From time to time a poem

This is a song I wrote for my new music project - Every Day's A Battle (EDAB). I thought this was the most appropriate place to post it.

I'll post some old poetry here, I guess. It's spoken word, so it won't have the same impact as when it's recited.

Also, I don't agree with the entirety of the message or with way I expressed what I was feeling at that time.

Gafflwn Dihenydd, o'r fuddugol yn wiriol sydd. Ni fydd neb yn ein Drechu, Falch ydy ni i drochu, Traed o flaen i'r Annwn, mewn y gwybodaeth fe godwn ni.

We cheat Death from his rightful victory. No one can defeat us we are glad to plunge feet first into hell in the knowledge that we will rise.

Here are three poems by American poet Trumbull Stickney, 1874 - 1903. "Dramatic Fragment" was written shortly before he died of a brain tumor.

Six O'Clock

NOW burst above the city's cold twilight
The piercing whistles and the tower-clocks:
For day is done. Along the frozen docks
The workmen set their ragged shirts aright.
Thro' factory doors a stream of dingy light
Follows the scrimmage as it quickly flocks
To hut and home among the snow's gray blocks.--
I love you, human labourers. Good-night!
Good-night to all the blackened arms that ache!
Good-night to every sick and sweated brow,
To the poor girl that strength and love forsake,
To the poor boy who can no more! I vow
The victim soon shall shudder at the stake
And fall in blood: we bring him even now.
---

Be Still. The Hanging Gardens Were a Dream

BE still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream
That over Persian roses flew to kiss
The curled lashes of Semiramis.
Troy never was, nor green Skamander stream.
Provence and Troubadour are merest lies.
The glorious hair of Venice was a beam
Made within Titian's eye. The sunsets seem,
The world is very old and nothing is.
Be still. Thou foolish thing, thou canst not wake,
Nor thy tears wedge thy soldered lids apart,
But patter in the darkness of thy heart.
Thy brain is plagued. Thou art a frighted owl
Blind with the light of life thou'ldst not forsake,
And Error loves and nourishes thy soul.

---

Dramatic Fragment

Sir, say no more.
Within me 't is as if
The green and climbing eyesight of a cat
Crawled near my mind's poor birds.

Joy - Gavin Bantock

And Paradise does come

Paradise comes like a breeze and like a breeze
drifts elsewhere than where we are at the time

and we have no way of following the wind
to the world's end.

Fortune's waters see the shore
And pushing forward, forward more
The sand builds up and washes away;
The sun sets, rises, and brightens day.

In drama's play the weave is true
As actors unravel act and clue;
The curtain rises, falls and parts,
Once and again the old tale starts.

The muses' image colours frame
The painting of an artist's fame;
Dye washes out in water's clear,
As does anger, passion, love and fear.

In the eyes reside a storm,
Fierce and calm
They draw me in though I go willingly
Ever changing, always shining
Those eyes that I adore

more like a story, but ok... It's from the movie short term 12 and I liked it.

Once upon a time, somewhere miles and miles beneath the surface of the ocean, there lived a young octopus named Nina. Nina spent most of her time alone, making strange creations out of rocks and shells. And she was very happy. But then, on Monday, the Shark showed up. "What's your name?" said the shark. "Nina," she replied. "Do you want to be my friend?" He asked. "Okay, what do I have to do?" Said Nina. "Not much," said the Shark, "Just let me eat one of your arms." Nina had never had a friend before, so she wondered if this was what you had to do to get one. She looked down at her eight arms, and decided it wouldn't be so bad to give up one. So she donated an arm to her wonderful new friend. Every day that week, Nina and the Shark would play together. They explored caves, built castles of sand, and swam really really fast. And every night, the Shark would be hungry, and Nina would give him another one of her arms to eat. On Sunday, after playing all day, the Shark told Nina that he was very hungry. "I don't understand," she said. "I've already given you six of my arms, and now you want one more?" The shark looked at her with a friendly smile and said, "I don't want one. This time I want them all." "But why?" Nina asked. And the shark replied, "Because that's what friends are for." When the shark finished his meal that night, he felt very sad and lonely. He missed having someone to explore caves, build castles and swim really really fast with. He missed Nina very much. So, he swam away to find another friend.

Or simply watch it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1572cc0Y6Qk

Wind in the Trees

Shivering, a leaf-downed wall
In golden beams lime green
The fingers underneath advance
Towards your tombstone sleep

And suddenly a breath foretold
In rippling, leaping waves

To flex, and push, your grey limbs speak
In creaks and digits snapped
From crook-crept arms in dancing arcs
You roar and sweep and sing

You’ve heard this word before, whispered
Fingers brushing their own cheek
The trees are in the wind,
The wind is in the trees.

I wrote this song for the new band I am starting called "Every Day's A Battle". This was a very difficult song for me to write, as it brought back a lot of very painful memories and emotions which I have been suppressing for many years now. This song is about hope, tolerance, love, and acceptance. I hope to record it with music and post it in my video blog should anyone be interested in listening to the finished version.

==========================================================

Alexandre Orion wrote:

Un-condition Thy Love

Love imposes no Duty –
Not to Maiden nor to Mother –
No Guilt, no Doubt,
No concerns about
The Demands made by another ...

Beware the Love that blinds
The Heart and stings the Eye,
The Servitude that binds
Is often Error,
Often a Lie …

love your use of rhythmic devices, and simple as a poem should be : ) my favorite poems are always about love or tragedy : ) Analyze

They say that hope is happiness;
But genuine love must prize the past,
And memory wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first, they set the last.

And all that memory loves the most
Was once our only hope to be,
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into memory.

Alas! It is delusion all;
The future cheats us from afar
Nor can we be what we recall
Nor dare we think on what we are.

-Byron

Around the Temple hall
are the magic walls,
engrained in plaster,
that you must master.

There the walls
will come to life,
filled with the
eternal light.

Across the gaze
of the magic haze,
existence will speak
of the mysteries.

There, unnumbered stars
will be carved
into the heart
of the divine spark.

The planes of hell
will come to spell
their deathly knell---
a welcome bell.

Standing alone
in this magic cove,
you will see
eternity.

Look for the keys.

“I dream of you, to wake: would that I might
Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;
Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,
As, Summer ended, Summer birds take flight.
In happy dreams I hold you full in night.
I blush again who waking look so wan;
Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,
In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.
Thus only in a dream we are at one,
Thus only in a dream we give and take
The faith that maketh rich who take or give;
If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,
To die were surely sweeter than to live,
Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.”

— Christina Rossetti

Had a bit of a swimming mishap.

Drowned

The rocks did not seem far that morning
With silent gulls perched unamused
In flailing strokes I lurched to meet them
Edging slowly out of view

Outbound courage: I could make it
No coward thoughts of my return
Water filled my eyes, as sea-spit
Caught my throat and rasping burned

Fingers white found sea-worn boulders
I staggered onto failing feet
And grasping forth with wave-wracked shoulders
I sullenly stared out to sea

Empty lungs, no breath to fill them
Fighting for some hidden strength
On the distant tide-line children
Waving, unsure what it meant

Soon the shoreward leg departed
Too soon knew that I was lost
Nothing there of he who started
Left to pay the crossing's cost

Dizzy, veering from my bearing
Turning, fighting just to float
Current-swept, and frothing, flaring
Gasping now with every stroke

A final effort to tread water
Thrust my lips above the waves
Silent cries for aid and quarter
Desperate now to be saved

Glassy-eyed said my goodbyes there,
In that glossy postcard scene
Knowing only that I'd lost you
Knowing just that you'd lost me.

--

ps I'm fine :laugh:

From "Prometheus" by Byron (I like Byron!):

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precept less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source...