the poetry meme
On Facebook there is this poetry meme going around.
[Yes I did a poetry meme. I also sometimes watch Vampire Diaries just because I think Ian Somerhalder is hot. Don’t judge!]
These are my two favorite poetry meme posts.
A Dog Has Died
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.Some day I’ll join him right there,
but now he’s gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.Ai, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don’t now and never did lie to each other.So now he’s gone and I buried him,
and that’s all there is to it.Pablo Neruda.
*Posted by Debi Hill
Stop All the Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.W. H. Auden.
*Posted by Max Adams
The Meme: “Let’s flood Facebook with poetry. Someone assigns you a poet, you post a poem by that poet, and if someone likes your post, you assign them a poet.”
In case you are craving other poetry: :::bukowski:::
You’re welcome.
