Post your favorite poem (by yourself or others)

[ZJ123]

I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.



I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.



Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.



Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed--



I, too, am America.

[4_2_it]

Robert Frost
The Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

[BluffTHIS!]

IMAGES by Tyrone Green (aka this guy who gave the poem on this show.)


on de ledge
dark at nite
see de doggy
do he bite?
kill de landlord!
kill de landlord!

[Dominic]

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, I love Wordsworth

[duckman]

Its a song but he is considered a Poet
LEONARD COHEN LYRICS

"Anthem"

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

[StukOnStupid]

I suffered a horrible loss almost a year ago. I read and think of this poem often.

The Ball Poem by John Berryman


What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.

[joel2006]

here's one of my all-time faves; by Yusef Komunyakaa

My Father's Love Letters

On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams' "Polka Dots & Moonbeams"
Never made the swelling go down.
His carpenter's apron always bulged
With old nails, a claw hammer
Looped at his side & extension cords
Coiled around his feet.
Words rolled from under the pressure
Of my ballpoint: Love,
Baby, Honey, Please.
We sat in the quiet brutality
Of voltage meters & pipe threaders,
Lost between sentences . . .
The gleam of a five-pound wedge
On the concrete floor
Pulled a sunset
Through the doorway of his toolshed.
I wondered if she laughed
& held them over a gas burner.
My father could only sign
His name, but he'd look at blueprints
& say how many bricks
Formed each wall. This man,
Who stole roses & hyacinth
For his yard, would stand there
With eyes closed & fists balled,
Laboring over a simple word, almost
Redeemed by what he tried to say.

Written by Yusef Komunyakaa

[incognito]

Jack Kerouac - Chinese Poem Song
(if you search for "Warren Zevon Chinese Poem Song" on iTunes, you'll hear a version recorded by Warren Zevon for the Kerouac tribute CD Kicks, Joy, Darkness that's absolutely amazing)

Running Through - Chinese Poem Song

O I today
Sad as Chu Yuan
Stumbled to the store
In broiling Florida October
Morning heat cursing
For my wine, sweating
Like rain, & came to my chair
Weak & trembling
Wondering if I'm crazy at last
- O Chu Yuan! No!
No suicide! Wine please wine!
What shall we all do
All knowing we're dying
Without wine to guide us
To winking at death
& life too --
My heart belongs
To Chinese poets
& their scrolls
We cant just die
--Men need wine
& poetry
at least
O Mao, poet Mao,
Not Boss Mao,
Here in America
Wine is laughed at
& poetry a joke
--Death's a grim reminder
to everybody already dead
crashing in cars all around here-
Here men & women dryly scowl
At poets' sad attempts
To make our lot
Lesser-
I, a poet, suffer
Even for bugs
I find upsidedown
Dying in the grass-
So I drink wine
Alone-
I shudder to think
How dead
The astronauts
Are
Going to a dead
Moon
Of no wine
All our best men
Are laughed at
In this nightmare land
But the newspapers preen
In virtue-Throughout
The world the left & right,
The east & west, are both vicious-
The happy old winebibber is gone-
I want him to reappear-
For Modern China preens
In virtue too
For no better reason
Than America-
Nobody has respect for the cat
Asleep, and I am hopelessly
Inadequate in this poem
-Nobody has respect
for the self centered
irresponsible wine invalid
-Everybody wants to be strapped
in a hopeless space suit
where they cant move
-I urge you, China,
go back
to Li Po &
Tao Yuan Ming
What am I talking about?
I don't know,
I'm sick today-
I didn't sleep all night,
Walked stumbling in the field
To get wine, now I'm drinking it,
I feel better and worse-
I have something to say to Mao
& the poets of China
that wont come out-
It's all about how America
Ignored poetry & wine,
& so does China,
& I'm a fool
without a river & a boat
& a flower suit-
without a wineshop at dawn
-Without self respect-
-
-Without the truth-
but I'm a better man
than all of you-
that's what I
wanted to say

[LyinKing]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, I love Wordsworth

[/ QUOTE ]

Ironic, because this week I have been quoting that very Auden poem you cite above. Seems we have similar tastes.