Off season Poetry appreciation.

[Paddo Colt 61]

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister


Robert Browning - 1812-1889
Gr-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims--
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together;
Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt;
What's the Latin name for "parsley"?
What's the Greek name for "swine's snout"?

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps--
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While Brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
--Can't I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange pulp--
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp!

Oh, those melons! if he's able
We're to have a feast; so nice!
One goes to the Abbot's table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!--And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine district damnations,
One sure, if another fails;
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe;
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

Or, there's Satan!--one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he'd miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine...
'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r--you swine!

The Romantic school were concerned with reacting to Newtonian theory that everything in life had mechanical/physical explanations. In particular they wanted to demonstrate that Man was not just the sum of his parts. In so doing they focused on the Imagination, what they called the "Fancy".

This Browning poem is one of his Dramatic Monologues which include Porphiria's Lover, The Bishop Orders his Tomb, which you might remember from school. The art of these poems is that the only perspective that we get is the speaker's and what he says tells us much more about him that it does about the target of his remarks. "Porphiria's Lover" for example presents a psychopath explaining the murder of his girlfriend.

Here, a monk in a cloister is obsessed with another monk who is his complete opposite. The fellow's simple saintliness and devotion stirs the narrator's conscience but he does his best to cancel that by his sneering and lurid hatred of the other.
I've chosen it because in a lot of ways it reflects the Pen and some of the characters on it......

[mightyrooster]

I have to say Paddo English was my weakest subject at school. I loved Economics, Maths, all things Science, History and languages but as hard as I tried, I was not that good at English. I liked McBeth and 1984 the George Orwell novel. But that Colleridge poem, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner - gee that was one of my least favourite HSC memories.

I'll give it a read but expect to get average marks !

[Andrew Walker]

Thanks PC I’m in the gym training at the moment. But when I get home later this afternoon I will be sure to read this thoroughly. Later on I may even delve into some poetry and add to this thread.

[Paddo Colt 61]

[QUOTE=mightyrooster; I have to say Paddo English was my weakest subject at school........I'll give it a read but expect to get average marks !

You write clearly and technically well so you haven't done badly considering that those things are the sole aim of the English syllabus. The HSC assesses writing skill above all else but, teachers being human, there are always loons (usually the younger lot but not always) who either can't write very well themselves or who incorrectly think that the imaginative factor is the most important element of creative writing or that a literary essay should be all about how much the candidate knows about a text irrespective of how well their opinions are expressed.

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

The Genius of the Crowd

by Charles Bukowski

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

Bluebird
by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

***

[Rooster1908]

Here I sit broken hearted
Came to poop but only farted
By Me

[Andrew Walker]

Here I sit broken hearted
Came to poop but only farted
By Me

Ooh I like that one I like to write limericks and have one to share.

There was a girl who wore red white blue
and the world thought she stunk like poo
it drove her round the bend
as the stench would never end
they could even smell her from Peru

[mightyrooster]

Here I sit broken hearted
Came to poop but only farted
By Me

Lol, 08. How long did it take you to work on that one?
The poem that is?

[mightyrooster]

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister


Robert Browning - 1812-1889
Gr-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims--
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together;
Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt;
What's the Latin name for "parsley"?
What's the Greek name for "swine's snout"?

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps--
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While Brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
--Can't I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange pulp--
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp!

Oh, those melons! if he's able
We're to have a feast; so nice!
One goes to the Abbot's table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!--And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine district damnations,
One sure, if another fails;
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe;
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

Or, there's Satan!--one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he'd miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine...
'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r--you swine!

The Romantic school were concerned with reacting to Newtonian theory that everything in life had mechanical/physical explanations. In particular they wanted to demonstrate that Man was not just the sum of his parts. In so doing they focused on the Imagination, what they called the "Fancy".

This Browning poem is one of his Dramatic Monologues which include Porphiria's Lover, The Bishop Orders his Tomb, which you might remember from school. The art of these poems is that the only perspective that we get is the speaker's and what he says tells us much more about him that it does about the target of his remarks. "Porphiria's Lover" for example presents a psychopath explaining the murder of his girlfriend.

Here, a monk in a cloister is obsessed with another monk who is his complete opposite. The fellow's simple saintliness and devotion stirs the narrator's conscience but he does his best to cancel that by his sneering and lurid hatred of the other.
I've chosen it because in a lot of ways it reflects the Pen and some of the characters on it......

I like it Paddo. Some of it’s a bit hard to interpret but I get the gist of it. As you say it says more about the narrator than the poor person he’s hating on. It highlights his hypocrisy.

[Andrew Walker]

I like it Paddo. Some of it’s a bit hard to interpret but I get the gist of it. As you say it says more about the narrator than the poor person he’s hating on. It highlights his hypocrisy.

No that poem does nothing for me. I preferred the previous poem written by the Polish intellectual which highlighted the stupidity of many Australians.

[mightyrooster]

No that poem does nothing for me. I preferred the previous poem written by the Polish intellectual which highlighted the stupidity of many Australians.

Fair enough. That’s why poetry is subjective. Just like music.

[Andrew Walker]

Fair enough. That’s why poetry is subjective. Just like music.

Agreed but, in saying that I think PC is of the belief that this is not the case and that it cannot be seen nor interpreted in a different manner than his own. I do though welcome PC to correct me on this should that not be the case.

[mightyrooster]

Agreed but, in saying that I think PC is of the belief that this is not the case and that it cannot be seen nor interpreted in a different manner than his own. I do though welcome PC to correct me on this should that not be the case.

True. I guess what I meant is I like the meaning of the poem. I liked the meaning of the other one too but they are both very different in style. With this one I like the fact that it shows up the narrator for the hypocrite he is. Bagging out another person for extremely petty reasons when he in essence is the one who is full of hate and anger. I think I’ve known a few people like that in my life.

[Rooster1908]

Lol, 08. How long did it take you to work on that one?
The poem that is?

Not long obviously
Heard this one when I was a boy and never forgot it/

One dark Day in the middle of the Night.
Two Dead men got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other .
Drew a sword and shot another.