Poetry

Visual arts, music, poetry and other forms of art.
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Mimesis
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Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

Wind at Tindari
Salvatore Quasimodo


Tindari, I know you
mild between broad hills, overhanging the waters
of the god’s sweet islands.
Today, you confront me
and break into my heart.

I climb airy peaks, precipices,
following the wind in the pines,
and the crowd of them, lightly accompanying me,
fly off into the air,
wave of love and sound,
and you take me to you,
you from whom I wrongly drew
evil, and fear of silence, shadow,
- refuge of sweetness, once certain -
and death of spirit.

It is unknown to you, that country
where each day I go down deep
to nourish secret syllables.
A different light strips you, behind the windows
clothed in night,
and another joy than mine
lies against you.

Exile is harsh
and the search, for harmony, that ended in you
changes today
to a precocious anxiousness for death,
and every love is a shield against sadness,
a silent stair in the gloom,
where you station me
to break my bitter bread.

Return, serene Tindari,
stir me, sweet friend,
to raise myself to the sky from the rock,
so that I might shape fear, for those who do not know
what deep wind has searched me.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
obnoxion
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 7:59 pm

Re: Poetry

Post by obnoxion »

Victory to Gauri, who stands,
her lower robe blood-spattered
from the demon buffalo her spear has slain,
shamefaced, as if menstruous,
before the laughing eyes of Hara.

- Gonanda -

This verse has yielded layer after layer of wisdom, when considering in tandem with Rene Girard's thoughts on the sacrifice.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Heith
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Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 12:54 pm

Re: Poetry

Post by Heith »

The Amulet of Love
-Michelangelo Buonarotti-

Far more than I was wont myself I prize:
With you within my heart I rise in rate,
Just as a gem engraved with delicate
Devices o'er the uncut stone doth rise;
Or as a painted sheet exceeds in price
Each leaf left pure and in its virgin state:
Such them am I since I was consecrate
To be the mark for arrows from your eyes.
Stamped with your seal I'm safe where'ver I go,
Like one who carries charms or coat of mail
Against all dangers that his life assail.
Nor fire nor water now may work me woe;
Sight to the blind I can restore by you,
Heal every wound, and every loss renew.
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Mimesis
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Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:32 pm
Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

XIX
Gavin Greenlees


Behold an image of the true leader
And his Sign, which the world knew only
When it shone, frozen in angles,
In reverse, as starlight might ride multiplex on foul water
That seems to scatter it;
As faces, mirrored, invert their chord of light.
Now it's restored to its ancient, true stance on the banner of Art
Whose primal patron is this goat-god of many meanings;
Subtle and generous, gentle guardian
Of your evolving phoenix.
This dove of calm.
O, warm it gently, artists!
Forbear to feed it on death's grey milk -
As passing stews of war might seem to demand
But warm it with purest stream
The light King of the brow's high courtyard walks.
He is, and the worlds obey.
He holds the thunderbolt, calling his sons to their arts and psychic sorts.
Continuous, in life and life and life.
He grins - all desire streams from him and is held by him
In autonomous motion, needing no friction of image or cruelty.
He looses Spirit, dove from phoenix egg, and binds the worlds
In serpent thongs, his voice
Heard in the pulse of silence
For an inward birth in the world of gratuitous play.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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Mimesis
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Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

Roaming Cloud
Rabindranath Tagore


I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn
uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious!
Thy touch has not yet melted my vapor,
making me one with thy light,
and thus I count months and years separated from thee.

If this be thy wish and if this be thy play,
then take this fleeting emptiness of mine,
paint it with colors, gild it with gold,
float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders.

And again when it shall be thy wish to end this play at night,
I shall melt and vanish away in the dark,
or it may be in a smile of the white morning,
in a coolness of purity transparent.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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Mimesis
Posts: 136
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:32 pm
Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

White Moon
Wang Xiaoni


The midnight moon exposes every bone.

I breathe ice-blue air.
All the world's follies
are falling like fireflies.
The city is a carcass.

No living thing
can match this pure light.
I open the curtains to watch earth
hold such pouring silver
until I forget I'm human.

Life's last act
is silently rehearsed under a bleak spotlight.
The moon lands on my floor
to reveal my blanched feet.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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Heith
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Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 12:54 pm

Re: Poetry

Post by Heith »

A Wasted Brand
-Michelangelo Buonarotti-

If being near the fire I burned with it,
Now that its flame is quenched and doth not show,
What wonder if I waste within and glow,
Dwindling away to cinders bit by bit?

While still it burned, I saw so brightly lit
That splendour whence I drew my grievous woe,
That from its sight alone could pleasure flow,
And death and torment both seemed exquisite.

But now that heaven hath robbed me of the blaze
Of that great fire which burned and nourished me,
A coal that smoulders 'neath the ash am I.

Unless Love furnish wood fresh flames to raise,
I shall expire with not one spark to see,
So quickly into embers do I die!
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Mimesis
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Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:32 pm
Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

To the Rose upon the Rood of Time
William Butler Yeats


Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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Mimesis
Posts: 136
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:32 pm
Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

Branded by Constellations
Richard Moult


One breath spanning a thousand years
Took the eremite’s boat
To raise his cell upon the rock

To where star-spread crossings mirror tracks
Woven to a moorland shrine

And where the stars change places with the falling snow:
A net of light to sail his Earth by.

After the Sun, the sea hush
And dragons take the forms of cloud
To begin the silent procession bathed in cerulean
And royal yellow glowings.

No water drunk, nor hunting of birds:
Faith-fed alone,
And crouched solely in Earth’s light
He recites

And the metallic water flows from the nebulae of wounds:
This, the eremite seeks to wash away memory.

A hymn before dawn, chanted in starvation
A bell rippling out beyond the sea –
Yet, unknowingly, the grail is in the moments between:

A moment’s splinter when the abyss floods, letting God go
Before ritual, routine, twitches into the dark.

And so, a memory now branded by constellations, upon soil and sea.

There are no years to endure, no self to suffer
He, a wraith of belief, will vanish
Whilst the one seal, the one guga remain in cycles forever:
Earth tunnels eternity.

There was a meeting place which brought its becoming
Where one season spread into another
By tumbling Earth, thrown into place, a many-keyed face
Unlocked by the hand of a great chasmic sky


He walked out into the abyss of God
In prayer, trying not to wait

Then an enclosing, a silence
The sea.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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Mimesis
Posts: 136
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Location: UK

Re: Poetry

Post by Mimesis »

[from]Religious Musings
Samuel Taylor Coleridge


I

THERE is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,
Omnific. His most holy name is Love.
Truth of subliming import! with the which
Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,
He from his small particular orbit flies
With blest outstarting! From himself he flies,
Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze
Views all creation; and he loves it all,
And blesses it, and calls it very good!
This is indeed to dwell with the Most High!
Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim
Can press no nearer to the Almighty’s throne.
But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts
Unfeeling of our universal Sire,
And that in His vast family no Cain
Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow
Victorious Murder a blind Suicide)
Haply for this some younger Angel now
Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold!
A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad
Embattling Interests on each other rush
With unhelmed rage!
’Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
This fraternizes man, this constitutes
Our charities and bearings. But ’tis God
Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole;
This the worst superstition, him except
Aught to desire, Supreme Reality!
The plenitude and permanence of bliss!

II

Toy-bewitched,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,
No common centre Man, no common sire
Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing,
Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart
Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams
Feeling himself, his own low self the whole;
When he by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one Self! Self, that no alien knows!
Self, far diffused as Fancy’s wing can travel!
Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith!
This the Messiah’s destined victory!
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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