The Lighthouse Coffee Shop

[duchess of malfi]

The Sorrow of Love
by William Butler Yeats

The quarrel of the sparrow in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.
And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,
And all the burden of her myriad years.
And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

[variol son]

Me, by someone else.

I have blonde hair
I pluck my eyebrows
I have my father's nose,
my mother's hands
I have crooked teeth
and green eyes
I play guitar
I used to get sick a lot
I like the color of wine
I've cheated on boyfriends
I've owned fake ID
But may hair is still blonde
and my teeth are still crooked
and I probably won't always like
the color of wine

I have firm breasts
I have lips that always smile
I have veins that bleed
I laugh when I'm nervous
I feel the pain of others
but cry for no reason
I like open flame
I've been selfish since a child
I'm from Alaska
but hate the cold
I've cheated on diets
I've faked applications
But I still bleed
and my lips still smile
and my breasts won't
always be firm

I have strong shoulders
I have olive skin
I have a Swiss face
borrowed from my grandmother
I have long nails on my right hand
which break regularly
My little toe is strange
I write
I used to make wreaths from dandelions
I brush my hair before bed
I cheated on tests
I faked flirtatious French accents
But I still have gold skin
and my nails still break
and I probably won't always have
strong shoulders
and I may not always write
But maybe I'll start
making wreaths
from dandelions again

Sum sui generis
Vs

[duchess of malfi]

a poem about children by Kahlil Gibran:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

[duchess of malfi]

a poem from another British soldier who fought in the trenches in WW1...


SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES
By Siegfried Sassoon
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

[Lord Mhoram]

This may seem a little childish compared to other poems, but I love Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

[duchess of malfi]

Poetry of John Keats (1795-1821)


La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes--
So kiss'd to sleep.

And there we slumber'd on the moss,
And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

[Worm of Despite]

lines from
Crow With No Mouth, by Ikkyu

even before trees rocks I was nothing
when I'm dead nowhere I'll be nothing

this ink painting of wind blowing through pines
who hears it?

sin like a madman until you can't do anything else
no room for any more

one long pure beautiful road of pain
and the beauty of death and no pain

mirror facing mirror
nowhere else

passion's red thread is infinite
like the earth always under me

a woman is enlightenment when you're with her and the red thread
of both your passions flare inside you and you see

your name Mori means forest like the infinite fresh
green distances of your blindness

my monk friend has a weird endearing habit
he weaves sandals and leaves them secretly by the roadside

no words sitting alone night in my hut eyes closed hands open
wisps of an unknown face

we're lost where the mind can't find us
utterly lost

[danlo]

THE GARLIC MEAT LADY FROM by Richard Brautigan

We're cooking dinner tonight.
I'm making a kind of Stonehenge
stroganoff.
Marcia is helping me. You
already know the legend
of her beauty.
I've asked her to rub garlic
on the meat. She takes
each piece of meat like a lover
and rubs it gently with garlic.
I've never seen anything like this
before. Every orifice
of the meat is explored, caressed
relentlessly with garlic.
There is a passion here that would
drive a deaf saint to learn
the violin and play Beethoven at
Stonehenge.

[duchess of malfi]

from one of my favorite Shakespeare comedies, As You Like It...

Seven Ages Of Man
Poem lyrics of Seven Ages Of Man by William Shakespeare.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whiling schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Madew to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,
Fir his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,

[duchess of malfi]

Ane because today is St. Patrick's Day, here is a poem by a great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats:

The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats - 1921

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[duchess of malfi]

MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS
by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

[duchess of malfi]

Spring

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by Alfred Lord Tennyson



Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail,
On winding stream of distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives.

From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.

[duchess of malfi]

Things I Love to Do

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by Sybil Beulah Maus



I love to walk in dripping woods
When raindrops drum on leaves,
Where sodden footsteps tell of streams
Beneath the roots of trees;
Where violets grow, and snow-white trilliums
Lift their heads in countless millions
...In spring.

I love to loll upon a bank,
And watch the puffy clouds
Shape maps and woolly forms of sheep
That melt away in shrouds;
Where brown-eyed daisies and Queen Anne's lace
Flaunt their petals in my face
...In June.

I love to tramp a dusty road
When August days are mellow,
When noontime heat in shimmering haze
Turns goldenrod to yellow;
Or hear cicadas lost in trees
Shrill their tunes in myriad keys
...In summer.

I love to tread a golden path
When aspen leaves are falling,
Or listen to the quiet dirge
Of blue jays softly calling,
Or sit upon a country fence
And breathe October's sweet incense
...In autumn.

I love to see a crystal world
All sparkling in December
When brilliant skies and frosted earth
Have blotted out November;
When every shrub and tree is dressed
In silvery lacy loveliness
...In winter.

[danlo]

Ah duchy! You are a poetry post-a-holic but you know you can pluck my heartstrings everytime you quote Auden or Keats...

[duchess of malfi]

Here's a bit of T.S. Elliot.

____________________________________________________________

The Naming of Cats
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

[Worm of Despite]

My favorite love poem:


Ah, God, the way your little finger moved

Ah, God, the way your little finger moved
As you thrust a bare arm backward
And made play with your hair
And a comb a silly gilt comb
Ah, God—that I should suffer
Because of the way a little finger moved.

Stephen Crane

[Worm of Despite]

My favorite war poem:


Does it Matter?

Does it matter?—losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter ?—losing your sight?...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.

Siegfried Sassoon

[Dromond]

My favorite war poem.

Stephen Crane

War is Kind

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep,
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die
The unexplained glory flies above them
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom -
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift, blazing flag of the regiment
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die
Point for them the virtue of slaughter
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

[duchess of malfi]

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

193. O Captain! My Captain!



1

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

2

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

3

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

*peeks his head into a dusty coffee shop*

My, where have all the patrons gone?! I suppose they've gone to better and brighter....coffee shops?

Hehehehe......


"There's an emotion to motion deep as an ocean, commotion loud as an atomic bomb, it rocks the calm complacency of decency, it's as deep as the farthest sea, as strong as a current. Currently it's taking me away from me and and now I see with frantic glee the direction of this insurrection of feeling, the course of this force that led me to you.
And You....what gives you the right to shake off my stasis, how dare you scare me awake from my dreaming, I'm screaming for peace again, mescaline, anything to get me through the fall of all my illusions delusions driving me in my sleep, waking up my affection like a long dead corpse, an infection of desire inspired by your curves and the verbs that drive me across them, and accost them physically, intrinsicly tied to your majesty, until the fire ignites me, incites me to fight for the feelings I'm reeling from, love like a ceiling fan, circling round again till I can gain my two feet again. But I'm finding no footing here, just the fear that all that I've known will be shown to be false, a terror that calls for rewriting my history, ending my misery in immolation, revelation, integration with all that you are, the perfect dream, the brightest star."

Hahaha... I've never just sat down and played with rhymes like that... Fun stuff... I can just see it now, the new Hiphop Cd Featuring DJ Jem C