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Best Famous Conception Poems

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Written by Tupac Shakur | Create an image from this poem

Jada

u r the omega of my heart
the foundation of my conception of love
when i think of what a black woman should be
its u that i first think of

u will never fully understand
how deeply my heart feels 4 u
i worry that we'll grow apart
and i'll end up losing u


u bring me 2 climax without sex
and u do it all with regal grace
u r my heart in human form
a friend i could never replace


Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

 1
AS a strong bird on pinions free, 
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, 
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee.
The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not, Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library; But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illinois prairie, With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or Florida’s glades, With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite; And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound, That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.
And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union! Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for thee—real, and sane, and large as these and thee; Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew—thou transcendental Union! By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought; Thought of Man justified—blended with God: Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality! Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea! 2 Brain of the New World! what a task is thine! To formulate the Modern.
.
.
.
.
Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art, (Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?) By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.
(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain! Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! Thou carefully prepared by it so long!—haply thou but unfoldest it—only maturest it; It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee; Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee, The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.
) 3 Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy! Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only, The Past is also stored in thee! Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone; Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is steadied by thy spars; With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee; With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear’st the other continents; Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant: —Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman—thou carryest great companions, Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee, And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.
4 Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky; Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all; Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons; Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life; World of the Real! world of the twain in one! World of the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by it alone; Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials, By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent, Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here, (The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,) Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee; How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee; I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now! I merely thee ejaculate! Thee in thy future; Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring spirit; Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all; Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity! (Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;) Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male—thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East, (To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear’d alike, forever equal;) Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain; Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and civilization must remain in vain;) Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely, Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself, equal to any, divine as any; Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee; Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers; Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure foundations tied,) Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love, and godlike aspiration, In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal bards—kosmic savans, These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy.
5 Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—all good for thee; Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself; Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
(Lo! where arise three peerless stars, To be thy natal stars, my country—Ensemble—Evolution—Freedom, Set in the sky of Law.
) Land of unprecedented faith—God’s faith! Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d; The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and hence for what it is, boldly laid bare, Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale.
Not for success alone; Not to fair-sail unintermitted always; The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee all over; (Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials; For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;) In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee—thou in disease shalt swelter; The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within; Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic: But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all, Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be, They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee; While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing, Equable, natural, mystical Union thou—(the mortal with immortal blent,) Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future—the spirit of the body and the mind, The Soul—its destinies.
The Soul, its destinies—the real real, (Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies; Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d—(by these thyself solidifying;) Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine—for such unparallel’d flight as thine, The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee.
Written by David Lehman | Create an image from this poem

Wittgensteins Ladder

 "My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: 
 anyone who understands them eventually recognizes them as 
 nonsensical, when he has used them -- as steps -- to climb 
 up beyond them.
(He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.
)" -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus 1.
The first time I met Wittgenstein, I was late.
"The traffic was murder," I explained.
He spent the next forty-five minutes analyzing this sentence.
Then he was silent.
I wondered why he had chosen a water tower for our meeting.
I also wondered how I would leave, since the ladder I had used to climb up here had fallen to the ground.
2.
Wittgenstein served as a machine-gunner in the Austrian Army in World War I.
Before the war he studied logic in Cambridge with Bertrand Russell.
Having inherited his father's fortune (iron and steel), he gave away his money, not to the poor, whom it would corrupt, but to relations so rich it would not thus affect them.
3.
On leave in Vienna in August 1918 he assembled his notebook entries into the Tractatus, Since it provided the definitive solution to all the problems of philosophy, he decided to broaden his interests.
He became a schoolteacher, then a gardener's assistant at a monastery near Vienna.
He dabbled in architecture.
4.
He returned to Cambridge in 1929, receiving his doctorate for the Tractatus, "a work of genius," in G.
E.
Moore's opinion.
Starting in 1930 he gave a weekly lecture and led a weekly discussion group.
He spoke without notes amid long periods of silence.
Afterwards, exhausted, he went to the movies and sat in the front row.
He liked Carmen Miranda.
5.
He would visit Russell's rooms at midnight and pace back and forth "like a caged tiger.
On arrival, he would announce that when he left he would commit suicide.
So, in spite of getting sleepy, I did not like to turn him out.
" On such a night, after hours of dead silence, Russell said, "Wittgenstein, are you thinking about logic or about yours sins?" "Both," he said, and resumed his silence.
6.
Philosophy was an activity, not a doctrine.
"Solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism," he wrote.
Dozens of dons wondered what he meant.
Asked how he knew that "this color is red," he smiled and said, "because I have learnt English.
" There were no other questions.
Wittgenstein let the silence gather.
Then he said, "this itself is the answer.
" 7.
Religion went beyond the boundaries of language, yet the impulse to run against "the walls of our cage," though "perfectly, absolutely useless," was not to be dismissed.
A.
J.
Ayer, one of Oxford's ablest minds, was puzzled.
If logic cannot prove a nonsensical conclusion, why didn't Wittgenstein abandon it, "along with the rest of metaphysics, as not worth serious attention, except perhaps for sociologists"? 8.
Because God does not reveal himself in this world, and "the value of this work," Wittgenstein wrote, "is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.
" When I quoted Gertrude Stein's line about Oakland, "there's no there there," he nodded.
Was there a there, I persisted.
His answer: Yes and No.
It was as impossible to feel another's person's pain as to suffer another person's toothache.
9.
At Cambridge the dons quoted him reverently.
I asked them what they thought was his biggest contribution to philosophy.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," one said.
Others spoke of his conception of important nonsense.
But I liked best the answer John Wisdom gave: "His asking of the question `Can one play chess without the queen?'" 10.
Wittgenstein preferred American detective stories to British philosophy.
He liked lunch and didn't care what it was, "so long as it was always the same," noted Professor Malcolm of Cornell, a former student, in whose house in Ithaca Wittgenstein spent hours doing handyman chores.
He was happy then.
There was no need to say a word.
Written by Rg Gregory | Create an image from this poem

from the Ansty Experience

 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving the poet's self
estranged from the once-intending man)
and six ears in the room have tuned
objectives sifting the coloured strands
the words have hidden from the poet
asking what world has come to light

people measured by their heartbeats
language can't flout that come-and-go
to touch the heartbeat in a poem
calls for the brain's surrender
a warm diffusion of the mind
a listening to an eery silence
the words both mimic and destroy
(no excuses slipping off the tongue)

and when a poem works the unknown
opens a timid shutter on a world
so familiar it's not been seen
before - and then it's gone bringing
a frisson to an altered room
and in a stuttering frenzy dusty
attributes are tried to resurrect
a glimpse of what it's like inside

a truth (the glow a glow-worm makes)
this is not (not much) what happens
there's serious concern and banter
there's opacity there's chit-chat
diversions and derailings from
a line some avalanche has blocked
(what a fine pass through the mountains)
poetry and fidgets are blood-brothers

it's within all these the cosmos calls
that makes these afternoons a rich
adventure through a common field
when three men moving towards death
(without alacrity but conscious of it)
find youth again and bubble with
its springs - opening worn valves
to give such flow their own direction

there's no need of competition
no wish to prove that one of us
holds keys the others don't to the
sacral chambers - no want to find
consensus in technique or drench 
the rites of words in orthodox 
belief - difference is essential
and delightful (integrity's all)

quality's a private quarrel
between the poem and the poet - taste
the private hang-up of receivers
mostly migrained by exposure
to opinions not their own - fed
from a culture no one bleeds in
sustained by reputations manured
by a few and spread by hearsay

(b)
these meetings are a modest vow
to let each poet speak uncluttered
from establishment's traditions
and conditions where passions rippling
from the marrow can choose a space
to innocent themselves and long-held
tastes for carlos williams gurney
poems to siva (to name a few)

can surface in a side-attempt 
to show unexpected lineage from
the source to present patterns
of the poet - but at the core
of every poem read and comment made
it's not the poem or the poet
being sifted to the seed but
poetry itself given the works

the most despised belittled
enervated creative cowcake
of them all in the public eye
prestigious when it doesn't matter
to the clapped-out powers and turned
away from when too awkward and 
impolitic to confront - ball
to be bounced from high art to low

when fights break out amongst the teachers
and shakespeare's wielded as a cane
as the rich old crusty clan reverts
to the days it hated him at school
but loved the beatings - loudhailer
broken-down old-banger any ram-it-
up-your-**** and suck-my-prick to those
who want to tear chintz curtains down

and shock the cosy populace to taste
life at its rawest (most obscene)
courtesan to fashion and today's 
ploy - advertisement's gold gimmick
slave of beat and rhythm - dead but
much loved donkey in the hearts of all
who learned di-dah di-dah at school
and have been stuck in the custard since

plaything political-tool pop-
star's goo - poetry's been made to garb
itself in all these rags and riches
this age applauds the eye - is one 
of outward exploration - the earth
(in life) and universe (in fiction)
are there for scurrying over - haste
is everything and the beat is all

fireworks feed the fancy - a great ah
rewards the enterprise that fills
night skies with flashing bountifuls
of way-out stars - poetry has to be
in service to this want (is fed
into the system gracelessly)
there can be no standing-still or
stopping-by no take a little time

and see what blossoms here - we're into
poetry in motion and all that ****
and i can accept it all - what stirs
the surface of the ocean ignores
the depths - what talks the hindlegs off
the day can't murder dreams - that's not
to say the depths and dreams aren't there
for those who need them - it's commonplace

they hold the keystones of our lives
i fear something else much deeper
the diabolical self-deceiving
(wilful destruction of the spirit)
by those loudspeaking themselves
as poetry's protectors - publishers
editors literature officers
poetry societies and centres

all all jumping on the flagship
competition's crock of gold
find the winners pick the famous
all the hopefuls cry please name us
aspiring poets search their wardrobes
for the wordy swimsuit likely
to catch the eyeful of the judges
(winners too in previous contests

inured to the needle of success
but this time though now they are tops
totally pissed-off with the process
only here because the money's good)
winners' middle name is wordsworth
losers swallow a dose of shame
organisers rub their golden hands
pride themselves on their discernment

these jacks have found the beanstalk
castle harp and the golden egg
the stupid giant and his frightened wife
who let them steal their best possessions
whose ear for poetry's so poor
they think fum rhymes with englishman
and so of course they get no prizes
thief and trickster now come rich

poetry's purpose is to hit the jackpot
so great the lust for poetic fame
thousands without a ghost of winning
find poems like mothballs in their drawers
sprinkle them with twinkling stardust
post them off with copperplate cheques
the judges wipe their arses on them
the money's gone to a super cause

everyone knows it's just a joke
who gets taken - the foolish and vain
if they're daft enough and such bad poets
more money than sense the best advice 
is - keep it up grannies the cause
is noble and we'll take your cheque
again and again and again
it's the winners who fall in the bog

to win is to be preened - conceit
finds a little fluffy nest dear
to the feted heart and swells there
fed (for a foetal space) on all 
the praisiest worms but in the nest 
is a bloated thing that sucks (and chokes)
on hurt that has the knack of pecking
where there's malice - it grows two heads

winners by their nature soon become
winged and weighted - icarus begins
to prey upon their waking dreams 
prometheus gnawed by eagles 
the tight-shut box epimetheus
gave pandora about to burst
apart - yeats's centre cannot hold
being poets they know the references

and they learn the lesson quickly
climb upon others as they would
climb on you - in short be ruthless
or be dead they mostly fade away
being too intact or too weak-willed
to go the shining way with light-
ning bolts at every second bend 
agents breathing fire up their pants

those who withstand the course become
the poets of their day (and every one
naturally good as gold - exceptions
to the rule - out of the hearing
and the judgment of their rivals)
the media covet the heartache
and the bile - love the new meteor
can't wait to blast it from the heavens

universities will start the cult
with-it secondary teachers catch
the name on fast - magazines begin
to taste the honey on the plate
and soon another name is buzzing 
round the bars where literary pass-
ons meet to dole out bits of hem
i accept it all - it's not for me

above it all the literary lions
(jackals to each other) stand posed
upon their polystyrene mountains
constructed by their fans and foes
alike (they have such need of them)
disdaining what they see but terror-
stricken when newcomers climb up 
waving their thin bright books

for so long they've dubbed themselves
the intellectual cream - deigning
to hand out poems when they're asked
(for proper recompense in cash
or fawning) - but well beyond the risk
of letting others turn the bleeders
down so sure they are they're halfway
to the gods (yet still need preening)

a poem from one of them is like 
the loaves and fishes jesus touched
and rendered food for the five thousand
they too can walk on water in
their home - or so the reviewers say
poetry from their mouths is such a gift
if you don't read or understand it
you'll be damned - i accept all that

but what i can't accept is (all 
this while) the source and bed of what
is poetry to me as cracked and parched -
condemned ignored made mock of 
shoved in wilderness by those 
who've gone the gilded route (mapped out 
by ego and a driving need to claim
best prick with a capital pee)

it's being roomed with the said poem
coming back and back to the same
felt heartbeat having its way with words
absorbing the strains and promises
that make the language opt for paths
no other voice would go - shifting
a dull stone and knowing what bright
creature this instinct has bred there

it's trusting the poet with his own map
not wanting to tear it up before
the ink is dry because the symbols
he's been using don't suit your own
conception of terrain you've not
been born to - it's being pleased
to have connections made in ways
you couldn't dream of (wouldn't want to)
Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Perseus: The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering

Head alone shows you in the prodigious act
Of digesting what centuries alone digest:
The mammoth, lumbering statuary of sorrow,
Indissoluble enough to riddle the guts
Of a whale with holes and holes, and bleed him white
Into salt seas.
Hercules had a simple time, Rinsing those stables: a baby's tears would do it.
But who'd volunteer to gulp the Laocoon, The Dying Gaul and those innumerable pietas Festering on the dim walls of Europe's chapels, Museums and sepulchers? You.
You Who borrowed feathers for your feet, not lead, Not nails, and a mirror to keep the snaky head In safe perspective, could outface the gorgon-grimace Of human agony: a look to numb Limbs: not a basilisk-blink, nor a double whammy, But all the accumulated last grunts, groans, Cries and heroic couplets concluding the million Enacted tragedies on these blood-soaked boards, And every private twinge a hissing asp To petrify your eyes, and every village Catastrophe a writhing length of cobra, And the decline of empires the thick coil of a vast Anacnoda.
Imagine: the world Fisted to a foetus head, ravined, seamed With suffering from conception upwards, and there You have it in hand.
Grit in the eye or a sore Thumb can make anyone wince, but the whole globe Expressive of grief turns gods, like kings, to rocks.
Those rocks, cleft and worn, themselves then grow Ponderous and extend despair on earth's Dark face.
So might rigor mortis come to stiffen All creation, were it not for a bigger belly Still than swallows joy.
You enter now, Armed with feathers to tickle as well as fly, And a fun-house mirror that turns the tragic muse To the beheaded head of a sullen doll, one braid, A bedraggled snake, hanging limp as the absurd mouth Hangs in its lugubious pout.
Where are The classic limbs of stubborn Antigone? The red, royal robes of Phedre? The tear-dazzled Sorrows of Malfi's gentle duchess? Gone In the deep convulsion gripping your face, muscles And sinews bunched, victorious, as the cosmic Laugh does away with the unstitching, plaguey wounds Of an eternal sufferer.
To you Perseus, the palm, and may you poise And repoise until time stop, the celestial balance Which weighs our madness with our sanity.


Written by Robert Browning | Create an image from this poem

Abt Vogler

 Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,
This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!
Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,
Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.
And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night-- Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.
In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.
Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last; Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon; And what is,--shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.
All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: Had I written the same, made verse--still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:-- But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are! And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought; It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought: And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head! Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow; For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better, perchance: is this your comfort to me? To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.
Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same? Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.
And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
Give me the keys.
I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor,--yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.
Written by James Lee Jobe | Create an image from this poem

Eternity

  for C.
G.
Macdonald, 1956-2006 Charlie, sunrise is a three-legged mongrel dog, going deaf, already blind in one eye, answering to the unlikely name, 'Lucky.
' The sky, at gray-blue dawn, is a football field painted by smiling artists.
Each artist has 3 arms, 3 hands, 3 legs.
One leg drags behind, leaving a trail, leaving a mark.
The future resembles a cloudy dream where the ghosts of all your life try to tell you something, but what? Noon is a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.
Midnight is an ugly chipped plate that you only use when you are alone.
Sunset is a wise cat who ignores you even when you are offering food; her conception of what life is, or isn't, far exceeds our own.
This moment is a desert at midnight, the hunting moon is full, and owls fly through a cloudless sky.
The past is a winding, green river valley deep between pine covered ridges; what can you make of that? Night is a secret plant growing inky black against the sky.
When this plant's life is over, then day returns like a drunken husband who stayed out until breakfast.
A smile is a quick glimpse at the pretty face of hope.
Hope's face is framed by the beautiful night sky.
Hope's face is framed by the gray-blue dawn.
This is your life, these seconds and years are the music for your only dance.
Charlie, This is the eternity that you get to know.
Written by Delmore Schwartz | Create an image from this poem

Apollo Musagete Poetry And The Leader Of The Muses

 Nothing is given which is not taken.
Little or nothing is taken which is not freely desired, freely, truly and fully.
"You would not seek me if you had not found me": this is true of all that is supremely desired and admired.
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"An enigma is an animal," said the hurried, harried schoolboy: And a horse divided against itself cannot stand; And a moron is a man who believes in having too many wives: what harm is there in that? O the endless fecundity of poetry is equaled By its endless inexhaustible freshness, as in the discovery of America and of poetry.
Hence it is clear that the truth is not strait and narrow but infinite: All roads lead to Rome and to poetry and to poem, sweet poem and from, away and towards are the same typography.
Hence the poet must be, in a way, stupid and naive and a little child; Unless ye be as a little child ye cannot enter the kingdom of poetry.
Hence the poet must be able to become a tiger like Blake; a carousel like Rilke.
Hence he must be all things to be free, for all impersonations a doormat and a monument to all situations possible or actual The cuckold, the cuckoo, the conqueror, and the coxcomb.
It is to him in the zoo that the zoo cries out and the hyena: "Hello, take off your hat, king of the beasts, and be seated, Mr.
Bones.
" And hence the poet must seek to be essentially anonymous.
He must die a little death each morning.
He must swallow his toad and study his vomit as Baudelaire studied la charogne of Jeanne Duval.
The poet must be or become both Keats and Renoir and Keats as Renoir.
Mozart as Figaro and Edgar Allan Poe as Ophelia, stoned out of her mind drowning in the river called forever river and ever.
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Keats as Mimi, Camille, and an aging gourmet.
He must also refuse the favors of the unattainable lady (As Baudelaire refused Madame Sabatier when the fair blonde summoned him, For Jeanne Duval was enough and more than enough, although she cuckolded him With errand boys, servants, waiters; reality was Jeanne Duval.
Had he permitted Madame Sabatier to teach the poet a greater whiteness, His devotion and conception of the divinity of Beauty would have suffered an absolute diminution.
) The poet must be both Casanova and St.
Anthony, He must be Adonis, Nero, Hippolytus, Heathcliff, and Phaedre, Genghis Kahn, Genghis Cohen, and Gordon Martini Dandy Ghandi and St.
Francis, Professor Tenure, and Dizzy the dean and Disraeli of Death.
He would have worn the horns of existence upon his head, He would have perceived them regarding the looking-glass, He would have needed them the way a moose needs a hatrack; Above his heavy head and in his loaded eyes, black and scorched, He would have seen the meaning of the hat-rack, above the glass Looking in the dark foyer.
For the poet must become nothing but poetry, He must be nothing but a poem when he is writing Until he is absent-minded as the dead are Forgetful as the nymphs of Lethe and a lobotomy.
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("the fat weed that rots on Lethe wharf").
Written by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot | Create an image from this poem

The Hollow Men

 Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw.
Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.
II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer -- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.
IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men.
V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
Written by Kahlil Gibran | Create an image from this poem

Before the Throne of Beauty XXVI

 One heavy day I ran away from the grim face of society and the dizzying clamor of the city and directed my weary step to the spacious alley.
I pursued the beckoning course of the rivulet and the musical sounds of the birds until I reached a lonely spot where the flowing branches of the trees prevented the sun from the touching the earth.
I stood there, and it was entertaining to my soul - my thirsty soul who had seen naught but the mirage of life instead of its sweetness.
I was engrossed deeply in thought and my spirits were sailing the firmament when a hour, wearing a sprig of grapevine that covered part of her naked body, and a wreath of poppies about her golden hair, suddenly appeared to me.
As she she realized my astonishment, she greeted me saying, "Fear me not; I am the Nymph of the Jungle.
" "How can beauty like yours be committed to live in this place? Please tell me who your are, and whence you come?" I asked.
She sat gracefully on the green grass and responded, "I am the symbol of nature! I am the ever virgin your forefathers worshipped, and to my honor they erected shrines and temples at Baalbek and Jbeil.
" And I dared say, "But those temples and shrines were laid waste and the bones of my adoring ancestors became a part of the earth; nothing was left to commemorate their goddess save a pitiful few and the forgotten pages in the book of history.
" She replied, "Some goddesses live in the lives of their worshippers and die in their deaths, while some live an eternal and infinite life.
My life is sustained by the world of beauty which you will see where ever you rest your eyes, and this beauty is nature itself; it is the beginning of the shepherds joy among the hills, and a villagers happiness in the fields, and the pleasure of the awe filled tribes between the mountains and the plains.
This Beauty promotes the wise into the throne the truth.
" Then I said, "Beauty is a terrible power!" And she retorted, "Human beings fear all things, even yourselves.
You fear heaven, the source of spiritual peace; you fear nature, the haven of rest and tranquility; you fear the God of goodness and accuse him of anger, while he is full of love and mercy.
" After a deep silence, mingled with sweet dreams, I asked, "Speak to me of that beauty which the people interpret and define, each one according to his own conception; I have seen her honored and worshipped in different ways and manners.
" She answered, "Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive.
When you meet Beauty, you feel that the hands deep within your inner self are stretched forth to bring her into the domain of your heart.
It is the magnificence combined of sorrow and joy; it is the Unseen which you see, and the Vague which you understand, and the Mute which you hear - it is the Holy of Holies that begins in yourself and ends vastly beyond your earthly imagination.
" Then the Nymph of the Jungle approached me and laid her scented hands upon my eyes.
And as she withdrew, I found me alone in the valley.
When I returned to the city, whose turbulence no longer vexed me, I repeated her words: "Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive.
"

Book: Reflection on the Important Things