Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
@PensivePost Ask Me No More by #AlfredLordTennyson
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
@PensivePost Ask Me No More by #AlfredLordTennyson
The Suicide's Soliloquy
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never know;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
@PensivePost by #Abraham Lincoln
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never know;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
@PensivePost by #Abraham Lincoln
Before he was elected the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was a failed lawyer who would occasionally wrote poetry for his friends. Shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, his friend Joshua Speed mentioned to Lincoln’s biographer William Herndon that the President had once written a poem about suicide as he struggled through a period of deep depression. For over a century and a half, Lincoln scholars searched for the piece so long and so fruitlessly that many came to doubt that it even existed. In 2004, however, the Abraham Lincoln Association’s Spring Newsletter announced that freelance author Richard Lawrence Miller may have found the piece published in the April 25, 1838 edition of the Springfield newspaper The Sangamo Journal. The poem is anonymously authored (the Journal introduces the piece as having been found “near the bones of a man supposed to have committed suicide, in a deep forest”) but some Lincoln scholars have declared that the poem shares elements of meter, syntax, diction, and tone with other published Lincoln poems. Miller found the theme of the interplay between rationality and madness to be “especially Lincolnian in spirit.” Interestingly, the use of the word dagger might be another clue to the author’s identity: the term was not much in use in the 1830s but would be familiar to those who, like the future President, were intimate with the works of William Shakespeare. Abraham Lincoln was especially fascinated by the play Macbeth, which famously includes a scene in which the titular ruler is haunted by a spectral dagger.
Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression throughout his life, and in 1835 he suffered from suicidal urges following the death of a friend from typhoid. This poem, assuming it is in fact Lincoln’s work, perhaps reflects his later reminiscences about this period in his life. The author clearly has first-hand understanding of what today would be termed “clinical depression”: the references to the narrator never knowing pleasure and seeking escape from his own thoughts through self-destruction correspond strongly with modern psychologists’ understanding of the symptoms of depression.
The poem is similar to other mortality poems of the period, though even more melodramatic than most (the last stanza, in which the speaker continues to narrate his feelings after he has stabbed himself through the heart, is particularly painful). Aside from the historical curiosity of its authorship, the piece—with its glamourizing of suicide and its overwrought morbidity—does little to distinguish itself from other amateur poetry in the school of Poe. Sadly, this soliloquy does not manifest the same economy and inventiveness of language that makes the mature Lincoln’s speeches canonical masterpieces. The rhyming words are mostly monosyllabic and Lincoln seems unable to keep his own details straight: how can there be “ashes” if there is a “carcase” for the animals to scavenge? To a fault, the poem is self-reflective: not only is the speaker so self-absorbed that he does not even stop to consider the effects of his actions on his friends and loved ones, but the piece also does not meaningfully engage with the readers or force them to examine their own lives in any important way. Though certainly not a monumental achievement on any artistic level, this piece is nonetheless significant for what it reveals about the psyche and the very human frailty of this oft-mythologized president.
@PensivePost
Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression throughout his life, and in 1835 he suffered from suicidal urges following the death of a friend from typhoid. This poem, assuming it is in fact Lincoln’s work, perhaps reflects his later reminiscences about this period in his life. The author clearly has first-hand understanding of what today would be termed “clinical depression”: the references to the narrator never knowing pleasure and seeking escape from his own thoughts through self-destruction correspond strongly with modern psychologists’ understanding of the symptoms of depression.
The poem is similar to other mortality poems of the period, though even more melodramatic than most (the last stanza, in which the speaker continues to narrate his feelings after he has stabbed himself through the heart, is particularly painful). Aside from the historical curiosity of its authorship, the piece—with its glamourizing of suicide and its overwrought morbidity—does little to distinguish itself from other amateur poetry in the school of Poe. Sadly, this soliloquy does not manifest the same economy and inventiveness of language that makes the mature Lincoln’s speeches canonical masterpieces. The rhyming words are mostly monosyllabic and Lincoln seems unable to keep his own details straight: how can there be “ashes” if there is a “carcase” for the animals to scavenge? To a fault, the poem is self-reflective: not only is the speaker so self-absorbed that he does not even stop to consider the effects of his actions on his friends and loved ones, but the piece also does not meaningfully engage with the readers or force them to examine their own lives in any important way. Though certainly not a monumental achievement on any artistic level, this piece is nonetheless significant for what it reveals about the psyche and the very human frailty of this oft-mythologized president.
@PensivePost
SINGLE LIFE
by: Oluwafemi Abraham
I just want to write,
On this paper really white
I just need a hug from solitude,
Without a romantic altitude
I'm in no mood
For a jealous food
A prayer parade my soul
Like darkness in a deep hole
Heart full of worries,
No need of saying sorry
Am just a gentle dove,
All I need is just love
A heart that needs a healing,
I keep staring at my ceiling
Just in search for a good friend,
A friendship that won't end
I wish sorrow has no place to stay
And not accommodated by the day
I wish my tears was destitute,
Helpless like a poor prostitute....
@PensivePost
by: Oluwafemi Abraham
I just want to write,
On this paper really white
I just need a hug from solitude,
Without a romantic altitude
I'm in no mood
For a jealous food
A prayer parade my soul
Like darkness in a deep hole
Heart full of worries,
No need of saying sorry
Am just a gentle dove,
All I need is just love
A heart that needs a healing,
I keep staring at my ceiling
Just in search for a good friend,
A friendship that won't end
I wish sorrow has no place to stay
And not accommodated by the day
I wish my tears was destitute,
Helpless like a poor prostitute....
@PensivePost
Poetry Definition of Limerick
A limerick is a five-line, often humorous and ribald poem with a strict meter. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of have seven to ten syllables (three metrical feet) and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven (two metrical feet) syllables and also rhyme with each other. The rhyme scheme is usually "A-A-B-B-A".
Limerick Rhythm
Limericks have a distinct rhythm. The rhythm is as follows:
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
Example:
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
@PensivePost
A limerick is a five-line, often humorous and ribald poem with a strict meter. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of have seven to ten syllables (three metrical feet) and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven (two metrical feet) syllables and also rhyme with each other. The rhyme scheme is usually "A-A-B-B-A".
Limerick Rhythm
Limericks have a distinct rhythm. The rhythm is as follows:
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
Example:
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
@PensivePost
WHEN I STOP AND PRAY
A lyrical poem by William Robinson
When the storm clouds boil around me,
And the lightning splits the sky--.
When the howling wind assails me,
And life's sea is rolling high--
When my heart is filled with terror,
And my fears, I can't allay--
Then I find sweet peace and comfort,
When I simply stop and pray.
When the things of life confound me,
And my faith is ebbing low--
When my trusted friends betray me,
And my heart is aching so--
When the night seems black and endless,
And I long for light of day--
Then I find a silver dawning,
When I simply stop and pray.
There are things beyond the heavens
I can't begin to understand,
But I know that God is living,
And I know He holds my hand.
Yes, I know He watches o'er me
All the night and all the day--
And He's always there to hear me
When I simply stop and pray.
@PensivePost
A lyrical poem by William Robinson
When the storm clouds boil around me,
And the lightning splits the sky--.
When the howling wind assails me,
And life's sea is rolling high--
When my heart is filled with terror,
And my fears, I can't allay--
Then I find sweet peace and comfort,
When I simply stop and pray.
When the things of life confound me,
And my faith is ebbing low--
When my trusted friends betray me,
And my heart is aching so--
When the night seems black and endless,
And I long for light of day--
Then I find a silver dawning,
When I simply stop and pray.
There are things beyond the heavens
I can't begin to understand,
But I know that God is living,
And I know He holds my hand.
Yes, I know He watches o'er me
All the night and all the day--
And He's always there to hear me
When I simply stop and pray.
@PensivePost
sleepproductivitywriters_1500_1.jpg
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@PensivePost Famous Writer's Sleep Habits and their literary productivity.
Clothespins on the Line
SAWNIE MORRIS
look like birds. Scrawny
winter birds balanced by two sarong
tail feathers. Some look west,
others north-
east toward the
mountain. Stiff in the cold &
remote. They haven’t been loved
enough. They grow
thinner and thinner in their woody
streaked feathers, held together only by
the exposed spiral of internal
organs. After a while , the sun comes
out and all o f the birds, clutching wire, turn
an electric silver.
This is hopeful,, but doesn’t last. Clouds
take a break from one another , ,
re-
convene. A half-inch of
snow is rolled out with perfect evenness
across the picnic table, as though
someone made a blank
for what was
coming. The nice thing
about clothespin birds is they don’t
“excrete.”
Jays & grosbeaks & finches
& mourning doves + ravens leave
their paintings
everywhere , on benches & limbs ,, , on fallen
pine needle fascicles \|/ feldspar & quartz _ __
though all has now become
gesso beneath snow. After a certain amount of
feeling
hopelessly under-
accomplished, you look at your nails
and want to
paint them. Is this how birds
feel? No. Birds fly
and don’t look
down. Or, they sit `’’ amid branches
and peck at the brittle waffled bark
& tiny bugs buried
in the marrow. .< sszt sszt sszt .< You, too,
peck. Familiar letters on t he keys have lost
their definition and resemble finger-
tip-size daubs of bird paint on back-
lit platforms. You recall the s e & m
only via entrenched neural pathways ,
while the l and c continue to
morph into tiny archaic
symbols. As though, the unconscious
is forming a message. ( Always “it” has something
unearthly to say. ) Except
the unconscious is
the earth , it’s just we
don’t know how she does it.
St. Thomas of Aquinas got a delirium
hit of t hat at the end
and decided to marry it. Each day
your thumbs grow paler, nails coarser, evolving
toward the ptero-
dactyl: part reptile, part bird.
As a child
pterodactyls scared you, which meant
they had your attention. Refusing to stay
in the lineage, they became
their own form.
They had an iguana for a father
and a pelican for a mom,
crispy and dipped in molasses.
If you were big enough
you could eat them
the way some people eat grass-
hoppers. Compulsive hole-
punchers, if less manic
could be sculptors,
th
SAWNIE MORRIS
look like birds. Scrawny
winter birds balanced by two sarong
tail feathers. Some look west,
others north-
east toward the
mountain. Stiff in the cold &
remote. They haven’t been loved
enough. They grow
thinner and thinner in their woody
streaked feathers, held together only by
the exposed spiral of internal
organs. After a while , the sun comes
out and all o f the birds, clutching wire, turn
an electric silver.
This is hopeful,, but doesn’t last. Clouds
take a break from one another , ,
re-
convene. A half-inch of
snow is rolled out with perfect evenness
across the picnic table, as though
someone made a blank
for what was
coming. The nice thing
about clothespin birds is they don’t
“excrete.”
Jays & grosbeaks & finches
& mourning doves + ravens leave
their paintings
everywhere , on benches & limbs ,, , on fallen
pine needle fascicles \|/ feldspar & quartz _ __
though all has now become
gesso beneath snow. After a certain amount of
feeling
hopelessly under-
accomplished, you look at your nails
and want to
paint them. Is this how birds
feel? No. Birds fly
and don’t look
down. Or, they sit `’’ amid branches
and peck at the brittle waffled bark
& tiny bugs buried
in the marrow. .< sszt sszt sszt .< You, too,
peck. Familiar letters on t he keys have lost
their definition and resemble finger-
tip-size daubs of bird paint on back-
lit platforms. You recall the s e & m
only via entrenched neural pathways ,
while the l and c continue to
morph into tiny archaic
symbols. As though, the unconscious
is forming a message. ( Always “it” has something
unearthly to say. ) Except
the unconscious is
the earth , it’s just we
don’t know how she does it.
St. Thomas of Aquinas got a delirium
hit of t hat at the end
and decided to marry it. Each day
your thumbs grow paler, nails coarser, evolving
toward the ptero-
dactyl: part reptile, part bird.
As a child
pterodactyls scared you, which meant
they had your attention. Refusing to stay
in the lineage, they became
their own form.
They had an iguana for a father
and a pelican for a mom,
crispy and dipped in molasses.
If you were big enough
you could eat them
the way some people eat grass-
hoppers. Compulsive hole-
punchers, if less manic
could be sculptors,
th
ough it requires d-e-t-a-c-h-m-e-n-t
to see it that way , , if you are
a lilac leaf sketching outside
the library window. What are those books
doing in there together ?! Nothing !
When a new one arrives, they fall in
love,, one by one. Inside their covers,
a million leaves, each
w/ black growth. A pattern of fungus ,
the shed skin of snakes & dna
traces. Like bird poop,
but more orderly and the message is see-
through. Don’t you
wish you could lift the letters
and release them halfway
back to
the liquid state ,, , before they got connected to
the circuitry? It might be kind of
relaxing. You might be
as good of a
painter
as a cuckoo bird. A few nights ago
you dreamt you were very pregnant &
in need of a place to give birth. Your boyfriend
had left you and 2 therapists
let you live w/ them
because you resembled their daughter —
though they were suspicious. Who can blame them?
As for your nails,
find a mani-
curist, someone who knows what they are
doing. Druids never lived here,
that was Europe, but you
and the sage-
brush
are distantly related via microbial
ancestors; in spite of yourself, you are
surrounded
by family. \\|/
Sawnie Morris won the New Issues Poetry Prize for Her, Infinite, released by New Issues Press in 2016. She lives in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. This is her first appearance in Poetry.
to see it that way , , if you are
a lilac leaf sketching outside
the library window. What are those books
doing in there together ?! Nothing !
When a new one arrives, they fall in
love,, one by one. Inside their covers,
a million leaves, each
w/ black growth. A pattern of fungus ,
the shed skin of snakes & dna
traces. Like bird poop,
but more orderly and the message is see-
through. Don’t you
wish you could lift the letters
and release them halfway
back to
the liquid state ,, , before they got connected to
the circuitry? It might be kind of
relaxing. You might be
as good of a
painter
as a cuckoo bird. A few nights ago
you dreamt you were very pregnant &
in need of a place to give birth. Your boyfriend
had left you and 2 therapists
let you live w/ them
because you resembled their daughter —
though they were suspicious. Who can blame them?
As for your nails,
find a mani-
curist, someone who knows what they are
doing. Druids never lived here,
that was Europe, but you
and the sage-
brush
are distantly related via microbial
ancestors; in spite of yourself, you are
surrounded
by family. \\|/
Sawnie Morris won the New Issues Poetry Prize for Her, Infinite, released by New Issues Press in 2016. She lives in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. This is her first appearance in Poetry.
Borrowed Bio
ANGE MLINKO
Where we’d recently lain,
exchanging a kiss,
stork consorted with crane,
limpkin with ibis.
Was this as much wedding
as there would ever be,
the fowls’ foot-webbing,
the identificatory
ring around a throat?
Exchange of earth and air:
not a vow but a vote
of confidence a feather
might tip by a single scale ...
That one’s a raconteur,
so much salt in his tale;
this one’s a countertenor,
lilting above the feast.
The archon of his hectare
— spotted — spotted least.
Here’s a little heckler ...
penciled seagull in the margin.
Following line by line
the path you took, I imagine
no print so fine.
Ange Mlinko’s newest collection of poetry, Distant Mandate, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux this year. She teaches at the University of Florida.
@PensivePost
ANGE MLINKO
Where we’d recently lain,
exchanging a kiss,
stork consorted with crane,
limpkin with ibis.
Was this as much wedding
as there would ever be,
the fowls’ foot-webbing,
the identificatory
ring around a throat?
Exchange of earth and air:
not a vow but a vote
of confidence a feather
might tip by a single scale ...
That one’s a raconteur,
so much salt in his tale;
this one’s a countertenor,
lilting above the feast.
The archon of his hectare
— spotted — spotted least.
Here’s a little heckler ...
penciled seagull in the margin.
Following line by line
the path you took, I imagine
no print so fine.
Ange Mlinko’s newest collection of poetry, Distant Mandate, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux this year. She teaches at the University of Florida.
@PensivePost