My Masters

Of Poetry I've been accused,
But much more often I have not;
Oh, I have been so much amused
By those who've put me on the spot,
And measured me by rules above
Those I observe with equal love.

An artisan of verse am I,
Of simple sense and humble tone;
My Thesaurus is handy by,
A rhyming lexicon I own;
Without them I am ill at ease -
What bards would use such aids as these?

Bad poets make good verse, they say;
The Great have not distained to woo
The modest muse of every day;
Read Longfellow and Byron through,
The fabric test - much verse you'll see
Compared with what is poetry.

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poem by Robert William Service
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Comparison

sometımes
I recall the best expert poet yahya kemal
of the OTTOMANS
I see him in a window-shop
obesse and unhealthy
and..why I do not know
at the same time
I remember suddenly
The lame poet BYRON
struggling and dying on the GREEK MOUNTAINS
That is not a thing may be to be proud of
But I.in an haste drilled and went out of
my ten years of my imprısonment
and leaving my liver ache aside
my bosom is the same bosom
and my mind is still the same mind
we are alone even when we lie with our beloved
with dear ones side by side
but when we are left all alone and completely lonely
the crowd of the unıverse

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poem by Metin Sahin
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Something Blue

(words & music by evans - byron)
Something old, the time goes buy
Something new, these tears I cry
Something borrowed were those lips my lips knew
And thats why Im something blue
Something old, the vows we made
Something new, the price I paid
Something borrowed, love was tried but not true
Now my life is something blue
I guess that I had better smile
Walking behind you down the aisle
I feel Im walking to my doom
Im really not the best man in this room
Something old, the dreams we planned
Something new, his wedding band
Something borrowed was the heart I gave you
You returned it torn in two
Something old, the dreams we planned
Something new, his wedding band
Something borrowed was the heart I gave you

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song performed by Elvis Presley
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One Mad Summer...

On the shores of Lake Geneva
Stood a carriage, black, japanned,
Bearing symbols of the lineage
Of the owner's ancient lands,
To the Villa Deodati
He had fled, without his books,
To avoid the literati
And their disapproving looks.

From a humble, fraught beginning
And a mother he despised
He'd succeeded to the title
When his wicked Uncle died,
And he'd scribbled in his youth a tract
That caught the public eye,
Full of rant and young bravura
That had made the women sigh.

But an overnight sensation hadn't
Helped defeat his gloom,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Cloud 8

(tony martin/byron hill)
I hear em laughing on cloud 9
In a world so happy just above mine
No ones leaving like you left me
They got each other got all they need, but
Here on cloud 8
A lotta nothings going on
Im just drifting day to day
Out here on my own
While up on cloud 9
I hear em party all the time
They dont hear my heart break
Down here on cloud 8
We almost made it up where they are
But losing your love
Brought me down hard
Now Im just hanging, just getting by
Where expectations arent that high, but
Here on cloud 8
A lotta nothings going on

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song performed by John Michael Montgomery
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Harmon Whitney

Out of the lights and roar of cities,
Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River,
Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken,
The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt,
But to hide a wounded pride as well.
To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds --
I, gifted with tongues and wisdom,
Sunk here to the dust of the justice court,
A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs, --
I, whom fortune smiled on! I in a village,
Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse,
Out of the lore of golden years,
Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit
When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind.
To be judged by you,
The soul of me hidden from you,
With its wound gangrened
By love for a wife who made the wound,
With her cold white bosom, treasonous, pure and hard,
Relentless to the last, when the touch of her hand,

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poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Black Lizzie

THE GLOVED and jewelled bards who sing
Of Pippa, Maud, and Dorothea,
Have hardly done the handsome thing
For you, my inky Cytherea.
Flower of a land whose sunny skies
Are like the dome of Dante’s clime,
They might have praised your lips, your eyes,
And, eke, your ankles in their rhyme!

But let them pass! To right your wrong,
Aspasia of the ardent South,
Your poet means to sing a song
With some prolixity of mouth.

I’ll even sketch you as you are
In Herrick’s style of carelessness,
Not overstocked with things that bar
An ample view—to wit, with dress.

You have your blanket, it is true;

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poem by Henry Kendall
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Romantic - Yeah, Right!

Romantic - yeah, right!
3 November 2004

Sitting 'round the table,
hands are in the air;
Asking professor Evans
how and when and where.

The English Romantic Movement
is the stuff we're learning about -
the romance and the counter
to the conflicts round about.

Shelley, Keats and Byron -
they wrote, they were well-read;
it was dangerous to think then,
so easy to lose your head.

And all the way through history
while wars are going on,

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poem by Dafyd Smith
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Hold You, Kiss You, Love You

(byron hill/jack jones/frank mickey jones, jr.)
Youre lookin at me
Like the first time we met
I can tell that youre needing
That feeling you get when i
Hold you, kiss you, love you
Hold you, kiss you, love you
So darlin surrender
Right here in my arms
Love will be waiting
Wherever we are when i
Hold you, kiss you, love you
Hold you, kiss you, love you
Just close your eyes
And Ill take you away
Let go of everything
Whisper my name when i
Hold you, kiss you, love you
Like I do
Hold you, kiss you, love you

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song performed by Toby Keith
Added by Lucian Velea
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Coal Black Night

Lighthouse lit amidst the clouds
Waves of ominous soul quell
Ships as abstract as ether
No stars shine on hell
Universe of lust
Lost in feasts of sumptuous gold
Draconian masters of pleasure
Tonight no blue flowers rise

Do you believe in possession?
Ghosts in closets
Dark tiers of sullen forces
Anger as deep as snakes
Sleep in the tangled bedrooms
Suicide amidst your fornication
Tired of love
Tired of righteous pursuit

Champaign glasses of dark crystal
Lavish red carpets

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poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Anna

Madness burns like a candle
Blustery night haunted with Anna
No clover or wild grass grows
No laughter sighs in the wind
Only the moan like a cemetery

The sea wrestles with ghosts
I have drowned in sorrow
Sanity has no wisdom of pain
Nestled in graves of ice
My heart lives in gray shadows

Threatened by brave self discovery
Blue skies are to be behind curtains
No paintings of ruby days of joy
Cobwebs and dust replete in the past
Only the tomb of sweet Anna will last

I have had enough of the light
Pastels have no place in my world

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poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Recollections Of A Faded Beauty

AH! I remember when I was a girl
How my hair naturally used to curl,
And how my aunt four yards of net would pucker,
And call the odious thing, 'Diana's tucker.'
I hated it, because although, you see,
It did for her, it didn't do for me.
(Popkins said I should wear a low corsage,
But this I know was merely badinage.)
I recollect the gaieties of old--
Ices when hot, and punch when we were cold!
Race-balls, and county-balls, and balls where you,
For seven shillings, got dance and supper too.
Oh! I remember all the routs and plays--
'But words are idle,' as Lord Byron says;
And so am I, and therefore can spare time,
To put my recollections into rhyme.
I recollect the man who did declare
When I was at the fair, myself was fair:
(I had it in my album for three years,
And often looked, and shed delicious tears.)

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poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Apology

For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.

There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.

So fools are glad of the folly
That made them weep and sing,

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poem by Joyce Kilmer
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In reply to your irate comment...

...well, yes, I agree the 'Comment' box is for comments - but hold on -
I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry...
yes, growing up in the Bible Belt
must be purgatory with only heaven and hell
I mean who reads Dante?
just don't unload it all on me, OK?

I guess I should try to explain myself
(this could be a long one,
like the others I pass over on this site,
who's got time for Byron or Browning or Milton?) :

Trying to make sense of this world
in the allotted time, ho ho,
I've found it helpful in the mind
- though I'm not 'religious',
but not aggressively irreligious I hope;
but still rather pressingly interested
in life and death, that sort of thing -
the concept of some possible unity

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Aphorisms: Men and women, Happiness and misery

Some Aphorisms

Happiness is good health and a bad memory unknown
If I dropped dead right now I’d be the happiest man alive Samuel Goldwyn
Ask yourself if you are happy and you will cease to be John Stuart Mill
Be happy, it’s a way of being wise Odette

Anxiety is interest paid on trouble before it’s due Dean Inge
Harmony seldom makes a headline unknown
Don’t do whatever you like-like whatever you do unknown
Comedy is tragedy plus time Carol Burnett

When it rains look up rather than down
For without the rain there’d be no rainbow Jerry Chinn
Everything human is pathetic, the secret source
Of humor itself is not joy but sorrow unknown

I love my raggedy-ass ol’ life
I never want to die Dennis Trudell
We’d all be sorry if

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poem by David Whalen
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Rovigo

ROVIGO STATION. Unclear associations. A drama of Goethe
or something from Byron. I traveled through Rovigo
n times and exactly at the nth time I understood
that in my inner geography it is a special
place although it certainly yields
to Florence. I never touched it with my living foot
and Rovigo was always approaching or fleeing behind
At the time I was filled with love for the Altichiera
at the Oratory of San Giorgio in Padua and for Ferrara
which I loved because it reminded me
of the pillaged city of my fathers. I lived stretched
between the past and the present moment
many times crucified by a place and a time
And yet happy firmly trusting
the sacrifice will not be wasted
Rovigo wasn’t distinguished by anything particular it was
a masterpiece of mediocrity straight streets plain houses
only before or after the city (depending on the train’s direction)
a mountain suddenly rose from the plain -sliced open by a red quarry
like an Easter Ham surrounded by kale

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poem by Zbigniew Herbert
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Thanks For The G Chord

(Mark Narmore/Byron Hill)
It sure is nice
Sittin' on this porch
Pickin' these old time songs
No matter how far
I get from here
This place still feels like home
Remember all those summer nights
We'd talk about life and such
Well Dad, I've come to realize
I haven't said enough
Thanks for the G chord
Teachin' me about the good Lord
Givin' me that old Ford
When I turned sixteen
Thanks for hangin' in there
When I was goin' nowhere
Thanks for never
Changin' that lock on the front door
Thanks for the G chord

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song performed by John Michael Montgomery
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Hope Macniven

Mr. Hope Macniven, of Ingersoll, had the pleasure in his
younger days, during the first quarter of the present
century, of seeing and hearing many of the most eminent
men in Britain. He heard Doctor Chalmers and Edward Irving preach, before Irving went to London, where he became so famous ;
he saw on the stage those eminent tragedians, the elder and the younger
Kean; he was also fortunate enough to have seen Sir Walter Scott and
Thomas Campbell, the author of the 'Pleasures of Hope' and 'Exile of Erin ;'
And he also saw, in Glasgow, the distinguished author of 'Virginius,'
Sheridan Knowles, famous also man Elocutionist ; he had an opportunity of
frequently seeing Lord Brougham, and Lord Byron's friend, Sir John Cam.
Hobhouse ; he also beheld the burly figure of that bold champion of popular
rights, William Cobbett; and was in close intimacy with Henry Scott Riddel,
author of that magnificent song ' Scotland Yet,' Mr. Macniven sent a copy
of his poems to that distinguished statesman, W. E. Gladstone, and received
a letter of thanks, under the seal of the Royal arms, with the Premier of Great
Britain's autograph attached; he received a similar mark of favor from Lord
Lorne. Mr. Macniven has had the honor of conversing with the brillant D'Arcy
MacGee, and of an intimate acquaintance with A. McLauglan and Evan McCol,
and Hamilton's sweetest song writer, William Murray. The late Mrs. Macniven
published a small volume of poems some 20 years ago.

poem by James McIntyre
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Mysterious

Music : ralph rieckermann, rudolf schenker, matthias jabs, j.m. byron
Lyrics: klaus meine
I thought I knew you baby
But it seems I dont know, I dont know you at all
One thing is for sure is youre so bad
And then again, when you kiss me baby
You know its got the taste
The taste of an eternal life
I want you to feel the taste of life
This moment in time
I hear the call of a siren
This lady is quite
Mysterious
I want your mind to lock in
If my life were a glass of water
Filled by the rain from a velvet sky
I want you to drink
Because your lips are dry
This moment in time
I follow her blind

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song performed by Scorpions
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Part 4 of Trout Fishing in America

THE AUTOPSY OF

TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA

This is the autopsy of Trout Fishing in America as if Trout

Fishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died in

Missolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shores

of Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick Hot

Springs, Paradise Creek, Salt Creek and Duck Lake again.

The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America:

"The body was in excellent state and appeared as one that

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poem by Richard Brautigan
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