Favourite Poem?

[cestmagique]

Probably "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. Always gets me!

 

[chickadee]

"I, Too" by Langston Hughes. And "Bright Star" by Keats, of course.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

Poem of the day

"A Mown Lawn" by Lydia Davis

She hated a mown lawn. Maybe that was because mow was the reverse of wom, the beginning of the name of what she was—a woman. A mown lawn had a sad sound to it, like a long moan. From her, a mown lawn made a long moan. Lawn had some of the letters of man, though the reverse of man would be Nam, a bad war. A raw war. Lawn also contained the letters of law. In fact, lawn was a contraction of lawman. Certainly a lawman could and did mow a lawn. Law and order could be seen as starting from lawn order, valued by so many Americans. More lawn could be made using a lawn mower. A lawn mower did make more lawn. More lawn was a contraction of more lawmen. Did more lawn in America make more lawmen in America? Did more lawn make more Nam? More mown lawn made more long moan, from her. Or a lawn mourn. So often, she said, Americans wanted more mown lawn. All of America might be one long mown lawn. A lawn not mown grows long, she said: better a long lawn. Better a long lawn and a mole. Let the lawman have the mown lawn, she said. Or the moron, the lawn moron.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

"Why Sylvia Plath Still Haunts Us"

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/why-sylvia-plath-haunts-us/309310/

Poem of the day: "The Secret"

 

[MissMagAddict]

Keeping Things Whole
By Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

 

[jgyn]

Insomnia

The moon in the bureau mirror
looks out a million miles
(and perhaps with pride, at herself,
but she never, never smiles)
far and away beyond sleep, or
perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,
she'd tell it to go to hell,
and she'd find a body of water,
or a mirror, on which to dwell.
So wrap up care in a cobweb
and drop it down the well

into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.

-Elizabeth Bishop

 

[SussyBela]

"I wish you" by Victor Hugo

First of all, I wish you love, and that by loving you may also be loved. But if it’s not like that, be brief in forgetting And after you’ve forgotten, don’t keep anything. I wish that wouldn’t happen, but if it does and you forget, you could be a person without desperation.

I also wish you may have a lot of friends, And even if they are bad and inconsequent, They should be brave and true And, at least one of them, should be completely reliable.

But because life is the way it is, I also wish you may have enemies. Not many or too little, just in the right number So that you will have to question your own certainties and truths as well. And may there be among them at least one who is just and fair, So that you can never feel too secure in your ideas.

I wish you may be useful but not irreplaceable And in your bad moments, When you have nothing else, That sense of usefulness will keep you on your feet.

So equally, I wish you to be tolerant, Not with those that make little mistakes, because that is easy, but with those that make a lot of mistakes and can’t help it. And make good use of this tolerance to set an example to others.

I wish that, being young, you don’t mature too quickly And once you’re mature, don’t insist in getting younger. And when you’re old, don’t feel despaired Because each age has its pains and pleasures And we need them both in our lives.

By the way, I wish you to be sad at least one day So on that day you may discover That to laugh everyday is good, To laugh often is boring And to laugh constantly is an illness.

I wish that you may discover With maximum urgency That, above and in spite of everything, There are people around you who are depressed, Unhappy and unjustly treated.

I wish you to caress a dog, To feed a bird and to listen to its chirp as well As it sings triumphantly early in the morning. Because this way you will feel good for no reason.

And then I wish you may sow a seed Even if it is really small. And may you accompany it in its growth. So that you will discover how many lives a tree is made of.

I wish as well that you may have money, because we need to be practical. And that, at least once a year, You put some of this money in front of you and say “This is mine”. So it is very clear who owns who.

Also, I wish none of your loved ones may die, But if some of them do, I wish you may cry without regret and without feeling guilty for the things you never said or the things you never did.

Finally, I wish for you that being a man, you may have a good woman and being a woman, you may have a good man. Tomorrow and the day after.

If all these things would happen to you, Then I wish for you nothing more.

 

[Andrea.RL]

thanks you guys for sharing all of these, I've fallen in love with a few that were posted here, I find myself reading them at least once a day ' : If by rudyard kipling and Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone by W.H. Auden.

I also really appreciated some of the members original writings. I only write when I'm feeling something intense (likewise for drawing) I don't think I always get poetry (in the sense that I always like it), but when well written, the rhythm and the rimes really brings something to the message and has more of an impact (at least on me) Anyway, thread subscribed :-))

 

[Not Plain Jane]

Sylvia Plath has a new audio book of readings.

You can find out more about it here, as well as hear her read her poem "Tulips"

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/09/sylvia-plath-spoken-word-tulips-bbc/

 

[rox_yr_sox]

A Dirge
By Christina Rossetti

Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples’ dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.

 

[Bittersugar]

Saddest Poem by Pablo Neruda

 

[KoV]

This is a pretty generic choice, but I remember this Emily Dickinson poem made me cry the first time I read it (9th grade? lol...memories)




I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -

 

[Not Plain Jane]

bump!

In celebration of the month, and a poem for the day...


Poppies In July ~ Sylvia Plath

Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

 

[MissMagAddict]

HAPPENS TO THE HEART

I was always working steady
But I never called it art
I was funding my depression
Meeting Jesus reading Marx
Sure it failed my little fire
But it's bright the dying spark
Go tell the young messiah
What happens to the heart

There’s a mist of summer kisses
Where I tried to double-park
The rivalry was vicious
And the women were in charge
It was nothing, it was business
But it left an ugly mark
So I’ve come here to revisit
What happens to the heart

I was selling holy trinkets
I was dressing kind of sharp
Had a p*ssy in the kitchen
And a panther in the yard
In the prison of the gifted
I was friendly with the guard
So I never had to witness
What happens to the heart

I should have seen it coming
You could say I wrote the chart
Just to look at her was trouble
It was trouble from the start
Sure we played a stunning couple
But I never liked the part
It ain’t pretty, it ain’t subtle
What happens to the heart

Now the angel’s got a fiddle
And the devil’s got a harp
Every soul is like a minnow
Every mind is like a shark
I've opened every window
But the house, the house is dark
Just say Uncle, then it's simple
What happens to the heart

I was always working steady
But I never called it art
The slaves were there already
The singers chained and charred
Now the arc of justice bending
And the injured soon to march
I lost my job defending
What happens to the heart

I studied with this beggar
He was filthy he was scarred
By the claws of many women
He had failed to disregard
No fable here no lesson
No singing meadow lark
Just a filthy beggar blessing
What happens to the heart

I was always working steady
But I never called it art
I could lift, but nothing heavy
Almost lost my union card
I was handy with a rifle
My father's 303
We fought for something final
Not the right to disagree

Sure it failed my little fire
But it's bright the dying spark
Go tell the young messiah
What happens to the heart

June 24, 2016
Leonard Cohen