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…)

A Lone Pine Cone

photo credit: Cam & Zoe Manderson

A Lone Pine Cone

There lies a pine cone on top of the freshly cut grass,
In June it sticks out like a sore thumb among the green mass.

How did it end up in the middle of the field,
Hidden from the machine’s blades — it remains concealed.

The towering forests cast their shadows overhead,
Offering protection to the cone’s attempt to spread.

It has avoided creatures, elements and people — it now waits,
There is no certain future for the cone as it lies in dire straits.

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)

Justice Souter and Poetry by Algernon Swinburne

Earlier this month Justice David Souter stepped down as a 3rd Circuit Court Appeals Judge (each Supreme Court Associate Justice also is a member of a Circuit Court) earlier this month. At a farewell speech he decided to give lawyers and judges for that Circuit a bit of wisdom. Quoting from Algernon Charles Swinburne that “Such fruit as men reap from spent hours and wear.” From the Article, Souter said he asked himself, “What are the fruits that I have reaped?”

It is now the eve of Justice Souter’s planned retirement from the Supreme Court. President Obama is expected to nominate his replacement sometime later this week. More from the poetry mentioned in his speech below.

Such fruit as men reap from spent hours and wear,
Few men, but happy; of whom be thou, O son,
Happiest, if thou submit thy soul to fate,
And set thine eyes and heart on hopes high-born
And divine deeds and abstinence divine.
So shalt thou be toward all men all thy days
As light and might communicable, and burn
From heaven among the stars above the hours,
And break not as a man breaks nor burn down:
For to whom other of all heroic names
Have the gods given his life in hand as thine?
And gloriously hast thou lived, and made thy life
To me that bare thee and to all men born
Thankworthy, a praise for ever; and hast won fame
When wild wars broke all round thy father’s house,
And the mad people of windy mountain ways
Laid spears against us like a sea, and all
Aetolia thundered with Thessalian hoofs;
Yet these, as wind baffles the foam, and beats
Straight back the relaxed ripple, didst thou break
And loosen all their lances, till undone
And man from man they fell; for ye twain stood
God against god, Ares and Artemis,
And thou the mightier; wherefore she unleashed
A sharp-toothed curse thou too shalt overcome;
For in the greener blossom of thy life
Ere the full blade caught flower, and when time gave
Respite, thou didst not slacken soul nor sleep,
But with great hand and heart seek praise of men
Out of sharp straits and many a grievous thing,
Seeing the strange foam of undivided seas
On channels never sailed in, and by shores
Where the old winds cease not blowing, and all the night
Thunders, and day is no delight to men.

Excerpt from Atalanta in Calydon published in 1865.

Empty Streets

Bad Dream Part 2

by Masha Danevasha

Wind blowing papers through empty grey streets
Cement maw of an alley is gaped in a shout
Broken glass and spent bullets crunch under my feet
Every cell of the body is screaming – get out

YOU! the reason I find myself in this zone
Abandoned amidst the decrepit concrete,
Used up and subverted – YOU left me, alone
Shrinking from shadows that lurk in the streets

Let me break out from this desolate town
From the cold blind stares of its windows and roofs
I run through the streets and clutch in my hand
A daring prize – that which means most to you.

Its shape is unclear, its purpose is flawed
Its value is measured with memories and sighs
Yet one thing is certain – you’ll grieve for its loss
Like I grieved once, when you said goodbye

A ghost on the corner breathes out “It’s not yours”
Still I gather the courage and hasten my step
“I have taken what’s due, and if he wants it back
He can find me and face me – and take it himself”

Escape is somewhere in the tangle of rails
Amid tentacles running in every which way
Salvation is close, I may even get out
at last… if I find the one outbound train.

Highwayman – Alfred Noyes

The Highwayman

by Alfred Noyes

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding–
Riding–riding–
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

He’d a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin;
He’d a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!
And he rode with a jeweled twinkle–
His rapier hilt a-twinkle–
His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred,
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter–
Bess, the landlord’s daughter–
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler listened–his face was white and peaked–
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord’s daughter–
The landlord’s black-eyed daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart; I’m after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

He stood upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the sweet black waves of perfume came tumbling o’er his breast,
Then he kissed its waves in the moonlight
(O sweet black waves in the moonlight!),
And he tugged at his reins in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon.
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon over the purple moor,
The redcoat troops came marching–
Marching–marching–
King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord; they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets by their side;
There was Death at every window,
And Hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had bound her up at attention, with many a sniggering jest!
They had tied a rifle beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
“Now keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say,
“Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way.”

(more…)

Scotty – Star Trek Poem

Scotty

by Tosca (Maria Quinn)

Who will beam me up
now that you have gone?
Who can I rely on
to keep me safe,
as my particles
disintegrate?

Now when I board
with my pass
to fly business class,
it won’t be the same.

I’ll still whisper your name
and close my eyes.
But…surprise, surprise;
all my parts will remain
on the aeroplane.

And my wish won’t come true
Because you
have beamed yourself up,
Scotty.

Featured as a first place prize winner in a Writing.Com’s Star Trek Writing Contest in 2007. Maria Quinn an Australian just released a book this year titled Gene Thieves, and is avaiable here.