The poetry/quotation/song lyric thread

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That was beautiful. Normally I can't understand the emotions connected to a song, but that one got to me. Will go an listen to it tomorrow as my girlfriend has been asleep for 2 hours and i should join her.

I feel sad for you.

to make it easier for others....
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=bbItz_NAIEs&mode=related&search=[/youtube]

When my oldest son was about 2, Eric Clapton's song "tears in heaven" came out, which touched me too.

Reika, I'm sad for you , too. I had a daughter that was stillborn, and I thought that pain was so bad I might literally die from it. I can't imagine the pain from having a child 19 yrs then losing them. That was a beautiful song.
This song got me through the time when I lost my daughter (and hence my screen name)

"Serenity"

As I sit here and slowly close my eyes
I take another deep breath
And feel the wind pass through my body
I'm the one in your soul
Reflecting inner light
Protect the ones who hold you
Cradling your inner child

I need serenity
In a place where I can hide
I need serenity
Nothing changes, days go by

Where do we go when we just don't know
And how do we relight the flame when it's cold
Why do we dream when our thoughts mean nothing
And when will we learn to control

Tragic visions slowly stole my life
Tore away everything
Cheating me out of my time
I'm the one who loves you
No matter wrong or right
And every day I hold you
I hold you with my inner child

I need serenity
In a place where I can hide
I need serenity
Nothing changes, days go by

Where do we go when we just don't know
And how do we relight the flame when it's cold
Why do we dream when our thoughts mean nothing
And when will we learn to control

Where do we go when we just don't know
And how do we relight the flame when it's cold
Why do we dream when our thoughts mean nothing
And when will we learn to control

I need serenity [x2]
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NdVYw_RZAg[/youtube]

Reika, Serenity, I am so sorry to hear about your experiences and I feel so sad for you both. They are such beautiful lyrics. They made me cry.

There are some beautiful words in this thread. This is a little poem I stumbled across a while ago - for some reason it really got to me, the first poem to do so.

The Two-Headed Calf

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

-Laura Gilpin

I've always been fixated on limericks/verse about animals. Here are a few of my favorites:

A panther's like a leopard,
Except it isn't peppered,
If you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say ouch,
Or better yet,
If called by a panther,
Don't anther!

Some primal termite knocked on wood,
Tasted it and found it good,
And that is why your cousin may,
Fell through the parlor floor today.

The turtle lives twixt platted decks,
Which inadvertently conceal its sex,
But I think its clever of the turtle,
In such a fix,
To be so fertile.

The cow is of the bovine ilk,
One end moo,
The other milk.

It must be tricky,
When giraffes have sex,
One wrong move,
They'll break their necks!

I've never seen a purple cow,
And hope to never see one,
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy,
Wuz he?

A fly and a flea in flew,
Were imprisoned so what could they do?
"Let us fly" said the flea,
"Let us flea" said the fly,
So they flew through a flaw in the flew.

The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher,
Called the hen a most elegant creatrure,
So the hen, pleased with that,
Laid an egg in his hat,
And thus did the hen reward Beecher.

There was a young lady from Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger,
They returned from the ride,
With the lady inside,
And a smile on the face of the tiger.

I like the limericks ManyLayers

Here is one of my favourite poems, by my favourite writer/poet. I have posted it before in another thread, but I wanted to post it again for people who haven't seen it.

I love the sense of renewal in this poem.

Shadows
D H Lawrence

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth's lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man's life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches
of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

Trees

by Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Ooh, yes, Philip Larkin - I do like him.

And you've reminded me of my favourite of his poems - it's struck so many chords with me, over the years.

This Be The Verse

They f**k you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f**ked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself

Oh well, can't have too much Larkin


Far Out

Beyond the dark cartoons
Are darker spaces where
Small cloudy nests of stars
Seem to float on air.

These have no proper names:
Men out alone at night
Never look up at them
For guidance or delight,

For such evasive dust
Can make so little clear:
Much less is known than not,
More far than near.

Philip Larkin

I like El Condor Pasa too. I love Simon and Garfunkel's music, especially "I Am A Rock," and "Sound of Silence."

Coincidentally, 9CatMom, Simon and Garfunkel's 'Sound of Silence' has been 'playing' in my head for a few days now. I love the lyrics :-

Sound of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
A neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said I,you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

Just a simple quote from me. It works for me both on the personal level, and as an ideal on a larger scale.

"How far can we anticipate the habitations and ways, the usages and adventures, the mighty employments, the ever increasing knowledge and power of the days to come? No more than a child with its scribbling paper and its box of bricks can picture or model the undertakings of its adult years. Our battle is with cruelties and frustrations, stupid, heavy and hateful things from which we shall escape at last, less like victors conquering a world than like sleepers awaking from a nightmare in the dawn.... A time will come when men will sit with history before them or with some old newspaper before them and ask incredulously,"Was there ever such a world?""

H.G Wells.

Starr,

That is one of my favorite S & G Songs! I love the whole Greatest Hits collection.

I discovered a 'new' (to me, anyway) Welsh poet the other day, in an anthology, and find there is very little of his poetry online. I like this poem so much, I'll type it from the book. (That's dedication to poetry, lol) I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do. It seems to fit nicely with the time of year, in this part of the world, anyway.

For a Wine Festival

Vernon Watkins (1906 — 1967)

Now the late fruits are in.
Now moves the leaf-starred year
Down, in the sun's decline,
Stoop. Have no fear.
Glance at the burdened tree:
Dark is the grape's wild skin.
Dance, limbs, be free.
Bring the bright clusters here
And crush them into wine.

Acorns from yellow boughs
Drop to the listening ground.
Spirits who never tire,
Dance, dance your round.
Old roots, old thoughts, and dry,
Catch, as your footprints rouse
Flames where they fly,
Knowing the year has found
Its own more secret fire.

Nothing supreme shall pass.
Earth to an ember gone
Wears but the death it feigns
And still burns on.
One note more true than time
And shattered falls his glass.
Steal, steal from rhyme:
Take from the glass that shone
The vintage that remains.

Going to California

Spent my days with a woman unkind,
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.
Made up my mind to make a new start,
Going To California with an aching in my heart.

Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.
Took my chances on a big jet plane,
Never let them tell you that they're all the same.
The sea was red and the sky was grey,
Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.
The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
As the children of the sun began to awake.
Seems that the wrath of the Gods

Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking.
Throw me a line if I reach it in time
I'll meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high.
To find a queen without a king;
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings.
La la la la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.