Poetry Friday

I've been thinking about Dido and Aeneas today, so here's some lyrics from Purcell's Dido's Lament.

When I am Laid In Earth

When I am laid, am laid in earth,
may my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.
Remember me, remember me, but ah!
Forget my fate.

Poetry Friday

A long time ago, I was doing a series called "Poetry Friday." I've been thinking about starting it up again. While going through my blog files and drafts and things, I came across the following post I never published from 2008. I've been thinking about this poem lately, so I figure what the heck - I'll post it now. Without further ado, the reinstitution of Poetry Friday...on a Monday.



I know I said that I wouldn't often post my own poems (which I don't write anymore), but today I am going to again. I happened to catch "The Universe: Parallel Worlds" or whatever it was called on the History Channel on Tuesday night. I wish I understood physics/astrophysics/ cosmology. But what they were talking about reminded me of a poem I wrote 8 years ago. The basic premise is here described by Max Tegmark in a 2003 article for Scientific American:

"Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you but who
lives on a planet called Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and
sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this
person has been identical to yours in every respect. But perhaps he or she now
decides to put down this article without finishing it, while you read on.

"The idea of such an alter ego seems strange and implausible, but it looks as if we will just have to live with it, because it is supported by astronomical observations. The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 1028 meters from here. This distance is so large that it is beyond astronomical, but that does not make your doppelgänger any less real. The estimate is derived from elementary probability and does not even assume speculative modern physics, merely that space is infinite (or at least sufficiently large) in size and almost uniformly filled with matter, as observations indicate. In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere. There are infinitely many other inhabited planets, including not just one but infinitely many that have people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices."

Here's the poem:

Infinite Amount of Chances
"If you accept that the universe is infinite, then that means there's an infitite amount of chances for things to happen...if there's an infinite amount of chances for something to happen, then eventually it will happen - no matter how small the likelihood." - Alex Garland

Am I with you now?
Can you feel me kiss you goodnight?
Sleepwalking I stumble into your bedroom

Infinately we are together - you and I
In the darkness of every star's a sun with planets
Makes you feel small

Out there you are holding my hand thru periodic sadnesses
Somewhere at sometime you were or will be allowed to love me -
I will be allowed to love you

Infinity is a button on my calculator
And tonight I am lost and alone
Knowing one day you will find me
No matter how small the likelihood

Poetry Friday

A funny story: Once my 11th grade english teacher had this poetry book that he was reading from. I don't remember the specifics, but he must have been asking the class about what poets they liked, and then reading from the book. I said I liked Allen Ginsberg. The poor teacher, I don't know if he had any idea. He starts reading this poem out loud to the class, and it becomes obvious very quickly that it was not an appropriate poem to read aloud to a group of 16 year olds. The teacher was embarrassed, but we all thought it was hillarious.

I tried to figure out what poem that was. My first inclination is that it was "Sunflower Sutra," but that doesn't really have anything naughty in it. But then again, what seems scandalous when you're 16 usually is a lot less so more than a decade later. So, instead of posting what I had originally intended, which was that poem - whatever one it might be - I will share my favorite Ginsberg poem.

A Supermarket in California

     What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, forI walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headacheself-conscious looking at the full moon.
    In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I wentinto the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
    What peaches and what penumbras! Whole familiesshopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in theavocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, whatwere you doing down by the watermelons?

    I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
    I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed thepork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
    I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cansfollowing you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
    We strode down the open corridors together in oursolitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozendelicacy, and never passing the cashier.

    Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close inan hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
    (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in thesupermarket and feel absurd.)
    Will we walk all night through solitary streets? Thetrees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

   Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of lovepast blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
   Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry andyou got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boatdisappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Poetry Friday

For years...like, since I was in h.s., (wow, I guess I should soon be saying "decades," not years)...I have been collecting poems. They're on scraps of paper...some yellowing now...stuffed in a little poetry anthology that I got probably 12 years ago out of a bargain bin somewhere. It's interesting to look back at these poems...obviously I copied them from their source because they meant something to me, though for some, that meaning has long been forgotten. The poem I have selected for today was on top of the poem pile, and I think I remember what it meant.

You Are At the Bottom of My Mind
by Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn (aka Iain Crichton Smith)

Without my knowing it you are at the bottom of my mind
like a visitor to the bottom of the sea
with his helmet and his two large eyes,
and I do not rightly know your appearance or your manner
after five years of showers
of time pouring between me and you:
nameless mountains of water pouring
between me hauling you on board
and your appearance and manner in my weak hands.
You went astray
among the mysterious plants of the sea-bed
in the gree half-light without love,

and you will never rise to the surface
through my hands are hauling ceaselessly,
and I do not know your way at all,
you in the half-light of your sleep
haunting the bed of the sea without ceasing
and I hauling and hauling on the surface.

Poetry Friday

Today, some short poems by D.H. Lawrence

"And Oh--That The Man I Am Might Cease To Be--"

No, now I wish the sunshine would stop.
and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies
and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out
between two valves of darkness;
the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound
obliterating everything.

I wish that whatever props up the walls of light
would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down,
and it would be thick black dark for ever.
Not sleep, which is grey with dreams,
nor death, which quivers with birth,
but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.

What is sleep?
It goes over me, like a shadow over a hill,
but it does not alter me, nor help me.
And death would ache still, I am sure;
it would be lambent, uneasy.
I wish it would be completely dark everywhere,
inside me, and out, heavily dark
utterly.

Self Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Boredom, Ennui, Depression

And boredom, ennui, depression
are long slow vibrations of pain
that possess the whole body
and cannot be localised.

Poetry Friday

Since I'm in Philly for the weekend, I thought a poem about a famous Philadelphia resident, Benjamin Franklin, would be appropriate. Ben Franklin is a favorite adopted Pennsylvanian, and I think he would have been a fun(ny) guy to meet. My favorite Franklin story is of the time when he and John Adams had to share a room (and of course bed) with each other. Adams was sick, and Franklin insisted that having the window open would be good for the illness. Adams believed the cold air would make it worse. I have always had a picture in my mind of Adams and Franklin in their pjs, one jumping out of bed to shut the window, and once he got into bed, the other got up and opened it. This would turn into some kind of Laurel & Hardy routine of both of them standing there, clonking each other on the head.

My husband tells me that a former professor once told him that during the Consitutional Convention, Franklin would go out drinking at the end of the day, and he would get a little too talkative, so other conventioners had to accompany him in order to make sure he kept his mouth shut about what they were doing. I have never seen this in print, though. But it's another interesting picture of ol'Ben. Washington or someone saying, ok, ok Ben...I think you've had enough claret. Now for the poem:


On the Death of Dr. Benjamin Franklin by Philip Freneau

Thus, some tall tree that long hath stood
The glory of its native wood,
By storms destroyed, or length of years,
Demands the tribute of our tears.

The pile, that took long time to raise,
To dust returns by slow decays:
But, when its destined years are o'er,
We must regret the loss the more.

So long accustomed to your aid,
The world laments your exit made;
So long befriended by your art,
Philosopher, 'tis hard to part!–

When monarchs tumble to the ground,
Successors easily are found:
But, matchless Franklin! what a few
Can hope to rival such as you,
Who seized from kings their sceptered pride,
And turned the lightning darts aside.

Poetry Friday

Ok people. I came up with something new...it's called Poetry Friday! I know you're excited.

I used to love poetry. Not to mean that I don't anymore, I just stopped reading it somewhere along the line. So, in an effort to get back to poetry, I will be posting a poem here every Friday.

I once gave the following poem to someone very special in my life when he was leaving to go home, and was (still is) a possibility that I might never see him again. Our "time in the sun" so to speak is well past, but we're still in contact, and over the years, he has proven (to my surprise, honestly) to be a faithful and thoughtful friend. It's a beautiful poem...I hope you like it. First the original German:

Wo Bist Du Itzt by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751-1792)

Wo bist du itzt, mein unvergesslich Mädchen,
Wo singst du itzt?
Wo lacht die Flur, wo triumphiert das Städtchen,
Das dich besitzt?

Seit du entfernt, will keine Sonne scheinen,
Und es vereint
Der Himmel sich, dir zärtlich nachzuweinen,
Mit deinem Freund.

All unsre Lust ist fort mit dir gezogen,
Still überall
Ist Stadt und Fed. Dir nach ist sie geflogen,
Die Nachtigall.

O komm zurück! Schon rufen Hirt und Herden
Dich bang herbei.
Komm bald zurück! Sonst wird es Winter weden
Im Monat Mai.

*******************************************
Now, the translation:

Where Are You Now

Where are you now, my unforgettable maiden,
Where do you sing now?
Where smiles the field, where does the small town triumph
Which possess you?

Since you are gone, no sun will shine
And Heaven itself,
To weep after you tenderly,
Unites with your friend.

All our happiness has gone with you,
Quiet everywhere
Is town and field. It followed you in flight -
The nightingale.

Oh do return! Already herds and shepherds
Recall you anxiously.
Oh, come back soon! Else there will be winter
In the month of May.