Bonnie Barbara Allan

Another poem I’ve always enjoyed.

 

Oh, in the merry month of May

When all things were a-blooming

Sweet William came from the Western states

And courted Barbara Allan

 

And he took sick, and very sick

And sent for Barbara Allan

And all she said when she got there,

“Young man you are a-dying.”

 

“Oh yes, I’m sick, and I’m very sick,

And I think that death’s upon me.

But one sweet kiss from Barbara’s lips

Will save me from my dying.”

 

“But don’t you remember the other day

When you were down in town a-drinking?

You drank your health to the ladies all around

And slighted Barbara Allan.”

 

“Oh yes, I remember the other day

When I was down in town a-drinking.

I drank my health to the ladies all ‘round

But my love to Barbara Allan.”

 

He turned his face to the wall,

And she turned her back upon him.

And the last word she heard him say was

“Hard-hearted Barbara Allan.”

 

And as she passed through London Town

She heard some bells a-ringing

And every bell, it seemed to say

“Hard-hearted Barbara Allan”

 

She then passed on to a country road

And heard some birds a-singing

And every bird, it seemed to say

“Hard-hearted Barbara Allan”

 

She hadn’t got more than a mile from town

When she saw his corpse a-coming

“Oh bring him here, ease him down,

And let me look upon him.”

 

“Oh take him away! Oh take him away!

For I am sick and dying.

His death-cold features say to me,

‘Hard-hearted Barbara Allan’”

 

“Oh Father, oh Father, go dig my grave

And make it long and narrow

Sweet William died for me today

I’ll die for him tomorrow.”

 

They buried them both in the old graveyard

All side and side each other

A red, red rose grew out of his grave

And a green briar out of hers-

 

They grew and grew so very high

That they could grow no higher

They lapped, they tied in a truelove knot-

The rose ran ‘round the briar.

Summer Quotes

I guess because of my free time this summer I’ve been coming up with some crazy ideas. My favorite one is a quote wall where all of my favorite quotes from movies, songs, and poems are listed. This is what I have so far:

• “I’m not young enough to know everything.”
• “The fish is caught by the mouth.”
• “I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.”
• “As you wish.”
• “And being who he wasn’t could be who he wanted to be.”
• “Are you my mummy?”
• “If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher , a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer. If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!”
• “Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.”
• “I am the cinnamon peeler’s wife. Smell me.”
• “One for all, all for one.”
• “I could love you if you let me.”
• “And really bad eggs.”
• “I fancied you’d return the way you said, but I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.)”
• “You were the only audience I ever needed.”
• “What is Life, but soft desires?”
• “I wanted the money.”
• “The Buffaloes are gone.”
• “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
• “Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”
• “There’s a crack in my wall.”
• “Arouse! For you must justify me.”
• “I’ll have you.”
• “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
• “If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything.”
• “If anybody ever struggled with a soul, I am the man.”
• “I love old things, the make me feel sad.”

“What’s good about being sad?”

“It’s happy for deep people.”

• “I don’t have anything, but it manages to wind up all over the place…I’m afraid I’m a slob.”
• “For ever and a day.”
• “It might be idiocy, it might be immortality.”
• “The world is a glass overflowing with water.”
• “Don’t Blink!”
• “I am the gentle autumn rain.”
• “Good is knowing when to stop.”
• “Eat you waffles, fat man!”
• “Barrabas came to us by the sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy.”
• “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
• “I’ve got to get your presence.”
• “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
• “Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here.”
• “It’s bigger on the inside!”
• “We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.”
• “Screws fall out all the time; the world is an imperfect place.”
• “The trick to not feeling cheated is to learn how to cheat.”
• “There is no such thing as an unwritten life, just a badly written one.”
• “Those who dream during the day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.”
• “Why do humans always state the obvious?”"
• “Can I get a ‘wow’?”

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

Another one of my favorite poems. I like it because it tries to destroy the clichés that haunt all love poems.

 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

The Cinnamon Peeler’s Wife

I didn’t write this, Michael Ondaatje did. It’s so beautiful.

 

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.
I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...
When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women

the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it

to be the lime burner's daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in an act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

Rules to Live By

1. Always have your towel.
2. Beware of rabbits.
3. Always leave them wanting more.
4. Remember that apologies are not always accepted.
5. Read until your eyes bleed.
6. Don't put jam on a magnet, never put a sock in a toaster.
7. Even if you benefit, fight against injustice.
8. Apathy is the worst of all emotions.
9. Don't be afraid to act like a child.
10. Respect every idea, opinion, individual, and culture for what they are.
11. Spend at least one hour alone a day to truly appreciate camaraderie.
12. Accept every bit of yourself.

Cell Phone

It's burning a hole in my pocket
This cold technology
It wonders why I keep flipping
Flipping it open
Checking its pulse
Checking to see if its heart is skipping
Like mine
When it hears you

Song of Myself

Walt Whitman once wrote a poem called "Song of Myself". It's a beautiful poem, and we were asked to write an imitation. This is mine

I change myself, and create myself
And when I dance you shall laugh
For every ambiance there is a me as good as you

I laugh and gather myselves
We have spent the years in mythology,
Joining the creatures of fiction,
Crowing in simplistic revelries.

Myselves, I form from words and song and laugh
Born of contentment and anger, love and frustration
I, now becoming whole in being,
Combine myselves at the end of juvenality

Math and magic are passing
I rest my mind from strain of their thought, but not yet unloved
I create and combine, for better or worse,
The many facets of my mortality.

The Dangers of Proposals and Red Roses by Silvana Boyden

Since I've started this blog, I might as well start posting things I've written to see what people think of them. I'm too nervous to show it to friends and family so if anyone is reading this, let me know what you think.

He handled the rose with savage delicacy as he stood on the stoop, awaiting the maid’s arrival. The door had been knocked upon and an old woman had answered and now the only step left was to ask. He wore his best suit, having come straight from church, and pulled nervously at the awkward collar. Perspiration stung his darting eyes as he glanced over his surroundings for piercing and perceiving observers.

She was suddenly standing there in her simple style. Her head cocked a little to the side and her billowy, golden hair draped across her shoulder. She stared at him with an ambiguous, lifeless look and maintained her patience with difficulty.

He fumbled for words and tripped over his tongue. He handed over the rose like it was something bad he’d done. He avoided her mystic gray eyes as he struggled with his mind over elocution. The whole proposal through her only movement was to transfer her hand to one hip in a condescending manner. He knew before he was done what the answer would be, finishing in silent murmurs. There was no reply only a moment of pious silence. The door received her, as her eyes told him the truth, and then unbelievably snapped shut.

He hung his head in shame and regret, and trudged his way down the last few steps. He stood on the sidewalk outside her door for a moment or two, when he heard the window of the second floor room open out to the street. She leaned daintily out with the rose in her hand. She flashed him a smile and his hopes flooded back. She snarled in disgust and threw the rose out, slamming the window with a decisive gust.

Realizing his mistake he picked up the crumpled red rose and started down the road. The day seemed to mock him in its pleasantries of an infinite blue sky and orderly green trees. His life was finite and disordered and now he didn’t know what to live for. His love had been everything and now it was crushed just like his rose. But such are the dangers of proposals and red roses.

Favorite poems

I think I must have a morbid streak in me because my favorite poems are Plath and Poe. I just love the way they sound.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;-
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Thank to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the seas,
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee-
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me;
Yes! That is the reason (as all me know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bring eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and bride
In her sepulcher there by the sea-
In her tomb by the sounding sea.



Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Great Expectations

I don't know what possessed me to start this blog, but I can almost promise whoever is reading this that it will soon end. I guess you could say that my expectations for myself and for anyone actually taking the time to stop and read this are far from great, but why not put my voice out there anyway?