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I write synopses after the book is completed. I can't write it beforehand, because I don't know what the book's about. I invent something for my publisher because he asks for one, but the final book ends up very differently.

quote by Jackie Collins
Added by Lucian Velea
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Differently

Wish you told me by and by,
That my life would come to this,
That I'd have to find a way
to let things go,
That my friends would turn to foes,
And my love would come to blows,
Then I would have done some things
differently.
Differently...
I would ask you out every night.
Differently...
And I would make you feel so good.
Differently...
And appreciate the things that
you bring to me, babe.
Differently...
Oh yes I would, oh yeah.
Yeah, I know you tried and tried,
But your signal I just missed,
When you said my little girl
would soon be gone,
Yes I didn't hear you then,
And it might be too late now,
That's another thing I'd do
differently.
Differently...
Like trying to make you feel
loved every day.
Differently...
And saying little things to
let you know how I feel.
Differently...
Yes I can hear your young
voice calling me, babe.
Differently...
Oh yes I can.
When I 'm away I call you up,
And you don't seem to miss me as much,
But I know our love
is still there in your heart,
Just differently.
Differently...
Oh yes, I can hear your young
voice calling me, babe.
Differently...
Oh yes I can.
Differently...
I'd appreciate the things that you
bring to me babe, yes I would.
Differently...

[...] Read more

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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Double Helix Abecedarian - Xylophonic Resonance He Licks Enigmatic

XYLOPHONIC RESONANCE HE LICKS ENIGMATIC
Kindly refer to notes. and see Temptations and Poetic Pizza Extravaganza below :)

Xylophonic Resonance
double helix abecedarian

The first line begins with A and ends with Z
the next line begins with Z and ends with A
The next line begins with B and ends with Y
The next line begins with Y and ends with B
The next line begins with C and ends with X
The next line begins with X and ends with C

A to Z top down A to Z bottom up

All fizzle, finish frazzled, launched with fizZ.
Zero dreams teem when spirit seems at seA
Because most adepts of philosophY
Yearn for zenith seldom dwell on ebB,
Carpe diem value, seeking sea, sun, seX.
Xylem tree of life’s cannibalistiC
Desires corrupt deeds most men seW,
With survival’s urge soon lost indeeD.
Events churn causal patterns, AsimoV
Viewed clearly, took as starship journey cuE
Finding worlds which may appeal to yoU,
Unknown reader from beyond Time’s gulF -
Great divide between those past, those lefT -
Time travellers peruse these lines to sinG
High praise of poets who’ll know no more springS.
Spontaneousl prose poem picks pensive patH
In patter pattern, feet dance to empoweR.
Rhythm harmonious, need no alibI,
Joins sense, style versatile, from mind's H.Q.,
Questions seeks, finds answers. Soujourn’s hadJ
Knowledge acquires to share more than to keeP,
Pipes clear to others drifting through the darK.
Lark sings dawn’s welcome song, and each man’s taO
Opens connections, on life’s sea a-saiL
Ma d, sad, glad, bad, for threescore years and teN
Never certain of his mortal aiM,
Nor sure to gain posthumous fame, acclaiM,
Making ends meet in hope to rise agaiN
On judgement day should trust and faith prevaiL.
Life-spans increase but trite hullabaloO
Prepares too few for winding sheet, corpse starK,

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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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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Why Do I Write

I write from my sadness
I write from the madness
I write because I have something to say
I write to pass the day
I write only from the heart
I write for sometimes I am not that smart
Whatever is in head just comes out on paper (in this case a word document) , and I go with the flow
Write to let my mind go

I follow my hand to where ever it takes me
I write all the things that I can see
I write when I am happy, but not as much
I write from my heart that you can touch
I write because I’d go insane
I am driven to write quell my pain

At times I feel alone so I write what I am feeling
I write for it is self-healing
Confident not so I write it all away
I write and write to pass the day
I write to comfort my soul that cries out in the night
I write for love is always out of sight
I write so I don't have to cry any more
I write for I have no one to adore
I write so someone somewhere will hear my plea
I write for someone is out there for me
I am lost and I the clown
I write to turn my frown upside down

I write to embrace the sadness I hide inside
I write with my heart opened wide
I write to silence the ghost
I write for I’ve been let down by the one I loved the most
I write through the stormy weather
I write for I am light as a feather
I am not a writer nor am I a poet
I write for the grief I do know it

I will write until I draw my last breath
I write because I'll die a lonely death
I have to write for strangers delight
I write because I have to write
I write for my own happiness
I write to relieve my stress
I write because I have no other choice
I write as if I was writing a letter
I write because I can’t do any better
I write because I am afraid not to
I write for this is what I do
I write for I give a damn

[...] Read more

poem by Wilfred Mellers
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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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Poem Written By A Confessed Bipolar (her Name To Be Revealed Upon Her Permission)

I write because I can
I write because there are so many things to be written.
I write because I can make a painting without a brush and paints in my hand.
I write because I can capture the moment without having a camera.
I write because letters and words are the only recipe I know how to cook.
I write because I want to read what I’ve written.
I write because I’m used to speak in silence.
I write because I have a story to tell.
I write because I want to strip off my flesh and live as a pure being.
I write because I can record my “voice” without having a recorder.
I write because it’s like a cup of coffee, it keeps me awake
I write because I want to live even when I do not exist.
I write because this is my throwing stones when I’m frustrated.
6/11/09 at 4: 42 PM
I write because I can flaunt my being when I don’t have clothes to show off.
I write because this is like making an encyclopedia to a coloring book.
I write because it’s more effective than my lithium medication.
I write because I’m tired of carrying these baggages on the road.
I write because I’m tired of talking too much.
I write because it’s a healthier diversion than smoking.
I write because it’s more therapeutic than analyzing my problem.
I write because I want to paint a thousand pictures with words.
I write because I can put colors to the letters and make a rainbow of words.
I write because it’s the key combinations to my hidden vaults.
I write because my ball pen is my best friend in the darkest nights.
I write because it surprises me with what I am capable of thinking&doing. 6/11/09 at 4: 43 PM
I write because I like that ideas are popping like pop corns.
I write because I can wander in the adventures of my own world.
I write because I have to cleanse my collection of memories of an old home.
I write because like a mirror you need to do a lot of reflections.
I write because I want to fight the battle of life.
I write because I wanted my little voice to be heard.
I write because I want to run from the insanities of the world.
I write because pictures don’t talk.
I write because it helps me connect the dots when I look back in my life.
I write because it brings me back to my crib of silence.
I write because it makes a buzz to other bees in my beehive.
I write because unlike my bike my destination is limitless.
I write because I want to become an inspiration without extinction 6/11/09 at 4: 43 PM
I write because like strumming of the guitar, it vibrates in my soul.
I write because I love to write.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Added by Poetry Lover
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Eighth Book

ONE eve it happened when I sate alone,
Alone upon the terrace of my tower,
A book upon my knees, to counterfeit
The reading that I never read at all,
While Marian, in the garden down below,
Knelt by the fountain (I could just hear thrill
The drowsy silence of the exhausted day)
And peeled a new fig from that purple heap
In the grass beside her,–turning out the red
To feed her eager child, who sucked at it
With vehement lips across a gap of air
As he stood opposite, face and curls a-flame
With that last sun-ray, crying, 'give me, give,'
And stamping with imperious baby-feet,
(We're all born princes)–something startled me,–
The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaks
Abruptly, as if frightened at itself;
'Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance above
In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh,
And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book,
And knew, the first time, 'twas Boccaccio's tales,
The Falcon's,–of the lover who for love
Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us
Do it still, and then we sit and laugh no more.
Laugh you, sweet Marian! you've the right to laugh,
Since God himself is for you, and a child!
For me there's somewhat less,–and so, I sigh.

The heavens were making room to hold the night,
The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates
To let the stars out slowly (prophesied
In close-approaching advent, not discerned),
While still the cue-owls from the cypresses
Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse
Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually
The purple and transparent shadows slow
Had filled up the whole valley to the brim,
And flooded all the city, which you saw
As some drowned city in some enchanted sea,
Cut off from nature,–drawing you who gaze,
With passionate desire, to leap and plunge,
And find a sea-king with a voice of waves,
And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks
You cannot kiss but you shall bring away
Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell
Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down,
So deep; and fifty churches answer it
The same, with fifty various instances.
Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets
The Pitti's palace-front is drawn in fire:

[...] Read more

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

OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.

I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
'Hush, hush–here's too much noise!' while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel
My father's slow hand, when she had left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee;
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke the poor hair down, stroke it heavily,–
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young to sit alone.

I write. My mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; my life,
A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp
Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail;
She could not bear the joy of giving life–
The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss
Had left a longer weight upon my lips,
It might have steadied the uneasy breath,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indeed,
I felt a mother-want about the world,
And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,–
As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through something being away, though what
It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born
To make my father sadder, and myself
Not overjoyous, truly. Women know
The way to rear up children, (to be just,)

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I. The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

[...] Read more

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

'THE woman's motive? shall we daub ourselves
With finding roots for nettles? 'tis soft clay
And easily explored. She had the means,
The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace,
In trust for that Australian scheme and me,
Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands,
And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed,
She served me (after all it was not strange,;
'Twas only what my mother would have done)
A motherly, unmerciful, good turn.

'Well, after. There are nettles everywhere,
But smooth green grasses are more common still;
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud;
A miller's wife at Clichy took me in
And spent her pity on me,–made me calm
And merely very reasonably sad.
She found me a servant's place in Paris where
I tried to take the cast-off life again,
And stood as quiet as a beaten ass
Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up
To let them charge him with another pack.

'A few months, so. My mistress, young and light,
Was easy with me, less for kindness than
Because she led, herself, an easy time
Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass,
Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most.
She felt so pretty and so pleased all day
She could not take the trouble to be cross,
But sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe,
Would tap me softly with her slender foot
Still restless with the last night's dancing in't,
And say 'Fie, pale-face! are you English girls
'All grave and silent? mass-book still, and Lent?
'And first-communion colours on your cheeks,
'Worn past the time for't? little fool, be gay!'
At which she vanished, like a fairy, through
A gap of silver laughter.
'Came an hour
When all went otherwise. She did not speak,
But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes
As if a viper with a pair of tongs,
Too far for any touch, yet near enough
To view the writhing creature,–then at last,
'Stand still there, in the holy Virgin's name,
'Thou Marian; thou'rt no reputable girl,
'Although sufficient dull for twenty saints!
'I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said;
'Confess thou'lt be a mother in a month,

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

Aerosmith
Write Me
Well I've been away forever, suicide's crossin' my mind,
But I'll never never never never never get so far behind.
I said, the ways of the night are evil with eyes that love the day,
but I'll never never never never never get so far away.
I said write me, write me, write me.
I said write me, write me, write me.
Well there's nothin' I can see that'd ever make
me want to be without her she's good, she's good to me.
Said there's no way to explain the kind of feeling
that you get out in the rain she's good, she's good to me.
See this emptiness inside it makes me scream
it make me crawl out of my high, she's good, she's good to me.
I love her.
Write me a letter, write me a letter, write it today, I'm goin' away.
Well I've been away forever, suicide's crossin' my mind,
But I'll never never never never never get so far behind.
Well I've been so many places hidin' from the wind and the rain,
But you could write me a letter for to save me from a goin' insane.
I said write me, write, write, write me.
Write me, write, write, write me.
Write me, write, write, write.
I said write me, write, write, write me.
Write me, write, write, write me.
Don't write me baby.

song performed by Aerosmith
Added by Lucian Velea
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Second Book

TIMES followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,
And looked before and after, as I stood
Woman and artist,–either incomplete,
Both credulous of completion. There I held
The whole creation in my little cup,
And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank,
'Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine
And all these peoples.'
I was glad, that day;
The June was in me, with its multitudes
Of nightingales all singing in the dark,
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split.
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God!
So glad, I could not choose be very wise!
And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull
My childhood backward in a childish jest
To see the face of't once more, and farewell!
In which fantastic mood I bounded forth
At early morning,–would not wait so long
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn
With my gown in the dew, took will and way
Among the acacias of the shrubberies,
To fly my fancies in the open air
And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on,
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves;
'The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone,
And so with me it must be, unless I prove
Unworthy of the grand adversity,–
And certainly I would not fail so much.
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it,
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own
To all the tender pricking of such leaves?
Such leaves? what leaves?'
I pulled the branches down,
To choose from.
'Not the bay! I choose no bay;
The fates deny us if we are overbold:
Nor myrtle–which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains
The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by,
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
Ah–there's my choice,–that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Our Final Farewell

To say our final farewell it happend not that long ago.
Our final farewell, I remember it so clearly.
Our final farewell, I remember your smile.
Our final farewell, I remember how proud you were
that you got promoted.
Our final farewell, happened like any 'goodbye'.
Our final farewell, you seemed happy.
Our final farewell, you seemed to enjoy life.
Our final farewell, you seemed to enjoy everything,
Our final farewell, I remember the conversation.
Our final farewell, sometimes haunts me.
Our final farewell, happened so quick.
Our final farewell, I didn't know that it was going to
be our last.
Our final farewell, happened more then a year ago
Your final farewell, happened on the 15/11/05 as you
took your own life.

poem by Nikki Hamilton
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Why Me?

When the hopes are hassled
And relationships are rattled
Naïveté asks, why me?
When wishes are whacked
And dreams are dashed
Naïveté asks, why me?
When fantasies are fettered
And blessings are battered
Naïveté asks, why me?
When desires are demolished
And ambitions are admonished
Naïveté asks, why me?
When temptations are traumatized
And passions are pulverized
Naïveté asks, why me?

Strangely,

Naïveté with influence
And naïveté with affluence
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with name
And naïveté with fame
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with health
And naïveté with wealth
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with fiefdom
And naïveté with wisdom
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with beauty
And naïveté with booty
Never asks, why me?

poem by Hitesh Sheth
Added by Poetry Lover
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Your Racist Friend

This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
It was the loveliest party that Ive ever attended
If anything was broken Im sure it could be mended
My head cant tolerate this bobbing and pretending
Listen to some bullet-head and the madness that hes saying
This is where the party ends
Ill just sit here wondering how you
Can stand by your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
You and your racist friend
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway
Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking
Cant shake the devils hand and say youre only kidding
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
Notes
Most alternate versions are very similar. the farthest removed is the extended mix dial-a-song version:
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here wondering how you
Can stand by your racist friend
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here wondering how you
Can stand by your racist friend
It was the loveliest party
That Ive ever attended
If anything got broken
Im sure it could be mended
But my head cant stand this bobbin and pretendin
Tolerate some bullethead and the bullshit that hes sayin
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to your
Your racist friend
This is where the party ends

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'

Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.

Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,

[...] Read more

poem by James Russell Lowell
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Keep looking for loose ends; Keep alive and kicking

Keep looking for loose ends, Keep alive and kicking

The very essence of survival among
All living systems lies in the
Locating of loose ends and fixing them adequately

Making of another million
May be one’s loose end while
Winning the next meal
May be that of some one else
Growth of his industrial empire
May be the loose end of an entrepreneur, while
Moving on to the next stage in the spiritual path
May be that of someone different
Getting a loan for building own accommodation
May be some other’s loose end while
Paying back the availed loan
May be the loose end of a third other person
Keeping in tact his political position and
Getting a suitable placemen
May be other loose ends, which are common
Building a new nest may be a bird’s loose end while
Snatching the next prey may be a tiger’s loose end

Thus all are after loose ends

The fact is that locating a loose end is not really the end
As loose ends by themselves are no issues
Loose ends get entangled and invite
New and unknown complications

Some know their loose ends
They seemingly do not think or act on these
May be they are confident of meeting the resultant
Complications effectively and adequately

Some are lost in worrying over the complications
And they find no time to fix loose ends
Loose ends remain loose anytime to blow up
With unexpected implications

It is indeed, the desire that fix loose ends
This desire leads these people as how to fix them
They act on the knowledge and secure loose ends

Loose ends are really fixed by
Emotion-free and knowledge-based actions

So,

[...] Read more

poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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