Why the Classics

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mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

Why The Classics

1
in the fourth book of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides tells among other things
the story of his unsuccessful expedition
among long speeches of chiefs
battles sieges plague
dense net of intrigues of diplomatic endeavours
the episode is like a pin
in a forest
the Greek colony Amphipolis
fell into the hands of Brasidos
because Thucydides was late with relief
for this he paid his native city
with lifelong exile
exiles of all times
know what price that is
2
generals of the most recent wars
if a similar affair happens to them
whine on their knees before posterity
praise their heroism and innocence
they accuse their subordinates
envious colleagues
unfavourable winds
Thucydides says only
that he had seven ships
it was winter
and he sailed quickly
3
if art for its subject
will have a broken jar
a small broken soul
with a great self-pity
what will remain after us
will it be lovers' weeping
in a small dirty hotel
when wall-paper dawns

Zbigniew Herbert :
http://www.poemhunter.com/
Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

What if bravery is elsewhere in our times?

Nice poem though. Thanks for the link also. Following it, I stumbled over this beautiful piece by Pablo Neruda.


CLENCHED SOUL

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.


Pablo Neruda
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

One poem demands another
until there are no more poems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQHRT_YzJos
Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

Ah! The illuminati conspiration.

Fascinating fable.

Knitting truths on a false system. It is a wonder that such a powerful evil occult organization allows the ones who can unmask and reveail all it's secrets to stay alive. And what about all that sharp information available ont the net? Friedriech Nietzsche would say out of this that the only plausible explanation is : the devil is dead. Yeah.

As from the beginning of humanity mankind tells stories to itself to make a meaningful sense out of what appears to be the chaos. Once it was the Grand Turtle which was carrying the World on its shell through the Cosmos, and in another times it was pantheons of gods and godesses that were ruling the human affairs, and so on and so on.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés wrote beautifully about this, the stories (the oral and written documents) that civilisations are passing from generation to generation and how the stories evolved with the evolution of societies and new needs for creating a wholly meaningful sense.

Not that black magic and/or secret societies are not existing. Apparently they do. I don't know. Many art works are refering to these subjects. For example, the films "Eyes wide shut" and "Rosemary's baby". Paolo Coelho at least in one of his book reported to have been into one of those (real or imagined) black magic sects. I don't know.

What I know is that reading about the illuminati conspiration, bathing the mind in pages and pages of anti-life activities is such a depressing experience in itself, it leads to untrust people, to live in paranoia and to lack hope for a good world. In this it looks like the worst self-fulfilling prophecy.

For what we feed our mind with.... you know that we are what we eat. :)

I do believe there will always be poems. Hunters? Maybe.

So get back to the poem of the day (as it is not the fables section ;)

From the link you gave. It is a lot of fun to pick the poem of the day!

A Hero



Three times I had the lust to kill,
To clutch a throat so young and fair,
And squeeze with all my might until
No breath of being lingered there.
Three times I drove the demon out,
Though on my brow was evil sweat. . . .
And yet I know beyond a doubt
He'll get me yet, he'll get me yet.

I know I'm mad, I ought to tell
The doctors, let them care for me,
Confine me in a padded cell
And never, never set me free;
But Oh how cruel that would be!
For I am young - and comely too . . .
Yet dim my demon I can see,
And there is but one thing to do.

Three times I beat the foul fiend back;
The fourth, I know he will prevail,
And so I'll seek the railway track
And lay my head upon the rail,
And sight the dark and distant train,
And hear its thunder louder roll,
Coming to crush my cursed brain . . .
Oh God, have mercy on my soul!


Robert William Service

Submitted: Monday, January 13, 2003
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

The Illuminati do not interest me. Dr. Cameron is the star of that video, and he was very real. You should know. You live in the city where he electroshocked 10,000 people/year. There is no escaping our histories.
Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

Call this a star, I prefer the term black hole.

The problem is : in war time people want to win at any price. They feel they have to. They know that blood will be spilled, blood probably have been spilled already, and cruel things are happening anyway. They feel good patriots while doing the worst things. Call it Reality, call it Maya, call it what you want. I don't know how to name this. Evolution? In any case :

There is not decent place to stand in a massacre.

This is just what I know.

Right now my attention is more catched by the railroad accident in Lac Mégantic (you who are reading this, have a prayer for the dead, have a prayer for the survivers) due to neglect and the logic of making the greatest profits without any concern for any other values, for people, for the world.

I like the words in the beginning of you video.

I guess that we have to struggle to be much more conscious of the Reality before our non-sense kills us all.

From you link, poem of the day game. :D

A Ballad of Dreamland

I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;
In a softer bed than the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.
Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?
What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.

Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,
And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;
Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes,
And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.
Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?
Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?
What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart?
Only the song of a secret bird.

The green land's name that a charm encloses,
It never was writ in the traveller's chart,
And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,
It never was sold in the merchant's mart.
The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,
And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;
No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,
Only the song of a secret bird.


ENVOI

In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
Only the song of a secret bird.


Algernon Charles Swinburne
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

Coincidentally, I am reading simultaneously the Tao Te Ching and a book by Pema Chödrön, and both are addressing this "problem" contained in your post - suffering and perceiving the world in term of dichotomies.

To make a short post, one instructed that orientals are thinking in term of complementarities, where us occidentals are seing dichotomies.

The other (to be brief here as well) stresses that suffering are only our limitations. Pain comes with the conscience of our limitations. The only thing to do is to face it. Facing our sufferings, fear included. To this we have the "help" (so to speak) of the maitri ("unconditional friendliness to oneself") and the occasion to create from the maitri "a bold and compassionate attitude toward our suffering and the suffering of others".

Wisdom rests in knowing that there is no place to go or to hide where complete security and happiness is to be found forever.

Happiness will come and go. Security will come and go. Suffering will come and go. Insecurity will come and go. This is life. The more we can stand it all, the more we are "enlighted", conscious, awake, free.

If you want the long comment, it is better to have it directly from Pema Chödrön :

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/maitri1.php


*

Poem of the day (I'm crazy about that game!).

(Oh! It is Pablo Neruda birth day!)

Dulce et Decorum Est



1 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
2 Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
3 Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
4 And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
5 Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
6 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
7 Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
8 Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

9 Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
10 Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
11 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
12 And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
13 Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
14 As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

15 In all my dreams before my helpless sight
16 He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

17 If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
18 Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
19 And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
20 His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
21 If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
22 Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
23 Bitter as the cud
24 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
25 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
26 To children ardent for some desperate glory,
27 The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
28 Pro patria mori.


Wilfred Owen




P.S. : I have read from the mouth of Marguerite Yourcenar (transcription of interviews to be exact) that the buddhism is teaching this : only three sufferings are inevitable : to be sick, to die and to love without being loved. All the other sufferings are all man made.

I do believe this is true.

*

Now I could not not click for a "random poem" and guess what I have got ? Like if it was my birthday and not his.

Random Poem
Here I Love You

Here I love you.

In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Pablo Neruda
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

Do you assume no one else practices or understand s non-duality ? Or is this just your way : never really engagent in à conversation
Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

I do not assume anything like that.
I do not recognize any of my posts as an engagement of any sort.
Not even being engaged in a conversation.
Swimming is at your own risks.
And.
No responsibility for your losts.

Poem of the day, now, quick :


I Thought of You

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea --
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.


Sara Teasdale
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

Very nice poème. Leonard probably préfère Why The Classics thoughts.

And Now for.something completely différent: http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2013/0 ... z.html?m=1
Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

I'll pass the word to Sara. Héhé. Some day.

I have no idea of what Mr. Cohen may or may not prefer. Lucky you.

Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for. You must read minds.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/059500 ... nkCode=as2


Poem of the day :

Marriage A-La-Mode



Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When passion is decay'd?
We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could,
Till our love was lov'd out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

If I have pleasures for a friend,
And farther love in store,
What wrong has he whose joys did end,
And who could give no more?
'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,
Or that I should bar him of another:
For all we can gain is to give our selves pain,
When neither can hinder the other.


John Dryden
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

Hmm i think you constantly miss the point of Herbert's poem. It's not about love or broken hearts but taking responsibility and learning to live with the terrible outcome of one's own mistakes. And yes, it came.from the horse 's mouth a long time ago. Now we're in the last stanza "when wallpaper dawns".
Tchocolatl
Posts: 3805
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 10:07 pm

Re: Why the Classics

Post by Tchocolatl »

I think that you expect too much of my poor posts. The only thing that I do is to write whatever passes through my head, and finally, I pick the poem of the day from the link that you yourself provided in your first post, that's all. Which is a game that I enjoy tremendously. Thank you for providing it to me.


Now. Poem of the day :

How Do I Love Thee?



How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


Elizabeth Barrett Browning
***
"He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
mickjaggerscat
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:17 am

Re: Why the Classics

Post by mickjaggerscat »

So really, it comes down to "All You Need is Love." I'm sure Leonard would agree with that by now.

"It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."
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