Poem Thread?

[Taem]

I don't believe I've ever seen a poem thread here at the Lounge before. I thought it would be nice to start one since I recently felt the creative urge to write one (or something like one) for the first time in years. I thought it would fun for others to share their poems also.

Poem preface: I've been working night shifts lately (not used to them at all) and having to help out at my kids school in the morning. I'm so tired lately, I can't seem to remember what I'm suppose to be doing from one moment to the next.

I haven't been to this location (at work) for awhile and last time I was there, I guess you could say I left on a bad note. Now I'm back for two weeks only to find everyone is still doing the same old things. I feel like I'm the only one that's changed and I guess this made me feel a bit down, but I'm not sure why. I wrote this poem I'd like to share. Hopefully posting this will help me get it off of my chest.

NOTHING

Life has lost its luster!
Grand adventures now whisk by like a dull roar that leaves the soul feeling empty, deprived of what was once excitement.

Life has no purpose!
Things that once had meaning and great depth are now repeating idioms, redundant in their inception and lacking of anything new.

Life is boring!
Loathsome and foul are the clichés of our modern world – have fun, be happy, but spend money doing it, whatever it may be.

What is the meaning of life?
Is it happiness? What is happiness? I suppose happiness is being content; not inspired, excited, or overjoyed – none of these! Content is complacence, being acclimated with our environment and being at peace with it. To sum it up, the purpose of our lives is to become secure of our complacence threw mastery of repetition. I’d ask myself rather this analogy were good or bad, but I’ve already set myself up to not care. Thus is the way of the world.

Did I once enjoy my life now past?
What has become of it now? The answers to my initial questions have only spawned more… questions. Oh, how I have changed. Nothing good, nothing bad.

Nothing.

[Rinnhart]

Not mine, I'm not much of a poet, but it's my favorite (that's not Frost or Poe).

"Conqueror" by Robert William Service

Though I defy the howling horde
As bloody-browed I smite,
Back to the wall with shattered sword
When darkly dooms the night;
Though hoarse they cheer as I go down
Before their bitter odds,
'Tis I who win the victor's crown,
The guerdon of the gods.

For all who fall in fearless fight
Alight a deathless flame,
That glorifies the godless night
And fills the foe with shame.
'Tis they who triumph heaven-high,
And so in hell's despite,
Be mine the dauntless will to die
In battle for the right.

The rant and cant of futile folk
Break brittle in my ears;
Let me cast off the cursed yoke
And fall upon the spears.
Aye, though they mock my broken blade,
And stamp and spit on me,
Mine is the Shining Accolade,
The Star of Victory.

[Maitre]

I don't believe I've ever seen a poem thread here at the Lounge before. I thought it would be nice to start one since I recently felt the creative urge to write one (or something like one) for the first time in years. I thought it would fun for others to share their poems also.

Now you're going to make me dig out my notebook, and some of that stuff I wrote in school. I wonder if I still have... It'll have to wait till I get home and find the folder, and see if the scanner still works.

For now, Haiku!

Longer drive to work,
Room for baby, room for wife:
I love my new home

[Occhidiangela]

I will have poetry in my life. :D

Hopefully posting this will help me get it off of my chest.

The Wreck of the Hesperus

"WRECK OF THE HESPERUS"

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintery sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The Skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
for I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church bells ring,
Oh, say, what may it be?"
"Tis a fog-bell on a rock bound coast!" --
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns;
Oh, say, what may it be?"
Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light.
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

Some background:
Longfellow liked using local history and lore in his poems, and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” is based on two events: an actual shipwreck at Norman’s Woe, after which a body like the one in the poem was found, and the real wreck of the Hesperus, which took place near Boston. Despite that fact, the poem is so well known that the loop road leading close to Norman’s Woe from Route 127 is named Hesperus Ave. Interestingly, Longfellow only saw Norman’s Woe for the first time shortly before his death. “The Wreck of the Hesperus” was written in 1839.

An unflattering critique.
: "The Wreck of the Hesperus" is prototypical Longfellow, pure 19th century sentimentalism, with all the inverted word order and overwrought emotions connected with that school of verse. While such poems have been sneered at for most of a century now, they were the popular culture of the time, and The Wreck was wildly popular in its day. Many a middle-class American home had books of Longfellow in the parlor, and many people could recite this verse by heart. The poem is mostly forgotten now, but the title lives on as a widely used phrase representing disastrous wreckage.

Opinion: Longfellow's "WRECK OF THE HESPERUS" must rank high amongst the list of poems that should never have been written.
I recited it in class (made two word errors) for an "A" on an English assignment my junior year in high school. I tend to prefer "There once was a man from Nantucket" and others in that genre.

Occhi

[Nystul]

To the night shift worker getting the life sucked out of him (been there, done that, still there myself), I offer a vampire lai:

Interview With a Vampire

This tale of mine is just a bit screwy.
It was late one night with nothing to do here,
so I pumped on the tube t'see a couple of movies.
I wasn't too choosy, but this one was a doozy.
A young girl, a beauty; she's a dumb blonde, a floozie.
When monsters show up, things go nuts. It's so goofy.
Folks' blood looks so juicy, these things suck it like root beer.
The blonde gets so tough, that she doubles her duty.
A cheerleader looking so hot with a Wonder Girl 'tude. She
Goes from the school groupie to the one kickin' booty.
Like Yoshimi battling robots, this girl Buffy has moves. She
Can jump through the roof. She can bust things in two. She
Can shake a stake to make vamps quake, then thusts it so smoothly
Into their hearts, they blow apart, the trouble is through here.
But then it's dark, the music starts, and something seems spooky.
And then I hear my doorbell interrupting the movie.

If I only knew then what I know now,
I would not've got the door, no way no how.
A deathwish was never my desire.
I didn't want an interview with a vampire!

I opened the door, to see who's outside waitin':
A strange man dressed up in a tux with watch and waistband.
I asked him for his name and occupation.
He said "I'm the Count... er, of the population."
"I'm from the Census Bureau. I must count the nation."
I said "Wow, that's great, but check the clock. It's late, man!"
He said "So sorry sir! If there's time now, I'll stay and"
"If not I'll come back whenever you want, just say when!"
Somehow, my fate then came: the right to decide.
Do I ask him to get lost, or invite him inside?
My decision boiled down to politeness and pride.
I let him into my house to his delite. Then I sighed.
I asked why he's here so late at night. He replied,
"I can't go out into the sunlight, or else I'd
Have problems 'cause my skin is so white. I'd get fried!
The burning can't be cured with any vitamin tried!

If I only knew then what I know now,
I would not've got the door, no way no how.
A deathwish was never my desire.
I didn't want an interview with a vampire!

Led the Counter to the kitchen and said "Sit right here!
I offered drinks but he replied "I don't drink... beer."
"Which reminds me, Census Question 1 is clear:"
"I need your blood... type and vaccination year."
Then I looked behind him and I gasped with fear.
Two people in the room: only one in the mirror!
He glanced over his shoulder and he said "Oh dear!"
"Breakfast time may be closer than it appears!"
Then he smiled at me with his evil teeth
And said "Question 2... is he deceased?"
I thought "What would the chick in the movie do?"
"I better think quick, and make a move or two."
Some spices in the drawer might make a vampire halt.
I reached for garlic powder but I got the onion salt!
When that didn't work I splashed him with my cup.
But I guess Rocky Mountain water isn't holy enough!

If I only knew then what I know now,
I would not've got the door, no way no how.
A deathwish was never my desire.
I didn't want an interview with a vampire!

Splashing Counter with beer was a grave mistake.
I knew now that my last chance was to make a stake.
Reached under the table and I gave a shake.
But my luck was bad: I couldn't break a leg.
"Please don't snack on me, for goodness sake!" I beg.
"If I knew that you were coming I'da baked a cake!"
But Counter didn't look like he would take a break,
So I darted for the door to make my breakaway.
The Counter cornered me, but I had one more chance.
There's a hatchet in this corner, so I grabbed this axe.
I tried to swing the hatchet and chop off his head.
But without the Slayer swinging it, the vamp ain't dead!
The Counter looked at me and gave his lips a lick.
He chomped into my neck and now I'm feeling sick.
The moral of this tale I tell is awf'ly slick.
Don't hatch your Counters, without a chick.

[[wcip]Angel]

My very favourite poem:

Her bouquet cleaved his hardened
shell
and fondled his muscled heart.
He imbibed her glistening spell
just before the other shoe
fell

I crack up every time I hear that:P

[Maitre]

So I dug the scanner out, and was able to get a shot of Un Petit Garcon et Son Ami, but you'll have a hell of a time trying to read it, so the text is transcribed below (in French and English for les personnes qui ne parles pas la langue Francais...). Please don't correct my French, this was written senior year of high school (Mrs. Erickson's French 5 class), and I have no doubt that there are missing accents, mis-conjugations, and pour vocabulary. However, I could have done worse.

Le Garçon
Il est un petit garçon. (He is a small boy.)
Il a les oreilles grandes, (He has large ears.)
Il a un grand nez, (He has a large nose,)
Et les yeux petits. (And small eyes.)
Sa tête est grande et ronde, (His head is large and round,)
Et il a un bon sourire. (And he has a good smile.)
Il a un cou court. (He has a short neck.)
Ses bras sont courts, (His arms are short,)
Et ses doigts sont hérissés. (And his hands are rough.)

Il porte les mêmes vêtements tous les jours. (He wears the same clothes every day.)
Ces vêtements sont simples, mais (His clothes are simple, but)
Ils sont uniques. (They are unique.)

C’est un garçon qui perd tous les jour, mais (He is a boy who always loses, but)
C’est un garçon qu’on doit admirer, (He is a boy one must admire,)
Pour toutes les années à venir. (For all te years to come.)

Son Ami
Ce garçon a aussi un bon ami, (The boy also has a good friend,)
qui a les oreilles grandes aussi. (Who has large ears as well.)
Aussi les yeux petits, et un grand nez, (Also small eyes, a large nose,)
Aussi il a un bon sourire. (Also a good smile.)

Mais cet ami set différent, (But this friend is different,)
Il porte un collier toujours, (He always wears a collar,)
Et aussi, il a une queue. (And also, he has a tail.)

Cet ami vit les rêves (This friend lives the dreams)
Que l'autre a peur de vivre, (That the other is afraid to live,)
Et cet ami a un peu de succés. (And this friend has a bit of success.)