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An artist is his own fault.

quote by John O'Hara
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The mother and the artist

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of wonderfully emollient freshness; every
unfurling instant of impregnably magnificent existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of spellbindingly undefeated innocence; every
unfurling instant of symbiotically pristine existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of timelessly unconquerable truth; every unfurling
instant of bounteously magnanimous existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unfathomably unfettered creativity; every
unfurling instant of timelessly burgeoning existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of royally triumphant resplendence; every
unfurling instant of unconquerably majestic existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of eternally exhilarating vivaciousness; every
unfurling instant of redolently insuperable existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unbelievably ameliorating optimism; every
unfurling instant of marvelously benign existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of brilliantly liberated camaraderie; every
unfurling instant of iridescently inscrutable existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unshakably virgin righteousness; every
unfurling instant of beautifully untainted existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of uninhibitedly heavenly frolic; every unfurling
instant of tantalizingly sensuous existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of compassionately humanitarian friendship; every
unfurling instant of magically mitigating existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of miraculously everlasting freshness; every
unfurling instant of invincibly coalescing existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of pricelessly ubiquitous oneness; every unfurling

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Nobodys Fault But Mine

Nina simone
Ah, nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Ah, have a Bible in my home
Have a Bible in my home
Tryin to raise my soul to light
.. taught me how to read
.. taught me how to read
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Nobodys fault but mine.
Oh lord, nobodys fault but mine
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Ah have a Bible in my home
Have a Bible in my home
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Oh, buddy she taught me how to read
Buddy she taught me how to read
Tryin to raise my soul to light.
Ah, lord, lord, nobodys fault but mine
Bible and my soul tonight
And sister she taught me how to read
Sister she taught me how to read
Bible and my soul tonight.
Ah, no, no, nobodys fault but mine.
Bible and my soul tonight.
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Tryin to raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine
Got a Bible in my home
Got a Bible in my home
Tryin to raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine - yeah!
Sister she taught me to roll
My sister she taught me to roll
I roll along the line
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Ill raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine
Take it on, take it on
I got a monkey on my back
I gotta monkey on my back, back, back
Ill raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine - yeah
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Ill raise my soul to the light

[...] Read more

song performed by Nina Simone
Added by Lucian Velea
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Beginning of destruction

pride it’s all your fault
Pride it’s all your fault we in this mess
Pride it’s all your fault we are suffering
Pride it’s all your fault people are shedding blood
Pride it’s all your fault families are destroyed
Pride it’s all your fault people are so greedy and selfish
Pride it’s all your fault people have no love
Pride it’s all your fault are so jealous of each other
Pride it’s all your fault people are so lost
Pride it’s all your fault dying from this horrible diseases
Pride it’s all your fault we have so many orphans
Pride it’s all your fault people are betraying each other
Pride it’s all your fault are dying of hunger
Pride it’s all your fault fathers are sleeping with their children
Pride it’s all your fault people are so heartless
Pride it’s all your fault there is no peace, unity and harmony in this world
Pride it’s all your fault we have all this sorrow
Pride it’s all your fault God has rejected us
Pride it’s all your fault people are so evil
And they have decided to be in love with evil rather than good
You have ruined this world
You are to blame for all this misery
If lucifer did not have pride in his heart we wouldn’t be in this mess
Pride it all your fault! ! !

Vangile Mtyali

poem by Vangile Mtyali
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No, it is Not your Fault.

Poem Title: No, It is not your Fault. Acrostic Poem 153

No, it is not your fault!
Oh how many times must I say this, it is not your fault.

It is not your fault, from now on I want you to believe it, it is not your fault.
Try always and forever from this time on to master the fact that it is not your fault.

It is not your fault, Nobody is to blame, no thing, no way, no how, it is not your fault.
Since childhood have you not continually taken the blame upon yourself, It was not your fault.

Never wishing to cast doubt upon what a wonderful person you are, It is not your fault.
Out side of the love of friends and family are you seen as just a number, No, it's not your fault.
They may never get close enough to see the light you radiate, No, it is not your fault

Yesterday, troubles, debt, sorrow, disappointment, failure dogged your step, It was not your fault.
Over years, with hindsight your advantage, do you now see the illuminated sign on every corner?
Understanding dawns at last, Understanding all and everything gone before, was not your fault.
Redemption now at hand, you are at the gateway all your skills intact, you are loved with all faults.

Faults have given you a tool bag filled with wisdom, mistakes having been made rectified always.
All ways, All roads, All pathways trod, All modes explored, All embarrassments suffered, never at fault
Unless you count on all you meet as being with all faults, help them then aboard faults and all.
Light their hearts with your love and forgiveness despite the faults, will erase the faults you own.
That fault you thought you had was just my way of Guiding Angels through the maze Alone.

Written in the Now gifted to The 1000th Man with grateful thanks 8th September 2009

poem by Philip Winchester
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Keep A Shrill Unending

I see it in your face...
Baybee,
I see it in your face...
Pretty when you're giving lickings.
I see it in your face...
Baybee,
I see it in your face...
Pretty when you're giving lickings.

You don't want to listen,
When your pretty giving lickins.
All you want to do is find a fault.
All you want to do is find a fault.

You don't want to listen,
All you want to do is find a fault.

All you want to do is find a fault.
To begin the stinging.
All you want to do is find a fault.
To keep a shrill unending.

All you want to do is find a fault,
To begin the stinging.
All you want to do is find a fault,
To keep a shrill unending.

You don't want to listen,
All you want to do is find a fault.
I see it in your face...
Baybee,
I see it in your face...
Pretty when you're giving lickings.
I see it in your face...
Baybee,
I see it in your face...
Pretty when you're giving lickings.

Baybee,
All you want to do with me is find a fault.
Baybee,
All you want to do with me is find a fault.
Baybee,
All you want to do with me is find a fault.
Baybee,
All you want to do with me is find a fault.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Lisbeth and the Artist

Lisbeth stands watching
The artist as he prepares
To sketch. Her elder sisters
Stand in shadows whispering.
Her younger sister plays
With her doll on the floor.
Their father said to do as
The artist instructed and
Don't misbehave or be rude.
The artist stares hard his
Dark eyes searching their
Every move and expression
And body gesture. The elder
Girls mutter in shadows
Their hands over their mouths
Their blue eyes like shallow
Pools. Ready? The artist
Asks putting charcoal to
Paper his fingers blackening.
Lisbeth says just as we are?
The artist nods. His grim
Features express do not disturb.
The youngest sister plays
Ignoring the artist her eyes set
On the game at hand. The girls
In shadow turn their profiles
Set to mystery their hands on
Their abdomens like guardians
Of virtue. Lisbeth wonders as
She watches the artist's stiff
Moustache and beard the slow
Movement of his mouth as he
Mouths words and stares hard.
The last artist employed some
Year before younger and less
Brutal in expression and manner
Had drawn them each in private
Rooms and set them down on couch
Or bed and kept their images inside
His head. He was dismissed and the
Drawings destroyed and nothing said.
Lisbeth had thought it just a game
Something done as lover might in
Private corners or lonely spots on
Quiet nights. The artist sketches.
His blackened fingers move and
Made their mark. Their images
Captured. The scene set. One sister
In the shadows yawns the other
Stares in still contempt. Lisbeth

[...] Read more

poem by Terry Collett
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Sinful identity

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so handsomely procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
infantile cry; overflowed with unfathomable oceans of
glittering gold,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
baselessly rejoiced and took all their hard-earned
wealth for granted; miserably dithered in my
impoverished life to carve a philanthropically
blissful identity of my very own….

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so majestically procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my
first baby cry; had an endless inundation of sparkling
currency coin,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
parasitically feasted and took all their hard-earned
wealth for granted; pathetically staggered in my
diminutive life to carve a synergistically blazing
identity of my very own….

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so wonderfully procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
incoherent cry; remained perpetually embellished with
resplendently enamoring diamonds,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
derogatorily marauded and took all their hard-earned
wealth for granted; dismally stuttered in my truncated
life to carve a celestially vibrant identity of my
very own…
It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so marvelously procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
nimble cry; contained every speck of prosperity on
this timeless planet,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
indiscriminately terrorized and took all their
hard-earned wealth for granted; meaninglessly quavered
in my destined life to carve a beautifully magnanimous
identity of my very own…..

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so amazingly procreated me; nor was it
my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
inaudible cry; had its foundations resting on an
insurmountable mountain of pearls,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
savagely massacred and took all their hard-earned

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Johnny Cant Read

Johnny cant read
Football, baseball, basket ball games
Drinkin bear, kickin ass and takin down names
With the top down, get-a-round, shootin the line
Summer is here and johnnys feelin fine
But johnny cant read
Summer is over and hes gone to seed
Johnny cant read
He never learned nothin that hell ever need
Well, johnny can dance and johnny can love
Johnny can push and johnny can shove
Johnny can hang out; johnny can talk tough
Johnny can get down and johnny can throw up
But johnny cant read
Summer is over and hes gone to seed
(you know that), johnny cant read
He never learned nothin that hell ever need
Well, is it teachers fault? oh no!
Is it mommys fault? oh no!
Is it societys fault? oh no!
Well is it johnnys fault? ohhhhh nooooo!
Couple years later, johnnys on the run
Johnny got confused and he bought himself a gun
Well, he went and did something that he shouldnt
Oughta done
F.b.i. on his tail
Use a gun-go to jail
But johnny cant read
Summer is over and hes gone to seed
(you know that), johnny cant read
He never learned nothin that hell ever need
Well is is teachers fault? oh no
Is it mommies fault? oh no
Is it the presidents fault? oh no
Well is it johnnys fault? ohhhhh nooooo!
Johnny can dance and johnny can love
Johnny can push and johnny can shove
Johnny can pinball; johnny can talk tough
Johnny can get down and johnny can throw up
Well, recess is over
Recess is over!
Sitcoms, t.&a.
Johnnys mind is blown away
Cop shows, horror flicks
Johnnys brain is full of bricks
Rock show, video
Boob tube, rubiks cube
Game fools, sunday school
Gain fans(? ), gobble gangs(? )
Wonka wonka wonka

[...] Read more

song performed by Don Henley
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A Nude Artist

A Nude Artist

he says he is a nude artist
because he is naked when he paints

such nakedness has
nothing to do with being a nude artist

a naked artist who paints a cat or a chicken
is not a nude artist

there is no nude cat
thyere is no nude chicken

just paint a naked woman
and he will be called a nude artist

an artist is not an art
he must know that

- Frog Mantra, Accents Publishing,2012 -

poem by Suchoon Mo_
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Peace

Artist - somebody didn't hear me
(What'd he say?)
Artist - formerly known as Prince
You gotta get your peace on
Peace, whoa oh
Peace
That's what we're here for
And not to war
When the war upon people of color thru needles
Designed to disease instead of relieve
When it ceases
I'll be a man of peace
(Say what)
When this mask of vendetta
Like tears on the face of Coretta
Roll down and go away
I'll be happier
(Happier)
I'll be a man of peace
Everybody say!
Peace, whoa oh
Peace
That's what we're here for
(That's what we're here for)
And not to war
When the time that we spend
Watching TV depends on
Whether or not it destroy or transcend
Then I won't need
(I won't, I won't)
Won't need a warranty
When the power of the hour is not yours but is ours
And the faces we see reflect all that we be indeed
There'll be a jubilee
Everybody say
Peace, whoa oh
Peace
That's what we're here for
(That's what we're here for)
And not to war
Bass
(Talkin' about freedom)
The rewards that we share will be based on what's fair
And not the curliness or the thick of our hair
Real competition, if you dare!
Music is our middle name
And we don't wanna play your game
So when the mergers you make are with us
And you take a fair slice of the cake
That we bake then you break

[...] Read more

song performed by Prince
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Value Fever Pitch: An Artist’s Time

Bhoman F Jamhari said

'I am an artist - This does not
mean I will work for free.
I have bills just like you.
Thank you for understanding.'

Polite and to the problematic point.

Anyone who thinks believes
an artist’s time is worthless,
is definitely a person an artist
should avoid; such individuals

cannot comprehend
or remotely understand
aesthetic value of art.

Art takes time to produce.

Vision and artistic skill takes
even longer to realize to attain
expanding horizons. Time costs.

Artists of differing genre value
appreciate each other and art
which suits their temperament.

To create art
is the life blood
of an artist.

The air we breathe
is the home of art.

Creativity is our fevered mind songs
we sing in a legacy of image visions.

What kind of a con artist wants
to steal bread from an artist’s mouth;

therefore limiting the quality quantity
of future works of art, to be produced
by that artist. Answer an enemy of art.

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Fault

Why did I let you inside my life
How could I let you inside my body my soul my brain
Now I cant make you go away
You're driving me insane and inside outand#8230;
I can tell
Its meaningful and so hurtful
There's no place just to hide

I can tell you right now that this pain that I feel is not just inside of my mind
I can tell you right now that its physical and painful to be so vulnerable

This is my fault
Oh this is my fault

How could I lie to myself again
These bad decisions a never ending story
I think id know by now just how to bout to smile
You're driving me insane and inside outand#8230;because
Its meaningful and so hurtful
There's no place just to hide

I can tell you right now that this pain that I feel is not just inside of my mind
I can tell you right now that its physical and painful to be so vulnerable
I can tell you this pain is so unreal cant help but feel left all alone
I can tell you to listen to me when I say to you I know

This is my fault
Oh this is my fault

I know this is my fault [x4]

I can tell you right now that this pain that I feel is not just inside of my mind
I can tell you right now that its physical and painful to be so vulnerable
I can tell you this pain is so unreal cant help but feel left all alone
I can tell you to listen to me when I say to you I know

This is my fault
Oh this is my fault

song performed by Taproot from Welcome
Added by Lucian Velea
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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Ice Man

From Cap de Hault to Frenchman's Lease
Lies seven miles of moving ice,
A lady comes there once or twice a year
To view that precipice.
The glacier, that tortuously
Grinds along that deep moraine
Is known to all as 'Adam's Fault',
And Eve despairs the bleak terrain.

Eve Grise de Mare du Montalban
The countess from her place of fame,
Who played coquettish with her fan
When first to Adam's Fault she came.
Gervase and I both courted Eve
But she played him, and then played me,
The contest was uneven, for
Gervase was old nobility.

We both enjoyed a hearty climb
And took our contest to the 'Fault',
Who first would conquer Frenchman's Lease
And reach the peak, should win it all;
The right to ask the lady's hand,
To claim the prize of her by right,
The loser, then, would quit the scene,
Would disappear him, overnight.

The day was cold, a storm was due,
We set out with our picks and rope,
The ice was clear as rippled glass
As we ascended up the slope.
We'd made three of the seven miles
Before the storm burst over us,
Gervase was slightly in the lead
But stopped beside the Fault to rest.

The glacier was close beside
When I pulled up to shelter, then
A crevice, fifteen metres wide
Had opened up, quite close to him.
Gervase half turned, the blinding sleet
Reduced our vision down to naught,
He sought direction with his feet
And pitched head first into the Fault.

The depth seemed bottomless, I heard
Eventually, a distant thud,
Gervase had hit the glacier floor
And I was certain he was dead.
The storm, in one short hour had flown,

[...] Read more

poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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Hymns Of The Marshes.

I. Sunrise.

In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain
Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep;
Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep,
Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,
Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,
Came to the gates of sleep.
Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep
Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep,
Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling:
The gates of sleep fell a-trembling
Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter `Yes,'
Shaken with happiness:
The gates of sleep stood wide.

I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not abide:
I have come ere the dawn, O beloved, my live-oaks, to hide
In your gospelling glooms, -- to be
As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea.

Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree
That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know
From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?
They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps.
Reason's not one that weeps.
What logic of greeting lies
Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?

O cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss
All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that emboss
The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan,
So,
(But would I could know, but would I could know,)
With your question embroid'ring the dark of the question of man, --
So, with your silences purfling this silence of man
While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is under the ban,
Under the ban, --
So, ye have wrought me
Designs on the night of our knowledge, -- yea, ye have taught me,
So,
That haply we know somewhat more than we know.

Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms,
Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms,
Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves,
Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,
Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me

[...] Read more

poem by Sidney Lanier
Added by Poetry Lover
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