Keith Byrne

Keith Byrne Director, Select
Training Solutions

Temat: Favourite poems:

Rafał's poem reminded me of this:

Easter 1916
I HAVE met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

W.B. Yeats

Temat: Favourite poems:

THE FLEA.
by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Temat: Favourite poems:

I return to this one from time to time:

Robert Burns - To a Mouse

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men'
Gang aft agley" ... - how true

Temat: Favourite poems:

This poem is about true love; true love is loving one another’s imperfections. Her eyes are “nothing like the sun“, her lips not as red as coral, her breasts an off-white color, her cheeks less red than roses, and her voice not as pleasant as music. Her hairs are like black wires, her breath reeks, and she treads on the ground when she walks. But despite all these things, he still loves “to hear her speak” and finds his love rare, recognizable by heaven.

My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet 130)
by William Shakespeare


My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 21.08.08 o godzinie 12:03

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Temat: Favourite poems:

One of my favorite's written by Robert Louis Stevenson:

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me.
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller
Like an India-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little
That there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to Nursie
As that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepyhead,
Had stayed at home behind me
And was fast asleep in bed.

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Temat: Favourite poems:

I have got another one which was originally written as a “protest song” by David Axton:

Northern Ireland 1968

A young man is polishing his rifle,
The gun he used to kill another man.
A man he left lying on the pavement,
A man who could never understand
Why children are throwing stones at soldiers?
Who can’t do very much in return?
While their parents are marching down Bogside,
What can they expect their kids to learn?

A Protestant is sitting in his kitchen,
Television volume turned down low
While trembling hands are finishing a time bomb,
To kill or maim who ?– he doesn’t know.
And catholic is organizing marches,
Holding in his hand an iron rod
And he says that he is going a Proddy,
All in the name of peace and God

Ministers are standing on their corners,
Each one, preaching violence in his turn
And blind men will follow where they lead them,
Surely someday somebody must learn
That murder can never be the answer-
Even if you’re right, to kill is wrong
And flowers weren’t meant for the graveside,
Nor gunfire meant to hide the blackbird’s song.

History repeats its royal pattern
While hate and murder wear the bloody crown,
And while everyone looks up towards the future –
Religion’s always there to drag down.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz, do you still recite poetry anywhere?

Thomas Carlyle - "Cui Bono" ( for whose benefit)

What is Hope? A smiling rainbow
Children follow through the wet;
’Tis not here, still yonder, yonder:
Never urchin found it yet.

What is Life? A thawing iceboard
On a sea with sunny shore;—
Gay we sail; it melts beneath us;
We are sunk, and seen no more.

What is Man? A foolish baby,
Vainly strives, and fights, and frets;
Demanding all, deserving nothing;—
One small grave is what he gets.

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Temat: Favourite poems:

Applicable not solely to squirrels ;)

W.B. Yeats

To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-no

Come play with me;
Why should you run
Through the shaking tree
As though I’d a gun
To strike you dead?
When all I would do
Is to scratch your head
And let you go.

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Temat: Favourite poems:

Michał B.:
Łukasz, do you still recite poetry anywhere?

I am going to find that very possibility to do so at the UAM in Poznań. I know that they have got even such possibilities to perform in UK or other foreign countries, in fornt of native speakers or other poetry buffs ;) That might be a challenge ;) !!!!
"If you have decided to steal some money, steal millions, If you are willing to get married, just propose to a Princess".

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz, tell us a poem please.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Give the laureate more cash - and more wine.
It's a pity I cannot find more poems by the Queen. The one at the end is short but perfect. :)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/be...Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 11.09.08 o godzinie 00:56

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Temat: Favourite poems:

The Unseen Playmate


When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen.
When children are happy and lonely and good,
The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.

Nobody heard him, and nobody saw,
His is a picture you never could draw,
But he's sure to be present, abroad or at home,
When children are happy and playing alone.

He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass,
He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;
Whene'er you are happy and cannot tell why,
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!

He loves to be little, he hates to be big,
'T is he that inhabits the caves that you dig;
'T is he when you play with your soldiers of tin
That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

'T is he, when at night you go off to your bed,
Bids you go to sleep and not trouble your head;
For wherever they're lying, in cupboard or shelf,
'T is he will take care of your playthings himself!

R. L. Stevenson

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Temat: Favourite poems:

Michał B.:
Give the laureate more cash - and more wine.
It's a pity I cannot find more poems by the Queen. The one at the end is short but perfect. :)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/be...Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 11.09.08 o godzinie 00:56

Michał,

Have you been here: http://www.poemhunter.com/lovemo-queen/
with LOVEMO QUEEN's poems searching?

http://www.poemhunter.com/lovemo-queen/

Temat: Favourite poems:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/be...Michał
B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 11.09.08 o godzinie 00:56

Michał,

Have you been here: http://www.poemhunter.com/lovemo-queen/
with LOVEMO QUEEN's poems searching?

http://www.poemhunter.com/lovemo-queen/

My computer goes mad when I click on the above address.

Ezra Pound

Statement of Being


I am a grave poetic hen
That lays poetic eggs
And to enhance my temperament
A little quiet begs.

We make the yolk philosophy,
True beauty the albumen.
And then gum on a shell of form
To make the screed sound human.

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Temat: Favourite poems:

Anyone feeling beatnik?
http://www.videosift.com/video/50s-Beatnik-Poem-Tomorr...

Temat: Favourite poems:

Alan Ginsberg. I love this poem. Do you know his "Troost Street Blues" - wanted to copy it here but there are so many taboo words in it that I am not sure if you would allow me to put it here.


A Supermarket in California


What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price
bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in
driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you
have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Temat: Favourite poems:

A piece of "attentive" peotry by Charles Reznikoff.

Trees standing far off in winter
Against a polished blue sky
With boughs blown about like brown hair;

The stiff lines of the twigs
Blurred by the April buds;

Or branches crowded with leaves
And a wind turning
Their dark green light.

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Temat: Favourite poems:

Ginsberg is one of my favorite poets. Do you know John Berryman? Gregory Corso? Randall Jarrell? I could go on forever :) I'll look up my fav poem by Berryman in a mo.

there:
The Curse
John Berryman

Cedars and the westward sun.
The darkening sky. A man alone
Watches beside the fallen wall
The evening multitudes of sin
Crowd in upon us all.
For when the light fails they begin
Nocturnal sabotage among
The outcast and the loose of tongue,
The lax in walk, the murderers:
Our twilight universal curse.

Children are faultless in the wood,
Untouched. If they are later made
Scandal and index to their time,
It is that twilight brings for bread
The faculty of crime.
Only the idiot and the dead
Stand by, while who were young before
Wage insolent and guilty war
By night within that ancient house,
Immense, black, damned, anonymous.Tatiana S. edytował(a) ten post dnia 11.09.08 o godzinie 22:22

Temat: Favourite poems:

I am acquainted with Berryman and Jarrell. Less with Corso.
Since you like Ginsberg, I'll copy the dirty ballad he wrote in his letter to Ken Kesey. In the meantime, a poem by Jane Hirshfield )a great friend of Miłosz's).

My Heart

O my heart, I am divinely proud of you.
You do not have the shameful and shameless disease - worry!
Never do you drink the deadly venom-doubt!

Nothing can be simpler than your pure longings.
Nothing can be more spontaneous than your glowing feelings.
Nothing can be more fulfilling than your selfless love.
Nothing has a more immediate access to the Supreme than your inmost cry.

O my heart, your heavenly day within an earthly day is for God-realisation.
Your immortalising minute within a fleeting minute is for God-embodiment.
Your revealing second within a vanishing second is for God-manifestation.

O my heart, the other members of the family are afraid of God. You are never!
Their lightless persistent fear is a lifeless persistent paralysis.
In life's journey others make their own choice.
God makes the choice for you.

They want to save humanity with their ego's darkest night.
You wish to serve humanity with your dedication's brightest day.
Their victory is the victory over humanity. Your victory is the victory over yourself.

O my heart,O heart of mine,
You are my life-boat.
You sail the uncharted seas of ignorance
And reach the golden shore of the Beyond.



I am not alone,
O my heart,
I am with your soaring aspiration.
You are not alone.
In you and for you is my life's unreserved breath.

Yours is the unfaltering Will
And unfailing faith in the Supreme.
Each petal of the radiant lotus deep within you
Is perpetually bathed in nectar-rays of the Transcendental Delight.

O sweet, sweeter, sweetest heart of mine,
You are not only God's.
God also is yours.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Troost Street Blues by Alan Ginsberg

You can teach me baby, you can touch my soul
You can have my mouth, you can have my jellyroll
Gimme your heart baby, fuck me up my asshole

You can kiss my lips in Kansas Belly naked on mine
You can suck my tongue or suck my cock so fine
I love to put my tongue up in your sweet behind

There's a frightened deafed white folks in Kansas City
Walter's Crescendo Lounge here is my place to be
I have a bed on Troost Street, back in Eternity

I can't find words, my feelings are unreal
I used to sit by your bedside your prick I love to steal
Your belly's in an ash urn Now how do I feel?

Kansas City got the blues Every midnight Walter's bar
years later sitting by the jukebox how funky people are
But O them black musicians make me feel like a soul star

I'm back in Kansas City with my old time used-to-be
Alone with my Alone that's the story you and me
I once met Lester Young and got down on my knees

Bodies rot and faces vanish Lips turn white
I had my dreams my love is dead O heaven it's all right
Here I am in Kansas City I think I'll spend an empty nightMichał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 11.09.08 o godzinie 22:42

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