True Poems, with a Morrissey flavour
- Thread starter goinghome
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Optimistic Fool
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I love this! It doesn't rhyme at all, but I like the 'without' parts a lot
Optimistic Fool
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Optimistic Fool
off-topic
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
A voice of varying quality never stopped the likes of Bob Dylan and plenty others ; )
What an amozzing find!
KINDNESS
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Light Housework
Maybe most importantly, my fingers were steady.
I just wrote about kindness in the drivel thread! Great poem.A voice of varying quality never stopped the likes of Bob Dylan and plenty others ; )
What an amozzing find!
KINDNESS
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Light Housework
Maybe most importantly, my fingers were steady.
Ok, goinghome, I just did a little singing, after reading your encouragement.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
Coincidence!
Lovely. Nothing wrong with that, though I'm guessing where you are means you can't belt it out as you might like.
Sing your life!! Especially if you enjoy doing so. You know yourself. Let us know in the song thread if you're recording again.
Light Housework
Maybe most importantly, my fingers were steady.
It's not going to happen anytime soon, if at all. I had Rob to put my lyrics and vocals together with his music, and we're out of touch and I haven't got his contact info. It was around 2009 that we made those 5 songs. Then he told me to buzz off, because he got impatient with me having technical issues here in Canada. My mic volume wouldn't adjust upward. He was in the UK and we were exchanging music and vocal tracks over the internet. I don't remember his email address.Coincidence!
Lovely. Nothing wrong with that, though I'm guessing where you are means you can't belt it out as you might like.
Sing your life!! Especially if you enjoy doing so. You know yourself. Let us know in the song thread if you're recording again.
Light Housework
Maybe most importantly, my fingers were steady.
It's true that I can't belt it out, as I'm in an apartment.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
What an accomplishment already though!
In the film England Is Mine, young people are shown checking poster boards in community halls, and looking up magazine ad columns to connect with other musicians. I guess reaching out still goes on in one form or another.
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
BY EDWARD LEARI
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
II
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
Little Johnny’s Confession, by Brian Patten (1967)
This morningbeing rather young and foolish
I borrowed a machine gun my father
had left hidden since the war, went out,
and eliminated a number of small enemies.
Since then I have not returned home.
This morning
swarms of police with tracker dogs
wander about the city with my description
printed on their minds, asking:
‘Have you seen him,
He is seven years old,
likes Pluto, Mighty Mouse
and Biffo the Bear,
have you seen him, anywhere?’
This morning
sitting alone in a strange playground
muttering You’ve blundered You’ve blundered
over and over to myself
I work my next move
but cannot move;
the tracker dogs will sniff me out,
they have my lollipops.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
A Woke Morrissey Fan Poem by goinghome
My Morrissey
Your Morrissey
His Morrissey
Her Morrissey
Our Morrissey
Their Morrissey
Of any more-is-he? -
Morrissey?!
To pair with the poem I, You, He, She, We, by Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks
I, You, He, She, We
I, You, He, She, We
I, You, He, She, We
In the garden of mystic lovers,
I, You, He, She, We
These are not true distinctions
I, You, He, She, We
There's part of us that's like an itch
Call it the animal soul
A foolishness that when we're in it
We make hundreds of others around us itchy
And there is an intelligent soul
With another desire more like sweet basil
Or the feel of a breeze
Listen and be thankful even for scolding
That comes from the intelligent soul
It flows out closer to where you flowed out
But that itchiness wants to put food in their mouths
That will make us sick
Feverish with the after-taste of kissing a donkey's rump
It's like blackening your robe against the kettle
Without being anywhere near a table of companionship
The truth of being human is an empty table
Made of soul intelligence
Gradually reduce what you give your animal soul
The bread that after all overflows from sun light
The animal soul itself spilled out
And sprouted from the other
Taste more often what nourishes your clear light
And you'll have less use for the smoky oven
You'll bury that baking equipment in the ground
My Morrissey
Your Morrissey
His Morrissey
Her Morrissey
Our Morrissey
Their Morrissey
Of any more-is-he? -
Morrissey?!
To pair with the poem I, You, He, She, We, by Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks
I, You, He, She, We
I, You, He, She, We
I, You, He, She, We
In the garden of mystic lovers,
I, You, He, She, We
These are not true distinctions
I, You, He, She, We
There's part of us that's like an itch
Call it the animal soul
A foolishness that when we're in it
We make hundreds of others around us itchy
And there is an intelligent soul
With another desire more like sweet basil
Or the feel of a breeze
Listen and be thankful even for scolding
That comes from the intelligent soul
It flows out closer to where you flowed out
But that itchiness wants to put food in their mouths
That will make us sick
Feverish with the after-taste of kissing a donkey's rump
It's like blackening your robe against the kettle
Without being anywhere near a table of companionship
The truth of being human is an empty table
Made of soul intelligence
Gradually reduce what you give your animal soul
The bread that after all overflows from sun light
The animal soul itself spilled out
And sprouted from the other
Taste more often what nourishes your clear light
And you'll have less use for the smoky oven
You'll bury that baking equipment in the ground
nicky wire's legs
Christ is king!
no offence but that's cheesy as hell
Was I ever any good
Labour to my death.
Says the great Canadian novelist
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1954)
BY WALLACE STEVENSI
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
'The Song Of The Highest Tower' Arthur Rimbaud
Idle Youth
By all things enslaved
Through sensitivity
I’ve wasted my days.
Ah! Let the moment come
When hearts love as one.
I told myself: wait
And let no one see:
And without the promise
Of true ecstasy.
Let nothing delay
This hiding away.
I’ve been patient so long
I’ve forgotten even
The terror and suffering
Flown up to heaven,
A sick thirst again
Darkens my veins.
So the meadow
Freed by neglect,
Flowered, overgrown
With weeds and incense,
To the buzzing nearby
Of a hundred foul flies.
Ah! Thousand widowhoods
Of a soul so poor
It bears only the image
Of our Lady before!
Does one then pray
To the Virgin today?
Idle Youth
By all things enslaved
Through sensitivity
I’ve wasted my days.
Ah! Let the moment come
When hearts love as one.
Idle Youth
By all things enslaved
Through sensitivity
I’ve wasted my days.
Ah! Let the moment come
When hearts love as one.
I told myself: wait
And let no one see:
And without the promise
Of true ecstasy.
Let nothing delay
This hiding away.
I’ve been patient so long
I’ve forgotten even
The terror and suffering
Flown up to heaven,
A sick thirst again
Darkens my veins.
So the meadow
Freed by neglect,
Flowered, overgrown
With weeds and incense,
To the buzzing nearby
Of a hundred foul flies.
Ah! Thousand widowhoods
Of a soul so poor
It bears only the image
Of our Lady before!
Does one then pray
To the Virgin today?
Idle Youth
By all things enslaved
Through sensitivity
I’ve wasted my days.
Ah! Let the moment come
When hearts love as one.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
Countless lives inhabit us.
Countless lives inhabit us.I don’t know, when I think or feel,
Who it is that thinks or feels.
I am merely the place
Where things are thought or felt.
I have more than just one soul.
There are more I’s than I myself.
I exist, nevertheless,
Indifferent to them all.
I silence them: I speak.
The crossing urges of what
I feel or do not feel
Struggle in who I am, but I
Ignore them. They dictate nothing
To the I I know: I write.
by Fernando Pessoa
© Translation: 1998, Richard Zenith
From: Fernando Pessoa & Co. – Selected Poems
Publisher: Grove Press, New York, 1998
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
"When will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
And nature die?
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.
Nothing will die;
All things will change
Thro' eternity.
'Tis the world's winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago;
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro' and thro',
Here and there,
Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill'd with life anew.
The world was never made;
It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;
For even and morn
Ever will be
Thro' eternity.
Nothing was born;
Nothing will die;
All things will change".
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
And nature die?
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.
Nothing will die;
All things will change
Thro' eternity.
'Tis the world's winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago;
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro' and thro',
Here and there,
Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill'd with life anew.
The world was never made;
It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;
For even and morn
Ever will be
Thro' eternity.
Nothing was born;
Nothing will die;
All things will change".
Alfred Lord Tennyson
