Clipmarks | akarra's poetry collection

"Fan Piece, for Her Imperial Lord," by Ezra Pound

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:09:45 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: www.ashokkarra.com

Fan-Piece, for Her Imperial Lord

Ezra Pound

O Fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,

You also are laid aside.

Tags: poetry, haiku

Poem: "I am away from my computer"

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:13:53 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem by Ashok Karra.

Clip Source: ashokkarra.com

I am away from my computer
for Nancy - happy birthday

It is always lonely online.
There are only thoughts:
words and pictures leaving this world
cold, electronic.
All of it conspiring to say
I don’t know what I want,
I don’t know who I am,
I need to learn to be happy.

Joy is truly not felt alone,
but found in laughter:
love and friendship keeping this world
warm and sensual.
Only - once at the diner
They laughed, but I stared out
at a streetlight at night.
In darkness you realize you’re alone
wherever you are.

Tags: poetry

"The Human Abstract," by William Blake

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:14:26 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: ashokkarra.com

The Human Abstract
William Blake

Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.

And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase:
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the grounds with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Catterpiller and Fly
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.

Tags: blake, poetry

"Love - is anterior to Life," Emily Dickinson

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:11:11 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

"Love - is anterior to Life..." (917)

Emily Dickinson

Love - is anterior to Life -
Posterior - to Death -
Initial of Creation, and

The Exponent of Earth -

Tags: poetry, dickinson

"On first looking into Chapman's Homer," John Keats

Mon, 12 May 2008 01:58:59 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

On first looking into Chapman's Homer

John Keats

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Tags: poetry, keats

Regarding Nezval's "Defenestration"

Sun, 11 May 2008 05:19:43 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: A complex poem gets a complicated commentary.

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

2 -3. Prague has decided to sail from the medieval order. The ship of state looms large in the darkness, as if it needed no otherworldly protection.

It does not sail without style. Neon lights that resemble bright climbing monkeys bring us back to Babel. The ship itself is a powerful scent, a water beyond the waters below, and even the light from everyone's enjoyment seems so pitiful, contrasted with the motion of it all.

Tags: poetry, nezval, czech

Emily Dickinson, "When Night Is Almost Done..."

Fri, 09 May 2008 23:05:06 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

When Night Is Almost Done...

Emily Dickinson

When night is almost done,
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,

It’s time to smooth the hair

And get the dimples ready,
And wonder we could care
For that old faded midnight

That frightened but an hour.

Tags: poetry, dickinson

Emily Dickinson, "To hang our head - ostensibly -"

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:21:28 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

"To hang our head - ostensibly..." (105)

Emily Dickinson

To hang our head - ostensibly -
And subsequent, to find
That such was not the posture

Of our immortal mind -

Affords the sly presumption
That in so dense a fuzz -
You - too - take Cobweb attitudes

Upon a plane of Gauze!

Tags: poetry, dickinson

A Lack of Moral Absolutes in Poetry?

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:12:58 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: A blogger quotes a critic in order to muse on world and language.

Clip Source: scribblingsandsketches.wordpress.com

Mind seeks echoes between world and language. Every mind does this. Lack of echo leaves us with sullenness and, sometimes, poison. Metaphor is echo. Bronowski stepping into the pond (in the film below) scooping the mud is echo. His act is poetry in motion: simple, dramatic, almost too perfect, but stopping short of perfection and self-admiration. Bronowski understood this. He wrote a study of William Blake that I used as a student when writing a thesis on Blake. Language has led him to the edge. That moment of stepping in is the echo. Poetry is that kind of stepping in, shoes and all. But it cannot afford perfection. It is the lack of absolutes that makes poetry: not smoothness but falling short. Almost a clumsiness. There is an element of uncomfortable soaking in it.

Tags: poetry, criticism, philosophy, literature

On Romantic Love and Hope

Mon, 05 May 2008 10:30:33 GMT

clipped by: akarra

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

2. And yet it seems that an emphasis on knowledge creates giant obstacles to happiness. We recall that Dickinson poem where it looks like asking too many questions about a lover will destroy love. The problem goes deeper than potential nitpicking, of course: it looks like, regarding any lover, that the hopes one has invested in a lover and the lover her/himself are always in conflict. Our hopes for someone refer us to something like Providence: we make them greater than they are, we hold them up to standards that their everyday selves couldn't possibly achieve. We think all will be well in due time. Nevermind that Providence can be an exceptionally cold thing, so much so we may not care how much the object of love loses as long as they're satisfying our expectation.

Tags: poetry, romance, love, hope

Yeats, "Leda and the Swan"

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:49:04 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem clipped, commentary on poem if you follow the URL.

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

Leda and the Swan

William Butler Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins, engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Tags: yeats, poetry, leda, swan, myths

Emily Dickinson, "What I Can Do, I Will"

Sun, 04 May 2008 01:09:40 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem clipped, commentary if you follow the URL.

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

"What I can do - I will"

Emily Dickinson

What I can do -- I will --
Though it be little as a Daffodil --
That I cannot -- must be

Unknown to possibility --

Tags: dickinson, poetry

W.H. Auden, "The More Loving One"

Fri, 02 May 2008 22:45:18 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem clipped - commentary if you follow the URL.

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

The More Loving One

W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,

Though this might take me a little time

Tags: auden, poetry, love

Emily Dickinson's "Our Share of Night to Bear..."

Fri, 02 May 2008 02:02:17 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem clipped, commentary at original URL

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

Our share of night to bear...

Emily Dickinson

Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,

Our blank in scorning.

Here a star, and there a star
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,

Afterwards—day!

Tags: poetry, dickinson, romance, love

Emily Dickinson's "My Triumph lasted till the Drums..."

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:24:30 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem complete with commentary, if you follow the link: Is there any redemption to be had from war?

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

"My Triumph lasted till the Drums..." (1227)

Emily Dickinson

My Triumph lasted till the Drums
Had left the Dead alone
And then I dropped my Victory
And chastened stole along
To where the finished Faces
Conclusion turned on me
And then I hated Glory

And wished myself were They.

What is to be is best descried
When it has also been —
Could Prospect taste of Retrospect
The tyrannies of Men
Were Tenderer — diviner
The transitive toward.
A Bayonet's contrition

Is nothing to the Dead.

Tags: poetry, dickinson, war, redemption, glory