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” To take the world as one finds it, the bad with the good, making the best of the present moment—to laugh at Fortune alike whether she be generous or unkind—to spend freely when one has money, and to hope gaily when one has none—to fleet the time carelessly, living for love and art—this is the temper and spirit of the modern Bohemian in his outward and visible aspect. It is a light and graceful philosophy, but it is the Gospel of the Moment, this exoteric phase of the Bohemian religion; and if, in some noble natures, it rises to a bold simplicity and naturalness, it may also lend its butterfly precepts to some very pretty vices and lovable faults, for in Bohemia one may find almost every sin save that of Hypocrisy. …
His faults are more commonly those of self-indulgence, thoughtlessness, vanity and procrastination, and these usually go hand-in-hand with generosity, love and charity; for it is not enough to be one’s self in Bohemia, one must allow others to be themselves, as well. …
What, then, is it that makes this mystical empire of Bohemia unique, and what is the charm of its mental fairyland? It is this: there are no roads in all Bohemia! One must choose and find one’s own path, be one’s own self, live one’s own life. “Gelett Burgess
The Snowman
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitterOf the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare placeFor the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.Wallace Stevens
At Set of Sun
If we sit down at set of sun,
And count the things that we have done,
And counting, find
One self-denying act, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance, most kind,
That fell like sunshine where it went–
Then we may count that day well spent.Or, on the other hand, if we,
In looking through the day, can see
A place or spot
Where we an unkind act put down,
Or where we smiled when wont to frown,
Or crushed some thought
That cumbered the heart–ground where it stood–
Then we may count that day as good.But if, through all the life-long day,
We’ve eased no heart by yea or nay;
If through it all
We’ve done no thing that we can trace,
That brought the sunshine to a face–
No act most small
That helped some soul, and nothing cost–
Then count that day as worse than lost.Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Rasputin helps one to recognize inspiration; but, oh, what
could imagination be?To retrieve, to plunder, to forge.
To be bored.
To rip kites so they may stay on the ground.
To forget jokes and misunderstand common sense.
To sit for four hours without getting up.
To count words and people and only remember their
numbers.To listen closely to what loons could be trying to say.
To permutate dots so that lines are never identical to
each other.To return to known places and act always the same,
thus the slightest change might become apparent.To force things to happen.
To pretend there’s meaning when all that comes out is a
“My dog loves me and he’s no showboat.”To think there’s nothing to say.
To leap from canopy to can openers to can open her.
You’ve begun, now use your props.
From “The Script” by Mónica de la Torre
The Song Of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.William Butler Yeats
They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him;
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.
He sent them word I had not gone.
(We know it to be true.)
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?
“I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.”
If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.
My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him and ourselves and it.
Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.Lewis Carroll
It’ s all nonsense …..
:D
Solitude
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.Ella Wheeler Wilcox
What the Chairman Told Tom
Poetry? It’s a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.It’s not work. You dont sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.Art, that’s opera; or repertory –
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.But to ask for twelve pounds a week –
married, aren’t you? –
you’ve got a nerve.How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?Who says it’s poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I’m an accountant.They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it’s unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.They’re Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.Mr Hines says so, and he’s a schoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.Basil Bunting
Todtnauberg.
Paul Celan
“Arnica, eyebright, the
draft from the well with the
star-die on top,
in the
Hütte,
written in the book
—whose name did it record
before mine—?
in this book
the line about
a hope, today,
for a thinker’s
word
to come,
in the heart,
forest sward, unleveled,
orchis and orchis, singly,”Paul Celan
Homecoming
Snowfall, denser and denser,
dove-coloured as yesterday,
snowfall, as if even now you were sleeping.White, stacked into distance.
Above it, endless,
the sleigh track of the lost.Below, hidden,
presses up
what so hurts the eyes,
hill upon hill,
invisible.On each,
fetched home into its today,
an I slipped away into dumbness:
wooden, a post.There: a feeling,
blown across by the ice wind
attaching its dove- its snow-
coloured cloth as a flag.
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