I was literally still asleep, half an hour ago. My phone, buzzing to let me know this diary was due in half an hour from that point, woke me. So, I really have no choice but to make this already late diary an "open poetry" opportunity.
If you like, you can talk about the joys of dancing, which I was deeply involved in over the weekend, or you can talk about the loss, only just learned of yesterday, of a good friend. (Which probably has a lot to do with why I overslept and blew my deadline for this)
Carry on, friends and fans of the poetic art, and ruleoflaw will furnish another of his poems for next time.
Kalliope
Means "beautiful voice" from Greek καλλος (kallos) "beauty" and οψ (ops) "voice". In Greek mythology she was a goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, one of the nine Muses.
Join us every Tuesday afternoon at the Daily Kos community political poetry club.
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments.
Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional.
The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
I picked these poems because they seem apropos today, considering Bibi Netanyahu and all the Nimrods who have taken our fine government and bought, sold, broken it and laid it low. Power, vanity and selfishness are so rooted in human nature, and so hard to progress beyond. But Shelley's heart was always fiery with hope. Here is the inspiring ending of his
The Mask of Anarchy:
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule:
3:25 PM PT Hello Kit (and all Readers & Poetry Lovers),
Thanks for posting the diary, even though time and fate are sitting on top of you. I added some Shelley I particularly like. I'm not so good at writing poetry, but I'm a deft borrower.
- Brecht