No Swan So Fine – Marianne Moore

photo credit: Ian Naysmith

No Swan So Fine

by Marianne Moore
“No water so still as the
dead fountains of Versailles.” No swan,
with swart blind look askance
and gondoliering legs, so fine
as the chintz china one with fawn-
brown eyes and toothed gold
collar on to show whose bird it was.

Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth
candelabrum-tree of cockscomb-
tinted buttons, dahlias,
sea urchins, and everlastings,
it perches on the branching foam
of polished sculptured
flowers – at ease and tall. The king is dead.

Aftermath – Longfellow

photo credit: Jeff W Brooktree

Aftermath

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.

Emily Dickinson

I HAVE no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come, 5
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you.

1924.

The Beaches of Normandy

photo credit: Robert F. Sargent (USCG), 1944. Click to view in High Resolution.

The Landing at Normandy

by Benjamin1987

Off of the
landing craft
and running
into danger

Bullets flying
all around like
a hive of
angry bees

Fellow soldiers
falling all around

And medics running
all over taking
care of wounded

The shooting
of rifles
and the
barking of machine guns

Screaming
and yelling
all around you

If you would like to read the rest, please visit Benjamin’s blog here at Everypoet.

Break, break, break – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter – JRR Tolkien

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

by J.R.R Tolkien

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

(Excerpt from: The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954)

Learning Korean

A college education plays a vital role in paving the way for a successful career.   Too often, students of Philosophy, History, Communications, and Art (the list can go on) face adversity in the job market. As a Political Science student I have made it my mission to become a valuable asset after graduation.  To do that, I have chosen to learn a critical language to both the government and business arenas.  

I considered Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. The importance of Korea can not be overstated in the upcoming decades.  The fact that no peace treaty was signed with the North, ongoing nuclear and missile testing (North) and our presence of 20,000 soldiers along the DMZ in South Korea, the area will be prominent in our lifetime.

As with any language learning Korean will take practice and patience. The following poem is by Oh Sae-young a Modernist Poet (b. 1942) in South Korea.

Music

by Oh Sae-young
When their leaves have fallen
the winter trees
turn into musical instruments,
instruments
ringing out at the wind’s fingertips
following the notes hanging in the sky.
(more…)

Doctors – Rudyard Kipling

Doctors

by Rudyard Kipling

Man dies too soon, beside his works half-planned.
His days are counted and reprieve is vain:
Who shall entreat with Death to stay his hand;
Or cloke the shameful nakedness of pain?

Send here the bold, the seekers of the way–
The passionless, the unshakeable of soul,
Who serve the inmost mysteries of man’s clay,
And ask no more than leave to make them whole.

But..Who will teach the children

Another poetry news story happened in London this week. This time, a smear campaign started by the newly chosen Oxford Professor of Poetry, Ruth Padel, against Derek Walcott. Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature (for Poetry) in 1992, and now aged 79 was also vying for the Oxford Professor spot.

The smear campaign originated by Padel was on a settlement reached by Walcott in 1996 from a Freshman Harvard girl’s claim of sexual harassment in 1981. Padel has now resigned.

Forget politics, apparentlyoetry is where the real competition is at.
Source: BBC

Now for a poem,

In The Way

by Abhinav Singh Baghel

In the way,
I and they,
In fierce competition
To reap recognition
Along the day, along the night
Engaged well with all the might
Intermingled with the thoughts to light
intentions to make life more delight

In the way
I and they
In the conflagration
To seek specification
All the days, all the nights
There stay some sobbing sights
Impede others possibilities, how that counts
Immoral thoughts to give them wounds
—
Image edited from original, available at 1 One Poet 4 Man

Dulce Et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen

According to an article by the United Kingdom’s Metro, 

“Poetry is in danger of dying out. More than eight in ten Britons cannot recite a verse by heart, a study shows.”

In comparison with older generations the article states that:

In fact, it is only the over-60s who can remember verses – with 72 per cent able to deliver lines they learned as children. Two-thirds know entire poems – with Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum Est (It Is Sweet And Right) most popular.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST (It is sweet and proper)

by Wilfred Owen

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

(1917, 1920)