Metered Monday

I told you my taste in poetry was mainstream. But there's a reason why a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay is conventional. (I discovered her in tenth grade. Unfortunately, a friend beat me and got Millay for her project subject. I had to choose a different poet.)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Metered Monday

This is my way of avoiding writing more content. Every Monday, at least through December, I'm going to share one of my favorite poems. If I think commentary is necessary, I'll include it. It probably won't be as my taste in poetry is fairly mainstream.

For this first one, I suppose I ought to warn for language. I think most of ya'll have probably heard the word before.

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

--Philip Larkin

(And Blogger won't show the formatting. Yay. Anyone know how to fix that?)