To be honest, I haven't checked those albums myself that well yet, I only saw a live performance in (I believe) 2005. Very intriguing. Atmospheric, rhythmic, enchanting music. But my wife has heard most of their albums. They are quite different. The first is more gothic / new wave. The ones that followed were influenced by music from various world parts but also contain ambient, more atmospheric songs. Within the Realm of a Dying Sun is a very famous album, considered by many a masterpiece. Definitely worth checking, especially the songs with Lisa on vocals, the second half of the album. Spiritchaser has more African influences (cool rhythms). What's also nice is that, in one and the same song, both singers interact, which was a novelty, because before that it was one singer per song. This album contains two of their best songs, namely "Nierika" & "Indus". The Serpent's Egg (more sombre) & Aion (more medieval atmosphere) are also strong albums. But remember, Dead Can Dance is at least as much Brendan Perry's band (who also sings) as Gerard's. So if you mainly go for Gerard's voice it might be better to check out her own discography. Her first album (The Mirror Pool) would be the best recommendation. It is orchestral, has classical influences, but is also very sombre. It contains Gerard's probably most famous song "Sanvean: I am your shadow". That is pretty different stuff indeed!
William Blake's : For Children, The Gates Of Paradise http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake ... 01&java=no I was incredibly touched by this one, the night I've first read it, in November 1994 Without the images it's not the same thus I posted this link
Thanks Foro for the recommendations re: Gerrard and dead can dance. I think I will check it out, although I'm immersed in Maiden so much now I haven't been listening to much else. Yes, that poet is completely different. I thought that some of his work is like a ghazal, and other parts of his work more like a conversation dreaming. Ah, William Blake. I love William Blake. I haven't read his stuff in ages, thanks Quetz, for reminding me of him.
Hello everyone, This is my first post ever here I registered only to thank you for the beautiful poetry you share. I'm a poetry addict myself and I write too. You guys should close the forum for your own safety and copyrights because this is amazing! I don't know if you know the poet Louis MacNeice, but he's definitely one of my favorite poets. I would like to share my all-time favorite poem for him and in my history of poetry reading, I've never read a poem that much. "Prayer before Birth" I am not yet born; O hear me. Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me. I am not yet born, console me. I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me. I am not yet born; provide me With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me. I am not yet born; forgive me For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me. I am not yet born; rehearse me In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me. I am not yet born; O hear me, Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me. I am not yet born; O fill me With strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me. Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me. Otherwise kill me.
ISRAFEL, by POE In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute"; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamored moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven,) Pauses in Heaven. And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings. But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty- Where Love's a grown-up God- Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star. Therefore thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long! The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit- Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute- Well may the stars be mute! Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely–flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.
This is my first formal foray into poetry. I hope it is at least unique. Auburn is mainly coincidental. Cerity Insighed A burning as if blushing slipping Unheeded between my flesh and blood, Burns fleeting between every sensation. Untimely insight blinding my judgement, Reality pries its way into my eyes. No pain beyond burning alights to mind. New ecstasies of discovery emerge through Windows lightly fog-blessed. Ice floes lightly weave the meshed Sunderings of my mind embodied In my body with the slightest touch. Eyes ask for floor and favor out of desperation, Knowing that they have but this moment to Snare my mind in its throne. Masterful strokes of masturbatory brush Paint Apollo and Dionysus in their perfect harmony. The first and former takes his cue to dance in the light Which his companion casts. Enantiodromic euphoria soars out of the blackest depths Of the Sun's heart; O contrast! Counterpoint to the point of absolute purity Spins the bind while his companion casts himself in the light. Color, splendid color, blushes out of the scene. Silence takes the harmony as its own, Relentless rhythms striking out against What monarchy had ensnared it. The wild menagerie swells to and fro, And if they themselves do not know it, They dance the most lush of the rebalancing acts to perfection. O, if only I might know that they know it! The pairs humble themselves and give no credit To their performance. They merely take joy in the spontaneity of their Bursts about the scene, tantalizing and stimulating beyond measure. The eyes suspend their trapping and Allow me to return to my awareness of That gentle fire which had so serenely lay Dormant. The floes too flow among the teasing and Fleeting flames which again seduce me Into their elemental instants. Break your spell, sprites! I have been prepared by The sage teachers Balance and Moment. The infinitesimal experience Now yields its milk in my naissance. Sincerity gasps, awed by herself.
Some of the poems I like: Alone And Drinking Under The Moon, by Li Bai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Po) Amongst the flowers I am alone with my pot of wine drinking by myself; then lifting my cup I asked the moon to drink with me, its reflection and mine in the wine cup, just the three of us; then I sigh for the moon cannot drink, and my shadow goes emptily along with me never saying a word; with no other friends here, I can but use these two for company; in the time of happiness, I too must be happy with all around me; I sit and sing and it is as if the moon accompanies me; then if I dance, it is my shadow that dances along with me; while still not drunk, I am glad to make the moon and my shadow into friends, but then when I have drunk too much, we all part; yet these are friends I can always count on these who have no emotion whatsoever; I hope that one day we three will meet again, deep in the Milky Way. A Tree, by Kostas Karyotakis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostas_Karyotakis) With calm, indifferent brow I'll greet the afternoons, the dawns. A tree, I'll stand and gaze at both the tempest and the azure sky. I'll say that life's the coffin in which people's joy and sorrow die. A Song Of Despair, by Pablo Neruda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda) The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars and the flights accumulated. From you the wings of the song birds rose. You swallowed everything, like distance. Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank! In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on. Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. There was the black solitude of the islands, and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms! How terrible and brief my desire was to you! How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid. Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired. And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. And the word scarcely begun on the lips. This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! From billow to billow you still called and sang. Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel. You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank! It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. Deserted like the wharves at dawn. Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
Thanks to Treehouse of Horrors, I looked up "The Raven". I don't understand some words, and the grammer makes my head spin, but it IS pretty powerful. Gets a very clear atmosphere through.