The Living Dead

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me:

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano apassionato. The glamour

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

– D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Wikipedia tells us:

David Herbert Lawrence ... was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Some of the issues Lawrence explores are sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage". At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the literary critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness.

He became notorious as the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was banned for a long time – until 30 years after his death! Several other novels, also banned for a time, are now recognised as great works of art.

He also wrote plays, criticism, travel books, and of course poetry. And he was highly regarded as a painter. 

This poem appeals to me for its sweet nostalgia, its frank homesickness for the past. My mother played the piano too, and sang, so I can take myself back into just such a scene as he describes. But far from wanting to weep for my lost childhood, I enjoy revisiting as a temporary escape from the troubled times we live in.

Material shared in 'The Living Dead' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may be out of copyright). This photograph of D.H. Lawrence is in the Public Domain.

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Lust

 

 “Curiosity is the lust of the mind.” — Thomas Hobbes

SOURCE

“There is a lust in man no

charm can tame: Of loudly

publishing his neighbor’s

shame: On eagles wings

immortal scandals fly, while

virtuous actions are born and die.” — William Harvey

            “Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising.” — John Lahr

             Midweek Motif ~ Lust

 To me the meaning of ‘lust’ changed forever when I first read Irving Stone’s ‘Lust For Life’, a biographical novel based on Van Gogh’s life.

                 

Today I want you to write about whatever ‘Lust’ means to you. It may be a special ardor, desire, passion, libido, fancy, craving and all the meanings referring to ‘lust’ in the dictionary J

 The Spur

by William Butler Yeats

You think it horrible that lust and rage
Should dance attendance upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song?

Mystery

by D.H. Lawrence

Now I am all
One bowl of kisses,
Such as the tall
Slim votaresses
Of Egypt filled
For a God's excesses.

I lift to you
My bowl of kisses,
And through the temple's
Blue recesses
Cry out to you
In wild caresses.

And to my lips'
Bright crimson rim
The passion slips,
And down my slim
White body drips
The shining hymn.

And still before
The altar I
Exult the bowl
Brimful, and cry
To you to stoop
And drink, Most High.

Oh drink me up
That I may be
Within your cup
Like a Mystery,
Like wine that is still
In ecstasy.

Glimmering still
In ecstasy,
Commingled wines
Of you and me
In One fulfill,...
The Mystery. 

Tourists

by Yehuda Amichai

                      

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.

Blood Guilt

by Georg Trakl

Night threatens at the bed of our kisses.

Somewhere a whisper: who absolves your guilt?

Still trembling from the sweetness of nefarious lust

We pray: forgive us, Mary, in your mercy.

Out of flower vases greedy scents climb,

Wheedling our foreheads pale with guilt.

Exhausting under the waft of sultry air

We dream: forgive us, Mary, in your mercy.

But the well of the sirens rushes louder,

And the sphinx rises darker before our guilt,

So that our hearts sound again more sinfully,

We sob: forgive us, Mary, in your mercy. 

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Human / Homo sapiens)

          

                                   

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Weird

source

Midweek Motif ~ Weird

"We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weidness-- and call it love-- true love."---Robert Fullghum, True Love

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted"---Martin Luther King

"It's weird not to be weird"---John Lenon

Some people always think outside the box, and are recognized as being different, unique or even weird by the rest of the world.Such 'weirdness' is very important, inspiring and joyful to them.

May be we all have our own little quirks that sometimes make us visualize the commonplace world crossing the boundary of ordinary in a moment of transformation.

Wear that weird vision and write a poem. It may be about a place, person, dream, path, mood, habit, incident, fear or anything you might attach weirdness to.

A few poems to inspire you:

Weird Bird

by Shel Silverstein

Birds are flyin' south for winter.

Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,

Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',

Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.

He says, "It's not that I like ice

Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.

It's just sometimes it's kind of nice

To be the only bird in town."

Fork

by Charles Simic

This strange thing must have crept

Right out of hell.

It resembles a bird's foot

Worn around the cannibal's neck.

As you hold it in your hand,

As you stab with it into a piece of meat,

It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird:

Its head which like your fist

Is large, bald, beakless, and blind.

Discord in Childhood

by D. H. Lawrence

Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,

And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree

Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship's

Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.

Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash

Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound

Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned

The other voice in a silence of blood, 'neath the noise of the ash.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

                               (Next week Susan's Midweek will be ~ Saint / Saintliness)