Take a stab at it?

River

Active member
I'm going to post a challenging -- to say the least -- poem. Then you can take a stab at making sense of it -- if you want. Just for fun.

And then someone else can post something -- a poem or a riddle -- for us to take a stab at. And on it may go. Got it? Good.
 
Okay, our first item...

flotsam and jetsam

flotsam and jetsam
are gentlemen poeds
urseappeal netsam
our spinsters and coeds)

thoroughly bretish
they scout the inhuman
itarian fetish
that man isn't wuman

vive the millenni
um three cheers for labor
give all things to enni
one bugger thy nabor

(neck and senecktie
are gentlemen ppoyds
even whose recktie
are covered by lloyd's


- e.e. cummings
 
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Okay, so... Huh?
 
I cannot make sense of it.
 
Here's an Easier One

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love --
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me --
Yes! -- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we --
Of many far wiser than we --
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -- my darling -- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.


-- Edgar Allan Poe
 
I cannot make sense of it.

Nor I. And I searched the web to see if anyone out there has offered any useful help, but I didn't find any.

It is easy enough to look up some of the less familiar words, such as flotsam and jetsam. But other words don't seem to be in any dictionaries. And, otherwise, this cummings poem's meaning seems about impossible to crack.

The Edgar Alan Poe poem you posted seems straightforward enough. There appear to be no riddles or hidden things in it. Right?
 
Annabel lee has been a favorite of mine since I learned it in school. I think the cadence must fit some pattern in my brain.

I guess the only thing to figure out is which real woman, if any, Poe had in mind when writing it.

As to the E.E. Cummings poem, I read that he liked, at times, to be humorous, idiosyncratic, and/or enigmatic so it might be the poem cannot be understood. I think it could be making fun of someone he knew.

Could be the stanza "vive the millenium" is a dig at someone's belief in Russian communism ("give all things to enni one bugger thy nabor")?

Perhaps he is implying the two poets are gay, thus the joke about "recktie insured by Lloyd's" with recti meant to be the plural of rectum?


Leetah
 
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Nor I. And I searched the web to see if anyone out there has offered any useful help, but I didn't find any.

It is easy enough to look up some of the less familiar words, such as flotsam and jetsam. But other words don't seem to be in any dictionaries. And, otherwise, this cummings poem's meaning seems about impossible to crack.

The Edgar Alan Poe poem you posted seems straightforward enough. There appear to be no riddles or hidden things in it. Right?

Think phonetically. Great play on words. This poem is sort of a 1930's diss track. I forget the two poets he is referring to, but he starts out by calling them trash.. lol
 
Thanks for posting the ee cummings, although I'm a fan I hadn't stopped to unpack this one before.

Damn he's not holding back.

Not much to interpret here (but I like it):

Jealousy

I put out my hand and plucked a rose,
A red satin rose with a velvet scent,
And chaliced its loveliness in reverent palms,
Knowing that it was perfect.

Then, because I could not make the rose,
And because I could not paint the rose,
Nor carve it, nor mould it,
Nor even draw its beauty in my words,
I slowly closed my fingers over it
And crushed it.

Ruth Ellison
 
Poets or songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Marc Bolan often wrote songs that were more about the sounds of the words, than their meaning. Bolan once said, if the song is good, people will sing along no matter the meaning of the words.

One Inch Rock

Met a woman she's spouting prose
She's got luggage eyes and a roman nose
Her body is slung from side to side
Need a lift she said much obliged
I'm riding piggy-back
Then I came to her shack
We go inside the place it's a mess
She said my name's the liquid poetess
She unties her mouth
And her buckskin dress
She drinks from a bottle
Labelled tenderness
I'm in one hand in the other's a can
She puts me in the can
And smiles through the wall
I got the horror's cos I'm one inch tall
Next thing I know's a girl by my side
Dressed in a bayleaf she's trying to hide
I asked her name she said Germaine
Do the rock do the one inch rock.

-Marc Bolan (RIP)
 
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
See how they fly
I'm crying
Sitting on a corn flake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you've been a naughty boy
You let your face grow long
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob
Mr. City policeman sitting
Pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I'm crying
I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
You let your knickers down
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob
Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan
From standing in the English rain
I am the egg man (How do you do sir?)
They are the egg men (The man maintains a fortune)
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob
Expert, texpert choking smokers
Don't you think the joker laughs at you (Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, hah hah hah)
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide
I'm crying
Semolina Pilchard
Climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob
Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob, goo goo

-John Lennon (RIP)
 
Gates of Eden


Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when 'neath the trees of Eden
The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail
Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden
The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who's gone deaf
But still remains
Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden
With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side saddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden
Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden
The motorcycle black Madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden
The kingdoms of experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what's real and what is not
It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden
The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden
At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what's true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden

-Bob Dylan
 
Think phonetically. Great play on words. This poem is sort of a 1930's diss track. I forget the two poets he is referring to, but he starts out by calling them trash.. lol

Snooping around on the web I was able to learn that the poem was about a couple of poets of his time. Audin was one, if I remember right. The other I completely forgot -- mainly because I didn't even know him by his name. And I got it that there was some word play which involves phonoetics / sound. But no amount of sleuthing or reading helped me to understand that cummings poem as a whole. I decided I had given it enough effort and quit. (By the way, I don't capitalize cummings name because he didn't.)

Madlyn -

All I get from the John Lennon lyrics you posted is that it was probably about an acid (LSD) trip involving a lot of hallucinations. I don't think it's meant to make a lot of coherent sense. But it is fun to listen to!
 
If it was WH Auden, then Christopher Isherwood seems the likely candidate for the other one.
 
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