Abecedarian : posts tagged poem

Found 685 posts tagged ‘poem’

Restoring the Lost Sense – August 20, 2018

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"And when they coffined him, / They laid the lizard on his heart." From Pearson's, 1902.

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#coffin #lizard #poem #buried together #pet lover

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – August 6, 2018

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"And yet I lift my sightless face / Toward the eerie light, / And tread the lonely way we trace / Across the haunted night." From The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell, 1905.

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#haunted #eerie #lonely #poem

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – February 28, 2018

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"If here at the end of ages this is all—a white face floating in the whirling ball." From "A Leaf from the Devil's Jest-Book" by Edwin Markham, in The Man with the Hoe, 1899.

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#end of the world #crystal ball #poem #end of time

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – November 4, 2017

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Insomnia turns us into ghosts. From Poems by B. D., 1880.

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#haunted #ghosts #poe #insomnia #poem

The Right Word – July 26, 2017

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Typographical violets displace rivulets, and there's shining for shimmering. A correction from Improvement Era, 1906.

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#poem #erratum

The Right Word – January 29, 2017

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From the dark depths of the human soul. From Jugend, 1896.

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#visual poetry #wordless #poem

Did You Hear the One I Just Made Up? – June 9, 2015

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Here's what books looked like before the "Me generation." From 1893.

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#pronoun #poem #me generation

This May Surprise You – October 17, 2014

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"On the far side of words there is a poem writing us." —Stein Mehren, Fire & Ice: Nine Poets from Scandinavia and the North

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#poem

Did You Hear the One I Just Made Up? – January 10, 2014

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From Jonathan Caws-Elwitt:

There was a precocious young zebra,
Who was second to none in cerebra.
She read Plato, con brio,
With Venus in Leo,
And Leibniz when Mars was in Libra.

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#zodiac #zebra #poem

Semicolon's Dream Journal – December 22, 2013

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I dreamed of snowflakes and kisses under the mistletoe.

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(A visual poem from Puck, 1883.)

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#vintage illustration #visual poetry #asterisks #mistletoe #illustration #poem

This Terrible Problem That Is the Sea – November 11, 2013

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Hungry, pitiless, murderous sea!
Oh, what wild shrieks hath terror sent o'er thee!
How many millions, dead,
Lie waiting in thy oozy bed,
Till the last trumpet sound, and Death no more
Shall revel 'mid thy rage and maddening roar!
—Nicholas Michell, "Ocean's Changes" (1867)

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#poem

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – February 5, 2013

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Our Favorite Asterisk of All Time?

Check out the very special asterisk in this little verse from The Wonder Clock by Howard Pyle, 1887. It stands for the word gloom (in all fairness, how much clarity can we expect of gloominess?) even as it concentrates what little light there is into a gleam in a house cat's eye. Is the asterisk here a genuine example of visual poetry, or did the typesetter run out of space and improvise grandly? We don't care, as the result stands. (Note that we hunted down what would appear to be the web's only other gloomy asterisk, if only to give the cat's other eye a twinkle.)

"Asterisk + Gloom," a photo by Richard Weston, appears here in the context of literary analysis.

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#asterisk #poem

Forgotten Wisdom – May 7, 2012

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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

For Geof Huth.

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#poem #ice skates

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – December 4, 2011

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You can feel the pulse
in the slipping away
—Geof Huth

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#slipping away #poem

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – May 25, 2011

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For an acquaintance who dreams of lazy afternoons in a hammock but whose backyard sports just a single tree, here's a spoof of a poem by dear cousin Emily:

To make a hammock
It takes some netting and one tree.
Netting and a tree
And reverie.
The reverie alone will do
If trees are few.

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#poem

The Right Word – November 19, 2008

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"I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I wanted to be a poem."
—Enrique Vila-Matas, Bartleby & Co.

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#poet #Enrique Vila-Matas #poem

Unicorns – November 2, 2008

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A whimsical bit of misinformation from DR. BOLI’S ANIMAL ALPHABET:

U is for the Unicorn,
Who lived in mythic fantasies of old.
            This beast was born
            With just a single horn,
A total count of one, all told.
Alas, the Unicorn’s no more:
To moderns, who learn science in the crib,
            The myths of yore
            Are nothing but a bore;
The Unicorn is just a fib.

Also don't miss Dr. Boli's explanation of a unicorn's chief source of income.

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#poem

The Right Word – December 22, 2007

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"The Shortest Day"

Short verse
    We need,
Most terse
    Indeed,
That it—
    This lay—
May fit
    This day.
Short sight
    Of sun.
Long night,
    Begun
At four,
    Sunshine
Once more
    At nine.
A. M.
    Meets eyes
Of them
    Who rise
If no
    Fog hide—
Then woe
    Betide;
The day
    That ought
To stay
    So short
A space
    Can't show
Its face
    Below.
But when
    It goes,
Why then
    One knows
New Year
    Will soon
Be here—
    Then June,
So bright!
    So sweet!
So light!
    We'll greet
The day
    That's long
With gay,
    Glad song—
Excessively long-footed verse will undoubtedly characterise what
            we say,
For Longfellow's longest lines skip along when we've long longed
            for the Longest Day.

—Punch, Dec. 24, 1892

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#poem

The Right Word – June 27, 2007

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Tauba Auerbach's "Listen/Silent" anagram reminds me of a poem by Thomas Moore:

When to sad Music silent you listen,
And tears on those eyelids tremble like dew,
Oh, then there dwells in those eyes as they glisten
A sweet holy charm that mirth never knew.

I like the idea of teardrops being a magical potion, glistening with enchantment of a shadowy (mirthless) yet sacred nature.

This anagram is by Tauba Auerbach and appears here by special arrangement.

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#poem

I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – May 21, 2007

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You're (Literally) the Top
(inspired by Cole Porter, of course)

You're the top;
you're the peak of Dante;
You're the top—
blue-chip picante.
You're the jewel in the crown of a dinner gown by Klein.
You're Dorsey's trombone,
you're Kheops' capstone,
you're altar wine.
You're the top—
as in "hat," on Fred's head.
You're the quip
dear old Oscar Wilde said.
I'm an inarticulate voiceless glottal stop.
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

You're the top;
you're the head of Acme
(placed there
by imperial decree).
You're the high point of a fairy tale by Grimm.
You're lemon zest,
you're Arthur's crest,
you're the Battle Hymn.
You're the top—
you're the Everest summit.
You ascend
where others plummet.
Compared to me John Falstaff is a fop.
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

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#poem #lyrics

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