Poetry Spam!
Apr. 5th, 2007 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meddowThis emphasis on poetry around LJ at the moment is wonderful and I thought I would join in.
My favourite poem is the The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, after all, what's not to like? It's got Antarctica, it's got the spirits and it's got zombies.
But since it's so famous (and long), I though I would spam some others. And since every time I've studied poetry there has always been an emphasis on New Zealand poets, I thought I would spam with some New Zealand poems. So I've started off with High Country Weather because it's short, gorgeous and very well known, then No Ordinary Sun because Hone Tuwhare is one of my favourite poets and that poem in particular was my favourite all through High School and finally And My Heart Goes Swimming which I discovered recently and think is incredibly beautiful.
High Country Weather
Alone we are born
And die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger
- James K. Baxter
No Ordinary Sun
Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.
Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon’s pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind’s talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.
Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.
Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade wind’s blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.
O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.
- Hone Tuwhare
And My Heart Goes Swimming
and my heart goes swimming
wet and lipid it hangs between waves of salt.
a warm heart in cold green waters
deep
to the bottom.
wave after wave washing the little skin
saline.
and my heart goes swimming
a fisherman scoops the sea,
finds a heart in his hand.
no cold fish warm red blood black hair
blonde.
a night of swimming,
open eyes laugh
see us
love
the man and my heart celebrate
and in the morning warm water from a tap.
But now the fisherman has fish to catch
see, he had net, and sinkers.
back
to the sea
my heart goes swimming
wave after wave
no cold fish could swim like my heart goes swimmin
- Cilla McQueen
My favourite poem is the The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, after all, what's not to like? It's got Antarctica, it's got the spirits and it's got zombies.
But since it's so famous (and long), I though I would spam some others. And since every time I've studied poetry there has always been an emphasis on New Zealand poets, I thought I would spam with some New Zealand poems. So I've started off with High Country Weather because it's short, gorgeous and very well known, then No Ordinary Sun because Hone Tuwhare is one of my favourite poets and that poem in particular was my favourite all through High School and finally And My Heart Goes Swimming which I discovered recently and think is incredibly beautiful.
High Country Weather
Alone we are born
And die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger
- James K. Baxter
No Ordinary Sun
Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.
Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon’s pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind’s talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.
Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.
Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade wind’s blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.
O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.
- Hone Tuwhare
And My Heart Goes Swimming
and my heart goes swimming
wet and lipid it hangs between waves of salt.
a warm heart in cold green waters
deep
to the bottom.
wave after wave washing the little skin
saline.
and my heart goes swimming
a fisherman scoops the sea,
finds a heart in his hand.
no cold fish warm red blood black hair
blonde.
a night of swimming,
open eyes laugh
see us
love
the man and my heart celebrate
and in the morning warm water from a tap.
But now the fisherman has fish to catch
see, he had net, and sinkers.
back
to the sea
my heart goes swimming
wave after wave
no cold fish could swim like my heart goes swimmin
- Cilla McQueen
