Favorite Poems

[haliparot]

Given that there is a thread specifically for books, how about poetry, yeah? There are countless poems all over the world, and too many categories to limit oneself to just a few. So tell me if you like a poem enough to consider it your favorite! :)

(and also, if it's not a bother, would anyone mind if the poem is included in the post? That way, the thread can also serve as a poetry-sharing space and not just a record of the title and author of a poem... unless that's not allowed here.)

Yup, that's allowed. :) Just make sure to label and use spoiler tags if the poem is mature in content.

-FH

[Geta Boshi]

I have read Densmore and Blake was a big fan of Morrison while growing up . Though I don’t have them at hand to quote . So I will just quote one of my own poems written few years back . So please bear with me : )




I seracheth Heaven, I seacheth Earth
But I don’t find thee anywhere

Where shall I find thee I ask everyone, I get assured
I ask when ,I will meet my wen

Is it today with the hopeful sunrise.
Or shall it be tomorrow with dreamy sunset.

I question every now and then.

[Syn]

Spoiler tag because it's kind of long. Baudelaire, l'Invitation au voyage. Trying to translate it too, since it's a French poem.

Mon enfant, ma soeur,
My child, my sister,
Songe Ã* la douceur,
Muse on the sweetness,
D'aller lÃ*-bas vivre ensemble !
To go over there live together!
Aimer Ã* loisir,
To love at leisure,
Aimer et mourir
To love and to die
Au pays qui te ressemble !
In the country that resemble you!
Les soleils mouillés
The wet suns
De ces ciels brouillés
Of those blurred skies
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
For my mind have the charms
Si mystérieux
So mysterious
De tes traîtres yeux,
Of your traitors eyes
Brillant Ã* travers leurs larmes,
Shining through their teardrops,

LÃ*, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
There, everything is order and beauty,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
Luxury, calm and sensual pleasure.

Des meubles luisants,
The glowing furnitures,
Polis par les ans,
Polished by the years,
Décoreraient notre chambre ;
Would decorate our bedroom;
Les plus rares fleurs
The rarest flowers
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Intertwining their smell
Aux vagues senteurs de l'ambre,
To the indefinate amber's scent,
Les riches plafonds,
The ornate ceilings,
Les miroirs profonds,
The deep mirrors,
La splendeur orientale,
The oriental's grandness,
Tout y parlerait
Everything would talk
A l'âme en secret
To the soul in secret
Sa douce langue natale.
Its soft native language.

LÃ*, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
There, everything is order and beauty,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
Luxury, calm and sensual pleasure.

Vois sur ces canaux
See on those canals
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Sleep those vessels
Dont l'humeur est vagabonde ;
Which mood is vagabond;
C'est pour assouvir
It's to satiate
Ton moindre désir
Your merest wish
Qu'ils viennent du bout du monde.
That they come from the worlds' end.
- Les soleils couchants
- The sunsets,
Revêtent les champs,
Cover the fields,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
The canals, the entire town,
D'hyacinthe et d'or ;
With hyacinths and gold;
Le monde s'endort
The world puts to sleep
Dans une chaude lumière.
In a warm light.

LÃ*, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
There, everything is order and beauty,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
Luxury, calm and sensual pleasure.

[Frosted Heart]

Look at me
Look at me in the eyes.
If you do not love me in the same way I love you
Then tell me…
With your harsh words
Shatter me…
With your bare hands
Destroy me…
So that I can take whatever is left of my heart
And start anew
Don’t be so gentle with me this minute—
And tell me you don’t care in the next
Don’t leave me hanging—
On such a breakable thread
Don’t make me…
Turn my love for you into hate—
Let me get out—
Before I fall too deep
Do it now
Make it quick
And painful
So I’ll remember…
Never to fall in love with you again

- Unknown

Unfortunately I found this in a fanfic I read a long time ago. I don't remember the fanfic, but I made sure to copy this poem. :)

[spacecat]

Hmm all that is coming to mind right now is Dorothy Porter's "What a Piece of Work". It's a poem novel based around Jungian motifs, very interesting if you are into that stuff :D Obviously I'm not posting a novel lol

[stifflersthedog]

http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html

T.S. Eliots - the wasteland, gotta be my fav poem its far to long to post here so instead there the link ^_^ and here my fav part of the poem

Then spoke the thunder
D A
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
D A
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
D A
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine Ã* la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

[Nocturne]

Here are some of my faves:

The Tiger
by William Blake


TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
by Elizabeth 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.

[Megumi_chan]

A Prayer In Spring
Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply the upbringing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid-air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will.
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

[juunana]

Wow people here really have good taste in poems^^
@Nocturne: Great poem!!!
This is one of my all time favorites. I have so many though. I really love Blake because with his poems like a lot of poetry there is a lot more to it than one may first think. I think he was before his time. I especially Love how the angels in his poems are the deceivers and the demons are truthful. *Ends fangurl rant of Blake*
Anyways I chose this one from "Songs of Innocence" because I love how through innocent eyes death can be made appealing as innocents don't understand what death really is. If you read the Chimney sweeper from "Songs of experience" you get a more adult and realistic view of life as a chimney sweeper. Omg I have no life XD.


Willliam Blakes The chimney sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

[Guildenstern]

You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
because everything alive has its two sides;
a word is one wing of silence,
fire has its cold half.

I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that's why I do not love you yet.

I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy-
a wretched, muddled fate-

My love has two lives, in order to love you:
that's why I love you when I do not love you,
and also why I love you when I do.
-'Afternoon' XLIV from '100 Love Sonnets' by Pablo Neruda

[aznxenocide]

What about...epic poems? Like the Odyssey?

My favorite would have to be Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B" or "The Wasteland."

[Ileenka]

Invictus - William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

[Frosted Heart]

From a fantasy novel set in Toronto. I forgot the title and author, but I've always liked this poem. :)

Eastern Wind blow clear, blow clean
Cleanse my body of its pain
Cleanse my mind of what I've seen
Cleanse my honour of its stain.

Maiden whose love has never ceased
Bring me healing from the East.

Southern Wind blow hot, blow hard
Fan my courage to a flame
Southern Wind be guide and guard
Add your bravery to my name.

Let my will and yours be twinned
Warrior of the Southern Wind.

Western Wind blow stark, blow strong
Grant me arm and mind of steel
On a road both hard and long
Mother hear me where I kneel.

Let no weakness on my quest
Hinder me, Wind of the West.

Northern Wind blow cruel, blow cold
Sheathe my aching heart in ice
Armor round my soul enfold
Crone, I need not call you twice.

To my foes bring cold of death
Chill me, North Wind's frozen breath.

Wind's four quarters, air and fire
Earth and water, hear my desire
Grant my plea who stands alone -
Maiden-warrior, Mother, and Crone.

[Megumi_chan]

Trial By Existence--Robert Frost

Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On walking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare

The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light forever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasturwise;

The angel hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave--
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave

And from a cliff top is proclaimed
The gathering fo the souls for birth,
The trial by exsistence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!

And the more loitering are turned
To view more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes His special care.

And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the first life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And tenderly, life's little dream,
But naught extenuates or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.

Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand forth,
Heroic in its nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth's unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.

[Ileenka]

W. B. Yeats

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

[juunana]

Great poems ppl. I like to see ppl still like poetry cos I dont meet many that do.

I love this poem since I was little. I still love it.:D

Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat by T.S Eliot.

There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying `Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him orthe train can't start.'
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying `Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can't go.'
At 11.42 then the signal's nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man -
Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:
He's been busy in the luggage van!
He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
And the signal goes `All Clear!'
And we're off at last for the northern part
Of the Northern Hemisphere!

You may say that by and large it is Skimble who's in charge
Of the Sleeping Car Express.
From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and in the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he'd know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it's certain that he doesn't approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on them ove.
You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!
He's a Cat that cannot be ignored;
So nothing goes wrong on the Northern Mail
When Skimbleshanks is aboard.

Oh it's very pleasant when you have found your little den
With your name written up on the door.
And the berth is very neat with a newly folded sheet
And there's not a speck of dust on the floor.
There is every sort of light - you can make it dark or bright;
There's a button that you turn to make a breeze.
There's a funny little basin you're supposed to wash your face in
And a crank to shut the window if you sneeye.
Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly
`do you like your morning tea weak or strong?'
But Skimble's just behind him andwas ready to remind him,
For Skimble won't let anything go wrong.
And when you creep into your cosy berth
And pull up the counterpane,
You are bound to admit that it's very nice
To know that your won't be bothered by mice -
You can leave all that to the Railway Cat,
The Cat of the Railway Train!
In the middle of the night he is always fresh and bright;
Every now and then he has a cup of tea
With perhaps a drop of Scotch while he's keeping on the watch,
Only stopping here and there to catch a flea.
You were fast asleep at Crewe and so you never knew
That he was walking up and down the station;
You were sleeping all the while he was busy at Carlisle,
Where he greets the stationmaster with elation.
But you saw him at Dumfries, where he summons the police
If there's anything they ought to know about:
when you get to Gallowgate there you do not have to wait -
For Skimbleshanks will help you to get out!
He gives you a wave of his long brown tail
Which says: `I'll see you again!
You'll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail
The Cat of the Railway Train.

[Megumi_chan]

Looking For A Sunset Bird In Winter--Robert Frost

The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place,
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.

From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding to frost and snow
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show.

A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.

[Frosted Heart]

Elegy for the Gift (Elegy for the Light)

Sometimes, when the subway car comes
briefly out of the tunnel,
We don't look up, miss the light, And
it's as though, inattentive, we'd never
had that moment of brightness.
A life must be full of such small losses
or full, equally, of small, dense gifts;
the child on that same car
dipping her face into her mother's,
that perfect regard.

Rhea Tregebov

(Yeah this poem doesn't rhyme. :D)

[Ileenka]

Lolz, I love, love Mark Twain, but I can't say I agree with him in this poem on the definition of a genius. XD

Nevertheless, everytime I read this poem, there's the irony and insanity which I love; a little bit of everything in some people I know -- and it always fills me with fondness and familiarity for these people. So it's become one of my favourite poems. XD

Last verse is my fav. :love


Genius - Mark Twain

Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity.

Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.

Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.

It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.

Geniuses are very singular.

If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.

If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.

If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.

If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.

If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.

But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.

[FireCandy]

The Definition of Love
by Andrew Marvell


My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its Tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixt,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant Poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the World should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

As lines so Loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite can never meet.

Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the Mind,
And opposition of the Stars.

[Naota]

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

[Megumi_chan]

Does No One At All Ever Feel This Way In The Least?

Robert Frost

O ocean sea, for all your being vast,
Your separation of us from the Old
That should have made the New World newly great
Would only disappoint us at the last
If it should not do anything foretold
To make us different in a single trait.

This though we took the Indian name for maize
And changed it to the English name for wheat.
It seemed to comfort us to call it corn.
And so with homesickness in many ways
We sought however crudely to defeat
Our chance of being people newly born.

And now, O sea, you're lost by aeroplane.
Our sailors ride a bullet for a boat.
Our coverage of distance is so facile
It makes us to have had a sea in vain.
Our moat around us is no more a moat,
Our continent no more a moated castle.

Grind shells, O futile sea, grind empty shells
For all the use you are along the strand.
I cannot hold you innocent of fault.
Spring water in our mountain bosom swells
To pour fresh rivers on you from the land,
Till you have lost the savor of your salt.

I pick a dead shell up from where the kelp
Lies in a windrow, brittle-dry and black,
And holding it far forward for a symbol
I cry, "Do you work for women--all the help
I ask of you. Grind this I throw you back
Into a lady's finger ring or thimble."

The ocean had been spoken to before.
But if it had no thought of paying heed
To taunt of mine I knew a place to go
Where I need listen to its rote no more,
Nor taste its salt, nor smell its fish and weed
Nor be reminded of them in a blow--

So far inland the very name of ocean
Goes mentionless except in baby-school
When teacher's own experiences fail her
And she can only give the class a notion
Of what it is by calling it a pool
And telling them how Sinbad was a sailor.

[beautiful_death]

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand in foot ------
The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart---
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

[Tsubasa]

I love Sylvia Plath's poetry, so intense, vivid, and full of twisted imagery.
That's one of my favorite poems of hers, as is "Daddy" and "A Birthday Present".

Barter by Sara Teasdale


Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.

[Hiraeth]

Plath was one of the greatest poets ever, in my opinion, however I myself prefer the poems of her ex husband, specifically this one:

The Thought Fox - Ted Hughes
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.


Here is another one I love, but it's a bit long...
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/auguries-of-innocence/

[Schneider]

Harlem - Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

[Tsubasa]

@ Hiraeth / Yes, Ted Hughes was also a notable poet. His and Plath's styles are rather different, so I always appreciate people who are able to recognize the talent of them both.
(Due to their personal history, I've met many who dislike Plath/Hughes based solely on their failed marriage and the circumstances surrounding it)

I love William Blake, too, you have good taste. Such powerful poetry. I envy poets and their ability to grasp language and twist it into an artful expression of emotion.

Another one of my favorites...

Again And Again And Again by Anne Sexton

You said the anger would come back
just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not
like. It is a mask I try on.
I migrate toward it and its frog
sits on my lips and defecates.
It is old. It is also a pauper.
I have tried to keep it on a diet.
I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear
like a blood clot. I have
sewn it over my left breast.
I have made a vocation of it.
Lust has taken plant in it
and I have placed you and your
child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous
and the milk tip is brimming
and each machine is working
and I will kiss you when
I cut up one dozen new men
and you will die somewhat,
again and again.

[Megumi_chan]

Misgiving

Robert Frost


All crying, "We will go with you, O Wind!"
The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;
But a sleep oppresses them as they go,
And they end by bidding him stay with them.

Since ever they flung abroad in spring
The leaves had promised themselves this flight,
Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,
Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.

And now they answer his summoning blast
With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,
Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl
That drops them no further than where they were.

I only hope that when I am free,
As they are free, to go in quest
Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life
It may not seem better to me to rest.

[melboyd~]

emily dickinson:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd banish us--you know!

How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell one's name--the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!

>.> has a pretty sarcastic message there.

and also by Hilary Tham: Offerings *i cant find the poem right now, may post it later*

[beautiful_death]

Also, I really like this poem by E.E. Cummings (the title is the first line):

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be,i say if this should be-
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

[Frosted Heart]

“Sonnet XVII: Love”
Pablo Neruda

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

[Luhy]

this is something Mel introduced me to lol


This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

[melboyd~]

glad u like it~

another one XD which got to do with a type of fruit:

The Uncertainty of A Poet by Wendy Cope
I am a poet
I am very fond of bananas
I am bananas
I am very fond of a poet
I am a poet of banana.
I am very fond
A fond poet of ‘I am, I am’
Very bananas
Fond of ‘Am I bananas
Am I?’ – a very poet
Bananas of a poet!
Am I fond?’ Am I very?
Poet bananas! I am
I am fond of a ‘very’
I am of very fond bananas
Am I a poet?

>.> has a playful tone, but it explained the title quite clearly

[Lunar]

There's Been A Death In The Opposite House-Emily Dickinson

As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look,
Such houses have always.

The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away,
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt,mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that,
I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in,
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;

And then the milliner,and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign,
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.

-------------------------------------

A poem about a normal death scenes :)

[Megumi_chan]

Sometimes things just fall.
Sometimes things just seem to go
In a place that
Nobody wants them to go.

She hears his voice,
But again,
He’s not really standing there.
It’s just a simple memory,
And her hands hold only ice.
Maybe her heart isn’t clear?
Maybe it’s her fault,
But maybe it isn’t.

He looks out the window again.
But the ground looks farther away.
He stands on the windowsill now,
But nothing
Can make him actually fall.

Why do these things happen?
Their tears soak their own skin.
Why do things have to go this way?
That’s something I can’t answer.

Is it in the wind?
Is it in the sea?
Or maybe in the endless stars?
The memories,
The words spoken stay with us.

We want to run.
We want to hide.
But we know we can’t.
The pain keeps us going,
But even if it’s so,
Nobody wants to go on.


*Umm... I do not know the title of this poem, but my best friend wrote this.

[memopanda]

I just got into e e cummings, who is simply fantastic. My favourite so far:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

And everything by T.S. Eliot. His poetry just burns.

[halfnhalf]

The title is Louis Reyes Rivera - "Bullet Cry" - Def Poetry

It is a poem that is very very deep...very good, you can hear it on youtube

The link is below VVVV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEm4_gDqOKc

[Frosted Heart]

"How Many, How Much"
Shel Silverstein

How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.

How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.

How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live 'em.

How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give 'em.

[melboyd~]

The Offering - Hilary Tham

I came to you at sunrise
With silvery dew on sleeping lotus
Sparkling in my gay hands;
You put my flowers in the sun.

I danced to you at mid-day
With bright raintree blooms
Flaming in my ardent arms;
You dropped my blossoms in the pond.

I crept to you at sunset
With pale lilac orchids
Trembling on my uncertain lips;
You shredded my petals in the sand.

I strode to you at midnight
With gravel hard and cold
Clenched in my bitter fists;
You offered me your hyrid orchids,
And I crushed them in despair.

*this is one of the first poems that we studied in class. me and my group members failed at interpreting the actual message. we thought that this poem, is about a monk/priest who is trying to offer gift to his gods or smtg xD. but then our lecturer told us the theme is very simple.... it's 'love' , unrequited love that is ^^*

[Nacchan]

Quoted from : Twelfth Night (c. 1601)
-------------------------------------------------
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.

Viola, Act II, scene iv
------------------------------------------------
by.William Shakespeare

[Tsubasa]

Amy Lowell
The Letter

Little cramped words scrawling all over
the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncertain window and the
bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing
in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth,
virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart
against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.

[cornflakes]

My favourite poem ever is 'The Old Familiar Faces' by Charles Lamb. I first read it when I was thirteen, still love it now.


The Old Familiar Faces


I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days -
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies -
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her -
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces -

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed -
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.


EDIT: Apologies for double post. The internet and I are not friends today.

[directX07]

She Walks in Beauty
By George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

(I'm loving this poem since I first laid eyes on the IchiHime pairing. I memorized it by heart and it's totally beautiful. :cry)

[din0saurjr]

The Passionate Pilgrim: verse 1
------------------------

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unskilful in the world's false forgeries.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young.
Although I know my years be past the best.
I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue.
Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.
But wherefore says my love that she is young?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue.
And age, in love, loves not to have years told.
Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me,
Since that our faults in love thus smother'd be.



The Passionate Pilgrim: Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music - verse 5
-----------------------------------------------------------

Live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
And all the craggy mountains yields.

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Love's Answer.
If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
Those pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Edit: I love Lord Byron's She Walks In Beauty :cry
The phrasing, his word choice, everything :crazy