Poetry and stuff...

[druffine]

K, flist , I need your help.

I want to get to know some poetry and the likes but I have no idea where to start with that, I mean I don't even know the children's rhymes and such...

So please, if you have a moment, paste me your favorite poem or one you think I should know into a comment and maybe a few words about it.

Thanks very much.

Oh and finally... it's over.

Comments

And while we're on the cheerful Miss Plath....

[eatenbyweasels.livejournal.com]

Lady Lazarus Print Window

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it ----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify? ----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot ----
The big strip tease.
Gentleman, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart ---
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there ----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

-October 23-29, 1962



*goes to look for somehing lighter. *g**

Re: And while we're on the cheerful Miss Plath....

[eatenbyweasels.livejournal.com]

The title is just "Lady Lazarus", btw; the "print window" bit got in by mistake!

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Hm.. Again I am not quite sure what to make out of these two. The rhythm is good and the language overlapping is interessting. I am a fan of German after-ww2-poetry myself but these have kind of an accusing character, not the desillusioned/hopeless feeling I am used too.
It's pretty weird too, maybe because I don't get the methaphors and stuff, though.