poetry-that-is-not-mine

Thomas Stearns Eliot

Wed, 23 Oct 2013 00:31:47 +0100

Preludes
(ii)
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the saw-dust trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

(iii)
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting alone the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

Louis MacNeice

Wed, 23 Oct 2013 00:14:12 +0100

Circe
'. . . vitreamque Circen'

Something of glass about her, of dead water,

Chills and holds us,

Far more fatal than painted flesh or the lodestone of live hair

This despair of crystal brilliance.

Narcissus' error

Enfolds and kills us-

Dazed with gazing on that infertile beauty

Which is our own heart's thought.

Fled away to the beasts

One cannot stop thinking; Timon

Kept on finding gold.

In parrot-ridden forest or barren coast

A more importunate voice than bird or wave

Escutcheoned on the air with ice letters

Seeks and, of course, finds us

(Of course, being out echo).

Be brave, my ego, look into your glass

And realize that that never-to-be-touched

Vision in your mistress.

Amanda Katherine Ricketson

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 17:46:50 +0100

How to Tell if a Writer Loves You

and so he fell in love with a girl
who wrote about her thoughts from her
mind that never reached her lips
(the writer doesn't speak
she talks in hidden subscripts)

and he found himself reading
about himself and seeing
the feeling(s)
she summarized in a simple
"I think you're perfect"

and it was strange to see
parts of him on page twenty-three
like knowing a stranger had his smile
and wore his same style
and his words and his (cheesy) jokes
were muttered by a few fictional folks

and that's when he knew
she didn't just say "I love you"
she really meant it, too.

Quinault

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 15:12:21 +0100

Bois Epais/ Sombre Woods
(Original French)

Bois epais redouble ton ombre,
Tu ne saurais etre assex sombre,
Tu ne peux trop cacher
Mon malheureux amour;
Je sens un desespoir
Dont l'horreur est extreme,
Je ne dois plus voir ce que j'aime,
Je ne veux plus souffrir le jour.

(English translation)

Sombre woods, ye glades dark and lonely,
Where midnight gloom enters only, oh!
Hide my slighted love
In your unbounded night;
If now this broken heart
Nevermore may enfold her,
If no more these eyes may behold her,
Then evermore I hate the light.

Ellen Janson

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 15:04:25 +0100

Japanese Night Song

The shadow of a heron's wing is on the water,
And the pines have drawn slim fingers across the moon.
Hush, breathe lightly, wind in the plum tree,
Scatter your dreams like petals over her heart.

Shakespeare

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:49:07 +0100

Except from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt my love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, oh, most best, believe it. Adieu.

JD

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 21:11:08 +0100

You describe your heart
As cold
But in reality
There is no cold
Just a lack of heat
And I think this feeling
You feel
Is the result of
Too much love being put out
And not enough love
Being given back,
And all the blankets
In the world
Could not cure you
But the arms of one lover
Wrapped tightly around your waist
Could heat your heart enough
To burst out of your chest
And bring the earth
To flames.

Christopher Poindexter

Sat, 13 Jul 2013 15:06:37 +0100

She buried
her ears
into the calm
of his heartbeat,
and in a matter of seconds:
fell terrible in love
with the way
her loneliness fell
softly and suddenly,
asleep,
in his chest.

Jack Kerouac

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 16:12:55 +0100

Dawn- the writer who
hasn't shaved,
Poring over notebooks

II.

The cat: a little
body being used
By a little person

III.

Disturbing my mind essence,
all that food
I have to cook

IV.

Neons, Chinese restaurants
coming on--
Girls come by shades

When the moon sinks
down to the powerline,
I'll go in

VI.

The low yellow
moon above
The quiet lamplit house

KY

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 16:00:48 +0100

Unknown (found on Pinterest)

you're the smoke
that i inhale

the drug that i inject into
my bloodstream

and it's too late
to get rid
of
you.