/b/ - Random

I'll dump a few~~

One of my favorites – it would make a great movie. I hope the spacing doesn't come out weird, I'm on mobile.

Darkness
George Gordon Byron, 1788 - 1824


I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

Love is like a butterfly; so brave, so

Fragile sometimes.

It landed on your shoulder,

But you’re not very fond of bugs.

You said no,

And scared it away. I saw

Your blue veins and pale

White skin. I don’t think I will ever kiss

Your beautiful hands

- Lira, 2015

oh, how to train this beast
to wield flame
for heat-

not harm.



© Anthony Gorman 2017

If I Died Tomorrow
Álvares de Azevedo/Crappy translation by me



If I died tomorrow, would at least

My sad sister close my eyes?

My mother of longing would die

If I died tomorrow.

How much glory I envision in my future!

What a coming dawn and what a morning!

I would lose these crowns

Crying

If I died tomorrow!

What a sun! what a blue! what a sweet whiteness –

Wake up, elegant nature!

I wouldn't have filled my chest with so much love

If I died tomorrow!

But this pain of living devours

The craving for glory, the aching desire…

The chest pain would at least hush

If I died tomorrow!


(He died at 20yo if anyone is curious)

You have to be always drunk.
That's all there is to it–it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:
"It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."


by Charles Baudelaire

All the trees all their branches all of their leaves
The grass at the foot of the rocks and the houses en masse
Far off the sea that your eye bathes
These images of day after day
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The transparency of men passing among them by chance
And passing women breathed by your elegant obstinacies
Your obsessions in a heart of lead on virgin lips
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The likeness of looks of permission with eyes you conquer
The confusion of bodies wearinesses ardours
The imitation of words attitudes ideas
The vices the virtues so imperfect

Love is man incomplete



by Paul Eluard

"This is just to say"
-William Carlos Williams



(A classic fave)

Thin, blue eyes, tanned face,
His fair share of feet, middling height,
Sad face and figure,
High nose in the middle, and not small;
Incapable of staying in just one place,
Quicker to anger than tenderness;
Drinking in his pale hands, out of a dark cup,
From hellish enthusiasms a lethal poison;
Burning incense to a thousand divinities
(I mean, a thousand girls) in a single moment,
Loving the priests only at the altar,
This is Bocage, in whom some talent shines;
He himself wrote these truths,
On a day when he was bored.

-Bocage

More written by my pal Baud.

"O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, In the secret place of the steep pathway, Let me see your form, Let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet, And your form is lovely."

Song of Solomon 2:14

Robert Louis Stevenson

>>11173
Not exactly a poem but I've always liked the idea of going down into silence. Not sure why. Psalm 115:17
American Standard Version

The dead praise not Jehovah, Neither any that go down into silence;

In audio form.

I dont know the author.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.


Maggie Smith, “Good Bones”

A thing of beauty (Endymion)
—————–

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.


by John Keats
^ dead at 25

>>11163 dead at 20

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE

Might be basic, but I always loved this one.

>>11226
I remember this. Good poem.

Not a poem, but I think it suits the thread:

To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox.
People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.


Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

It's long, so I'll post an excerpt. Here's the full ;
https://www.upthestaircase.org/hanif-willis-abdurraqib.html

The road from Pennsylvania to Ohio is all blood and mangled limbs.
I consider the deer, its tongue drawn out along the highway’s cracked shoulder
its stomach unzipped, insides turned to the sky’s cool mouth.

why don’t they just run?
don’t they know that nothing but death waits
on the other side of any darkness swallowed by a swath of light?

From "The Storyteller" by Antonia Michaelis.

“My child, I know you're not a child
But I still see you running wild
Between those flowering trees.
Your sparkling dreams, your silver laugh
Your wishes to the stars above
Are just my memories.

And in your eyes the ocean
And in your eyes the sea
The waters frozen over
With your longing to be free.

Yesterday you'd awoken
To a world incredibly old.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.

You had to kill this child, I know.
To break the arrows and the bow
To shed your skin and change.
The trees are flowering no more
There's blood upon the tiles floor
This place is dark and strange.

I see you standing in the storm
Holding the curse of youth
Each of you with your story
Each of you with your truth.

Some words will never be spoken
Some stories will never be told.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.

I didn't say the world was good.
I hoped by now you understood
Why I could never lie.
I didn't promise you a thing.
Don't ask my wintervoice for spring
Just spread your wings and fly.

Though in the hidden garden
Down by the green green lane
The plant of love grows next to
The tree of hate and pain.

So take my tears as a token.
They'll keep you warm in the cold.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.

You've lived too long among us
To leave without a trace
You've lived too short to understand
A thing about this place.

Some of you just sit there smoking
And some are already sold.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.
This is the age you are broken or turned into gold.”

>>11168
>>11163
Is there interest for literature written in Portuguese in your country?

L'infinito

This lonely hill was always dear to me,
and this hedgerow, which cuts off the view
of so much of the last horizon.
But sitting here and gazing, I can see
beyond, in my mind’s eye, unending spaces,
and superhuman silences, and depthless calm,
till what I feel
is almost fear. And when I hear
the wind stir in these branches, I begin
comparing that endless stillness with this noise:
and the eternal comes to mind,
and the dead seasons, and the present
living one, and how it sounds.
So my mind sinks in this immensity:
and foundering is sweet in such a sea.

Giacomo Leopardi

i used to have a collection of dolls when i was newer to this place but i stripped them of their miniature finery and tore them apart into scattered pieces
after enough events of a sinister nature have been imprinted intimately into my still-developing brain i think i know just how they felt
i can picture their plastic parts so clearly in my mind, thrown into the secret fireplace and bubbling, melting
merging into a disfigured misshapen whole, a sum of their pretty perfect girl parts, becoming something to be disposed of
often i have been treated like that deformed pile of melted plastic, disposable and rendered into waste which makes you think about returning to those forbidden places
underground in the sunless starless moonless cellar of your memories, we don’t go there. we are not allowed. it is out of bounds. it is too dangerous to remember. rather ill advised. please refrain from mentioning it to me again, for my safety.
i am submerged and i play act that i am drowning in the amniotic fluids, they fill my lungs and an umbilical cord is wrapped tenderly around my neck. i am rotting but will not be stillborn
there is a locked window in here. if i gain entry i can obtain remnants of life from the sibling who was trapped too long and disintegrated into the blood that surrounds my rudimentary damaged little body
before the sibling became the blood that holds me, it would whisper prophecies to me through our groggy psychic connection. i did not have the strength to respond and so it grew lonesome, weakened and tired and decided to swim far away into the boundless sea of lifefluid to find someone new
there are some leeches in here latched onto the meaty walls and they grow ever fatter by the day. i am afraid what will happen when they have drained all the fluid which sustains my unworthy protoplasm. but maybe i am not so afraid.
our mother has been away for a very long time, they took her down to the river and cut her clothes off with a scintillating blade. she wept and wept and eventually fell silent and they carried her away to a hole so she could lay inside the dirt.
i was not supposed to witness it but i saw it in my mind from inside of her. her tears became my tears and soon i found that i was choking on them and my eyes were swollen and i could no longer see her. i miss her very much.
i have no fingers to grasp what has been left behind when you swam away. i have given up on my hopes of you returning to me, o sibling… if only i had a way to reach you again.
the visions in my mind are full of omens foretelling secret doom and secret little deaths in hidden rooms and between the naked trees where no one ever goes.
i wish they would go away but it is the only form of contact i have left with anything. so maybe i do not wish they would go away, after all.
i do not like it when they scream and cry and try to escape. it reminds me of mother. i miss mother so very much. i do not think i will ever see her again.
the leeches have begun to cling to me and i have become emaciated. i hope i will find mother in the dark afterplace when they have drained me of the last drops, i do not think it will be very long now. nothing surrounds me and i am nothing too

sorry for the poor grammar, all i do is dissociated stream of consciousness spewing

Someone clever once said
Women were not allowed pockets
In case they carried leaflets
To spread sedition
Which means unrest
To you & me
A grandiose word
For commonsense
Fairness
Kindness
Equality
So ladies, start sewing
Dangerous coats
Made of pockets & sedition

Sharon Owens

Moonlit Night

It was like Heaven’s glimmer
caressing Terra’s skin,
that in Her blossoms’ shimmer
She had to dream of Him.

The breeze was gently walking
through wheatfields near and far;
the woods were softly talking
so bright shone ev’ry star.

And, oh, my soul extended
its wings through skies to roam:
O’er quiet lands suspended,
my soul was flying home.

Joseph von Eichendorff

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate.
Give in to it.
There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.
We are not wise, and not very often kind.
And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left.
Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,
that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.
Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.
Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Mary Oliver

This poem always makes me cry, even when I'm just reading it to myself.

Kill the mockingbird



sometimestuesday

A piece of strawberry-flavored guilt – I mean
gum – melting in my jeans pocket & now my
fingers are sticky. Man oh man, the waltz of
good & evil, the ongoing internal struggle in
three-quarter time. “Is yours shouting at you
too? That voice in your head?” Mine sounds
rabid like Old Yeller at the end of “Old Yeller,”
which is a story about having to kill things
that love us out of mercy. Polished double
barrel guilt – I mean gun – lying in your lap &
your hands will always always feel unclean.
Oh man, sorry about the way I crushed you
like paper-mache, busted you wide open like
a piñata, but you were so full of beautiful, I
wanted some for myself, selfish human that
I am, trying to ruin everything I can’t have by
sinking my teeth into it. And you’ve got your
own kind of evil, burnt toast banged elbow
accidental sort of wicked, a clumsy-handed
fracturing of anything that comes close enough
to love you. “Does evil still count as evil if it’s
not done on purpose?” Tried frantically to put
everything back together with a bottle of guilt
– I mean glue – kept saying: “I didn’t mean to
I didn’t mean to I didn’t mean to.” Never quite
sure if you’re the dog or the guy with the gun.

no brothers of mallards nor mothers of hens have got half a penny when i need a lend there's no land for my feet there’s no ground to pave if I'm lucky at all there’ll be room in my grave not for a wish nor a wander would I look beyond her the soil and the craggy wet snow not for a fish or her fillet would i spill my millet lest on this last patch of earth does it grow

bump

Galatea Again
Let me be marble, marble once again:
Go from me slowly, like an ebbing pain,
Great mortal feuds of moving flesh and blood: This mouth so bruised, serene again,–and set In its old passive changelessness, the rude Wild crying face, the frantic eyes–forget
The little human shuddering interlude.
And if you follow and confront me there,
O Sons of Men, though you cry out and groan And plead with me to take you for my own
And clutch my dress as a child, I shall not care,
But only turn on you a marble stare
And stun you with the quiet gaze of stone.
t. Genevieve Taggard, 1929

The Obligation to Be Happy
by Linda Pastan

It is more onerous
than the rites of beauty
or housework, harder than love.
But you expect it of me casually,
the way you expect the sun
to come up, not in spite of rain
or clouds but because of them.

And so I smile, as if my own fidelity
to sadness were a hidden vice—
that downward tug on my mouth,
my old suspicion that health
and love are brief irrelevancies,
no more than laughter in the warm dark
strangled at dawn.

Happiness. I try to hoist it
on my narrow shoulders again—
a knapsack heavy with gold coins.
I stumble around the house,
bump into things.
Only Midas himself
would understand.

May we raise children who love the unloved things
by Nicolette Sowder

May we raise children
who love the unloved
things–the dandelion, the
worms and spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn

& run into rainswept days
the same way they
turn towards sun…

And when they’re grown &
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice

may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things

and be the ones.

I like the poetry of Clark Ashton Smith. He's like Lovecraft but sultry and luxurious

http://www.eldritchdark.com

>John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era.

A Satyr against Reason and Mankind
https://www.jacklynch.net/Texts/mankind.html

Some bits from it

“What rage ferments in your degenerate mind
To make you rail at reason and mankind?
Blest, glorious man! to whom alone kind heaven
An everlasting soul has freely given,
Whom his great Maker took such care to make
That from himself he did the image take
And this fair frame in shining reason dressed
To dignify his nature above beast;
Reason, by whose aspiring influence
We take a flight beyond material sense,
Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce
The flaming limits of the universe,
Search heaven and hell, Find out what’s acted there,
And give the world true grounds of hope and fear.”

Hold, mighty man, I cry, all this we know
From the pathetic pen of Ingelo;
From Patrick’s Pilgrim, Sibbes’ soliloquies, [11]
And ’tis this very reason I despise:
This supernatural gift, that makes a mite
Think he’s an image of the infinite,
Comparing his short life, void of all rest,
To the eternal and the ever blest;
This busy, puzzling stirrer-up of doubt
That frames deep mysteries, then finds ’em out,
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
Those reverend bedlams, colleges and schools;
Borne on whose wings, each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
’Tis this exalted power, whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities,

…

Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,
Renewing appetites yours would destroy.
My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat;
Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat;
Perversely, yours your appetite does mock:
This asks for food, that answers, “What’s o’clock?”
This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures:
’Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.

[11] Nathaniel Ingelo, author of Bentivolio and Urania; Simon Patrick, author of The Parable of the Pilgrim; and Richard Sibbes. All were authors of popular religious works.

Also, 'bedlam' was a hospital for the mentally ill.

Amidst being engulfed by your darkness
another one glimmers in sight
And the cycle repeats itself
until I learn to slay the demons within

-Patterns

The Brain–is wider than the Sky–
For–put them side by side–
The one the other will contain
With ease–and You–beside

The Brain is deeper than the sea–
For–hold them–Blue to Blue–
The one the other will absorb–
As Sponges–Buckets–do–

The Brain is just the weight of God–
For–Heft them–Pound for Pound–
And they will differ–if they do–
As Syllable from Sound–