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Author Topic:   2 Kafka inspired poems
taureau20
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Posts: 102
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Registered: Dec 2012

posted April 08, 2013 04:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Some of my poetry books - (rest are flying out the window)

poem 1:

some people, they do a lot of skin shedding, or pencil sharpening,
or what goes by menstrual poetics – as though the writing of poetry
itself were a biological function like eating or brushing your teeth –
unfelt, unthought, routine like cutting finger nails. dickinson, i feel,
is an example. i can see her in my mind: washing her hands, drying
them with a white towel, then sitting on her desk to pick up a pen
and write. when I was small there used to come every saturday to
our house – as in the lane where our house stood – a certain type of
beggar called as ‘Shani Maharaj’;
grandmother would ask me to see my face in the little jug of oil ‘Shani
Maharaj’ was carrying and, saying a prayer, put a one rupee coin in it.
by doing so, one can supposedly part with his pain. well that was that
and now it is today and here i am in the middle of the night, scratching
the bark of a tree which reveals nothing but families of ants in its folds.

poem 2:

so yeah, it is essential that there be a window
that looks out to the street if one is living a
solitary life, cut away from society, friends, etc.
a window to while away time by leaning your
self on the sill to see what the next person is
doing. on that I am totally with Kafka. say,
have you seen those petroglyphs in the
caves of Edakkal? they haven’t been able
to make any head or tail of what all those
carvings on the back of rocks mean, have they?

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taureau20
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Posts: 102
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Registered: Dec 2012

posted April 08, 2013 04:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
if you must know

if you must really know
i am not aware
of these words
skimming
on this white floor
i am not aware
of this dancing
door
i am not aware
of me
i am not aware
of this woman
in front
of me i am not aware
i am here
i am not aware
of anything
except this grating sound
somewhere
i am not aware
no
i am not

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taureau20
Knowflake

Posts: 102
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posted April 08, 2013 05:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
sorry, don't wanna show

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taureau20
Knowflake

Posts: 102
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posted April 08, 2013 05:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
sorry, don't wanna show

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taureau20
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posted April 08, 2013 05:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
sorry, don't wanna show

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Cancer/Scorpio729
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From: 6,000 feet above sea level
Registered: Feb 2010

posted April 08, 2013 10:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Cancer/Scorpio729     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Tagore, Hughes, Kafka, I think we'll get along just fine

And lovely poems

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Heart--Shaped Cross
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posted April 09, 2013 11:51 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Tagore is one of those artists whose work seems to have been plucked from the earth, like the grass. There are images so simple, so seemingly obvious, one cannot imagine they have not been conceived before. And he keeps going. Prolific, like the grass.

I think Kafka's books were written by a machine.

Your poetry is astounding, to me. Especially that first one.

Can I share one of mine?

Smitten

so now i am smitten

love-swollen

clinically insane

dropped into a second world created by you

stunned and sun-burnt

sacred

disoriented

meditating on your presence in my life

tasting your name

your grace

all that happens to me

no sun and no moon

only the sudden radiance of you to discover

and this

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taureau20
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Posts: 102
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posted April 09, 2013 12:57 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That was a nice poem, HSC. "Tasting your name" is a very deep and personal expression.

I wrote a poem too on being smitten - follows the ghazal format i was so smitten with some years ago. A bit amateurish but I still like it.... Like they sometimes say of a film director who has gone overboard with his movie - they say he "crawled the camera up his own back" or something like that. Poets do that all the time.

spilled ink

it was that moment when i'd slept bitten
that i had spilled the bottle of my ink smitten

on the table and had dreamt the flowing ink
to be a new poem i had written

when it was not there to be found
once when it was behind the drapes hidden

it was not there once it went away from the eyes;
none ever return, from that depth alive, when bidden

it was not to be found in the neighbourhood
or behind the drape or out by the midden

there is no use of crying now
for what is written is written

i left myself at that moment when
the first i picked a pen and was written

i reached her door step, she opened and wept
but i was forever gone and hidden

when she dreamt of me in the silent night
by the bell-flowers i was bidden

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Heart--Shaped Cross
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posted April 09, 2013 02:20 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That's a lovely poem.

It makes me sad to hear your constant self-criticism,
or, at least, your criticism of your work.

I hold two truths to be self-evident:

1. Even the masters are amateurs.

2. There is no such thing as a bad poet.


Now see here:

quote:

I stopped to listen, but he did not come. I began again with a sense of loss. As this sense deepened I heard him again. I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, and I allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance. This was a strategy, and didnt work at all. Much time, years were wasted in such a minor mode. I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love. I beg for mercy. Slowly he yields. Haltingly he moves toward his throne. Reluctantly the angels grant to one another permission to sing. In a transition so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high, and no higher.

When I left the king I began to rehearse what I would say to the world: long rehearsals full of revisions, imaginary applause, humiliations, edicts of revenge. I grew swollen as I conspired with my ambition, I struggled, I expanded, and when the term was up, I gave birth to an ape. After some small inevitable misunderstanding, the ape turned on me. Limping, stumbling, I fled back to the swept courtyards of the king. 'Where is your ape?' the king demanded. 'Bring me your ape.' The work is slow. The ape is old. He clowns behind his bars, imitating our hands in the dream. He winks at my official sense of urgency. What king, he wants to know. What courtyard? What highway?

I heard my soul singing behind a leaf, plucked the leaf, but then I heard it singing behind a veil. I tore the veil, but then I heard it singing behind a wall. I broke the wall, and I heard my soul singing against me. I built up the wall, mended the curtain, but I could not put back the leaf. I held it in my hand and I heard my soul singing mightily against me. This is what its like to study without a friend.

After searching among the words, and never finding ease, I went to you, I asked you to gladden my heart. My prayer divided against itself, I was ashamed to have been deceived again, and bitterly, in the midst of loud defeat, I went out myself to gladden the heart. It was here that I found my will, a fragile thing, starving among ferns and women and snakes. I said to my will, 'Come, let us make ourselves ready to be touched by the angel of song,' and suddenly I was once again on the bed of defeat in the middle of the night, begging for mercy, searching among the words. With the two sheilds of bitterness and hope, I rose up carefully, and I went out of the house to rescue the angel of song from the place where she had chained herself to her nakedness. I covered her nakedness with my will, and we stood in the kingdom that shines towards you, where Adam is mysteriously free, and I searched among the words for words that would not bend the will away from you.


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taureau20
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posted April 09, 2013 03:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Cancer/Scorp729, sorry I missed your reply! Thanks for your lovely words! yeah I think we'd get along! Gimme your number. XD Do you write too?

---

HSC, yeah, earlier this week someone introduced me to Cohen. I am a Dylan person but Cohen seems cool too.

Well I self-criticize because I think that a sense of the ridiculous is very important...

Am glad you guys liked my poems.. I ll share some more soon..

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mirage29
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Posts: 13643
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Registered: May 2012

posted April 10, 2013 11:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mirage29     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
^^^ wow!... you are ALL awesome!!... i am not worthy! i am not worthy!

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Heart--Shaped Cross
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posted April 11, 2013 01:04 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
mirage,

Best response yet!

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taureau20
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posted April 11, 2013 05:34 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for taureau20     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

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BlackSwan
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From: Vancouver
Registered: May 2020

posted June 18, 2020 12:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for BlackSwan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Love this thank you <3

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Randall
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From: From a galaxy, far, far away...
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posted August 22, 2020 01:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Bump!

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mirage29
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From: us
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posted August 25, 2020 10:53 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for mirage29     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Taureau20 was a REALLY cool person.
So Kind!

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Randall
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posted September 15, 2020 01:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Bump!

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