Dead Poets and Dark Caves

While this poet is not dead, as all the poets here are, she is talented. From the first line I was captured. Read and I think you'll see what I'm talking about.

A twitter friend, a fellow writer and a coffee obsessive buddy. And they said nothing good would come of Twitter.

A Sense of Absence

by Blue Summer



The moment’s full
of nearly dead deceptions,
and they are slick like glass, sharp
as shame in the morning, busy
lapping up their own intentions,
struggling to sustain
what cannot be salvaged.

Every word spoken
leaves a hole, a vacancy,
a thick absence.
And you stood—
And I stood—
but we were both
in different places, tangled
in that tight wire
neither of us could see—
but it’s the feeling that counts,
isn’t it?

In the end, it doesn’t matter,
not as I once thought. These openings
dissolve too quickly, and feelings
are inflamed, shut out, and shut off,
half their old size, bent
into nothing and beyond it.

Something’s slid shut, convincingly
uprooting things that were never there,
and I’m left
in the cold blue moonlight, eyes full
of deep faults and blooming ice,
stuck in a rift
of apprehensive disappointment,
heartsick with these dwindling promises
and raging indifference.

At last,
I am made of terror, but the red, wincing fear,
clawed and bloody, is as untouchable
as a myth, but as abrupt
as a broken sentence. We have been
stripped out
of ourselves and each other,
and there’s no untangling
the bright monster who killed us both.






"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Haunted Place
by Edgar Allan Poe



In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch
Thought's dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!



Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.


Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
\(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh- but smile no more.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a french poet--some argue one of the greatest french poets of the 19Th century-- who was given the surnom of 'the father of modern criticism,' shocked the Conservatives with his unveiled view of lust and decay. Baudelaire was the first to assimilate modern, artificial, and decadent--was on the side of artificiality, saying that vices are natural and essentially selfish where virtue are artificial because one put forth an conscious effort and restraint in order to be good. To Baudelaire the snobbishly controlled and the dandy were heroes and the ultimate proof of meaningless existence. He was a gentleman who never became vulgar and remained a cool collected smile.
His life was not an easy one, death, sadness and an estranged relationship with his mother after her third marriage, he was sent to boarding school and was expelled. His true passion since childhood was to live by his pen but still he enrolled in Law school, around this time he became addicted to Opium and later contracted lethal syphilis. His debts piled higher and higher around him and he left his studies and never returned.
From 1852 to 1865 he was occupied in translating Edgar Allan Poe's writings. In Poe, Baudelaire found a kindred spirit (Now you probably know why I like him. Anyone who loves Poe is aces in my book). When his Les Fleurs du Mal(The Flowers of Bad) came out all the people who had a hand in the work- author, printer, and publisher -were prosecuted and found guilty of obscenity and blasphemy. In this controversial book he transfers his guilt, sins and lies on the reader making them feel just as the poet felt. Waving the truth before their eyes and shedding the blinders with words, what powerful words, "If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives / have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick, / loud patterns on the canvas of our lives, / it is because our souls are still too sick."

With out further ado...the poem!

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR
by Lord Byron

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Fear No More
William Shakespeare

Fear no more the heat o' the sun;
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust.

Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dread thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!