This isn't thaaaat bad...
I found a bunch of old poetry today, and I read it, and some of it (not much, but a bit) isn't mind-numbingly terrible. It's not that great either, but I'm bored, so I'm gonna post it. In roughly chronological order:
Toy
Child,
I am old.
We used to play,
and you called me Teddy--
you called me a beautiful thing.
But my cotton-fluff stuffing
is fading to dust,
and my black button eyes
are grey.
I am old (over-loved), Child,
and I cannot stay.
Murple
Murple I said.
You frowned.
5
6
seven o'clock;
scream at me
(lalalala)
up and down
up and down
down and up
andleftandright
andandandandand
here.
Don't Forget--
again late again
sorry.
Listen, sorry,
quiet.
Wait wait wait
Shutup
wait wait
Shutup
wait
Twelve.
Murple I said.
You frowned.
Walk and sing,
walk and sing
goodnight sweetheart, well
it's time to go
(Murple, love.
sorry)--
Da da da dada dada da da da?
Da da da dada da da dadada:
Da da da da da dada da da da,
Da dada da da da da da da da:
Dada da da da da da dada da,
Da dada da da da dadada da;
Da dada da da da dada dada,
Da da da dada dada da dada;
Da da dadada dada da da da
Da da dadada da da da da dada;
Da da da da da dada da da da,
Da da dadada da da da da dada:
Da da da da da da da da da da,
Da da da da da da da da da da.
Another nothing-never,
hum-drum left-right
andandandandSTOP.
Another drowned
at the river.
Wait, wait wait wait--
MASTURBATION.
Murple?
Murple I said.
You screamed.
I know.
A Haiku
I will sing for you
If you will be for me, too
With a passive smile
Question
There's a question you must answer
Every morning when you wake--
Before you tie your
Old decrepit shoes,
Before you brush your
Yellow rotting teeth,
Before you even wipe the sleep
From your red crying eyes:
Is today worth living?
And if the answer should be no,
Wipe the sleep from your eyes,
Brush your teeth, tie your shoes,
And walk out the door
With a smile on your face--
It will kill the ones you hate.
Under The Piercing Eyes Of Night (written at Quartz Mountain)
Under the piercing eyes of night,
A naked lonely soul takes flight
And breathes the sweetness in the air,
The sweetness in a lock of hair,
The sweetness ascending and descending the stair,
In a future house made of music.
Under the piercing eyes of night,
A tired traveler holds on tight
To the sound of a slowly beating drum,
The anacrusis and the aching hum,
The power to crush the world beneath his thumb
And drift into safe, silent sleep.
Under the piercing eyes of night,
A young child tugs on the string of a kite
And sends it screaming back to earth--
His first taste of life without rebirth
To discover the inestimable worth
Of learning to love through loss.
Phone Call (Written at Quartz Mountain)
Poems are secrets half-kept,
Riddles half answered,
Truths half-discovered
And sweet nothings
Half-whispered in your ear.
But each word flows
Stillborn from my pen,
Never answering my riddles,
Never telling the unspeakable
Secrets I have found,
Never showing us the truth--
Just an image of the truth
In a curved mirror
(Upside-down and backwards)
Until it reads
"I love you and that is all."
Trust your heart instead
That beats and tells you that
The sun rises and the birds sing,
The flowers bloom and the phone rings--
And when it does, the voice will say,
"I am the man of your dreams;
I am the sound of the rain
On your bedroom window
As you drift off to sleep."
Follow him back to a far-away land,
Blush a bit and take his hand,
Brush against his lips as you lay in the sand,
Do anything that makes you smile--
Your smiling heart envelops mine.
Quiet Place (Written at Quartz Mountain)
If you look down on a quiet day
As you cross the bridge that spans the lake
That separates here from there,
Your mind will blur the crests of waves together
Until there is no wind, no lake, no weather,
Just you and the depth of the sea-green expanse--
The emptiness that comes from seeing
The birds and flying creatures fleeing
All you can't escape.
Daniel Rogers, Feces Artist (Written about a cabin-mate at Quartz Mountain)
Right now I'm at dinner,
I'm eating some food.
I like to eat dinner
Because it tastes good.
When I'm done it will be
Adequately chewed.
Oh, eating yummy dinner
puts me in a happy mood.
If the food tastes bad,
Then I hope it isn't spewed;
I much prefer the other way:
To let the food get pooed.
Then I can be like Daniel,
So impressive, yet so rude;
His stench molests my nostrils--
He is a smelly dude.
Lessons (This was to be my magnum opus; after I wrote it, I pretty much stopped writing poetry. Not because I planned to, it just kinda happened. As it turned out, I think overall it's dumb, and the epigraphs and footnotes and all that are super-pompous and retarded, but I'd been reading The Waste Land a lot. So sue me. Anyway, as cheesy as a lot of it is, I can't help but like parts of it, no matter how hard I try not to. Especially when I rhymed "barrier" with "terrier"--it was my finest hour.)
I.
C'est tellement mystérieux, le pays des larmes.
If you should say,
"Have the strength to finish out the day!"
Then I would walk the streets at twilight,
The streets half-bathed, half-drowned in lamplight,
And in the lamplight stumble on the stairs.
And who knows what it means?
Who cares?
Until the sunlight fades, there is a reason
To stay awake (To celebrate the season?
A holiday a month to change your mind?),
But in the night the clouds that cover starlight
Are enough to turn your heart to dust,
And in the night there is just
A dreamless sleep.
And how, then, should I wake?
With faith in opportunity?
With fear of losing everything?
Or nestled, trembling, between the two extremes?
How, then, should I wake?
To the sound of a nasal birdcall
Or an angry rapping at my chamber door?
Should I listen, then, for "Nevermore"?
Should I lie in wait of something more?
Old Man Griffin asks the question:
How can you live in a Negro's skin?
(The summer sun burns, white like me)
And Old Man Fisher has the answer:
Find comfort in prostate cancer.
II.
Quand vous leur parlez d'un nouvel ami, elles ne vous questionnent jamais sur l'essentiel. Elles ne vous disent jamais: "Quel est le son de sa voix? Quels sont les jeux qu'il préfère? Est-ce qu'il collectionne les papillons?"
There's a poker game each Tuesday
At the cabin by the lake,
And every week they greet a new face,
One that is meant simply to replace
Any Jack or Queen or King--or Ace--
That is floating, bloating in the sea.
Anyone can fill a chair,
Anyone can descend the stair, yes--
Anyone can die.
And anyone does,
On any old day,
With the sun shining
Or the moon casting brilliant shadows,
Noontime night shadows
That stir like clouds until they
Purr--
A black cat curled upon your lap;
But when you feel you've found a friend,
Trust the drag queen Sesostris
Who carries a pack of cards--
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. [1]
III.
--Pourquoi bois-tu? lui demanda le petit prince.
--Pour oublier, répondit le buveur.
Stumbling through puddles
That God wept for sinners,
I listen to the bells toll.
What a world of solemn thought
Their monody compels-- [2]
And in the heavens and the hells,
The poet questions God.
Melody!
But in the wrong key-- [3]
This is the song:
Agnus dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,
Miserere nobis.
Agnus dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,
Dona nobis pacem.
This is the song that stopped the heart
That pumped the blood
That carried the nutrients
That nourished the man
That lived in the house
That Jack built--
Old Jack the carpenter, nailed to a tree--
At times he seems to have forgotten me.
IV.
Et j'aime la nuit écouter les étoiles. C'est comme cinq cents millons de grelots...
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! [4]
What a world of constant joy, the golden hammer-tongue tells
Us to frolic and play in the grass--
But now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. [5]
But soon, oh, soon!
Soon we'll take a flying machine and travel to the moon,
Soon we'll be lost in the month of June,
Soon we'll see such great heights in a hot-air balloon
That we'll hear the shrillest highs and lowest lows of every tune--
Or simply sit and eat muffins, calmly, in the afternoon.
But soon--and suddenly--everything will change.
And if a cloud seems now to be a barrier,
Fear not--you'll see in time it is a terrier--
Or a kitten, or a racecar, or a rose--
Some simple form: some sweet life in tableaux.
[1] "The Waste Land," T.S. Eliot
[2] "The Bells," Edgar Allen Poe
[3] Cf. end of "Rhapsody on a Windy Night," T.S. Eliot
[4] "The Bells," Edgar Allen Poe
[5] Cf. "Song of Myself," pt. 6, Walt Whitman
~~~~~
Rough Epigraph Translations (from The Little Prince):
I. It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
II. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?"
III. "Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince.
"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
IV. And at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little bells...
Toy
Child,
I am old.
We used to play,
and you called me Teddy--
you called me a beautiful thing.
But my cotton-fluff stuffing
is fading to dust,
and my black button eyes
are grey.
I am old (over-loved), Child,
and I cannot stay.
Murple
Murple I said.
You frowned.
5
6
seven o'clock;
scream at me
(lalalala)
up and down
up and down
down and up
andleftandright
andandandandand
here.
Don't Forget--
again late again
sorry.
Listen, sorry,
quiet.
Wait wait wait
Shutup
wait wait
Shutup
wait
Twelve.
Murple I said.
You frowned.
Walk and sing,
walk and sing
goodnight sweetheart, well
it's time to go
(Murple, love.
sorry)--
Da da da dada dada da da da?
Da da da dada da da dadada:
Da da da da da dada da da da,
Da dada da da da da da da da:
Dada da da da da da dada da,
Da dada da da da dadada da;
Da dada da da da dada dada,
Da da da dada dada da dada;
Da da dadada dada da da da
Da da dadada da da da da dada;
Da da da da da dada da da da,
Da da dadada da da da da dada:
Da da da da da da da da da da,
Da da da da da da da da da da.
Another nothing-never,
hum-drum left-right
andandandandSTOP.
Another drowned
at the river.
Wait, wait wait wait--
MASTURBATION.
Murple?
Murple I said.
You screamed.
I know.
A Haiku
I will sing for you
If you will be for me, too
With a passive smile
Question
There's a question you must answer
Every morning when you wake--
Before you tie your
Old decrepit shoes,
Before you brush your
Yellow rotting teeth,
Before you even wipe the sleep
From your red crying eyes:
Is today worth living?
And if the answer should be no,
Wipe the sleep from your eyes,
Brush your teeth, tie your shoes,
And walk out the door
With a smile on your face--
It will kill the ones you hate.
Under The Piercing Eyes Of Night (written at Quartz Mountain)
Under the piercing eyes of night,
A naked lonely soul takes flight
And breathes the sweetness in the air,
The sweetness in a lock of hair,
The sweetness ascending and descending the stair,
In a future house made of music.
Under the piercing eyes of night,
A tired traveler holds on tight
To the sound of a slowly beating drum,
The anacrusis and the aching hum,
The power to crush the world beneath his thumb
And drift into safe, silent sleep.
Under the piercing eyes of night,
A young child tugs on the string of a kite
And sends it screaming back to earth--
His first taste of life without rebirth
To discover the inestimable worth
Of learning to love through loss.
Phone Call (Written at Quartz Mountain)
Poems are secrets half-kept,
Riddles half answered,
Truths half-discovered
And sweet nothings
Half-whispered in your ear.
But each word flows
Stillborn from my pen,
Never answering my riddles,
Never telling the unspeakable
Secrets I have found,
Never showing us the truth--
Just an image of the truth
In a curved mirror
(Upside-down and backwards)
Until it reads
"I love you and that is all."
Trust your heart instead
That beats and tells you that
The sun rises and the birds sing,
The flowers bloom and the phone rings--
And when it does, the voice will say,
"I am the man of your dreams;
I am the sound of the rain
On your bedroom window
As you drift off to sleep."
Follow him back to a far-away land,
Blush a bit and take his hand,
Brush against his lips as you lay in the sand,
Do anything that makes you smile--
Your smiling heart envelops mine.
Quiet Place (Written at Quartz Mountain)
If you look down on a quiet day
As you cross the bridge that spans the lake
That separates here from there,
Your mind will blur the crests of waves together
Until there is no wind, no lake, no weather,
Just you and the depth of the sea-green expanse--
The emptiness that comes from seeing
The birds and flying creatures fleeing
All you can't escape.
Daniel Rogers, Feces Artist (Written about a cabin-mate at Quartz Mountain)
Right now I'm at dinner,
I'm eating some food.
I like to eat dinner
Because it tastes good.
When I'm done it will be
Adequately chewed.
Oh, eating yummy dinner
puts me in a happy mood.
If the food tastes bad,
Then I hope it isn't spewed;
I much prefer the other way:
To let the food get pooed.
Then I can be like Daniel,
So impressive, yet so rude;
His stench molests my nostrils--
He is a smelly dude.
Lessons (This was to be my magnum opus; after I wrote it, I pretty much stopped writing poetry. Not because I planned to, it just kinda happened. As it turned out, I think overall it's dumb, and the epigraphs and footnotes and all that are super-pompous and retarded, but I'd been reading The Waste Land a lot. So sue me. Anyway, as cheesy as a lot of it is, I can't help but like parts of it, no matter how hard I try not to. Especially when I rhymed "barrier" with "terrier"--it was my finest hour.)
I.
C'est tellement mystérieux, le pays des larmes.
If you should say,
"Have the strength to finish out the day!"
Then I would walk the streets at twilight,
The streets half-bathed, half-drowned in lamplight,
And in the lamplight stumble on the stairs.
And who knows what it means?
Who cares?
Until the sunlight fades, there is a reason
To stay awake (To celebrate the season?
A holiday a month to change your mind?),
But in the night the clouds that cover starlight
Are enough to turn your heart to dust,
And in the night there is just
A dreamless sleep.
And how, then, should I wake?
With faith in opportunity?
With fear of losing everything?
Or nestled, trembling, between the two extremes?
How, then, should I wake?
To the sound of a nasal birdcall
Or an angry rapping at my chamber door?
Should I listen, then, for "Nevermore"?
Should I lie in wait of something more?
Old Man Griffin asks the question:
How can you live in a Negro's skin?
(The summer sun burns, white like me)
And Old Man Fisher has the answer:
Find comfort in prostate cancer.
II.
Quand vous leur parlez d'un nouvel ami, elles ne vous questionnent jamais sur l'essentiel. Elles ne vous disent jamais: "Quel est le son de sa voix? Quels sont les jeux qu'il préfère? Est-ce qu'il collectionne les papillons?"
There's a poker game each Tuesday
At the cabin by the lake,
And every week they greet a new face,
One that is meant simply to replace
Any Jack or Queen or King--or Ace--
That is floating, bloating in the sea.
Anyone can fill a chair,
Anyone can descend the stair, yes--
Anyone can die.
And anyone does,
On any old day,
With the sun shining
Or the moon casting brilliant shadows,
Noontime night shadows
That stir like clouds until they
Purr--
A black cat curled upon your lap;
But when you feel you've found a friend,
Trust the drag queen Sesostris
Who carries a pack of cards--
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. [1]
III.
--Pourquoi bois-tu? lui demanda le petit prince.
--Pour oublier, répondit le buveur.
Stumbling through puddles
That God wept for sinners,
I listen to the bells toll.
What a world of solemn thought
Their monody compels-- [2]
And in the heavens and the hells,
The poet questions God.
Melody!
But in the wrong key-- [3]
This is the song:
Agnus dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,
Miserere nobis.
Agnus dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,
Dona nobis pacem.
This is the song that stopped the heart
That pumped the blood
That carried the nutrients
That nourished the man
That lived in the house
That Jack built--
Old Jack the carpenter, nailed to a tree--
At times he seems to have forgotten me.
IV.
Et j'aime la nuit écouter les étoiles. C'est comme cinq cents millons de grelots...
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! [4]
What a world of constant joy, the golden hammer-tongue tells
Us to frolic and play in the grass--
But now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. [5]
But soon, oh, soon!
Soon we'll take a flying machine and travel to the moon,
Soon we'll be lost in the month of June,
Soon we'll see such great heights in a hot-air balloon
That we'll hear the shrillest highs and lowest lows of every tune--
Or simply sit and eat muffins, calmly, in the afternoon.
But soon--and suddenly--everything will change.
And if a cloud seems now to be a barrier,
Fear not--you'll see in time it is a terrier--
Or a kitten, or a racecar, or a rose--
Some simple form: some sweet life in tableaux.
[1] "The Waste Land," T.S. Eliot
[2] "The Bells," Edgar Allen Poe
[3] Cf. end of "Rhapsody on a Windy Night," T.S. Eliot
[4] "The Bells," Edgar Allen Poe
[5] Cf. "Song of Myself," pt. 6, Walt Whitman
~~~~~
Rough Epigraph Translations (from The Little Prince):
I. It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
II. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?"
III. "Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince.
"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
IV. And at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little bells...