Dark Poetry

[teguififthzeal]

Robert Lowell reads Skunk Hour - YouTube

[Druidic]

John Allen's long awaited King in Yellow Project has come to fruition and it looks great! I can say that with complete honesty since I'm not one of the contributors. If you love the poetry of decadence and a touch of the surreal this may well appeal to you. Let the shadows of Beardsley's age--and Chambers' horrors--envelope you!
Only by supporting books like John's--and Joshi's Spectral Realms--can we hope to keep weird poetry alive and relevant. Here's the link--

Songs of the Shattered World: The Broken Hymns of Hastur Limited Edition - Tickety Boo Shop

John and I both have some poems in SR 4. There are great poems by Ashley Dioses, K. A. Opperman and Liam Garriock. I discovered Garriock's poetry a short time ago and find it breathtaking; if it's possible in this day and age for such a thing to exist as a contemporary Clark Ashton Smith, I think Garriock may be on his way to becoming it. His poem, "The Merlin of the Suns," is a tribute to George Sterling; and has a somber beauty and Cosmic sweep of fevered imagination that I can only envy. There are more poems and poets than I can mention plus fine reviews by Donald Sidney-Fryer and Steven J. Mariconda. Good stuff.

[teguififthzeal]

Thanks bud

[teguififthzeal]

“Where the slanting forest eaves,
Shingled tight with greenest leaves,
Sweep the scented meadow-sedge,
Let us snoop along the edge;
Let us pry in hidden nooks,
Laden with our nature books,
Scaring birds with happy cries,
Chloroforming butterflies,
Rooting up each woodland plant,
Pinning beetle, fly, and ant,
So we may identify
What we've ruined, by-and-by.”
― Robert W. Chambers, In Search of the Unknown

[MTC]

And for that Matter
by Thomas M. Disch

No Island is an Island either
but each with its Beaches and its Groves
is a Ship that went aground amid the Reefs
that surround it and now a part of the whole
Global Community whose miserable proles
spend their long work-days toiling
at knitting machines cleverer than they are.
It's not as though if they were that bit
more clever they might escape to an Island
somewhere the Sea would not soon
engulf them again. We are all sinking
together, the Ships, the Crews, the Islands.
Solidarity forever. That's the News.

[teguififthzeal]

"Embittered poet, a maid's breast haunts you
Dark poet, life seethes and life burns
and the sky reabsorbs itself in rain;
Embittered poet, your pen scratches
at the heart of life".

Antonin Artaud

[Shadow Puppet]

Spleen II


It rains all year in the oppressive land
Of which I am the young decrepit king.
My tutors bow and scrape on every hand;
I much prefer my dogs; but dogs no more
Than stag or falcon, horse or anything,
Amuse me now. My favourite dwarf can sing
Grotesque and filthy songs; I pay no heed.
My people die in herds around my door:
I do not care; I'm sick; on my huge bed,
Half smothered by hanging fleur-de-lys,
I lie all day imagining I'm dead.

My harlots peel off stockings, show black lace,
Let the last garment linger: not a smile
Plays on the skull that serves me for a face.

I keep an alchemist: his subtle art
Can Purify, refine, turn lead to gold,
But cannot purge the dross that clogs my heart.

I've even thought of killings, Roman style,
(One thinks about such things as one grows old);
But if my streets ran blood, and all the drains,
Were gushing blood, it wouldn't thaw the cold
And frozen muck of Lethe in my veins.

Charles Baudelaire

[ToALonelyPeace]

Black spring! Pick up your pen, and weeping,
Of February, in sobs and ink,
Write poems, while the slush in thunder
Is burning in the black of spring.

Through clanking wheels, through church bells ringing
A hired cab will take you where
The town has ended, where the showers
Are louder still than ink and tears.

Where rooks, like charred pears, from the branches
In thousands break away, and sweep
Into the melting snow, instilling
Dry sadness into eyes that weep.

Beneath - the earth is black in puddles,
The wind with croaking screeches throbs,
And-the more randomly, the surer
Poems are forming out of sobs.

Boris Pasternak

[ToALonelyPeace]

I recently discovered Chapel of Bones or Capela dos Ossos ("We bones, that are here, for yours await"). Inside there is a poem for reflection:

Aonde vais, caminhante, acelerado?
Pára...não prossigas mais avante;
Negócio, não tens mais importante,
Do que este, à tua vista apresentado.

Recorda quantos desta vida têm passado,
Reflecte em que terás fim semelhante,
Que para meditar causa é bastante
Terem todos mais nisto parado.

Pondera, que influido d'essa sorte,
Entre negociações do mundo tantas,
Tão pouco consideras na morte;

Porém, se os olhos aqui levantas,
Pára...porque em negócio deste porte,
Quanto mais tu parares, mais adiantas.


Where are you going in such a hurry traveler?
Stop … do not proceed;
You have no greater concern,
Than this one: that on which you focus your sight.

Recall how many have passed from this world,
Reflect on your similar end,
There is good reason to reflect
If only all did the same.

Ponder, you so influenced by fate,
Among the many concerns of the world,
So little do you reflect on death;

If by chance you glance at this place,
Stop … for the sake of your journey,
The more you pause, the further on your journey you will be.

by Fr. António da Ascenção (translation by Fr. Carlos A. Martins, CC)

[teguififthzeal]

Right Before...

The daydream’s tone is vague chinoiserie.
Remembering the blue. Recall the white.
Ink bitten lips upon recollection
The small chess heads rising from teeth armor.
The chess tea sets quake in small berths,
Music’s lack and the ambulances.
Ink bitten lips upon recollection.
Ill drugged music, a snicker.

A daydream’s
tone is chinoiserie,
dreams in white and blue.