Proms Poetry Competition (and your favourite musical poetry)

[cavatina]

A few more lovely lyrical poems for you that somehow speak to me this evening...hope you're enjoying them as much as I am.

DRUNK AS DRUNK
Pablo Neruda

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.


DANCERS
Sarojini Naidu

EYES ravished with rapture, celestially panting,
what passionate bosom aflaming with fire
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens
that glimmer around them in fountains of light;
O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music
that cleaves the stars like a wail of desire,
And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces
bewitch the voluptuous watches of night.
The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter
and die in the maze of their gem-tangled hair,

And smiles are entwining like magical serpents
the poppies of lips that are opiate-sweet;
Their glittering garments of purple are burning
like tremulous dawns in the quivering air,
And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle
and tread of their rhythmical, slumber-soft feet.

Now silent, now singing and swaying and swinging,
like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers,
Now wantonly winding, they flash, now they falter,
and, lingering, languish in radiant choir;
Their jewel-girt arms and warm, wavering, lily-long
fingers enchant through melodious hours,
Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting,
what passionate bosom aflaming with fire!


from LA MELINETE
Arthur Symons

Alone, apart, one dancer watches
Her mirrored, morbid grace;
Before the mirror, face to face,
Alone she watches
Her morbid, vague, ambiguous grace.

Before the mirror's dance of shadows
She dances in a dream,
And she and they together seem
A dance of shadows,
Alike the shadows of a dream.

The orange-rosy lamps are trembling
Between the robes that turn;
In ruddy flowers of flame that burn
The lights are trembling:
The shadows and the dancers turn.

And, enigmatically smiling,
In the mysterious night,
She dances for her own delight,
A shadow smiling
Back to a shadow in the night.


SONG OF THE SOUL
Khalil Gibran

In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on
Parchment; it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,
But not upon my lips.

How can I sigh it? I fear it may
Mingle with earthly ether;
To whom shall I sing it? It dwells
In the house of my soul, in fear of
Harsh ears.

When I look into my inner eyes
I see the shadow of its shadow;
When I touch my fingertips
I feel its vibrations.

The deeds of my hands heed its
Presence as a lake must reflect
The glittering stars; my tears
Reveal it, as bright drops of dew
Reveal the secret of a withering rose.

It is a song composed by contemplation,
And published by silence,
And shunned by clamor,
And folded by truth,
And repeated by dreams,
And understood by love,
And hidden by awakening,
And sung by the soul.

It is the song of love;
What Cain or Esau could sing it?

It is more fragrant than jasmine;
What voice could enslave it?

It is heartbound, as a virgin's secret;
What string could quiver it?

Who dares unite the roar of the sea
And the singing of the nightingale?
Who dares compare the shrieking tempest
To the sigh of an infant?
Who dares speak aloud the words
Intended for the heart to speak?
What human dares sing in voice
The song of God?

[JAK]

I did enter the Poetry Prom competition. I was a runner up, and my poem was read by Imogen Stubbs and broadcast on Tuesday. I'm fairly new to writing poems, and this sort of forum. I would love to know others' opinion of the poem, I think.
JACOB and the ANGEL

fearsome black and no moon
wading I was, it
caught me off balance
grabbed, gripped
then grappling
shove trip brace kick
heaving sweating
in slippery wet cold
and them, my family
waiting throughout the struggle
hearing
splash and grunt and
none of us knowing
who or why
sinew tendon muscle-knot
the strain the pain determined
not to drop
not to give in
as though the world
depended on it …..

surely an angel
could’ve beaten me easy ?
he wasn’t trying
was he ?

[french frank]

I would love to know others' opinion of the poem, I think.

Well, many congratulations on running up - and welcome to the forum!

I didn't hear the HB work but the poem sounds a bit Birtwistlian.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, many congratulations on running up - and welcome to the forum!

I didn't hear the HB work but the poem sounds a bit Birtwistlian.

[french frank]

It was intended as a compliment!

[Serial_Apologist]

I liked the Birtwistlian bit

[cavatina]

Thanks very much for that! For what it's worth, your poem was the only one at the reading that really grabbed me, and I liked it far and above the "winner". What they saw in his poem over yours, I'll never know...perhaps it's just a matter of a shared sensibility. Anyway, congratulations for a job well done!

And now, here are a few more erotically lyrical poems for a dark, rainy evening that seem to glow with an inner fire...hope you're enjoying them!


LAST GODS
Galway Kinnell

She sits naked on a rock
a few yards out in the water.
He stands on the shore,
also naked, picking blueberries.
She calls. He turns. she opens
her legs showing him her great beauty,
and smiles, a bow of lips
seeming to tie together
the ends of the earth.
Splashing her image
to pieces, he wades out
and stands before her, sunk
to the anklebones in leaf-mush
and bottom-slime—the intimacy
of the geographical. He puts
a berry in its shirt
of mist into her mouth
She swallows it. He puts in another.
She swallows it. Over the lake
two swallows whim, juke jink,
and when one snatches
an insect they both whirl up
and exult. He is swollen
not with ichor but with blood.
She takes him and talks him
more swollen. He kneels, opens
the dark, vertical smile
linking heaven with the underearth
and murmurs her smoothest flesh more smooth.
On top of the rock they join.
somewhere a frog moans, a crow screams.
The hair of their bodies
startles up. They cry
in the tongue of the last gods,
who refused to go,
chose death, and shuddered
in joy and shattered in pieces,
bequeathing their cries
into the human breast. Now in the lake
two faces, floating, see up
a great maternal pine whose branches
open out in all directions
explaining everything.


AT THE THEATRE
C.P. Cavafy

I got bored looking at the stage
and raised my eyes to the box circle.
In one of the boxes I saw you
with your strange beauty, your dissolute youthfulness.
My thoughts turned back at once
to all they’d told me about you that afternoon;
my mind and body were aroused.
And as I gazed enthralled
at your languid beauty, your languid youthfulness,
your tastefully discriminating dress,
in my imagination I kept picturing you
the way they’d talked about you that afternoon.


BLOW OUT THE LAMP
Nanduri Subbarao

Blow out the lamp.
My mind can't hold you in the light.

I want the garden totally dark.
I want to see your eyes shine.

Blow out the lamp.
My mind can't hold you in the light.

I will think of your beauty over and over
peering until I see all of you.

Blow out the lamp.
My mind can't hold you in the light.

We'll stop looking and forget form
and fall asleep unaware of each other.

Blow out the lamp.
My mind can't hold you in the light.


I DREAMT
Rabindranath Tagore

I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair with
her fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her face
and struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burst
my sleep like a bubble.
I sat up and saw the glow of the Milky Way above my window,
like a world of silence on fire, and I wondered if at this moment
she had a dream that rhymed with mine.


LOVE HAS NO OTHER DESIRE
Kahlil Gibran

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have
desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that
sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and
give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate
love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the
beloved in your heart and a song of praise
upon your lips.


LAST NIGHT AS I WAS SLEEPING
Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

[Al R Gando]

Thanks for taking the time to select and post these poems, Cavatina

Not everyone could be bothered, and some found it more amusing to jeer from the sidelines :(

[eighthobstruction]

No, No, No, we were in the front bloomin row....[at the click of a mouse, some louse mocked the poems of the house of cards....]

[eighthobstruction]

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless
A guide for those who journey on the road;
For those who wish to go across the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,
And a lamp for those who long for light;
For those who need a resting place, a bed;
For all those who need a servant, may I be a slave.

May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,
A word of power; and the supreme remedy.
May I be the tree of miracles,
And for every being, the abundant cow.

Like the great earth and the other elements,
Enduring as the sky itself endures,
For the boundless multitude of living beings,
May I be the ground and vessel of their life,

Thus, for every single thing that lives
In number like the boundless reaches of the sky,
May I be their sustenance and nourishment
Until they pass beyond the bounds of suffering.

[Serial_Apologist]

No, No, No, we were in the front bloomin row....[at the click of a mouse, some louse mocked the poems of the house of cards....]

... all of us soaking up the vibes right there too, as it were....

[eighthobstruction]

Oh yeah.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNEGTS62JA

[cavatina]

Thanks for taking the time to select and post these poems, Cavatina (

Glad you liked them! I've been devouring so much poetry these days (and nights!) it's the least I could do.

Well, to round off my Proms poetry thread contributions this year, I found a few more for you--and thought I'd kick things off with the ne plus ultra of "What was the narrator thinking at a music festival?" poems. That is, if you're willing to count an Ancient Greek Dionysian music festival in honor of Priapus...more like a musical orgy. Improbably enough, the subject is unrequited love. For those of you who don't have a classical education, here's a little more of a historical context:

"Originally worshipped by Greek colonists in Lampsacus in Asia Minor, the cult of Priapus spread to mainland Greece and eventually to Italy during the 3rd century BC....by the people of Lampsacus he is more revered than any other god, being called by them a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. [...]Priapus was mostly worshiped in gardens or homes.

So now you know what the author is getting at with references to Lucius the Lampsacene with his "courts that gleam with forbidden light", days and nights of music and dancing, etc. Warning: it's a bit overheated, and probably makes a lot more sense with a glass or two of wine in you. I like to think so, at any rate. So without further ado...

AD LUCIUM from WHITE STAINS, E.A. Crowley

http://www.100thmonkeypress.com/biblio/acrowley/downloads/white/lucium/lucium.pdf

TWO
Hugo von Hofmannsthal

She brought a drinking-cup to him,
Her chin and mouth were like its rim.
So light and steadily she stept,
No drop from out the goblet leapt.

He reined, with light and steady hand,
A fiery stallion unspent,
And, with a gesture negligent.
He brought it trembling to a stand.

Yet when he reached his hands to take
The cup with such a light thing filled,
It was too heavy by a pound !
For so the two of them did shake,
That neither hand the other found.
And dark wine on the ground was spilled.


MAGNETS
Lawrence Binyon

A FAR look in absorbed eyes, unaware
Of what some gazer thrills to gather there;
A happy voice, singing to itself apart,
That pulses new blood through a listener's heart;
Old fortitude; and, 'mid an hour of dread,
The scorn of all odds in a proud young head;--
These are themselves, and being but what they are,
Of others' praise or pity have no care,
Yet still are magnets to another's need.
Invisibly as wind, blowing stray seed,
Life breathes on life, though ignorant what it brings,
And spirit touches spirit on the strings
Where music is: courage from courage glows
In secret; shy powers to themselves unclose;
And the most solitary hope, that gray
Patience has sister'd, ripens far away
In young bosoms. Oh, we have failed and failed,
And never knew if we or the world ailed,
Clouded and thwarted; yet perhaps the best
Of all we do and dream of lives unguessed.


A MOON SO BRIGHT
Su Tung P'o

Will a moon so bright ever arise again?
Drink a cupful of wine and ask of the sky.
I don't know where the palace gate of heaven is,
Or even the year in which tonight slips by.
I want to return riding the whirl-wind! But I
Feel afraid that this heaven of jasper and jade
Lets in the cold, its palaces rear so high.
I shall get up and dance with my own shadow.
From life endured among men how far a cry!

Round the red pavilion
Slanting through the lattices
Onto every wakeful eye,
Moon, why should you bear a grudge, O why
Insist in time of separation so to fill the sky?
Men know joy and sorrow, parting and reunion;
The moon lacks lustre, brightly shines; is all, is less.
Perfection was never easily come by.
Though miles apart, could men but live for ever
Dreaming they shared this moonlight endlessly!


IN WOODS AND MEADOWS
James Stephens

Play to the tender stops, though cheerily:
Gently, my soul, my song let no one hear:
Sing to thyself alone; thine ecstasy
Rising in silence to the inward ear
That is attuned to silence: do not tell
A friend, a bird, a star, lest they should say--
_He danced in woods and meadows all the day,
Waving his arms, and cried as evening fell,
'O, do not come,' and cried, 'O, come, thou queen,
And walk with me unwatched upon the green
Under the sky.'_


DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT
Li Bai

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.

May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

[Serial_Apologist]

Laurence Binyon details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Binyon

[eighthobstruction]

Ref the new added poems of the Great Beast E.A.Crowley....I believe this version is in fact a second drafting of his original version....

I only bring a gift to him tonight,
Being the mockery of his rods distress.
His balls are aluminium
And so is his William;
On nights he always plays with them
At the back of the pavilion....