Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
JUST FOR FUN
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Read Me a Poem Sing Me a Song
Antonella wrote: "A Poem for Pulse by Jameson FitzpatrickLast night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What ..."
Perfect Antonella, just perfect.
Antonella wrote: "A Poem for Pulse by Jameson FitzpatrickLast night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
Thank you, Antonella!
Mod
Last night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What ..."
Thank you, Antonella.
Mod
Antonella wrote: "A Poem for Pulse by Jameson Fitzpatrick"Antonella, this is beautiful and perfect. Thank you.
Antonella wrote: "A Poem for Pulse by Jameson FitzpatrickLast night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What ..."
Wow, just wow. I'm speechless. Thank you for sharing Antonella
Presents by Norman MacCaig (1910-1996)I give you an emptiness,
I give you a plenitude.
Unwrap them carefully -
one's as fragile as the other -
and when you thank me
I'll pretend not to notice the doubt in your voice
when you say they're just what you wanted.
Put them on the table by your bed.
When you wake in the morning
they'll have gone through the door of sleep
into your head. Wherever you go
they'll go with you and
wherever you are you'll wonder,
smiling, about the fullness
you can't add to and the emptiness
that you can fill.
Found in Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.
See http://books.google.ch/books?id=L4_cH...
To be great, be whole by Fernando PessoaTo be great, be whole; exclude
Nothing, exaggerate nothing that is you.
Be whole in everything. Put all you are
Into the smallest thing you do.
The whole moon gleams in every pool,
It rides so high.
From Poems of Fernando Pessoa translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown.
Another version translated by Edouard Roditi:
To be great, be whole: nothing that's you
Should you exaggerate or exclude.
In each thing, be all. Give all you are
In the least you ever do.
The whole moon, because it rides so high,
Is reflected in each pool.
Also found in a book by John O'Donohue Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong.
Human Family"I note the obvious differences in the human family.
Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived as true profundity,
and others claim they really live the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,tan and blue and white.
I've sailed upon the seven seas and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China, we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ, in major we're the same.
I note the obvious differences between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."
Meditation from Maya Angelou from WisdomCommons.org
Mod
I give you an emptiness,
I give you a plenitude.
Unwrap them carefully -
one's as fragile as the other -
and when you thank me
I'll pretend not to notic..."
"… about the fullness
you can't add to and the emptiness
that you can fill."
Stunning.
Mod
"I note the obvious differences in the human family.
Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived as true profundity,
and others claim they reall..."
Beautiful and timely.
Conversation with a Stone by Wisława SzymborskaI knock at the stone’s front door.
It’s only me, let me come in.
I want to enter your insides,
have a look round,
breathe my fill of you.”
“Go away,” says the stone.
“I’m shut tight.
Even if you break me to pieces,
we’ll all still be closed.
You can grind us to sand,
we still won’t let you in.”
I knock at the stone’s front door.
“It’s only me, let me come in.
I’ve come out of pure curiosity.
Only life can quench it.
I mean to stroll through your palace,
then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.
I don’t have much time.
My mortality should touch you.”
“I’m made of stone,” says the stone,
“and must therefore keep a straight face.
Go away.
I don’t have the muscles to laugh.”
I knock at the stone’s front door.
“It’s only me, let me come in.
I hear you have great empty halls inside you,
unseen, their beauty in vain,
soundless, not echoing anyone’s steps.
Admit you don’t know them well yourself.”
“Great and empty, true enough,” says the stone,
“But there isn’t any room.
Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste
of your poor senses.
You may get to know me, but you’ll never know me through.
My whole surface is turned toward you,
all my insides turned away.”
I knock at the stone’s front door.
“It’s only me, let me come in.
I don’t seek refuge for eternity.
I’m not unhappy.
I’m not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I’ll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe.”
“You shall not enter,” says the stone.
“You lack the sense of taking part.
No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part.
Even site heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part.
You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be,
only its seed, imagination.”
I knock at the stone’s front door.
“It’s only me, let me come in.
I haven’t got two thousand centuries,
so let me come under your roof.”
“If you don’t believe me,” says the stone,
“just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.
Ask a drop of water, it will tell you what the leaf has said.
And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.
I am bursting with laughter, yes, vast laughter,
although I don’t know how to laugh.”
I knock at the stone’s front door.
“It’s only me, let me come in.”
“I don’t have a door,” says the stone.
Found here: http://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2014/...
because a friend quoted this bit:
“It’s only me, let me come in.
I don’t seek refuge for eternity.
I’m not unhappy.
I’m not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I’ll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe.”
Antonella wrote: "Conversation with a Stone by Wisława SzymborskaI knock at the stone’s front door.
It’s only me, let me come in.
I want to enter your insides,
have a look round,
breathe my fill of you.”
“Go away..."
Ohhh. This one for some reason makes me sad... Except for the section your friend quoted. Thank you Antonella.
Mtsnow13 wrote: "This one for some reason makes me sad... Except for the section your friend quoted. Thank you Antonella."My thoughts, but it looked wrong to quote only a bit of such a long poem.
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry (* 1934)When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Mod
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go an..."
Beautiful and comforting. Thank you for sharing, Antonella.
Mod
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go an..."
That is so beautiful.
Mod
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s liv..."
(Of course I couldn't help thinking, sure, in 1934 you'd have been safe wandering the woods at night!) ;-P
Mod
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go an..."
"And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light."
Such compact beauty in these images.
Josh wrote: "(Of course I couldn't help thinking, sure, in 1934 you'd have been safe wandering the woods at night!) ;-P "Well, he was _born_ in 1934 and the poem is from a collection published in 1968. But your reasoning still works...
Here he reads it: https://vimeo.com/99893181
Nothing Twice by Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - 2012)Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.
One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you’re here with me,
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
From Poems New and Collected: 1957-1997 by Wislawa Szymborska. Copyright © 1998 by Wislawa Szymborska. Used by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company. All rights reserved.
Mod
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even i..."
I like this. :-)
Mod
(As written by cats)
You, just from the pool
Your hair fragrant with chlorine
I want to chew it
http://www.catster.com/molz/
Mod
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even i..."
Yes. Very true.
Thank you for posting this, Antonella.
Mod
(As written by cats)
You, just from the pool
Your hair fragrant with chlorine
I want to chew it
http://www.catster.com/molz/"
Heh. :-D
I really like this. It's actually amazing how much it tells you with such few words.
Mod
(As written by cats)
You, just from the pool
Your hair fragrant with chlorine
I want to chew it
http://www.catster.com/molz/"
Heh. :-D
I really like this. It's act..."
It actually does!
I suppose spoken word is a kind of poetry?Embarassed by Hollie McNish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2z-Cd...
Text here (sometimes it is a bit too quick for non native speakers ;-): http://genius.com/Hollie-mcnish-embar...
An Arundel Tomb by Philip Larkin (1922-1985)read by the author with the picture of the tomb it refers to.
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd–
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
=========================
Here an interesting analysis of the poem. Its last sentence is often quoted, but in fact misquoted without context. «In an audio recording of the poem, Larkin—who was exceptional at reading his poetry aloud—remarked that he indeed found the tomb “extremely affecting.” But he also scribbled, at the bottom of one draft, “Love isn’t stronger than death just because statues hold hands for 600 years”».
I found it because an acquaintance translated an article from «The Guardian» into German. Whenever possible I prefer to read the original, so I retrieved Generation Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for ever which referenced Larkin's poem ;-).
Mod
Here's the location of the tomb that inspired the poem: http://www.chichestercathedral.org.uk
Mod
read by the author with the picture of the tomb it refers to.
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habit..."
I love the poem.
For some reason it reminds me of Browning's "My Last Duchess."
And I like the commentary about statues holding hands. Although...I expect there was a certain intent in the idea of creating statues holding hands for 6000 years. And intent is critical both legally and romantically speaking. ;-)
I've just read a wonderful autobiographical love story Bread and Wine.Bits of «Brod und Wein», Friedrich Hölderlin's elegy written around the year 1800, are quoted throughout the narration, aptly matching the story. All of it here both in the original version and in English: it's about the evening, the night, God(s) or the lack of him/her/them...
Mod
Bits of «Brod und Wein», Friedrich Hölderlin's elegy written around the year 1800, are quoted throughout the nar..."
:-)
One Art by Elisabeth Bishop (1911-1979)The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems...
Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems, 1927-1979
Mod
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. ..."
Clever!
Mod
Fifteen, Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About
Judith Viorst, 1931
My pants could maybe fall down when I dive off the diving board.
My nose could maybe keep growing and never quit.
Miss Brearly could ask me to spell words like stomach and special.
(Stumick and speshul?)
I could play tag all day and always be “it.”
Jay Spievack, who’s fourteen feet tall, could want to fight me.
My mom and my dad--like Ted’s--could want a divorce.
Miss Brearly could ask me a question about Afghanistan.
(Who’s Afghanistan?)
Somebody maybe could make me ride a horse.
My mother could maybe decide that I needed more liver.
My dad could decide that I needed less TV.
Miss Brearly could say that I have to write script and stop printing.
(I’m better at printing.)
Chris could decide to stop being friends with me.
The world could maybe come to an end on next Tuesday.
The ceiling could maybe come crashing on my head.
I maybe could run out of things for me to worry about.
And then I’d have to do my homework instead.
Mod
SEPTEMBER MIDNIGHT
by Sara Teasdale
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
Mod
Lest they forget them."
Lovely alliteration. :)
Mod
Fifteen, Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About
Judith Viorst, 1931
My pants could maybe fall down when I dive off the di..."
LOL
That's delightful.
Mod
SEPTEMBER MIDNIGHT
by Sara Teasdale
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a b..."
Oh! I do love Teasdale so much.
Antonella wrote: "One Art by Elisabeth Bishop (1911-1979)The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. ..."
I love Bishop's work.
Mod
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose some..."
Yes!
Tending the Fire by Joey HorsleyI must be in a bad way.
Arranging the logs on the hearth
I sense
an obscure stirring,
the shadow of a feeling.
With warming care
I prod and coax
the brittle nobby shapes
until they fall and lie
against each other
with perfect fit and closure –
and so ignite,
their rising heat
sucked into sudden flame.
Really,
I must be in a bad way,
to be so comforted
by the sight
of two old logs
getting it on.
(April / June, 1986)
Found it here: http://www.fembio.org/english/biograp...
I don't think that she is a famous poet.
Mod
I must be in a bad way.
Arranging the logs on the hearth
I sense
an obscure stirring,
the shadow of a feeling.
With warming care
I prod and coax
the brittle nobby..."
I love this, Antonella! :-)
Mod
I must be in a bad way.
Arranging the logs on the hearth
I sense
an obscure stirring,
the shadow of a feeling.
With warming care
I prod and coax
the brittle nobby..."
:-) :-) :-)
Mod
Oh wow. I have never heard this before. Very touching.
Thank you for posting this, Mymymble.
Mod
HALLELUJAH
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah...
Mod
HALLELUJAH
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourt..."
Thank you for this. Leonard Cohen was "my minstrel" from long ago, an amazing poet.
His Beautiful Losers was a seminal book of my teen years, flawed genius.
Q&A with Josh Lanyon
Books mentioned in this topic
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Writing Haiku: A Beginner's Guide to Composing Japanese Poetry (other topics)
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The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (other topics)
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Michael Rosen (other topics)
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Last night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What will we do when this place closes?
I don’t think it’s going anywhere any time soon, I said,
though the crowd was slow for a Saturday,
and he said—Yes, but one day. Where will we go?
He walked me the half-block home
and kissed me goodnight on my stoop—
properly: not too quick, close enough
our stomachs pressed together
in a second sort of kiss.
I live next to a bar that’s not a gay bar
—we just call those bars, I guess—
and because it is popular
and because I live on a busy street,
there are always people who aren’t queer people
on the sidewalk on weekend nights.
We just call those people, I guess.
They were there last night.
As I kissed this man I was aware of them watching
and of myself wondering whether or not they were just
people. But I didn’t let myself feel scared, I kissed him
exactly as I wanted to, as I would have without an audience,
because I decided many years ago to refuse this fear—
an act of resistance. I left
the idea of hate out on the stoop and went inside,
to sleep, early and drunk and happy.
While I slept, a man went to a gay club
with two guns and killed fifty people. At least.
Today in an interview, his father said he had been disturbed
by the sight of two men kissing recently.
What a strange power to be cursed with,
for the proof of our desire to move men to violence.
What’s a single kiss? I’ve had kisses
no one has ever known about, so many
kisses without consequence—
but there is a place you can’t outrun,
whoever you are.
There will be a time when.
It might be a bullet, suddenly.
The sound of it. Many.
One man, two guns, fifty dead—
Two men kissing. Last night
is what I can’t get away from, imagining it, them,
the people there to dance and laugh and drink,
who didn’t believe they’d die, who couldn’t have.
How else can you have a good time?
How else can you live?
There must have been two men kissing
for the first time last night, and for the last,
and two women, too, and two people who were neither.
Brown people mostly, which cannot be a coincidence in this country
which is a racist country, which is gun country.
Today I’m thinking of the Bernie Boston photograph
Flower Power, of the Vietnam protestor placing carnations
in the rifles of the National Guard,
and wishing for a gesture as queer and simple.
The protester in the photo was gay, you know,
he went by Hibiscus and died of AIDS,
which I am also thinking about today because
(the government’s response to) AIDS was a hate crime.
Reagan was a terrorist.
Now we have a president who loves Us,
the big and imperfectly lettered Us, and here we are
getting kissed on stoops, getting married some of Us,
some of Us getting killed.
We must love one another whether or not we die.
Love can’t block a bullet
but it can’t be destroyed by one either,
and love is, for the most part, what makes Us Us—
in Orlando and in Brooklyn and in Kabul.
We will be everywhere, always;
there’s nowhere else for Us, or you, to go.
Anywhere you run in this world, love will be there to greet you.
Around any corner, there might be two men. Kissing.
See here the story:
http://europe.newsweek.com/orlando-sh...