Poems

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MISCELLANEOUS

Anonymous

---

  • "My name is Yon Yohnson
I live in Visconsin
I work in the lumberyards there.
Whenever I meet
A new girl the street
And she asks me my name then I say, ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvu2Ds5RSnI has poet Carl Sandburg singing his version of it in 1958

---

  • From the Babbling Beaver (2023) comes this poem, with my edits but without the links of the original:


Wherefore Art Thou Gorenberg? .
.
Gorenberg, oh Gorenberg, wherefore art thou Gorenberg?
Chairman of the Corp take blame: you let the Woke Mind Virus claim
The soul of Boston’s finest Tech; the once great ‘Tute now teaches dreck.
.
Watching DEI transform bright students into pawns forlorn
Of Marx, Marcuse, Foucault, and like, spewing forth postmodern tripe.
Reif sold us out to save his skin, and you did naught to rein him in.
.
Equity: that Trojan horse, that tramples merit with its force.
Diversity: a quota curse that only makes bad matters worse.
Inclusion: of perversion rife, a threat to intellectual life.
.
The campus roiled by calls to spread the murderous creed of Hamas dread
The intersectional crop of fools who’ve thrown in with Muhammad’s tools.
"From River to the Sea" they cry, demanding that their classmates die.
.
You really need bring to heel the D.E.I. machine or kneel,
While deans and myriad officers train a generation gone insane.
The time has come to turn the tide, a duty from which you can’t hide.
.
Our president doth lie supine, unable yet to grow a spine.
She now must be unshackled from her minions who defend the scum,
Or be cut loose and be replaced, inaction making her disgraced.
.
Choose wisely and we still can save STEM from a grievance studies grave.
Do nothing and equivocate, and your head next goes on the plate.
The backlash will not go away: our opposition’s here to stay.


Bailey, Noah


I’m drawing a triangle right,
It’s such a glorious sight!
Ninety degrees for vertex one—
Two more angles—now it's done.

Baudelaire

Harmonie du soir, https://fleursdumal.org/poem/142

 
Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige! ...

Baudelaire

Harmonie du soir, https://fleursdumal.org/poem/142

 
Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige! ...

Ross Coggins

From a Steve Sailer blogpost that quotes it:

 
Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet
I’m off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I’ve had all my shots
I have traveller’s checks and pills for the trots!
 
The Development Set is bright and noble
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes
Our thoughts are always with the masses.


[many more stanzas]

Dante Alighieri

https://www.fulltextarchive.com/pdfs/Dante-s-Inferno.pdf canto 5, Longfellow translation:

 
When I made answer, I began: "Alas!
How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,
Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!"
 
Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,
And I began: "Thine agonies, Francesca,
Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.
 
But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,
By what and in what manner Love conceded,
That you should know your dubious desires?"
 
And she to me: "There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.
 
But, if to recognise the earliest root
Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.
 
One day we reading were for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.
 
Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.
 
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
 
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein."


De Morgan, August

From "Siphonaptera" (1872):

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

De Morgan was a mathematician, and in logic, De Morgan's Laws are named after him. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem).

Donne, John

"An Aubade is a love song set in the morning, as opposed to a Serenade which is at night. The term Aubade first appeared in France in the 1600s, where it referred to a song sung in the morning. It’s literal meaning is ‘Morning Seranade,’ and it is often conflated with the Alba, a poem written as two lovers part in the morning. . . . Instead of focusing on courtly love, the Aubade became about a person departing in the morning."

Frost, Robert

The Road Not Taken

 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
 And be one traveler, long I stood
 And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
  
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
 Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
 
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Hugo

LES DJINNS (https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/3739)

 
Murs, ville
Et port,
Asile
De mort,
Mer grise
Où brise
La brise
Tout dort.

Hephsiba R Korlapati and Eric Rasmusen

A Poem for January

"Sun, sun, stay this way;
Keep us happy all the day.
Not as striking as in May,
Now that winter's come to stay,
But you help us so to play."

Write first with any quill,
Then edit with full will.
To wait will paralyze--
But endlessly revise.

Holderlin

Patmos

http://www.sternenfall.de/H0366lderlin--Patmos.html 

Nah ist
Und schwer zu fassen der Gott.
Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst
Das Rettende auch.
Im Finstern wohnen
Die Adler und furchtlos gehn
Die Söhne der Alpen über den Abgrund weg
Auf leichtgebaueten Brücken.

Iqbal

Keith, Mike

Cadaeic Cadenza
A Pilish short story
Mike Keith, 1996, http://www.cadaeic.net/cadenza.htm


One
A Poem


A Raven


Midnights so dreary, tired and weary,
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".
 
Perfectly, the intellect remembers: the ghostly fires, a glittering ember.
Inflamed by lightning's outbursts, windows cast penumbras upon this floor.
Sorrowful, as one mistreated, unhappy thoughts I heeded:
That inimitable lesson in elegance - Lenore -
Is delighting, exciting...nevermore....
 
Three
 Of Carrolls  
Jabwocky  
Slithy toves, borogove
Gimbled there all out in strathwabe
Mimified and gyrified,
A rath is outergrabe...


Seven
 Prufrock'

 
Let us depart then,
While eventide's withering skies threaten,
Impersonating the sufferers etherising upon pallets;...


Nine
 O Ruby Yachts  
Poetic Muses alongside th' Bough
An oversupply o' Wine, possessed somehow
Thou with me treading Eden's Wilderness
Through all it seems a Paradise enough!...


Eleven
William Shakespeare's tragedy King Claudius
[Fifth (terminal) Act]  
. . . . So it is - deceased tanners a-populate the earth in multitudes. Wherefore? The skins are callously tanned! Here's, gravely, th' skull - O! - of a celebrated confrere.  
HAM. Whose? Prithee, interpret.  
A CLOWN. A mad fellow, foolhardy whoreson. Methinks he oftentimes frolicked i' your path....

 
Thirteen
Sandburg's Grass  
Caskets piled beneath Austerlitzes, Dresdens
As, silently uplifting, blanketing, grass
Disguises it all, it all.  
And as fierce Gettysburg witnesses,
Evident at Champagne, Falklands, Jutland,
I am grassiness, settling ever thus...

Longfellow

Excelsior, https://www.bartleby.com/102/62.html Excelsior:

 
THE SHADES of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
                                          Excelsior!...

Millay

Dirge Without Music, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52773/dirge-without-music

 
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned...


Milne

"The Dormouse And The Doctor:"

 
...The Dormouse lay happy, his eyes were so tight
He could see no chrysanthemums, yellow or white.
And all that he felt at the back of his head
Were delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red).

 
And that is the reason (Aunt Emily said)
If a Dormouse gets in a chrysanthemum bed,
You will find (so Aunt Emily says) that he lies
Fast asleep on his front with his paws to his eyes.

Nash, Ogden

Fleas  
Adam
Had'em.

Nelson, William A.

"The Mosaics at Villa Romana del Casale"Substack (JUN 8, 2023)








Paterson

Clancy of the Overflow (http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/patersonab/poetry/clancy.html)

 
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed as follows: "Clancy, of The Overflow"...


Langdon Smith

Evolution ( https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/int/evolution.html; see also https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/18/poetry-monday-evolution-by-langdon-smith/)

 
When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then…

Stone, Andrew

 
Our favorite Rasmusen, Eric,
Has perspectives unique, not generic.
While he attained fame,
On the theory called game,
He has wide-ranging views esoteric.

 
To this day and ever since youth,
Eric forged his own path seeking truth,
Though he sets some aboil,
He is steadfast and loyal,
Our friend whom we need-- yes, forsooth!

Swift, Jonathan

From Jonathan Swift's poem, "On Poetry: A Rapsody" (1733): .
The Vermin only teaze and pinch
Their Foes superior by an Inch.
So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller yet to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum:
Thus ev'ry Poet, in his Kind
Is bit by him that comes behind.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem).

Richard Wilbur (1921–2017)

“What is the opposite of riot? / It’s lots of people keeping quiet.”

“The opposite of opposite? / That’s much too difficult. I quit.”

Wordsworth

March 13, 2021, Bloomington, Indiana.

This is the day of the daffodil.

I almost said "This is the day of the daffodils," but I don't like to exaggerate.

I think it ought to be the last line of each stanza of a poem.

It could pair with Wordsworth's[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"].

Poems To Write

"This is the day of the daffodil." March 13, 2021, Bloomington, Indiana.

I almost said "This is the day of the daffodils," but I don't like to exaggerate.

I think it ought to be the last line of each stanza of a poem. Recall Wordsworth's [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"].

Eric Rasmusen

  • Remembering How to Spell Mnemonic.
How do you spell mnemonic?
It's practically demonic.
You put an M before the N;
And then it's just phenomic.
  • Remembering How to Spell Mnenmomic.
Do you know of the word mnemonic?
Its spelling is Greek, and demonic.
Put M before N;
Then do it again,
And the word will be simply phenomic.


  • Remembering How to Spell Nenomic.
Do you know of the word mnemonical?
Its spelling is Greek and demonical.
Put M before N;
Then do it again,
And the word will be simply phenomical.


  • Remembering How to Spell Mnenmonmic.
Do you know of the word mnemonical?
Its spelling is Greek and demonical.
Put M before N;
Then do it again.
The result will be more than just comical.


  • There now have appeared
The deadly black blossoms of the paw paw tree."
A lovely phrase, but a lie.

T:he paw paw fruit is edible,

Tho blossoms black must always look
Poisonous.


Honor and Beauty

My lord loves the cherries blossoming,
Relief from the red of the rude person split
With his sword from shoulder to hip.



  • A Samurai Haiku


Sniff now cherry blossoms,
Relief from splitting the rude
From shoulder to hip.

This last has 6 syllables in the first line, but I tolerate it because cherry and blossoms both have weak second syllables. English doesn't work like Japanese.


Wikipedia: "Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a kireji, or "cutting word",[1] 17 on (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern,[2] and a kigo, or seasonal reference." Or is this a senryu in disguise? "Three lines with 17 morae (or on, often translated as syllables, but see the article on onji for distinctions). Senryū tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious. Unlike haiku, senryū do not include a kireji (cutting word), and do not generally include a kigo, or season word."


On the Profumo Affair


Oh, No! You naughty Christine.
You've ruined the Tory machine.
Tho lying there nude
Is just a bit crude,
To lie in the House is obscene.

Songs

  • I Want To Marry a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad
  • The Streets of Bakersfield
  • You ask me if I'll get along

I guess I will some way
I don't like it but I guess things happen that way
Johnny Cash (1958)

  • When you try to please two women, you can't please yourself

At best it's only half good, a man can't stock two shelves
It's a long old grind and it tires your mind
The Oak Ridge Boys

One Day at a Time

Lyrics

Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus
And tomorrow may never be mine.
Lord help me today, show me the way
One day at a time.

Do you remember when you walked among men?
Well Jesus you know, if you're looking below
It's worse now than then.

From 1974. The story:

(written by Marijohn Wilkin and Kris Kristofferson) Marilyn Sellars (#19 country, #37 pop, 1974) Christy Lane (#1, 1980)

"Wilkin, (who had co-written such classics as Stonewall Jackson’s “Waterloo,” Lefty Frizzell’s “The Long Black Veil” and Jimmy Dean’s “P. T. 109”), was unable to admit her own alcoholism. She did know that her husband relied too heavily on the bottle, and that he was having an affair. Their marriage was on the rocks. Her mother had recently died of a stroke, her business partner, Hubert Long, had passed away, and a close friend who tended to her boat also died. On top of that, singer Dottie West was six months behind in paying back a loan. Things couldn’t have gotten much worse.Surprisingly, the minister had never been called upon to counsel anyone before, and when Marijohn unloaded her burdens, he gave her some unusual advice. He suggested that she thank God for her problems. Wilkin followed his advice while driving home, and her tears gave way to laughter as she realized how unbelievable her situation had become. When she got home, she sat down at her piano and sang the first verse and chorus of “One Day At A Time.” Wilkin later reflected that the song was literally a cry for help.She called her friend and former protégé Kris Kristofferson, who had recently notched a number one record with his self-penned gospel hit “Why Me,” and asked him to help her wrap up “One Day At A Time.” "

26 Cents

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