Platen Poems | Examples


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Premium Member WHERE'S THE BEEF?

WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Someone took the salad, from the opened kitchen
Someone placed the battle of the army, a mission;
Close in proximity, is a platen mystery;
The meat’s the beef barbeque gravity;

~Farms golden treats, where’s the beef;~

1/12/26
Written by James Edward Lee Sr. 2026©

Translation of Platen's Sonnet Number 58b

AC Benus translation of "Indeß ich hier im Grünen mich erfreue"
by August von Platen


While I delight myself here in the green wood,
I call unto the barely sentient things:
Come you birds, O come you butterflies, take wings
And fear not, but believe in my faith most good.

Think not that I lay bait for you, or ever could
Set the treacherous snares that doom alone brings,
For I spend my time far from where man's hate springs,
Dreading them even more than you where I've stood.  

O count me not with those brute hordes and their lies,
For I've never sought to harm or have one wilt
And been shunned by them for what most men despise.

So therefore, let us flee the paths they have built: 
Man seeks your ravagement and utter demise,
While on me, they've heaped their unacknowledged guilt.

Translation of Platen's Sonnet Number 57

AC Benus translation of "O süßer Tod"
by August von Platen


O mellifluous death, who stiffens most men,
You've received but artless tribute from my tongue,
For often I've yearned for you since I was young,
And for the slumbers nothing can wake again.

You sleepers you, the ground covering deep when
The eternal lullabies lured and were sung
So you gladly shunned the cup of life and swung
Its taste round me like some bitter regimen? 

You masses too I fear the world has deceived,
As your best intentions, thwarted and betrayed,
Crushed fondest hopes as no one might have believed.

In sum, blessèd are we beseeching death's blade,
Knowing how our desires are heard unreprieved,
And each heart must get cleaved 'neath an earth-turned spade.


Karen Anderson Is

(this poem was inspired by the three word title, which was stamped upon a vintage typewriter platen that I recently purchased.)

Karen Anderson is…

stamped upon my platen, forever to be seen.
I wonder what she thought, and where she's been?

Perhaps she typed her own name,
thinking only later on,
that no one might quite find her,
with no paper drawn upon.

Yet here she is, sweet Karen,
and I wonder just what she is.
Is she drawn and quartered, married?
Is she paralyzed with fear?

That some may come one day,
and recognize her fear?
Might every breath be chaos now,
with death close, ever near'r?

Yes! Karen Anderson is,
and shall be to the end.
Will you and I be here or gone
when Karen on this platen fades?

So here we contemplate sweet Karen,
sweet Karen on this roller plate.
A typed omission of her past,
a stamped reminder of her fate.

~TH~    ---   March 11, 2015
http://wrongwaywriteway.com

Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

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