ForumsArt, Music, and WritingParsat's Sentiments

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Parsat
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Parsat
2,180 posts
Blacksmith

So I get asked every now and then whether I have a poem thread. Well, I used to, but I can never really get the hang of it. Every time I reread my own poems, I often have the urge to revise it to make it better...when you read your own poems the flaws jump out, and AG's lack of post editing bothers me.

Still, since many of us have their own dedicated threads, I figure I'll have mine. If you'd like to read my old writing thread, it's called The Moon Still Rises, and consists mostly of my translations of ancient Chinese poetry.

I'll start off with one of my own personal favorites that I submitted a while ago in the poetry contest, when the theme was "Love." It is directly inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven," and borrows the same rhyme scheme.

Lenore

What days have passed when summerâs last
Has come and then gone by?
When its breath grew small and it came to fall
To hold manâs thrall with leaves and bleary sky:
âTis time to say goodbye.

In summerâs wake came us to the lake,
The lake! Just her and I.
We sat under a willow on earth soft as a pillow
Gazing at the billow of waves and clouds on high
That waved to us to say goodbye.

âTwas her the seraphs did adore, her the cherubs named Lenore,
A maiden with my heart allied.
With countenance fair and flaxen hair,
Such beauty rare upon my eye,
Thus loath was I to say goodbye.

Amid the foam and grassy loam
I paused, about to cry.
"Lenore," said I with quavering voice, "I have no choice
But to leave your poise and quiet sighs,
The time has come to say goodbye."

Her gaze, it traveled to my soul, there upon that grassy knoll,
But from her mouth there came one word: "Why?"
Our fears welled up in burning tears
Sharper than spears that fatally fly:
"Because we have to say goodbye."

I held her close for how long God knows
But I was a fool, a wretched spy.
I never returned, so afraid to be spurned,
But within me burned the warmth of July:
The one I spent, but bade goodbye.

Now her soul, so pure and whole,
Has left this Earth and I,
I have been, forevermore, deprived of the paramour
Who lives nevermore; as she lived and died
I cannot bring myself to say goodbye.

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