Poetry and Music

[Bastard Poetry]

Music or text, your choice; all in all, I want some fucking poetry.

MUSIC:

I'll start with Coil. I've gone on lengthy rants about Coil before, as I consider about 90% of their music to be complete, utter shit. However, that remaining 10% has some of the most haunting and beautiful tracks I've ever heard in my life. Johnn Balance focused a lot of his energies on the moment of death, and embraced a lot of evils within the human soul. After a several-month-long bout with alcoholism and despair, he awoke one morning with a determination to clean up his life and, in a tragic accident, slipped and broke his neck. After all the years of waxing poetically about death, in ways that were chilling without being emo, he finally met his own end, and I can only hope his soul found peace with whatever truths he discovered.

Coil - Rosa Decidua
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7XxWlAsb7A

Coil - Christmas is Now Drawing Near
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYG-fCQP8AI



Johnny Cash and Nick Cave are, in my opinion, two of the greatest musical poets of our lifetime. I'll leave Johnny Cash to his well-founded reputation. However, Nick Cave definitely deserves some recognition in this thread.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand
www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff?user=10 ... 5573461369

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPhUQUDe_jw

Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue - Where the Wild Roses Grow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8srgfw7GDkM



POETRY:

I don't have much time left, I have to go to work. So I'll post three of my favorite poems by my absolute favorite poet EVAR, and I'll go into detail about him and his work later.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Leda and the Swan

            A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
            Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
            By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
            He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

            How can those terrified vague fingers push
            The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
            And how can body, laid in that white rush,
            But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

            A shudder in the loins engenders there
            The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
            And Agamemnon dead.
                                                    Being so caught up,
            So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
            Did she put on his knowledge with his power
            Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?


The Second Coming

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

[akwikone]

is two in one allowed?


read the description
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azCon4I7fWA - ghost song, the Doors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_c5Mbe-Fw - not to touch the earth, the Doors


ghost song

Shake dreams for your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day
And choose the sign of your day,
The day's divinity.
First thing you see.

A vast radiant beach
And a cool jeweled moon.
Couples naked race down
By its quiet side,
And we laugh like
Soft mad children
Smug in the wooly
Cotton brains of infancy.

The music and voices
Are all around us.

Choose they croon
The ancient ones,
The time has come again.
Choose now they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake.
Enter again the sweet forest.
Enter the hot dream
Come with us.
Everything is broken up
And dances.

Indians scattered on
Dawn's highway bleeding,
Ghosts crowd the young child's
Fragile egg-shell mind.



not to touch the eath

Not to touch the earth
Not to see the sun
Nothing left to do, but run, run, run
Let's run
Let's run

House upon the hill
Moon is lying still
Shadows of the trees
Witnessing the wild breeze
C'mon baby, run with me
Let's run

Run with me
Run with me
Run with me
Let's run

The mansion is warm at the top of the hill
Rich are the rooms and the comforts there
Red are the arms of luxuriant chairs
And you won't know a thing 'til you get inside

Dead president's corpse in the driver's car
The engine runs on glue and tar
Come on along, not goin' very far
To the East to meet the Czar

Run with me
Run with me
Run with me
Let's run
Whoa!

Some outlaws lived by the side of a lake
The minister's daughter's in love with the snake
Who lives in a well by the side of the road
Wake up, girl, we're almost home
Yeah, c'mon!

We should see the gates by mornin'
We should be inside the evenin'
Sun, sun, sun
Burn, burn, burn
Soon, soon, soon
Moon, moon, moon
I will get you
Soon
Soon
Soon

I am the Lizard King
I can do anything

[LastingDawn]

I have to take my hat off to Scarborough Fair/Canticle with Simon and Garfunkel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEhAXQ5QQzs

What music once was, a true shame that age died out shortly thereafter.

[Bastard Poetry]

I've been writing poetry for the last few months, for my creative writing class. I thought I'd share a bit and see what my FFH pals think:

Ancestral Rites

The Congolese Shaman looks upon our feast in terror;
We've risen from the sea to claim our descendants,
And from their bones made murderous fiery powder,
And from their flesh made treats--these resplendent

With the cheese of their brains. Our copper kettles fumed;
The wafting scent of our Vumbi-laden slaughter ships
Keeps the newly-stolen fasting--their kin they won't consume.
The blackened heart of Congo's basin pumps our ship adrift

Towards the oceanic factories where sea spirits weave our cloths.
I'd descend into the holds, and above the portal ring my bell;
The tailors of the sea exchanged fresh fabrics through the froth
For a few Congolese corpses--the transactions made with hell.

The observing Shaman knows we Vumbi own these lands,
Our ancestral rites bestow us holy powers to en-trance
The ones who hand kin over--our wine-cups in their hands,
Our purpose is for the blood we deliver to their Mass.

Obsidian Ra

Obsidian Ra slithers above the levy
As I lay my head down on the shimmering
Sand; a reptile pulls night toward its mass--
--This night, it heralds the forlorn 'Dess
Whose eyes spew nectar.

Heavenly bodies crawled above and oversaw my pain;
They found the sun Ra and His mortal victim slain.
An offering of earthly feasts to Nuit below--
--Keeper of Ra's orbs by night; I know
I descend into frost.

A sickly golden trickle of honey-slow sand
Fills the base, and now a river--a strand
Or shiver--of desert pours from my mouth.
Nightly Nuit signals the chariot upward and forth
To Cairo, our souls.

The reborn sun trembles; I will not yet sleep
Until Obsidian Ra in great arches does sweep
Her silver tears into the distant gorge
Unseen--I wonder if She knows I've forged
Myself into Her dreams?

Or Martyrdom

Information about Or Martyrdom: http://www.museofoblivion.com/clave/vie ... f=34&t=151

I'm interested in feedback, if anyone digs this sort of stuff.

[Melancthon]

If you can find it, check out The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.  I stole it from the reading room of one of my college buildings (it WAS the Outlaw Bible after all) and it totally changed the way I look at poetry in general (as well as inspiring me to write some of my own).  One of my old favorites:

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
                          A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

E. E. Cummings

[Zaen]

Not much of a Poetry person, but for music...

Pretty much anything Rush. Neil Peart has such a way with writing lyrics, impressive for a drummer, which he is amazing at.

Here's a great example: 2112, a 7 part epic. Musical virtuosity, lyrical masterpiece, it's one of my favorites. Just had to be split into three parts on Youtube, as it's 20:34 or so in length.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jGSZ4_f ... playnext=1

[Bastard Poetry]

_______________________________
<YOU'RE TEARING ME APART, LISA! |
 

I already gave my opinion on that poem, Mel, over on the Clave. But I'd like to point out that this particular bit:

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

..I rather enjoyed that sexy little slice of enjambment. So here it is, the first time I've ever enjoyed some small aspect of whatever it is that E.E. Cummings does.

Respect +1 POINT
Re-read +1 POINT
Lifted passages in order to work it into my social drinking nights +1 POINT
Remembering that E.E. Cummings doesn't use capitalization, ever, even for his name -3 POINTS
Melanchthon found this in something called The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry +6 POINTS

OLD TOTAL: -182
THIS ROUND: +6
NEW TOTAL: -176

We're almost on our way!

[Oblivion]

I wrote these last year.

The Game of My Life

Open your eyes and see the light of day
Listen closely friend, I'll show you the way
The road ahead may turn bad
But the end results will make you glad

Life goes on; what you put in is what you get
Live your life without feeling regret
Open your mouth; your voice will be heard
Talk to them; they'll listen to your word

The path you walk might be rough
Never give up until it's enough
For you are important; there are things you must do
When people need help, they will look up to you

The path has ended; your journey's complete
The challenge accomplished; the foes lie in defeat
Now you may rest; The day is done
Your game of life is won

Countdown to Oblivion

It's only a matter of time before the world ends.
An unstoppable war that no one wins.
The smell of blood hangs high in air.
How does it feel to have no one care?
As fire rains down from the night sky,
I watch all you mortals who are about to die.
The ones who listen may survive.
But will they be prepared when hell arrives?
Creatures from darkness will walk the streets.
The Devil's rejects rise up at their feet.
You fight and fight, only to meet your doom.
How can survive in hell's unholy womb?
This is the countdown, the sands are flowing.
Your fate will be sealed when the wind stops blowing.

Everything that I say will come true.
I'm sorry my friends, but I will not help you.
It is destiny... meaning the choice is mine, my friend.
When the last grain falls... Your world will end.

The Tragic Hero

The winds blow oddly in the night sky
It signaled that someone is about to die
With his armor clanking at his chest
He drove his sword into his foe's breast
Pulling out the blade he wipes it clean
The moonlit sky makes the sword gleam
He raised his arms into the sky
And yelled aloud his glorious battle cry
No longer did our hero fight
He would return home tomorrow night
This is what our hero thought
But this was the beginning of a new war to be fought

Returning home with a smile across his face
A sudden cloud of smoke would change his pace
Dashing to his village as quick as can be
He is devastated at the sight that he sees
The entire village was set ablaze
He searches for his family while navigating the hot maze
Upon locating his family he becomes displeased
Tears roll from his eyes and he drops to his knees
He curses and shouts to be dead
But calms himself and sorts out his head
Putting out the fires with water and dirt
Our hero buries the bodies while feeling so hurt

Ready for the road with sword in hand
Our hero sets out to journey 'cross land
Thoughts raced through his mind, plans to avenge
For when the culprit is found he'll exact his revenge