Ginsberg is also a favourite of mine. Honestly though, I have many favourites including several of the beats... heh... which is probably obvious.

Great start everyone.

Next up:


******

The Poet



He is a link between this and the coming world.
He is
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink.


He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing
Fruit which the hungry heart craves;
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed
Spirit with his beautiful melodies;
He is a white cloud appearing over the horizon,
Ascending and growing until it fills the face of the sky.
Then it falls on the flows in the field of Life,
Opening their petals to admit the light.
He is an angel, send by the goddess to
Preach the Deity's gospel;
He is a brilliant lamp, unconquered by darkness
And inextinguishable by the wind. It is filled with
Oil by Istar of Love, and lighted by Apollon of Music.


He is a solitary figure, robed in simplicity and
Kindness; He sits upon the lap of Nature to draw his
Inspiration, and stays up in the silence of the night,
Awaiting the descending of the spirit.


He is a sower who sows the seeds of his heart in the
Prairies of affection, and humanity reaps the
Harvest for her nourishment.


This is the poet -- whom the people ignore in this life,
And who is recognized only when he bids the earthly
World farewell and returns to his arbor in heaven.


This is the poet -- who asks naught of
Humanity but a smile.
This is the poet -- whose spirit ascends and
Fills the firmament with beautiful sayings;
Yet the people deny themselves his radiance.


Until when shall the people remain asleep?
Until when shall they continue to glorify those
Who attain greatness by moments of advantage?
How long shall they ignore those who enable
Them to see the beauty of their spirit,
Symbol of peace and love?
Until when shall human beings honor the dead
And forget the living, who spend their lives
Encircled in misery, and who consume themselves
Like burning candles to illuminate the way
For the ignorant and lead them into the path of light?


Poet, you are the life of this life, and you have
Triumphed over the ages of despite their severity.


Poet, you will one day rule the hearts, and
Therefore, your kingdom has no ending.


Poet, examine your crown of thorns; you will
Find concealed in it a budding wreath of laurel.

~Khalil Gibran

******

Again... read, digest, and tell us what ya think about it.

despite the content and my lack of a belief in it, i found that poem rather well written, heavy on the imagery but not in a bad way. it has an excellent balance between substance and description. i daresay the words almost took on a 'color' or hue as a read.
incredibly well done poem. im impressed....and thats saying alot.

fuckin' poets....stupid bastages....think they're so.....so.....so.....ah fuck it, who cares...

um.....this poem sucks man.....what a waste of one minute and fourteen seconds of my time......you owe me big Fucky.....i want oral....NOW!

but seriously.....i'm not a fan of....happy poetry, i guess.....i mean....it's not like a "YAY! BIRDS SING PRETTY!" type of poem....but it's just....i dunno......there's nothing workin' for me with this one.....there's no interesting connotation or phrasing really.....it's like an idolizing poem and that's all.....i mean.....when i think of a "POET" i don't think about some great mystic wonder that records life with words of grandeur....to me, a poet is pained...they don't see the world, but instead write one, creating it through their own eyes, expressing it through imagery.....they're liars....decievers.....people lost in their imaginations....

i guess all i'm sayin' is that anyone can be a poet.....some can even be great.....but the truest poet of all is the poet of pain......the poet who is lost within himself..........and yeah, so this Gibran dude is tryin' to express a sense of gratitude with his poem....but where's the pain man? speakin' in terms of connotation, it isn't there...

i think he had a good idea, but failed in his delivery.....he did a grave injustice to exactly who and what a poet really is....

I'm curious... what is it you don't believe in?

perhaps i shouldnt go there. maybe i misinterpreted the poem.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but I can see the correlation you picked up on. It is a sort of theme in Gibran's work.

I really like this poem. Really. In fact, it is one of my favourites, and I consider it one of my influences. I feel like it tells me to look beyond myself to paint the worlds woes. Gibran is a master to be sure.

well i suppose poems are meant to be interpreted in different ways by different people. one poem wont be seen the same way by 20 people due to the fact that people have different belief systems and interpretations.

but you know what i gathered from it and what i saw as the subject so thats enough.

Gibran was an early favorite of mine. His works evince a nice many layered emotional quilt which has a different effect on whoever might be reading it. But it has a great effect and that is what poetry is all about. Having a strong effect upon the reader. Gibran does it better than most especially with this poem.
I would not consider it his best work but it is a classic to be sure.

great stuff.

This week:

******

"Praying Drunk"

Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.
Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.
I ought to start with praise, but praise
comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you
about the woman, whom I taught, in bed,
this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form
keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.
Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,
I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled,
Poof! You're a casserole! - and laughed so hard
she fell out of bed. Take care of her.


Next, confession - the dreary part. At night
deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.
They're like enormous rats on stilts except,
of course, they're beautiful. But why? What makes
them beautiful? I haven't shot one yet.
I might. When I was twelve I'd ride my bike
out to the dump and shoot the rats. It's hard
to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use
a hollow point and hit them solidly.
A leg is not enough. The rat won't pause.
Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back
into the trash, and I would feel a little bad
to kill something that wants to live
more savagely than I do, even if
it's just a rat. My garden's vanishing.
Perhaps I'll plant more beans, though that
might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.
Who knows?
I'm sorry for the times I've driven
home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.
Crested with mist it looked like a giant wave
about to break and sweep across the valley,
and in my loneliness and fear I've thought,
O let it come and wash the whole world clean.
Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair-
whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.


Our Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,
that nature stuff. I'm grateful for good health,
food, air, some laughs, and all the other things I've never had to do
without. I have confused myself. I'm glad
there's not a rattrap large enough for deer.
While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept
when I saw one elephant insert his trunk
into another's ass, pull out a lump,
and whip it back and forth impatiently
to free the goodies hidden in the lump.
I could have let it mean most anything,
but I was stunned again at just how little
we ask for in our lives. Don't look! Don't look!
Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling
schoolkids away. Line up, they called, Let's go
and watch the monkeys in the monkey house.
I laughed and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,
we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,
which is -let it be so- a form of praying.


I'm usually asleep by now -the time
for supplication. Requests. As if I'd stayed
up late and called the radio and asked
they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.
I want a lot of money and a woman.
And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know-
a character like Popeye rubs it on
and disappears. Although you see right through him,
he's there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,
and smoke that's clearly visible escapes
from his invisible pipe. It make me think,
sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me
is the poor jerk who wanders out on air
and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees
eternity, and suddenly his shoes
no longer work on nothingness, and down
he goes. As I fall past, remember me.

by Andrew Hudgins

******

Wow... almost two weeks and not one reply... Either these really are the lazy days of summer or you all reeeally don't like this poem. Me, I like it... I like it quite a lot. I'm going to leave it up until Monday before I post another. So, if you have something to say about it, speak up (now).

Meh. I read it and was not at all impressed. Very hard to read and did not grab my interest right off the bat. But than I am into imagery and heavy context

either way, good to hear it.

Next up:

******

Young in New Orleans

starving there, sitting around the bars,
and at night walking the streets for
hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and I was always white.
and hardly charmed by the
world.
New Orleans was a place to
hide.
I could piss away my life,
unmolested.
except for the rats.
the rats in my dark small room
very much resented sharing it
with me.
they were large and fearless
and stared at me with eyes
that spoke
an unblinking
death.

women were beyond me.
they saw something
depraved.
there was one waitress
a little older than
I, she rather smiled,
lingered when she
brought my
coffee.


that was plenty for
me, that was
enough.


there was something about
that city, though
it didn't let me feel guilty
that I had no feeling for the
things so many others
needed.
it let me alone.


sitting up in my bed
the llights out,
hearing the outside
sounds,
lifting my cheap
bottle of wine,
letting the warmth of
the grape
enter
me
as I heard the rats
moving about the
room,
I preferred them
to
humans.


being lost,
being crazy maybe
is not so bad
if you can be
that way
undisturbed.


New Orleans gave me
that.
nobody ever called
my name.


no telephone,
no car,
no job,
no
anything.


me and the
rats
and my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.

- Charles Bukowski
******

that's really nice... do you have any bio info, FD?

hmm, about the only think that felt out of place was the stanza about women... you know? like he dedicated a whole stanza to it, but only a line each for everything else but the rats and the city.

so....can anyone else pick a poem?

certainly.

okay, i pick one....

i'm a huge e.e. cummings fan, and this is one of my favorites by him, mostly because in college, the first time i read this for a class, i was the only one in the class who figured it out....SCORE! anywho....

"l(a"
by: e.e. cummings


l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness