Favourite Poem?

[LaceFab4]

^ Not a Dylan fan personally, but I appreciate his lyrics...they are truly beautiful.

 

[czilla]

One of many favorites ....

Sylvia Plath- Mirror

I love how careful and technically tight her poetry is... Another good example:

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"


--- It's a little dark for my taste, but it's one of the better villanelles ever written..

 

[LaceFab4]

M.S. Monin-


Humility and endeavors,
Kissing on the pillows of eternal agony,
I split the slithering sensations of a world
That seemingly bypasses me.

Eyes oh sweet sensuality of an adorned presence,
Cast off the dwindling escapades of lovers
And breathe the emotions of tomorrows night.

A wind that sweeps the canvas of your beauty
And tempts the heavens with your song,
Dreary are the anticipations in which you prolong.

For the wings of the stars that fall with hesitation,
Your mellow methodical pose contradicts the narrow,
Corridors that entrance my mind.

The scrumptious flames that tantalize my tongue,
A delicate touch of flesh, burning with naive thoughts.
A moment of revelations...soft and sweltering,

A brooding moon that eclipses that sun,
Fall in a place of captivating ecstasy.

 

[longlegsue]

Tennesse Williams- "Lament for the Moths"

'A plague has stricken the moths, the moths are dying,
their bodies are flakes of bronze on the carpet lying.
Enemies of the delicate everywhere
have breathed a pestilent mist into the air.

Lament for the velvety moths, for the moths were lovely.
Often their tender thoughts, for they thought of me,
eased the neurotic ills that haunt the day.
Now an invisible evil takes them away.

I move through the shadowy rooms, I cannot be still,
I must find where the treacherous killer is concealed.
Feverishly I search and still they fall
as fragile as ashes broken against a wall.

Now that the plague has taken the moths away,
who will be cooler than curtains against the day,
who will come early and softly to ease my lot
as I move through the shadowy rooms with a troubled heart?

Give them, O mother of moths and mother of men,
strength to enter the heavy world again,
for delicate were the moths and badly wanted
here in a world by mammoth figures haunted!'

 

[Cosette]

e.e. cummings


you said Is

you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
(trembling ever so little)?
Looking into
your eyes Nothing,i said,except the
air of spring smelling of never and forever
.....and through the lattice which moved as
if a hand is touched by a
hand(which
moved as though
fingers touch a girl's
breast,
lightly)
Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered

 

[Tinuviel]

^ that's beautiful.

 

[PrinceOfCats]

Bob Dylan - Desolation Row

Currently keen on The Human Abstract by William Blake.

Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;

And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase;
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Caterpillar and Fly
Feed on the Mystery. And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

 

[Tinuviel]

Billy Collins -

The First Dream

The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

 

[Snow-White]

Current favourite poem that reflects your mood

for me its The Lovesong of J. Alfred prufrock - Elliot

"[size=-1]LET[/size] us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherised upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreats[size=-2] 5[/size]Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotelsAnd sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question …[size=-2] 10[/size]Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.
"

in full at http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html

whast yours ! !

 

[tangiblelove]

'One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand'
by Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
'Vain man,' said she, 'that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.'
'Not so,' quod I, 'let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name,
Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.'

...thats my favorite poem, reminds me of my boyfriend I just love the line 'To die in dust, but you shall live by fame' great line!

 

[adorefaith]

^^snow white that is one of my favorite poems........
i wrote an extensive paper on it, once upon a time....

the dance ---- william carlos williams

when the snow falls the flakes
spin upon the long axis
that concerns them mostly intimately
two and two to make a dance

the mind dances with itself,
taking you by the hand,
your lover follows
there are always two,

yourself and the other,
the point of your shoe setting the pace,
if you break away and run
the dance is over

Breathlessly you will take
another partner
better or worse who will keep
at your side, at your stops

whirls and glides until he too
leaves off
on his way down as if
there were another direction

gayer, more carefree
spinning face to face but always down
with each other secure
only in each other's arms

but only the dance is sure!
make it your own.
Who can tell
what is to come of it?

in the woods of your
own nature whatever
twig interposes, and bare twigs
have an actuality of their own

this flurry of the storm
that holds us,
plays with us and discards us
dancing, dancing as may be credible.

 

[faust]

I think I posted it before in another thread.

Talk to Strangers by Saul Williams
Now I wasn’t raised at gunpoint
and I’ve read too many books
to distract me from the mirror
when unhappy with my looks
and I ain’t got proper diction
for the makings of a thug
though I grew up in the ghetto
and my ******* all sold drugs,
and though that may validate me
for a spot on MTV
and give me all the airplay
that my bank account would need,
I was hoping to invest in
a lesson that I learned
I thought this fool had jumped me
just because it was my turn.
I went to an open space
because I knew he wouldn’t do it
if somebody there could see him
or somebody else might prove it,
and maybe in your eyes
it may seem I got punked out
because I walked in their own path
and then went and changed my route.
But that open-ness exposed me
to a truth I couldn’t find
in the clenched fists of my ego
or the confines of my mind
or the hip-ness of my swagger,
or the swagger of my step,
the scowl of my grimace,
or the mean-ness of my rap.
Because we represent a truth son,
that changes by the hour,
and when you open to it,
for nobility is power,
in that shifting form you’ll find a truth that doesn’t change
and that truth is living proof of the fact that God is strange…

Talk to strangers
when the family fails and friends led you astray
and Buddah laughs and Jesus weeps and turns out God is gay.
As angels in disguise love can come in many forms,
the hallways of your projects or the fat girl in your dorm,
and when you finally take the time to see what they’re about
perhaps you find they’re lonely or their wisdom trips you out.

Maybe you’ll find the cycles end
right back where you began,
but come this time around
you’ll have someone to hold your hand,
who prays for you who is there for you
who sends you love and light,
exposes you to parts of you
that you once tried to fight.
And come this time around
you choose to walk a different path,
you’ll embrace what you turned away
and cry at what you laughed,
because that’s the only way
we’re going to make it through this storm,
where ignorance is common sense
and senseless is the norm.
Infact we’re high above the truth
and that you never touch,
and stolen goods are overpriced
and freedom costs too much,
and no-one seems to recognise
the symbols come to life,
the bitten apple on the screen
and Jesus had a wife,
and she was his Messiah
like that stranger may be yours,
who holds a subtle knife
that carves through worlds
like magic doors,
and that’s what I’ve been looking for,
the bridge from then to now,
just watching B.E.T like what the f*ck son,
this is foul
But that’s where [Boston?] represents
this fear that we live in,
the world is not a flat screen
I ain’t trying to fit in.
But this ain’t for the underground
this here is for the sun.
A seed a stranger gave to me
and planted on my tongue.
And when I look at you,
I know I’m not the only one.
As a great man once said,
there’s nothing more powerful
than an idea
who’s time
has come.

 

[Little Star]

Rhapsody On A Windy Night - TS Elliot

T[size=-1]WELVE[/size] o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory[size=-2][/size]And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,[size=-2][/size]The street-lamp said, “Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,[size=-2][/size]And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.”

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,[size=-2][/size]Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.
"So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.[size=-2][/size]I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.[size=-2][/size]Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
“Regard the moon,[size=-2] 50[/size]La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.[size=-2][/size]A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells[size=-2][/size]That cross and cross across her brain.
”The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
“Four o’clock,[size=-2][/size]Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.[size=-2][/size]The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”

The last twist of the knife.

 

[Little Star]

Margaret Atwood - You Begin

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
this is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

 

[jennifer~]

I love all of Sara Teasdale's poems but this one is the current favorite:

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

 

[jennifer~]

My 'poem of the day' thread perhaps

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten forever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long-forgotten snow.

 

[Erin]

This is Not About Her (or, rather, Him for me)
by Tim Fairman


Some kind of explosion bounces
around my guts and brain when
we're talking and, man, do I hate you
and want you and loathe you and
desire you and taste you.
One minute your voice is ice that
quickly melts into my skin and makes
my stupid face wide and grinning and there's
nothing I can think about except the Sins
we could commit.

Then you're exposing so much
that I can't help but fall into you
like winter and I'm almost certain this
is bad for my health.

But you're naked and I'm human,
so maybe we'll be us,
at least for one night.

 

[coralmilk]

Alone With Everybody by Bukowski


the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.
there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.
nobody ever finds
the one.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.

 

[idapompida]

It doesn't make sense to put it here, since it's Danish poetry, but I'm very happy about the Danish poet Michael Strunge, almost all his stuff. I also have a cousin who's pretty talented (an upcoming star, me thinks) and I really like his stuff, too.

 

[Josephine]

my fave is from sonnets for the portugese byElizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.