Best Tolstoy Poems
(In 1807, Beethoven wrote a piano/violin
piece with this title. Count Leo Tolstoy
followed in 1890, with a short novel of the
same name, in which he argued that
matrimony can never work.)
What is a marriage? A fusion, or a tether?
Two very different creatures, yoked together?
I was a piano, you a violin:
I, solid, calming, you, discordant, thin,
and laced with bitterness. I was your base,
and you provided brio, flourish, grace.
A lacewing trapped inside a window frame,
yet driven by one blind, unchanging aim,
you struggled up until, played out, defeated,
you fluttered down again, debased, depleted.
A war's a love affair, and love's a war.
We're so inept - or what's a heaven for?
A nest of wasps, my grievances boiled over -
but could there ever be a vita nuova?
We never learned. I hammered pointlessly,
while you abraded. Why could we not see?
And so I played it stately, sad, no frills,
while you kept up your repetitions, trills
and variations. Hovering and wary,
you shunned my structures. Ever more contrary,
you coiled and squirmed in spasms both continuous,
spontaneous, free-wheeling, lithe and sinuous.
It seemed to me the harmony had gone:
we sang on, yes, but each a separate song.
Two butterflies together, intertwined,
we tangled on the same, but different, line.
Categories:
tolstoy, marriage, relationship,
Form:
Couplet
Homer, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Goethe, and Crane;
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, Whitman, and Twain;
Whose imagination and toil helped to unfold
Stories, philosophies, and lessons to be told.
The inquisitive student absorbed in his books,
Contemplating and learning while everyone looks
At him with judgmental glances, as if to say,
“Strange seeing him indoors even on this fine day.”
But to him, the weather is of little concern
While he is satisfying his deep thirst to learn.
Taken in by tales of peasants, lovers, and knights,
And those waxing on people’s and government’s rights.
Just then, he feels a chilly draft, but no matter,
As he tugs at his worn jacket collar’s tatter.
Off in the distance, he hears children playing games,
But no match for his fables with fanciful names.
Lost in some fiction, he really can’t help himself,
He thirstily reads his way across his bookshelf.
Hungry – but his knowledge appetite can outlast,
He ignores stomach growls as the lunch hour has passed.
The reader pores on in utter fascination,
As if in a trance, but not caused by libation.
Searching, grasping, he is mentally enraptured,
With meanings bold to subtle all being captured.
In deep translation of the scenes, plots, and faces
Scribed in earlier times and in other places.
He can wait for frolic, frills and things of that kind.
For now, the scholar will sit and enrich his mind.
2/26/17
Categories:
tolstoy, books, deep, happiness, inspiration,
Form:
Rhyme
I'm Just Getting Started
I'm just getting started, though I'm not in control,
But I am all dressed and indubitably, very well-composed,
virtuously loved by many, with honored adulation exposed,
so I lie and wait, but ready to go, anew, in my dapper clothes.
A broken watch on a floor, as time ticks onwards as before,
A kiss that's giving--believing, a kiss that's receiving--deceiving,
The moon coasts to attuned hearts that are squabbling on a lane,
Stars twinkle to sparkled wishes pouring from tear ducts of the hopeless,
Night waves surge, tickling the traipsing shoeless of the fully-clothed.
Baby falls to ahhs!--cries--carried, cuddled to coos,
Then wide-eyed to wonders of weird faces of two adult fools,
A writer's measure can be the length of a Tolstoy novel or the brevity of a Haiku,
Mata Hari can read her victims like a book, while Cassanova can undress pages with his looks,
The blessed and the bliss read scriptures from this,
While Cain to the cursed cast spells and do their worst,
From the sublime to the lowly, to the noteworthy and the ordinary,
From Titanic's affluent first-class to her destitute in steerage,
One day we will stand equals, titless bearing none other,
The Book Of Life is read, there stands, once a king next to a pauper.
2019 September 13
*5th Place*
I'm just getting started
~~John Hamilton
Categories:
tolstoy, conflict, dream, judgement, perspective,
Form:
Free verse
Open eyes to bright sunshine
This feels like the first day
Can't imagine what went before
Like a scene from an Ibsen play
The thought of you a lightning bolt
The kind that hits you twice
You are the catalyst demure
Sin pays a heavy price
I'm singing a new song
Euphoric and free
I can see the changes in you
Come see the changes in me
I sniped at the words you used
I was jealous of your look
A vision from a catwalk
A princess from a Tolstoy book
I've put these days behind me
The truth has been my guide
Your heart lighting up the way
Elegance personified
I need you more than you can see
So never forget
It's the changes in you
That caused the changes in me
Behold my new tune
Call it destiny
I bless the changes in you
Come bless the changes in me
Categories:
tolstoy, beautiful, change, destiny, happiness,
Form:
Rhyme
This farmer’s porch wraps up the house,
pitching shade along all four sides,
with simple posts and long, flat spans,
and pressure-treated floor-boards, wide.
My wife may have gotten closets,
decorated the inside space,
but this long porch is my retreat,
I’m better in an outdoor place.
The north-face has a clear-cut slope,
an open spot amongst the trees,
the west-side features my kid’s yard,
and often catches zephyr’s breeze.
The south faces road and river,
a rock-chocked stream with flowing sound,
the east-side is close to tall trees,
an ideal place for cooling down.
On rainy days I sit out here,
enjoy the mists but don’t get wet,
on sunny days I sit out here,
avoid the sunburns some folks get.
With hammock and chair here and there,
I can relax as things pass by,
have read Tolstoy out on this porch,
and westerns where the bullets fly.
It may seem quite bizarre to some,
to write of pleasures a porch brings,
but the more I sit out I see
that life is made by little things…
Categories:
tolstoy, appreciation, beauty, home, imagery,
Form:
Rhyme
The world looks to us such a mess
so we think we’re able to do a fix
but how we expect to change the world
it’s too big a prob for our few tricks
Take a deep long think inside
ponder a lot on what to do
take a real look inside your heart
maybe need to change you
You see before you change the world
there’s a little change you do need
and that’s within your own heart
now there’s a thought to ponder indeed
So go and change yourself within
only then this world will transform
now if everywhere were to do that
that would really cause a storm
(‘Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself’. - Leo Tolstoy)
Categories:
tolstoy, change, introspection, life,
Form:
Rhyme
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy,
approximately 800 redundant pages
of Kafkaesque scoffing
at relentless banalities of economic and political elitists.
Rather like transcribing often inebriated conversations
within all-night insider celebrations
of a ProPlutocracy Party Convention
Or, sadly, a depressed weed-rant
at the end of a long defensive policy debate
among inter-religiously woke Democrats
longing for a win/win DanceParty Convention,
like in the good-old liberally bipartisan ballroom days
Only maybe about 400 condensed
impacted pages shorter
with the remainder quite unliterally
and anti-climatically inscrutable
as planned anti-ecological obsolescence
through mutually partisan assured destruction
Drinking and smoking
through organic Earth's rabidly dark night
denying and/or distracted
from synergetically addressing
our unwell-disorganizing Anthropocene
of epically AnthroNarcissistic
autocratic-monopolistic chaos
Adding nothing more useful
or healthy
or sacred
to Kafkaesque scoffing
at relentlessly drunk banalities
of economic and political elitists.
Categories:
tolstoy, books, humor, political,
Form:
Political Verse
And the revelers move in a parade
Belly dancers, clowns and people with masks
Ending with music, food and dance
This a preparation for the arrival of LENT
What kind of repentance is this ??
Parading your sins before the world ??
We have it in Goa and little clubs in Mumbai
I retreat into my silent zone.
Leo Tolstoy your words to me are like gold.
Categories:
tolstoy, spiritual,
Form:
Free verse
Part 2 - Fully Booked
War and Peace
Praise the rights that all mankind
live together in sweet peace.
Damn the wrongs of bitter war...
choices...live or die.
Sandra M. Haight
~4th Place~
Contest: Part 2 - Fully Booked
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Judged: 06/25/2016
War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
Categories:
tolstoy, peace, war,
Form:
Dodoitsu
My Christmas Box by Rob Barratt
We’ll have an X-Men, X-files, X-Box, no socks, X-Factor, Max Factor, Max Bygraves, no war
graves of a Christmas
I want empathy, an MP3, a hemp-free, hump-free, grump-free, Humperdink, have-a drink
of a Christmas
An Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Oh strictly come dancing, come-on come-on, curmudgeonly
comfy chair of a Christmas
A Doctor Do-Little, Doctor Who, PS2, Snoop Dog, poop scoop, Scooby Doo, *doo-bi-doo-bi-
doo, bi-doo-bi-doo-bi, …doo-bi-doo-bi-doo, bi-doo-bi-doo-bi …. of a Christmas
*(sing this bit to “Strangers in the Night” by Frank Sinatra)
A God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, eat, drink and be very, very, very merry, Neneh Cherry,
cherubim, seraphim, Cherry B, Babycham, Babyshambles, Baby Jesus of a Christmas
An Electric Ladyland, electronic toy, Toy Story, Tolstoy, toyboy, ladyboy, ladyshave,
Ladybird, Ladysmith Black Mambazo of a Christmas
We’ll have a Kung Fu Panda pandemic, planned pandemonium, potted plants, Pirates of
Penzance, pants of a Christmas
A no God, I-pod, I want, I got, what a lot, why not, chestnut-hot, gut rot of a Christmas
We’ll have a Band Aid, slow fade, old Slade, teasmaid, Lucozade, “Look at my presents!” of a
Christmas
I want a no-Mugabe, Punjabi, kohlrabi, Westminster Abbey, get flabby, kimosabe, Abu
Dhabi, yabba-dabba-doo, fandabidozi, Beaky, Mick and Tich ……of a Christmas
I don’t believe angels exist
‘Cos I’m a bit of an atheist
But I hope you all have………….
An archangel Gabriel, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, wing-ding, wild thing, Angel Delight, no
fights, fairy lights, angel cake, William Blake, Angel Clare, love everywhere, angels above,
peace and love, peace and love, peace and love….. of a Christmas
Merry Christmas!
Categories:
tolstoy, funnypeace, angel, angel, drink,
Form:
Light Verse
Destruction, devastation,
murders, mayhem, anarchy,
ravages and the ruins of wars...
Lost therein is peace.
~Part 2, Fully Booked contest by nette onclaud
~Title: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy / 06/23/16
Categories:
tolstoy, peace, war,
Form:
Dodoitsu
That's it
I'm moving to Russia
to write with the kings
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy
to sit in the cafes
and watch the pretty blond
Russik girls
Cook hot in winter
and get kicked out for talking too much
and knowing too much
and loving too much
and believing in God too much
and I'll have to leave my little Russik girls
with blond hair
sent to the army at 18
and Send my ass to the Gulags
to kick ass and break rocks,
lay down the railway tracks
that spans into winter snowy deserts
and dance with Cossack
and write with Solzhenitsyn.
Then those girls they'll miss me
and sing songs about me
dancing in circles
and those men shall honor me
paint my face in Red Square.
Partisans will fire rifles off in cold mornings
and afternoons and evenings,
Go down to Serbia and Macedonia
get myself a pretty girl,
a good one
who smiles all the time and tears up only on happy occassions,
those Russian girls
they're nice, but too wild.
Send off my words
and those hearts will sigh
with hands on cheek
leaning and listening
to scum filled poetry about this and that
we will dance,
oh we will dance
Till we die, we will dance
and remember our fallen brothers in all the wars
our innocent blood was shed for.
For the smiles and frowns
I go to Russia to meet those girls
and give them poetry to sleep with
and warm welcoming kisses on their red rose cheeks
and I wish you a goodnight Dostoevsky
and to you too Tolstoy,
Turgenev, and Solzhenitsyn
All of you, Rest in peace
I'll soon join you,
but let me finish my black coffee and talking
with those 18 year old Russian soldier girls
singing folklore songs from ancestors
and Kings.
They shall soon sing about me
in the square on May 8th.
Categories:
tolstoy, emotions, romantic,
Form:
Prose
Hafez and I grew up together
in Shiraz, centuries apart with
similar poetic ether.
Wandering the world together
as if from the same mother.
We were never actually together
the word reincarnated is better.
He lives in me and we suffer together
humanity's woes and ethnic the other.
We're global intellectuals chanting together
not the salute of flags and land of the mother
we preach the ethos of unity and together
in trenches of peace and harmony with the other.
We renounce war as our destiny together
and throw nationalism to dustbin as we gather,
tall we stand, and humble, together
on shoulders of giants like Tolstoy, Schweitzer, Camus and reverent other
But, wait, Hafez has asked to write a new stanza together
song of world peace and none other.
In you, full of yourself, we enter together
Go fill your heart with love of the other.
Dedication: To Noam Chomsky
Categories:
tolstoy, appreciation,
Form:
Rhyme
I am waiting in line at a coffee shop when I feel a vibration in my pocket. It captures me, and my hand shoots down, like a slug out of a twelve gauge, instinctively. When the curse has passed, I look around. Everyone is staring at their hands with their necks bent down, like a flock of flamingos. I can see their pink leaving them, being sucked out of their feathers, leaving them black.
Once we didn't need this things, and we wanted more then this meaningless robotic life. We used to connect with each other, and not the wifi. we would talk and really LOL and JK. We would read Tolstoy, not tweets, we watched plays, not six second vines. But cleverness and the need for simplicity changed that. We burry our heads in the dirt like a scared ostrich and refuse to see that our world has become violent, greedy, and sick. The small, delicate things that make up life go unnoticed, and we pretend we are happy.
once again i feel the vibration in my pocket, but I manage to fight the urge. i’m overtaken by my senses, I can hear the quiet brew, and the subtle smell of the dark coffee. I look around and notice another who has fought against temptation. Our eyes meet. we smile softly.
Categories:
tolstoy, corruption, emotions, freedom, happy,
Form:
Prose
The Library (Words to the Wise)
Shhhhh! No talking strictly enforced!
Most folks abide, except children, of course
And those who can’t read, don’t care, or don’t want
Goof off in the corners, or sneeze
As sharp, darting eyes of librarians haunt
Do you think you can do as you please?
The wisdom of giants exudes from the walls
Words that amaze, mesmerize, and enthrall
Lie untouched, undusted, forgot, and unseen
For racks of harlequin romance
Replaced in small minds by pulp magazines,
The classics have lost their last chance
Mindless amusement is what the world craves
Poe and Lord Byron must cringe in their graves
Dickens and Tolstoy and Steinbeck don’t matter
Now Paris and Brittany rule
All lost in celebrity gossip and chatter
The true kings and queens look the fool
But one in a thousand sees past all the fluff
They pass by the newspaper comics and stuff
To linger and learn from some eloquent master
Igniting a dazzling epiphany
A small step for culture to detour disaster
And rise above kitsch and banality.
Categories:
tolstoy, education, on writing and
Form: