The poetry thread

[marquis66]

How about a question to the composers in the group - do you start with text, and then write music, or do you get the idea, maybe write some music and then find/write text?

[stephen w]

MT. HIEI

I thought I would
sit with the screens back
and sing: watching the
half gone
moon rise late
but my hands were too numb
to play the guitar
the song was cold mist
the wine wouldn't warm
so I sat at the border
of dark house and moon
in thick coat – seeing stars rise
back of the ridge
like once when a lookout
I took Aldebaran
for fire.

[Philidor]

http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/Her_song.html


http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/The_Cynic.html

[stephen w]

Originally Posted by Philidor

http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/Her_song.html


http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/The_Cynic.html

Really nice . . . that voice: brought back a poetry reading in the Key Theatre, Peterborough (UK), with Brian Patten, about 35 years ago!

He read an albatross poem:


woke this morning to find an albatross staring at me
it wasn't there last night
Last night I was alone.
The albatross lay on my bed the sheets were soaking


I live miles away from any coast, I invited no mad sailors home
I dreamt of no oceans!
This bird is alive, it watches me carefully - I watch it carefully
I think for some particular reason we deserve one another
I remember I´ve got someone to meet. Someone clear, someone with whom I'm calm
Someone who lets things glow
As I put on my overcoat to go out I think maybe, maybe after all I don´t
deserve this bird
Albatrosses cause hang-ups

There´s not much I can do with them
I can't give them into the zoos to zoo attendants, they have enough albatrosses
Nobody is particularly interested in taking my Albatross

Maybe I think the bird´s in the wrong house
Maybe it meant to go next door, maybe that sailor lives next door
Maybe it belongs to the man upstairs, maybe it belongs to the girls
in the basement, it must belong to someone

I don´t go out to the corridor and shout
"Does anyone want an Albatross? Has anyone lost this little Albatross in my room?"
I know the man upstairs is now happy
I know the girls in the basement lost it on the (?)
Maybe they were tryin' to get rid of it
I don´t want an Albatross, I don´t want this bird!
I´ve got to go out and meet someone, someone really nice and healthy
I don´t like my friends to meet an Albatross
And so I´ve made Albatross traps

This bird with peculiar shadows
Casts its darkness over everything
If I go out it would only follow
It would be patted by policemen as they gently asked:
"Have you an albatross licence?"
I don't want an albatross! I don't want this bird!!
I've got someone to meet, someone patient, someone good and healthy
Someone whose hands are warm and whose grin Makes everything babble and say yes

I'd not like my friend to meet the albatross.
Gloom bird, doom bird
I can do nothing about it
There are no albatross exterminators in the directory
I looked for hours

And now my friend is knocking on the door. Less patient, frowning, a bit sad and angry
I'll wait here; I might devise some plan:
It' spring and everything is good but for this
This morning I woke with an albatross in my room
There's nothing much I can do about it
Until it goes away...

ALBATROSS RAMBLE - Brian Patten

[Philidor]

He's great. Reminds me of Scannell:

Where Shall We Go?
Vernon Scannell

Waiting for her in the usual bar
He finds she's late again.
Impatience frets at him,
But not the fearful, half-sweet pain he knew
So long ago.

That cherished perturbation is replaced
By styptic irritation
And, under that, a cold
Dark current of dejection moves
That this is so.

There was a time when all her failings were
Delights he marvelled at:
It seemed her clumsiness,
Forgetfulness and wild non-sequiturs
Could never grow

Wearisome, nor would he ever tire
Of doting on those small
Blemishes that proved
Her beauty as the blackbird's gloss affirms
The bridal snow.

The clock above the bar records her theft
Of time he cannot spare;
Then suddenly she's here.
He stands to welcome and accuse her with
A grey 'Hello'.

And sees, for one sly instant, in her eyes
His own aggrieved dislike
Wince back at him before
Her smile draws blinds. 'Sorry I'm late,' she says.
'Where shall we go?'

[stephen w]

OIL

soft rainsqualls on the swells
south of the Bonins, late at night. Light
from the empty mess-hall
throws back bulky shadows
of winch and fairlead
over the slanting fantail where I stand.

but for men on watch in the engine room,
the man at the wheel, the lookout in the bow,
the crew sleeps, in cots on deck
or narrow iron bunks down drumming
passageways below.

the ship burns with a furnace heart
steam veins and copper nerves
quivers and slightly twists and always goes –
easy roll of the hull and deep
vibration of the turbine underfoot.

bearing what all these
crazed, hooked nations need:
steel plates and
long injections of pure oil.

[maureen]

Dry Season 1.9.99

Hot afternoon
in a summer of hot afternoons
leaves me seeking words
to describe
writing without wanting
palm sweaty
and the creases
of my fingers
collecting moisture
remind me of this dry season
when evening cools the yard
I've watered the gardens
each small amoeba plot
of upturned earth
raising plants-well tended
producing in this drought year
fruits and flowers
not in rich abundance
but just enough
so as not to be wasteful
but just enough
to feel resilent
to be able to point to
and say
this I've produced
made good of
making good being
the point
after so many years
of turning things
to bad profit
to make a good turn
in this drought year
speaks to something
long ago lost
or forgotten
how to reap
when reaping comes hard
or not at all
how to content oneself
with small plots
and severl small blossoms
how to live on foiliage
the summer squash
around the well house
thick stalked leafy and proud
of the fruit it now bears
as beautiful in its array
as any exotic placed
to satisfy some cursory want
a vegetable
as
coveted
as
a rose
spreading a little cow shit
lining the bed with peat
and watering severl evenings
a week
was just enough
just enough
in this dry season

mh

[stephen w]

Originally Posted by maureen

Dry Season 1.9.99


making good being
the point
after so many years
of turning things
to bad profit
to make a good turn
in this drought year
speaks to something
long ago lost
or forgotten
how to reap
when reaping comes hard
or not at all
how to content oneself
with small plots
and severl small blossoms

mh

I re-read the whole poem several times. I like the rhythm of the whole thing; the economical way within a general compass of short lines, slightly shortening some of them produces an emotional effect disproportionate to the actual physical change in length. That's a very disciplined technique, only achievable I think when the writer has written thousands of poems that they may be dissatisfied with, but it's not been wasted because from time to time, something near perfection emerges one morning.

I particularly like the rhythmic movement at the end -

a vegetable
as
coveted
as
a rose
spreading a little cow shit
lining the bed with peat
and watering severl evenings
a week
was just enough
just enough
in this dry season


- the brakes seem to gently be applied, and very quietly, the vehicle is brought to a - full - stop - ...

Ive been reading Ivor Gurney, and he exemplifies this for me: his collected poems should be much shorter I think! but there are a handful of poems that are very moving, because spare, all unnecessary verbiage cut away.

I like these lines:

I've watered the gardens
each small amoeba plot
of upturned earth
raising plants-well tended
producing in this drought year
fruits and flowers
not in rich abundance
but just enough
so as not to be wasteful
but just enough
to feel resilent
...
how to content oneself
with small plots
and severl small blossoms
...
watering several evenings
a week
was just enough
just enough
in this dry season

because they seem to quietly point to the possibility of living with less, more simply, spending less.. evolving a state of happiness perhaps.

[stephen w]

THE PLUM BLOSSOM POEM

Angel Island.
The sailboat slipping barely west,
Floating over coiling
tongues of filling mud.
East face of the Sierra still is
tilting;
Two plums below Buchanan street
on Vallejo
Blow blossom petals
eastward down the walk.
We hold and caress each another
Where a world is yet unborn;
Long slow swells in the Pacific –
the land drifts north.

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by maureen

Dry Season 1.9.99

Hot afternoon
in a summer of hot afternoons
leaves me seeking words
to describe
writing without wanting
palm sweaty
and the creases
of my fingers
collecting moisture
remind me of this dry season
when evening cools the yard
I've watered the gardens
each small amoeba plot
of upturned earth
raising plants-well tended
producing in this drought year
fruits and flowers
not in rich abundance
but just enough
so as not to be wasteful
but just enough
to feel resilent
to be able to point to
and say
this I've produced
made good of
making good being
the point
after so many years
of turning things
to bad profit
to make a good turn
in this drought year
speaks to something
long ago lost
or forgotten
how to reap
when reaping comes hard
or not at all
how to content oneself
with small plots
and severl small blossoms
how to live on foiliage
the summer squash
around the well house
thick stalked leafy and proud
of the fruit it now bears
as beautiful in its array
as any exotic placed
to satisfy some cursory want
a vegetable
as
coveted
as
a rose
spreading a little cow shit
lining the bed with peat
and watering severl evenings
a week
was just enough
just enough
in this dry season

mh

That is a wonderful poem. It wonderfully conveys to me how a garden can be not just a literal but a spiritual oasis (and an oasis might be a tiny spring, rather than a lake surrounded by Hollywood palm trees) and how the garden returns the love and care that is given to it.