Favourite Poem?

[Multitudes]

How To Become A Great Writer by Charles Bukowski(From "Love Is A Dog From Hell" 1974-77)

"you've got to f*ck a great many women
beautiful women
and write a few decent love poems.

and don't worry about age
and/or freshly-arrived talents.

just drink more beer
more and more beer

and attend the racetrack at least once a
week

and win
if possible.

learning to win is hard-
any slob can be a good loser.

and don't forget your Brahms
and your Bach and your
beer.

don't overexcercise.

sleep until noon.

avoid credit cards
or paying for anything on
time.

remember that there isn't a piece of ***
in this world worth more than $50
(in 1977).

and if you have the ability to love
love yourself first
but always be aware of the possibility of
total defeat

whether the reason for that defeat
seems right or wrong--

an early taste of death is not necessarily
a bad thing.

stay out of churches and bars and museums,
and like the spider be
patient--
time is everybody's cross,
plus
exile
defeat
treachery

all that dross.

stay with the beer.

beer is continuous blood.

a continuous lover.

get a large typewriter
and as the footsteps go up and down
outside your window

hit that thing
hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in

and remember the old dogs
who fought so well:
Hemingway, Celine, Dostojevski, Hamsun.

If you don't think they didn't go crazy

in tiny rooms
just like you're doing now

without women
without food
without hope

then you're not ready.

drink more beer.
there's time.
and if there's not
that's all right
too."

Note: had to do a little bit of censoring, hope I did enough...

 

[überchic]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

(someone's already posted it...on the first page.)

 

[Multitudes]

I love by Jacques-Bernard Brunius (1944)

"I love sliding I love upsetting everything
I love coming in I love sighing
I love taming the furtive manes of hair
I love hot I love tenuous
I love supple I love infernal
I love sugared but elastic the curtain of springs turning to glass
I love pearl I love skin
I love tempest I love pupil
I love benevolent seal long-distance swimmer
I love oval I love struggling
I love shining I love breaking
I love the smoking spark silk vanilla mouth to mouth
I love blue I love known—knowing
I love lazy I love spherical
I love liquid beating drum sun if it wavers
I love to the left I love in the fire
I love because I love at the edges
I love forever many times Just one
I love freely I love especially
I love separately I love scandalously
I love similarly obscurely uniquely
HOPINGLY
I love I shall love"

 

[jennifer~]

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

- Wallace Stevens

 

[Multitudes]

La Mort des Amants by Charles Baudelaire(From "Les Fleur Du Mal" 1857)

"Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d'étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.
Usant à l'envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux coeurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.
Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous échangerons un éclair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d'adieux;
Et plus tard un Ange, entr'ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes."

(The Death of Lovers

"We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes,
Divans as deep as graves, and on the shelves
Will be strange flowers that blossomed for us
Under more beautiful heavens.
Using their dying flames emulously,
Our two hearts will be two immense torches
Which will reflect their double light
In our two souls, those twin mirrors.
Some evening made of rose and of mystical blue
A single flash will pass between us
Like a long sob, charged with farewells;
And later an Angel, setting the doors ajar,
Faithful and joyous, will come to revive
The tarnished mirrors, the extinguished flames.")

 

[indie]

Edith Södergran - Lovely Sea (Rough Translation by me)

Strange fishes slide in the deep
Unknown flowers bright in the beach

I've seen red and yellow and all the other colours
But the lovely sea is the most dangerous to see

It wakes up the thirst for forthcoming adventures
What has happened in the fairytale will happen for me too

 

[electricladyland]

If You Were Coming In The Fall
by Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year
I'd wind the months in balls
And put them into separate drawers
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed
I'd count them on my hand
Subtracting 'till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land

If certain when this life was out
That yours and mine should be
I'd toss life yonder like a rind
And taste eternity.

But now all ignorant of length,
Of times uncertain wing,
It goads me like the goblin bee
That will not state its sting!

 

[*~stix~*]

The British
by Benjamin Zephaniah

Serves 60 million

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.
Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

 

[electricladyland]

My River
by Emily Dickinson

My river runs to thee.
Blue sea, wilt thou welcome me?
My river awaits reply.
Oh! sea, look graciously.

I'll fetch thee brooks
from spotted nooks.
Say, sea,
Take me!

 

[electricladyland]

For Each Ecstatic Instant
by Emily Dickinson

For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay.
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.

 

[electricladyland]

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

-- William Shakespeare

 

[Gunpowder]

Kind of feeling this one right now...

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Time does not bring relief


Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go - so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

-Edna St Vincent Millay[/FONT]

 

[pazzaperleborse]

Sex Without Love

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

--Sharon Olds

 

[electricladyland]

De Profundis

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.


I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:


For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

 

[truebluejen]

^Love it Ladyland

Forgotten by a member of the KT Tunstall forums, Stephen

Forgotten?

Not for a second.
Not when kids still run round using your name,
playing in the street where you ruled the waves
and the games which you invented.

Not when the flowers at your grave
are so fresh,
or when I see your mother weep oceans
into the cusp of her hands.

Not when the car which hit you
still fashions a bruised bonnett,
or when the girl in pigtails who loved you
wrote the world's most heartfelt sonnet
at the age of 12.

Not when the local football club
still remembers you as a promising starlet
who would go far.
Your elder brother teased that you were rotten.

It may have been three years my friend,
but your star is not forgotten.

 

[electricladyland]

Govinda Krishna Chettur (1898-1936)


Beloved

​

You are the Rose of me,
In you have I lost myself utterly,
Your fragrance, as a breath from Paradise,
About me ever lies;
I crush you to my heart with subtlest ecstasy
And on your lips I live, and in your passionate eyes.


You are the Dream of me,
My visions many-footed flit and flee
Beneath the jewelled arches of Life's grace:
But through lone nights and days,
One form I follow, and mine eyes but see
The dear delightful wonder of your love-lit face.


You are the Greatness of me,
My thoughts are Beauty shaped exquisitely
To the rare pattern of your loveliness
Exceeding all excess:
And the strange magic of this mystery,
Steals weight from burdened hours, and woe from weariness.

 

[fouroclock]

Gerard Manley Hopkins - The Windhover (I wrote an essay on this poem this year)

To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,[SIZE=-2][/SIZE]
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion[SIZE=-2][/SIZE]
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

 

[Little Star]

who knows if the moon's
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the sky – filled with pretty people?

get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited, where

always
it's
Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves.

ee cummings

 

[Little Star]

I wish we could open our eyes,
To see in all directions at the same time.
what a beautiful view,
If you were never aware of what was around you.
And it is true what you said,
That I live like a hermit in my own head.
But when the sun shines again,
I'll pull up the curtains and blinds to let the light in.
Sometimes theirs still the one,
Who lives no particular way:
But her own.
&she wants life in every word, to the extent that it's absurd.
Shell roll down
The windows and open her mouth
taste where they are and play the music loud.
Theyll Stop the car, lay on the grass,
the planets spin
and shell watch space pass.
Shell Walk a direction, see where they get.
Shes got some sense left, give up some more to be with you.
what good is seeing if love's not looking back at you ?
and what good is feeling if my hands aren't touching you ?

ee cummings

 

[electricladyland]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)


The Day is Done

​

1The day is done, and the darkness
2 Falls from the wings of Night,
3As a feather is wafted downward
4 From an eagle in his flight.


5I see the lights of the village
6 Gleam through the rain and the mist,
7And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
8 That my soul cannot resist:


9A feeling of sadness and longing,
10 That is not akin to pain,
11And resembles sorrow only
12 As the mist resembles the rain.


13Come, read to me some poem,
14 Some simple and heartfelt lay,
15That shall soothe this restless feeling,
16 And banish the thoughts of day.


17Not from the grand old masters,
18 Not from the bards sublime,
19Whose distant footsteps echo
20 Through the corridors of Time.


21For, like strains of martial music,
22 Their mighty thoughts suggest
23Life's endless toil and endeavor;
24 And to-night I long for rest.


25Read from some humbler poet,
26 Whose songs gushed from his heart,
27As showers from the clouds of summer,
28 Or tears from the eyelids start;


29Who, through long days of labor,
30 And nights devoid of ease,
31Still heard in his soul the music
32 Of wonderful melodies.


33Such songs have power to quiet
34 The restless pulse of care,
35And come like the benediction
36 That follows after prayer.


37Then read from the treasured volume
38 The poem of thy choice,
39And lend to the rhyme of the poet
40 The beauty of thy voice.


41And the night shall be filled with music,
42 And the cares, that infest the day,
43Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
44 And as silently steal away.