"ween" poems
An unkind calmness that took away the solicitude
An unkind calmness that made everything a roun
An unkind calmness that mixed the altruistic with egoistic
An unkind calmness that took an evil tack
An unkind calmness that made solitude more ween
An unkind calmness that made white a black
An unkind calmness that after a fruitful bliss became a dark pandora
An unkind calmness that became worthy of unkindness !!
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 9:52 PM UTC
From the French of François Villon
Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere—
She whose beauty was more than human?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Where’s Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack’s mouth down the Seine?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?
White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden—
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine—
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there—
Mother of God, where are they then?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword—
But where are the snows of yester-year?
9.1k
I.
The happiest day—the happiest hour
My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.
II.
Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
But they have vanished long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been—
But let them pass.
III.
And pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may ev’n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me—
Be still my spirit!
IV.
The happiest day—the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see—have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feel have been:
V.
But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered with the pain
Ev’n then I felt—that brightest hour
I would not live again:
VI.
For on its wing was dark alloy
And as it fluttered—fell
An essence—powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.
7.7k
Mother! whose ****** ***** was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied.
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast;
Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in thee
Of mother’s love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!
2.8k
Die môre groet jou met ń nat soen
En ontplooi haar goue gloed
Oor jou fynbos en Olifants-oor
Die wind ween oor die rykdom
Wat jy deur jare van sweet en bloed, vir jouself terug geëis het
, maar streel deur jou grashalms
Met die harmonie van hoop wat deur jou are pols...
Pols, wanneer 4x4 en ossewa spoor oorkruis!
Hier timmer jy aan my
- lê die hoeksteen van ń graniet gebou
Ek sal strewe om jou te eer.
Suid-Afrika , ń ode aan jou.
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 4, 2014 at 2:06 PM UTC
To write a sonnet doth Juana press me,
I've never found me in such stress or pain;
A sonnet numbers fourteen lines, 'tis plain,
And three are gone, ere I can say, God bless me!
I thought that spinning rhymes might sore oppress me,
Yet here I'm midway in the last quatrain;
And if the foremost tercet I can gain,
The quatrains need not any more distress me.
To the first tercet I have got at last,
And travel through it with such right good will,
That with this line I've finished it, I ween;
I'm in the second now, and see how fast
The thirteenth line runs tripping from my quill;
Hurrah, 'tis done! Count if there be fourteen!
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 2:15 PM UTC
100 jaar herrinering
100 mense ween
100 trane val daar
100 druppels reen
van die hemel heen
Dankie vir die reen o God
die plase was so droog
die kommer word nou weggespoel
uit talle boer se oog
oor droewe grond
wat kraak en bars
streel helend hand
loop water vars
oor die mielies, koring
en oor goue hawermout
dans in die wind die jongeling
en skyn opnuut wee goud
die Here het geantwoord
oor wenige gebed
bewys van vooraf weereens
al genade wat hy het
maar wolke breuk, strome spoel
die grond word weer genees
maar spokend, kaal en lenig
sal die kerk weer Sondag wees
onthou jy jou gelofte
my Afrikaner kind
wat nou soos na dood siektes
voor die oe ontbind
**** my woord op nuut
oor die heuwels sal dit reis
tot my volk gaan terugkeer
sal opbrengs , soos geloof,
deur droogtes vergreis
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 1:17 PM UTC
Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, “My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head.”
Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
“I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace.”
And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.
But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair—
I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.
For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I ween that each knight smiled.
2k
The princess has her lovers,
A score of knights has she,
And each can sing a madrigal,
And praise her gracefully.
But Love that is so bitter
Hath put within her heart
A longing for the scornful knight
Who silent stands apart.
And tho’ the others praise and plead,
She maketh no reply,
Yet for a single word from him,
I ween that she would die.
1.8k
we are windows with lapsed insurance but see fine print where there is none
and that makes us innocent pillagers. the village learns to ween the system
from an iron fist to adopt an irony. but i digress, where the last appearance
gypsied the locals with petulant integers. the riven burn ! to clean the wisdom
of our schadenfreude. the image turns to ravine
the slender
isthmus.
but
pry it
from the
vapor
you can
knot.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 3:27 PM UTC
(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey’s painting)
The other maidens raised their eyes to him
Who stumbled in before them when the fight
Had left him victor, with a victor’s right.
I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;
He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim,
And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might,
Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light
As a wan wraith’s beside a river’s rim.
The other maidens raised their eyes to see
And only she has hid her face away,
And yet I ween she loved him more than they,
And very fairly fashioned was her face.
Yet for Love’s shame and sweet humility,
She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.
1.7k
Chained in the market-place he stood,
A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude
That shrunk to hear his name--
All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground:--
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.
Vainly, but well, that chief had fought,
He was a captive now,
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow.
The scars his dark broad ***** wore,
Showed warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before,
He could not be a slave.
Then to his conqueror he spake--
"My brother is a king;
Undo this necklace from my neck,
And take this bracelet ring,
And send me where my brother reigns,
And I will fill thy hands
With store of ivory from the plains,
And gold-dust from the sands."
"Not for thy ivory nor thy gold
Will I unbind thy chain;
That ****** hand shall never hold
The battle-spear again.
A price thy nation never gave
Shall yet be paid for thee;
For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,
In lands beyond the sea."
Then wept the warrior chief, and bade
To shred his locks away;
And one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.
Thick were the platted locks, and long,
And closely hidden there
Shone many a wedge of gold among
The dark and crisped hair.
"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold
Long kept for sorest need:
Take it--thou askest sums untold,
And say that I am freed.
Take it--my wife, the long, long day,
Weeps by the cocoa-tree,
And my young children leave their play,
And ask in vain for me."
"I take thy gold--but I have made
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife will wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.
His heart was broken--crazed his brain:
At once his eye grew wild;
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whispered, and wept, and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
And once, at shut of day,
They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyena's prey.
1.7k
Pointless, yes
but after this
I swear to you
I'll ween you off your mothers breast
and cut the strings that keep you here
and drive until the path we took is no longer there
Once we're lost
We are saved
Aug 22, 2011
Aug 22, 2011 at 3:11 PM UTC
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight
Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night,
Turning still to the vanished years,
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
II
(Written in a copy of “La Vita Nuova”. For M. C. S.)
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine,
I’d never waste my time like this—
If you were Lady Beatrice
I’d woo and then demand a kiss,
Nor weep like Dante here, I ween,
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine.
III
(Written in a copy of “The Poems of Sappho”.)
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago
Could never dream that over seas,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The wind would blow such songs as these—
I wonder now if she can know,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago?
IV
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air—
All of my lost hopes seem
Dead leaves upon the stream;
I watch them in a dream,
Going I know not where,
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air.
1.5k
The freest we can be
Is between our Mentality.
Fiends try to ween us
From seeking the unseen.
Heed what we need from those
Who lead with dishonorable greed.
We are a tough breed
And we're planting the seed
For a new Mentality.
The history that we read
Is not guaranteed,
It's even ****** and mean.
There was no shift, it seems.
No awakening time,
When the people did decide,
That we were finally through with
Conquer & Divide.
Their intentions, they hide,
Through Distraction & Distortion,
The information is there to find,
And from there, for us to decide,
The direction to turn the tide.
Is this Awakening
Still left for us to find?
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 12:35 AM UTC
As thy friend’s face, with shadow of soul o’erspread,
Somewhile unto thy sight perchance hath been
Ghastly and strange, yet never so is seen
In thought, but to all fortunate favour wed;
As thy love’s death-bound features never dead
To memory’s glass return, but contravene
Frail fugitive days, and always keep, I ween
Than all new life a livelier lovelihead:—
So Life herself, thy spirit’s friend and love,
Even still as Spring’s authentic harbinger
Glows with fresh hours for hope to glorify;
Though pale she lay when in the winter grove
Her funeral flowers were snow-flakes shed on her
And the red wings of frost-fire rent the sky.
1.4k
Fu Manchu mustache stopped in traffic.
Hair died with all the colors under the moon.
Brown dogs dressed as black cats,
Sent your way only to cross your path.
Goblins, zombies, and doctors all the same.
Sleeking, stumbling, or walking straight.
How this ritual peaks my interests.
A day to reveal the mask hidden.
The popularity is easy when you can be anybody.
Darkest deceptions of the mind brought to light.
Twisted talents are expected and fancied.
All under the guise of free candy.
Oct 31, 2013
Oct 31, 2013 at 1:19 PM UTC
there's an awesome sound
dripping brown
drugged up
and laid down
by brothers from other mothers
in their new hope town
making up rifts
and ******* around
are you picking up
the sound that i found?
can u taste the waste?
keek up the pace?
of stroker ace?
or their country greats?
some worship god
some dance with satan
they're in betWeen
dichotomies breakin'
and you know they're makin'
pork roll, egg, cheese
and bacon!
and gravy fries
mutilated lips
and pure guava eyes
May 20, 2021
May 20, 2021 at 9:29 PM UTC
The ten commandments say nothing,
in the translations I’ve read,
against coveting my neighbor’s good
fortune,
timing,
intentions,
sense of style,
or the countless other intangibles
gifted by Nature
and our DNA's mischievous inventions.
I’m a strict constructionist,
when it suits me, and especially so
with documents carved in stone
by invisible hands
having no recorded fondness for the market.
I’d trade places with any nameless witch
caught cavorting in her coven’s canopied oases,
their cauldron-ringing capers
and care-free cackles cheered
by owl hoots and cricket song;
Or the smallish, self-sacrificing spider
who rather than a cigarette gets a close-up
view of his mate’s spinnerets dispensing
the silk sheets to wrap him
as a happy meal deferred.
I also envy their creepy hatchlings
who weeks later will climb to the tip-tops
of firry fingers, cast a single wistful thread
and wait for the wish-fulfilling wind
to carry them lifetimes away.
That’s how I could stiff this chill
that taps me on the shoulder, and chase
after a far-off warmth I’ve weened
since my weaning was done.
I count these covets no sins.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:37 AM UTC
Ween will mend inertia
with a flair, only a care or attribute
in conglomeration can reticulate their spin
and thus their ardor abound
in meadow by a brook then
will allude a castle if white sand
will morph butter and
may implore horizon
to only stake catalog
with green arbors there
yet magnitude of the nation
largely reactionary in latitude again.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 8:40 AM UTC
He was trying to ween off drugs…
I was trying to ween off him…
His heart was turning to stone…
My heart wouldn’t stop bleeding…
He was living for the moment…
I was saying goodbye to our future…
Dec 12, 2021
Dec 12, 2021 at 7:19 PM UTC
last night i dreamt
a tooth of mine (maxillary canine)
could simply slip in & out of
place..
often at times of
great personal inconvenience:
interviewing for a job...
making kitchen counter love to a gorgeous new woman (it fell out & down t'ween her breasts/O horror!)
during a presentation in ancient architecture on Ghulguleh, Afg.
-- poor Ghulguleh destroyed by Genghis, wreathed in flame!
(truly i come undone/as did that ancient city!)
found myself thinking
*"this is no blessing!
what purpose does creating a horrid gap
between incisor & canine serve but to repel?"*
when awake it became clear
i shall never understand my own mind.
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 12:40 PM UTC
Always In Preparation #2
(a rather long simplification)
Always in preparation for an interview:
What will I answer? Never know.
- What do I like? do things I do, the way I do?
- Write poetry, play jazz, do yoga?
Body/mind my mental window in my mental interview:
And I must justify it all.
Some germ, some theme begins the whole:
The technical; word hurdles
When I write or sing;
All challenging,
Performing, writing or just doing.
T’ween two covers it’s official;
Everything grist-for-the-mill,
I’ll likely publish ‘til I’m still.
No special motive winks or flirts,
No motive hides behind my skirts -
My ears hear musically,
It all comes naturally, substance counting most;
Not tricks, not formulae, cliché -
If there’s a Corwin idiom
It’s in the DNA.
I work out tunes, -out poetry, -out ******
The mind works out spontaneously,
I (wherever I is to be found) give in, give form,
Substance from-and-in the frame.
In short, I paint myself into a box
And creep around
Until some [final] satisfaction binds.
A futile paradox:
To clarify and satisfy
The interview,
But there am I,
Always in preparation.
Always In Preparation 7.6.2014
Pure Nakedness; The Processes: Creative, Thinking,Meditative II; revised 11.21.2017
Arlene Corwin
Nov 21, 2017
Nov 21, 2017 at 5:55 AM UTC
Put on a shirt
Go to work
Maybe flirt
Lock your room
Go to sleep
Wait for dreams
Do it over and over while you wait
During those moments in between
Wait until you can start a fire
In a forest
or in their chest
Wait until you can move the wind
with mobile machines
Wait until you can inhale a hole
right through the centre of your head
Wait until you waste away
and eat those cherry seeds
Share your drink
Wait and read your magazines
Colour the world beige
and wait
For something
Anything
that can make you scream
Wait for me in those moments between
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 8:34 PM UTC
Let you go now
after weeks of insomnia
cause you've got a heart at last
hope it brings joy for a while -
my aftertaste...like:
'Oh the sweet bitterness I truly zest'
the wind talks wisdom today
so Let's just Hooray!
'maybe a heart kills but dies not.
Celebrate it grow 'n it will immortalize'
for A heart worth dreaming about
I shalll wait.
a thruway Along the lightyears of ages
until you'll arrive.
Arrive at where we’ve first met
t'ween the Dead Ringer Gate
One of good and one of bad.
and be sure it’s not gonna be a next life this time!
We will head on hand in hand along a secret path back home
so...until then
I remain
with Love
A
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 4:32 AM UTC