Esoteric Poetry Thread

Comments

• m7600 Member Posts: 318

  March 2021

  To me, this is the most impressive series of words ever said by a human. It's poetry, but it's on a level of its own:
  
  https://youtu.be/prmQgSpV3fA

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• Michelle Member Posts: 549

  March 2021

  Music is poetry. Some of the best poetry ever was sang and not read. It was hard for me to listen to that, had to put my buds in, and close my eyes. Most rap for me is like extremely heavy metal, newer punk( not like The Pixies, Sex Pistols, even like The Dead Milkmen or Suicidal Tendencies, is tolerable sort of) it is too chaotic. Not all rap is the same either. It breaks my brain like a Pollock painting. It is actually easier for me to look up the lyrics to some music than listen to it, and infinitely more pleasurable. Sorry, I don’t even have a radio in my car.
  
  That being said, wow, good stuff! I will have to turn the lights off later, put my tablet down and just listen to it again. I will be looking for just the lyrics as well.
  
  Thank you for sharing that.

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• dunbar Member Posts: 1,603

  March 2021

  I was immediately struck by "Stopping by woods...." when I first read it as a teenager (a long time ago) and I have no doubt Frost's writing influenced my life thereafter (although sometimes I wonder if I took the less travelled path a tad too often).
  
  Myself, I keep returning to Dylan Thomas, simply because he uses words so beautifully. "Under Milk Wood" is a classic in my eyes, but far too long to transcribe here. So instead I'll offer up another favourite:
  
  Do not go gentle into that good night,
  Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
  
  Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
  Because their words had forked no lightning they
  Do not go gentle into that good night.
  
  Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
  Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
  
  Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
  And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
  Do not go gentle into that good night.
  
  Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
  Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
  
  And you, my father, there on that sad height,
  Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
  Do not go gentle into that good night.
  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
  
  Dylan Thomas
  

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• m7600 Member Posts: 318

  March 2021

  Here are the lyrics to Black Thought's freestyle.
  

  Uh, I'm sorry for your loss
  It's a body dead in the car and it's prob'ly one of yours
  The writing all across the window and the walls
  Whether it was true or false, we shouldn't have got involved
  Remember, we walked past the teacher, take the chalk and laugh
  We wrote punishments: "I will not talk in class."
  Now it's pistols punishin' people for talkin' fast
  And all these innocent bystanders is haulin' ass
  I hate to say I told y'all, but I told y'all
  Things fall apart when the center too weak to hold y'all
  I'm just collectin' what you owed to my old jawn
  You 'bout to get swooped down on and stoled on
  Fools swear they wise, wise men know they foolish
  Well, we was headed for the web, even before computers
  I never thought you'd give me a reason to do this
  Cain and Abel, Jesus and Judas
  Caesar and Brutus, I see intruders, avert your eyes
  I told you keep out of the hood: circumcise
  How could you sleep? I thought you always was the first to rise
  Ayo, you heard the line, "Everybody plays the fool"?
  Well, I'll be that exception to the rule
  The principal that hand-deliver lessons to the school
  I was makin' major moves, my dollar déjà vu
  My mission when my ambition was brandishin' a tool
  To be a icon, wearin' slippers made of python
  Get mine quicker 'cause I'm slick as a pipeline
  Transportin' the oil, tribulation and toil
  Hit the operation, but I'm back in the soil
  Got my crown tilted, my gown quilted, silk with cashmere
  Burnin' Rome down in a minute, built it last year
  Newsflash, I dodged the bullet that killed the cashier
  My homie told me to come with him to the masjid
  Them brothers said, "Don't go from written bars filled with rage
  To primetime television and your gilded cage
  Then forget there's people in the world still enslaved."
  I barbwired my wrist and let it fill the page
  Gun fire and flares, sirens glare
  I'm in a iron chair where people who care don't get the lion's share
  When I don't give a fuck then I ain't fair
  I'm on a higher tier with people gettin' money like the financier
  Catch the herald, I'm fresh chopped and beveled
  Rap on a doctorate level, so F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Maybe I'm the new Rakim, maybe I'm fat Pharaohe
  Undergarments of armor be my intimate apparel
  Pre-Kardashian Kanye, my rhymeplay immaculate
  Same cadence as D.O.C. pre-accident
  Maybe my acumen's on par with Kool G. Rap and them
  Give me the proper respect, mothafucka, we back again
  For a couple things we lost in a fire
  The drive, the desire to perform on a higher
  Plateau, I'm at that show lost in a mire
  Wonderin' how we got so far from inspired
  Look, when photos were sepia-toned
  And record players were somethin' you would keep in your home
  Yo, the traveler, the meaning of Tariq he was known
  For the exemplary performance uniquely his own
  I made the twenty-one pound for some a newfound religion
  Where money's put down, it's only one sound that make
  OGs and young lions equally proud to listen
  The secret amalgamism, a algorithm
  Comin' from where only kings and crowns permitted the darkness
  Where archaeologists found my image in parchment
  Rolled into a scroll, holdin' a message for you
  It said, "The only thing for sure is taxes, death and trouble."
  The anomaly sworn solemnly, high snobbidy
  Freakonomics and war policy, dichotomy
  That's Heaven and Hades, Tigris and Euphrates
  His highness, the apple of the Iris to you ladies
  As babies we went from Similac and Enfamil
  To the Internet and Fentanyl
  When all consent was still against the will
  I got that detox for y'all
  The microphone doctor, black Deepak Chopra
  I'm a griot that make you wanna peacock your arm
  Every heavy dignitary payin' me top regards
  Boy, I'm three optics far from your binoculars
  So that smart money finna get the heat out the car
  Yo, I'm K.Dot Lamar meets 2Pac Shakur
  Got profiled by a few cops, too hot to charge
  Listen, somebody said a price tag was on a rapper's head
  So we gon' see a nice bag when a rapper dead
  The mask black, the flag green, black and red
  They'll probably wave a white flag after plasma shed
  No doubt, yo the game went they own route
  I can't explain what these lame kids is talkin' 'bout
  Or how they fit they whole foot into they own mouth
  I put a couple bodies in a brown bag, then I'm en route
  I'm sneaker shoppin' with my son, a size 8
  Prior to they release 'cause why wait?
  Look, in my estate I got electrified gates
  For these blasé guys hatin' at a high rate
  'Cause I dodged fate, then got great, the fly's straight
  If we ain't family or friends then we don't vibrate
  And I'm that gun in y'all face, none of y'all safe
  If I catch you at the right time in the wrong place
  Slippin', sippin' on somethin' with a strong taste
  Like Whiskey or bootleg Bourbon with a corn base
  My Levante resemble a vehicular threat
  The mic I spray resemblin' the sickle of death
  It ain't strenuous to come from a continuous breath
  I set fire to the venue, I'ma spin you and step
  Rinse, repeat, you checkin' for the sound of the beast
  I'm the hound, I'ma creep, I get down, I'ma eat
  I'ma keep somethin' to lay a naysayer to sleep
  Playin' with heat, nobody and nothin' fuckin' with 'Riq
  Yo, these weaklings is claimin' they cuttin' up in the street
  Nigga peace, you ain't workin' with nothin' but the police
  Listen, you ain't finna be nothin' but the deceased
  Listen, you in interment with a permanent crease
  I strike fear in the hearts of rap figures
  Who mind bare the stigmas of time, no black privilege
  From boom bap niggas to trap niggas
  You in the trap with us, when the lines is as vivid
  As the walls on the graph, autographed by the Lord of Wrath
  I reside between the seconds on the chronograph
  How much more CB4 can we afford?
  It's like a Shariah Law on "My Cherie Amour"
  How much hypocrisy can people possibly endure?
  But ain't nobody workin' on a cure, my young bull
  Y'all just regular, I'm an apex predator
  Brim stay fresh, feathered up, etcetera
  Nevertheless, I got a message and left
  One dead messenger, yep
  My pen is Henry Kissinger, Buzz Bissinger
  Look, my caporegime is to no redeem
  And my oldest son Ahmir Saleem out of New Orleans
  Took a golf cart to the Baccarat from the Waldorf
  What was on the wall? That depend on what you call art
  I'ma say 300k ain't even in the ballpark
  I charge more just for awkward small talk
  So yes, who's fuckin' with it if it's not the best?
  I get the lobby painted fresh upon my request
  It's Kafka-esque, his holiness, stop the press
  That Cobalt blue, reminiscent of Makkaresh
  Lord, we got Padma Lakshmi for you
  Let her massage your back with black seed oil
  The foundation is firm, the flags need soil
  Me? I need royalty because I bleed royal
  Go through the veins to the brain, fabulous and strange
  My journalistic range is a catalyst for change
  It got anybody that listen pissin' flame
  And 'cause the Hall of Fame got so many missin' names
  I'll acknowledge the original People's not Oliver
  Y'all go get the next challenger for Excalibur
  I'm more policed for my core beliefs
  They tried to capture me
  And brand me on the cheek with a fleur-de-lis
  The side of my heart'll be more discreet
  I'm international, my passport page is like War and Peace
  I've always played my part from the start
  Back in Philly where the triggers is mandatory to spark
  With a slightest inflammatory remark
  I have you and the livin' a category apart
  Listen, a grain of salt'll tip the scales, it never fails
  Walk on egg shells, sleep on a bed of nails
  Criminal records like record sales
  Makin' heads or tails, we like Henrietta Lacks up in the cells
  My mother was a working class, very lovin' woman
  Who struggled, every dinner coulda been the last supper
  I come home, chasin' good-for-nothin' half-cousins
  And then walk in the crib to the smell of crack cookin'
  She was introduced to that substance abuse
  On some of the strongest drugs that the government produced
  Look, I even got excused by the principal
  My story is out of the dub dub interview
  I've seen some ice-cold summers, hot winters too
  I never thought I'd win Grammy Awards with The Roots
  I never thought I would be gettin' long in the tooth
  My OGs told me, "Boy you better go and live your truth!"
  I am a walking affirmation, that imagination
  And focus and patience gets you closer to your aspiration
  And just 'cause they give you shit don't mean you have to take it
  My words capture greatness, sworn affidavits
  Yours truly, the celestial bein'
  You stay seein' pullin' up in the fresh European
  High-steppin' out of it dressed to a T and
  Not another got more soul, 'less you Korean
  I’ve been havin' visions of Nat Turner holdin' his master’s head
  Like Yorick and Horatio in Hamlet
  Smackin' it like a tennis racket, underhanded
  Send a message through the Gram: ''The Eagle has landed.''
  Dressed in a military jacket made of canvas
  I am no guerilla, I just make 'em go bananas
  Outstandin', red, black and green bandanas
  Cocked hammers, hairs on my chin is outstanding
  Can't manage the weight of war, they're just out ballin'
  Look, I'll fall up from the sky to see my callin'
  I'm not crawlin', I'm a free man like Morgan
  Seein' manhood in the hood is a damn good bargain
  If a black man don't tap dance
  And every girl that got a fat booty don't lapdance
  Well, I guess it's somethin' wrong, huh?
  Niggas completely uninformed
  I don't burn bridges, yo I keep the haters' runnin' for em'
  I ain't one of y'all peers, I'm the sum of all fears
  Somebody stronger than me? Who that? I'm all ears
  Like Obama, I wish he had another four years
  Y'all some jolly good Hollywood Squares
  I'm like, ahem, approach the altar with your offering
  I spoil rappers rotten like my only offspring
  Being his excellency gets to be exhausting
  You in the residency of the one they call King
  Dada, Ali Baba, the talented Mr. Trotter
  Inside of my right palm, the mark of the stigmata
  Big Poppa, wig chopper, emperor Jaffe Joffer, muhfucka
  I'm stronger than the coffee out in Kaffa
  All y'all niggas vagina-hot, remind me of Icona Pop
  I step in the booth, I'm a bull inside a China shop
  Mollywhoppin', watch another cotton pickin' body drop
  Every time we rock, yo they actin' like it's Mardi Gras
  'Til the party stop, skirt off like she that Ferrari drop
  Soul Cycle pumpin' that Earth, Wind & Fire ba-di-ah
  Coolin' 'pon the dock, à la marina, hard body yacht
  You seen another rapper cleaner, mami? Prob'ly not
  How it feel to be the best that did it, I admit it
  I'm visitin' from planet Bring-These-Niggas-Death-In-Minutes
  And y'all know I'm exquisite, wicked as Wilson Pickett
  The sickness I exhibit, I'm too legit to quit it
  I don't fake it 'til I make it, I take it to the limit and break it
  Never timid, what I'm 'bout, I represent it
  Infinite just like Chace is, been a million places
  Conversation is how beautiful my face is
  People hated on how sophisticated my taste is
  Then I pulled up on these mothafuckas in a spaceship
  Pantomime, I'm made of elements you can't combine
  I'm at a level of intelligence you can't define
  Einstein, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Tesla
  Recording artist slash psychology professor
  I preach for the East, never fold under pressure
  The beast from the East and I glide like Clyde Drexler
  Ayo, my new name is eighty five X's
  'Cause I'm the rap game certified specialist
  When I was reckless I was worried 'bout the guest list
  I'm helpin' rappers everywhere fulfill a death wish
  Yo, Flex, I'm glad we made contact
  My nigga, also know this shit for Combat
  Brain matter contain too much data
  I tell a story like fingerprints and blood splatter

  
  I honestly feel like this is on another level. It's also worth mentioning that he recorded this live, on air, in one take. He didn't make a single mistake, did not even forget one word. That's surreal. In regards to the lyrics, there are several layers of meaning here, he uses several wordplays, metaphors, references. In this link some of those layers of meaning have been documented. For example, when he says:
  

  "I am no guerilla, I just make 'em go bananas
  Outstandin', red, black and green bandanas"

  
  Here is the explanation as to why he says "guerilla" instead of "gorilla", and what the red, black and green means in this context:
  

  "By employing the wordplay with the words guerrilla and gorilla, Black Thought conveys that he may not necessarily be an active militant, but he can make a crowd explode with excitement. The colors of the bandanas being “red, black, and green” insinuate ties with Pan-Africanism, as the Pan-African flag, otherwise known as the Black Liberation flag, is red, black, and green. He references the Pan-African flag earlier in the freestyle, as well."

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• JoenSo Member Posts: 910

  March 2021

  The first poem that came to my mind was Windigo by Louise Erdrich, with the strangeness and creepiness about it, and the contrasts between warmth and cold in the imagery.
  
  For Angela
  
  The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.
  
  You knew I was coming for you, little one,
  when the kettle jumped into the fire.
  Towels flapped on the hooks,
  and the dog crept off, groaning,
  to the deepest part of the woods.
  
  In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.
  Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot
  and called you to eat.
  But I spoke in the cold trees:
  New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still.
  
  The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.
  Copper burned in the raw wood.
  You saw me drag toward you.
  Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.
  You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.
  
  I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.
  Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered
  from the bushes we passed
  until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.
  
  Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full
  of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill
  all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth
  and I carried you home,
  a river shaking in the sun.

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• Michelle Member Posts: 549

  March 2021

  It little profits that an idle king,
  By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
  Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
  Unequal laws unto a savage race,
  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
  I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
  Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
  Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
  That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
  Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
  Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
  For always roaming with a hungry heart
  Much have I seen and known; cities of men
  And manners, climates, councils, governments,
  Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
  And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
  I am a part of all that I have met;
  Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
  Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
  For ever and forever when I move.
  How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
  To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
  As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
  Were all too little, and of one to me
  Little remains: but every hour is saved
  From that eternal silence, something more,
  A bringer of new things; and vile it were
  For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
  And this gray spirit yearning in desire
  To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
  Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
  
  This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
  To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
  This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
  A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
  Subdue them to the useful and the good.
  Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
  Of common duties, decent not to fail
  In offices of tenderness, and pay
  Meet adoration to my household gods,
  When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
  
  There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
  There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
  Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
  That ever with a frolic welcome took
  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
  Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
  Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
  Death closes all: but something ere the end,
  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
  'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
  Push off, and sitting well in order smite
  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
  Of all the western stars, until I die.
  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
  Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
  We are not now that strength which in old days
  Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
  One equal temper of heroic hearts,
  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
  
  Ulysses, Alfred Tennyson

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• Michelle Member Posts: 549

  March 2021

  I want you to know
  one thing.
  You know how this is:
  if I look
  at the crystal moon, at the red branch
  of the slow autumn at my window,
  if I touch
  near the fire
  the impalpable ash
  or the wrinkled body of the log,
  everything carries me to you,
  as if everything that exists,
  aromas, light, metals,
  were little boats
  that sail
  toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
  Well, now,
  if little by little you stop loving me
  I shall stop loving you little by little.
  If suddenly
  you forget me
  do not look for me,
  for I shall already have forgotten you.
  If you think it long and mad,
  the wind of banners
  that passes through my life,
  and you decide
  to leave me at the shore
  of the heart where I have roots,
  remember
  that on that day,
  at that hour,
  I shall lift my arms
  and my roots will set off
  to seek another land.
  But
  if each day,
  each hour,
  you feel that you are destined for me
  with implacable sweetness,
  if each day a flower
  climbs up to your lips to seek me,
  ah my love, ah my own,
  in me all that fire is repeated,
  in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
  my love feeds on your love, beloved,
  and as long as you live it will be in your arms
  without leaving mine.
  
  If You Forget Me, Pablo Naruda
  
  It hurts so much. I know that I have used Pablo before. Ever wake up every day without someone that you can not live without? Read to the end and you will come close to understanding. Lose someone you cannot live without and you will understand.

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• Michelle Member Posts: 549

  March 2021

  Sorry.

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