Topic: Poems for Collaboration 11 - Check in here

[Karl]

Here's my idea which I hope suits you all - I will upload poems on this post and hopefully you'll find something to work with. If you have any queries or ones that you would like to share then send me a personal message, and I can then post them. So, here it goes with poem #1

When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
 
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
 
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

W B Yeats

[LT]

excellent Karl - I'll sticky this one up so it doesnt get lost

[Skorj]

Thanks Karl. Assume this piece from William White fits the guidelines? Over 70 years old; it sounds like it... Skj.

Angels Guard Thee
Once again he enters his forest
and with each step
the mist closes in behind him
like soft doors shutting
Here he will wait for her
to glide in on gorgeous wings.

[beck]

Two really great entries already...I like Skj's and would like to work with that one, especially the last line...I thought that was rather pretty...even though it's early in the game...I get anxious. I'm not sure if this calls for selecting a given poem and photographing a interpretation? Forgive me if I read this wrong. Help....


My head is swarming with tons and wanted to find one that I can identify with as well as someone else...and perhaps come up with some sort of image translation.

I think this is a really great idea and opportunity...



Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
-Dogen

[Karl]

I get anxious. I'm not sure if this calls for selecting a given poem and photographing a interpretation? Forgive me if I read this wrong. Help....

Either way as long as it fits the criteria, ie poet dead for 70 years, or proof that a poet will let you use their work to publish online (copyright and creativity!).

If it helps, I've got quite a few more to post up over the next couple of days as I've been doing soe research. National Poetry Day staff will be helping source some too.

[Karl]

While I don't plan to type up the poems, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is full of dream imagery, so if you can access a copy then have a read.

I know I'm stating the obvious but public libraries are a good place for browsing a while.

[Karl]

Ode

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems
 
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion art empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
 

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth.
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

by Arthur O?Shaughnessy [1844-1881]

[Karl]

One of my favourite's here,

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens? embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

By W B Yeats

[eddie]

Here's my idea which I hope suits you all - I will upload poems on this post and hopefully you'll find something to work with. If you have any queries or ones that you would like to share then send me a personal message, and I can then post them. So, here it goes with poem #1

When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
 
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
 
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

W B Yeats

Great choice and a vast collection of work that would suit the theme.  He died in 1939 so the 70 year rule knocks him off the list, pity.

[Karl]

Great choice and a vast collection of work that would suit the theme.  He died in 1939 so the 70 year rule knocks him off the list, pity.
[/quote]

According to National Poetry Day Co-ordinator, I think we're OK with Yeats, I'll check for sure but that's what she told me!

[sausage100uk]

Bit of Owen to add into the mix....

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

[Andrea.]

A Dream Within A Dream
    
    Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe [died 1849]

[Ailsa]

These last two poems have made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Keep 'em coming!

[kuru]

A Dream Within A Dream
    
    Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe [died 1849]

That was the one I picked out while going through Edgar's poems.

[Karl]

Andrea - thanks you spared me my next poem upload!

[Karl]

phew...

D.H. Lawrence (1885?1930).  Amores.  1916.
 
11. Dreams Old and Nascent
 
Nascent
 
 
MY world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes   
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;   
An endless tapestry the past has women drapes   
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.   
    
The surface of dreams is broken,          
The picture of the past is shaken and scattered.   
Fluent, active figures of men pass along the railway, and I am woken   
From the dreams that the distance flattered.   
    
Along the railway, active figures of men.   
They have a secret that stirs in their limbs as they move          
Out of the distance, nearer, commanding my dreamy world.   
    
Here in the subtle, rounded flesh   
Beats the active ecstasy.   
In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer,   
The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving through the mesh          
Of men, vibrating in ecstasy through the rounded flesh.
    
Oh my boys, bending over your books,   
In you is trembling and fusing   
The creation of a new-patterned dream, dream of a generation:   
And I watch to see the Creator, the power that patterns the dream.          
    
The old dreams are beautiful, beloved, soft-toned, and sure,   
But the dream-stuff is molten and moving mysteriously,   
Alluring my eyes; for I, am I not also dream-stuff,   
Am I not quickening, diffusing myself in the pattern, shaping and shapen?   
    
Here in my class is the answer for the great yearning:          
Eyes where I can watch the swim of old dreams reflected on the molten metal of dreams,   
Watch the stir which is rhythmic and moves them all as a heart-beat moves the blood,   
Here in the swelling flesh the great activity working,   
Visible there in the change of eyes and the mobile features.   
    
Oh the great mystery and fascination of the unseen Shaper,          
The power of the melting, fusing Force?heat, light, all in one,   
Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and shaping the dream in the flesh,   
As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.   
    
Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I am life!   
Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring concentration          
Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the fruit of a dream,   
Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the sweep of the impulse of life,   
And watching the great Thing labouring through the whole round flesh of the world;   
And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the coming dream,   
As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,          
Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,   
Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious, molten life!   

[Karl]

here's a good one

City That Does Not Sleep    
by Federico Garc?a Lorca
Translated by Robert Bly


In the sky there is nobody asleep.  Nobody, nobody.

Nobody is asleep.

The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.

The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,

and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the

            street corner

the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the

            stars.



Nobody is asleep on earth.  Nobody, nobody.

Nobody is asleep.

In a graveyard far off there is a corpse

who has moaned for three years

because of a dry countryside on his knee;

and that boy they buried this morning cried so much

it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.



Life is not a dream.  Careful!  Careful!  Careful!

We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth

or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead

            dahlias.

But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;

flesh exists.  Kisses tie our mouths

in a thicket of new veins,

and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever

and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.



One day

the horses will live in the saloons

and the enraged ants

will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the

            eyes of cows.



Another day

we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead

and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats

we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.

Careful!  Be careful!  Be careful!

The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,

and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention

            of the bridge,

or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,

we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes

            are waiting,

where the bear's teeth are waiting,

where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,

and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.



Nobody is sleeping in the sky.  Nobody, nobody.

Nobody is sleeping.

If someone does close his eyes,

a whip, boys, a whip!

Let there be a landscape of open eyes

and bitter wounds on fire.

No one is sleeping in this world.  No one, no one.

I have said it before.



No one is sleeping.

But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the

            night,

open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight

the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

[Karl]

and another - Lorca is lovely esp. in Spanish

Romance Sonambulo   
by Federico Garc?a Lorca
Translated by William Logan 

 
(plus the original poem in Spanish)

Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I want you green.
Under the gypsy moon,
all things are watching her
and she cannot see them.

Green, how I want you green.
Big hoarfrost stars
come with the fish of shadow
that opens the road of dawn.
The fig tree rubs its wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the forest, cunning cat,
bristles its brittle fibers.
But who will come? And from where?
She is still on her balcony
green flesh, her hair green,
dreaming in the bitter sea.

--My friend, I want to trade
my horse for her house,
my saddle for her mirror,
my knife for her blanket.
My friend, I come bleeding
from the gates of Cabra.
--If it were possible, my boy,
I'd help you fix that trade.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
--My friend, I want to die
decently in my bed.
Of iron, if that's possible,
with blankets of fine chambray.
Don't you see the wound I have
from my chest up to my throat?
--Your white shirt has grown
thirsy dark brown roses.
Your blood oozes and flees a
round the corners of your sash.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
--Let me climb up, at least,
up to the high balconies;
Let me climb up! Let me,
up to the green balconies.
Railings of the moon
through which the water rumbles.

Now the two friends climb up,
up to the high balconies.
Leaving a trail of blood.
Leaving a trail of teardrops.
Tin bell vines
were trembling on the roofs.
A thousand crystal tambourines
struck at the dawn light.

Green, how I want you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two friends climbed up.
The stiff wind left
in their mouths, a strange taste
of bile, of mint, and of basil
My friend, where is she--tell me--
where is your bitter girl?
How many times she waited for you!
How many times would she wait for you,
cool face, black hair,
on this green balcony!
Over the mouth of the cistern
the gypsy girl was swinging,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
An icicle of moon
holds her up above the water.
The night became intimate
like a little plaza.
Drunken "Guardias Civiles"
were pounding on the door.
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea.
And the horse on the mountain.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la monta?a.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sue?a en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fr?a plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas la est?n mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Grandes estrellas de escarcha
vienen con el pez de sombra
que abre el camino del alba.
La higuera frota su viento
con la lija de sus ramas,
y el monte, gato gardu?o,
eriza sus pitas agrias.
?Pero qui?n vendra? ?Y por d?nde...?
Ella sigue en su baranda,
Verde came, pelo verde,
so?ando en la mar amarga.
--Compadre, quiero cambiar
mi caballo por su casa,
mi montura por su espejo,
mi cuchillo per su manta.
Compadre, vengo sangrando,
desde los puertos de Cabra.
--Si yo pudiera, mocito,
este trato se cerraba.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
--Compadre, quiero morir
decentemente en mi cama.
De acero, si puede ser,
con las s?banas de holanda.
?No ves la herida que tengo
desde el pecho a la garganta?
--Trescientas rosas morenas
lleva tu pechera blanca.
Tu sangre rezuma y huele
alrededor de tu faja.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
--Dejadme subir al menos
hasta las altas barandas;
?dejadme subir!, dejadme,
hasta las verdes barandas.
Barandales de la luna
por donde retumba el agua.
Ya suben los dos compadres
hacia las altas barandas.
Dejando un rastro de sangre.
Dejando un rastro de l?grimas.
Temblaban en los tejados
farolillos de hojalata.
Mil panderos de cristal
her?an la madrugada.
Verde que te quiero verde,
verde viento, verdes ramas.
Los dos compadres subieron.
El largo viento dejaba
en la boca un raro gusto
de hiel, de menta y de albahaca.
?Compadre! ?Donde est?, d?me?
?Donde est? tu ni?a amarga?
?Cu?ntas veces te esper?!
?Cu?ntas veces te esperara,
cara fresca, negro pelo,
en esta verde baranda!
Sobre el rostro del aljibe
se mec?a la gitana.
Verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fr?a plata.
Un car?mbano de luna
la sostiene sobre el agua.
La noche se puso ?ntima
como una peque?a plaza.
Guardias civiles borrachos
en la puerta golpeaban.
Verde que te qinero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar.
Y el caballo en la monta?a.
 

[tonylim]

my entry, a Chinese peom centuries ago, well, B.C. age:

GUAN! GUAN! CRY THE FISH HAWKS
from Zhounan (The Odes of Zhou and the South)

Guan! Guan! Cry the fish hawks
on sandbars in the river:
a mild-mannered good girl,
fine match for the gentleman.

A ragged fringe is the floating-heart,
left and right we trail it:
that mild-mannered good girl,
awake, asleep, I search for her.

I search but cannot find her,
awake, asleep, thinking of her,
endlessly, endlessly,
turning, tossing from side to side.

A ragged fringe is the floating-heart,
left and right we pick it:
the mild-mannered good girl,
harp and lute make friends with her.

A ragged fringe is the floating-heart,
left and right we sort it:
the mild-mannered good girl,
bell and drum delight her.

?[NOTES]
This is a love poem, describing a man of the royal family in love with a girl collecting edible water plants , and his efforts to court her..

Zhounan: (The Odes of Zhou and the South) In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Lord Dan of Zhou (reigned 1063-1057 B.C.) made Luo City (today's Luoyang City in Henan Province) its capital and from there he ruled over other dukes. The poems in Zhounan are that from Zhou and the states south of Zhou, covering an area of today's Henan and Hubei Provinces.

the river : The Yellow River.

[Ed Wenn]

Lovely, Tony. Many thanks!!

p.s.
Good to see you here again.
 

[Karl]

At last - poems byliving poets    Here are three which are being used on postcards for National Poetry Day. The Patience Agbabi one even mentions black and white -  what more can you ask for!


Dr King Blues
Gearoid MacLochlainn
I dreamed a dream, a veteran's song,
While marching home to war.
I dreamed I heard a blackbird sing -
'Oh hardtimes come no more'.
I dreamed of chimes of broken bells
And dreamsongs still to sing
I dreamed a negro spiritual song
that sang - 'Let freedom ring'.

From Vicious Circle
Patience Agbabi
1
A basement bar. Black-and-white.
I'm at the bar on a barstool. The soundtrack,
my psychopath husband stuttering in the dark.
A ring-studded hand offers me a light.
I politely decline. This is my married lot,
dying to inhale, look back,
smile. But petrified. I'm half sick
of shadows and the stutter of gunshot.
Some dream they're being chased by death,
the action-adventure, double shot of adrenaline.
I'm freeze-framed, double whiskey on ice.
'Cause I married a madman with bad breath
and I'm manacled like Lana Turner in
The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Sea Virus
Gwyneth Lewis
I knew I should never have gone below
but I did, and the fug of bilges and wood
caught me aback. The sheets of my heart
snapped taut to breaking, as a gale
stronger than longing filled the sail
inside me. To be shot of land
and its wood smoke! To feel the keel
cold in a current! To see the mast
inscribing water like a restless pen
writing a fading wake! It's true,
I'm ruined. Not even peace will do
to keep me ashore now. Not even you.

[Karl]

Here are 4 contemporary poems by living authors (including Seamus Heaney) that are being used for National Poetry Day, so we can make use of them. This is possibly my last post with dream poems as you should have quite a bit to work with. I've emailed a poetry organisation in the US about using a Langston Hughes poem but haven't heard back. We might be able to use John Masefield's Sea Fever but am awaiting information about copyright. Hope you're all getting on OK...

The Monks of Clonmacnoise
Seamus Heaney
The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.
The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,
A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
"This man can't bear our life here and will drown,"
The abbot said, "unless we help him." So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

Lines
Judith Nicholls
I must never daydream in schooltime.
I just love a daydream in Mayshine.
I must ever greydream in timeschool.
Why must others paydream in schoolway?
Just over highschool dismay lay.
Thrust over skydreams in cryschool.
Cry dust over drydreams in screamtime.
Dreamschool thirst fi rst in dismayday.
Why lie for greyday in crimedream?
My time for dreamday is soontime.
In soontime must I daydream ever.
Never must I say dream in strifetime.
Cry dust over daydreams of lifetimes.
I must never daydream in schooltime.
In time I must daydream never.
(From MAGIC MIRROR by JN, pub. Faber. Reprinted by permission of the author)

The Water Horse
Gillian Clarke
Sometimes when I'm sleeping
The sea taps on my door.
Soon the tide is lapping round me
And sand spreads on the fl oor,
And I am riding a white horse
In the breaking waves on the shore.
The moon shines on the water,
It silvers the wet sand,
And tonight I'm the sea's daughter
And I know where dreams are found -
In a shell in a box in a secret cave
Where ships have gone aground.
My horse turns into ocean,
His muscle and his bones.
His breath is the wave's commotion,
His hooves are shining stones.
His mane and tail are breaking foam
As white as cuttlebones.
Then my horse is lost in sea-wrack,
The tide goes out on the shore,
The treasure's locked in the ship's wreck
And my dream curls up with a snore
In a mussel shell on the windowsill,
And morning's at the door.

A Child Asks Jacob About His Dream
Diana Hendry
There was a ladder, you see,
A ladder that reached from earth to heaven.
Was it a rope ladder? Did God drop it down from the sky?
What was it made of?
It was made of hope.
It was the longest, strongest ladder ever.
And there were angels climbing up and down it.
Angels? Why did they need a ladder? Didn't they have wings?
These were early angels. Wings came later.
But wouldn't the angels going up
Bump into the angels coming down?
Did some of them fall off?
No, no. They were nifty and skinny.
They were acrobatic angels. They could balance on a rung
with one foot without holding on. And they had such pretty feet!
What were they doing on earth?
Visiting friends.
Like who?
Like us. All of us.
But it was only a dream?
Asleep you see with different eyes. Maybe what you see
in dreams is just as true as what you see awake.
If I was God I'd give the angels an escalator.
Maybe there is one. Keep your dream eyes open.

[MarkBurley]

Wow, such a stunning choice - lovely set of suggestions

[moominsean]

any kind of length limits on the poem? i know not like book length, but the few i'm think about are about a page long.

[Karl]

Poem length - without wishing to dilute what anyone is doing, Susan advise me that there is limited space for publishing the poem alongside the picture, so a shorter poem will have greater chance of being put up as a whole. A page long poem might have to be excerpts, perhaps a key passage or something. Don't let it influence your decisions though!

I hope that's useful

Karl