What poem fits you?

[populistmom]

I couldn't sleep and was looking at an old thread, one of my all time favorite threads I should say, and decided to resurrect it. Basically, you answer a few easy questions and it picks a classic poem for you.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/quiz/results/1,5899,88051,00.html?QUIZ_ID=3908256&SITE_NAME=books&Q_818=2022&Q_820=2028&Q_822=2398&Q_824=2038&Q_826=2046&Q_828=2050&Q_830=2056&Q_832=2070&Q_834=2072&Q_836=2084&Q_838=2090

Here's mine:

From Chamber Music
XXII

Of that so sweet imprisonment
My soul, dearest, is fain -
Soft arms that woo me to relent
And woo me to detain.
Ah, could they ever hold me there
Gladly were I a prisoner!

Dearest, through interwoven arms
By love made tremulous,
That night allures me where alarms
Nowise may trouble us;
But sleep to dreamier sleep be wed
Where soul with soul lies prisoned.

James Joyce (1882-1941)

[MercutioATC]

1. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:

Shall I part my hair behind?
Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers
and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing
each to each.
I do not think that that they will sing to me.

[SOteric]

7. One of my all time favourites.

You do realise it's about suicide, yes?

[MercutioATC]

9. Yes. My absolute favorite poem.

Such graphic despair! Perfect.

[populistmom]

2. kick

[NightTrain]

3. There once was a man from Nantucket...

:silly:

[jimbo fett]

4. Hopefully not "Thanotopsis."

[LWolf]

5. To Autumn

This poem has fit me like a glove since I first read it as a sophmore in high school. Now that I am in the autumn of my life, I relate even more. Autumn is my favorite season.

John Keats

To Autumn (1819)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[BrotherBuzz]

6. Everybody Tells Me Everything

by Ogden Nash

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were
going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

[SOteric]

8. William Butler Yeats

The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

[Zomby Woof]

10. Lotromin Cheez Noodles

When my heart breaks
And my cheese aches
And my yak has eaten
All my cakes

I grab a tube
Of that fungus
Fightin' lube
And rub it 'round
My knees

Sweet Lotrimin
Divine as Cheetoes
Graceful as a
Yak on skates
With a fuzzy nose

Hello Dali
Good golly
You are sniffin'
My kneecaps again!

ZW

[populistmom]

16. Oh Jesus, Zombie!

:crazy:

[SOteric]

19. My yak likes cheez noodles,

with creamed corn in them.

[Zomby Woof]

24. Ode To Creamed Corn

I want some creamed corn!
Not that white corn
Or that whole corn
Or that cob of corn
Or that popcorn
Or that semi-multi-colored
Fancy elementary school Thanksgiving diorama corn
Looks so shopworn

I want that mashed up
Smashed up
Crashed up
Hashed up
Del Monte paradise
In a can corn!

Gimme that
Creamy
Dreamy
Unseemly
Glowing
Yellow
River of gold niblet
Goodness! Yum.

[SOteric]

25. Oh Zombie,

Those folks at the Green Giant's house are going to start sending you loveletters.

[Zomby Woof]

28. I'm a ho ho ho!

For creamed corn!

[camero]

11. There once was a man from Kildaire....

You know the rest :P

[NightTrain]

12. Hey! Get your own damned material!

(See my post above) :hi:

[populistmom]

17. I try to be serious. I try to be serious.

Here, in the lounge, I must be f*cking nuts!

[camero]

23. It's a different poem

Technically. God, I'm laughing so hard I'm crying. :)

[jpgray]

13. Something that isn't written by Billy Collins

Blecch. :)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

14. James Kavanaugh's There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

[scarlet_owl]

15. Last time I took this poll, it was "The Jabberwocky".

This time it was the Maldive Shark by Melville.

The Maldive shark

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendence be.
From his saw-pit mouth, from his charnel of maw
The have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril's abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to
Yet never partake of the treat -
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

18. Even though I have made so much money from Melville, I'd rather have

ear surgery than be forced to read one of his novels.

Kinda like Michner on Double espressos. He is good, but not my style.

[scarlet_owl]

26. Really? I liked Moby Dick a lot.

Perhaps I should pick up Billy Budd sometime.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

27. It's a taste question. I see the art and quality, but I just don't care

for all the exposition.

Omoo did me in.

[populistmom]

20. Last time I got this

"WHEN wert thou born, Desire?" In pomp and prime of May.
"By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot?" By good conceit, men say.
"Tell me, who was thy nurse?" Fresh youth in sug'red joy.
"What was thy meat and daily food?" Sore sighs with great annoy.
"What had you then to drink?" Unfeigned lovers' tears.
"What cradle were you rocked in?" In hope, devoid of fears.
"What brought you then asleep?" Sweet speech that liked men best.
"And where is now your dwelling-place?" In gentle hearts I rest.
"Doth company displease?" It doth in many one.
"Where would Desire then choose to be?" He likes to muse alone.
"What feedeth most your sight?" To gaze on favour still.
"Who find you most to be your foe?" Disdain of my good will.
"Will ever age or death bring you into decay?"
No, no, Desire both lives and dies ten thousand times a day.

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550 - 1604)

Moods change, poems change I suppose.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

22. Love it! What an unusual form.

I haven't read de Vere before.

[PartyPooper]

21. The shortest poem of which I know has been written

Title: Fleas

"Adam had 'em."

:-)

[BritishHuman]

29. I couldn't take the quiz from the results link...

So I went up a couple of levels and took the Valentine Poetry quiz, and got this:

The Good-Morrow by John Donne

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then,
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room, an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

But I did eventually find it, and it gave me this:

Love (III)

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

George Herbert (1593 - 1633)

which I'm going to have to think about...

[Whitacre D_WI]

30. Eliot.

Rhapsody on a Windy Night

TWELVE o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter."
So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain."
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
"Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.
The bed is open, the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."

The last twist of the knife.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

31. And today....

Like the Hindenburg you float
about my psyche, waiting for saint Elmo
to ignite your hydrogen temper.
"Oh my God! I can't believe it! Oh my God!
She's Burning...They're fallinq from the sky."

Oh, Mother Earth your teat was sweet,
and filled for just a year.
Then quickly sagged as I filled up,
taking away the nourishments of love
you spat about in faerie tales.

She dog, she dog. You
loathsome Delilah, snipping at my hair.
Sphinx-like smugness in your rigor.
Morte, morte, morte.
You bleed me cause you do.

You know you hold your candles well,
you're brass to wax and string
which burns brightly
if not briefly. But you know there's other candles.
You make them all yourself.

I am pliable like beeswax,
inspired by a queen,
to stand and show red hourglass
waiting yet to mate...
devoured when the act is done.

Down, down, down,
the wilted carcass slips,
to lie among the wreckage,
to die among the wreckage,
as mantis-like, you prey for more

Holding scissors, lower still.
Teasing in your voice, making up
for when the boys tied June bugs
to the strings of springtimes past.
"Vasectomy is vengeance, Dear, hold your breath
Don't scream."

You genetic Judas goat of silk-
lined wetness to entice,
your pheromone scent and lotus petals...
You're Medea with a knife.
And I'm drawn like a fly to sugared glue

To land and eat a final meal
of sugared glue.
Of sugared glue.
You are Hitler,
I am Jew.
Without Judea.

Oh, but you still blow me
away. Though I've mandrake root and
belladonna, your witchcraft still gets through
like winter wind, it catches up my pant-leg.
Chilling to the bone.

You stand about, a loaded gun,
with a chambered bullet, me.
waiting to discharge that load,
into my heart goes me. Powered
by your powder. Your rouge, your oils, your cream,

You say that I'm a vampire,
feeding on your blood. But blood is bait,
and bait is blood, waiting to congeal
and crust...over the festering sore
you see as me.

Go see a doctor! Get it fixed!
your plumbing's all fucked up!
I'm not your tool, I'm still my own.
I won't share my guilt with you.
You're the Hindenburg of guilt and you think it's just gas.