Poetry
jlynch | December 22, 2006
I'm not going to be around today. As a present to my wife, I'm taking her sky-diving for the first time - a harness jump from 13,000 feet with approximately one minute of free-fall. It's a surprise, so shhhhhhhh! Actually, by the time you read this, we will be beginning our short orientation before hitting the skies.
Perhaps the real surprise is that I'm going to be jumping as well - I'm not a huge fan of heights (though I like flying), so this may be interesting.
Pictured above, via Google Earth is Eloy (AZ) at 13,000 feet, looking SE towards Tucson. The airport (and thus the starting…
jlynch | December 15, 2006When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft lookYour eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,And loved your beauty with love false or true,But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fledAnd paced upon the mountains overheadAnd hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
W.B. Yeats, from The Rose (1893)
jlynch | December 7, 2006
Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day
Calmly we walk through this April's day,Metropolitan poetry here and there,In the park sit pauper and rentier,The screaming children, the motor-carFugitive about us, running away,Between the worker and the millionaireNumber provides all distances,It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,Many great dears are taken away,What will become of you and me(This is the school in which we learn...)Besides the photo and the memory?(...that time is the fire in which we burn.)
(This is the school in which we learn...)What is the self amid this blaze?What am I now that I…
jlynch | December 1, 2006
Docker
There, in the corner, staring at his drink.The cap juts like a gantry's crossbeam,Cowling plated forehead and sledgehead jaw.Speech is clamped in the lips' vice.
That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic-Oh yes, that kind of thing could start again;The only Roman collar he toleratesSmiles all round his sleek pint of porter.
Mosaic imperatives bang home like rivets;God is a foreman with certain definite viewsWho orders life in shifts of work and leisure.A factory horn will blare the Resurrection.
He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross,Clearly used to silence and an armchair…
jlynch | November 17, 2006
Fog
The fog comeson little cat feet.
It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.
Carl Sandburg
chaoticutopia | November 13, 2006Here's a very short poem about battle or riding the waves... that doesn't actually mention waves or chaos for once:
Casting Pebbles
Each pebble,
Under your foot,
Is meant to be there,
Holding together
The path of your life.
Kick a single pebble,
And find the path
Has changed its course.
(such inevitable change)
Yet with a careful eye,
You may spot jewels,
Along the path of life.
Find rubies and emeralds,
Unique, enduring gems,
Tossed and captured
In your invariable wake.
KLF (11/13/2006)
jlynch | November 10, 2006
On this Veterans Day, it is worth remembering that it started as the American version of Armistice Day, the day that marks the end of World War I (the "War to End All Wars"). It has subsequently become a memorial for living rather than dead veterans.
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to…
chaoticutopia | November 2, 2006While rediscovering an old coffee haunt the other night, I scratched the following words onto a few pages in my notebook. It is probably more of a rather lengthy run-on sentence than a poem, but I'm filing it under "poetry" nonetheless.
Metropolitan Metamorphosis
What it was
(disease ridden corporate corruption
battles over money, money over life,
life passed by living used up under a
bridge forgotten... hazily forgotten)
has everything to do with
what it is
(urban renewal stainless steel titanium
reinforced panels panes of…
jlynch | October 27, 2006On a Wedding AnniversaryDylan Thomas
The sky is torn acrossThis ragged anniversary of twoWho moved for three years in tuneDown the long walks of their vows.
Now their love lies a lossAnd Love and his patients roar on a chain;From every tune or craterCarrying cloud, Death strikes their house.
Too late in the wrong rainThey come together whom their love parted:The windows pour into their heartAnd the doors burn in their brain.
---
Thomas was born today in 1914.
jlynch | October 23, 2006Wilkins has posted a poem about churches and mentioned that he goes into churches when he travels ... as do I. My favorite poem about such - if you can count a Nick Cave lyric - is "Brompton Oratory":
Up those stone steps I climbHail this joyful day's returnInto its great shadowed vault I goHail the Pentecostal mornThe reading is from Luke 24Where Christ returns to his loved onesI look at the stone apostlesThink that it's alright for someAnd I wish that I was made of stoneSo that I would not have to seeA beauty impossible to defineA beauty impossible to believeA beauty impossible to endureThe…
jlynch | October 19, 2006
Lizards And Snakes
On the summer road that ran by our front porchLizards and snakes came out to sun.It was hot as a stove out there, enough to scorchA buzzard's foot. Still, it was funTo lie in the dust and spy on them. Near but remote,They snoozed in the carriage ruts, a smileIn the set of the jaw, a fierce pulse in the throatWorking away like Jack Doyle's after he'd run the mile.
Aunt Martha had an unfair prejudiceAgainst them (as well as being coldToward bats.) She was pretty inflexible in this,Being a spinster and all, and old.So we used to slip them into her knitting box.In the evening…
jlynch | October 13, 2006
Our Lady PeaceMark Van Doren, 1943
How far is it to peace, the piper sighed,The solitary, sweating as he paused.Asphalt the noon; the ravens, terrified,Fled carrion thunder that percussion caused.
The envelope of earth was powder loud;The taut wings shivered, driven at the sun.The piper put his pipe away and bowed.Not here, he said. I hunt the love-cool one,
The dancer with the clipped hair. Where is she?We shook our heads, parting for him to pass.Our lady was of no such trim degree,And none of us had seen her face, alas.
She was the very ridges that we must scale,Securing the rough top…
jlynch | October 6, 2006A Prayer for My DaughterWilliam Butler Yeats, 1919
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie…
jlynch | September 21, 2006
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in lonely lands,Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Alfred, Lord TennysonPicture is of a Pallas' Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus leucoryphus Pallas, 1771), a declining species native to Asia. Today marks the birthday in 1741 of Peter Simon Pallas, the German zoologist after whom the species is named.For Grrlscientist
jlynch | September 15, 2006
An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
William…
chaoticutopia | September 14, 2006I picked up my pen a few evenings ago, planning to take a few notes for upcoming posts. The following poem spilled onto the page, instead:
Embryonic Cognition
And so the twists tighten
Embracing us in the grip
Of convergence
Spinning helplessly
Towards emergence
A burgeoning mind
Of the societal body
Do we think?
Do we know?
Or do we cry out
Like helpless children
Echoing a lonely fear
A collective infant voice
Rising from the clamor
"Am I the only one?"
But does the mother listen?
KLF (9/11/2006)
jlynch | September 8, 2006
See the moon is once more risingAbove our our land of black and greenHear the rebels voice is calling"I shall not die, though you bury me!"Hear the Aunt in bed a-dying"Where is my Johnny?"Faded pictures in the hallwayWhich one of these brown ghosts is he?
Fare thee well my black haired diamondFare the well my own AislingThoughts of and dreams of you will haunt me'Till I come back home again
And the wind it blowsTo the North and SouthAnd blows to the East and WestI'll be just like that wind my loveFor I will have no rest'Til I return to thee
Bless the wind that shakes the barleyCurse the…
jlynch | September 1, 2006Talking In BedTalking in bed ought to be easiest,Lying together there goes back so far,An emblem of two people being honest.Yet more and more time passes silently.Outside, the wind's incomplete unrestBuilds and disperses clouds in the sky,And dark towns heap up on the horizon.None of this cares for us. Nothing shows whyAt this unique distance from isolationIt becomes still more difficult to findWords at once true and kind,Or not untrue and not unkind.
Philip Larkin
jlynch | August 26, 2006
To A Child Dancing In The Wind
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
William Butler Yeats, 1916.
chaoticutopia | August 22, 2006I'm not sure why I write so many poems about the waves. They must be somewhat cathartic. I've been having trouble writing what I ought to be, and this one sort of spilled out. Please, pardon if the meter is a little rough... I have yet to polish it up.
(Untitled)
Who are they to think
That you can battle a wave?
Should you plunge a sword
In translucent swirling depths?
Or construct a mighty dam
And form a defensive front?
Force an attack
Splashing back
Make another wave
Cancel that approaching swell
Or will you increase its size?
Be inclined to ride the surf
To go with the flow
Or be ripped…