10 Oct: "The Hollow Men" (again)

I recommend listening to Marlon Brando read the entire poem. Maybe add the Apocalypse Now interpretation into the poem?




"The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz-he dead
            A penny for the Old Guy


                       I

    We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar
    
    Shape without form, shade without colour,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
    
    Those who have crossed
    With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
    Remember us-if at all-not as lost
    Violent souls, but only
    As the hollow men
    The stuffed men.

    
                              II

    Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
    In death's dream kingdom
    These do not appear:
    There, the eyes are
    Sunlight on a broken column
    There, is a tree swinging
    And voices are
    In the wind's singing
    More distant and more solemn
    Than a fading star.
    
    Let me be no nearer
    In death's dream kingdom
    Let me also wear
    Such deliberate disguises
    Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
    In a field
    Behaving as the wind behaves
    No nearer-
    
    Not that final meeting
    In the twilight kingdom

    
                   III

    This is the dead land
    This is cactus land
    Here the stone images
    Are raised, here they receive
    The supplication of a dead man's hand
    Under the twinkle of a fading star.
    
    Is it like this
    In death's other kingdom
    Waking alone
    At the hour when we are
    Trembling with tenderness
    Lips that would kiss
    Form prayers to broken stone.

    
                     IV

    The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
    
    In this last of meeting places
    We grope together
    And avoid speech
    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
    
    Sightless, unless
    The eyes reappear
    As the perpetual star
    Multifoliate rose
    Of death's twilight kingdom
    The hope only
    Of empty men.

    
                           V

    Here we go round the prickly pear
    Prickly pear prickly pear
    Here we go round the prickly pear
    At five o'clock in the morning.
    
    Between the idea
    And the reality
    Between the motion
    And the act
    Falls the Shadow
                                   For Thine is the Kingdom
    
    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow
                                   Life is very long
    
    Between the desire
    And the spasm
    Between the potency
    And the existence
    Between the essence
    And the descent
    Falls the Shadow
                                   For Thine is the Kingdom
    
    For Thine is
    Life is
    For Thine is the
    
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

9 Oct: “Charms”

“Charms” by Georgia Heard

Soldiers stuck the ace of spades into helmet bands,

lugged Bibles through jungles in backpacks,

cradled Mezuzahs, locks of hair, crumpled photos

of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, the Pope,

The Beatles, in camouflage pockets.  Crosses,

St. Christophers dangled from strong necks,

resting against fearful hearts.

They slept with creased snapshots of families, 

wives, kids, dogs, clutched tightly in their fists.

One soldier even carried a homemade oatmeal cookie

his entire tour of Vietnam, swaddled in tin foil.

When he was homesick

          he unwrapped it,

                   held it up to his nose,

                             to smell

                                      what home  

                                                was like.

8 Oct: Abecedarian from Keeping the Night Watch

Abecedarian from Keeping the Night Watch by Hope Anita Smith

All of the family got one,

Byron, Mama, Daddy, Grandmomma, and me.  Our names

Carefully penned in Crayola Candy Apple Red.          
Daddy cried the hardest, and that’s to be          
Expected.          

Fathers, who leave, keep paying even when they come back.         

Grandmomma sits sagelike,          

Holding the letter to her chest,          

Imitating the Virgin Mary, as if the Baby were          

Jesus,          

King of Kings.          

“Lord, have          

Mercy” were the only words she spoke.  The letter said:          

Now that Daddy’s back, let’s not be scared,          

Okay?

Parents are good when there are two.

Quiet houses are

Really

Scary.

Time to love each other again.

Until forever.  And that means a

Very long time.

With 

XXXs and OOOs

Yours, 

Zuri



http://ktm1231poetry.blogspot.com/2014/01/african-american-poetry.html

7 Oct: "There's a moon out tonight" by Capris

"There's a moon out tonight" By Capris

There's a (moon out tonight) whoa-oh-oh ooh
Let's go strollin'
There's a (girl in my heart) whoa-oh-oh ooh
Whose heart I've stolen
There's a moon out tonight (whoa-oh-oh ooh)
Let's go strollin' through the park (ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)

There's a (glow in my heart) whoa-oh-oh ooh
I never felt before
There's a (girl at my side) whoa-oh-oh ooh
That I adore
There's a glow in my heart I never felt before (ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)

Oh darlin'
Where have you been?
I've been longin' for you all my life

Whoa-uh-oh baby I never felt this way before
I guess it's because there's a moon out tonight

There's a (glow in my heart) whoa-oh-oh ooh
I never felt before
There's a (girl at my side) whoa-oh-oh ooh
That I adore
There's glow in my heart
I guess it's because

There's a moon out tonight
Moon out tonight
Moon out tonight
Moon out tonight
There's a moon out tonight

6 Oct: "Ode: The Capris"

Ode: The Capris

by Mark Halliday

How do I feel about "There's a Moon Out Tonight" 

by the Capris?

I thought you'd never ask

Marcia Koomen lived across Cherry Lane

getting tall, taller than me in fifth grade

and smiling behind her glasses, she knew something.

The summer nights in Raleigh were thick

with something bright in the dark; you could ride

bikes under the moon and in and out of

lampshine at the corner of Wade and Dogwood,

not caring about touching a girl, or, later,

not caring much still but happy to be a boy

who could some day "have" a girl, and be conscious of

a shivering beauty caught in the word girl

There's a girl at my side 

that I adore

-the Capris knew something all together

and it called for this new verb, to adore;

something out there ahead of my bicycle in the dark;

I cared a loy about Paladin on "Have Gun - Will Travel"

but did I adore him? Scotty Koomen, years older,

got sort of pae and brittle when he went to visit

a certain girl in his class, he seemed to have trouble

breathing...

There's a glow in my heart

I never felt before

- not exactly in my heart yet but it was

what would be there if I rode just maybe deeper down

Dogwood Lane in the busy dark.

Across Dogwood lived Ann Dailey

who had freckles and an awesome kind of largeness,

not fat but big and this made my eyes feel hot and burny;

she moved slowly doing chores in her yard,

her long tanning thighs seemed sarcastic

as if she knew soon her freckled beauty must positively

carry her somehow out, out and away...And

Shelby Wilson one night kissed her on the lips.

I saw it happen - on the sofa in the basement - 

her folks weren't home. Right on the lips!

Amazing lips are in your future, boy. That's

what the Capris were telling me; the North Carolinia moon

is natural and it can find you anywhere;

you have t let the moon paint you and your bike

and the picture of Elvis in your pocket

and it shines down on Marcia's hair

and on the thought of the green eyes of Ann Dailey.

Ride and wait, wait and watch;

you laugh, you shiver in the summer - cool - dark.

You speak of the Yankees and the Pirates but

cut a side glance at Marcia's tall shape

but when she says anything serious exasperate her

yelling Little Richard's wop bop alu bop

but this dodging, dodging will end -

somewhere - 

the Capris being on Marcia's side.

Baby, I never felt this way before

I guess it's because there's a moon out tonight

and once that shining starts

no amount of irony will ever quite ride the Capris out of town.

I picture a deep pool with yellow flowers drifting

on the surface. The song pours up

out of that pool.

Poem 008, Poetry  180 

(note: Poem 007 was a repeat from website)

5 Oct: "Acting"

Acting by Suzanne Cleary

I most remember the class where we lie
on our backs, on the cold floor, eyes closed, listening
to a story set in tall grasses, a land of flash floods.
Ten babies slept in a wagon as a stream risen from nothing
trampled like white horses towards them.
We heard the horses, pulling their terrible silence.
Then he asked us to open our eyes. Our teacher
took from his pocket an orange square, dropped it:
this had wrapped one of the babies.
This was found after the water receded.

I remember the woman with red hair
kneeling before the scarf, afraid to touch it,
our teacher telling her she could stop
by saying OK, Good.
I remember the boy named Michael, who
once told me he loved me. Michael
approached with tiny steps, heel to toe,
as if he were measuring land,
and, all at once, he fell
on the scarf. It could have been funny,
loud, clumsy. Another context, another moment,
it would have been ridiculous.
Head down, he held the scarf to his eyes.

My turn, I didn’t move. I stared
at the orange scarf, but not as long
as I’d have liked to, for this was a class
and there were others in line for their grief.
I touched it, lightly, with one hand,
folded it into a square, a smaller square, smaller.

What is lived in a life?
Our teacher making up that story
as he watched us lie on the dusty floor,
our rising, one by one,
to play with loss, to practice,
what is lived, to live? What was that desire
to move through ourselves to the orange
cotton, agreed upon, passed
from one to another?

Poem 006, Poetry 180

4 Oct: "The Pink Car" by Mark Halliday

The pink car is in my head. It rolls calmly and calmly. Across the carpet in 1957 and in my head. Why is it pink? The question does not come up. The pink car is just what it is and glad so. Pink is its own color, of its own, being that. (Pink not anything about sex and not anything about femininity and not anything about embarrassment or socialism those meanings are from outside whereas this pink car is not coming from an idea it is a way of being itself.) The pink car rolls slowly along a pale green lane till it needs to go fast then it goes very fast while still quiet. It knows what it is, it is the pink car! Along the lanes to be what it is it goes around hard corners and far across a wide plain and back again whenever it wants. Other cars can be all those other colors the pink car doesn't care they can be loud and big the pink car doesn't care that is why it can roll so quietly and go slow until it goes fast for awhile. Other cars might honk their horns to seem big -- the pink car doesn't honk and doesn't worry it just goes along the pale green lane and around a sharp corner and down another lane to stop in a special spot. Why is the spot special? Because the pink car stopped there! Stopping quiet but ready to go, to go and be the pink car which is all it wants. And when will I, when can I ever be the man impied by this sedan? Poem 005, Poetry 180 (note: this author was featured for 4-5 poems on our website list, but this does not appear to be one of them- even though we are getting familiar with his voice)

3 Oct: "Singing Back the World" by Dorianne Laux

I don’t remember how it began.
The singing. Judy at the wheel
in the middles of Sentimental Journey.
The side of her face glowing.
Her lips moving. Beyond her shoulder
the little house sliding by.
and Geri. Her frizzy hair
in the wind wing’s breeze, fumbling
with the words. All of us singing
as loud as we can. Off key.
Not even a semblance of harmony.
Driving home in a blue Comet singing
I’ll Be Seeing You and Love Is a Rose.
The love songs of war. The war songs
of love. Mixing up verses, eras, words.
Songs from stupid musicals.
Coming in strong on the easy refrains.
Straining our middle-aged voices
trying to reach impossible notes,
reconstruct forgotten phrases.
Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.
Shamelessly la la la-ing
whole sections. Forgetting
the rent, the kids, the men,
the other woman. The sad goodbye.
The whole of children. Forgetting
the lost dog, Polio. The gret planes
pregnant with bombs. Fields
of white headstones. All of it gone
as we struggle to remember
the words. One of us picking up
where the others leave off. Intent
on the song. Forgetting our bodies,
their pitiful limbs, their heaviness.
Nothing but three throats
beating back the world–Laurie’s
radiation treatments. The scars
on Christina’s arms. Kim’s brother.
Molly’s grandfather. Jane’s sister.
Singing to the telephone poles
skimming by. Stoplights
blooming green. The road,
a glassy black river edged
with brilliant gilded weeds. The car
an immense boat cutting the air
into blue angelic plumes. Singing
Blue Moon and Paper Moon
and Mack the Knife, and Nobody Knows
the Trouble I’ve Seen.

Poem 004, Poetry 180 (note: Dorianne Lux was featured for a different poem #180 on website)

2 Oct: "Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad" by Jan Heller Levi

I think you are most yourself when you are swimming; slicing the water with each stroke, the funny way you breathe, your mouth cocked as though you're yawning. You're neither fantastic nor miserable at getting from here to there. You wouldn't win any medals, Dad, but you wouldn't drown. I think how different everything might have been had I judged your loving like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly, your Australian crawl. But I always thought I was drowning in that icy ocean between us, I always thought you were moving too slowly to save me, When you were moving as fast as you can. Poem 003, Poetry 180

1 Oct: "Sonnets from the Portuguese III"

III. "Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart..." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageantries, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head,---on mine, the dew,--- And Death must dig the level where these agree.