A Thing of Beauty is a Joy for Ever

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A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits...

~ John Keats ~

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POP

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These two poems are by someone called Harry Darksen. You may not find him in big anthologies of poems. I get these two from a set of four he published in some obscure English poetry magazine called “The Wide Skirt” in 1986. Somehow this, and a few other such poetry collections, have stayed with me these two decades through my teenage, shifting hostels rooms and through happy domesticity in four cities.

Art on the Tube
The tourist siting opposite
was chewing bubblegum.
He blew a bubble, it was big
and got bigger and bigger.

* POP *

His head burst.

“Must be a surrealist”
said the woman sitting next to me
unpeeling a lemon.

—- —- —-

A Day

It’ today’s birthday –
here comes the sun in her new pink cardigan.
And oh! look! the sky
is a blue fan with white cloud patterns.
Good of ol’ God
to give us such fine prezzies.
What, over already?
Yep, there is the moon
in her yellow striped pyjamas.

……………………………

nothing great but enjoyable poetry.

The Workbox

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See, here’s the workbox, little wife,
That I made of polished oak.’
He was a joiner, of village life;
She came of borough folk.

He holds the present up to her
As with a smile she nears
And answers to the profferer,
”Twill last all my sewing years!’

‘I warrant it will. And longer too.
‘Tis a scantling that I got
Off poor John Wayward’s coffin, who
Died of they knew not what.

‘The shingled pattern that seems to cease
Against your box’s rim
Continues right on in the piece
That’s underground with him.

‘And while I worked it made me think
Of timber’s varied doom;
One inch where people eat and drink,
The next inch in a tomb.

‘But why do you look so white, my dear,
And turn aside your face?
You knew not that good lad, I fear,
Though he came from your native place?’

‘How could I know that good young man,
Though he came from my native town,
When he must have left there earlier than
I was a woman grown?’

‘Ah, no. I should have understood!
It shocked you that I gave
To you one end of a piece of wood
Whose other is in a grave?’

‘Don’t, dear, despise my intellect,
Mere accidental things
Of that sort never have effect
On my imaginings.’

Yet still her lips were limp and wan,
Her face still held aside,
As if she had known not only John,
But known of what he died.

– Thomas Hardy

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apologies to those who are subscribers to minstrels for the obvious crossposting. i still went ahead with this poem since i assume that we have a different public here.

its a smart poem, one which i had first read sometime in high school and had thought at that time that this is how a gripping thriller could be told effectively in a few lines of rhyme. i can still see myself in my school uniform on my desk, reading and re-reading this poem.

found it in my inbox again after 20 years! so sharing it with you all …

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Twenty Tons of TNT

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I have seen it estimated:
Somewhere between death and birth
There are now three thousand million
People living on this earth
And the stock-piled mass destruction
Of the Nuclear Powers-That-Be
Equals–for each man or woman–
Twenty tons of TNT.

Every man of every nation
(Twenty tons of TNT)
Shall receive this allocation
Twenty tons of TNT.
Texan, Bantu, Slav or Maori,
Argentine or Singhalee,
Every maiden brings this dowry
Twenty tons of TNT.

Not for thirty silver shilling
Twenty tons of TNT
Twenty thousand pounds a killing–
Twenty tons of TNT.
Twenty hundred years of teaching,
Give to each his legacy,
Plato, Buddha, Christ or Lenin,
Twenty tons of TNT

Father, Mother, Son and Daughter,
Twenty tons of TNT
Give us land and seed and water,
Twenty tons of TNT.
Children have no need of sharing;
At each new nativity
Come the ghostly Magi bearing
Twenty tons of TNT

Ends the tale that has no sequel
Twenty tons of TNT.
Now in death are all men equal
Twenty tons of TNT.
Teach me how to love my neighbour,
Do to him as he to me;
Share the fruits of all our labour
Twenty tons of TNT.

~Michael Flanders~

(Thanks, yet again, to Aparna)

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The Dictators

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An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence.

~Pablo Neruda~

(Listen to this song after reading this poem)

Sonnet XI

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I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

~Pablo Neruda~

(Thanks to Aparna for this poem)

XX

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Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, ‘The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

~Pablo Neruda~

Finding Her Here

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I am becoming the woman I’ve wanted,
grey at the temples,
soft body, delighted
cracked up by life
with a laugh that’s known bitter
but, past it, got better,
knows she’s a survivor-
that whatever comes,
she can outlast it.
I am becoming a deep
weathered basket.

I am becoming the woman I’ve longed for,
the motherly lover
with arms strong and tender,
the growing up daughter
who blushes surprises.
I am becoming full moons
and sunrises.

I find her becoming,
this woman I’ve wanted,
who knows she’ll encompass,
who knows she’s sufficient,
knows where she’s going
and travels with passion.
Who remembers she’s precious,
but knows she’s not scarce-
who knows she is plenty,
plenty to share.

~ Jayne Relaford Brown

(Thanks are due to Meenakshi for this poem)

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Paas Raho… (Stay Close)

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You who demolish me, you whom I love,
be near me. Remain near me when evening,
drunk on the blood of the skies,
becomes night, in one hand
a perfumed balm, in the other
a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars.

Be near me when night laments or sings,
or when it begins to dance,
its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief.

Be here when longings, long submerged
in the heart’s waters, resurface
and everyone begins to look:
Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve
is hidden the redeeming knife?

And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing
of children whom nothing will console-
when nothing holds,
when nothing is:
at that dark hour when night mourns,
be near me, my destroyer, my lover,
Be Near Me.
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This translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Paas Raho (Be Near Me), was posted by Aneed (profile at http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=15066736210512669981) in the Faiz community (thread at http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=70320&tid=2480337969859442245&start=1)

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I really like this poem and have tried to translate it myself earlier. But never with such success as the one posted above.

Faiz says “Tum mere paas raho, jab siyah raat chale, aasmano ka lahu pee ke siyah raat chale, marham-e-mushk liye, nishtar-e-almas liye”

and see here the effortless translation (first stanza) which reads well as a poem in its own right.

Whenever I read this poem in urdu i felt it so close to Neruda’s “Tonight I will sing the saddest lines” but it never seemed so in English when I was through with my attempts at translation. Here I feel Aneed, or whoever translated it, has succeeded. Congratulations!!

Read it softly, langourously; let the words roll for a while more on your tongue like mellow wine; savour this poem for it is among the best ever written.

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Love Minus Zero — No Limits

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My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful,
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire.

People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can’t buy her.

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of sitations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.

Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there’s no success like failure,
And then failure is no success at all.

The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles,
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.

Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.

The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers’ neices seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.

The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she’s like some raven,
At my window with a broken wing.

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This was originally sung by Bob Dylan, but I consider the version sung by Joan Baez as the true masterpiece. Please listen to it if you haven’t.

Like all Bob Dylan verses, this one also has all these inexplicable references and impossible imageries. I am sure some very knowledgable person can tell me all the specifics they refer to, but in this case, I would like to keep myself “innocent”.

The poem works for me just as it is. Its as beautiful a love poem as can ever be and some of the lines are amazing; “She knows too much to argue or to judge”.

I also like its snide remarks about people like me — self-obsessed with our pursuit of causes and wisdom: read the third stanza!

Finally, there is a whole subterranean poiltics of love and romance which gets created here which I seem to find some bonding with.

Beautiful heartfelt imagery, creative wordplay, holding a mirror to oneself.. what more can one want in a love poem?