- Her Feline Xanadu (in others' words & memories) -
-
i didn't fancy a forum on its own but i love words to death.
so, i'm borrowing a corner at DPS,
to satisfy my hunger for letters chained, bound & bonded.
a tribute to memories kept or lost in touches & glimpses & steps,
wondering always if my innocence will return and knock on
the right door?
shall we see where these will end?
let's begin. -
Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)" -
When We Two Parted by Lord Byron
(1788 - 1824 )
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow ---
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me ---
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well: ---
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met ---
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears. -
Fragment by ST Coleridge
(1791 - 1834)
Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul,
The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself.
Its own yet not itself. -
i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) -
Originally posted by sleepycat:
[b]Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
[/b]
-
Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air. -
confession isOriginally posted by ratinacage:
a naked blade that cuts deep;
(though you only see its reflection
in the mirror). -
white.... a shade of grey (faking black) in its lightest.
remember how ash looks in scorching flame?
see white? -
confession isOriginally posted by sleepycat:confession is
a naked blade that cuts deep;
(though you only see its reflection
in the mirror).
leaving my heart wide open,
for her to stab the blade right in. -
can the emotionally dead live again? or are we fated to die forever?
-
if ever one is emotionally dead, nirvana would be near?Originally posted by HENG@:can the emotionally dead live again? or are we fated to die forever?
who can proclaim death over emotions?
but one can erect walls,
and chooses to stay oblivious within walls - glass walls.
and aren't we all voyeurs in here?
death is overrated. -
in the guise of love,Originally posted by ratinacage:confession is
leaving my heart wide open,
for her to stab the blade right in.
pain turns into pleasure,
as we morph into willing slaves. -
perhaps that is best for the jaded.Originally posted by sleepycat:if ever one is emotionally dead, nirvana would be near?
who can proclaim death over emotions?
but one can erect walls,
and chooses to stay oblivious within walls - glass walls.
and aren't we all voyeurs in here?
death is overrated.
death is not overrated, because there's no point in living if you can't feel alive. -
Because I could not stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—
Since then—'tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity— -
how come this grave teleports around???
*runs over n puts flowers on the grave again* -
I simply just love this piece of poetry. Printed it on paper, took it home and read it over and over again. Trust the ever so romantic cat to find this gem.Originally posted by sleepycat:Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
I just love these two phrases:
‘I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead’ and ‘I think I made you up inside my head’
Will it be plagiarism if I were to borrow these phrases and structure of the poem and then continue with my own words?:-
May I called it ‘Mad Spiderman’s love song’
Through the valley of despair, full of hate.
I bear the burden of a lost love, in agonizing pain.
(How I wished you were only a dream inside my head.)
But you were real, a curse of my fate.
Only to love me and leave me, cruelly ordained.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
My tortured heart bled, torn by an invisible blade.
This indignity of rejection and hurt, I am unable to tame.
(How I wished you were only a dream inside my head.)
So full of bittersweet memories I wait.
To fly free with my true phoenix and love again.
I opened my eyes and all the world celebrates.
(The day you become an insignificant dream inside my head.)
Thank you Sylvia Plath and Sleepycat. -
Originally posted by sleepycat:
Another piece of gem...for which I must reply to our feline one:
[b]When We Two Parted by Lord Byron
(1788 - 1824 )
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow ---
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me ---
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well: ---
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met ---
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears. [/b]
Thy tortured heart,
Broken and weak.
Yearning for thy love with whom thee parted,
And for the answer thee now seek.
Thy eyes are red and hurting
From the countless tears thee shed.
Not giving, not wanting.
Silently pale and lifeless from the wound thee bled. -
Another of her poem which I really like.
Tulips - Sylvia Plath
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.
They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.
My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage -
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free -
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their colour,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I hve no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.
The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health. -
Thanks. Awesome.Originally posted by DeadPoet:Another of her poem which I really like.
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
Beneath the calm, her soul was stirring. -
Dream Deferred
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? -
moving you, in fragmented memories of my fond stranger
by sleepycat
you roam
through the distance between us,
over the tunes we sang in the past,
you come.
you drift
by the faded promises into my thoughts,
across the familiar places that now seem odd,
you leave.
[will i ever bleed my lips red for you again?
will i ever sit by the door so that i may open it and see your face again, smiling at me, beckoning me to let you in?]
you grow
in the memories that are now whitewashed and cold,
out of your stark naked cruelty that stole,
you go. -
Originally posted by sleepycat:
nice poem
[b]moving you, in fragmented memories of my fond stranger
by sleepycat
you roam
through the distance between us,
over the tunes we sang in the past,
you come.
you drift
by the faded promises into my thoughts,
across the familiar places that now seem odd,
you leave.
[will i ever bleed my lips red for you again?
will i ever sit by the door so that i may open it and see your face again, smiling at me, beckoning me to let you in?]
you grow
in the memories that are now whitewashed and cold,
out of your stark naked cruelty that stole,
you go.[/b]
-
Originally posted by sleepycat:
O, Sleepycat, Sleepycat! Wherefore art thou Sleepycat?
[b]moving you, in fragmented memories of my fond stranger
by sleepycat
you roam
through the distance between us,
over the tunes we sang in the past,
you come.
you drift
by the faded promises into my thoughts,
across the familiar places that now seem odd,
you leave.
[will i ever bleed my lips red for you again?
will i ever sit by the door so that i may open it and see your face again, smiling at me, beckoning me to let you in?]
you grow
in the memories that are now whitewashed and cold,
out of your stark naked cruelty that stole,
you go.[/b]