Sometimes I think about the millions of years of happenstance that led to my being born here and now. My existence depends on uncountable events that came before, from a supernova that exploded in this part of the universe around 5 billion years ago, to the formation of the Sun and planets, and photosynthesis evolving on the third planet and oxygen filling the air and fins evolving into limbs …. Fast forward … to my ancient ancestors surviving the passage out of Africa, and thousands of generations successfully passing on their genes … right up to my mother meeting my father.

I am a child of the universe. I am a child of chance. And this poem makes me think of the long, precarious voyage from then to now, and that there is still time, while I am alive, to grow.

HOMO SAPIENS: CREATING THEMSELVES
by Pattiann Rogers

I.
Formed in the black-light center of a star-circling
galaxy; formed in whirlpool images of froth
and flume and fulcrum; in the center image of herring
circling like pieces of silver swirling fast, a shoaling
circle of deception; in the whirlpool perfume of sex
in the deepest curve of a lily’s soft corolla. Created
within the images of the creator’s creation.

Born with the same grimacing wrench of a tree-covered
cliff split wide suddenly by lightning and opened
to thundering clouds of hail and rain.

Cured in the summer sun as if in a potter’s oven,
polished like a stone rolled by a river, emboldened
by the image of the expanse beyond earth’s horizon,
inside and outside a circumference in the image
of freedom.

Given the image of starlight clusters steadily silent
above a hillside-silence of fallen snow… let there be sleep.

II.
Inheriting from the earth’s scrambling minions,
images of thorn and bur, fang and claw, stealth,
deceit, poison, camouflage, blade, and blood…
let there be suffering, let there be survival.

Shaped by the image of the onset and unstoppable
devouring eclipse of the sun, the tempestuous, ecliptic
eating of the moon, the volcanic explosions of burning
rocks and fiery hail of ashes to death… let there be
terror and tears. Let there be pity.

Created in the image of fear inside a crawfish
skittering backward through a freshwater stream
with all eight appendages in perfect coordination,
both pincers held high, backing into safety beneath
a fallen leaf refuge… let there be home.

III.
Made in the image of the moon, where else
would the name of ivory rock craters shine
except in our eyes… let there be language.
Displayed in the image of the rotting seed
on the same stem with the swelling blossom…
let there be hope.

Homo sapiens creating themselves after the manner
and image of the creator’s ongoing creation — slowly,
eventual, alert and imagined, composing, dissembling,
until the right chord sounds from one brave strum
of the right strings reverberating, fading away
like evening… let there be pathos, let there be
compassion, forbearance, forgiveness. Let there be
weightless beauty.

Of earth and sky, Homo sapiens creating themselves,
following the mode and model of the creator’s creation,
particle by particle, quest by quest, witness by witness,
even though the unknown far away and the unknown
nearby be seen and not seen… let there be goodwill
and accounting, let there be praise resounding.


You can listen to the poem recited on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1tvk0NJ4fM

"I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year."

- Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break
------
Devastating.

Devastating. — AmadeusD

Thanks for sharing. yes, devastating. Nothing more devastating than the death of a child.

There's a real sense of not being able to make any sense of what he was experiencing.

I had to look it up. Heaney wrote this poem about the death of his four-year-old brother, who had been hit by a car.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
By Randall Jarrell

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner — RogueAI

It's short, but it hits hard. I immediately thought of a soldier at war.

Sometimes I feel like the lessons of WW2 have been forgotten.

Here's one for a philosophy forum.

Crime Club
by Weldon Kees

No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair.
No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend
Smiling among the bric-a-brac and murder.
Only a suburban house with the front door open
And a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars
Passing. The corpse quite dead. The wife in Florida.

Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,
The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team,
Scattered with check stubs in the hall;
The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple,
The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,
The note: "To be killed this way is quite all right with me."

Small wonder that the case remains unsolved,
Or that the sleuth, Le Roux, is now incurably insane,
And sits alone in a white room in a white gown,
Screaming that all the world is mad, that clues
Lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops cannot be seen;
Screaming all day of war, screaming that nothing can be solved

Sometimes I feel like the lessons of WW2 have been forgotten. — Questioner

Maybe it's worse than that: remembering them doesn't make any difference.


Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

Sometimes I feel like the lessons of WW2 have been forgotten. — Questioner

Maybe it's worse than that: remembering them doesn't make any difference. — Jamal

Come to think of it, maybe it's worse even than that: the only way the war can be remembered is wrongly, (e.g., as a moral fable, as good guys vs bad guys etc.) such that its repetition is inevitable.

:grin:

Here's one for a philosophy forum.

Crime Club
by Weldon Kees — Ecurb

Yes, that poem seems full of sub-text. I quite liked the story-telling aspect of it, and looked up the poet. Seems Kees "went missing" 1955 - never to be seen again. That fact makes you want to go back and re-read the poem and look for clues. Thanks for sharing it.

its repetition is inevitable. — Jamal

the older I get, the more I realize that events down throughout history are constantly cycling, and we are in a precarious part of the cycle right now

Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes — Jamal

Birds have provided so much inspiration to poets!

You have reminded me of a book published in 1877 - Birds and Poets

Read online at the Gutenberg link - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5177/5177-h/5177-h.htm

Author John Burroughs begins with these lines -

It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament that fully responds to them. So true is this, that all the great ornithologists—original namers and biographers of the birds—have been poets in deed if not in word. Audubon is a notable case in point, who, if he had not the tongue or the pen of the poet, certainly had the eye and ear and heart—"the fluid and attaching character"—and the singleness of purpose, the enthusiasm, the unworldliness, the love, that characterize the true and divine race of bards.

Seems Kees "went missing" 1955 - never to be seen again. — Questioner

Kees was a poet, a novelist, a musician and film maker. His car was found by the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was assumed he committed suicide -- but he had also talked about disappearing. HIs poems are dark. He's my favorite "beat" poet. .

Here's another. I like the last line in this poem :

The Patient Is Rallying

Difficult to recall an emotion that is dead,
Particularly so among these unbelieved fanfares
And admonitions from a camouflaged sky.

I should have remained burdened with destinations
Perhaps, or stayed quite drunk, or obeyed
The undertaker, who was fairly charming, after all.

Or was there a room like that one, worn
With our whispers, and a great tree blossoming
Outside blue windows, warm rain blowing in the night?

There seems to be some doubt. No doubt, however
Of the chilled and emptied tissues of the mind
--Cold, cold, a great grey winter entering--
Like spines of air, frozen in an ice cube.

He's my favorite "beat" poet. . — Ecurb

I once tried to read Kerouac's "On the Road" but didn't finish it.

I like the last line in this poem : — Ecurb

A poet I am acquainted with said a poem should always end with "a turn" and I guess this line does that - with some striking imagery

To continue my trend:

On my First Son by Ben Johnson, 1616

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

On my First Son by Ben Johnson, 1616 — AmadeusD

That's Ben Jonson?

Here's another poem by him -

On My First Daughter

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,
It makes the father less to rue.
At six months' end she parted hence
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,
In comfort of her mother's tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin-train:
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

I was reading through some old notes that reminded me of this poem.

The poet James McIntyre (1827-1906) earned the distinction of having his poetry included in a book entitled Very Bad Poetry (1997) - a collection of poetry “so glaringly awful that they embody a kind of genius.”

But the following poem is so bad it’s good. Besides, I am a lover of cheese.

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds

We have seen the Queen of cheese,
Laying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze --
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial Show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees --
Or as the leaves upon the trees --
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.

May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great World's show at Paris.

Of the youth -- beware of these --
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek; then songs or glees
We could not sing o' Queen of Cheese.

We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd caste a shade, even at noon;
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.

Years ago, I read a very good novel entitled Thomas Murphy. It’s about an aging NYC poet who was raised in Ireland (on Árainn Mhór or Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands) In telling his story, he shares his philosophy with the poetic sensibility of an Irish bard. Something from the novel that left an impression on me -

The reverence the Irish have for the ancient poets – who they called “The Music.” Go back 2,000 years ago, and there were about 150 kings in Ireland, and they were always conquering one another. And whenever another kingdom was conquered – “Kill ‘em all, the king said. Except the Music.”

Anyway, there is a wonderful collection in Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry (1911) –

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32030/32030-h/32030-h.htm

An interesting read is found on page 105, entitled From the Instructions of King Cormac, an Old Irish text from the 9th century, presented as advice from the 3rd-century High King Cormac Mac Airt to his son, Carbery.

Cormac begins every answer by stating, “Not hard to tell…”

Here’s one passage:

'O Cormac, grandson of Conn,' said Carbery, 'what is the worst thing you have seen?'

'Not hard to tell,' said Cormac. 'Faces of foes in the rout of battle.'

'O Cormac, grandson of Conn,' said Carbery, 'what is the sweetest thing you have heard?'

'Not hard to tell,' said Cormac.

'The shout of triumph after victory,
Praise after wages,
A lady's invitation to her pillow.'

Here’s another:

'O Cormac, grandson of Conn,' said Carbery, 'what is the worst pleading and arguing?'

'Not hard to tell,' said Cormac.

'Contending against knowledge,
contending without proofs,
taking refuge in bad language,
a stiff delivery,
a muttering speech,
hair-splitting,
uncertain proofs,
despising books,
turning against custom,
shifting one's pleading,
inciting the mob,
blowing one's own trumpet,
shouting at the top of one's voice.'

I really dig the ancient wisdom.

Yes ma'am; I studied this in Cambridge AS English in like 2007 lmao.

Man, dude had a harsh life. He also had a second son (also named after himself) die several years after the first son died. Rough.

That's lovely - truly whimsical. Very much a Celtic vibe going on there.

I'll post my all-time favourite poem, which comes somewhat out of left field. It is Jim Morrison, essentiall eulogizing Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who drowned in 1969.

An Ode to LA, while thinking of Brian Jones; Deceased
I’m a resident of a city
They’ve just picked me to play
the Prince of Denmark

Poor Ophelia

All those ghosts he never saw
Floating to doom
On an iron candle

Come back, brave warrior
Do the dive
On another channel

Hot buttered pool
Where’s Marrakesh
Under the falls
the wild storm
where savages fell out
in late afternoon
monsters of rhythm

You’ve left your
Nothing
to compete w/
Silence

I hope you went out
Smiling
Like a child
Into the cool remnant
of a dream

The angel man
w/ Serpents competing
for his palms
& fingers
Finally claimed
This benevolent
Soul

Ophelia

Leaves, sodden
in silk

Chlorine
dream
mad stifled
Witness

The diving board, the plunge
The pool

You were a fighter
a damask musky muse

You were the bleached
Sun
for TV afternoon

horned-toads
maverick of a yellow spot

Look now to where it’s got
You

in meat heaven
w/ the cannibals
& jews

The gardener
Found
The body, rampant, Floating

Lucky Stiff
What is this green pale stuff
You’re made of

Poke holes in the goddess
Skin

Will he Stink
Carried heavenward
Thru the halls
of music

No Chance.

Requiem for a heavy
That smile
That porky satyr’s
leer
has leaped upward

into the loam

I've been reading this poem a few times a year since I was 17. I still don't grasp all of its depth and complexity. Particularly, as at the time, I was going through a sort of existential cycle of understanding Morrison's place in music and what his untimely death meant for not only those around him, but the wider culture. It hits me like a Mack truck every time.

'The shout of triumph after victory,
Praise after wages,
A lady's invitation to her pillow.' — Questioner

THis is incredibly masculine - unsurprising, but an interestingly direct illustration.

I've been reading this poem a few times a year since I was 17. — AmadeusD

Yeah, it is powerful. Your can hear the heartbeat in it, as you read it, in the fast pace, and then the last line stands alone, as if the heart has stopped.

THis is incredibly masculine — AmadeusD

And I bet the average modern man would relate to it.

That's the good thing about some of our mythologies. It's timeless.