Eratosphere Forums - Metrical Poetry, Free Verse, Fiction, Art, Critique, Discussions Able Muse - a review of poetry, prose and art

Forum Left Top

Notices

Reply
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Unread 03-20-2017, 12:06 AM
RCL's Avatar
RCL RCL is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 6,758
Default Spring Has Stung!

May you greet it as you will.


Incoming!

Spring’s the most aggressive season
gagging us beyond all reason.
Sunshine’s closer and it warms us
but its power soon bombards us
with exploding spores and buds
nourished by old winter’s muds
raising sap in waking trees
teenaged kids above their knees,
and geezers fighting beyond reason
raise their lances one more season.
__________________
Ralph

Last edited by RCL; 03-23-2017 at 05:29 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Unread 03-22-2017, 02:15 AM
William A. Baurle William A. Baurle is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Arizona, USA
Posts: 1,844
Default

I got one, Ralph. Somebody needs to get this green ball rolling.

This is a bit stodgy and imitative, one of my way older poems. But what the hey, it's Spring & all -


A Light

Winter comes with tapered days
and wreathes in muffled whites and grays
all hint of color; the distressed
trees shiver now, like girls undressed.

The glass that hardens on the lake
looks almost deeper than the ache
in these two hands that hang like chains,
all Summers rifled from the veins

where fever burned some time before,
before the closing of a door,
before the silence and the drouth
of a blasted heart, a barren mouth.

Step forth, snow-mantled Death, and strew
your blight upon the living, brew
up storms, that all the birds take wing.
You'll be a fool again, come Spring.

- WAB
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Unread 03-22-2017, 02:56 AM
Ann Drysdale's Avatar
Ann Drysdale Ann Drysdale is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Old South Wales (UK)
Posts: 6,652
Default

The trouble with this thread is that the poems we post here are visible to those who might condemn them as "published". I was about to add one but stayed my hand when I realised it is currently with an editor being considered for a journal. Also, to put a poem that's published already feels like cheating and, worse, vanity posting. I think many of us may be trammelled by these considerations.

The Black History thread was different in that there was an element of discussion and we were posting other people's poetry, and the "news of the day" threads call for ephemeral squibs.

I may be wrong, but I didn't want you to feel sidelined, Ralph and Bill.

What say you, Jayne?
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Unread 03-23-2017, 01:51 AM
William A. Baurle William A. Baurle is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Arizona, USA
Posts: 1,844
Default

I kind of considered that, Ann, but then I thought, I have no intention of trying to publish the poem I posted here anyway. Maybe in an appendix of juvenilia in that BIG book long after I'm dead?

Maybe we could just post Spring poems by other poets?

Then again, it's Ralph's thread...Whad'ya say, Ralph?

Jayne?

Ann?






Maria!! Maria!!



Hi! Julie!

Last edited by William A. Baurle; 03-23-2017 at 01:55 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Unread 03-23-2017, 03:10 AM
Ann Drysdale's Avatar
Ann Drysdale Ann Drysdale is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Old South Wales (UK)
Posts: 6,652
Default

So far as I know, there's no rule to suggest that "own poetry" should not be posted on D&A. That's one of the ways it's different from the other forums.

I just wanted you to understand why I, for one, and possibly many others, do not join in with our own work on some of these threads.

I'll post a favourite poem by a favourite poet. I have never written anything even half as good...

Spring

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Unread 03-23-2017, 11:58 AM
RCL's Avatar
RCL RCL is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 6,758
Default

Yes, any and all favorites about spring are what I meant to say, and "as you will" didn't say it! Thanks for the Hopkins, one of my favorites. Oh, and this isn't one I intended to publish, more for the fun of it.
__________________
Ralph
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Unread 03-23-2017, 12:11 PM
RCL's Avatar
RCL RCL is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 6,758
Default Sinus Song

Here’s another I drag out every spring and won’t attempt to publish:


More Ancient Music

Ralph’s version

(After Anon and Ezra)

Springtide is now coming in
Loudly sing Achoo!
Pollen drifts and gives me fits
And how the sneezes echo!

Sing: Achoo!
Burns my eyes and causes sighs
An ague has my head.
Melts the snow and makes nose blow

And sinuses to bleed anew.
Achoo I sing: Achoo!
Damn you, Achoo! You’re why I’m blue
And so eschew your springtime brew

To sing Achoo, Achoo, NOW!


Cuccu Song

(Middle English)

Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu
Groweþ sed
and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu
Sing cuccu

Awe bleteþ after lomb
lhouþ after calue cu
Bulluc sterteþ
bucke uerteþ

murie sing cuccu
Cuccu cuccu
Wel singes þu cuccu
ne swik þu nauer nu

Sing cuccu nu • Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu • Sing cuccu nu


Cuckoo Song

(Modern English)

Spring has arrived,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf;
The bullock is prancing,
The billy-goat farting,

Sing merrily, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Never stop now.

Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;
Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!
__________________
Ralph
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Unread 03-23-2017, 05:58 PM
Jayne Osborn's Avatar
Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Middle England
Posts: 6,947
Default

Quote:
The trouble with this thread is that the poems we post here are visible to those who might condemn them as "published". . . What say you, Jayne?
Hey, folks, don't forget the title of this board: Drills & Amusements.

A thread such as this one is just for sharing a bit of fun; the poems aren't for critique, nor are they competition entries, so we can all feel free to post any poems about spring, be they our own or someone else's.

(But yes, I'd say hold back from posting work you may wish to submit to a publication, now or later.)

Now, where on earth is that poem I wrote when I first started out? . . . I'd completely forgotten about it till now - and it would be perfect for this thread. (Going off to search . . . but don't hold your breath It's buried somewhere, before I had a clue about saving work in ''folders''.)

Jayne
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Unread 03-23-2017, 10:55 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Posts: 8,306
Default

Hey, Ralph!

Unfortunately, I can't read "Sumer Is Icumen In" without the tune running through my head, and I can't make yours cooperate with the music that Anon's (obviously) and Ezra Pound's fit so well.

There's a YouTube version of a nice performance here. Note that the Pes 1 and Pes 2 ("pes" is Latin for "foot") parts chase each other in their own little mini-round throughout--playing footsie?--beneath the main round. And here are links to the original and modernized sheet music, if you want to sing along.)
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Unread 03-24-2017, 12:07 AM
William A. Baurle William A. Baurle is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Arizona, USA
Posts: 1,844
Default

One of the greatest Spring poems ever, by one of the most underrated American poets from C20:

***

Winter's End

Once in a wood at winter's end,
The withered sun, becoming young,
Turned the white silence into sound:
Bird after bird rose up in song.
The skeletons of snow-blocked trees
Linked thinning shadows here and there,
And those made mummy by the freeze
Spangled their mirrors on cold air.
Whether they moved — perhaps they spun,
Caught in a new but known delight —
Was hard to tell, since shade and sun
Mingled to hear the birds recite.
No body of this sound I saw,
So glassed and shining was the world
That swung on a sun-and-ice seesaw
And fought to have its leaves unfurled.
Hanging its harvest in between
Two worlds, one lost, one yet to come,
The wood's remoteness, like a drum,
Beat the oncoming season in.
Then every snow bird on white wings
Became its tropic counterpart,
And, in a renaissance of rings,
I saw the heart of summer start.

Howard Moss
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump



Forum Right Top
Forum Left Bottom Forum Right Bottom
 
Right Left
Member Login
Forgot password?
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Statistics:
Forum Members: 8,395
Total Threads: 21,824
Total Posts: 270,666
There are 2595 users
currently browsing forums.
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Sponsor:
Donate & Support Able Muse / Eratosphere
Forum LeftForum Right
Right Right
Right Bottom Left Right Bottom Right

Hosted by ApplauZ Online