Words: Let Us Practice Poetry


Words are fun to study! Those, which they signify are pictures of all sorts and a hurricane of imaginations, as Archibald Macleish's maple leaf and globed fruit represent.

In the following poem lines below, we'd practice word descriptions in a free style like replying or giving comments to poems.

1.William Carlos Williams (The Descent)

"For what we can-not accomplish,
What is denied to love
What we have lost in the anticipation -
A descent follows, endless and indestructible."

My Reply:

To: Sir William C. Williams

Descent is the moon that wanes beneath darkness
Clouds, gray nights of cold
Like a love unrequited
Like tales untold

Like throes hiding under shadows
Like dreams unrealized burrow
Etched is truth, there lies abyss
Lonely lilacs surrender peace.

2. Richard Eberhart (Grave Piece)

"And from this I saw grow
Although my sense shook with fear
A crystal Tear
Whose center is spiritual love."

Mr. Eberhart explains:

"From all the experience contemplating death I saw grow, although the enormity shook my sense with fear, a crystal tear, the tear of spiritual love, which is the end of contemplation about death. Tear as a verb also if you want grammatical ambiguity, but the tear (v) would be the tear (n).

My Reply:

To Mr. R. Eberhart:

Death nigh unto life, lay questions of tomorrow
Four doves in the grave, blight then, now sorrow
O crystal Tear, of all be near, I shall not fear, I shall not fear!


3. W. H. Auden (Perhaps)

"Consider the years of the measured world begun,
The barren virtuous marriage of stone and water
Yet, O, at this very moment of a hopeless sigh..."

My Reply:

To: Mr. W.H. Auden

Your "barren virtuous marriage of stone and water"
Is a ring in my heart where name and image meet.

You paint a soothing ocean in the summer
Black stones glittering gold cobwebs ponder
Underneath stones sparkling ripples of kiss
My lips supple - still, pure pink for your love
Lithe for your flesh; be for you, Dear love.


4.Dylan Thomas: After the Funeral (in Memory of Ann Jones)

"I know with her scrubbed and sour humble hands
Like with religion, in their cramp, her threadbare
Whisper in a damp word, her wits drilled hollow
Her fist of a face clenched on a round pain..."

The poet ends by praying that:

"This monumental /argument" his poem carved from Anne's virtues "storm him forever," until the stuffed fox comes alive and dry fern lays seeds on the window -sill.

My Reply:

To: Sir Dylan Thomas

Could there be a love like Michael Furey's love?
Could Ann Jones be the reality of Gretta?
What other thoughts tie Sir James with you?
And me, and the others? Perhaps love, that of Auden.


Scrubbed and sour humble hands of old Anne
Clench monuments for the boys shedding dry leaves

And I, now a mother, a womb of oceans
My naked chest for the world

And after all the lovers gone
Vigor and bloom on window sills
Everything fades from a love, all transient like grass

Only funerals in choir of angels
Only God's love eternally lasts

And for my lover, my lover, my lover
Haul me up your arms when in death;
Nigh your heart, nigh your breath,
In peace, cast away my fear
To Father God, I shall forever rest.

Did I make sense, Sir? Thank you for the poems. God bless the poets!

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