the love of the nightingale
yonder goes the nightingale, rescued,
out of Tereus’ flailing demonic grasp.
unflinchingly i hold out hope and
a rose, a light, to me they lead it back.
regale everyone with your sweet sweet song,
entertain, and be entertained by, the merry women and men.
serve up a storm, paint the town red,
out where you love to be, always ahead.
but my hand which holds out the rose remains
enduring in its adulation and poise.
and back in my open arms the nightingale can
unfurl its splendour and its silentmost stance.
take my hand, curl up in my arms,
in the aftermath of its tribulations and dance.
from the endless flights of boundless fancies,
uninspiring cacophonies of bad songs and schmancies.
lying in the ancient tomes from Persia is
a tale which elucidates the nightingale’s love. in
never wanting to be out of communion, the rose
denotes the object of the blessed creature’s desire.
it is i who holds out the rose for the fledgling as it
lives its faraway fantasies and freedoms.
on its wings it has to realise that
verily, the rose is patient, the rose my love reaffirms.
ever-ready to receive you with open arms of glee,
you will be free, your cage is none, to come freely to me.
on your exalted wings you fly as i go forth with my labours,
under the bridge we’ll meet, beside the raging, peaceful waters.
some days you’ll be with me, and some days you’ll fly,
over land, air and sea my rose will lead you home and dry.
.
i promise you, metaphysically.
i’ll be around when you think you need me.
lash at me, spit in my face,
and may i still love thee.
Drummer Hodge, by Thomas Hardy
this poem took me through the first few weeks of army. :)
Drummer Hodge
They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined – just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.Young Hodge the Drummer never knew -
Fresh from his Wessex home -
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally.- Thomas Hardy
blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears
Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come,
And take my tears, which are love’s wine,
And try your mistress’ tears at home,
For all are false, that taste not just like mine.
Alas ! hearts do not in eyes shine,
Nor can you more judge women’s thoughts by tears,
Than by her shadow what she wears.
O perverse sex, where none is true but she,
Who’s therefore true, because her truth kills me.
- Twickenham Garden, John Donne
——–
the allure of the uncanny connection between heathcliff and catherine is so immensely powerful only because they can never be together.
to have is to cease to want.
il mondo, tonight
flawed diamonds litter my night sky,
wet west winds embrace me.
i give up, i’m leaving the thunder-clad skies, and
all that kills me is thee.
pride and perplexity
where there is no recrim’nation i would
like kubla khan, a pleasure-dome decree.
where my shimmering leprechauns would leap
in tandem with gold unicorns and pink sheep.
yet this is where the buck stops, for i
can’t muster one more ounce of strength.
incoherence juts out from the thick tome of time
like my thumb, hammered till bright lobster red.
while i crave mirages of magnificence and awe,
my slurred speech conveys none at all.
while i selfishly clutch cards to my chest,
my opponents storm peacefully out of the hall.
from pain from pleasure from pain
kneel! and submit myself to thy wishes,
i beat, flog and torture my remains.
with every bite into my flesh began
unto my lacerated soul in vain.
for there may never be serene journey,
across the cross road to stumble to rest.
and what joy could one unearth?
in cadaverous pain they deigned to arrest.
but alas, for i am no man of faith,
and feckless, ineffectual, is my pain.
throngs kneel for an imagined rejoinder,
when i eschew relics, pain and candles.
my torch’s flame remains unpretentious,
its riveted gaze draws no answers.
just steadfast, silent luminosity
and the firm comeliness of a dancer’s.
the dancer’s grace burns bright like my candle,
and the dancer’s grace burns me.
the flame devours consciousness and pride,
like the college priests decree.
as i vacillate between pains to aches,
this affliction is an addiction.
no benediction, no conviction.
dereliction, without salvation.
i yearn once more for my faithless heydays,
to this deranged predicament, i laugh.
pain accompanies no liberation,
still my candle’s apparition, i’d love.
cane me, and crush my amorous piety,
wake me, and let me realise my folly.
this adulation, this delirious zeal,
this unhinged idolatry burns and heals.
lil limerick
if i were a calvinist’s son
if i were to marry,
i would marry a calvinist’s daughter,
more than anybody.
cause she might burn and
i will burn and
we can burn together.
in the fiery depths of hell,
burning till forever.
we’re all in this alone
Robert Frost – Out, Out-
The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behing the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then – the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little – less – nothing! – and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
we go, as we come, alone.
W.H. Auden – Musee des Beaux Arts
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV
Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like a usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but, oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend;
But is captive and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain;
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
swiss roll
there are some moments in life, when you’ve witnessed someone in any sport, art or industry put up a performance of sheer excellence, that take your breath away. you’d know it when you see it, and you’d be thankful that you’ve seen it.
80 minutes for a 3-set tennis match was short, but it was poetry in motion and the memory will linger.
(woohoo i’m still so excited by the match haha)
for we are all Brothers
My brother kneels (so saith Kabir)
To stone and brass in heathen-wise,
But in my brother’s voice I hear
My own unanswered agonies.
His God is as his Fates assign -
His prayer is all the world’s – and mine.
- Rudyard Kipling
the same lines again…
Anomie, then, is the peculiar disease of modern industrial man, for it is accepted as ‘normal, a mark of moral distinction, it being everlastingly repeated that it is man’s nature to be eternally dissatisfied, constantly to advance, without relief or rest, towards an indefinite goal‘.
- Downes and Rock
A minute holds them, who have come to go:
The self-denied, astride the created will.
They burst away; the towns they travel through
Are home for neither birds nor holiness,
For birds and saints complete their purposes.
At worst, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still.
- Thom Gunn
):
Cath…
Cath, she stands, with a well-intentioned man.
But she can’t relax, with his hand on the small of her back.
And as the flash bulbs burst,
She holds a smile, like someone would hold a crying child.
And soon everybody will ask, what became of you?
‘Cause your heart was dying fast, and you didn’t know what to do.
Cath, it seems that you’re living someone else’s dream.
In a hand-me-down wedding dress,
and the things that could have been, all repressed.
But you said your vows, and you closed the door
on so many men who would have loved you more.
And soon everybody will ask what became of you
‘Cause your heart was dying fast, and you didn’t know what to do
The whispers that it won’t last roll up and down the pews.
But if their hearts were dying that fast,
They’d have done the same as you.
And I’d have done the same as you.
note to dearest secret people:
“At worse, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still.”
- Thom Gunn
an old briefcase
the old dusted luggage sits alone in the hallway,
its contents by and large not unpacked.
the trip had already ended five months since,
with the ink on the visa mark still smudging and wet.
the time came when a force so strong
had made me open the sturdy, sad briefcase.
and all i found were incongruent beats of laughter and
some reels from a better place.
i then chanced upon my passport photograph,
a face so sad but unwise.
and different names attached to this person
i no longer recognize.
drowning down some aspirin in some juice and vodka,
as i kicked back in my bright, heartbreaking room.
i drew the curtains as the sun came up,
as the persons in my head parade in masquerade costumes.
i tell myself that tomorrow,
maybe it will be all good.
for if i resolve to not see red any more,
one morning all that will remain is blue.
and i will wrestle with my demons,
and by my side might or might not be you.
or i would leave the briefcase closed,
and its contents by and large not unpacked.
here i dreamt i was a soldier
tree upon tree lay stoutly
here in the neat rows that i had marked;
and this was where i dreamt i marched,
and though i didn’t finish the journey
i made it somewhat close.
man upon man stood solemnly
here in rank, in file, in their sunday best.
and every pair of eyes
were fixed on me and i was not sure
i was just part of the marching band.
so here i stand in my lonesome mess
i packed my duffel bag and set foot.
i packed my rifle in
with filtered water and cans of food
and a photo of the outside world.
i was nothing of a soldier,
but i will fight until my bitter end.
and i’ll stay in this tent
where i am home and i am safe
till somebody brings me home.
so here i watched as the summer fades,
i felt myself slip into the shade.
far from sight and further from mind
i whispered my lungs out in vain
i thought myself dead and gone.
i am close to the inevitable,
i will be buried with my regalia.
in this brilliant castle
that underscored my might and fame
and was built on sand and air.
and here i watch my empire crumble,
still i loved ordering my drawbridge down.
as people come and go,
i ease them past the imposing moat
that separated me from the outside world.
so my bandmates played their french horns,
but their music was a pitch too high.
i was told love was not a competition,
but i was dead and out by spring,
in this season-long struggle.
take one, take two,
it was perfect bar the end.
it’s alright, though it lacked
a dramatic bit of tears and rain.
we part, we made love,
somewhere hazy and far away.
i died, and i woke,
missed the highs and got spared the lows.
here i dreamt i was an architect
by the decemberists
And here I dreamt I was a soldier
And I marched the streets of Birkenau
And I recall in spring
The perfume that the air would bring
To the indolent town
Where the barkers call the moon down
The carnival was ringing loudly now
And just to lay with you
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
Save lay my rifle down
And try one, and try two
Guess it always comes down to
Alright, it’s ok, guess it’s better to turn this way
And I am nothing of a builder
But here I dreamt I was an architect
And I built this balustrade
To keep you home, to keep you safe
From the outside world
But the angles and the corners,
Even though my work is unparalleled,
They never seemed to meet
This structure fell about our feet
And we were free to go
And try one, and try two
Guess it always comes down to
Alright, ok, guess it’s better to turn this way
And here in Spain I am a Spaniard
I will be buried with my marionettes
Countess and courtesan
Will fall beneath my tender hand
When their husbands were not around
But you, my soiled teenage girlfriend
Or are you furrowed like a lioness
And we are vagabonds
We travel without seatbelts on
We live this close to death
And try one, and try two
I guess it always comes down to
Alright, it’s ok, guess it’s better to turn this
But I won, so you lose
Guess it always comes down to
Alright, it’s ok, guess it’s better to turn this way
the new year
so everybody put your best suit or dress on,
let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn,
as thirty dialogues bleed into one.
i wish the world was flat like the old days,
so I could travel just by folding a map.
no more airplanes or speed-trains or freeways,
there’d be no distance that could hold us back.
