The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 1/10/06)

[RetroLounge]

Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Pablo Neruda

***************************

RL

[xchrom]

1. ah so early in the day --

they say mornings are best...

[RetroLounge]

5. Good Morning to you!

:hi:

RL

[xchrom]

6. and also to you!

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

13. and to answer your original question from days ago

Yes...

RL

[xchrom]

17. ah -- ha!

well! -- i wish you the best!

excellent news!:toast:

[Heidi]

2. Thank you, RL.

I love Neruda. (Have any Federico García Lorca in your bag of poetry? :thumbsup: )

[RetroLounge]

3. Funny you should say that

He was my second choice. I couldn't find enough translated Lorca this morning, but I will be looking for more this week. He was quite a stunning poet.

:hi:

RL

[Heidi]

8. Here's my favorite adaptation of a Lorca poem:

Enjoy. (My apologies for Lorca-jacking your thread.) :hug:

Take This Waltz
Words by Leonard Cohen, after Lorca's "Little Viennese Waltz" (Pequeno Vals Vienes)

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallways where love's never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea

There's a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They've been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz it's been dying for years

There's an attic where children are playing
Where I've got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the midst of some sweet afternoon
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lilies of snow

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now. It's all that there is

[RetroLounge]

10. Very nice!

Lorca-Jacking sound dirty :rofl:

RL

[Callalily]

4. What a wonderful

poem you chose today RL. Yes laughter . . . cures all, heals all.

[RetroLounge]

7. Hello my friend

My house was full of the laughter of old friends, new friends, and children last night, and the echoes of their smiling faces and unforced laughter has chased away the pain for today.

:hi:

RL

[Callalily]

9. Glad to hear

that you're on the mend!

[wildhorses]

11. hello RL

:hi:.....gee....I just really don't get this one...perhaps I have never been truly in love?

[RetroLounge]

12. Hey there!

But you have laughed...

:hi:

RL

[wildhorses]

14. sure...I have laughed but, I do not think anyone who has heard

my laughter cares to the depth of their soul whether they hear it again
and I do not think that I know of anyone's laughter that I would choose the hearing of it
over life itself...maybe I do not "get" this paticular poem :shrug:
probably just in a "weird" space today...inbetween my ears is pretty weird space:silly:

[RetroLounge]

15. "in between my ears is pretty weird space "

I understand that completely. My friends tell me my mind is a bad neighborhood and I should never go there alone...

I hope someday there is a big DU meetup where I can hear your laughter.

You guys who read and comment on my threads are somedays the only thing that gets me motivated to get out of bed at all...

:hug:

RL

[wildhorses]

16. and don't worry I would be honored to walk with you

through that "neigh"borhood of yours;)

[RetroLounge]

18. Oooh, Horse puns...

I'd "saddle up" anytime for that walk...

:hug:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. My dear RetroLounge......

This is wonderful....a poem about laughter!

I love to laugh...it liberates my soul and brings joy to whoever is listening to me.....

And since I have this awful belly, I can belly laugh!

This poem speaks to me.......thank you......:loveya: :hug:

[RetroLounge]

21. Hello my friend...

Laughter has been so rare these days, I am glad to see it return...

:hug:

RL

[Mutley]

20. Here's one of my favorites

England in 1819

An old man, mad, blind, despised and dying King
Princes the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -- mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -- a book sealed;
A Senate, Time's worst statute, unrepealed --
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Percey Shelley

[bigwillq]

22. That's a great poem.

Thanks for posting it RL! :hi:

[RetroLounge]

25. You're welcome

:hi:

RL

[RevCheesehead]

23. Sometimes, laughter is all you have left.

If you lose your ability to laugh, what's the point?

I heartily recommend seeing Mary Tyler Moore's episode, "Chuckles the Clown Bites the Dust." Sometimes I watch it, right after doing a particularly difficult funeral.

I think I need to laugh today. Say something chuckle-worthy, please.

:hug: :loveya:

[RetroLounge]

24. Check you PM

last night would have made you laugh, or at least shake your head :D

RL

[RevCheesehead]

28. amazing, isn't it?

:hug:

[RetroLounge]

29. Yes, life certainly is...

:hug:

RL

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. dear god, i read the first 2 lines and cried for a while.

its very true to my life now too.

[RetroLounge]

27. Yes, I read it outloud this morning

and could not finish it without crying.

Glad you liked it. Without laughter, I would have been finished...

:hug:

RL

[SeattleGirl]

30. Wonderful, RL

I hope you are well today. :hug:

[RetroLounge]

31. Thank you my friend

I am better today...

:hug:

RL

[KitchenWitch]

32. beautiful

just beautiful.

:hug:

[RetroLounge]

33. Thanks!

:hi:

RL