who would use the martial arts for evil?

[She's not trying to disparge the quote, she's just curious how he'll answer that.]

permanon, permatext

[lar]

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade ?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

same

[thephix]

There's one I haven't heard in a while, and relevant, considering our current circumstances.

[Because it was a huge cock-up, basically.]

Is that why you picked it?

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

I ended up looking up a few of my old favorites, too. This one is a bit long, and a bit...quirky, but I like it anyway. And it's a bit different, I think.

[He clears his throat, and then begins reading, because he knows this poem is best read]

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

[He does a surprisingly good performance - Ginsberg himself is better, but Nate's heart is in it, at least.

OOC

[devilsfruitdoctor]

[asdfjkl; <3 ]

anontext, hackable

[devilsfruitdoctor]

Well it's not the hours of watch on watch and its not the work that I mind so much
Or the long cold miles from my lover's touch, though for sure she's far away
No stranger I to the touch of steel, nor the honest fear any man can feel
But I long for dust under my heels and a pocket full of pay
So I'll take it from day to day

The pack-ice round us cracks and groans, the old St. Roch, she creaks and moans
The icy fog is in my bones and the ache wont go away
Outside I bet its warm and fair, I could have her fingers in my hair
But it's long cold miles to her out there, so I guess I'll have to stay
And just take it from day to day

Were as far north now as I want to come, but Larson's got us under his thumb
And I signed up for the whole damn run, I can't get off halfway
But when I get back onto the shore I'm going south where it stays warm
And there'll be someone on my arm to help me spend my pay
So I'll take it from day to day

permatext, permanon

[thephix]

I don't have many sailing poems in my repetoire, Rime of the Ancient Mariner aside, and I hope you'll forgive me for not typing that out.