Post your favorite poem (by yourself or others)

[matt2500]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti can be fun - classic Beat stuff:

See it was like this

See
It was like this when
we waltz into this place

a couple of Papish cats
is doing an Aztec two-step

And I says
Dad let's cut
but then this dame
comes up behind me see
and says
You and me could really exist

Wow I says

Only the next day
she has bad teeth
and really hates
poetry


Sometime during eternity

Sometime during eternity
some guy shows up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee

and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad

And moreover
he adds
It's all writ down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won't even find
for a coupla thousand years or so
or at least for
nineteen hundred and fortyseven
of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me
for that matter

You're hot
they tell him

And they cool him

They stretch him on the Tree to cool

And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is the king cat
who's got to blow
or they can't quite make it

Only he don't come down
from His Tree

Him just hang there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
from the usual unrealiable sources
real dead

[bellytimber]

somewhere in my top hundred...


The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.


--Philip Larkin

[Hoi Polloi]

[ QUOTE ]
It was as if the poem was speaking to something deep inside me, a part of me I wasn't aware existed.

[/ QUOTE ]

nh

[The DaveR]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a poem I wrote just now. It's not really my favorite but you might enjoy anyways:

Horatio Alger out riding a bike
looking out for little tykes.
A man of the book always protects
those who most need protecting.

It's fun to like little girls until you get old
and they put you on TV.

-Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

Awesome.

[RobertJohn]

KID SLEEPY – Hughes

Listen, Kid Sleepy,
Don't you want to run around
To the other side of the house
Where the shade is?
It's sunny here
And your skin'll turn
A reddish-purple in the sun.

Kid Sleepy said,
I don't care.

Listen Kid Sleepy,
Don't you want to get up
And go to work down-
Town somewhere
To earn enough
For lunches and care fare?

Kid Sleepy said,
I don't care.

Or would you rather,
Kid Sleepy, just
Stay here?

Rather just
Stay here.

Stars - Hughes (my favorite of his)

O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,
O, little breath of oblivion that is night.
A city building
To a mother's song.
A city dreaming
To a lullaby.
Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.
Out of the little breath of oblivion
That is night,
Take just
One star.


A Clear Midnight - Whitman

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

#739 - Dickinson

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peach was far away –
As Wrecked Men – deem they sight the Land –
At Centre of the Sea –

And struggle slacker – but to prove
As hopelessly as I –
How many the fictitious Shores –
Before the Harbor be –

#224 - Dickinson

I’ve nothing else – to bring, You know –
So I keep bringing These –
Just as the Night keeps fetching Stars
To our familiar eyes –

Maybe, we shouldn’t mind them –
Unless they didn’t come –
Then – maybe, it would puzzle us
To find our way Home –

The Portrait - Kunitz

My mother never forgave my father

for killing himself,

especially at such an awkward time

and in a public park,

that spring

when I was waiting to be born.

She locked his name

in her deepest cabinet

and would not let him out,

though I could hear him thumping.

When I came down from the attic

with the pastel portrait in my hand

of a long-lipped stranger

with a brave moustache

and deep brown level eyes,

she ripped it into shreds

without a single word

and slapped me hard.

In my sixty-fourth year

I can feel my cheek

still burning.


Some fragments from SONG OF MYSELF - Whitman

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

17
These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to
nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.

And the final lines . . .

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

[Roma Norgy]

My first real poem, and still one of my faves...

The Once Future Past

Everyone's asking the same question
But the answer seems too hard to find
I'll just watch us go through this recession
And I don't think anyone will mind

Laziness evolves into apathy
Procrastination adds to the problem
Involvement in ones own democracy
And a riot of thoughts that will mob them

Confusion now feels like normalcy
Everyone's always in a rush
War's now are only diplomacy
And the murmurs have all turned to mush

I'm standing in the middle of nothingness
In the center of what was once there
Translucency translates to filthiness
And I'm wondering why no one will care

[jbrent33]

"If" by Kipling is one of my favorite poems. When I was 12 my grandfather offered me $50 to memorize by my 13th birthday. 20 years later and I can still recite it at the drop of a hat.

Like Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zant is a songwriter that many consider a poet. I had listened to this song many times, but it was when I was learning to play it that I really got the lyrics. I highly recommend any of his recordings.

"To Live is To Fly"

Won't say I love you, babe
Won't say I need you, babe
But I'm gonna' get you, babe
And I will not do you wrong

Living's mostly wasting time
And I waste my share of mine
But it never feels too good
So let's don't take too long

Well, you're soft as glass and I'm a gentle man
We got the sky to talk about
And the world to lie upon

Days up and down they come
Like rain on a conga drum
Forget most, remember some
Oh, but don't turn none away
Everything is not enough
Nothing is too much to bear
Where you've been is good and gone
All you keep is the getting there
Well, to live's to fly awe low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings
And a sleap out of your eyes

It's goodbye to all my friends
It's time to leave again
Here's to all the poetry
And the pickin' down the line
I'll miss the system here
The bottom's low and the trebble's clear
But it don't pay to think too much
On things you leave behind
Well, I may be gone, awe, I won't be long
I'll be bringing back the melody
And the rhythm that I find

We all got holes to fill
And them holes are all that's real
Some fall on you like a storm
Sometimes you dig your own
The choice is yours to make
Time is yours to take
Some dive into the sea
Some toil upon the stone
Well, to live's to fly awe low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eye
Awe, shake the dust off of your wings
And the tears out of your eye

[bazookajoe]

The story of life is over in the wink of an eye
The story of love is hello and goodbye
until we meet again...

Jimi Hendrix


also
Ode on a Grecian Urn- Keats

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore, 35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 40

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' 50

[rory]

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

Themes on Love

Grading themes on love at M.I.T.,
one-man Symposium at 3
a.m., across the court I saw a light;
another office-holder working late.
While Plato on a silver pillow rode
above the waves of pre-sophistic prose,
I jotted teacher's notions that were not
as brave as our two lamps against the glut
of dawn. But when I clicked mine off
his too at once was gone, had been
my echo in a distant sheen
of glass; had been my own, and I
was lonely then, and wrote
these English words.

-Barry Spacks
</pre><hr />

[kitaristi0]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe not the best of poems by literary standards, but it's so haunting and gives me a chill every time I read it. Knowing that the poet was on the front lines in WWI caring for dying soldiers makes it even more so.


In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ricky Gervais gives his thoughts on this poem