September 22, 2012
A Poem For The Late Hour

Better far, from all I see,

To die fighting to be free,

What more fitting end could be?

Better surely than in some bed,

Where in broken health I’m led,

Lingering until I’m dead.

Better than with prayers and please,

Or in the clutch of some disease,

Wasting slowly by degrees.

Better than of heart-attack,

Or some dose of drug I lack,

Let me die by being Black.

Better far that I should go,

Standing here against the foe,

Is the sweeter death to know.

Better than the bloody stain,

On some highway where I’m lain,

Torn by flyin’ glass and pain.

Better calling death to come,

Than to die another dumb,

Muted victim in the slum.

Better than of this prison rot,

If there’s any choice i’ve got,

Kill me here on the spot.

Better far, my fight to wage,

Now while my blood boils with rage,

‘Less it cool with ancient age.

Better violent for us to die,

Than to uncle tom and try,

Making peace just to live a lie.

Better now that i say my sooth,

I’m gonna die demanding truth,

While i’m still akin to youth.

Better now than later,

Now that fear of death is gone,

Never mind another dawn.

— Muhammad Ali, Attica Prison Poem

11:32pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxTvCT5a
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: poetry 
September 17, 2012

Jimmie Stewart Reads “Beau” on the Johnny Carson Show, 7/28/81.

I’m ashamed to say I’ve never heard this before until recently.  I was a complete mess after listening to it all the way through.  This is one of the most brilliant, heartfelt poetry readings I’ve ever heard.

TDW

1:37am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxTYS-Sg
(Notes: 13)
  
Filed under: poetry johnny carson jimmie stewart 
June 26, 2012
"Thou know’st how guiltless first I met thy flame,
When Love approach’d me under Friendship’s name;
My fancy form’d thee of angelic kind,
Some emanation of th’ all-beauteous Mind.
Those smiling eyes, attemp’ring ev’ry day,
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.
Guiltless I gaz’d; heav’n listen’d while you sung;
And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
From lips like those what precept fail’d to move?
Too soon they taught me ‘twas no sin to love.
Back through the paths of pleasing sense I ran,
Nor wish’d an Angel whom I lov’d a Man.
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see;
Nor envy them, that heav’n I lose for thee."

— Eloisa to Abelard, Alexander Pope, 1717.

10:33pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxOC5s-V
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: poetry 
June 26, 2012
A favorite of mine.

A favorite of mine.

1:11am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxO8KDSH
(Notes: 23)
  
Filed under: poetry walt whitman 
May 14, 2012

Tara Hardy Performing “Bone Marrow” at Vancouver Poetry Slam

Formidable, Ms. Hardy.  Formidable.

3:25am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxLSdLTk
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: poetry 
May 7, 2012
A Poem For The Late Hour

Love what art thou?  A vain thought

      In our minds by fant’sy wrought

      Idle smiles did thee beget,

      While fond wishes made the net

      Which so many fools have caught.

 

Love what art thou?  Light and fair,

      Fresh as morning, clear as th’ air.

      But too soon thy evening change

      Makes thy worth with coldness rage;

      Still thy joy is mixt with care.

 

Love what art thou?  A sweet flower

      Once full blown, dead in an hour.

      Dust in wind as staid remains

      As thy pleasure or our gains,

      If thy humor change, to lour.

 

Love what art thou?  Childish, vain,

      Firm as bubbles made by rain,

      Wantonness thy greatest pride.

      These foul faults thy virtues hide—

      But babes can no staidness gain.

 

Love what art thou? Causeless cursed,

      Yet alas these not the worst:

      Much more of thee may be said.

      But thy law I once obeyed,

      Therefore say no more at first.

 

— Mary Wroth, “Song,” Book I, The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, 1621.

2:10am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxL1bO8s
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: poetry 
May 5, 2012
A Poem For The Late Hour

I HAVE no fancy for that ancient cant
That makes us masters of our destinies,
And not our lives, to hold or give them up
As will directs; I cannot, will not think
That men, the subtle worms, who plot and plan
And scheme and calculate with such shrewd wit,
Are such great blund’ring fools as not to know
When they have lived enough.
          Men court not death
When there are sweets still left in life to taste.
Nor will a brave man choose to live when he,
Full deeply drunk of life, has reached the dregs,
And knows that now but bitterness remains.
He is the coward who, outfaced in this,
Fears the false goblins of another life.
I honor him who being much harassed
Drinks of sweet courage until drunk of it,—
Then seizing Death, reluctant, by the hand,
Leaps with him, fearless, to eternal peace!

Paul Laurence Dunbar – The Right to Die, 1913

2:23am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxKv7e-f
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: poetry 
April 29, 2012
"…an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition…Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise…"

—

Henry F. Chorley, reviewing Herman Melville’s Moby Dick for London Athenaeum, October 25, 1851.

I do love a good old-world scathing book review.

12:52pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxKYiOaG
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: literature poetry 
March 16, 2012
A Poem For The Late Hour

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and  yet am forced to seem to hate,

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,

I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.

I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,

Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun.

Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,

Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.

His too familiar care doth make me rue it

No means I find to rid him from my breast,

Till by the end of things it be suppressed.

Some gentler passion slide into my mind,

For I am soft and made of melting snow;

Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.

Let me or float or sink, be high or low.

Or let me live with some more sweet content,

Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

—Queen Elizabeth, On Monsieur’s Departure, 1582

4:41am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxI3odty
(Notes: 7)
  
Filed under: poetry 
December 29, 2011
A Poem For The Late Hour

“Come In From The Rain” by Tim Dlugos

Stick that bumbershoot

in elephant’s-foot


brolly stand behind

the big door. Mind


your manners at High Tea.

Hi, you. High ve-


locity hailstones cream

passersby beyond the panes. I dream


of Jeannie, starring Bar-

bara Eden, of Eden, star-


ring Eve and Adam, of Adam

Cartwright, a.k.a. the let-‘em-


have-it-with-all-candor

Trapper John. Pander


to the mass-man mass-taste,

that’s my motto. Waste


the day, the life, the villain

with depression, fill-in-


the-wrong-blanks misap-

prehension, dum-dums. Nap


an hour through the Buddy

Ebsen as a perspicacious fuddy-


duddy whodunit. Then produce

the silver teapot, loose


Earl Grey and table water

slabs. Somebody’s daughter


carries on the grand tradition

in the grandma manner. Wishin’


you were here don’t place you

in the old wing chair. Face you


in the photos, china, art

on parlor walls. It’s raining in my heart.

2:07am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxDxxsjg
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: poetry 
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