Poetry

[Einheri]

While the grammar could use a tiny bit of work, overall your poem is exquisitely beautiful. It made my heart ache in a wonderful way.

Thanks. Glad to hear that you feel this way.

[Einheri]

Another translation, I think this works better than the previous one.

Corvus in the wind

As smoke in the wind, my trip goes forward.
Flying like a bird, I look at the world,
I sit on a branch and what I see;
The breath of the world which makes me silent.

Following from the outside, I'm calm for the rest of the world.
meditate in my mind, I do not share the judgment.
As smoke in the wind, I can be therein.

Mentally elderly, as wise old crow,
sensitive my own feelings, as the growing Ceriman.
Quiet is my mind, my heart burns in my chest.

Calm in the world, I look at from the outside,
from sturdy branch, I'm keeping watch when the others sleep,
the silent city under the lights.
-

[Cancer]

I think everyone interested in poetry and occultism should read T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Eliot's reputation as a difficult poet is mostly based on his earlier work like The Waste Land - at least I don't see any reason to call the Quartets difficult. They are long but lucid meditations, incorporating timeless symbolism and succeeding at the same time in being completely modern, not becoming kitch by copying older stuff at any point. The whole text is online here: http://www.davidgorman.com/4Quartets/, and here's a sample of one of the book's most memorable poems:

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

[Einheri]

Next translation attemp form my own writings.

Declamation

Beware of pain in your flesh,
raise your hands by horizon.
See the deliverance reddish glow,
on world’s rocky ledge,
sunset on a dark beach,
below our sacred land.

Beware of the eye in your head,
abandon what you have seen in the light.
Close your chakra’s yellow glow,
the world's soft dreams of yours,
When the moon rises on to nighttime sky,
above our sacred land.
_

[Einheri]

The architect

I live in the gray lands,
middle of the gravelly hills,
which slopes shadows,
offers me shelter,
by the midst of the day light.

I build the beauty with my melting hands,
over to fall colors I create the polar night,
from the dust I will raise frost,
pure love from coldness,
witch the spring sun will sanctifies,
the name of growth and greenery.
I'm breathing as one with a wind.

Behind the dark curtains I create,
what the world wants to be.
Entropy's fuel that burns,
dust and ashes once again.

I sculpt and build everything towars glory,
that the circle would begin again.
It's a my duty of love for life.

I am the architect.
-


I know in this forum has members who are competent to write thoughts in poetry form. It would be nice to read of these also.
I hope this topic doesnt't rest only for my own text translations.

[Jiva]

Goethe, Prometheus

Shroud your heaven, Zeus,
With cloudy vapours,
And do as you will, like the boy
That beheads thistles,
With oak-trees and mountain-tops;
You must my Earth
Now abandon to me,
And my hut, which you did not build,
And my hearth,
Whose glow
You begrudge me.

I know of nothing poorer
Under the sun, than you, Gods!
You barely nourish
–By sacrificial offerings
And prayerful exhalations–
Your Majesty,
And would starve, were
Not children and beggars
Hopeful fools.

When I was a child,
And did not know the in or out,
I turned my wandering eyes toward
The sun, as if beyond it there were
An ear to hear my lament,
A heart like mine,
To take pity on the afflicted.

Who helped me
Against the Titans' mischief?
Who delivered me from Death,
From Slavery?
Did you not accomplish it all yourself,–
Holy, burning Heart?
And glowed, young and good,
Deceived, your thanks for salvation
To the sleeping one above?

I should honour you? For what?
Have you softened the sufferings,
Ever, of the burdened?
Have you stilled the tears,
Ever, of the anguished?
Was I not forged as a Man
By almighty Time
And the eternal Fate,
My masters and yours?

Do you somehow imagine
I should hate life,
Flee to the desert,
Because not every
Flowering dream may bloom?

Here I sit, forming people
In my image;
A race, to be like me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy and delight themselves,
And to mock you –
As I do!

[Mimesis]

But of course, being overly analytical & looking for meanings just ruins the original work, which is probably precisely why I don't often times care about poetry too much

Poetry always has meaning, even if only to the author, however menial, and I don't think that an initial lack of objective meaning negates the potential for poetry to be moving and beautiful. In relation to the Lady GaGA lyric that this initially related to, your analytical search has led the same words down various subjective paths, which you will hopefully find meaning in again, so hopefully poetry is never ruined by different perspectives, but rather transformed (made timeless). The intellect can never win in poetry ; p

[Mimesis]

Soon this space will be too small

- Lhasa De Sela

Soon this space will be too small
And I'll go outside
To the huge hillside
Where the wild winds blow
And the cold stars shine

I'll put my foot on the living road
And be carried from here
To the heart of the world
I'll be strong as a ship
And wise as a whale

And I'll say the three words
That will save us all

Soon this space will be too small
And I'll laugh so hard
That the walls cave in

Then I'll die three times
And be born again in a little box
With a golden key
And a flying fish will set me free

Soon this space will be too small
All my veins and bones
Will be burned to dust
You can throw me into a black iron pot
And my dust will tell
What my flesh could not

[Jiva]

Poetry always has meaning, even if only to the author, however menial, and I don't think that an initial lack of objective meaning negates the potential for poetry to be moving and beautiful. In relation to the Lady GaGA lyric that this initially related to, your analytical search has led the same words down various subjective paths, which you will hopefully find meaning in again, so hopefully poetry is never ruined by different perspectives, but rather transformed (made timeless). The intellect can never win in poetry ; p

Great post. I'm not sure how I missed it before.

Anyway, after Lemmy’s death I’ve been listening to the early Hawkwind albums – which I think were the best things he ever contributed to – and re-read some of the poems that various lyrics are taken from. Although the following is a kind of Victorian sentimentality that I usually don’t like, I think it’s quite effective here.

Henry Longfellow, A Psalm of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

[Heith]

Poetry always has meaning, even if only to the author, however menial, and I don't think that an initial lack of objective meaning negates the potential for poetry to be moving and beautiful. In relation to the Lady GaGA lyric that this initially related to, your analytical search has led the same words down various subjective paths, which you will hopefully find meaning in again, so hopefully poetry is never ruined by different perspectives, but rather transformed (made timeless). The intellect can never win in poetry ; p

For some reason I had missed this as well, but then again I've done a poor job on reading the forum for the past few months. Though I've nothing to add to your words, which are well chosen -perhaps so because you are a poet, and therefore have an understanding of the soul of words on a rather deeper level than I do, as you've no doubt spend much time contemplating these things; but thank you for widening my horizon slightly. I believe I now understand why some of my friends don't "get" poetry, which has baffled me for years seeing they are very intelligent and have large vocabulary.

Perhaps poetry speaks to the more atavistic side in man- atavism here meaning a most positive thing, connecting to such things as deep emotions and our more animal side, which remains in awe before the great mysteries and spiritual experiences; I do not believe that poetry is meant to be analysed and stripped to the bone but rather it reigns on that area of mystery, which can never be fully conquered or understood.

Poetry often has a way to move me in a particular way, whereas music introduces images in my mind (hence I always ask for the lyrics when illustrating album covers). But then I'm quite particular on what kind of poems I enjoy reading. Even the font in a poetry book matters to me, and if that is wrong or the layout looks funny, I won't even try. Also if the verses are placed in a sort of free form on the page, this drives me up the walls. Well, a little off topic but that's always the case with my posts.