Poetry Not By You (Unless you're published + good)

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SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

I would like to be patriotic and recommend some Danish poetry, specifically the poetry of Inger Christensen, widely considered one of the greatest Danish poets but mostly unknown outside of Europe. Christensen was a pioneer of the Danish movement of Systemic Poetry, in which entire poetry books are organized according to mathematical and/or linguistic patterns. Never is this more apparent than in her book-length poem Alphabet, in which the length of the stanzas follow the Fibonacci sequence while their topics are determined by the eponymous alphabet. Below, the first nine stanzas, translated by Susanna Nied (corresponding roughly to the free Kindle sample, so that should be okay).

Alphabet posted:

1
apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist

2
bracken exists; and blackberries, blackberries;
bromine exists; and hydrogen, hydrogen

3
cicadas exist; chicory, chromium,
citrus trees; cicadas exist;
cicadas, cedars, cypresses, the cerebellum

4
doves exist, dreamers, and dolls;
killers exist, and doves, and doves;
haze, dioxin, and days; days
exist, days and death; and poems
exist; poems, days, death

5
early fall exists; aftertaste, afterthought;
seclusion and angels exist;
widows and elk exist; every
detail exists; memory, memory�s light;
afterglow exists; oaks, elms,
junipers, sameness, loneliness exist;
eider ducks, spiders, and vinegar
exist, and the future, the future

6
fisherbird herons exist, with their grey-blue arching
backs, with their black-feathered crests and their
bright-feathered tails they exist; in colonies
they exist, in the so-called Old World;
fish, too, exist, and ospreys, ptarmigans,
falcons, sweetgrass, and the fleeces of sheep;
fig trees and the products of fission exist;
errors exist, instrumental, systemic,
random; remote control exists, and birds;
and fruit trees exist, fruit there in the orchard where
apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist
in countries whose warmth will call forth the exact
colour of apricots in the flesh

7
given limits exist, streets, oblivion
and grass and gourds and goats and gorse,
eagerness exists, given limits
branches exist, wind lifting them exists,
and the lone drawing made by the branches
of the tree called an oak tree exists,
of the tree called an ash tree, a birch tree,
a cedar tree, the drawing repeated
in the gravel garden path; weeping
exists as well, fireweed and mugwort,
hostages, greylag geese, greylags and their young;
and guns exist, an enigmatic back yard;
overgrown, sere, gemmed just with red currants,
guns exist; in the midst of the lit-up
chemical ghetto guns exist
with their old-fashioned, peaceable precision
guns and wailing women, full as
greedy owls exist; the scene of the crime exists;
the scene of the crime, drowsy, normal, abstract,
bathed in a whitewashed, godforsaken light,
this poisonous, white, crumbling poem

8
whisperings exist, whisperings exist
harvest, history, and Halley�s
comet exist; hosts exist, hordes
high commanders, hollows, and within the hollows
half-shadows, within the half-shadows occasional
hares, occasional hanging leaves shading the hollow where
bracken exists, and blackberries, blackberries
occasional hares hidden under the leaves
and gardens exist, horticulture, the elder tree�s
pale flowers, still as a seething hymn;
the half-moon exists, half-silk, and the whole
heliocentric haze that has dreamed
these devoted brains, their luck, and human skin
human skin and houses exist, with Hades
rehousing the horse and the dog and the shadows
of glory, hope; and the river of vengeance;
hail under stoneskies exists, the hydrangeas�
white, bright-shining, blue or greenish
fogs of sleep, occasionally pink, a few
sterile patches exist, and beneath
the angled Armageddon of the arching heavens, poison,
the poison helicopter�s humming harps above the henbane,
shepherd�s purse, and flax, henbane, shepherd�s purse
and flax; this last, hermetic writing,
written otherwise only by children; and wheat,
wheat in wheatfields exists, the head-spinning
horizontal knowledge of wheatfields, half-lives,
famine, and honey; and deepest in the heart,
otherwise as ever only deepest in the heart,
the roots of the hazel, the hazel that stands
on the hillslope of the heart, tough and hardy,
an accumulated weekday of Angelic orders;
high-speed, hyacinthic in its decay, life,
on earth as it is in heaven

9
ice ages exist, ice ages exist,
ice of polar seas, kingfishers� ice;
cicadas exist, chicory, chromium
and chrome yellow irises, or blue; oxygen
especially; ice floes of polar seas also exist,
and polar bears, stamped like furs with their
identification numbers, condemned to their lives;
the kingfisher�s miniplunge into blue-frozen
March streams exists, if streams exist;
if oxygen in streams exists, especially
oxygen, especially where cicadas�
i-sounds exist, especially where
the chicory sky, like bluing dissolving in
water, exists, the chrome yellow sun, especially
oxygen, indeed it will exist, indeed
we will exist, the oxygen we inhale will exist,
lacewings, lantanas will exist, the lake�s
innermost depths like a sky; a cove ringed
with rushes, an ibis will exist,
the motions of mind blown into the clouds
like eddies of oxygen deep in the Styx
and deep in the landscapes of wisdom, ice-light,
ice and identical light, and deep
in the ice-light nothing, lifelike, intense
as your gaze in the rain; this incessant,
life-stylising drizzle, in which like a gesture
fourteen crystal forms exist, seven
systems of crystals, your gaze as in mine,
and Icarus, Icarus helpless;
Icarus wrapped in the melting wax
wings exists, Icarus pale as a corpse
in street clothes, Icarus deepest down where
doves exist, dreamers, and dolls;
the dreamers, their hair with detached
tufts of cancer, the skin of the dolls tacked together
with pins, the dryrot of riddles; and smiles,
Icarus-children white as lambs
in greylight, indeed they will exist, in-
deed we will exist, with oxygen on its crucifix,
as rime we will exist, as wind,
as the iris of the rainbow in the iceplant�s gleaming
growths, the dry tundra grasses, as small beings
we will exist, small as pollen bits in peat,
as virus bits in bones, as water-thyme perhaps,
perhaps as white clover, as vetch, wild chamomile,
banished to a re-lost paradise; but the darkness
is white, say the children, the paradise-darkness is white,
but not white the same way that coffins
are white, if coffins exist, and not white
the same way that milk is white, if milk exists;
white, it is white, say the children,
the darkness is white, but not
white like the white that existed
when fruit trees existed, their blossoms so white,
this darkness is whiter; eyes melt

# ¿ Dec 26, 2022 15:52

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 18:19

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Another thread just introduced me to Ern Malley, and I read his work with great interest. If you are not familiar with the great Australian poet, please read these poems with an open mind before you learn his tragic backstory:

Ern Malley posted:

D�rer: Innsbruck, 1495

I had often, cowled in the slumberous heavy air,
Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,
As I knew it would be, the colourful spires
And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back,
All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters �
Not knowing then that D�rer perceived it too.
Now I find that once more I have shrunk
To an interloper, robber of dead men�s dream,
I had read in books that art is not easy
But no one warned that the mind repeats
In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still
the black swan of trespass on alien waters.

Sweet William

I have avoided your wide English eyes:
But now I am whirled in their vortex.
My blood becomes a Damaged Man
Most like your Albion;
And I must go with stone feet
Down the staircase of flesh
To where in a shuddering embrace
My toppling opposites commit
The obscene, the unforgivable rape.

One moment of daylight let me have
Like a white arm thrust
Out of the dark and self-denying wave
And in the one moment I
Shall irremediably attest
How (though with sobs, and torn cries bleeding)
My white swan of quietness lies
Sanctified on my black swan�s breast.

Boult to Marina

Only a part of me shall triumph in this
(I am not Pericles)
Though I have your silken eyes to kiss
And maiden-knees
Part of me remains, wench, Boult-upright
The rest of me drops off into the night.

What would you have me do? Go to the wars?
There�s damned deceit
In these wounds, thrusts, shell-holes, of the cause
And I�m no cheat.
So blowing this lily as trumpet with my lips
I assert my original glory in the dark eclipse.

Sainted and schismatic would you be?
Four frowning bedposts
Will be the cliffs of your wind-thrummelled sea
Lady of these coasts,
Blown lily, surplice and stole of Mytilene,
You shall rest snug to-night and know what I mean.

Petit Testament

In the twenty-fifth year of my age
I find myself to be a dromedary
That has run short of water between
One oasis and the next mirage
And having despaired of ever
Making my obsessions intelligible
I am content at last to be
The sole clerk of my metamorphoses.
Begin here:

In the year 1943
I resigned to the living all collateral images
Reserving to myself a man�s
Inalienable right to be sad
At his own funeral.
(Here the peacock blinks the eyes
of his multipennate tail.)
In the same year
I said to my love (who is living)
Dear we shall never be that verb
Perched on the sole Arabian Tree
Not having learnt in our green age to forget
The sins that flow between the hands and feet
(Here the Tree weep gum tears
Which are also real: I tell you
These things are real)
So I forced a parting
Scrubbing my few dingy words to brightness.

Where I have lived
The bed-bug sleeps in the seam, the cockroach
Inhabits the crack and the careful spider
Spins his aphorisms in the comer.
I have heard them shout in the streets
The chiliasms of the Socialist Reich
And in the magazines I have read
The Popular Front-to-Back.
But where I have lived
Spain weeps in the gutters of Footscray
Guernica is the ticking of the clock
The nightmare has become real, not as belief
But in the scrub-typhus of Mubo.

It is something to be at last speaking
Though in this No-Man�s-language appropriate
Only to No-Man�s-Land.
Set this down too:
I have pursued rhyme, image, and metre,
Known all the clefts in which the foot may stick,
Stumbled often, stammered,
But in time the fading voice grows wise
And seizing the co-ordinates of all existence
Traces the inevitable graph
And in conclusion:
There is a moment when the pelvis
Explodes like a grenade. I
Who have lived in the shadow that each act
Casts on the next act now emerge
As loyal as the thistle that in session
Puffs its full seed upon the indicative air.
I have split the infinite. Beyond is anything.

Ern Malley was a hoax, created by two conservative Australian poets in an attempt to mock modernist poetry by publishing deliberately terrible poetry. The poems were hailed as masterpieces upon initial publication, and the editor was humiliated when the hoax was revealed.

However, lots of people still maintain that at least some of these poems are genuinely good, and that the hoaxers had merely shown that allowing oneself to cut loose and be spontaneous leads to more interesting poetry.

What do you think?

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jan 20, 2023

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 20:35

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Just one more Ern Malley poem. The Lenin quote at the start is inspired:

Ern Malley posted:

Colloquy with John Keats

�And the Lord destroyeth the imagination of all them
that had not the truth with them.� (Odes of Solomon 24.8.)

I have been bitter with you, my brother,
Remembering that saying of Lenin when the shadow
Was already on his face: �The emotions are not skilled workers.�
Yet we are as the double almond concealed in one shell.
I have mistrusted your apodictic strength
Saying always: Yet why did you not finish Hyperion?
But now I have learned not to curtail
What was in you the valency of speech
The bond of molecular utterance.

I have arranged the interstellar zodiac
With flowers on the Goat�s horn, and curious
Markings on the back of the Crab. I have lain
With the Lion, not with the Virgin, and become
He that discovers meanings.

Now in your honour Keats, I spin
The loaded Zodiac with my left hand
As the man at the fair revolves
His coloured deceitful board. Together
We lean over that whirl of
Beasts flowers images and men
Until it stops . . . Look! my number is up!
Like you I sought at first for Beauty
And then, in disgust, returned
As did you to the locus of sensation
And not till then did my voice build crenellated towers
Of an enteric substance in the air.
Then first I learned to speak clear; then through my turrets
Pealed that Great Bourdon which men have ignored.

Coda

We have lived as ectoplasm
The hand that would clutch
Our substance finds that his rude touch
Runs through him a frightful spasm
And hurls him back against the opposite wall.

Collected works: http://jacketmagazine.com/17/ern-poems.html

# ¿ Jan 22, 2023 09:20

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

These are all mine, but they are published and if they aren't good enough, I guess the mods can probe me or something?

Revolver Literary posted:

MUSKELIDS

A ferret swims through yellow grass,
hunting the wolverine.
Mustelids dueling with muskets.
Gunsmoke drifts above the field.

Up close,
sharp teeth would penetrate the ferret,
like a blade passing through fog.
The wolverine victorious in bloody mist.

At a distance,
bullets fly through dense grass.
No blood slakes the soil.
Neither animal an experienced marksman,
knowing only tooth and claw.

The ferret,
grateful for the impasse,
enjoys the kick of the gunpowder,
inhales the smoke,
caressed by blades of grass.

MILK, EGGS, AND SUGAR; SO TRUE, SO SWEET

The world is everything that hits my face.
A custard pie of contingencies,
Stinging my eyes,
Staining my skin,
Tickling my lips.
Milk moist in my ears.

I wipe but more follow.
My legs fight against
The viscosity of whipped cream.
The light ahead
Refracted by eggs and sugar into
The sweet rainbow of bewilderment.

TENEBROUS PILGRIMAGE

Riding the shadow past Einstein,
outrunning the light of realization,
reason, knowledge, and pain.
Attain the moon from the Earth
in a single moment of elation.

The Earth, a glittering globe above.
The light of humanity mere pinpricks
on inky continents.
The shadow pours
into the craters, revealing
silvern regolith.

TEXTILE FOUNDATION

Ancient caverns burrowing
Beneath the carpet.
Snakes between forests of fibers
Feel the echo of the caves,
As they slither above.

Will something awaken,
Drawn by the movement,
To devour the softness supporting our feet?
Will we fall, then?

Into endless, repeating tunnels.
Looking for a route
Leading somewhere, anywhere,
Across cold, solidified sediment.

TABLEAUX

As the Philosopher says:
"Phenomena are but tableaux
by the actors of the mind".
Each image a star or starlet
demonstrating the world.
Silent they pose in
thought and memory,
interpreting the truth but
blocking the view.

I push through them across
the stage, hands grasping at
my clothes,
brushing my arms.
Warm skin against skin.
I am lost in the crowd.
I can no longer move.
Each path blocked by
a pitiless visage.
A black-and-white hand
grasps mine.

Pulls me through.

"Come," says the ancient actor
in suit and fedora.
The crowd thins, moves aside, dissipates.
We are alone in a quiet spotlight
on a dark stage.
Smoke drifts from the edge of his mouth,
glittering.
"This is where it ends."
"Is it enough?"

I walk past him beyond
the edge of the stage.
Falling, hoping to land
on solid ground.

I have more published poetry, but I personally prefer the surreal stuff, and I don't want to spam the thread.

Anyway, I need to get back into Larkin. If you watched Devs, they quote half of Aubade in the beginning.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Apr 1, 2024

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 11:44

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Today I would like to talk about Morten Nielsen. Nielsen was a young, Danish resistance fighter who wrote his poetry while fighting Nazis in the streets of Copenhagen. His poem "Moment" has been added to the Danish literary canon:

Morten Nielsen posted:

Moment

Wild roses in day-long rain!
And the train has stopped,
with panes streaming
with dazzling rain-gleam
and the bushes� wild light
in the wet and green.

Happily great and straightforward life will be �
Drop that strikes drop,
Rain upon rain.
The seconds open up
for a long memory:
Paths on the moors, girls� voices and the sea.

I taste them on my tongue
the vanished summers...
Cool, rainful happiness, a kiss of years �

We travel in the war�s restless, distant summer
Suddenly it is still...
Wild roses in day-long rain,
Panes streaming
with dazzling rain-gleam
and the bushes� wild light
in the wet and green.

Sadly, Nielsen was killed in 1944 at the young age of 22, shot by a famous fellow resistance fighter known as "The Citron" (portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen in the movie "Flame & Citron"). The Citron claimed that the shooting was an accident but was shortly afterwards arrested and shot by the nazis, so the full story was never revealed.

Morten Nielsen posted:

Death

Death I encountered when I was a boy.
But only as a stillness in one dear to me.
Never as something around me, a coldness, a shadow
no one can name by name or get to leave.

Never as the coldness of some strange thing
As depth on depth in stiffened muscle band.
As if I fell and fell in a coldness without space
from holding a stranger�s cold hand in my hand.

Now I know it once more, here and everywhere.
It stands in the silent light above the forest floors.
It moves like a dizzy distance in the summer sky
above the sleeper�s mouth it lies like moans.

It waits, always just to the side of things,
a shadow, invisible, along veins and stones and trees.
It makes it richer with the new seconds
and more evil. And it is always close to me.

But we conduct no conversations with each other,
neither at dawn nor when the stars form fleets.
We just know both of us that the other is there.
No more is necessary. One day we�ll surely meet.

Speaking of Danish occupation poetry, I can't not mention Piet Hein's famous Consolation Grook:

Piet Hein posted:

Consolation Grook

Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain,
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
the first one again.

Piet Hein was a Danish polymath who wrote a large amount of short rhyming poems that he called "Grooks", which usually contained hidden meanings and ironies. The Grooks became so succesful in Scandinavia that many of them have effectively turned into proverbs. Consolation Grook was his first published poem.

The Consolation Grook may seem like a simple aphorism, but it was published in 1940, at the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Denmark, and the intended meaning was that losing our country was like losing the first glove, but giving up the fight would be like throwing away the other. The Nazi censors didn't get the meaning, and the poem was published without issue and subsequently spray-painted on walls around the country, as a reminder to keep up the fight.

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Mar 13, 2023

# ¿ Mar 12, 2023 15:24

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Prema Arasu posted:

peeling a banana

crunch!

bones

# ¿ Apr 6, 2023 08:19

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4030264

There is a good thread about Chinese poetry in the new casual book forum.

# ¿ May 11, 2023 09:36

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

In 1802, a thief named Niels Heidenreich stole two priceless horns of gold from the Royal Chamber of Arts in Copenhagen and melted them down into gold coins. The picture below show replicas made from drawings of the horns.

Shortly afterwards, the Danish poet Adam Oehlenschl�ger wrote his poem The Gold Horns, inspired by the theft. The poem posits that the gods took the horns back because humanity did not appreciate their sublime nature. It helped kickstart the romantic revival in Danish art and literature and is one of, if not the, most famous poems in the country. The poem was translated into English by George Borrow around 1826. The translation is, imo, a bit wobbly, but it is the only way to read the poem in English, so here it is below. I have included the original Danish in italics.

The Gold Horns posted:

The Gold Horns
Adam Gottlob Oehlenschl�ger
Translated by George Borrow

De higer og s�ger
I gamle B�ger,
I oplukte H�ie,
Med speidende �ie,
Paa Sv�rd 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 �sten 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,
Gravh�ien sukker,
Rosen sig lukker.
De sig m�de, de sig m�de,
De forklarede H�ie,
Kampfarvede, r�de,
Med Stjerneglands i �ie.

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 �ldgammelt Minde,
Der skal komme og svinde!
Dets gyldne Sider
Skal Pr�get b�re,
Af�ldste 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 l�re,
Med andagtsfuld �re
I vor Gave bel�nne!
Det skj�nneste Skj�nne,
En M�
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 d�e.

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 sv�vende Fjed
En M� hendandser
Til Marken afsted.
Violer hende krandser,
Hendes Rosenkind br�nder,
Hun har Liljeh�nder;
Let som et Hind,
Med muntert Sind
Hun sv�ver og smiler;
Og som hun iler
Og paa Elskov grubler,
Hun snubler�
Og stirrer og skuer
Gyldne Luer
Og r�dmer og b�ver
Og skj�lvende h�ver
Med undrende Aand
Udaf sorten Muld
Med snehvide Haand,
Det r�de 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 s�ge
Skatten at for�ge.
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 V�lde
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 Jordl�nker binde
Men hvis Sj�le sig h�ve
Til det Eviges Tinde;
Som ane det H�ie
I Naturens �ie;
Som tilbedende b�ve
For Guddommens Straaler
I Sole, Violer,
I det Mindste, det St�rste,
Som br�ndende t�rste
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 S�n,
Ukj�ndt i L�n,
Men som sine F�dre
Kraftig og stor,
Dyrkende sin Jord,
Ham vil vi h�dre,
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
�xnene traekke
Den tunge Plov
Over sorten D�kke.

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 omsv�ver
Deres gamle Tegn og m�rker;
Guddomsglorien omb�ver
Evighedens Underv�rker.

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

H�dre dem ved B�n 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 �rv�rdigh�ie!
S�te dem som Pragt tilskue
For et mat, nysgjerrigt �ie!

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.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2023 20:54

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

This thread deserves more activity. Where are all the poetry goons?

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

# ¿ Nov 25, 2023 10:21

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

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

# ¿ Jan 5, 2024 09:26

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 18:19

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

I'll keep tooting my own horn as long as it fulfills the title requirements

# ¿ Jan 13, 2024 10:36

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Poetry Not By You (Unless you're published + good)