"tolstoy" poems
Red wine stains your lips and teeth,
reciting Tolstoy; war and peace,
smoke leaves your lips each word you speak
-as if it was, somehow, for me.
A dwindling old lover's flame;
we lay warm on a bed of coal.
Beneath the sheets, I've seen your face,
but every time your hands were cold.
Jun 12, 2018
Jun 12, 2018 at 9:50 AM UTC
I was brought into this house
Ordered from the local furniture shop
Made to order according to specifications
I am a wingback,
Upholstered in full-grain leather
True to my rich heritage
I was placed in the library
Amongst the illustrious works of famous writers
Half- a - century have passed, providing support
To the backbone of the family
Although tired, he finds solace in my cozy embrace
I give him my wings to fly into the world of literature
Cervantes, Bunyan, Bacon, Goehte, Dostoevsky, Chekov, Tolstoy
Some of the names from the illustrious collection
Not all were privileged to have a seat here
He was transported to each era, savoring the rich legacy
Of literature down the centuries
I was privy to the mind-boggling debates
Which he conducted with himself
Trying to reason each work of literature
A mere wingback rose to be a companion
Providing sturdy support on the mahogany legs
One fine day the reading session ended in deep slumber
Five decades of bonding and companionship came to an end
Now, I stand here, forlorn, at the corner of the library
Reminiscing the reading sessions, and siesta
The wingback does not have the wings to fly away from this bond
© Amitav (Radiance)
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC
Señor Garcia Marquez
Whatever did you mean
When you wrote of life
And of death by family
I'm in love with
Prudencio Aguilar's ghost
Roaming about the Buendía household
Hole in his throat
Washing out the wound
But what did you mean?!
I'm in love with
Do it yourself chastity belts
And Ursula's fear of ***
But why is this even a theory
Your concept behind biracial inbreeding
And Señor do not get me started
On Melquíades and José Arcadio Buendía
Because that friendship was
Fated to be doomed
I mean no disrespect in all this
I just want to know
Why use Macondo as an allegory
For the Angel Gabriel
You're genius, really
But your run on paragraphs
Infuriate every ounce of my writing soul
You're a Columbian Tolstoy
I mean that as no insult
Your works are tremendous and outstanding
But what am I doing
You're now just an old dead man
"Under the ground"
So now I belong to figure out
Why Pilar needs to fill a void
Opened by a ******
And why Colonel Aureliano Buendía
Thinks of his fond memory of ice
Just before being killed
I've paid my respects to your work
Please pay respects to my search
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 3:57 PM UTC
Tolstoy was a boy,
Ibsen was Henrik's son
Hardy had a father,
And see how well they've done.
Byron was a grandson,
And Wordsworth had a wet nurse,
Thoreau had a 2 to go,
Shakespeare a bad marriage,
Austen was a loner,
Poor Sylvia was a goner,
And see how well they've done.
Joyce had a ***** mind,
Fitzgerald liked to drink,
Richler liked to smoke,
And Wolfe enjoyed a ****
And see how well they've done.
Fielding was a misogynist,
Wilde was a jailbird;
Virginia a misandrist,
And Kerouac a simple ****
Yet see how well they've done.
Still with all their drawbacks,
Look how well they've done;
Like our old friend John,
We surely come un-done.
Dec 20, 2018
Dec 20, 2018 at 10:39 AM UTC
*No, no, no, Dirtbreath. I say we call the big one an elephant,
and the small one a mouse*.
Eve
I'm sure red's a better color for me.
M. Monroe
She has a face that could sink a thousand ships.
Ulysses
*Now that Hawking's dead, I'm the smartest
guy on Earth.*
D. Trump
You're too Jung to understand the Superego.
S. Freud
No. You keep it. I have enough.
B. Graham
Are you sure that's the Delaware?
G. Washington
E=Mc Donalds.
A. Einstein
Go pound salt.
Gandhi
What day is it?
Roosevelt
That's one small.... oops!
N. Armstrong
I don't remember any of my dreams.
M.L. King, Jr.
Hey, John, I can see your house from up here.
Jesus
Beaches, fields, streets, hills. Did I leave anything out?
W. Churchill
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I wrote 'em all.
R. Starr
It's just too big to wrap your brain around.
S. Hawking
Don't lose your head. This won't change a thing.
Robespierre
Before I was fined, I walked the line.
J. Cash
Could you lengthen the title and shorten the book?
Tolstoy's editor
What if we put the workers on conveyor belts?
H. Ford
I have a splitting headache... hmmm, interesting.
Oppenheimer
I've never liked orange juice.
N. Brown
Really? You want to blame me?
******
He stings like a butterfly.
S. Liston
#timesup #metoo
A. Boleyn
Mr. Watson. Come here. Spare me a dime?
Bell
Roebuck said he'd be back in ten minutes.
R.W. Sears
To be or to do be do be do.
Shakespeare/Sinatra
*When you call me Whitey, I get cotton pickin ****** off.*
E. Whitney
We're the team to beat!
Toronto Maple Leafs
Don't call me a Mother!
Mother Theresa
Is that a Cuban?
M. Lewinsky
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 6:50 AM UTC
i have paid the fines
of dozens of overdue library
books i never finished reading.
i love reading.
i love curling up
in a big leather armchair
while the sun reaches out
to me through the window
as time slows
and my coffee grows cold.
but tolstoy and fitzgerald
sit on my shelves
or in my purse
carried everywhere
and collecting dust.
i can see the silhouette
of who i would like to be.
the curve of her hips
the stillness of her limbs.
she grows her own herbs
and tries out new recipes
while her husband is at work.
she doesn’t mind driving
for hours alone
and enjoys singing
along to the radio
going five under the speed limit.
she is not in a hurry.
she is proud
and sure
and poised.
she reads books and returns
them on time.
she gave up on dreaming
and hoping
and longing
and finally began
living.
Sep 25, 2018
Sep 25, 2018 at 3:46 PM UTC
Waiting for him,
Was like a,
Mindless abyss.
I thought,
This time I should give it a shot.
Add plus venture,
Into a realm full with pleasures of flesh.
Rather waiting to lie in sepulcher.
Thence came the wooers,
On horses, chariots, planes and cars,
Courted me to the foreign lands of brand new emotions.
Greasy, exotic, curious and even obscure ,
To satiate my hunger,
They poured,
And I sinfully devoured.
Ooooh!
A whip here.
Ouuch!
A tickle there.
Aahhhhh!!
The sheer unfolding of their classy work.
Every night lusciously they came,
Wrapped me in an awe of satire, skepticism and imagination,
Not to say of the bruises they gave,
Tears I shed of Anger,Pain ,Love and Hate.
Still I followed them blindly and agape,
Because a new world in me was taking shape.
Of Shakespeare, Freud, Tolstoy, Eliot, Byron, Wordsworth and my then fav,
the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
A medley of fantasy, fact-fiction, comedy, realism and romance.
Oh!
What not I chanced upon.
All emphasizing emotion, imagination, scientific and natural thought.
There was no stopping of these gnawing hunger pangs,
None lasted more than a one night stand.
The foolish me, unaware, cascaded in the fatal encounters,
Not knowing the pangs are of soul to reach the supreme ******
Thence came a Seer
The Prophet,
The Wanderer,
The Forerunner,
It was as if he can rip me with his thoughts,
And see my soul through that tear…..
I distinctly remember that divine night,
The moment I held him in my desirous hands,
I was no more in dual fight.
Things started falling into place,
Was no more in that abysmal space.
Still I would say,
It’s a current phase.
This soon would also evade.
New Lover ,
For every new night…
To cut a long story short,
Just so,
Because of your low attention span,
The lover, the poet , the wooer
Was the great
Khalil Gibran.
Jul 5, 2010
Jul 5, 2010 at 1:05 PM UTC
Poetry invents jocular joy
Limpid loquaciousness rejoice
Heuristic verbiage to deploy
Poetry invents jocular joy
Dancing with Shakespeare and Tolstoy
Mellifluous melodic voice
Poetry invents jocular joy
Limpid loquaciousness rejoice
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 8:53 PM UTC
The US will drive like the rest of the world,
And declare peace on the Middle East for all times ahead;
Good films and books will be successful;
And punk’s not dead.
Justin Bieber will bottom all the charts; Pink Floyd'll be back together;
Bond will like his martinis stirred, not shaken;
Race, gender, class and orientation will be nonsense words;
And there’ll be no sequels to Taken.
Teenagers will fawn reading Tolstoy and not Meyer;
Old, black men will order the "extra whip, non-fat, caramel latte, venti;"
Art galleries will be closed to people over 21;
And poets will feature in the Top 20.
There will be equal jobs and opportunities for everyone;
Humans will give up on colonising mars and the moon;
We will bring down the imperialistic, capitalist, racist, misogynistic hetero-patriarchy;
And you will love me, tonight at noon.
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 8:36 AM UTC
There is a mirror image
but does it still
look like you?
Do you stand before
the altar of your bathroom
sink and whisper,
"нет,
but not yet"
There isn't time
to pause
to think
to wonder.
Is there a ghost in this machine?
Is there a need
to put a notion
behind the gears
of our universal,
cosmic meme?
And were we to drown,
weighed down by
hanging lines and
albatroses,
the thousand stupid ways
that we try to prove
our opinion matters,
********* Hear me!
Look my way!
We fade to nothing,
ashes in pots
on mantle places,
dry bones in wet dirt.
We are all good people,
bound for modest graves.
Undone by ambition.
"Да,
that is always the way"
We are small men,
good in our minutes a day.
We are Tolstoy in passing,
In a Gethsemane way.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 10:48 PM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
As its social phenomenality
Grows with zeal and verve
Humanity of love befits
Beautifully Elaborate explanation
To enable both young and the elderly
To have clear and useful
Knowledge and insight
Of what is love;
Shakespeare in the prime
Of his bardness decried it
A foul protégé of individual beholder
Christ confused it for self-immolation
In the succor of the universe
Leo Tolstoy thought that
It was minimal ownership of land
Umberto Eco in his scriptorium
Declared it man’s impaired judgment
Kenyan cubidmaestroes deem it human foully
To create a leeway to keep change of a Casanova
Mahatma Gandhi called it caste blindness
Mandela called it zero apartheid
Both in Luther King sang the song
Of nonviolent revolt
But me I will boldly clash
With the precedent civilizations
To call love foolishness of a man
And shrewdness of a woman
As for both man and woman the very love
In un-fangled in truth that it can’t pay bills.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected]
when i start by name
perhaps in a flap of fault
exculpate my soul
for maximum rectitude
is the true fill of my heart
glory to the sons of Russia
Kudos to you all and your foremen;
Nikolai Gogol the master in the dead souls
Alexander Pushkin the effeminate poet
Vladimir Lenin who knew what was doable
Alexander sholenestysn the Siberian jail bird
who was on the poetic phone by five
Feodor Dostoyevsky the epileptic Karamazov
Maxim Gorky and Antony Chenkoy leave them alone
Ayn Rand the woman who shrug the atlas for we the living
Vladimir Nabokov the school master who asked for ***
from her student the adourous ******
Boris Pasternak the Muzhik like Leo Tolstoy
who wanted land beyond the horizon
for doctor Zhivago the **** peasant
or Vladimir Makayavosky who slapped the public
in the face of their capitalistic taste,
Glorified be you all you sons of Russia
your Muse is beautiful and erotically crazy
glory for your humour and your finer threads
with which you have woven for me my poems of dystopia
glory be to you all in the stark oblivion
of Leon Trotsky and his penman Leonid Brezhnev
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 12:15 PM UTC
What am I? A part of the infinite. It is indeed in these words that the whole problem lies.
... And the cause of everything is that which we call God. To know God and to live is the same thing. God is Life.
.. True religion is that relationship, in accordance with reason and knowledge, which man establishes with the infinite world around him, and which binds his life to that infinity and guides his actions .. and leads to the practical rules of the law: do to others as you would have them do unto you.
(Leo Tolstoy, Confessions)
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 9:40 PM UTC
with each passing day, I understand less and less, for
who could ever claim to know it all, yet, the simplicity
of our base-ic basest instincts makes evil so easily attractive,
that now, I forgive almost nothing, anyone for the cruelty
inherent in on the surfacial skin of our normalcy, so easily,
revealed, and reveled in, wrecks me, and the poetry
sparks are not doused, but wick and ember shriveled
oh the irony, that foolish me should write of the
commandment to love just as the world displays
old levels of hate historically deep… .I am hated,
to many who would know me only as Jew,
and this refresher course in my brain, reminds me,
that love thy neighbor as thyself, can morph into a
generational opposite, that my former degree of comfort,
beliefs, was only skin deep…and Tolstoy was a naïf, a romantic,
a royal, who hoped for the best in each man, and that
cannot ne achieved for hate is so easy digestible, so sweet a treat
for humans, who desire no compass other than simple baseness
to know which direction to take….
————————————————————————————-
”There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."
Tolstoy
”To perform evil deeds a person must discover “a justification for his actions,” so that he can regard stealing, humiliating and killing as good. “Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble,” and so conscience restrained him. He had no ideology, Solzhenitsyn observes, nothing like “anti-imperialism” or “decolonization” to allay pangs of guilt. Solzhenitsyn concludes: “Ideology—that is what gives evil-doing its long-sought justification and gives the evil-doer the necessary steadfastness and determination . . . so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but receive praise and honors.”
Solzhenitsyn
Oct 20, 2023
Oct 20, 2023 at 3:08 PM UTC
in another life
i wear clay beneath my fingernails
and linen pants around my hips
fastened with a braided leather belt
rescued from my mother’s closet
one she wore in the eighties
when she met my father on the seaside of france
i carry flowers from the corner
down a gum-stained sidewalk
past the park i fell asleep in during one
slow sunday afternoon
there are cherry red stains on my pillow
some from my lips, some not
i’ve never been in love
but i’ve never felt alone
my nose is slender
and my collarbones flaunt themselves
beneath tanned skin
i am someone who drinks ***** and
orange juice while watering my plants
a longhaired cat licks its paws
in the windowsill
as i lie naked in the sunlight
reading tolstoy and kerouac
and obscure poetry introduced
by the neighbor in 4F
none of it matters
i am just like a cloud
like a creaking step
i share myself only through
spearmint breath and coffee dates
here are my sweaty palms
here are my uneven bangs
you will never know me
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 11:04 PM UTC
םתוח
השׂטן
and i thought that ancient egyptian
was retarted...
looks like there's a contender!
hebrew!
this language doens't know left
from right, or up from down...
hebrew is, by html encoding... a dodo project!
it's retarted!
hebrew can't survive in the html age...
it's retarudus proximus!
oh, you think arabic is any better?
don't think semites should
be laughing at this point...
trying to write hebrew script is like
juggling pineapples...
what does it say?
the seal of satan... satan?
well that implies guardian
of the tetragrammaton...
i still agree hebrew evolved from
ancient egyptian script...
but hebrew wasn't used in writing
html or any other computing script...
that's why it's so retarted when trying
to write it in html mode...
nope, can't convince me...
you can't really write hebrew in html mode...
i call this the extinction precipice...
if this ****** is going to keep up
its copernican acid tripping not knowing
left from right...
might as well leave it at the roman
long-handshake... where hands
don't actually touch, but hands touch
nearing the elbow... namely
forearm-grip.
as the original stated:
the smaller the audience: the greater span of historical worth, and desire to upkeep: that pangloss citation from voltaire's candide: better us tending to our own conerns, that bother ourselves with the concerns of others.
oh, i know what a small audience implies...
didn't christ have only the 12,
didn't pythagoras only have the approx. 30?
there's something quite telling
about a small audience...
not exactly cultish...
but something beyond the realm
of influencing people within a single
lifetime...
take en sabah nur and his 4:
oh come on... rewrite tolstoy's
war & peace in a comic form:
just to ease the gates for poets,
and leave barren, the boring narrator...
let's keep it at just that:
there's something telling about a small
audience...
look at the 1 and the 12,
and now look at the billionth marker -
funny, isn't it?
what am i claiming though?
ah, that's simple, that's a revival of
"judaism" - i say "judaism" because
i am the one ordained with neither prophecy
or anything worth mastering:
i am the guardian of the tetragrammaton...
and sure, the god within the confines of
philosophy has to necessarily not exist...
but?
well... you can't really evaporate
the tetragrammaton out of existence!
whenever the right time comes,
i loose the title: chief prosecutor, and become
chief defendant.
Jul 25, 2017
Jul 25, 2017 at 8:53 PM UTC
Rocking chair
A comfortable seat
Turkish tea or strong coffee
Burning fireplace
Decorated wooden hut
Future wife
Snowy night
A rifle on the wall
Classic music
Wool blanket
Hello Poetry
Tolstoy's masterpieces
Ilya Repin's picture's
Wolf voices
Cold places
What a Freedom !
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 7:56 AM UTC
I said:
Oh lover from another,
won't you come back to bed?
Put out your cigarette,
And smoke me instead.
While the rain pours.
Behind closed doors.
No one has to know who you call yours.
She said:
Oh boy toy
You have a way with them words.
Like Leo Tolstoy or some other Russian bird.
Won't you write a couple verses
and name it after me?
Because I don't want to die when I'm dead if you know what I mean .
Yes I do,
Sophie
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
here we go again
the feeling of not feeling
the music without melody
the poem without metre
it all swims in my head devoid of emotion
these stanzas, those paragraphs, those conversations, that knowledge
they swirl and they shimmer but where has the tone gone
those non-verbal shades just evaporate like water
dickens, tolkien, tolstoy, plath
mozart, sheeran, queen, presley
van gogh, hirst, dalí, ito
nothing but noise when your heart isn't in it
now down some pills
write it down
go to sleep
and repeat this tomorrow.
May 21, 2022
May 21, 2022 at 5:12 PM UTC
///
our mind can feel everything
if we can feel the beauty of roses once
it can make some meaningful words,
even can create a few metaphors of a poem
we write all through our life
it can be grown as words of war
even can be born as a piece of peace
or can be grown both,
war and peace
it can be made a pain or gain
or it can be seemed as a stream,
that can be bought a grain of sand
Even it can earn both,
the pain and the gain
life can make a song
it can be a song of joy
sometimes it may be a coy
even it can make a rhythmic tone
that can't always be a romantic tune
as the river is not always plays a full of chimes
life can be found love
or can be gathered loss
or it can be earned both love or loss
as the poem " Annabel Lee"
that gifts us a pang of pain
life can be moved long like a novel
as Tolstoy's war and peace
even life can be too short, tragic
as the life of a poet,
like Sukanta, Keats and Poe
life looks like a novel
it's growing as well
with both lost and found
of so many stir of dreams
our mind is an endless paper
feelings are as ink
times are as the pen
everybody is the novelist
begins writing since he's born
and finishes before his death
though someone exceeds beyond the death
wise men told
life is a learning
life is a continuous earning of wisdom
that can be repair our kingdom
///
@ Musfiq us shaleheen
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 11:52 PM UTC
Today
When I see you in front of me
You run through a thousand words and bits
Of
Bits
Of lives you know
I am part-werewolf part-pop reference
Part great archetype part lover
I am never whole I am never me
There is no insight
Today
when
The blue of your eyes
Is only as vivid as the paintings I’ve seen
They are not your eyes
you have taken them from the blue of time
you’ve dressed your self and yourself
from cruelty in factories
and the love of the cloth
today
I am losing it
You are millions of people
A shaky picture of a picture
It must always be like this
There is no insight
Today
When you unravel the things in your purse
With gumpacks tic tacs god and a weapon
I don’t know which one you are
Who have you stolen you from?
Say existential crisis again
And I’ll disappear into the walls
There is no inside-out insight
There is no in side-out in sight
There is no in side out in sight
May 1, 2011
May 1, 2011 at 10:20 AM UTC
TRUE CONQUEST
A bird's resting nest may be very small ,
But that is of no consequence at all !
Since the sky above its head is vast and
wide ,
Where it can spread its wings and fly, -
Across the vast expanse of the ethereal
blue sky !
Here on ground where we jostle for living
space ,
Man’s hunger and greed does not abate !
Alexander , Napoleon, and ****** had tried
conquer and shackle this earth,
But their conquests never could last!
I recall Leo Tolstoy's short story once more.
After having covered the furthest corners
of the land under his feet;
Galloping at top speed to make his conquest
complete ,
The rider totally exhausted falls on the ground,
Collapses and dies without a sound !
Only six feet of ground sufficed for his grave!
And so it has been for the bravest of our braves !
Now I recall the great Buddha under the banyan
tree ;
And the Messiah who entered Jerusalem mounted
on a donkey,
With shouts of ‘ Hosanna’ and with palms spread
across His feet !
Were true World Conquerors beyond defeat!
- Raj Nandy
New Delhi
•
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 12:28 AM UTC
Mine eyes seek the treasure of peace to behold
It's Thor, God of war
That your arms enfold.
Symphonies are written in honour of peace
As well as war.
You can stop fighting now
Just stop.
Accept the deliverance of olive branches
And let your rage subside
Gently as the falling of dove feathers.
Your enemies have died
Yet you battle on
With nights spent alone
Excluding all
Except the tempest in your mind.
Alas until you follow the way of peace
The storm you hold will abide, not cease
And as Tolstoy said
"The two most powerful warriors
Are patience and time"
Each of which you'll find
Are mine.
Nov 21, 2016
Nov 21, 2016 at 2:05 PM UTC