Poem: The Road Less Traveled

Author: Robert Frost

The Road Less Travelled

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   
And sorry I could not travel both   
And be one traveler, long I stood   
And looked down one as far as I could   
To where it bent in the undergrowth;           5

Then took the other, as just as fair,   
And having perhaps the better claim,   
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   
Though as for that the passing there   
Had worn them really about the same,           10

And both that morning equally lay   
In leaves no step had trodden black.   
Oh, I kept the first for another day!   
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,   
I doubted if I should ever come back.           15

I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:   
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.

Reason:  This poem speaks of my life so strongly I just feel that it is me to a tee

Ny favorite poem is This Is Who I Am by Cheryl C. Helynck. Though it is not, one would almost think it was written about transgender life.

i can't hold my breath no longer. I hate 'em. I hate poems. Why can't any of that be said in a nice story or a single sentence. Why dress up a simple thought in twaddle or reduce a complicated one into dull preaching? Why not tell a story?

why not tell a story that has a beat, some rhymes, syllables in metre or rhythm.

I detest most poetry myself. My act of criticism is writing 'poetry', my dam self.

I'd prefer it having a melody or having enough happening rhythmically to where you'd call it *music*.

[I posted here a while back that I am my own fave poet, the fave poem is whatever I just made, the reason, because of these two facts.

Of course as 'modest as I am', I deleted it...

is that conflicted or what?  ]

i posted the only poem i ever wrote and it is still there.

LOL!

but why did you not post a story? if I keep seeing all this stuff on here, in EG: iambic pentameter, verse after verse, lorda mercy I'm going to be forced to post a LOT more of my garbagio...

and:
        I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
              madness, starving hysterical naked,
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
              looking for an angry fix,

is a purty compelling story line if you axe me.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, Susan Larson has written a very good poem "Echo's abound in the silence of the heart."

i just like the space of a story. my shortest story is on my blog. I would love to like poems, I can understand from far away what might be good about them and would like to know them. Maybe i need tuition.

there is something claustro about words in metre, to me too; I approached the whole thing initially from the blank verse or prose-poesy point.

right now I am so p'o'd about religions making war that I occasionally come up with some pointed rhymes... I got beats to 'em now, even.

[I am so tempted to continue with this lame self-promo act, but, I should prefer not.]

that sounds like rapping...oooodear....

well, the beat to the thing that goes:

Yer Jew baby's stuck in a Cath'lic's Limbo
The Rapture spells doom "for all the rest o' y'all"
But I'm screwin' six dozen virgins up in Allah's Joint
And I say it's alla you, thet's bound for a fall


is in 7/8, with a separating bar of 4/4 betwen stanzas, so no worries. then, the instrumental section poses fives in the time of each two of the seven, for a scansion of 17.5, so it doesn't hoppity too dam hippity if you gets my drift


I think Dumb All Over is a good proto-rap choon:

Whoever we are
Wherever we're from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behavior is dumb

And if our chances
Expect to improve
It's gonna take a lot more
Than tryin' to remove

The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face
Of the planet altogether

They call it THE EARTH
Which is a dumb kinda name
But they named it right
'Cause we behave the same...

We are dumb all over
Dumb all over,
Yes we are
Dumb all over,
Near 'n far
Dumb all over
Black 'n white
People, we is not wrapped tight

Nurds on the left
Nurds on the right
Religious fanatics
On the air every night

Sayin' the Bible
Tells the story
Makes the details
Sound real gory

'Bout what to do
If the geeks over there
Don't believe in the book
You got over here

You can't run a race
Without no feet
'N pretty soon
There won't be no street

For dummies to jog on
Or doggies to dog on
Religious fanatics
Can make it be all gone

(I mean it won't blow up
'N disappear
It'll just look ugly
For a thousand years...)

You can't run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon

Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great

While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighboring state

TO ARMS! TO ARMS!
Hooray! That's great
Two legs ain't bad
Unless there's a crate
They ship the parts
To mama in

For souvenirs: two ears (Get down!)
Not his, not hers (but what the hey?)
The Good Book says:
"It's gotta be that way!"

But their book says:
"REVENGE THE CRUSADES. . .
With whips 'n chains
'N hand grenades. . ."

TWO ARMS? TWO ARMS?
Have another and another
Our God says:
"There ain't no other!"

Our God says
"It's all okay!"
Our God says "This is the way!"

It says in the book:
"Burn 'n destroy. ..
'N repent, 'n redeem
'N revenge, 'n deploy
'N rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side

'Cause they don't go for what's in the book
'N that makes 'em BAD
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down

Or rent a nice French bomb
To poof them out of existence
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again
For temples in which to praise OUR GOD
("Cause he can really GO HAWAIIAN!")

And when his humble TV servant
With humble white hair
And humble glasses
And a nice brown suit
And maybe a blonde wife who takes phone calls
Tells us our God says
It's okay to do this stuff
Then we gotta do it,
'Cause if we don't do it,
We ain't gwine up to hebbin!

(Depending on which book you're using at the time...
Can't use theirs. . .it don't work . . .it's all lies...Gotta use mine...)
Ain't that right?
That's what they say
Every night...
Everyday. ..

Hey, we can't really be dumb
If we're just following
God's Orders
Hey, let's get serious...
God knows what he's doin'
He wrote this book here
An'the book says:
He made us all to be just like Him,"
so...
If we're dumb...
Then God is dumb...
(An' maybe even a little ugly on the side)

Well, there was the who sprech-sang thing...blue light is my fave of them...

By the way...The catholic church have got rid of the idea of limbo now. it is not papal bull, but they have spent the last four years and have now decided that god might be a bit nicer than all that.

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 15, 2007, 04:58:46 PM
Well, there was the who sprech-sang thing...blue light is my fave of them...

By the way...The catholic church have got rid of the idea of limbo now.

ayup, that's what inspired the rhymes in the first place, my Yahooooooooooooooooo! hepped me to tha newz.

I did a sprechgesang sum 20 yrs ago called Like Jerry Lewis In One of Those Old Movies.
The French think I'm genius.

of course the french have stopped smoking now, apart from cheese it was what they were best at.

smoking anywhere other than your own property is illegal in an adjacent-to-here county...
guess which state?

and how off-topic are we?

California, they feel that if they never touch a cigarette again they will live forever. Our own public enclosed space ban starts and the first of the month.

no smoking in enclosed spaces, no es problemas, but we're talking out-of-doors, over in contra costa county

I just realized, looking at 'contra costa', what is that? 'counter coast'? 'against coast'?

it's too hot to do much else here... I mean, it must be 80 degrees out.

back on topic, ayup:

     

Quote from: Tink on May 25, 2007, 09:05:21 PM
Piecitos

English Translation

Little Feet

Little feet of children
blue with cold,
how can they see you and not cover you—
dear God!

Little wounded feet
cut by every stone,
hurt by snow
and mire.

Man, blind, does not know
that where you pass,
you leave a flower
of living light.

And where you set
your little bleeding foot,
the spikenard blooms
more fragrant.

etc...

I am sorry to say this.  It is not intended as an offense to anyone, but to translate this poem into English using such simple words and imagery is a total sacrilege.  There's no way that the meaning of the original poem can be conveyed in a foreign language, absolutely no way.

It completely bites dust in this translation, I concur

sorry for hijacking yr topic tink
but. love is never haffing to say yer sorry...

---

            00

It must be inexorable, this groove -
or well-nigh -
Before she'll sit down on it
A chair of the first order
(to balance ass-gravity)
A polar magnetic
(to counter-act levity)
Before she'll let it pull her in
To a center
On the One
Zeroed In.

The equal-but-apposite attraction -
if full-on -
Appears rare as spun silk
Hard-as-diamonds to cut
(thru opaqueness-in-noise, hanging)
The true lingua franca
(by way of speaking, softly)
Might now suffice to lull her
In too deep
Into vortex
Zeroed Out.

Erased, Negated
Circular, Vacuous
Vessel In Sacra
Naked,
Holy

Pulling, Pulsating
Viscous, Electric
Word-In-Semina
Compleat,
Perfected.

La Petit Morte
case of a little death
going a long way

Empty/full
Blinding in its brilliance
In hot black compulsion
Action-painted
Jet-injected
Inter-coursing thru channels

Subsuming, consummate
She's all-in
Sublime, in-all
& All-Out

OM

---

     
Another One (01)

Her Angelic Voice (Vox Humana)
Melismatically washes my eyes
A torrent to match the sky's output;

A seasonal outpouring, as if to counter
Commercial, Sentimental, Strictly
The particular, especial function

Of a zone, and in accordance
With the accumulative effect
The accumulating affect

Supreme product of:
Superlatively produced for:
Hunted, gathered, bundled, packaged

En masse-ive inspiration, in that
New World Aspiration, bought from
Old School Derivation

An Enlightened Age's Evil Twin
Sibling giants, Towering, Destined
For a fall, for it's a harder rain will come -

Our sky, split apart at the seams
Our collective heart, breaking as one
(into Two, into Dieux, in to Deus)

Two: passing, spinning, dancing
Inextricable, inexplicable

Entwined, in embrace, In Aeterna, in tandem
Joining, spiralling, pulling, pushing
at outer limits, *Sins Fronteras*

Pointing to Infinity, where
There meets here, when
Matter finds its long-lost mate, we'll

Begin again, Finnegan
(& we all lost our chin, agin)
& Sleepers will Awake, in:

Your Honor; by your Offer; through
Your Heard Plea now answered
when the Dreamed meet the Dreamer

In an instant,
in a heartbeat,
in a starburst

Exploding/clarifying/momentous
Illuminating
Explicating All

Finally
In Sum
Totally

AUM


©2006 by My Favorite Poet

USED BY PERMISSION.

I think the Pica was just playing devil's advocate, or posing what Adorno calls a negative dialectic.

On the other hand, it is a matter of taste.
See, Pica's a Brit, and they got such awful food over there, and they drink something terrible, so... have some sympathy 

Do you have a fave poem-maker, Ell? Or do you tend to eschew such a limiting view of the necessary superlative?

nota

Wait!   I want to get in on the Pica bashing!   

Actually, Ms. Pica,

    If you listen to poetry it is much much better than reading it. There are recordings of lots of different poetry out there. The first one I heard was an old LP record of Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading "A Coney Island of the Mind".  Then, when I was in Germany, I borrowed some records from the Library on base and heard Orson Welles reading some great American poetry. And I heard some other stuff. It sounds better than it reads.  The older stuff is read in a funny manner because there used to be a 'proper' way of speaking and reading, but it still sounds cool.
    I'll bet there's lots of new stuff.

    T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' sounds fab too.

Quote from: Ell on June 19, 2007, 09:12:50 PM
gosh, you sound like someone who hasn't yet realized that English is a beautiful, a glorious language. many of it's finest moments are in poetry. you seem to love music, but not to know that lyrics are are very close kin to poems. please bite your tongue, take back what you said, and keep looking. say you take it back.

I will not take it back.

I adore the English Language, I think it is wonderful and expressive, poetic techniques eke out the relationships between the signs and their signifiers, between the sounds and the meanings. I think the devices of poetry and the raw material of words are great things. But I think a poem is the worst example of those techniques in action. Because what I love about language, as well as it's sound is it's ability to communicate, and I don't think poems communicate in an atmosphere which lives and breathes.

They are fully formed and fully packed. There seems (for me) to be so little dialogue with the audience  in a poem. It's a little shining golden turd served proudly with garnish and a smug smile. If you want to enjoy language I think a good novel, play, joke or even conversation offers a much better chance to see language glisten and shine and communicate.

As for lyrics, they are part of the music, without the music most lyrics lose a lot of their life. Similarly a poem read becomes almost music. Poems are a pleasure of sounds and words for their own sake, to me anyway. No devils advocate, I don't like poems.