Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Parsat's Sentiments
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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.
- 21 Replies
Haha, I thought you said that you didn't mind free verse? I'm going to have to construct one to combat your style.
On a different note, I do like the visual imagery you create with all of your poems. Especially this last one. I feel as if I am witnessing you walking along the timeline of poetry. It's green for some reason. Even though you mention machinery.
I don't mind free verse done well. Unfortunately, it's all too rare. Personally, I don't write in it because rhyme and meter is already ingrained in me, and because I don't think I have the skill to do so.
Just a quickie with some stylistic experimentation. It's simply an iambic tetrameter scheme, a very innocent meter, but combined with several layers of patterns. Inspired by a Chinese poem I read a while ago, but I can't remember the details of it.
Here and There
A bench of stone one summer noon:
Three feet and friendship in between.
I was here, and you were there.
Letter writing, mailman's due:
Three inches on a stamp between.
I was here, and you were there.
Salut d'amour, that old love tune:
Three octaves with four hands between.
I was here, and you were there.
An aisle of flow'rs for life anew:
Three years and patience in between.
I was here, and you were there.
One night, and then three turns to two:
For countless joy, the passion starts.
I was there, and you were here.
It could not last, we bid adieu:
Three by three by five foot two, it ends.
I am here, and you are there.
Well shoot, it's been a long time. Here's a terzanelle I recently wrote.
Inspiration by Night
There is a time at night I know
When quiet reigns upon the earth,
Where fertile thoughts take root and grow.
This is the time of dark rebirth,
A phoenix born without the flame
When quiet reigns upon the earth.
I cast away that sunlit name
As dusk fades swift to darkness deep,
A phoenix born without the flame.
And there among the beasts that creep,
I join the odd menagerie
As dusk fades swift to darkness deep.
I am this world, I am the sea,
The ground and sky, in everything
I join the odd menagerie.
No other mortal eye has seen
There is a time at night I know
The ground and sky, in everything
Where fertile thoughts take root and grow.
It's been a while since I last posted my own work here, but I'd like to continue.
One of my hobbies is translating Chinese poetry. Classical Chinese is very difficult, so it takes a bit of imagination and digging around commentaries to pull off. My main translation thrust is that I want to evoke the emotions of the poem while preserving the fidelity of the poem. But if I had to choose one in this trade-off, I would go with the former. Here's an example that I was fortunate enough to have my cake and eat it too.
Snowy River
Liu Zongyuan
No birds fly o'er the thousand hills, it seems;
Along the myriad paths, footprints are gone.
A lonely old man boats with rain garb on:
Alone he fishes in the snowy stream.
This Tang dynasty poem is simple yet marvelous. Actually, in the centuries before this poem was written, nature was viewed as primal and something to be feared, the realm of beasts and darkness. But as unstable times came, with civil wars and rebellions and a new "emperor" what seemed like every week, people began to see oneness with nature as a comfort.
One of the better sonnets I wrote.
Op. 20, no. 12
First Fall
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
I know that Winter's reign has just begun:
This sunbeam touchèd heart but partly grieves
The glory days of lovely summer's run.
Indeed, the rain that customary falls
Is dark and brooding, deviously wetâ"
A tortur'd soul who answers Autumn's calls
Reluctantly, and makes the world upset.
But brave through this and pass the doleful rains!
A newer chill has fallen as a balm
To soothe in whitened purity Earth's pains
And set right in the hearts of man a calm.
A sign of peace that even children know:
The first fall of the winter's ice and snow.
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