Tree Goat posted:

new goon-written prose poem dropped, fellas
https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1657769123852570632

The Gold Horns posted:

The Gold Horns
Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger
Translated by George Borrow

De higer og söger
I gamle Böger,
I oplukte Höie,
Med speidende Öie,
Paa Sværd og Skjolde,
I mulne Volde,
Paa Runestene,
Blandt smuldnede Bene.

Upon the pages
Of the olden ages,
And in hills where are lying
The dead, they are prying;
On armour rusty,
In ruins musty,
On Rune-stones jumbled,
With bones long crumbled.

Oldtids Bedrifter
Anede trylle,
Men i Mulm de sig hylle,
De gamle Skrifter.
Blikket stirrer,
Sig Tanken forvirrer,
I Taage de famle.
“I gamle, gamle,
Forsvundne Dage!
Da det straalte paa Jorden,
Da Östen var i Norden,
Giver Glimt tilbage!”

Eld’s deeds, through guesses
Beheld, are delighting,
But mist possesses
The ancient writing.
The eye-ball fixed is,
The thought perplexed is;
In darkness they’re groping
Their mouths they’re op’ing:
“Ye days long past,
When the North was uplighted,
And with earth heav’n united,
A glimpse back cast.”

Skyen suser,
Natten bryser,
Gravhöien sukker,
Rosen sig lukker.
De sig möde, de sig möde,
De forklarede Höie,
Kampfarvede, röde,
Med Stjerneglands i Öie.

The clouds are bustling,
The night blasts rustling,
Sighs are breaking,
From grave-hills quaking,
The regions were under
Thunder.
Of the mighty and daring,
The ghosts there muster,
Stains of war bearing,
In their eye star lustre.

“I, som rave iblinde,
Skal finde
Et ældgammelt Minde,
Der skal komme og svinde!
Dets gyldne Sider
Skal Præget bære,
Afældste Tider.

“Ye who blind are straying,
And praying,
Shall an ag’d relic meet,
Which shall come and shall fleet,
Its red sides golden,
The stamp displaying
Of the times most olden.

Af det kan I lære,
Med andagtsfuld Ære
I vor Gave belönne!
Det skjönneste Skjönne,
En Mö
Skal Helligdommen finde!”

That shall give ye a notion
To hold in devotion
Our gift, is your duty!
A maiden, of beauty
Most rare.
Shall find the token!”

Saa sjunge de og svinde,
Lufttonerne döe.

They vanished; this spoken
Their tones die in air.

Hrymfaxe, den sorte,
Puster og dukker
Og i Havet sig begraver;
Morgenens Porte
Delling oplukker,
Og Skinfaxe traver
I straalende Lue
Paa Himmelens Bue.

Black Hrymfax, weary,
Panteth and bloweth,
And in sea himself burieth;
Belling, cheery,
Morn’s gates ope throweth;
Forth Skinfax hurrieth,
On heaven’s bridge prancing,
And with lustre glancing.

Og Fuglene synge;
Dugperler bade
Blomsterblade,
Som Vindene gynge;
Og med svævende Fjed
En Mö hendandser
Til Marken afsted.
Violer hende krandser,
Hendes Rosenkind brænder,
Hun har Liljehænder;
Let som et Hind,
Med muntert Sind
Hun svæver og smiler;
Og som hun iler
Og paa Elskov grubler,
Hun snubler—
Og stirrer og skuer
Gyldne Luer
Og rödmer og bæver
Og skjælvende hæver
Med undrende Aand
Udaf sorten Muld
Med snehvide Haand,
Det röde Guld.
En sagte Torden
Dundrer;
Hele Norden
Undrer.

The little birds quaver,
Pearls from night’s weeping;
The flowers are steeping
In the winds which waver;
To the meadows, fleet
A maiden boundeth;
Violet fillet neat
Her brows surroundeth;
Her cheeks are glowing,
Lilly hands she’s showing;
Light as a hind,
With sportive mind
She smiling frisketh.
And as on she whisketh,
And thinks on her lover,
She trips something over;
And, her eyes declining,
Beholds a shining,
And red’neth and shaketh,
And trembling uptaketh
With wondering sprite
From the dingy mould,
With hand snow-white,
The ruddy gold.
A gentle thunder
Pealeth;
The whole North wonder
Feeleth.

Og hen de stimle
I store Vrimle;
De grave, de söge
Skatten at foröge.
Men intet Guld!
Deres Haab har bedraget:
De see kun det Muld,
Hvoraf det er taget.

Forth rush with gabble
A countless rabble;
The earth they’re upturning,
For the treasure burning.
But there’s no gold!
Their hope is mistaken;
They see but the mould,
From whence it is taken.

Et Sekel svinder!

An age by rolleth.

Over Klippetinder
Det atter bruser.
Stormens Sluser
Bryde med Vælde
Over Norges Fjelde
Til Danmarks Dale.
I Skyernes Sale
De forklarede Gamle
Sig atter samle.

Again it howleth
O’er the tops of the mountains.
Of the rain the fountains
Burst with fury;
The spirits of glory
From Norge’s highlands,
To Denmark’s islands,
In the halls of ether
Again meet together.

“For de sjeldne Faa,
Som vor Gave forstaae,
Som ei Jordlænker binde
Men hvis Sjæle sig hæve
Til det Eviges Tinde;
Som ane det Höie
I Naturens Öie;
Som tilbedende bæve
For Guddommens Straaler
I Sole, Violer,
I det Mindste, det Störste,
Som brændende törste
Efter Livets Liv;
Som, o store Aand
For de svundne Tider!
Se dit Guddomsblik
Paa Helligdommens Sider:
For dem lyder atter vort Bliv.

“For the few there below
Who our gift’s worth know,
Who earth’s fetters spurn all,
And whose souls are soaring
To the throne of th’ Eternal;
Who in eye of Nature
Behold the Creator;
And tremble adoring,
’Fore the rays of his power
In the sun, in the flower,
In the greatest and least,
And with thirst are possest
For of life the spring;
Who, O powerful sprite
Of the times departed!
See thy look bright
From the relic’s sides darted:
For them our Be once more shall ring.

“Naturens Sön,
Ukjændt i Lön,
Men som sine Fædre
Kraftig og stor,
Dyrkende sin Jord,
Ham vil vi hædre,
Han skal atter finde!”
Saa syngende de svinde.

“Nature’s son, whose name
Is unknown to fame,
But his acre tilling,
Strong-armed and tall,
Like his forefathers all,
Him to honour we’re willing,
He shall find the second token!”
They vanished, this spoken.

Hrymfaxe, den sorte,
Puster og dukker
Og i Havet sig begraver:
Morgenens Porte
Delling oplukker;
Skinfaxe traver
I straalende Lue
Paa Himmelens Bue.

Black Hrymfax weary
Panteth and bloweth,
And in sea himself buried;
And Belling cheery
Morn’s gates ope throweth;
Forth Skinfax hurrieth,
On heaven’s bridge prancing,
And with lustre glancing.

Ved lune Skov
Öxnene traekke
Den tunge Plov
Over sorten Dække.

By the bright green shaw
The oxen striding
The heavy plough draw,
The soil dividing.

Da standser Ploven
En Gysen farer
Igjennem Skoven;
Fugleskaren
Pludsclig tier;
Hellig Taushed
Alt indvier.

The plough stops; sorest
Of shudders rushes
Right through the forest;
The bird-quire hushes
Sudden its strains;
Holy silence
O’er all reigns.

Da klinger i Muld
Det gamle Guld.

Then rings in the mould
The ancient gold.

Tvende Glimt fra Oldtidsdage
Funkle i de nye Tider;
Selsomt vendte de tilbage,
Gaadefyldt paa blanke Sider.

Glimpses two from period olden
Lo! in modern time appearing;
Strange returned those glimpses golden,
On their sides enigmas bearing.

Skjulte Helligdom omsvæver
Deres gamle Tegn og mærker;
Guddomsglorien ombæver
Evighedens Underværker.

Holiness mysterious hovers
O’er their signs, of meaning pond’rous;
Glory of the Godhead covers
These eternal works so wondrous.

Hædre dem ved Bön og Psalter;
Snart maaske er hver forsvunden.
Jesu Blod paa Herrens Alter
Fylde dem, som Blod i Lunden.

Reverence them, for nought is stable;
They may vanish, past all seeking.
Let Christ’s blood on Christ’s own table
Fill them, once with red blood reeking.

Men I see kun Guldets Lue,
Ikke de Ærværdighöie!
Sæte dem som Pragt tilskue
For et mat, nysgjerrigt Öie!

But their majesty unviewing,
And their lustre but descrying,
Them as spectacles ye’re shewing
To the silly and the prying.

Himlen sortner, Storme brage!
Visse Time, du er kommen.
Hvad de gav, de tog tilbage—
Evig bortsvandt Helligdommen.

Storm-winds bellow, blackens heaven!
Comes the hour of melancholy;
Back is taken what was given,—
Vanished is the relic holy.

Nicanor Parra, Memories Of Youth posted:

All I'm sure of is that I kept going back and forth,
Sometimes I bumped into trees,
Bumped into beggars,
I forced my way through a thicket of chairs and tables,
With my soul on a thread I watched the great leaves fall.
But the whole thing was useless,
At every turn I sank deeper into a sort of jelly;
People laughed at my fits,
The characters stirred in their armchairs like seaweed moved by the waves
And women looked at me with disgust
Dragging me up, dragging me down,
Making me cry and laugh against my will.

All this evoked in me a feeling of nausea
And a storm of incoherent sentences,
Threats, insults, pointless curses,
Also certain exhausting pelvic motions,
Macabre dances, that left me
Short of breath
Unable to raise my head for days
For nights.

I kept going back and forth, it's true,
My soul drifted through the streets
Calling for help, begging for a little tenderness,
With pencil and paper I went into cemeteries
Determined not to be fooled.
I went round and round the same fact,
I studied everything in minute detail
Or I tore out my hair in a tantrum.

And in this state I began my classroom career.
I heaved myself around literary gatherings like a man with a bullet wound.
Crossing the thresholds of private houses,
With my sharp tongue I tried to get the spectators to understand me,
They went on reading the paper
Or disappeared behind a taxi.

Then where could I go!
At that hour the shops were shut;
I thought of a slice of onion I'd seen during dinner
And of the abyss that separates us from the other abysses.

quote:

The Small Circle

How few people there are and even fewer
Longing to reveal themselves!… They pass, they pass
They push each other away while dancing,
Intimate at play, smoothly they cheat, heartily deceive;
Not contemporaries, not close, not even friends,
Grasping hands, slobbering in tight embrace.
The depth between them boils, grows oceanic
And on its foam - they, close now - nominally!
While the world says: "They are intimates - a family circle,
Our very own!" the blue heaven binds more truly
A thousand tribes in centuries of common slaughter,
Where at least one in each honestly believes in
A common Heaven. Meanwhile they dance : bosom against bosom,
Polar-like unconscious of each other and distinct;
It's enough one lamp shines over them all
And one fashion makes them all alike.
"Our very own!" - what if someone were tracing
From on high a life-map like a map of the globe ?
Mountains and deserts would become a twinkling of an eye,
And the ocean disappear where a tiny tear-drop flows !

quote:

The Source

When I wandered in Hell of which I do not sing
Because curses have first glued my lips
Like ugly flies mad from the heat ­
And also because each time I try - I yawn;
When wandering I passed a colonnade of boredom
Long and straight - also hallways of whims
And a sandy cemetery of glimmering giants
Moving drowsily beneath cobbled stones;
When my footsteps measured ante-chambers
Of silly-nerves which constantly try on clothes
And at wedding-time are never ready ! . . .
When I crossed thresholds of misery and portals of deceit
And was now passing insolent labyrinths of crime
Plastered everywhere with sentences of the Court,
I found myself on a spot where beneath my foot the lava
Cooled - so now I walked in air
And season and light that were truly Godless ! ...
- Like wheatfields charred by volcanoes
Or seas arrested and stinking,
Sea waves standing, gazing at each other, Sphinx-like,
Amazed at the strange habit of the deep,
- While above, penguins
With open throats, parching of thirst,
And a couple of red stars which waning
Rush into the void...
...there I went (unbelievably - without rest!...,
I went there - where ?... doubting... when a tiny plant
Pale and like one clumsily embroidered
Whispered to me: "...There is a spring..." - and further in a ravine
I felt something like dampness.
From that side too
A bitter laugh and a stifled rustle reached me
And I perceived a Man with hands on his head
As when one shifts all strength
Into one's feet - he was stamping on the spring's blue vein,
As though a ribbon which had entwined his sandal
Lay soiled in the dust where his foot had pressed it.
The man's laugh was wild - his accent strange :
Resembling the drum-beat following a coffin,
Echoing with sarcasm, hoarse with hate :
"See how the Creation-Spirit cleans my shoes!..."

quote:

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.



II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.



III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

Tree Goat posted:

SimonChris posted:

Anyway, here is my latest poem and the first to be published in a print magazine. I think that fulfills the thread title requirements .

Jrbg posted:

In memory of wb yeats by auden

quote:

Hymn to Priapus
DH Lawrence

My love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.

I dance at the Christmas party
Under the mistletoe
Along with a ripe, slack country lass
Jostling to and fro.

The big, soft country lass,
Like a loose sheaf of wheat
Slipped through my arms on the threshing floor
At my feet.

The warm, soft country lass,
Sweet as an armful of wheat
At threshing-time broken, was broken
For me, and ah, it was sweet!

Now I am going home
Fulfilled and alone,
I see the great Orion standing
Looking down.

He’s the star of my first beloved
Love-making.
The witness of all that bitter-sweet
Heart-aching.

Now he sees this as well,
This last commission.
Nor do I get any look
Of admonition.

He can add the reckoning up
I suppose, between now and then,
Having walked himself in the thorny, difficult
Ways of men.

He has done as I have done
No doubt:
Remembered and forgotten
Turn and about.

My love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in the last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.

She fares in the stark immortal
Fields of death;
I in these goodly, frozen
Fields beneath.

Something in me remembers
And will not forget.
The stream of my life in the darkness
Deathward set!

And something in me has forgotten,
Has ceased to care.
Desire comes up, and contentment
Is debonair.

I, who am worn and careful,
How much do I care?
How is it I grin then, and chuckle
Over despair?

Grief, grief, I suppose and sufficient
Grief makes us free
To be faithless and faithful together
As we have to be.

quote:

Late Hymn From The Myrrh-Mountain
Wallace Stevens

Unsnack your snood, madanna, for the stars
Are shining on all brows of Neversink.

Already the green bird of summer has flown
Away. The night-flies acknowledge these planets,

Predestined to this night, this noise and the place
Of summer. Tomorrow will look like today,

Will appear like it. But it will be an appearance,
A shape left behind, with like wings spreading out,

Brightly empowered with like colors, swarmingly,
But not quite molten, not quite the fluid thing,

A little changed by tips of artifice, changed
By the glints of sound from the grass. These are not

The early constellations, from which came the first
Illustrious intimations--uncertain love,

The knowledge of being, sense without sense of time.
Take the diamonds from your hair and lay them down.

The deer-grass is thin. The timothy is brown.
The shadow of an external world comes near.

https://www.threepennyreview.com/the-committee-weighs-in/ posted:

I tell my mother
I’ve won the Nobel Prize.

Again? she says. Which
discipline this time?

It’s a little game
we play: I pretend

I’m somebody, she
pretends she isn’t dead.

—Andrea Cohen

quote:

Feather, feather, if it was a feather, feathers for fair, or to be fair, aroused. Round to be airy, feather, if it was airy, very, aviary, fairy, peacock, and to be well surrounded. Well-aired, amoving, to peacock, cared-for, share dancing inner to be among aware. Peacock around, peacock to care for dancing, an air, fairing, will he become, to stare. Peacock around, rounded, to turn the wearer, turning in air, peacock and I declare, to wear for dancing, to be among, to have become preferred. Peacock, a feather, there, found together, grounded, to bearer share turned for dancing, among them peacock a feather feather, dancing and to declare for turning, turning a feather as it were for dancing, turning for dancing, dancing being begun turning together, together to become, barely a feather being, beware, being a peacock only on the stair, staring at, only a peacock to be coming, fairly becoming for a peacock, be fair together being around in air, peacock to be becoming lastly, peacock around to be become together, peacock a very peacock to be there.

Moving and to make one the pair, to wear for asking of all there, wearing and to be one for wearing, to one by moving of all there.

Reproof, recovered, solitaire.

Grounded and being well-surrounded, so feathered that if a peacock sounded, rounded and with an air for wearing, aloof and grounded to beware.

Aloof, overt, to stare.

Will he be there, can he be there, be there?

Being a feathered peacock.

Only a feathered peacock on the stair.

quote:

There is an eye, there was a slit.
Nights walk, and confer on him fear.
The strangler tree, the dancing mouse
confound his vision; then they loosen it.
Henry widens. How did Henry House
himself ever come here?

Nights run. Tes yeux bizarres me suivent
when loth at landfall soft I leave.
The soldiers, Coleridge Rilke Poe,
shout commands I never heard.
They march about, dying & absurd.
Toddlers are taking over. O

ver! Sabbath belling. Snoods converge
on a weary-daring man.
What now can be cleard up? from the Yard the visitors urge.
Belle thro' the graves in a blast of sun
to the kirk moves the youngest witch.
Watch.

quote:

Your dust will be upon the wind
Within some certain years,
Though you be sealed in lead to-day
Amid the country’s tears.

When this idyllic churchyard
Becomes the heart of town,
The place to build garage or inn,
They’ll throw your tombstone down.

Your name so dim, so long outworn,
Your bones so near to earth,
Your sturdy kindred dead and gone,
How should men know your worth?

So read upon the runic moon
Man’s epitaph, deep-writ.
It says the world is one great grave.
For names it cares no whit.

It tells the folk to live in peace,
And still, in peace, to die.
At least, so speaks the moon to me,
The tombstone of the sky.

Nitevision posted:

Dream Song 12 "Sabbath" by John Berryman

quote:

Seventh Street
By Jean Toomer

Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

Seventh Street is a bastard of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned, soft-skinned wedge of friend of the family life breathing its loafer air, jazz songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhythms, black reddish blood into the white and whitewashed wood of Washington. Stale soggy wood of Washington. Wedges rust in soggy wood. . . Split it! In two! Again! Shred it! . . the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. Prohibition would put a stop to it. Who set you flowing? White and whitewash disappear in blood. Who set you flowing? Flowing down the smooth asphalt of Seventh Street, in shanties, brick office buildings, theaters, drug stores, restaurants, and cabarets? Eddying on the corners? Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? God would not dare to suck black red blood. A friend of the family God! He would duck his head in shame and call for the Judgement Day. Who set you flowing?


Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

thehoodie posted:

this one's about doing the walk of shame after a one night stand

quote:

A Strut for Roethke

Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
and staggered on.

The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped & crashed.

No stunt he’ll ever unflinch once more will fail:
(O lucky fellow, eh Bones?)—drifted off upstairs,
downstairs, somewheres.
No more daily, trying to hit the head on the nail:
thirstless: without a think in his head:
back from wherever, with it said.

Hit a long high note, for a lover found
needing a lower into friendlier ground
to bug among worms no more
around our jungles where us blurt ‘What for?’
Weeds, too, he favoured as most men don’t favour men.
The Garden Master’s gone.

thehoodie posted:

been really liking jean toomer lately

sa won't preserve the formatting but you can read it here also

Nitevision posted:

Please say more if you're serious, I'm still figuring out how to read this son of a gun

quote:

There is an eye, there was a slit.

quote:

Nights walk, and confer on him fear.
The strangler tree, the dancing mouse
confound his vision; then they loosen it.

quote:

Henry widens. How did Henry House
himself ever come here?

quote:

Nights run. Tes yeux bizarres me suivent
when loth at landfall soft I leave.

quote:

The soldiers, Coleridge Rilke Poe,
shout commands I never heard.
They march about, dying & absurd.
Toddlers are taking over. O

ver! Sabbath belling. Snoods converge
on a weary-daring man.

quote:

What now can be cleard up? from the Yard the visitors urge.
Belle thro' the graves in a blast of sun
to the kirk moves the youngest witch.
Watch.