#e.c. poems

[e-c-poetry]

healing feels too much like breaking

I don’t want to face it anymore

at least when I pretend it’s okay

it feels like nothing

e.c.

[dabiconcordia]

November

I would forget so many things; The moaning wind, and rain, Uncanny sounds of ghostly hands At door and window pane.I would forget the perished leaves And grass, dismantled trees— Old loves and hopes, the youth of me That passed away with these.But when I see November come, How shall I then forget; The other years return with her— Remembrance and regret. by E. C.

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week

Louey Chisholm compiled over 200 poems and an additional twenty cradle verses into The Golden Staircase Poems for Children. Chisholm’s goal when creating this book was to inspire children to not only enjoy poetry, but to pass it onto future generations, and wanted every school to have it on their shelves.

The first American edition was published in 1906. This edition published a year later features eight illustrations by English artist Minnie Dibdin Spooner which were printed by Stoddart and Malcolm in Edinburgh. The book itself was published in New York by G. P. Puntam’s Sons and in Edinburgh by T.C. and E.C. Jack. 

I was drawn initially to the book because of its dark blue cloth cover, gold-stamped on all sides with ornate Art Nouveau floral designs, which I saw almost everyday as I walked by. When I finally pulled it off the shelf, I was equally struck by Spooner’s colorful and playful illustrations and just had to share. The book forms part of our Historical Curriculum Collection and was a gift from our friends Megan Holbrook and Eric Vogel.

View more Staff Picks.

-- Sarah W., Special Collections Undergraduate Intern

[vampirecrew]

In The Winter

I’ll look for sound of rain

I’ll listen for the clouds

As I Softly drain away

//

Your cold feet placed

So gently to help sooth

The soft rain sounds

Not quite in time

//

I miss the coffees in

The chill in the morning air

While you struggle to light

A cigarette, completely unaware

How speechless I am by you

//

But

//

Like fog in the morning

Your memory lingers

The smell of your hair

Still on my fingers

From the last dawn

With you in my arms

Never to repeat

//

A.C

[eydisbitch]

A “poem” with no name that’s about my “mom”

I’ve got a sore on the top of my head that I can’t stop picking/

Even though it hurts knowing it’s there only makes my curiosity worse/

The nagging of wondering if it will fade

The cringing when it still remains the next day. /

I’ve got a feeling in my chest that appears from time to time/

It doesn’t hold appointments and just visits whenever it likes./

This feeling looms in the shadows and boils in my blood

Applying a heavy pressure to slowly unload./

I’ve got a sore on the top of my head that I can’t stop picking/

Itching for a resolution to the feeling I long to forget./

This sore only comes around when you make clouds grey

And maybe that’s why we’ve been pushing eachother away. /

-E.C

[erikaelisapoetry]

Paper Roses

It came upon us in flashes.

The mystery of something starting so

suddenly,

so perfectly.

This feeling of contagion. Your love

swept through me.

First, gently

then all at once.

Moments of quiet disbelief and hesitant surrender.

And now the songs have their meaning and the poems have been fulfilled.

Love me sweetly,

Love me dearly on this bed of paper roses.

-e.c.

[wildfl0werssslr]

can we just sit next to each other and stay silent but understand everything?

[musingsofadrunkensailor]

beautiful thorns

Almost like gravity, something pulls me to them. Not the flowers, the petals, no. The thorns, I'm drawn to them. So small, intimate, a reminder in blood that one is alive with a heart that beats, feels, remembers.

Perhaps that's why I love so dearly that which brings about pain.

[lachryprose]

Beyond expectance, you came to me

Clad in utter complexity

How could I get inside that heart of yours?

//

But this, I’m sure of

I want to undress your sophistication

//

Let me see which one is true

In your table of convictions

For yours is a veil 

I could not pierce through

//

Oh yes you are

An enigma I could not translate into words

But one I wish to unravel

In gradual worship

27

July 12th, 2018 // 5:55 PM

[e-c-poetry]

being in love with you

was never what I planned to be

but here I am

and I’m starting to realize that I cannot escape

no matter how hard I try

my heart is yours

e.c.

[heavenlyyshecomes]

hi sarahhh do u know any quotes or poems that talk abt pining / yearning / unrequited love ???????

“I have the delusion / that you are with me / as I walk through the fields / of flower, under the moon”

—Yosano Akiko, Women Poets of Japan tr. Ikuko Atsumi & Kenneth Rexroth

“...I love you. I wish we were real.”

— Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait in Letters

oh lover - E.C. - 2020

“The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.”

— Mikko Harvey, from “For M,” Foundry (no. 9, September 2018)

Herakles, Euripides (trans. Anne Carson) 

Echo, Christina Rossetti (both via aridante)

The only time I see you these days / Is in my projections / I need to feel your pulse baby / And I'm holding onto / This unclear connection..

— Rina Sawayama, Where U Are (literally one of my favs <3)

Anaïs Nin

“I don’t know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals.”

— Salvador Plascencia, from The People of Paper (McSweeney’s, 2005)

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

Emily Palermo (last two via metamorphesque)

[100yearoldcomics]

February 2, 1922 Thimble Theater by E.C. Segar: "The Delayed Poem"

[ID: Olive Oyl stands around the house, admiring a bee buzzing about the room. Her cat stands on a footstool in an attempt to catch it. /end] Olive: A bumblebee in the house, and in winter, too! It gives me an inspiration. I'll write a poem about it.

[ID: Olive sits on a stool with pencil and paper and begins writing while watching the bee. /end] Olive: Oh bumblebee, sweet bumblebee.

Olive: You are the nicest little bug.

Olive: Oh, beautiful, wonderful bumblebee.

[ID: The bumblebee ZIPs up to Olive' face and stings her on the end of her nose. /end]

[ID: As the bee flies off, Olive rips up her papers. /end] Olive: Rubbish!

[vampirecrew]

Unsent Messages

I’m sorry for the pain I caused

I can’t change the mistakes

But I can spend every hour

Putting back the pieces misplaced

The tears that traced the outline of

Your face saved,

not to waste

Building your heart back like

A puzzle piece

Starting with the edges

Building in with gentle fingers

Not to break the imagine

I’ve loved you more with every day

With every scar here to stay

I’ll be here. You’ll be there

No where near where we should be

I don’t know how

To say this to you

I don’t know how to not be true

To who I am or what I feel

If you ever see this please

Remember

I love you.

In every universe

A.C

[midweekblues]

Names, Violence and Empire: a The Terror/Black Sails Rant

Ok I've been thinking of writing something coherent on this for ages, but I've given up on coherence and I'm just gonna rant about this because I found myself with extra time off and i need to get it out. Please feel free to chime in, I got so many Feelings. I’m putting this under a cut because it’s both rambly and spoilery AF.

Part 1: A tale of two Jameses

We are introduced to James Fitzjames (or rather, he introduces himself) as a war hero during the officer's dinner on Terror. He tells the story of being wounded during the Opium War, which earns him sympathetic looks, even a comparison to Lord Nelson, but also nonchalantly states that, as enemy soldiers burned, "the whole view smelled like roast duck", a jest received with polite, amused laughs. Both the wound and the smell of burning meat will come back to haunt him episodes later; for now, his narrative is that of the Imperial hero, who excels at violence sanctioned by the Empire. He's climbed the ranks through military prowess, but also, as we'll see later, through political luck, through his social connections and his ability to navigate the rigid Victorian society. Yet he believes himself a fake because of the circumstances of his birth: He's very much embedded in the morals and prejudices of the Empire (I'm not even fully English), and it's only after years in a space devoid of Empire, only after leaving the ships behind, after the Navy hierarchy has already started to disintegrate under his feet (Blanky's telling of Fury Beach was, indeed, a warning) that he allows himself to open up about it; and he opens up to Crozier (!) in a scene so full of vulnerability that it set HMS Fitzier to sail for a whole bunch of us. He introduces himself again, now as a man whose name was made up for his baptism, building himself a gilded life (I don't know much about the historical JFJ, but this post and the linked article bring up some interesting points) where war and imperialism are sources of anechdotes and glory.

The one character he chooses to disclose his origins to, Crozier, quite clearly dislikes him through the first few episodes; he does not seem to object to his violence though, but to how pompous he is about it, and how it seems to buy James credit and lift him up in the hierarchy. During the dinner scene, his retort about Birdshit Island seems to aim at demystifying his narrative, not discrediting his worth as a soldier; he will later call his feats acts of valor, reassure him he's not a fraud. In confessing It's all vanity, James becomes more real to Francis; at the revelation of his parentage, one can't help but think that Francis (Irish, middle-bred Francis) feels closer to him. Crozier is just as much a part of the Empire as Fitzjames, no matter how much he seems to disdain or resent it. But more on that later.

150 years earlier, Lieutenant James McGraw comes from a humble family and he's a rising star in the Royal Navy when he meets the Hamiltons; he's also an Imperial hero, no stranger to violence, very much concerned with propriety and rank but also indifferent to the brutality of the system he's part of. He views pirates as criminals, their violence as savage and opposed to civilization; he is utterly confused as to why or how would Thomas Hamilton try to solve the issue with pardons instead of sheer force. The glimpses we see of McGraw, of Flint's past, show us a man who's no stranger to violence as a way to achieve an end; it’s only that the man before Nassau, before the Hamiltons, seems happy enough with enforcing violence in the name of the very same England he will later despise; but only after England rejects him, strips him of his rank and takes his love from him. As we discover this, throughout the seasons, we see that James McGraw is at the very root of Captain Flint: his comfort with using violence to uphold the Empire is the very same he will show to try and tear that Empire down. He will don the mask of Captain Flint, the monster, after England calls him a monster, but the man he was before was no stranger to violence either.

The one person in Nassau that knows (knew?) James McGraw, Miranda Barrow, starts as an even more enigmatic character than him. As their backstories are revealed, we are forced to understand her longing for the Empire, for civilization. Not just the material comforts she enjoyed, but a sense of freedom, of safety, that she'll never find in the island. We see her living a recluse life, away from the vibrant but dangerous Nassau, alone but for the visits of a man she seems to both love and resent (and sometimes fear?). She seems the only one to see past through Flint's cries of Freedom, to see the anarchy of a Pirate Republic ends in the same amount of violence, or more, as England's rule. She is the last thread tethering him to the man he was before, to the man he loved before, and she almost, almost succeeds in finishing what the man she loved started. Almost.

Is it her death that finally brings Flint over the edge? Or is it the fact that she dies right after showing, for the first time, the extent of her pain and her rage? It is indeed her last words that get Charles Town burned to the ground, and as viewers we can't help but somehow thank her. We know Flint is a violent, manipulative bastard by now, but the catharsis of the season finale makes him transcend the pirate archetype, his rage now Achillean: we're left with a man that simply said I will wage war on the Empire that took you from me, and then did it, twice.

James Fitzjames will die a hero in the Arctic. Past the end of vanity, we'll see him fire rockets at a monster, we'll see friendship, brotherhood, and then him succumbing to the very wound he suffered, originally, while fighting England's wars. It is tempting to only remember the last words Bridgens says to him: There will be poems. But the bit before that is just as moving. You're a good man. Here where there's no Empire, no glory, no praise, a good man (a steward, a kind man, an intelligent man, a man who loves another) thinks you're good, James. Not even talking about Francis here because, There will be Fix-Its.

And James McGraw? We're led to think he'll live. That he'll get rid of Flint, like a snake molds its old skin, and live. But then again, as the show approaches its end, the narrative belongs less and less to him, and more and more to Silver, in more senses than one. And that deserves its own damn post because this one is getting long enough. Stay tuned for E.C., Long John Silver, and more Flint. And more Crozier. 

[countlessstarsembracedtrees]

Poem//• Saved By Grace, Heavenly, Heavenly

Covered in feathers and silky white

The sun is rising with its rays strong and bright

She was blessed by grace,cut deeply in her heart

Consumed by radiating pale oranges

Connecting the sun kisses on his skin

I wonder if I sinned

Against the roaring city

A twisted cruel world

Losing faith

Losing state of mind

Wondering if there’s a soul left in this town who knows how to be kind

I look up from my covered brow

This expression of desire and intrigue

Is this real or faux?

Staring in the distance not sure where to go

Shall I hide

Should I explore

Those deep brown eyes I can’t ignore

Vivid memories in the rain

I’m standing at the lookout point absorbed the oceans rough currents

A glimmer of fascination

The war in my mind is verging on assassination

Am I loosing touch with reality

Is it destiny or fate

Is it the start of something

Something big, bold and beautiful

A blooming rose bud about to come to life

Days have past and the time was right

Has all the planets and stars aligned

This could save my piece of mind

With courage and determination

The surprise to my realisations

He gifted me a token of his love

Here we are blessed from a dove

Heavenly, Heavenly

I’ve found my faith

Thank my lucky stars

I was saved by grace...

By E.C

[wildfl0werssslr]

I'm a book, if you want to open and read me. But I'm particularly a literature book, a novel or a poetry book. You will understand me, if you read me and try to understand the metaphors or symbols in my words. Many have given up to know me. Some are confused when they try to understand me. Some only judge me from the cover. Can you decode me?

— e.c.