Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition, all I’ve sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition! God and Heaven are still mine own.

Let the world despise and leave me, they have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me; Thou art not, like them, untrue.
And while Thou shalt smile upon me, God of wisdom, love and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me, show Thy face and all is bright.

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure! Come, disaster, scorn and pain!
In Thy service, pain is pleasure; with Thy favor, loss is gain.
I have called Thee, “Abba, Father”; I have set my heart on Thee:
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather, all must work for good to me.

Man may trouble and distress me, ’twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me; heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ’tis not in grief to harm me while Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ’twere not in joy to charm me, were that joy unmixed with Thee.

Take, my soul, thy full salvation; rise o’er sin, and fear, and care;
Joy to find in every station something still to do or bear:
Think what Spirit dwells within thee; what a Father’s smile is thine;
What a Savior died to win thee, child of heaven, shouldst thou repine?

Haste then on from grace to glory, armed by faith, and winged by prayer,
Heaven’s eternal day’s before thee, God’s own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission, swift shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope soon change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

Henry Francis Lyte was buried this date, 11/20/1847, Nice, France.  Though orphaned he was able to attended Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, specializing in English poetry.  Lyte married Anne Maxwell, 1818, at Bath, daughter of William Maxwell a minister of Monaghan. (Their very happy marriage produced at least one child, a daughter.)  From Trinity College he received his MA in 1820.

Lyte did not have a strong body and in later years suffered from asthma and consumption. His last pastorate (twenty-three years) was a poor parish, pastoring the fishermen and families in Lower Brixham, England.  (It was here he penned “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.”  Near the end of life (his health in worse condition) Lyte preached his last sermon and also wrote “Abide with Me, Fast Falls the Eventide.”

It was for his health sake that he had started to Italy but expired making it no farther than France. Lyte was born 6/1/1793, at Ed­nam, Scot­land.

Well…the title has nothing to do with the content of the post

It is a song by Beyonce, a song that i am hooked on to… the music reminds me of Hotel California… but the lyrics are awesome… no this aint a music review post tooo… i can jus relate too well with the song.. cos of my personal ordeal and hurt i have been through,…..

Sparked by this song are a few lines from moi…!!!

I sincerely hope you guys like this……its jus different…!!!

*NOTE:THESE ARE NOT THE LYRICS OF THE SONG…!!!!! *

You kept me in the dark

To grope on my own

You gave me but a mark

Agonies of the unknown

Acts of your present

Come rushing to throttle me

And yet you never assent

That you were on a spree

You denied everytime I

Asked you what went wrong?

You even went to say my

Love for you wasn’t strong

Your late night calls

Hours spent messaging

Brought your own falls

And Fear presaging

U came home late

Drunk and fazed

Crashing at the gate

And room all razed

You lied, you cheated

You even betrayed me

Still all you said is

That its not wat I see

With nothing at all

To hold on to

Jus night long brawl

And bitterness cut through

I cant take it any more

My eyes hurt, hands shiver

My heart sore

And voice but quiver

In a desperate attempt

To find peace and some solace

To get away from your contempt

Save myself from disgrace

I wanna move over

And turn on a new chapter

But u still wanna hover

And have me, your my captor

Wont let it happen this instance

Wont let my dreams astray

You’ve had your ample chance

This time I’ll get my way…!!!

This is my first attempt at shape poetry. This is usually Raji’s Forte

But this time I have taken a shot at it

This poem is dedicated to the recent untimely but blessing in disguise Rains that have hit Mumbai for the past couple of MONTHS.!!!

Its was a complete relief from the sweltering October heat..

And hence I have tried to form this poetry in the shape of a rain/water droplet…

Please do pardon me incase it looks nothing like a drop

I’m

Walking down

A rain street, humming a

Tune, I’m discreet, the showers

Are here, oh! What a treat.  As I walk down

A rainy street. It’s a relief from the sweltering sun.

The heart’s replete and its complete fun. The flowers are

looking fresh, the leaves all quiver, as came down the cool

showers, and winds sent a shiver the climate is awesome

 makes kids wanna dance, people all jeer as if in a

trance, I am walking down a rainy street

humming a tune, I’m

discreet!

People please do leave in your comments and feedback as that is of utmost importance especially when your trying something new

England in 1819

By Percy Bysshe Shelly

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;
A Senate, -Time’s worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

A Diary

Did you hear that voice,
must be coming after me..
I sit in this dark corner,
me and my old buddy.

I just my found my friends, they’re in my head,
they tell me truth,
they do protect me.

Just don’t open the door,
I don’t care for company,
or you’ll soon go – dead.

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

By John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness 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-darkened 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;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o’ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, ’tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city’s din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

Ode to a Nightingale

By John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness, -
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth.
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: -do I wake or sleep?

In “The Two-handed Engine and the Fatal Bellman: ‘Lycidas’ and ‘Macbeth’” (Notes and Queries, April 1979, 126–128), June Winter showed that “Milton in his passage about the corrupt clergy (Lycidas, 108–31) is invoking imagery used by Shakespeare in passages of Act II in Macbeth, a play about corruption in the state of Scotland.”  Before learning of her work, I had collected evidence that the poem was connected to Act III of Macbeth, and in such a way as to suggest the association of Milton, or the singer of Lycidas, with Macbeth, and Edward King, or Lycidas, with legitimate royalty and Banquo in particular.

The evidence is as follows.  The works are cited as L and M.  References to MLComplete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (Indianapolis:  Odyssey Press, 1957); M, from the Arden edition (1972). is quoted from Milton, are by scene of Act III, or by act and scene if not to Act III.

1.  There are several echoes of words and word complexes.

(a) The contrast of “rugged wings” (L 93) and “Sleek Panope” (L 99) recalls “sleek o’er your rugged looks” (M ii 27).  (The name “Panope” may be suggested by “o’er … looks.”)

(b) With the series “her wizard stream” (L 55), “His gory visage down the stream” (L 62), “He shook his Mitred locks” (L 112), “With Nectar pure his oozy Locks he laves” (L 175), compare “lave our honours in these flattering streams, / And make our faces vizards to our hearts” (M ii 33) and “never shake / Thy gory locks at me” (M iv 49).  Besides the exact repetitions, “vizards” is echoed by “wizard” and “visage,” and the latter means “face.”

(c) With “the day-star … repairs his drooping head” (L 168) compare “things of Day begin to droop” (M ii 52).

(d) Lycidas is “the Genius of the shore” (L 183); under Banquo Macbeth’s “Genius is rebuk’d” (M i 55).

(e) L mourns Edward King, whose future was to have been in the church; Macbeth kills the King for his crown, and the English sovereign, who helps to oust the usurper, is “the most pious Edward … the holy King” (M vi 27).

2.  Several particular ideas recur.

(a) Restlessness and the rest of death: “He must not float upon his wat’ry bier / Unwept, and welter to the parching wind” (L 12);

Better be with the dead, …

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy.  Duncan is in his grave;

After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well (M ii 19).

(b) A droning insect: “What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn” (L 28); “The shard-born beetle, with his drowsy hums” (M ii 42).  In placement “Gray-fly” corresponds to “beetle,” “sultry horn” to “drowsy hums.”

(c) Unwelcome intruders at a banquet, who displace guests: they “Creep and intrude … scramble at the shearers’ feast, / And shove away the worthy bidden guest (L 115); compare

Macb. The table’s full.

Len. Here is a place reserv’d, Sir.

Macb. Where? (M iv 45)

and “they rise again, … And push us from our stools” (M iv 79).

(d) Return to security after a dreadful apparition: “Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past / That shrunk thy streams” (L 132);

Hence, horrible shadow!

Unreal mock’ry, hence!—                                           [Ghost disappears.

Why, so;—being gone,

I am a man again (M iv 105).

3.  The theme of resurrection after untimely death is common to the two works.

Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, …

So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head, …

So Lycidas, sunk low, but mounted high (L 166).

Banquo is to rise again in his descendants, and rises himself, despite his injured head: “they rise again, / With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns” (M iv 79).  (The paradox “sunk low, but mounted high” may recall the witches’ “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” etc. [M I iii 65].)

4.  The Orpheus theme in L recalls Banquo’s connection to Nature.

With “Orpheus … Whom Universal nature did lament” (L 58) compare “his [Banquo’s] royalty of nature” (M i 49), “in them [Banquo and Fleance] Nature’s copy’s not eterne” (M ii 38), “[Banquo’s least gash] a death to nature” (M iv 27), and “the worm [Fleance], that’s fled, / Hath nature that in time will venom breed” (M iv 28).  (Banquo’s line continues that of Duncan, whose “gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature” [M II iii 111].)  The singing severed head of Orpheus described by Vergil and Ovid, or his “gory visage” (L 62; “visage” replaced “head” in the manuscript), corresponds to Banquo’s gashed head (M iv 26) with its cut throat (M iv 15).  As Ovid tells that Orpheus made trees and stones follow him and weep for him, so “Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak” (M iv 122).  The fate of Orpheus may also be suggested by the language, “with thy bloody and invisible hand, / Cancel, and tear to pieces …” (M ii 48), especially in view of the context—the eye of Day, and therefore the head; compare the day-star that “Flames in the forehead of the morning sky” (L 171).

5.  The general theme of fame is also common.

“Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise / (That last infirmity of Noble mind),” etc. (L 70).  “Thou wouldst be great” (M I v 18), says Lady Macbeth, but Macbeth laments, “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition …” (M I vii 25).  Perhaps we can compare Lady Macbeth’s intention to “pour my spirits in thine ear” (M I v 26) to the poetic inspiration of a muse or Apollo; in L Apollo “touch’d my trembling ears” (L 77) in reproof of ambition.

Most of these comparisons suggest directly or indirectly the association of Milton, or the singer of L, with Macbeth, and Edward King, or Lycidas, with legitimate royalty and Banquo in particular.  Ever since Johnson, critics have questioned the sincerity of Milton’s (or the singer’s) grief and have noted that the poem is about himself.  At the banquet Macbeth pretends to miss Banquo (M iv 39, 89), preparing to mourn him later; in fact Banquo was his rival, destined for greater success than he, now cut off early on that account.  Macbeth’s concern is for himself.  Edward King, “dead ere his prime” (L 8), can be said to have been preferred by royalty to Milton—granted a college fellowship by the crown.  The source of Lycidas in Macbeth may lend support to the idea that Milton felt, or conceived the possibility of feeling, jealousy and subsequent guilt.  Let us not forget, however, the respect Macbeth had for Banquo (M i 49).

It is quite some time and there is no new post on your blog yet. Hmm I just decided it would be ok to post that rhyme we had on EK. Hope you wouldn’t mind.

girl: Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.

cooliowiz:
roses are fragile, and it’s beauty is a veil for the thorns it hide, only when blood is drawn shall attention fall on the thorns, it’s not the flower which makes the rose, but the thorn which stings and hurt. . .

twisted:
maxa whats that quotes off?

cooliowiz:
lol i just wrote that line . .think it is too common of an idea to be a quote hehe now i didn’t say my experiences make me poetic

twisted:
i thought your experiences would influence you to say something about knives what different does it make if its outa heart or flesh when you bleed

cooliowiz:
i will bleed crimson coz i know it is my undoing i’m experiencing. would not care from where i’ll bleed coz after my last drop, there would even be no reminiscence of the events which led to my bleeding end… lol at that

twisted:
lol hopefully she will drown in the crimson river you bled, be lost in the tide, whos fault it was, aside ..i fear my friend you had this coming on your way depsite whatever you and i will ever say…you still have time to step outa the crimson rain lest all you planned with that other dame should be in vain

cooliowiz:
the damsels i love is not for me to savor, coz the crimson rains shall be mine who ever i’d try for.. it’s a knife on my back or a knife on my front, after the end they are free to add their blood to the river i bleed… my end shall come to me, and they shall bring the doom upon them, coz my dear buddy, a rose never wither alone. . .

twisted:
damsels you will have in plenty whatever may you lack,
just don’t let them say “oh im sorry is your knife hurt by my back”
river will dry out someday buddy keep yourself alive
bees are there in hundreds, you are the queen in the hive

cooliowiz:
a bee is a wanderer and roses are plenty
honey is sweet and irresistible to deny
a veil is what hides the thorns which feed
the rivers of blood which still bleed

the garden of love is my undoing, be mine to bear
when she picks the apple, i know it will be a viper’s glare
coz damsels of eden are the honey i crave
my blood is not worth the honey she gave

twisted:
damsels are stupid and easy to take
all you gta be is a talking snake
like our friend lu(cifer) did in his time
was it badass or was it sublime

a basket of honey is well worth a drop of blood
a drop to each, for each lay on rose bud
eve be thy pray on her honey may you get high
at it if you must die, worry not for you will be reborn in another paradise

cooliowiz:
sublime is the sense of doom which hides under
on rose petals, i shall shall steal the lord’s thunder
her lust is my honey, my grave in paradise is stolen
i pray to the fallen one that i shall stay fallen

so that was the end of the strange collaboration on damsels and of eden. . . .

Ode on a Grecian Urn

By John Keats

Thou still unravished bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flow’ry tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal -yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

By Pol Arellano

An inner child’s view of love and possession.

I was getting worried
I thought my kite wouldn’t make it
But then I saw its tail flutter
Like a butterfly in heat
Amongst the ink-blotted sky
And I smiled

This isn’t the season for kite-flying,
Or so they said
But I couldn’t disagree more
Kites will dance
Even if the wind
Refuses to cooperate
Yes, my indigo-bellied kite
Shall fly
High up in the sky
And the rhymes will get better after
Each flutter
Or
They will just stop
As I smile

My kite beats hers
And any other kid’s for that matter
Because my kite can
Grin
And enunciate
The words spoken by your grandmother
When she was still in her flour-sack undies

My kite is unlike any other
It smells like bread rolls and
Buttered onions
Laid out on a Midsummer’s day picnic
My kite smells like a virgin
For my kite is a virgin
Flirting with nothing
Not even the sky
Or the Eagles
Or your brain

My kite sounds like
A concerto
Of one-legged violinists
All ninety-nine of them playing
For the last time
Crying for glory
And roses
And canned applause
And maybe even a goodie bag

My kite beats all iPods
And all Tower Records
My kite is a symphony
Created by strangers and sweethearts
Under the white and blue protection
Of the trusty transit

My kite beats hers.
My kite is unlike any other.

I need not worry.
You’re already mine.
Smile.

Ode to the West Wind

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height -
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams,
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip the skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

The night sleeps nestled  in the lap of a jewel-studded sky.

The gentle butterflies make quixotic love to the dainty flowers.

The mammoth waves restlessly dance with the mighty ocean.

The  soft  breeze  sings lullaby to the tired trees.

The church bells ring in rythmic unison with God.

Each has a friend, all have a nitch…

But she remains an empty vessel.

No light surrounds her, only darkness trails.

Life doesn’t allow her to live, death shuns her.

Tear clogged eyes hollow her face, smiles are unseen.

Pain summons her, loneliness befriends her.

Ill-fate guards her, fortune sneers.

condemned by her soul, she withers in wait…..for her waiting to end. 

                                                         Aradhana

Remember

when we met

by that corner of a disguise

talking with the stillness

   that is common to oil

it was an early October blizzard

that trapped us before

we’ve identified our inertia

locked in that cold

with a bottle of vodka and

        letters from Rilke

we drank the last drop

     of our nihilism

ready to die there

    or live on perpetually

with no sense at all.

Nihilist Poet

© 2009 by Le Voci della Luna Poesia
Le Voci della Luna – Circolo Culturale
C.P. 107 40037 Sasso Marconi (Bologna)
www.levocidellaluna.it
vociluna@virgilio.it – vocilunanews@libero.it§
ISBN 88-9604-809-5

Corporea

Il corpo nella poesia femminile contemporanea di lingua inglese

A cura di

Loredana Magazzeni, Fiorenza Mormile, Brenda Porster, Anna Maria Robustelli

Prefazione

Liana Borghi

pp. 201  € 12,00

Poesie di:

Karen Alkalay-Gut, Margaret Atwood, Eavan Boland, Kate Clanchy, Lucille Clifton, Enid Dame, Mary Dorcey, Carol Ann Duffy, Denise Duhamel, Agneta Falk, Vicki Feaver, Elaine Feinstein, Gillian K. Ferguson, Robyn Guillory, Marilyn Hacker, Alice Jones, Jenny Joseph, Maxine Kumin, Joan Larkin, Dorianne Laux, Lyn Lifshin, Josephine Miles, Elma Mitchell, Dorothy Molloy, Grace Nichols, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy, Brenda Porster, Adrienne Rich, Tania Rochelle, Anne Stevenson, Alice Walker, Judith Arundell Wright

Questo libro nasce dal piacere condiviso di colmare una lacuna. In Italia tutto il corpus di testi di donne in lingua inglese dell’ultimo quarantennio è stato tradotto in minima parte e le poche eccezioni sono per lo più esaurite e introvabili da tempo. Siamo invece convinte dell’importanza di non perdere il valore di una riflessione collettiva di grandi proporzioni scaturita dalla riscoperta del corpo in ambito femminile e femminista. Paradossalmente, proprio l’uso politico del corpo come grimaldello per scardinare la visione del mondo e il linguaggio tradizionalmente conformati sull’ottica maschile ne ha legato le sorti all’effimera fortuna del movimento, facendo sì che oggi in buona parte della cultura dominante la semplice menzione del corpo rimandi a qualcosa di percepito fastidiosamente come risentito e superato.

Contrastare il rischio che questi testi vengano archiviati come vecchi senza che mai sia stata concessa loro circolazione è dunque il nostro obiettivo. Essi infatti esprimono la differenza femminile non tanto e non solo per combattere il mondo tradizionale, quanto per arricchirlo. I criteri di selezione applicati sono stati la qualità poetica e il grado di implicazione corporea. Abbiamo privilegiato autrici viventi e testi non ancora editi, tranne quando la loro rilevanza ha richiesto delle eccezioni alla regola.

Homage to My Hips  

Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don’t fit into little

petty places, these hips

are free hips.

they don’t like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

These hips are mighty hips.

These hips are magic hips

I have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

Tributo ai miei fianchi

Lucille Clifton

questi fianchi sono fianchi larghi

hanno bisogno di spazio per

andarsene in giro

non stanno a loro agio dentro

posticini di basso profilo, questi fianchi

sono fianchi liberi.

non amano essere bloccati.

questi fianchi non sono mai stati fatti schiavi,

vanno dove vogliono andare

fanno quello che vogliono fare.

Questi fianchi sono fianchi possenti.

Questi fianchi sono fianchi stregati

li ho visti

lanciare un incantesimo su un uomo e

rigirarlo come una trottola!

Trad. di Fiorenza Mormile

Nevertheless                                

Alicia Ostriker

The bookbag on my bag. I’m out the door           

Winter turns to spring

The way it does, and I buy dresses.

A year later, it gets to where

When they say How are you feeling,

With that anxious look on their faces,

And I start to tell them the latest

About my love life or my kids’ love lives,

Or my vacation or my writer’s block– 

It actually takes me a while

To realize what they have in mind–

I’m fine,  I say, I’m great, I’m clean.

The bookbag on my back. I have to run.

Ciononostante

Alicia Ostriker

La borsa dei libri sulle spalle. Sono fuori casa.

L’inverno volge a primavera

come sempre e io compro vestiti.

Un anno dopo, si arriva al punto che

quando mi dicono Come ti senti,

con quello sguardo ansioso sulla faccia,

e io comincio a raccontare l’ultima

sulla mia vita amorosa o su quella dei miei figli,

o sulle mie vacanze o sul blocco dello scrittore–

ci metto davvero un po’ di tempo

a capire quello che hanno in mente—

Sto bene, dico, sto alla grande, sono pulita.

La borsa dei libri sulle spalle. Devo correre.

Trad. di Anna Maria Robustelli

Anorexia
Alice Jones

Not everyone is so skilled
at the ancient art, not everyone
can exist on air, refusing
the burden of flesh. Hating

the yellow globs of fat in any
form—under the skin, padding
the heart, cushions for the eye’s
globes, but mostly those

that mark her as her mother’s—
the encumbering curves of hip
or breast, she eats only
oranges and water, a cannibal

of self. Trying to undo all
the knots the female body has
tied, all the cyclical obligations,
to gush, to feed, she chooses

to hone her shape down,
her scapulae prepared like
thin birds, to fly away from
the spine. Barely held together

by silk and liquid and air,
she floats, flightless, the water’s
iciness along her back;
she tries not to be sucked

down by the black cold,
its deadliness pulling
at the nape of her long neck,
biting at her unfeathered heels.

Anoressia

Alice Jones

Non tutte sono esperte

dell’arte antica, non tutte

sanno vivere d’aria, rifiutare

il fardello della carne. Aborrendo

gli ammassi giallastri di grasso in ogni

forma – sotto la pelle, ad imbottire

il cuore, i cuscinetti intorno ai bulbi

oculari, ma soprattutto quelli

che la marchiano figlia di sua madre –

le curve ingombranti dei fianchi

o dei seni, mangia soltanto

arance e acqua, cannibala  

di sé. Cercando di disfare tutti

i nodi che ha legato il corpo

femminile, tutti gli obblighi ciclici,

a grondare, nutrirsi, sceglie

di affilarsi la figura,

scapole pronte come

uccelli sottili a volare dalla

schiena. Tenuta a stento insieme

da seta e liquidi e aria,

fluttua, senza volo, la gelidezza

dell’acqua lungo il dorso;

cerca di non lasciarsi risucchiare

giù dal nero ghiacciato,

la trazione letale

alla nuca in cima al lungo collo,

che la morsica ai calcagni spiumati.

Trad. di Maria Luisa Vezzali