The Dead by Rupert BROOKE

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the nights

(from THE WAR SONNETS)

 

"Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? ... Oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?"

(from 'The Old Vicarege, Grantchester')

Rupert BROOKE ( 1887-1915)

The Reader by Wallace STEVENS

All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of sombre pages.

It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crounched in the moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

The sombre pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.

HARMONIUM
Wallace STEVENS

Gubbinal by Wallace STEVENS

that strange flower, the sun,
is just what you say.
have it your way.

the world is ugly,
and the people are sad.

that tuft of jungle feathers,
that animal eye,
is just what you say.

that savage of fire,
that seed,
have it your way.

the world is ugly,
and the people are sad.

HARMONIUM (1923)

Wallace STEVENS

The snow man by Wallace STEVENS (1879-1955)

The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

HARMONIUM (1923)
Wallace STEVENS

Whispers of heavenly death by Withman

in LEAVES OF GRASS

Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land.

Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.

} Whispers of Heavenly Death

Whispers of heavenly death murmur'd I hear,
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low,
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing,
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses,
Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;
On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,
Some soul is passing over.)

Walt WHITMAN ( 1819-1892)

O living always by Walt Whitman

O living always, always dying!
O the burials of me past and present,
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and
look at where I cast them,
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.


Walt WHITMAN (1819-1892)

Poet by Moe SEAGER

You Poet
Set lines afire
Spit vowels bursting
Hot flash: as ideas are food for thought
I could eat your words
Suck the salt of your inner vision
Tap the marrow of meaning

You Poet
I could wade the waters of you mouth
Lick your wind blown tongue to its liquorice roots
Caress melody from your vocal cords

You Poet
Send me turning pages on you
To the end of verse time
Time to ask you
To start it, all, anew

You Poet
I could throw away
My pens and paper plans
Lay my tomes
As stepping stones
To cross over

Let's go out, beyond
Far beyond the last metaphor
A new found hunger
For fresh poems, ripened fruits
Days at play, awesome wander
At the tree of life.

After long silence by W B YEATS

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

William Butler YEATS

Despair (part II) by Lord Alfred TENNYSON

(...)

II

What did I feel that night? You are curious. How should I tell?
Does it matter so much what I felt? You rescued me—yet—was it well
That you came unwish’d for, uncall’d, between me and the deep and my doom,
Three days since, three more dark days of the Godless gloom
Of a life without sun, without health, with out hope, without any delight
In anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night
When the rolling eyes of the lighthouse there on the fatal neck
Of land running out into rock—they had saved many hundreds from wreck—
Glared on our way toward death, I remember I thought, as we past,
Does it matter how many they saved? we are all of us wreck’d at last—
‘Do you fear?’ and there came thro’ the roar of the breaker a whisper, a breath,
‘Fear? am I not with you? I am frighted at life not death.’

(...)

Lord Alfred TENNYSON

Phoenix by Joe SEPHOZA

phoenix

so often thoughts wander
I'm not laughing
while thinking
- being haunted
behind me, spinning, turning
the wheel of fortune
and slowly
headlights
reflecting
in distorting mirrors
to blind my dream
of who I would be, if alive

they do have a limp, sumbling up the stairs towards the seat
where my life, partly, dies
the other half of misery
is reality's phoenix

empty grave
cold bones
I might laugh
once dead

sometimes - friendly - they ask me
'who's that stranger'
they don't know
and I
a stranger to myself

midnight in longing
I close a freudian pact
with my thoughts
and they return
tired of the world
in bed they're like the fantasy
of a one-night sleep
the sun turns me over
and falls asleep.


in :http://www.polumnia.net/writing/poetry.html

Origine

Je me dois de préciser que j'ai trouvé les trois derniers auteurs dans


ANTHOLOGIE DE LA POESIE PROTESTATAIRE DES USA (1980-1995)
par E. KATZ et C. HAYE

Edité chez : Le TEMPS DES CERISES
Maison de la poésie Rhône Alpes

ISBN :
2-84109-037-X

la sélection de ces trois poèmes est un choix personnel et donc arbitraire fondé sur mes goûts, mon caractère, mes origines, mon humeur du moment etc etc

Je m'en excuse car beaucoup sont des oeuvres de grandes qualités
mais ce sont ces trois là qui m'ont instantanément bouleversée en première lecture Il m'a donc paru indispensable de les conserver sur My Foreign Swamp

Que leurs auteurs respectifs trouvent ici l'expression de mon admiration et de mes sincères remerciements pour avoir su "dire" et "communiquer".


Mijo

Pour ceux et celles que l'anglais rebuterait, l'édition est bilingue et les traductions de qualité même si personnellement, j'estime qu'une poésie doit être lue telle qu'elle a été écrite

His speed and strength (Alicia OSTRIKER)

His speed and strength, which is the strength of ten
years, races me home from the pool.
First I am ahead. Nike, on my bicycle,
no hands, and the Times crossword tucked in my rack,
then he is ahead, the Green Hornet,
buzzing up Witherspoon,
flashing around the corner to Nassau Street.

At noon sharp he demonstrated his neat
one-and-a-half flips off the board :
Oh, brave. Did you see me, he wanted to know.
And I doing my backstroke laps was Juno
Oceanus, then for a while I watched some black
and white boys wrestling and joking, teammates, wet
plums and peaches touching each other as if

it is not necessary to make hate,
as if Whitman was right and there is no death,
A big wind at our backs, it is lovely, the maple boughs
ride up and down like ships. Do you mind
if I take off, he says. I'll catch you later,
see you, I shout and wave, as he peels
away, pedalling hard, rocket and pilot.

Alicia OSTRIKER

DINOSAUR LOVE (Eliot Katz)

On the Museum of Natural History’s 4th floor
I greeted my old friend :
“Hey, T. Rex ! Long time, no see !”
My buddy flashed his killer teeth :
“Over two years, E. Katz,
I missed you.”

Surprised, I asked, “You missed me ?
I didn’t know dinosaurs had emotions.
Rexy, did you know love ?”

Rexy sighed ; “I knew love
..... not as humans can
but as humans do :
….. love of self
….. and love of finding something weaker
…... ….. to pounce upon.

E. Katz, can your species be saved
….. by love’s possibilities ?

“Rexy” I answered, “you haven’t lost
your ability
to ask the tough question.
Let me ask you something we humans
have been curious about for centuries.
How did you die ?”

“I don’t know.
One day I looked around
And I wasn’t there.”

Eliot KATZ