Some Poems That We Might share ....

~Jail~

The walls screamed poetry disease & sex
an inner whine like a mad machine -
dropped in a
cave of roaches
or rodents

The Computer
faces of the men

The wall collage
reading matter

The Traders (dealers)

I am a guide to the labyrinth
Come & see me
in the green hotel
Rm. 32
I will be there after 9:30 p.m.

I will show you the girl of the ghetto
I will show you the burning well
I will show you strange people
haunted, beast-like, on the
verge of evolution

-Fear The Lords who are
secret among us

Leaving the phone-booth, I was
Struck by a whiff of
the weird.
Insane old country woman
come to nag the haunts
of town
Hairy legs w/open sores.

From what swamp or under-rock
did you crawl to remind
us what we choose
to leave

[i]By Jim Morrison[/i]

~underwaterfall~

down
down
down
down
down
down
deep
below

children of the caves will let their
secret fires glow

An explosion of birds
Dawn
Sun strokes the walls
An old man leaves the Casino
A young man reading pauses
on the path to the garden

Bitter winter
Fiction dogs are starving
The radio is moaning softly
calling to the dogs
There are still a few
animals left in the yard

Sit up all night,
talking smoking
Count the dead & wait
’til morning
Will warm names & faces
come again
Does the silver forest end?

December Isles
Hot morning chambers
of the New Day
Idiot first to awaken (be born)
w/shadows of new play
learned men
in Sunday best
we’ve had our chance to rest
to mourn the passing of day
to lament the death of our
glorious member
(she whispers secret messages
of love in the garden
to her friends, the bees)
The garden would be here
forevermore

Mexican parachute
Blue green pink
Invented of Silk
& stretched on grass
Draped in the trees
of a Mexican Park
T-shirt boys in their
Slumbering art

-I fear that he’s been
maim’d beyond all
recognition

He hears them come &
murmur over his corpse.

Street Pizza.

funny,
I keep expecting a
knock on the door
well, that’s what you
get for living around
people

a Knock? would shatter
my dreams’ illusions
deportment & composure
The struggle of a poor poet
to stay out of the grips
of novels & gambling
& journalism

A quality of ignorance,
self-deception may be
necessary to the poet’s
survival.

Actors must make us think
they’re real
Our friends must not
make us think we’re acting

They are, though, in slow
Time

My wild words
slip into fusion
& risk losing
the solid ground

So stranger, get
wilder still

Probe the Highlands

Bourbon is a wicked brew, recalling
courage milk, refined poison
of cockroach & tree-bark, leaves
& fly-wings scraped from the
land, a thick film; menstrual
fluids no doubt add their splendour.
It is the eagle’s drink.

Why do I drink?
So that I can write poetry.

Sometimes when it’s all spun out
and all that is ugly recedes
into a deep sleep
There is an awakening
and all that remains is true.
As the body is ravaged
the spirit grows stronger.

Forgive me Father for I know
what I do.
I want to hear the last Poem
of the last Poet.

[i]By Jim Morrison[/i]

The Last Man,

Ah, I am just so happy that you finally made it and i am sorry that I was not here to greet you. Next time, the drinks will be on me and we can sit and have some conversation together.

The poetry you recited warmed my establishment. Wonderful ambiance - everyone loved them. And next time, I will be sure you get a table by the fireplace.

You are welcome any time, Sir.

Story Of Isaac
by Leonard Cohen

The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, “I’ve had a vision
and you know I’m strong and holy,
I must do what I’ve been told.”
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller,
the lake a lady’s mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
Broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.
You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father’s hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.
And if you call me brother now,
forgive me if I inquire,
“Just according to whose plan?”
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.

Wow, that is very powerful.

Here are some poems I have translated. No English translations of them exist apart from what I have done.

First, a bit of Latin from Adrianus’s Galatea.

[i]
Illa vagos quondam sensus hac voce monebat,
nescitis miseri quot mala gignat amor.
Tempore forma perit, paucisque ea carpitur annis.
Dum licet, Idalii pellite tela Dei.
His ego firmatus monitis me posse putavi innocua
Cypriam mente videre Deam.

My laments for thee, they do recall my roving lusts,
though the fruits of misery I am unwilling to let bear upon the stalk of love.
To beauty time lays waste, that is assured;
though I shan’t even permit her fruit to bear;
as long as it is permitted me to drive out amor’s dart,
upon Aphrodite’s very temple.
For it strengthens me in this conviction,
to suppose that the Cyprian goddess, too, was innocent.[/i]

[Cyprian Goddess, ie. Eris.]

Some old Italian from Vincenzo da Filicaia’s Avvertimento ali Anima.

[i]Ahi qual fallo e mirar cio, che mirato
desta il desire, e col desir tormenta!
Le Stelle indarno, indarno accusa il fato
chi del proprio suo mal fabbro diventa:
Stassi al varco del ciglio in dolte aguato
amor dolce nemico, e ment ei tenta
nel cuor l ingresso, con felice inganno
ospite v entra, e vi riman tiranuo.

Oh! What an error to look still upon your image,
even after you have taken leave and given me your farewell,
for when desire is named, desire torments!
Desire, hence, what a fruitless star! Fruitlessly to accuse fate,
and her wrought smithy in the firmament,
and the circuit it hath thereby bore her to tread forever;
together she, with the beloved, in sweet ambush
confound love’s vision, and makes of it a sweet enemy,
which, happy to be deceived, the heart entreats and welcomes,
again and again subject to your tyrannizing.[/i]

Here is an aphorism of mine in which I translate an old French epigram I always found consolation in.

[size=85]539. How beautiful is the sea! Even when I can see nothing within it. So should we learn to view a beautiful woman-- even when we cannot have her. And, failing this, we can at least console ourselves in that beautiful verse:

Ne deves pas servir en vain,
car ne serves pas vainement.
I do not serve thee, my woman, in vain,
as long as I serve not vanity. [Miserere by Barthélemy reclus de Molliens][/size]

That is actually very beautiful. I have felt this way about a man or two. It isn’t so much about possessing, at all, but rather about that feeling of being possessed by…whether it is by the Sea or a certain man.

ah, but love, there still is nothing like it in all the world…whether it be romantic love or real love It really is the energy that burns through the universe, isn’t it? These are really romantic poems. What does Avvertimento ali Anima mean?

Avvertimento ali Anima, the title of the poem I quoted (only a stanza from it, I might work on typing out the rest of it in English some time) means “A warning/caution to the soul.”

Yes, the idea of love is important to me. I have never experienced it, in the sense of reciprocation, and most likely never will. I am indifferent to happiness and sorrow, though. I love a woman for who she is, what she is- not for how she makes me feel personally or what she does for me, and rather or not I “have” her is irrelevant.

Wonderful contributions here Ascolo, thanks for sharing.

Ascolo Parodites"

I might imagine that translating these poems into English is a little like working on a very expensive watch with all of its intricacies. I think you just might have to be intimately familar with the poets’ works and what they might really be trying to convey, or am I wrong? It would seem to me that it would not just be about translating Italian into English but also in conveying the real meaning and depth of what the poet might be saying and feeling. This can be challenging but oh so worthwhile especially for those to experience the fruits of your wonderful labor.

In this way, these translations, might be difficult but indeed a work of love. I can imagine you sitting hunched over at your desk, like the monks of old trying to translate old biblical text…but maybe not quite like that…but then again, maybe just like that.

Anyway, what you are doing is important. How else might we have and feel the beauty of these wonderful romantic Italian poems.

I am rather surprised that you have not experienced reciprocation in love - your ideal and sense of love is real I think.
Edited: Sat., Feb. 13th

[size=150]The Wayfarer[/size]
Stephen Crane

The wayfarer.
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
“Ha,” he said,
“I see that none has passed here
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
“Well,” he mumbled at last,
“Doubtless there are other roads.”

This drives home a very poignant fact - that the path from honesty into truth is the “road less traveled”!

Yes. To translate you must be able to reproduce the poem, not just materially, but in such a way as to expose the spell of misery or joy under which it was originally composed. I read not just poetry but philosophy in foreign languages, a few hundred pages a day. I don’t bother translating something unless I am able to reproduce it in my own language in this specific way.

There was one time when I was going through a period of nihilism, and this poem seemed to pick up the shattered pieces before me and make them dance for me.

All Is Truth
By Walt Whitman

Standing aloof, denying portions so long,
Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth,
Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie, and can be none,
but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth does.

(This is curious and may not be realized immediately, but it must be
realized,
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)

Where has fail’d a perfect return indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?
or in the meat and blood?

Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into myself, I see
that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return, and that what are called
lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact just as much as
space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth–but
that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am,
And sing and laugh and deny nothing.

Ascolo Parodites,

You must really live, become totally immersed within the life that Emerson spoke of within these words: “The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both.”

What you are also doing is getting at the truth found within their words. How many languages are you fluent in, if I might ask, but you needn’t answer, of course.

And thank you for your work.

I taught myself French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Spanish. Yet I am more proud of my own writing than I am of my knowledge and mastery of the languages of men. An example of which:

[size=85]
599. The noble scene of the heart.-- As the driftwood which litters these beautiful sands, so the loss of friend, or spoiled love, is suddenly born upon us one morning from we know not where, and there it befouls what seemed only a few moments ago to be a perfect isle. How sad the heart which, instead of being the sea and rolling tide from which its beauties, its dreams, and its graces issue forth, is only the sands and noble scene which receives them.

612. Of the sorrow of man.-- Every sorrow, as it arises within us, seems to be something particular, something rare, and perhaps wisdom alone is not enough to lead a man to doubt this, however much folly may be in it: if I might be allowed to indulge my Latin taste, my conscience very much accords to the definition which Cornelius Schonaeus gave to sorrow: ac volucrem rerum omnium conditionem mutabilem. “Woe! That all things are disposed to change! Sorrow, you are the wings of the world.” For this woe is generally the lot of mankind. We may divine, however, and without much effort, the pleasure of the rich man, of the lover, of the esteemed poet: they indeed all wear it upon their face. But the sorrows of our fellow men never seem to have such a striking effect upon us. Why is this? Hope more easily forges the bond of human fellowship than sympathy, for it always looks ahead, as is the view to which it is betaken by its very nature, and lends its eye to that happiness in another which we would endeavor to possess for ourselves, not in point of vanity, but as only is right; while sympathy must always look backward, must search deep into us to extract from the heart the little thorn of sorrow, so deeply rooted, which might wed the spirit. Perhaps for all that, it is only pain that has made man presume himself to be a God-- a rarity, a measure, and out of defiance against all things, the world just as much as himself, the exception in all of nature.

While self-reproach, the pangs of love and conscience, and all the various complaints of the heart seem to be of themselves a proof of our individual character and of our genius, all the joys that arise within us seem to be somewhat vulgarizing, either from good spirits and rustic simplicity, by means of art, or in the merry circumstances which sometimes befall us, and of which we have learned to treat of as the very breast of life; memento vita, 1 and strictly betake themselves to the avouchment of all that has grown familiar, customary, and arid to us. Thus our pleasures, more so than our sorrows, fill us with that forboding suspicion that we are not at all a rarity, and fail to add even one stone to that lofty structure of ambition and longing upon which man has staked his very conception of genius, individual character, and his pride. Accordingly, these pleasures vanish almost as quickly as they arise: perhaps this is only natural, as it helps to encourage the illusions which are quite necessary for the defiance before all of existence which makes human life tolerable. Alas! That even love must appear upon the earth as a little bee attracted by the vaguest whiff of the Sephalica’s fragrance! 2 Herein lies the actual testament to the vanity of the world: sorrow indeed points to the contrary. And still, provided the remotest term of human existence, both the sorrowful and the happy man will come to the same conclusion regarding the vanity of this world: the former will exhaust himself, and the latter will exhaust his life. I believe that a man who has attained to the furthest span of years that may be reckoned of human life has only one excuse for remaining faithful to his God, and quite a noble excuse I might add: at vero vitos veris initio turgescunt oculis ad lacrymas: [Franciscus Remundus in Orationes] this life is as certain as the next as tear is of tear.

1. Memento vita, remember you are living. A variation on the Latin theme memento mori, remember you are mortal.
2. The Sephalica was a fabled flower which made the bee which rested on it fall asleep. The implication of the metaphor here is that, just as the bee which, because it has fallen asleep, will never be able to return to the comb with this fabled nectar, love will never be able to obtain what has truly been desired and return to us with the glorified image of what has been longed for, and that our expectations under this fever of love will always fall short of their mark. [/size]

Perhaps I live too much. I have seen that the life of the soul and the body are far from coterminous. I know that my soul will perish long before my body, and even now, in face of all I have come to know, and of my mastery of the human heart, to double and re-double my life seems an impossibility; that my soul will have been exhausted long before time, that too cautious of laborers, has wrought decay in my body. Petrarch had taught me the meaning of madness, which amounts to what I have just described, the loss of the soul while the body lingers on, in this verse:

Will Heaven, taking what belongs to it,
not care about those who remain on earth,
whose sun it is, and who see nothing else?

Hi flashoflight, I read this a few times and although I do not know what it is that Whitman was actually trying to say in here, I sort of get the sense that it is about a journey which ultimately leads to surrender and Oneness…surrendering brought on by the slow knowledge and/or awareness that really Everything in the universe is connected, each thing flows into the other…where nothing is judged and ultimately what is real and true is that All is One. I know that I seem to have simplified this but ultimately I think this is what it is…that Everything is simply One…complete and harmonious.

And I am glad that your dance has come back to Oneness. Thank you for sharing that.

Ascolo Parodites

I think that would make you a cross between Lincoln and a real renaissance man. And yes, I think I understand…your own writing is a treasure that came from within you, deep within you. An expression of yourself, just as the writings of others are expressions of themselves.

Beautiful imagery here. Your writing sort of reminds me of a friend’s. What comes to me here are Keats’ words – “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” Nothing, I don’t think could ever really detract from the sea and rolling tide from which its beauties……… What one is left with at the point of detachment is nothing but still Everything.

Really beautiful words. I think hope does look forward; and we are all connected through it, but I feel that we are also connected through our compassion for one another, through empathy. And our sorrow is as deep, as profound, as our joy is experienced within our heights. Both are rare as experienced through the deepest and the highest. And I must apologize to you - if you would prefer for me not to make any comments on your words here. The thoughts are beautiful.

I am beginning to think that I do less justice to your words in here by responding instead of just reading and contemplating them. I have found what you say about pleasure and sorrow (or vs.) to be true. But I also think that there is harmony in learning how to merge the two. And tears are as certain (at least to me) as the next life is.

Unless perhaps we look at love as simply something that possesses us (but to which we must do a dance of detachment) and not something to be reciprocated by the beloved, which for me is the never-ending journey for which I have been put on this Earth.

To me, the soul is an energy which cannot be destroyed. And they are close and can play and feed upon one another, I think, better still, there is a dance between them. The soul, I think, can ebb and flow and be transformed but will always be. Petrarch was wrong!! Forgive me.

If everything is in complete harmony, as one, though appearances don’t always seem to show this, then all is as One and nothing is left behind. Nothing!

Your words really are beautiful. As I think I have said, so much love and hard work and energy for this.

Silent Paws
Gerri K. McCann

Silent paws trotting
on a well beaten trail,
alone in the wilderness,
so young and so frail.

Little yips go unanswered,
the moon is now his guide,
looking for ones just like him,
or have all of them just died?

He sniffs the dampened ground
and senses man everywhere,
the silence is deafening
no howls in the air.

Oh why did he venture
so far from his den,
while his pack fell silent
at the hands of men?

His stomach is growling
but the hunger he’ll endure,
his pack family is out there
it’s their blood he smells for sure.

He stops in his tracks
and raises his head up high,
the terror overwhelms him
as he lets out another cry.

But still there’s no answer
he can’t understand why,
he’ll follow their trail
or he surely will die.

For days now he’s traveled
his spirit and body gone weak,
he lies down in white clover
no more energy left to speak.

Soon the soul hovers
over this tiny, frail pup,
whose future now will be guarded
as his soul travels up.

What right does man have
to take life from a living thing,
that has no way to voice its defense
against a human being?

The wolf is a symbol,
a brother, a friend.
it’s time now for action
before his existence comes to an end.