I think that this is an interesting thing.

If it is too long, the title with author will suffice. I will post my choice in some days.

Cheers.

This is a strange choice, but...the lyrics to Flow My Tears, by John Dowland. Combined with the music, the effect is darkly ravishing....

Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.

Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.

Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.

Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Here's my favorite performance on the net: [www.youtube.com] (excellent female vocalist, imo)

I'm also the Poetry Editor of a zine on the net. Some of my own stuff can be seen there, along with other selections by amateur dark poets. While it is of varying style and quality, there are some definite gems in there, all free for anyone to read....

[www.darkriverpress.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 30 Mar 12 | 05:14PM by K_A_Opperman.

Well I read your "Decapitated Kiss", and it was well executed ((no) pun). It was creative with nice rhymes, images and flow.


I like the message in the lyrics you posted.

Another lyrical poem I like is this:



"THE DARK HOUR"

by W.H. Davies


"And now, when merry winds do blow,
And rain makes trees look fresh,
An overpowering staleness holds
This mortal flesh.

Though well I love to feel the rain,
And be by winds well blown --
The mystery of mortal life
Doth press me down.

And, In this mood, come now what will,
Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call;
There is no thing in Heaven or Earth
Can lift my soul.

I know not where this state comes from --
No cause for grief I know;
The Earth around is fresh and green,
Flowers near me grow.

I sit between two fair rose trees;
Red roses on my right,
And on my left side roses are
A lovely white.

The little birds are full of joy,
Lambs bleating all the day;
The colt runs after the old mare,
And children play.

And still there comes this dark, dark hour --
Which is not borne of Care;
Into my heart it creeps before
I am aware."

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 30 Mar 12 | 09:46PM by MesMorial.

I quite like it, and thank you for the compliment :) That's actually a personal favorite of mine--probably top 5. I was in the zone that day ;) (unfortunately I haven't been able to find my way back into it lately...)

Well if you write any dark poetry of your own, you're welcome to try your luck and submit some ;)

[www.darkriverpress.com]

Additional poetry guidelines at the bottom.

1. Lord Byron, "Darkness"


2. Thomas Lovell Beddoes, "The Phantom Wooer"

Lovely choice there.

All that have been mentioned are fine - oddly enough my favorite dark "poem" is really a Negro mother's Lament, that became a "spiritual" in the early 1800's - I will have to look in my archives for the whole thing, but the first line as I recall is this:

Hark on the winds
A voice of woe,
The wild Atlantic in its flow,
Bears on its breast a murmur low,
"my child is gone"

if you would like the rest, ask, and I shall go the archaeology thing with my archives and find it - I hope - I still remember its affect the first time I heard and sang it - deep, deep inconsolable sorrow - even now I remember 34 years ago when my youngest was 2 and drowned, and but for nothing short of a miracle would have died. Loss of a child is surely the darkest moment the human soul can know.

I would agree with that sentiment, in the main. I think the only thing which might surpass it is the knowledge that one is losing one's sanity, or the experience of feeling one's identity disintegrating: being aware, but unable to avert. A completely different kind of "dark", but each shakes one to the foundations of one's being, and nothing can ever be the same again.

And while I do not wish to add any unwelcome labor... I would very much like, at some point, to see (and hear) the rest of this lament....

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would agree with that sentiment, in the main. I
> think the only thing which might surpass it is the
> knowledge that one is losing one's sanity, or the
> experience of feeling one's identity
> disintegrating: being aware, but unable to avert.
> A completely different kind of "dark", but each
> shakes one to the foundations of one's being, and
> nothing can ever be the same again.
>
> And while I do not wish to add any unwelcome
> labor... I would very much like, at some point, to
> see (and hear) the rest of this lament....

Maybe just google a piece of it.

Here it is (although, of course, there likely are variants).

My thanks to you both.

that is it - the music was arranged as a lead in first by a strong contralto, then each verse added another voice - ist Alto, 2d soprano, first soprano, second tenor, first tenor, baritone, and then bass - the result of this arrangement of essentially an 8 part chorale was simply overwhelming.

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would agree with that sentiment, in the main. I
> think the only thing which might surpass it is the
> knowledge that one is losing one's sanity, or the
> experience of feeling one's identity
> disintegrating: being aware, but unable to avert.
> A completely different kind of "dark", but each
> shakes one to the foundations of one's being, and
> nothing can ever be the same again.
>
> And while I do not wish to add any unwelcome
> labor... I would very much like, at some point, to
> see (and hear) the rest of this lament....

There is another kind of darkness, possibly similar to the "darkness of the soul" that is insanity (or creeping Alzheimers which in Hospice work we see all the time), and that is a grief that derives from a loss one is powerless to interdict or retrieve - I am remembering the Viet Nam Era when my wife and I were members of a National Org. called "the committee of Responsibility" - a group medical people and concerned citizens who were motivated by the damage being done to children in that conflict - the group was kick-started by a magazine cover, which I still have, of a child whose face had been "melted" by Napalm on its cover - My wife and I were the sponsors of the first three children brought over for Plastic Surgery to Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco - the kids got their picture in US News and World Report - after extensive reconstructive surgery a 14 year old name Nguyen van Ba, came to live with us as we were near the city for check-ups and had the space - we had him for two years, enrolled in school - wonderful, intelligent, good kid - however, the red-tape boys in Viet Nam had made the condition of their sending the kids over, that they be sent back - the day we had to put him on the plane to Viet Nam at Travis Air Force Base, and their was nothing we could have done except run away with him and hide - I learned the meaning of the verb "To Wail" - a soundless scream that comes from the deepest place where grief may be found -

While I have not lost a child in that sense, I have seen a child whom I still love dearly become completely alienated, and that loss is going to be with me permanently. I have also known someone who went through what I described above, and the look in that person's eyes when they felt their sanity slipping still, more than 25 years later, sends a sharp knife-like chill through me. Though not meaning to be too personal, I also suffered a near-complete collapse myself back in my late teens, and while it was not to the point this person experienced, none of these is a kind of darkness I wish to experience or see again.

In any event, I can entirely empathize with what you describe; and I would agree that it is pain so deep that it could be said to have no bottom. And the description of wail hits it on the head precisely.

Not to hijack the thread, but the turn this topic has taken calls to mind CAS's own breakdown during his youth, about which little seems to be known--to the general public, at least.

It also reminds me of the observation in Grady M. Towers' excellent article "The Outsiders"--an article in which many here will recognize themselves, I suspect--that high verbal intelligence unfortunately also seems to correlate with emotional maladjustment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17 Apr 12 | 05:16PM by Absquatch.