Favourite Poems

[Draga]

Dama flood [12/30]


CROW'S WING AND SILENCE

The stones yet remember your heart-song.

Does your quartz stones yet remember your heart-song?:wink2: I love this kind of poems, here, nature is emphasized to the most. Neither I like formalities of religion, that's why I'm a natural mystic. Like in an Alpha Blondy's song it's said G.O.D. God of diversity. Rasta is a way of living more than a religion. Hey! cristal balls are great! you can see a weird aura inside them!

[skimom]

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by th fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
and loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And his his face amid a crowd of stars.
W.B. Yeats
I love many of his poems, but this one the best.

[Kim L.]

That's it!!! The Childcraft series, but we only had the first book. I had a chance to pick up the whole series in a thrift store years ago and didn't, and I could kick myself. I loved the illustrations; they were terrific, oily and robust. I didn't figure out what a counterpane was until many years later, though. :D

Love the illustrations! I've got the whole series, fortunately. Every now & then you'll see them advertised. My mom is still looking for them.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [13/30]


THE EMPTY WELL

Where are your hearts, oh people everywhere --
have they blown away in the cold January air?
Here on the edge, where time and space collide,
what sacrifice is taken for a nation's pride?

The ancient earth is stained with blood and oil;
while children die, the leaders take their tainted spoil.
The young are thrown into a pit to fight
who should be lovers singing in a winter night.
And old men cry, old women wail and mourn
that ever to their deaths their strong young sons were born.

When will we learn, oh people everywhere,
another way to live on earth, a way to share?
This earth our home, the only home we know,
is fouled with greed and war, and we have made it so --
this earth our home, the only home we have,
our only mother, only comfort and our only grave.

How can we learn, oh people everywhere,
to warm our hearts in the cold January air?

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [14/30]


AFU: AN INCOMPLETE LEGEND

(Afu is not pronounced "Ah Foo" -- rather, it rhymes at least somewhat with
"Half True")

The distant land of Afu lies to the North.
It is the tesseract-analogue of the Pole.
Its colors are black, indigo, silver,
blood-red and dark green.

Afu is not the Place of Emerging,
but the source of That Which Emerges.

In Afu live the proto-shapers
whose hands craft every form
before it is known elsewhere.

And in the Northern Spring are hatched the snow-lizards
who keep the keys to the countless six-faced gates of Afu,
the renowned and mysterious gates of which no two are alike.

The traders of Afu make no journeys;
rather, they await those few
whose paths are called Northward,
those who arrive with nothing more
than can be carried in their two hands,
those who may take nothing more away.

The seers of Afu were my ancestral ocean --
oh, for their gift now in pure form!
even diluted it is precious as gold leaf
flaked into the spiced liquor
that warms and limbers those who drink it.

The warriors of Afu use not the sword;
with the ice-weapon
that freezes the blood, the heart and the loins
do they defeat any foolhardy enough
to come against them at the six-faced gates.

Only beyond the Aurora Borealis
do the true gates appear
(although false six-faced gates abound
and further south than one might think,
albeit not for long).

The Aurora was long ago formed
by the Exiled Children of Summer;
they were finally allowed
to atone for their wrong
by exhaling these brilliant colors
as encouragement to travellers.
The Exiled Children were allowed to return home,
but their immortal breaths have danced
for centuries, appearing
in the black sky of the North
as gigantic flags of light, brilliant in color,
wavering as if moved by altitudinous winds.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [15/30]


CHANGES

The Sea-Mother's children, in poisoned pain,
float and die in Her cold green arms;
Her black-haired lover has wept with rage
and now, unseen on the stony beach,
sharpens Her gift -- the triple spear.

The Earth-Mother's children, feathered or furred,
go starving, driven from their homes;
Her lover has laid the wine-cup down,
forgetfulness emptied, pleasure gone,
and shouts Her awake from Her long birth-dream.

The Moon-Mother watches as trees turn black
and fruit falls early, death upon death;
Her lover has fashioned a final torch
from all the heat that She hides from man
and lifts it up, to rival the sun.

And She will lead them three by three
through burning air and rising tide
while buildings tremble
and mountains shake,
crying Her long-forgotten name
until we learn its sound again.

[Draga]

I love the Afu poem! I can see wonderful images about eskimos' culture and perceptions of reality.

[LadyPain]

This is going to seem really hokey, but I loved this one that I saw in Mad Magazine when I was a teen. I actually memorized it, and unlike just about everything else, I never forgot it.

Five little hippies
Trying to make a score
One smoked some rotten hash
And now there's just four

Four little hippies
Freaked out on a spree
One turned Establishment
And now there's just three

Three little hippies
Smelling like a zoo
One copped some Dial soap
And now there's just two

Two little hippies
Broke and on the run
One met a Bailey cop
And now there's just one

One little hippie
As freaked out as can be
He revealed his secret stash
Now there's forty-three

[JohnDalglish]

This is going to seem really hokey, but I loved this one that I saw in Mad Magazine when I was a teen. I actually memorized it, and unlike just about everything else, I never forgot it.

Five little hippies
Trying to make a score
One smoked some rotten hash
And now there's just four

Four little hippies
Freaked out on a spree
One turned Establishment
And now there's just three

Three little hippies
Smelling like a zoo
One copped some Dial soap
And now there's just two

Two little hippies
Broke and on the run
One met a Bailey cop
And now there's just one

One little hippie
As freaked out as can be
He revealed his secret stash
Now there's forty-three

Hi,

LMAO, Lady Pain, good one!

Long days and pleasant nights

[Kim L.]

This is going to seem really hokey, but I loved this one that I saw in Mad Magazine when I was a teen. I actually memorized it, and unlike just about everything else, I never forgot it.

Five little hippies
Trying to make a score
One smoked some rotten hash
And now there's just four

Four little hippies
Freaked out on a spree
One turned Establishment
And now there's just three

Three little hippies
Smelling like a zoo
One copped some Dial soap
And now there's just two

Two little hippies
Broke and on the run
One met a Bailey cop
And now there's just one

One little hippie
As freaked out as can be
He revealed his secret stash
Now there's forty-three

ROFLMAO!! good one, LadyPain. Loved reading Mad Magazine when I was growing up.

[BlackThorn]

Does your quartz stones yet remember your heart-song?:wink2: I love this kind of poems, here, nature is emphasized to the most. Neither I like formalities of religion, that's why I'm a natural mystic. Like in an Alpha Blondy's song it's said G.O.D. God of diversity. Rasta is a way of living more than a religion. Hey! cristal balls are great! you can see a weird aura inside them!

If you stare at them, in the right light, and enter the right trancy frame of mind... you'll see clouds start to form. Kind like how when you were a kid and bored in a middle school assembly, and you pressed your palms to your eyes, till you saw purple clouds forming and zooming at you...

Stare and contimplate properly, guide your mind, and those clouds begin forming into images. Prophetic images. You can do this with a crystal ball, although I've never really set it up like that before, or you can do it with a simple glass of water, and just stare at the layer of water on the top, at a slight angle to the glass. Stare at this meniscus, again, in the right light, in the right mental state, and you'll see the clouds forming.

This is how Nostradamus witnessed all his prophecy. Although, I was hinted once, that The Christ might have been something we found out about, by eating natural things like mushrooms with psilocybin, and somehow looking into the astral pool and seeing what the face on the water was in this time...

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [16/30]


EPITAPH

When all my joys and tears are shed,
gladly will I take my bed
in the household of the dead --
there by love to win great price:
to see, with clean and fearless eyes,
the world beyond the world's disguise.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [17/30]


SPRING

earth's blood rising through the trees
singing dragons of the heart
everywhere dancing
everywhere laughing
spring
will melt our souls
will break our minds
like fragments
of old days now reborn

spring

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [18/30]


NORTH

Even the air is green in summer there,
light ever-shadowed by mossy riverstones,
tinted by treetrunks north on every side,
as if with a life of its own.

Dreams sleep green in summer riverbeds;
dragonflies creep from their larval shells,
drift like visionary jewels into the forest.

As a child he too drifted through evergreens,
sailed leaves on the river, drew out the fly-fattened fish;
nothing hidden in water escaped him, nor between roots
thrust like legs out of the ferny black soil.

Winter he learned as well, early tracking the deer,
a white world marked with black hoofprints,
blood under fir-trees where cougar had feasted before him,
the owl's wings almost as silent as wolves,
as silent as snow.

He crouched coaxing fire from stones
as patient as if he were fishing, to keep himself warm
the first winter night he stayed in the wood
setting traps for the weasel's white fur.

And in summer the trout leaped with sparks dripping off it,
could not shake the hook, twisted about like flame,
fell back to the river exhausted -- he pulled the fish in
by the line only -- never had owned a reel.

Trees bear sweet nuts, and bushes put forth berries
of many colors in autumn, yet to feast through the snow
he learned to take life, to dry it above the coals,
salt it down, keep it safe for the shrunken days.

And he grew strong: he learned to observe, to be still,
to move quickly, to climb, to be alone with the river.

Now he stays in the city and never earns more than he spends
on forgetting the silence -- but still it slips into his mind
with the joyful spring rain, or peeps out from the branches
despoiled of their beauty, thrown into gutters to cast off the year.

His mother still lives in the forest,
an apple-tree grows in the yard;
last year she killed a black bear, salted the meat,
lived on it till the snow had melted, she and the dogs.

He says he'll go back there; the roof needs some work,
the garden could use two more hands,
the river's no smaller,
the trout will yet leap and fall back.

He longs for the green air of summer, the dreaming green stones,
his own green boy-self who in the twelfth winter
brought wolfskins -- she sewed them together;
her face has more lines now, her fingers are gnarled
like the roots that twist up from the floor of the woods;
the softness of age has covered her face like moss.

His feet seek the earth, his heart seeks his mother,
his soul for the wisdom to know
the one and the other.


Mmmmmmm....

[BlackThorn]

The 'Mmmmmm...' wasn't part of that poem, hehe.

LOL @ "one copped some dial soap, Now there's just two."

Soap and water don't hurt the environment that bad kiddies... but smelly people can. (0;

[Brayden Bull]

Has anyone read any of Jim Morrison's poetry?
If so I wouldn't mind some thoughts.

[Draga]

If you stare at them, in the right light, and enter the right trancy frame of mind... you'll see clouds start to form. Kind like how when you were a kid and bored in a middle school assembly, and you pressed your palms to your eyes, till you saw purple clouds forming and zooming at you...

Stare and contimplate properly, guide your mind, and those clouds begin forming into images. Prophetic images. You can do this with a crystal ball, although I've never really set it up like that before, or you can do it with a simple glass of water, and just stare at the layer of water on the top, at a slight angle to the glass. Stare at this meniscus, again, in the right light, in the right mental state, and you'll see the clouds forming.

This is how Nostradamus witnessed all his prophecy. Although, I was hinted once, that The Christ might have been something we found out about, by eating natural things like mushrooms with psilocybin, and somehow looking into the astral pool and seeing what the face on the water was in this time...

Yes my friend, I have done this, but in the Arab way since I didn't have a crystal ball, and I read that you can also do it in this way. This is looking at the shiny blade of a sword. It really works! Wonderful and hypnotic images appear when you reach that kind of trance-like state.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [19/30]


VIVIANA

Crossing water southward,
sun flying before you,
figurehead of the heart.

Time takes its lessons
when counted by tides,
by moonrise and eastwind,
by sleeping and waking,
by hunger and love.

Full night will find you --
in thin air thoughts take flight --
dance into dream singing
up black and green mountain --
winged shadow steals sorrow,
touches the heart's drum
with ancient delight.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [20/30]


GATHERING OYSTERSHELLS

Mountains turn black with night.

The last reach of sunlight
gilds a sudden edge of cloud.

Distant loon calls.

Your arms are full of shells,
some huge and stuck-together.

You say they've lost color
these last ten years;
the shoreline's different too.

The tide rises
almost silently
under our feet.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [21/30]


THE NAKED CHILDREN OF THE AIR

all around us everywhere
the Naked Children of the Air
dance past and touch us with their hair --
not you nor I can see them.

some may rhyme and some may not
and some may bathe in bergamot
or stretch full-length where the sand is hot
and call the Sun to burn them.

in their airy playroom overhead
they bake invisible gingerbread
from the bones of poets long since dead --
how can we ever know them?

they twirl about in clouds of dust
and tweak the flaking orange crust
from the crooked gate all thick with rust --
what is it like, to be them?

they dance, entirely uncontrite
in circling passion and delight
the twelve long hours of the night --
no lens that's made can show them.

gently the prudent teachers warn
of air and darkness magic-born,
of how the sprites will bring us scorn
unless we choose to spurn them

but clothed in rhythm, sound and words --
the green-gold wings of hummingbirds,
the wool of Jacob's speckled herds --
oh, all the world shall see them!

[Patricia A]

Wow BlackThorn this is some really good poetry, I'd never read any of it before.
Thanks!

[Draga]

Wow BlackThorn this is some really good poetry, I'd never read any of it before.
Thanks!

Totally agree! AWPAS

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [22/30]


HELIX

(in simple words
from one who has no singing voice to offer,
nor any tune)


He smiled and sang and listened
and he charmed her to within an inch of danger;
she walked out in the rain with him and said,
You are not dealing with a stranger:

The ways we know each other are so deep and varied
there's no words to say them --
you don't know your feelings
and you only want to follow and obey them.
We came here by a twisting road,
a winding route we'll take to go on learning
-- this portion of our path will touch a moment,
then life takes a turning.
So we won't waste time in children's games
with nothing to be found that's new for singing
and it's time that someone showed you
there's a source beyond the passion that you're bringing --
it's the moonlight we can't see
because the sky tonight is covered up with thunder --
and it's time that someone showed you
where the love you're feeling comes from, and the wonder:

Oh, see the dancers passing through the lands
that have no heartbeat for their motion,
and know the drumming in the soul,
the wave that hearkens back to mother ocean,
and the shape of life that's outlined in dark stone
across the desert's distant skyline --
the place they meet is sacred,
it's the land where every road's a perfect lifeline.

You can be there if you choose it;
if you don't, then nowhere else will really hold you,
and life will always love you
but the sky will be too empty to enfold you.

And if it takes six days or weeks or months
for you to turn and see who's calling
in the wind at night, to feel
the earth's deep pull while you are falling,
then that's how long it takes you --
but you know your road will turn, and you're a doubter --
someday you won't remember
how you could have thought to live without her.

On the way to understanding,
on the way to liberation and perfection
we catch a glimpse of where we're going,
in each other's eyes we see its quick reflection;
someday we will understand the sorrows we encounter
and we'll know them
for the hidden joys they brought us,
and we'll polish all their faces and we'll show them
to each other in our dreams, and when we wake
we'll sing together in the mountains --
all our souls will flow like sunlight,
all our songs will run in rivers from the fountains.

[BlackThorn]

This is totally my favorite type of poetry. Glad I got a chance to share it. :) The visual imagery in this one below has always stuck with me. She hasn't stopped being a warrior, just because she lost her truest weapon. On the contrary really, 'cause it only succeeded in pissing her off, and forcing her to fight differently. This one also has a little to do with the dynamics behind the Firetalion chat name I used to use.


Dama flood [23/30]


WINGED SISTER

broken feathers only, the bones intact
but a wing drooping, and the ground still cold --
the hawk shelters where she can.

unused to ambush, surly, hungering,
she waits behind brush for the slow rabbit --
it screams and bleeds -- she feasts then.

no good place to rest, no perch for talons,
she must lean into shrub, drowse shallowly --
no creature that she sees not.

watchful, patient, yet will she be angry,
tearing the clayey ground, her heart enraged
at fate beyond not flying.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [24/30]


OUR DAY

mother, sister, daughter,
friend, companion --

we who dance to save the village,
we who sharpen swords,
build fires,
bake bread --

we who grieve forever
we who laugh through tears --

on this day remember
whose bright shadows we are

on this day choose to bloom
knowing that some day
petals will fall

on this day choose to bloom
knowing that even some day
is too soon

on this day choose to bloom,
for no one can bring us blossoms
more beautiful than we who dance
we who sharpen swords
we who bake
we who remember
to save the village
yet again

[Kim L.]

Dama flood [22/30]


HELIX

(in simple words
from one who has no singing voice to offer,
nor any tune)


He smiled and sang and listened
and he charmed her to within an inch of danger;
she walked out in the rain with him and said,
You are not dealing with a stranger:

The ways we know each other are so deep and varied
there's no words to say them --
you don't know your feelings
and you only want to follow and obey them.
We came here by a twisting road,
a winding route we'll take to go on learning
-- this portion of our path will touch a moment,
then life takes a turning.
So we won't waste time in children's games
with nothing to be found that's new for singing
and it's time that someone showed you
there's a source beyond the passion that you're bringing --
it's the moonlight we can't see
because the sky tonight is covered up with thunder --
and it's time that someone showed you
where the love you're feeling comes from, and the wonder:

Oh, see the dancers passing through the lands
that have no heartbeat for their motion,
and know the drumming in the soul,
the wave that hearkens back to mother ocean,
and the shape of life that's outlined in dark stone
across the desert's distant skyline --
the place they meet is sacred,
it's the land where every road's a perfect lifeline.

You can be there if you choose it;
if you don't, then nowhere else will really hold you,
and life will always love you
but the sky will be too empty to enfold you.

And if it takes six days or weeks or months
for you to turn and see who's calling
in the wind at night, to feel
the earth's deep pull while you are falling,
then that's how long it takes you --
but you know your road will turn, and you're a doubter --
someday you won't remember
how you could have thought to live without her.

On the way to understanding,
on the way to liberation and perfection
we catch a glimpse of where we're going,
in each other's eyes we see its quick reflection;
someday we will understand the sorrows we encounter
and we'll know them
for the hidden joys they brought us,
and we'll polish all their faces and we'll show them
to each other in our dreams, and when we wake
we'll sing together in the mountains --
all our souls will flow like sunlight,
all our songs will run in rivers from the fountains.

Another very good poem, Blackthorn, thank you.

[JohnDalglish]

Totally agree! AWPAS


Hi,

Me too. AWDS.

Long dasys and pleasant nights

[BlackThorn]

They're not mine. I just carry them.

Ugh, I still don't understand spoiler tags to wrap around lyrics or a poem. There's no spoiler tags put around the 'quote of quote of quote of quote' type posts, although on the new board, only the new quotes are carried, which is quite a blessing.

I just can't imagine someone wondering if they want to look at poetry. Wondering enough to click on a button, designed for someone else.

Just do me a favor and copy this music to your own computer if you want to read the ones in the spoiler buttons. Those little stupid dotted lines around the spoiler stuff always make it look like crap, especially if the thing in the dotted lines isn't in bold.

You know, there is an ignore button, if you don't want to read what someone writes...

I'll just never understand a spoiler tag without at least a hint of what's inside. It's the worst in those channels where we get the spoiler covered up, but we don't know which story of 50 or so the spoiler even relates to, till after we click on it. Then you click on it, and it's too late. Gayer than a b__ of d____, ya know?

[Waalkwriter]

Der Erlkonig By Goethe

Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He has the little one well in the arm
He holds him secure, he holds him warm.

"My son, why hide your face in fear?"
"See you not, Father, the Elf king?
The Elf king with crown and flowing cloak?"
"My son, it is a wisp of fog."

"You sweet child, come along with me!
Such wonderful games I'll play with you;
Many lovely flowers are at the shore,
My mother has many golden garments."

"My father, my father, and do you not hear,
What the Elf king quietly promises to me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
The wind is rustling the dry leaves."

"Won't you come along with me, my fine boy?
My daughters shall attend to you so nicely;
My daughters do their nightly dance,
And they will rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep."

"My father, my father, do you not see there,
Elf king's daughters in that dark place?"
"My son, my son, I see it definitely:
It is the willow trees looking so grey."

"I love you; I'm charmed by your beautiful shape;
And if you are not willing, then I will use force."
"My father, my father, now he has taken hold of me!
Elf king has hurt me!"

The father shudders, he rides swiftly,
He holds in arm the groaning child,
He reaches the farmhouse with effort and urgency;
In his arms, the child was dead.

[marew1]

When I was in high school I won a second place award for creative wrting. The award was a certificate and a book of poems by Rod McKuen. Title of the book is Listen to the Warm which is also a poem

Listen to the Warm
By Rod McKuen

I live alone.
It hasn't always been that way.
It's nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you're still alive.

I'm not sure what it means.
Why we cannot shake the old loves from our minds.
It must be that we build on memory
and make them more than what they were.
And is the manufacture
just a safe device for closing up the wall?

I do remember.
The only fuzzy circumstance
is something where-and how.
Why, I know.
It happens just because we need
to want and to be wanted too,
when love is here or gone
to lie down in the darkness
and listen to the warm.

[marew1]

:smile2: When I was young I liked this poem:

Bed in Summer
by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

[Moderator]

They're not mine. I just carry them.

Ugh, I still don't understand spoiler tags to wrap around lyrics or a poem. There's no spoiler tags put around the 'quote of quote of quote of quote' type posts, although on the new board, only the new quotes are carried, which is quite a blessing.

I just can't imagine someone wondering if they want to look at poetry. Wondering enough to click on a button, designed for someone else.

Just do me a favor and copy this music to your own computer if you want to read the ones in the spoiler buttons. Those little stupid dotted lines around the spoiler stuff always make it look like crap, especially if the thing in the dotted lines isn't in bold.

You know, there is an ignore button, if you don't want to read what someone writes...

I'll just never understand a spoiler tag without at least a hint of what's inside. It's the worst in those channels where we get the spoiler covered up, but we don't know which story of 50 or so the spoiler even relates to, till after we click on it. Then you click on it, and it's too late. Gayer than a b__ of d____, ya know?


I'm trying to save space so if there is an especially long post, I'll add the spoiler buttons. If I hadn't done that, the thread would probably be at least twice as long as it is now. I may extend that policy to the posts themselves if posters are particularly verbose. :eyebrow:

[Todash]

I'm trying to save space so if there is an especially long post, I'll add the spoiler buttons. If I hadn't done that, the thread would probably be at least twice as long as it is now. I may extend that policy to the posts themselves if posters are particularly verbose. :eyebrow:

:rofl:

That's all I'm gonna say.

[BlackThorn]

We're promoting illiteracy now a days? Cute hun, cute.

The last thing we would want is someone to see a flash of words, that might spark interest for their future.

MadamMack has already made it quite clear, that some people avoid posts completely if they're more than 20 words long. Maybe you should set up illiteracy filters, so that posts over 1,000 words automatically have spoiler tags on 'em. Jordan could do that in his sleep, I'm sure.

I'll put the rest of these up now, at once, and you can shrink them down to the size of a peanut if you want. It'll be out of my hands then. Sorry if it's a direct fault of mine, that the poetry thread was long.


Dama flood [25/30]


MASKS

among the offshore islands, dreams
rest on the ice floes, as we on featherbeds.

wrapped in spectral light, an array of masks,
they wait:

for us to brave the dark water,
for our hands to reach out,
for our hearts to wear them
till they crumble and fall
like glittering sand into the sea,
tracing new designs that swirl and fade
into the depths, again to rise
in a dream of dreaming.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [26/30]


ALL TRUE SONGS

There is nothing else to write about but time.
Even love songs have meaning only because
love passes while life goes on, or life
runs too quickly through love, or waiting is
dreary, meetings sudden, partings early, opportunities
passed, reconciliations late, awakenings
delayed, recognitions hesitant, moments
strewn about the floor
creating little obstacles
on which we lose our footing and
tumble endlessly
into the clutter of red paper hearts, torn
photographs, empty wineglasses,
reflections of past and future,
of sorrow and delight.

Love songs ask,
"Will you wait for me?" and love songs say,
"I remember" and love songs always cry
"Forever" even when they are wailing
"Never."

They always sing of time;
it's the only tune in town.

And all true songs are love songs.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [27/30]


WHEAT

it was only wheat after all:
seed brought to the City to grow against war,
seed gathered in bright summer music,
seed grown in ground I stole back from the devil,
seed watered by thunderstorms, stretched by the Sun,
ripened, cut, kept --

bound with something red, as I remember,
packaged with song and some old conversation,
carried from sunset to sunrise
by something more dense than the wind

it was only a wish to grow for a season
or more if the climate allows

perhaps you should plant it

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [28/30]


BLACK MOON-

-- betrayer of vision,
thief of honor,
spoiler of fierce delight,
time's darker sister,
moon hiding,
rain-robed at sun's height,
heartless and empty,
giver of nothing,
taker of all joys,
oath-breaker,
death-bringer --

wonder flies distant
where sorrow's path leads
to black moon's high mansion,
a cold hearth,
a colder bed
without faith or compassion,
where ice-dreaming no-sleep
comes late and mournful --

where yet there is light.

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [29/30]


EVERY TEAR, YOU SAID, A SOURCE OF WONDER
THAT ALL THE WORLD MAY DRINK

beyond the mirror, beyond reflection
still the green lakes overflow,
filled with autumn rain.
some leaves have turned and fallen.
cold air moves slowly.
light is everywhere and nowhere, fading
at every horizon, as if day itself
had lost persistence.
the roots of trees remember, and the trees themselves --
beneath their peeling bark, the unseen current
slows to an immeasurable pulse,
and life draws close upon itself.
frogs have settled in the muddy banks,
containing yet their leaps, waiting.
the dreams of children hide in stones
where none may find them.
change is not here, time does not move, we say,
from our perceptions only.
the sun wears mourning like a cape to shelter
its light from that same chill.
clear sky, moonrise -- all are memory, illusion.
the old year's greeting echoes little now:
the owl's wings make a greater sound, more resonant.
yet like the deer, we reach through every winter moment,
however separately our ways may take us,
for tufts of dried and scanty grasses
that nourish though they do not satisfy --
and like the deer, we too remember spring
with nature's memory, each season singular,
yet each containing all the year within it --
and like the deer, we live

[BlackThorn]

Dama flood [30/30]


ECHO

when none is still alive whose heart remembers
how that wind rose, how these spring tides flowed out
against the sunset -- how the pole had shifted
from north to true magnetic east and back
in half a year or less -- when none can hear
the echo of your heartbeat, none envision
one clear day's color seen against the clouds --
when light itself has sunk beyond the sea --
yet in some corner of galactic silence
my hand will always poise, about to draw
three images to prove you -- wolf and raven
and salmon in the wisdom-pool -- the journey
ever at the brink of setting-forth.

[BlackThorn]

Oops. I had 30 of these on my iPod, so I figured there were 30. I guess the Janet Tompson one at the beginning wasn't included in those 30. Either way, here's the last.

Dama flood [**/30]


THE LIVING ROCK

the child of our souls
is a stone daughter,
heavy to carry,
beautiful to look upon.

sage is her garland,
rain is her hair,
lightning is her ornament.

red stone she is,
shaped by the wind.

her night shadow falls
far across the land.

above the horizon
her song will echo.

at the edge of time
she will dance.

[LadyPain]

Aware by D.H. Lawrence

Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,
Divesting herself of her golden shift, and so
Emerging white and exquisite; and I in amaze
See in the sky before me, a woman I did not know
I loved, but there she goes, and her beauty hurts my heart;
I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart.

[LadyPain]

Self-Pity by D.H. Lawrence

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself


This was one of the pieces of poetry featured in the movie G.I. Jane. The Master Sargeant marked it in a book for Demi Moore's character when she had passed Seal training. It's found in 'Selected Poems' by D.H. Lawrence. Funny enough, the cover on the copy used in the movie is exactly the same as mine. Must have been printed around the same time, I guess.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Thankee for posting the Lawrence, Lady Pain, great stuff!

Long days and pleasant nights

[LadyPain]

Hi,

Thankee for posting the Lawrence, Lady Pain, great stuff!

Long days and pleasant nights

I love reading his work. His somewhat less structured work always seems to catch something in me, ya know...

The first one, Aware, really gets me. It's the witch in me, John. Speak of the moon and I am totally lost in it.

[Kim L.]

The arguments against insanity fall through with a soft shirring sound;
these are the sounds of dead voices on dead records
floating down the broken shaft of memory.
When I turn to you to ask if you remember,
When I turn to you in our bed.

Stephen King in Lisey's Story

[BlackEye]

Self-Pity by D.H. Lawrence

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself


This was one of the pieces of poetry featured in the movie G.I. Jane. The Master Sargeant marked it in a book for Demi Moore's character when she had passed Seal training. It's found in 'Selected Poems' by D.H. Lawrence. Funny enough, the cover on the copy used in the movie is exactly the same as mine. Must have been printed around the same time, I guess.

Love this one. Thanks for sharing Lady!

[LadyPain]

Love this one. Thanks for sharing Lady!

You're very welcome. It's one of my favourites here.

[BlackEye]

I saw this on in IT, and I crack the book open from time to time just for this poem.

"A bird came down the Walk-
He did not know I saw-
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw"

"A Bird Came Down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson

[Antony butterworth]

hello fans of the king


does anybody have anymore robert frost poems

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Not sure if I've posted this before but 'This is Dedicated to the One I Love' (The Shirelles, Mamas and Papas etc.) LOL -


MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED,RED ROSE

My love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June
My love is like a melody
That's sweetly played in tune
As fair thou art, my bonnie lass
So deep in love am I
And I will love thee still, my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry
And I will love thee still my love
Till a' the seas gang dry

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
And the rocks melt with the sun
And I will love thee still, my dear
While the sands of life shall run
But fare thee well my only love
Oh fare the well a while
And I will come again, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles
And I will come again, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles

Robert Burns 1759-1796 (NB - 'gang' = go)


Long days and pleasant nights

[Kim L.]

hello fans of the king


does anybody have anymore robert frost poems

From "The Hill Wife"

Always — I tell you this they learned —
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away,
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.


Robert Frost

[Patricia A]

Hi,

Not sure if I've posted this before but 'This is Dedicated to the One I Love' (The Shirelles, Mamas and Papas etc.) LOL -


MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED,RED ROSE

My love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June
My love is like a melody
That's sweetly played in tune
As fair thou art, my bonnie lass
So deep in love am I
And I will love thee still, my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry
And I will love thee still my love
Till a' the seas gang dry

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
And the rocks melt with the sun
And I will love thee still, my dear
While the sands of life shall run
But fare thee well my only love
Oh fare the well a while
And I will come again, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles
And I will come again, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles

Robert Burns 1759-1796 (NB - 'gang' = go)


Long days and pleasant nights


One of my personal favorites, thanks JohnD. :smile2:

[Todash]

It seems quite presumptuous to put this in a favorite (or favourite) poems thread, as I only wrote it a few minutes ago, so it can't possibly be anyone's favorite yet, but there's no thread for "poems you just dreamed up before heading upstairs to make dinner." :) I wrote it because of a wee Scottish bug in my ear who reminded me that I hadn't done anything like it for too long. Ahem. Soliloquy over. Let's get to it, then.

Moon
Over and over, the moon comes.
She comes, and waits, and then is gone.
Each time, she takes with her
One star.
Maybe two.
She thinks I can't see,
Can't tell,
But I do.
No one sees the slow dim,
The promises taken.
Or seems to.
But I do.
She waxes a gift
And wanes a glamor,
And I cannot stop her. I cannot stop her.

[Kim L.]

It seems quite presumptuous to put this in a favorite (or favourite) poems thread, as I only wrote it a few minutes ago, so it can't possibly be anyone's favorite yet, but there's no thread for "poems you just dreamed up before heading upstairs to make dinner." :) I wrote it because of a wee Scottish bug in my ear who reminded me that I hadn't done anything like it for too long. Ahem. Soliloquy over. Let's get to it, then.

Moon
Over and over, the moon comes.
She comes, and waits, and then is gone.
Each time, she takes with her
One star.
Maybe two.
She thinks I can't see,
Can't tell,
But I do.
No one sees the slow dim,
The promises taken.
Or seems to.
But I do.
She waxes a gift
And wanes a glamor,
And I cannot stop her. I cannot stop her.

Not presumptuous at all. Thank you for writing it and posting it.

[brownmouse]

It seems quite presumptuous to put this in a favorite (or favourite) poems thread, as I only wrote it a few minutes ago, so it can't possibly be anyone's favorite yet, but there's no thread for "poems you just dreamed up before heading upstairs to make dinner." :) I wrote it because of a wee Scottish bug in my ear who reminded me that I hadn't done anything like it for too long. Ahem. Soliloquy over. Let's get to it, then.

Moon
Over and over, the moon comes.
She comes, and waits, and then is gone.
Each time, she takes with her
One star.
Maybe two.
She thinks I can't see,
Can't tell,
But I do.
No one sees the slow dim,
The promises taken.
Or seems to.
But I do.
She waxes a gift
And wanes a glamor,
And I cannot stop her. I cannot stop her.

lovely.

[BlackEye]

It seems quite presumptuous to put this in a favorite (or favourite) poems thread, as I only wrote it a few minutes ago, so it can't possibly be anyone's favorite yet, but there's no thread for "poems you just dreamed up before heading upstairs to make dinner." :) I wrote it because of a wee Scottish bug in my ear who reminded me that I hadn't done anything like it for too long. Ahem. Soliloquy over. Let's get to it, then.

Moon
Over and over, the moon comes.
She comes, and waits, and then is gone.
Each time, she takes with her
One star.
Maybe two.
She thinks I can't see,
Can't tell,
But I do.
No one sees the slow dim,
The promises taken.
Or seems to.
But I do.
She waxes a gift
And wanes a glamor,
And I cannot stop her. I cannot stop her.

You are not alone. :) I felt that poem. Very nice. I encourage more. :smile2:

[LadyPain]

It seems quite presumptuous to put this in a favorite (or favourite) poems thread, as I only wrote it a few minutes ago, so it can't possibly be anyone's favorite yet, but there's no thread for "poems you just dreamed up before heading upstairs to make dinner." :) I wrote it because of a wee Scottish bug in my ear who reminded me that I hadn't done anything like it for too long. Ahem. Soliloquy over. Let's get to it, then.

Moon
Over and over, the moon comes.
She comes, and waits, and then is gone.
Each time, she takes with her
One star.
Maybe two.
She thinks I can't see,
Can't tell,
But I do.
No one sees the slow dim,
The promises taken.
Or seems to.
But I do.
She waxes a gift
And wanes a glamor,
And I cannot stop her. I cannot stop her.

That was lovely.

[JohnDalglish]

It seems quite presumptuous to put this in a favorite (or favourite) poems thread, as I only wrote it a few minutes ago, so it can't possibly be anyone's favorite yet, but there's no thread for "poems you just dreamed up before heading upstairs to make dinner." :) I wrote it because of a wee Scottish bug in my ear who reminded me that I hadn't done anything like it for too long. Ahem. Soliloquy over. Let's get to it, then.

Moon
Over and over, the moon comes.
She comes, and waits, and then is gone.
Each time, she takes with her
One star.
Maybe two.
She thinks I can't see,
Can't tell,
But I do.
No one sees the slow dim,
The promises taken.
Or seems to.
But I do.
She waxes a gift
And wanes a glamor,
And I cannot stop her. I cannot stop her.

Hi,

Superb, Todash, thankee for sharing (said a wee Scottish bug LOL)

Long days and pleasant nights

[Todash]

Thank you all for your kind compliments. :blush: I had forgotten how open and bare sharing a poem you've written can make you feel, especially the personal ones.

[Spideyman]

Todash your poem is lovely. Please share more with us. Thank you.

[skimom]

hello fans of the king


does anybody have anymore robert frost poems
Nothing Gold can Stay
Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf is a flower
But only so an hour.
So leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Of course, there are many more; this is just one of my favorites:smile2:!








so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay

[BlackEye]

Nothing Gold can Stay
Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf is a flower
But only so an hour.
So leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Of course, there are many more; this is just one of my favorites:smile2:!








so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay

Nice, please share more. :)

[Todash]

All right, here's another one. I just did this one. (I think if I waited more than five minutes to post them I'd chicken out.) This one, while shaped more like something you'd call a rhyme than A Serious Poem, is actually quite in earnest. My husband was diagnosed with MS last week, and this is about my reaction to that, but of course it applies to anything that makes you feel this way, removed and engaged at the same time ... ugh, my explanation is not so great. Just read, I guess.

I swallowed a stone.
It sits in my chest.
Somehow I managed
To get myself dressed
And drive myself down
And sit in my box,
Where I only hear
The ticks and the tocks.
I swish and I smile
And nod to agree.
Sometimes I even
Forget that I'm me.
The day bustles on;
It swirls and it sparks
But never quite catches,
Here in the dark.
The buzzing ends, finally,
And I'm all alone
In the full empty quiet,
Just me and my stone.

[Kim L.]

All right, here's another one. I just did this one. (I think if I waited more than five minutes to post them I'd chicken out.) This one, while shaped more like something you'd call a rhyme than A Serious Poem, is actually quite in earnest. My husband was diagnosed with MS last week, and this is about my reaction to that, but of course it applies to anything that makes you feel this way, removed and engaged at the same time ... ugh, my explanation is not so great. Just read, I guess.

I swallowed a stone.
It sits in my chest.
Somehow I managed
To get myself dressed
And drive myself down
And sit in my box,
Where I only hear
The ticks and the tocks.
I swish and I smile
And nod to agree.
Sometimes I even
Forget that I'm me.
The day bustles on;
It swirls and it sparks
But never quite catches,
Here in the dark.
The buzzing ends, finally,
And I'm all alone
In the full empty quiet,
Just me and my stone.

Thanks for the great poem, Todash, and sorry to hear of your husband's diagnosis. You were able to create something out of pain, really a gift.

[JohnDalglish]

Thanks for the great poem, Todash, and sorry to hear of your husband's diagnosis. You were able to create something out of pain, really a gift.

HI,

AWKS.

Really sorry to hear about your husband, and it's a really excellent, heartfelt, poem IMO. Thankee for posting it.

((((((((((((((((((((Todash and husband)))))))))))))))))

Long days and pleasant nights

[Todash]

Thanks for the great poem, Todash, and sorry to hear of your husband's diagnosis. You were able to create something out of pain, really a gift.
Thanks. We will start formulating a plan to deal with it soon, and I'll feel better then. I've got lots of books to read on the subject. I'm trying not to borrow trouble.

[Todash]

HI,

AWKS.

Really sorry to hear about your husband, and it's a really excellent, heartfelt, poem IMO. Thankee for posting it.

((((((((((((((((((((Todash and husband)))))))))))))))))

Long days and pleasant nights
Thanks. :) Here's one by Longfellow. I found it, just now, as I was meandering around the web looking for comfort. It is, I think, comforting.

The Rainy Day
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust more dead leaves fall,.
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold and dark and dreary.
It rains and the wind is never weary.
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past.
And youth's fond hopes fall thick in the blast.
And my life is dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart and cease repining
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining
Thy fate is the common fate of all
Into each life some rain must fall
Some days must be dark and dreary.

[Kim L.]

Thanks. :) Here's one by Longfellow. I found it, just now, as I was meandering around the web looking for comfort. It is, I think, comforting.

The Rainy Day
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust more dead leaves fall,.
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold and dark and dreary.
It rains and the wind is never weary.
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past.
And youth's fond hopes fall thick in the blast.
And my life is dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart and cease repining
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining
Thy fate is the common fate of all
Into each life some rain must fall
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Great poem, haven't read it before--thanks for posting it.

[Kim L.]

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

[BlackEye]

Longfellow...

"I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,--
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!"

:wink2:

[BlackEye]

Another Longfellow(this is a homer pick since Portland, ME is my favorite town)...

My Lost Youth

"Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendship old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"

Also, on my previous one by Longfellow I forgot to include the title. The title of that one was "Hymn to the Night" in case someone is wondering.

Love Longfellow's...

[BlackEye]

Another Longfellow...

The Day Is Done

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[eyesnot]

Powder moonlit bark
Misty autumn dark
Rusty leaves scrape icy wind
To the man below limbs bend
and send, the man into a spin

Sees the tree below
Sees the man, he'll never know
Sees the seas, and Mother Earth
Sees the light, from his own birth
And sends, the man into a spin

Ceased the sun, then hits the ground
6 feet down, without a sound
Two small sticks, twine em bound
6 feet up from where he found
The man into a spin

...TKEllis2008

[Kim L.]

Thanks for all the Longfellow poems, BlackEye.

[skimom]

All right, here's another one. I just did this one. (I think if I waited more than five minutes to post them I'd chicken out.) This one, while shaped more like something you'd call a rhyme than A Serious Poem, is actually quite in earnest. My husband was diagnosed with MS last week,

Todash-
how heartfelt and beautiful-thank you. My mother was diagnosed 15 years ago after two years of testing; although I well know that everyones particular case is different, I can tell you that the treatments have improved by leaps and bounds, and life can be good-sometimes different, but good. Attitude means a lot. My prayers are for you and your family.

[kisun]

Both of these have probably already been posted, oh well :biggrin2:.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe
Too long, sorry :biggrin2:.

Welp, those are muh' two favorite poems :grinning:.

[JohnDalglish]

Thanks for all the Longfellow poems, BlackEye.

Hi,

AWKS.

I had an English school teacher who used to declaim Longfellow in a Shakesperian baritone - marvellous entertainment! Since then, I've felt that Longfellow wrote like Keith Moon or John Bomham played drums, if that makes any sense.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Kim L.]

Hi,

AWKS.

I had an English school teacher who used to declaim Longfellow in a Shakesperian baritone - marvellous entertainment! Since then, I've felt that Longfellow wrote like Keith Moon or John Bomham played drums, if that makes any sense.

Long days and pleasant nights

With joy and abandon with close attention to detail?

[BlackEye]

Thanks for all the Longfellow poems, BlackEye.

Your welcome. :smile2:

[Kenwood]

My favorite poem is by Stephen Crane.


I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never—"

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.
Love that poem. I'd say Stephen Crane is my favorite poet as well. His style is very reminiscent of my own actually. When I was stationed in the UK, a girl I'd met read some of my poetry and told me it was a lot like Crane's work. I wasn't even aware he'd ever written poetry, so when she let me borrow his collected works I was very impressed. I took to his style immediately.

You can read the only poem I've written all year here (http://www.eyesoretimes.com/2008/04/poetry-fire-at-his-feet.html). As you can see, our styles are similar. Kind of weird how that worked out, huh?

[MrsSmeej]

In honor of our new Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, one of my favorites;

Age

As some people age
they kinden.
The apertures
of their eyes widen.
I do not think they weaken;
I think something weak strengthens
until they are more and more it,
like letting in heaven.
But other people are
mussels or clams, frightened.
Steam or knife blades mean open.
They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.

Kay Ryan, Elephant Rocks

[JohnDalglish]

With joy and abandon with close attention to detail?


Hi,

Exactly, and with power and authority and an uncanny sense of rhythm and melody as well.

Long days and pleasant nights

[skimom]

Thank you Mrs. Smeej-I hadn't even heard that we had a new poet laureate!

And speaking of age, here's one of my favorites from one of my favorite poets:

THE OLD MEN ADMIRING THEMSELVES IN THE WATER
I heard the old, old men say,
"Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
"All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters."
YEATS

and another:
THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

[BlackEye]

Theodore Roethke's "In a Dark Time"

"n a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.


A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.


Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind."

[BlackEye]

Theodore Roethke's "The Heron"

"The heron stands in water where the swamp
Has deepened to the blackness of a pool,
Or balances with one leg on a hump
Of marsh grass heaped above a musk-rat hole.

He walks the shallow with an antic grace.
The great feet break the ridges of the sand,
The long eye notes the minnow's hiding place.
His beak is quicker than a human hand.

He jerks a frog across his bony lip,
Then points his heavy bill above the wood.
The wide wings flap but once to lift him up.
A single ripple starts from where he stood."

[BlackEye]

Theodore Roethke's "Night Journey"

"Night Journey

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love."

Awful sexy. ;)

[skimom]

Another by Yeats:
THE HEART OF THE WOMAN
O what to me the little room
That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;
He bade me out into the gloom,
And my breast lies upon his breast.

O what to me my mother's care,
The house where I was safe and warm;
The shadowy blossom of my hair
Will hide us from the bitter storm

O hiding hair and dewy eyes,
I am no more with life and death,
My heart upon his warm heart lies,
My breath is mixed into his breath.

[Kim L.]

In honor of our new Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, one of my favorites;

Age

As some people age
they kinden.
The apertures
of their eyes widen.
I do not think they weaken;
I think something weak strengthens
until they are more and more it,
like letting in heaven.
But other people are
mussels or clams, frightened.
Steam or knife blades mean open.
They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.

Kay Ryan, Elephant Rocks


Beautiful. Thank you, Mrs. Smeej. Love "kinden."

[Kim L.]

Theodore Roethke's "The Heron"

"The heron stands in water where the swamp
Has deepened to the blackness of a pool,
Or balances with one leg on a hump
Of marsh grass heaped above a musk-rat hole.

He walks the shallow with an antic grace.
The great feet break the ridges of the sand,
The long eye notes the minnow's hiding place.
His beak is quicker than a human hand.

He jerks a frog across his bony lip,
Then points his heavy bill above the wood.
The wide wings flap but once to lift him up.
A single ripple starts from where he stood."

Wonderful--thank you, Black Eye. Herons and egrets live in my part of the world and this poem describes them beautiful.

[Kim L.]

Hi,

Exactly, and with power and authority and an uncanny sense of rhythm and melody as well.

Long days and pleasant nights


My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920

[BlackEye]

Wonderful--thank you, Black Eye. Herons and egrets live in my part of the world and this poem describes them beautiful.

Yes, and you have the condors too. Lots of big birds there.

Here we have blue herron, I believe. Fairly good size birds. Very fun to watch. But my favorite is the golden and/or bald eagles. We have a golden eagle in our area that often visits our neighborhood looking for rodents I suppose. It is such a nice way to spend time - that is watching an eagle soar spending idle time up there with the least amount of effort and pupose. It is probably looking down on us thinking how small and insignificant we are. :)

[Todash]

In honor of our new Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, one of my favorites;

Age

As some people age
they kinden.
The apertures
of their eyes widen.
I do not think they weaken;
I think something weak strengthens
until they are more and more it,
like letting in heaven.
But other people are
mussels or clams, frightened.
Steam or knife blades mean open.
They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.

Kay Ryan, Elephant Rocks

I've never read this, or anything by her ... but this feels exactly true.

[MrsSmeej]

Hi Todash... I really think you'd like her. All of her poems are short and easily accessible while still being thought provoking and full of insight. I love her sense of humor.

[BlackEye]

Fragment 6: The Moon, how definite its orb!
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge


"The Moon, how definite its orb!
Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze—
'Tis there indeed,—but where is it not?—
It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven,
Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake,
Whose very murmur does of it partake
And low and close the broad smooth mountain
Is more a thing of Heaven than when
Distinct by one dim shade and yet undivided from the universal cloud
In which it towers, finite in height"

:wink2:

[BlackEye]

My Star
by Robert Browning


"All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!


Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it."

;)

[BlackEye]

The Beautiful Animal
by Geoffrey Brock


"By the time I recalled that it is also
terrifying, we had gone too far into
the charmed woods to return. It was then


the beautiful animal appeared in our path:
ribs jutting, moon-fed eyes moving
from me to you and back. If we show


none of the fear, it may tire of waiting
for the triggering flight, it may ask only
to lie between us and sleep, fur warm


on our skin, breath sweet on our necks
as it dreams of slaughter, as we dream
alternately of feeding and taming it


and of being the first to run. The woods
close tight around us, lying nested here
like spoons in a drawer of knives, to see


who wakes first, and from which dream."

;)

[JohnDalglish]

Hi Todash... I really think you'd like her. All of her poems are short and easily accessible while still being thought provoking and full of insight. I love her sense of humor.

Hi,

AWTS, new to me as well.

Can we have some more please? (Musical reference LOL) MrsSmeej?

Long days and pleasant nights

[Todash]

Yes, and you have the condors too. Lots of big birds there.

Here we have blue herron, I believe. Fairly good size birds. Very fun to watch. But my favorite is the golden and/or bald eagles. We have a golden eagle in our area that often visits our neighborhood looking for rodents I suppose. It is such a nice way to spend time - that is watching an eagle soar spending idle time up there with the least amount of effort and pupose. It is probably looking down on us thinking how small and insignificant we are. :)
Or how a fat little field mouse would just hit the spot. :p

[becks]

Hey John,
is there an 'e' missing in Dalglish? Just wondering.
Hi from Glasgow, Scotland. Love your passion.
If you like poems, how about this one:

in my heart there is a place
kept warm and free from pain
it is a place for you my dear
a place that is yours for life

best, becks.

[Kim L.]

The Beautiful Animal
by Geoffrey Brock


"By the time I recalled that it is also
terrifying, we had gone too far into
the charmed woods to return. It was then


the beautiful animal appeared in our path:
ribs jutting, moon-fed eyes moving
from me to you and back. If we show


none of the fear, it may tire of waiting
for the triggering flight, it may ask only
to lie between us and sleep, fur warm


on our skin, breath sweet on our necks
as it dreams of slaughter, as we dream
alternately of feeding and taming it


and of being the first to run. The woods
close tight around us, lying nested here
like spoons in a drawer of knives, to see


who wakes first, and from which dream."

;)

GREAT poem, Black Eye. You certainly have a good ear for poetry. Never heard of Geoffrey Brock; why don't you add him to our Library?

[AngelZ]

I'm sure everyone has heard this one before... "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot so I won't write in the whole poem ~ just a few of the best verses...or so I think.

I grow old . . .I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

[MrsSmeej]

By request, another Kay Ryan poem;

The Fabric of Life

It is very stretchy.
We know that, even if
many details remain
sketchy. It is complexly
woven. That much too
has been pretty well
proven. We are loath
to continue our lessons
which consist of slaps
as sharp and dispersed
as bee stings from
a smashed nest
when any strand snaps -
hurts working far past
the locus of rupture,
attacking threads
far beyond anything
we would have said
connects.

Kay Ryan from Say Uncle

Have I mentioned lately that I love this thread? Thank you all for your contributions here.

[BlackEye]

GREAT poem, Black Eye. You certainly have a good ear for poetry. Never heard of Geoffrey Brock; why don't you add him to our Library?

Thanks. I wish you'd tell my english/literature teachers in highschool that! :smile2: You are very kind.

It is just comical for me because I was terrible on the verbage when I went through school. I chose engineering because I could go through college with the minimal amount of English classes and reading. I built my cocoon out of math and science and these days I feel like I am a butterfly floating around peacefully in the warm breeze that draws its' energy from art and literature. I write now; stories and poems. I take a lot of pictures too. I have also started dabbling with drawing. Not sure how good I am at any of it, but it makes me feel good. That is all that matters... I suppose. I have had a source of energy that serves as my motivation similar to Edgar in Duma Key. Now, let's not get carried away - nobody will hang anything I do in a gallery or museum. But then again, my source of energy is not evil in nature like Perce, so I have something Edgar doesn't - something precious to draw on. Something that I'd never dream of sealing in a cask. :smile2:

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Much discussion of T. S. Eliot's Waste Lands and it's relevance to DT3 (and maybe N?) so I've just put him/it in our Great Library if anyone wants to read more Eliot.

Long days and pleasant nights

[BlackEye]

Eagle Poem
by Joy Harjo


To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadly growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

[skimom]

Mrs. Smeej-
Thank you so much for bringing her to my attention! These poems have a power and depth that I really like.

[Kim L.]

Thanks. I wish you'd tell my english/literature teachers in highschool that! :smile2: You are very kind.

It is just comical for me because I was terrible on the verbage when I went through school. I chose engineering because I could go through college with the minimal amount of English classes and reading. I built my cocoon out of math and science and these days I feel like I am a butterfly floating around peacefully in the warm breeze that draws its' energy from art and literature. I write now; stories and poems. I take a lot of pictures too. I have also started dabbling with drawing. Not sure how good I am at any of it, but it makes me feel good. That is all that matters... I suppose. I have had a source of energy that serves as my motivation similar to Edgar in Duma Key. Now, let's not get carried away - nobody will hang anything I do in a gallery or museum. But then again, my source of energy is not evil in nature like Perce, so I have something Edgar doesn't - something precious to draw on. Something that I'd never dream of sealing in a cask. :smile2:


Kind of the other way around here--loved English, avoided math & science assiduously. Then made a career change in my 30s and ended up taking math & science anyway and grew to love the logic and discipline of scientific thinking. To have both is a great gift, I think; you can draw your energy from either side of the brain. My mother started out as an English major and became a civil engineer (structural).

[MrsSmeej]

With apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayer and his Casey at the Bat, may I present;

A Red Sox Fan's Lament
a parody by MrsSmeej

The outlook ain't been brilliant for the Beantown 9 these days,
With the Yankees only down by 1 and us 3 down to the Rays.
Then losing to the Angels. We got home and did the same,
And a pall like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

The Boston press has bitched and moaned in deep despair. The rest?
We clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
We thought "If only Manny would just wake and look at that.
We'd put up with his napping just to see him up at bat."

But Papi with his injury and the Youk and Manny fight
Soon gave us all to know that something simply wasn't right.
So upon we stricken multitude grim stomach acids ate,
For there seemed but little chance of Manny stepping to the plate.

Though Tampa Bay has been in first, to the wonderment of all.
Still, Red Sox Nation listened to the sound of Tessie's call.
But now the dust has lifted and we've seen what has occurred;
Manny traded to the Dodgers after giving us the bird.

From some half a million throats there arose a lusty yell.
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell,
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat
For Manny - Red Sox Manny - has had his last at bat.

I'll miss the ease in Manny's manner as he stepped into his place.
I'll miss the pride in Manny's bearing and the smile on Manny's face
And how, responding to the cheers, he'd lightly doff his hat.
With those dreadlocks in his face we knew 'twas Manny at the bat.

But all our eyes were on him as he smeared our names in dirt
And all of Red Sox Nation felt bewilderment and hurt.
He said we don't deserve him... He really let 'er rip.
Defiance flashed in Manny's eye, a sneer curled Manny's lip.

Now we remembered how the leather sphere'd come hurtling through the air
And, out in left, how Manny stood in haughty grandeur there.
How by the dreaming Manny, the ball unheeded sped.
"That's just my style" said Manny. "Okay" the fan base said.

From the benches out in Fenway once there rose a happy roar
Like the beatings of the storm waves on the Nation's rocky shore.
"That's just Manny being Manny" shouted someone in the stand
And it's true that we all loved him when he took his bat in hand.

But Manny made it pretty clear that he just wanted out.
He started favoring his knee. He started, again, to pout.
Manny has a brand new agent who just wanted to get paid
But wouldn't have received a cent 'less he brokered a new trade.

"Fraud!" cried the maddened press corps, and the Nation echoed "Fraud!"
But some scornful words from Manny and the Faithful all were awed.
We saw his face grow stern and cold. We saw relations strain
And we knew that Manny wouldn't let the trade go by again.

The sneer is gone from Manny's lips. He's headed to L.A.
While the Red Sox pay his salary and pick up Jason Bay.
Manny has joined Nomah in that far and fabled land
But as he leaves, let's not forget to give the guy a hand.

For somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The bands are playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere fans don't frown
But there is no joy at my house now that Manny has skipped town.

[BlackEye]

Thanks Mrs. Smeej, I like it. :)

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Ah, the time available to a kept woman LOL

Very good, MrsSmeej, and thankee for the Kay Ryan, why don't you put her in our Library?

and we could do with Joy Harjo in there as well, BlackEye.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Todash]

Here's a poet I haven't seen in here yet (I think):

Evolution
Sherman Alexie

Buffalo Bill opens a pawn shop on the reservation
right across the border from the liquor store
and he stays open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

and the Indians come running in with jewelry
television sets, a VCR, a full-length beaded bucksin outfit
it took Inez Muse 12 years to finish. Buffalo Bill

takes everything the Indians have to offer, keeps it
all catalogued and filed in a storage room. The Indians
pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last, they pawn

their skeletons, falling endlessly from the skin
and when the last Indian has pawned everything
but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks

closes up the pawn shop, paints a new sign over the old
calls his venture THE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES
charges the Indians five bucks a head to enter.

[Kim L.]

With apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayer and his Casey at the Bat, may I present;

A Red Sox Fan's Lament
a parody by MrsSmeej

The outlook ain't been brilliant for the Beantown 9 these days,
With the Yankees only down by 1 and us 3 down to the Rays.
Then losing to the Angels. We got home and did the same,
And a pall like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

The Boston press has bitched and moaned in deep despair. The rest?
We clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
We thought "If only Manny would just wake and look at that.
We'd put up with his napping just to see him up at bat."

But Papi with his injury and the Youk and Manny fight
Soon gave us all to know that something simply wasn't right.
So upon we stricken multitude grim stomach acids ate,
For there seemed but little chance of Manny stepping to the plate.

Though Tampa Bay has been in first, to the wonderment of all.
Still, Red Sox Nation listened to the sound of Tessie's call.
But now the dust has lifted and we've seen what has occurred;
Manny traded to the Dodgers after giving us the bird.

From some half a million throats there arose a lusty yell.
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell,
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat
For Manny - Red Sox Manny - has had his last at bat.

I'll miss the ease in Manny's manner as he stepped into his place.
I'll miss the pride in Manny's bearing and the smile on Manny's face
And how, responding to the cheers, he'd lightly doff his hat.
With those dreadlocks in his face we knew 'twas Manny at the bat.

But all our eyes were on him as he smeared our names in dirt
And all of Red Sox Nation felt bewilderment and hurt.
He said we don't deserve him... He really let 'er rip.
Defiance flashed in Manny's eye, a sneer curled Manny's lip.

Now we remembered how the leather sphere'd come hurtling through the air
And, out in left, how Manny stood in haughty grandeur there.
How by the dreaming Manny, the ball unheeded sped.
"That's just my style" said Manny. "Okay" the fan base said.

From the benches out in Fenway once there rose a happy roar
Like the beatings of the storm waves on the Nation's rocky shore.
"That's just Manny being Manny" shouted someone in the stand
And it's true that we all loved him when he took his bat in hand.

But Manny made it pretty clear that he just wanted out.
He started favoring his knee. He started, again, to pout.
Manny has a brand new agent who just wanted to get paid
But wouldn't have received a cent 'less he brokered a new trade.

"Fraud!" cried the maddened press corps, and the Nation echoed "Fraud!"
But some scornful words from Manny and the Faithful all were awed.
We saw his face grow stern and cold. We saw relations strain
And we knew that Manny wouldn't let the trade go by again.

The sneer is gone from Manny's lips. He's headed to L.A.
While the Red Sox pay his salary and pick up Jason Bay.
Manny has joined Nomah in that far and fabled land
But as he leaves, let's not forget to give the guy a hand.

For somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The bands are playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere fans don't frown
But there is no joy at my house now that Manny has skipped town.

Wonderfully clever parody, Mrs. Smeej! Manny, alas, has gone to "the embodiment of evil in the National League" as my husband refers to the Dodgers.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Never seen any of Sherman Alexie's poems before, Todash, but Pat sent me his excellent novel 'The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven' and she put him in our Library as well.

Very good writer indeed IMO.

Long days and pleasant nights

[BlackEye]

The Rain
by Robert Creeley


All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.


What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it


that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me


something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.


Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out


of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

[BlackEye]

Tornado Child
by Kwame Dawes

For Rosalie Richardson


I am a tornado child.
I come like a swirl of black and darken up your day;
I whip it all into my womb, lift you and your things,
carry you to where you've never been, and maybe,
if I feel good, I might bring you back, all warm and scared,
heart humming wild like a bird after early sudden flight.


I am a tornado child.
I tremble at the elements. When thunder rolls my womb
trembles, remembering the tweak of contractions
that tightened to a wail when my mother pushed me out
into the black of tornado night.


I am a tornado child,
you can tell us from far, by the crazy of our hair;
couldn't tame it if we tried. Even now I tie a bandanna
to silence the din of anarchy in these coir-thick plaits.


I am a tornado child
born in the whirl of clouds; the centre crumbled,
then I came. My lovers know the blast of my chaotic giving;
they tremble at the whip of my supple thighs;
you cross me at your peril, I swallow light
when the warm of anger lashes me into a spin,
the pine trees bend to me swept in my gyrations.


I am a tornado child.
When the spirit takes my head, I hurtle into the vacuum
of white sheets billowing and paint a swirl of color,
streaked with my many songs.

[BlackEye]

Windy Nights
by Robert Louis Stevenson


Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?


Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.

[Todash]

The Rain
by Robert Creeley

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

I really like that. It made me think of

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

Which has always been my favorite verse of that sonnet.

[rudiroo]

Fine choice of thread, JohnD.
Might I suggest the following:
Anything by WHAuden
Anything by TSEliot
Everything by Philip Larkin (except the Whitsun Weddings)
Anything by Wendy Cope
Archy & Mehitabel by Don Marquis.
A warning to anyone new to Philip Larkin - he loved bad words, was generally disrespectful to women and had a racist thing going on too. BUT, he was a great poet.
Discover, read and enjoy.

[Speedy2]

Desiderata by: Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace may be in the silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak the truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noise and confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

[Kahllie]

My favourite poem is:

"The Fool's Prayer" by Edward Roland Sill.

Stanza 7, especially, is something that I try to remember in the way I deal with people.

[BlackEye]

First Poem for You
by Kim Addonizio


I like to touch your tattoos in complete
darkness, when I can’t see them. I’m sure of
where they are, know by heart the neat
lines of lightning pulsing just above
your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue
swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent
twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you


to me, taking you until we’re spent
and quiet on the sheets, I love to kiss
the pictures in your skin. They’ll last until
you’re seared to ashes; whatever persists
or turns to pain between us, they will still
be there. Such permanence is terrifying.
So I touch them in the dark; but touch them, trying.

[Kim L.]

It's been awhile since anyone posted in this thread (and thankee, BlackEye and everyone who's posted). This is one of mine. It don't feel finished, but I've been stuck for a few days. Your comments welcome:

"8/8/08"

Beauty is the note, the grace, the dance
Face and voice
Flowers bloom and burst midair, enhanced
The fire leaps
From far above, we watch below
Entranced

[JohnDalglish]

It's been awhile since anyone posted in this thread (and thankee, BlackEye and everyone who's posted). This is one of mine. It don't feel finished, but I've been stuck for a few days. Your comments welcome:

"8/8/08"

Beauty is the note, the grace, the dance
Face and voice
Flowers bloom and burst midair, enhanced
The fire leaps
From far above, we watch below
Entranced


Hi,

GREAT poem, Kim, thankee for posting it.

Made me think of T. S. Eliot.

Long days and pleasant nights

[MrsSmeej]

Oh Kim, it's lovely... And, although I'm hardly an expert, it seems polished and perfect as is to me.

I realize you're paying tribute to the Opening Ceremonies, but the day was also my son's birthday and your verse evokes several emotions for me. Thank you for sharing it. :grinning:

[Patricia A]

It's been awhile since anyone posted in this thread (and thankee, BlackEye and everyone who's posted). This is one of mine. It don't feel finished, but I've been stuck for a few days. Your comments welcome:

"8/8/08"

Beauty is the note, the grace, the dance
Face and voice
Flowers bloom and burst midair, enhanced
The fire leaps
From far above, we watch below
Entranced

Beautiful Kim,
It makes me think of music and fireworks on a summer night. Thanks!

[AngelZ]

Kim that is real LOVELY. You have talent and a different style. Keep at it. I'm sure it will be great. Have you written much before?

[Todash]

It's been awhile since anyone posted in this thread (and thankee, BlackEye and everyone who's posted). This is one of mine. It don't feel finished, but I've been stuck for a few days. Your comments welcome:

"8/8/08"

Beauty is the note, the grace, the dance
Face and voice
Flowers bloom and burst midair, enhanced
The fire leaps
From far above, we watch below
Entranced
Really nice internal rhythms! Maybe one more long-ish line to complete the pattern?

[BlackEye]

It's been awhile since anyone posted in this thread (and thankee, BlackEye and everyone who's posted). This is one of mine. It don't feel finished, but I've been stuck for a few days. Your comments welcome:

"8/8/08"

Beauty is the note, the grace, the dance
Face and voice
Flowers bloom and burst midair, enhanced
The fire leaps
From far above, we watch below
Entranced

nice. dancing under the fireworks is a nice thought :smile2:

[Kim L.]

Really nice internal rhythms! Maybe one more long-ish line to complete the pattern?

Thanks to everyone for your kind remarks! Todash, one more long line is what I was thinking too, but it wasn't coming. I have written before, poems and short stories but usually situation-specific like this one. Only published once.

[Todash]

Thanks to everyone for your kind remarks! Todash, one more long line is what I was thinking too, but it wasn't coming. I have written before, poems and short stories but usually situation-specific like this one. Only published once.
Great minds! :)

Um ... no specific suggestions—I can't hear any words past "entranced"—but rhythm-wise I hear six syllables in iambic meter, shorter than the other long lines, and the last word having a different vowel sound than either "danced" or "below." That's all I got.

[BC Barlow]

My favorite poems, for ever and always, are Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", and "The Bells" and T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"

[scotts_girl]

i love this one enjoy:biggrin2:


Scotland owns me, heart and head and hand
Scotland owns me, and I own no other land
I've got nae wish to die for Scotland
For that would nae gain a thing
But for every waking hour I'll live to see her free again

Freedom from what asks the quisling
Our English Lords are kind, aye
But while Scotland's laws are English made, I'll ken nae piece of mind
The quisling cries aloud again
See poverty is dead, there's hostels for the sick
And the poor, and old, aye all are fed
Dinna bite the hand that feeds you; pal, my faither always said

There's dole queue's for the living and death grants for the dead
Aye, if a man can find nae work, the dole m'aye provide
But can a man still be a man, if he's lost his pride
This land of was surely pockled for the ancient Celtic tribe
While mony a Scottish, Judas hand received a Saxon bribe

A land of heroes once we were, micht be again nae doubt
But quisling traitors, dank and foul, must still be weeded out
When Robert Bruce had claimed the throne and independence rocked
He wasn't King of Scotland, but created King of Scots
And so this land of Scotland cannot be owned by man
But borrowed by our ain folk, for length of one life span

Aye, Scotland owns me, heart and hand and head
And the sovereign soil of Scotland can claim me when I'm dead

gordon menzies

[scotts_girl]

why did i put that in a spoiler lol wasent ment too

[Moderator]

I did that as noted to save space. I do that whenever there are posts with lyrics or poetry, etc. that are a bit long.

[JohnDalglish]

i love this one enjoy:biggrin2:


Scotland owns me, heart and head and hand
Scotland owns me, and I own no other land
I've got nae wish to die for Scotland
For that would nae gain a thing
But for every waking hour I'll live to see her free again

Freedom from what asks the quisling
Our English Lords are kind, aye
But while Scotland's laws are English made, I'll ken nae piece of mind
The quisling cries aloud again
See poverty is dead, there's hostels for the sick
And the poor, and old, aye all are fed
Dinna bite the hand that feeds you; pal, my faither always said

There's dole queue's for the living and death grants for the dead
Aye, if a man can find nae work, the dole m'aye provide
But can a man still be a man, if he's lost his pride
This land of was surely pockled for the ancient Celtic tribe
While mony a Scottish, Judas hand received a Saxon bribe

A land of heroes once we were, micht be again nae doubt
But quisling traitors, dank and foul, must still be weeded out
When Robert Bruce had claimed the throne and independence rocked
He wasn't King of Scotland, but created King of Scots
And so this land of Scotland cannot be owned by man
But borrowed by our ain folk, for length of one life span

Aye, Scotland owns me, heart and hand and head
And the sovereign soil of Scotland can claim me when I'm dead

gordon menzies

Hi,

Marvellous.

Thankee scotts girl.

Long days and pleasant nights

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

There's a new social group, started by bloodroses, for poetry.

Why don't you all join!

Long days and pleasant nights

[scotts_girl]

will do john,i see me mod makes since:biggrin2:

[JohnK]

Shakespere: Henry V "St. Crispans Day" speech.
I know its not a poem, but it is moving. I remember Kenneth Branagh reciting it in the 1989 film version. For me It describes comradeship and all that the term means, especially the line: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."



This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day"

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Great, JohnK, and I think you make an important point.

Shakespeare's work was written for a largely illiterate audience and it was written to be heard (and seen) rather than read.

IMO Listen (and watch!) Shakespeare to fully judge the wordslinger's genius. To criticise Will on the basis of reading him is akin to criticising Sai Kin on the basis of a movie IMO.

Long days and pleasant nights

[AngelZ]

HAP by Thomas Hardy

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

[BlackThorn]

The Great Invocation

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the center where the Will of God is knwon
Let purpose guide the little wills of men--
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the center which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on the Earth.

-- Lucis Trust

[BlackThorn]

Okay, here's the one I was looking for.

Thou shalt find to the left of the House of Hades a spring,
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To this spring approach not near.
But thou shalt find another, from the Lake of Memory
Cold water flowing forth, and there are guardians before it.
Say, "I am a child of Earth and starry heaven;
But my race is of Heaven (alone). This ye know yourselves.
But I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory."
And of themselves they will give thee to drink of the holy spring.
And there after among the other heroes thou shalt have lordship.

-- From the Funerary Gold Plates from Petelia, Italy, fourth-third century BC

[Gwenivere]

"Freedom"

With Wings of the Wind,
A Storm in the Sky,
She rides through the valley,
As if her last night.

So caught in the moment.
The edge of the Storm.
A girl, and her horse,
Together as one.

Both lost to the world,
in pursuit of the clouds
reckless abandoned
apart of the storm

Nothing compares ,
To the Wind Rushing by,
Blind to the world,
sights to the sky.

Meeting the Storm,
head on, in full force
Wild speed, and thunder
Free at long last.

Abandon the trials,
to "live" is to risks,
If only a moment,
They charge on ahead.

The Spirit of truth,
The fury of the storm.
The flight of their souls
Together , Alone.

The breath and the sweat of the fiery steed,
The wind rushing by, the shimmer of leaves
The Colors of the sky, as the powers unleash,
The crack , of the lightning,
The Thunder of hoofs
As the clouds clash together,
The world comes to life

All the questions, the answers untold
All the long nights spent all alone
Now they are gone,
The fears and the pains,,

They no longer exists
this moment in time
The Wind, and the Stallion
They answered her cries

Nothing more beautiful, powerful, untamed
The Wind, the Storm, The Stallion she rides.
Her heart is full
Her spirit free

More power than all that life can behold
The spirit inside, from racing the wind.

When darkness does fall, sometime in the end.
What really matters is the way we have lived.

The cages of life,
Are but a facade,

For where ever we are, where ever we stand,
How ever we live, What ever our cage,
Within us all;
Lies Freedom and Truth
The desires to live,
A Yearning for Peace.

When your lost in a cage,
There is but one need; Just close your eyes,
Turn your face to the sun
Feel the brush of the Wind
Let it take you away.

Close your mind to this world,
Let your heart race
Feel the warmth of the sun,
The Wind on your cheek.

As new days begin,
Or in darkness of night,
Always a shimmer, the shinning of light,
if just but a star,
until the new dawn,

Open your heart,
follow your dreams,
Live life to the fullest,
to the ends of all days.

We live but one life,
live the best way you can,
Race the next storm
Ride with the wind.,

Life sometimes, can be so cruel,
Full of unfair, and full to of fear
full of lonely, or hopeless despair

When life happens,
Remember to fly,
Remember the clouds,
Look to the Sky.

Remember that..

Horses and Freedom,
Are one in the same,
Get back in the saddle
Let Freedom Reign.

On the Wings of the Wind,
Racing the Storm
Live all that you can
let yourself Soar, let yourself fly
Don't let your dreams, pass you on by

[killyerdarlings]

I've started visiting a site called thepoetsanctuary (http://www.thepoetsanctuary.net), and they have this neat feature called "the weekly challenge."

This week's challenge was to "create a myth, legend, or fairytale about falling stars."

I was so happy with my result I thought I'd share it here:

Somethin' Scorchin'
One September morning before light of dawn
The stars in the heavens a’ twinkling,
A shriek from above to which all eyes were drawn
A streak through the dotted black, crinkling

Then, “BOOM,” stirring suddenly all those around
Who rushed to the place where it landed
The fauna departed, quite scared from the sound,
And villagers answers demanded

“BEHOLD!” came a bellowing voice from the throng,
“For this is the promise delivered!
See shining there darkly, as sought for so long,
A piece of our heaven unquivered!”

Clad greatly in robes of all colors and cloth
Forward strode a grand figure, majestic
The bearer of promises, fortunes, and wroth,
‘Twas he who ruled all things domestic

“I say,” dared this king, “that today marks the time
Our people shall finally flourish!
For this piece of heaven, cast down from above,
Our lands shall allow us to nourish!”

With this proclamation, the king, he then knelt,
And bowed his head til he was prostrate,
And, touching it gently, the king a burn felt,
Causing townsfolk to call him apostate!

The land, it did prosper, the people as well,
The stone from the heavens respected,
‘Twas thought that the king had been tainted by hell--
The burning these evils rejected

This black piece of heaven still sits to this day
And people still seek out its fortune
But children are warned not to touch it at play
Or heaven will send something scorchin’!

[BlackEye]

"Freedom"

With Wings of the Wind,
A Storm in the Sky,
She rides through the valley,
As if her last night.

So caught in the moment.
The edge of the Storm.
A girl, and her horse,
Together as one.

Both lost to the world,
in pursuit of the clouds
reckless abandoned
apart of the storm

Nothing compares ,
To the Wind Rushing by,
Blind to the world,
sights to the sky.

Meeting the Storm,
head on, in full force
Wild speed, and thunder
Free at long last.

Abandon the trials,
to "live" is to risks,
If only a moment,
They charge on ahead.

The Spirit of truth,
The fury of the storm.
The flight of their souls
Together , Alone.

The breath and the sweat of the fiery steed,
The wind rushing by, the shimmer of leaves
The Colors of the sky, as the powers unleash,
The crack , of the lightning,
The Thunder of hoofs
As the clouds clash together,
The world comes to life

All the questions, the answers untold
All the long nights spent all alone
Now they are gone,
The fears and the pains,,

They no longer exists
this moment in time
The Wind, and the Stallion
They answered her cries

Nothing more beautiful, powerful, untamed
The Wind, the Storm, The Stallion she rides.
Her heart is full
Her spirit free

More power than all that life can behold
The spirit inside, from racing the wind.

When darkness does fall, sometime in the end.
What really matters is the way we have lived.

The cages of life,
Are but a facade,

For where ever we are, where ever we stand,
How ever we live, What ever our cage,
Within us all;
Lies Freedom and Truth
The desires to live,
A Yearning for Peace.

When your lost in a cage,
There is but one need; Just close your eyes,
Turn your face to the sun
Feel the brush of the Wind
Let it take you away.

Close your mind to this world,
Let your heart race
Feel the warmth of the sun,
The Wind on your cheek.

As new days begin,
Or in darkness of night,
Always a shimmer, the shinning of light,
if just but a star,
until the new dawn,

Open your heart,
follow your dreams,
Live life to the fullest,
to the ends of all days.

We live but one life,
live the best way you can,
Race the next storm
Ride with the wind.,

Life sometimes, can be so cruel,
Full of unfair, and full to of fear
full of lonely, or hopeless despair

When life happens,
Remember to fly,
Remember the clouds,
Look to the Sky.

Remember that..

Horses and Freedom,
Are one in the same,
Get back in the saddle
Let Freedom Reign.

On the Wings of the Wind,
Racing the Storm
Live all that you can
let yourself Soar, let yourself fly
Don't let your dreams, pass you on by

Wow, awesome! :smile2: Love the images of racing the storm and riding the wind. Thanks. :)

[BlackEye]

I've started visiting a site called thepoetsanctuary (http://www.thepoetsanctuary.net), and they have this neat feature called "the weekly challenge."

This week's challenge was to "create a myth, legend, or fairytale about falling stars."

I was so happy with my result I thought I'd share it here:

Somethin' Scorchin'
One September morning before light of dawn
The stars in the heavens a’ twinkling,
A shriek from above to which all eyes were drawn
A streak through the dotted black, crinkling

Then, “BOOM,” stirring suddenly all those around
Who rushed to the place where it landed
The fauna departed, quite scared from the sound,
And villagers answers demanded

“BEHOLD!” came a bellowing voice from the throng,
“For this is the promise delivered!
See shining there darkly, as sought for so long,
A piece of our heaven unquivered!”

Clad greatly in robes of all colors and cloth
Forward strode a grand figure, majestic
The bearer of promises, fortunes, and wroth,
‘Twas he who ruled all things domestic

“I say,” dared this king, “that today marks the time
Our people shall finally flourish!
For this piece of heaven, cast down from above,
Our lands shall allow us to nourish!”

With this proclamation, the king, he then knelt,
And bowed his head til he was prostrate,
And, touching it gently, the king a burn felt,
Causing townsfolk to call him apostate!

The land, it did prosper, the people as well,
The stone from the heavens respected,
‘Twas thought that the king had been tainted by hell--
The burning these evils rejected

This black piece of heaven still sits to this day
And people still seek out its fortune
But children are warned not to touch it at play
Or heaven will send something scorchin’!

Great job. :) Hope you win.

[BlackEye]

Child on top of a Greenhouse
by Theodore Roethke


The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight,
A few white clouds all rushing eastward,
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,
And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!

[Agincourt Concierge]

A Red Red Rose...Robert Burns
The Road Not Taken...Robert Frost
I Never Saw a Moor...Emily Dickenson
Sonnet 57...William Shakespeare
The Infero...Dante Alighieri
The Village Blacksmith....Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[Maddie]

my 11 year old son Drew wrote this poem last night, and asked me to read it, to see if it 'sounded okay', he wrote it for a girl at school whose name he doesn't even know, its his intention to sneak it into her locker.

anyway I thought it was sweet...



With love and passion

I love your fashion.

I like you.

Do you like me?

Maybe we can start a family tree.

You look wonderful.

Dare I mention beautiful.

Your face is a delight.

It makes the world bright.

Maybe this bond can be.

Cause you complete me.


with Love, your Secret Admirer

[Gwenivere]

Undressed

Undressed trees stand shivering
as flimsy shifts blew away;
the last leaves are quivering,
till they too will drop, decay.

Under bark’s rough covering
grow tiny cells in wonder-
blooms to be, still hovering,
kept safe from autumn’s thunder.

Dreams of spring are flowering
in darkened night’s soft caress;
lovers cuddle, showering
moist kisses on skin, undressed

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h134/therandomking/two_trees.jpg

[Spideyman]

Shadows

I hear myself say the things my father used to say
I do stuff so absently that was my Mom's own way.
I startle when I see my father's only brother
Often times, unknowingly, casting shadows of the other.
My heart it jumps if only for an instant,
I realize of course Mom & Dad are not so distant.
As our children have children of their own
It helps to remind us of how much we've grown.
A baby's look as she quietly lay asleep
Helps us to remember the shadows we keep.
A song on the radio shadows what has been
Aromas as we bake bring shadows from within.
Our mother's home made bread or her stew
Fire our hearts with shadows known & new.
We all cast shadows of our own
That will still be felt when our children are grown.
Bad and good shadows every soul
Knowing the difference is the only goal.
The Almighty keeps us in His shadow
Shining His love we will not be sallow.
I heard my child say what my father said to me
I pray that I may shadow oh so lovingly.


Anonymous

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Beautiful, Spidey, thankee for posting it.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Frizz]

I just read Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came".
Excellent reading material IMO.

[junai]

"I Too,"

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

Jazzonia

Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.

Langston Hughes

and...
"Do not go Gentle into that Good night"

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

and not least...

Crystal water turns to dark
Where ere it's presence leaves it's mark
And boiling currents pound like drums
When something wicked this way comes...

A presence dark invades the fair
And gives the horses ample scare
Chaos rains and panic fills the air
When something wicked this way comes...

Ill winds mark it's fearsome flight,
And autumn branches creak with fright.
The landscape turns to ashen crumbs,
When something wicked this way comes...

Flowers bloom as black as night
Removing color from your sight
Nightmarish vines block your way
Thorns reach out to catch their prey

And by the pricking of your thumbs
Realize that their poison numbs
From frightful blooms, rank odors seep
Bats & beasties fly & creep

'Cross this evil land, ill winds blow
Despite the darkness, mushrooms glow
All will rot & decompose
For something wicked this way grows...

Ray Bradbury

[Gwenivere]

I carry your heart with me

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

EE Cummings

[Gwenivere]

I’ve been...

Walking these castle halls;
climbing these stone walls.
Looking into empty space;
recalling a familiar face.
Passing time in the stillness;
Remembering the past likeness.
Ticking at a snails pace
Alone in this empty place
Silence is all that falls;
When waiting on forgotten calls.

-Gwen

[Cowboy]

Morning In The Woods

Sitting in the early morning chill
The night sounds dying down to nil
The last hoot of the old wise owl
Night creatures no longer on the prowl
Sun is starting to break in the East
Nary a sound of any beast
Then comes the "cheep" of the Cardinal bird
Announcing a new day, others can now be heard
Woots, whistles and rustlings from everywhere
Another beautiful day for all to share
Squirrels scurry all about
Turkey gobble out a shout
Deer move like ghosts amongst the trees
My gun and I wait patiently for these

-Cowboy (inspired this past weekend)

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

I wrote this as a song in the days just after 9/11, and the recent events in Mumbai make it unfortunately relevant -


MOHAMMED'S SON

Mohammed owns the corner shop where I buy my daily bread
But Mohammed's not a prophet, he's a businessman instead
The only profit Mohammed worships is the mark-up on his shelves
And his shiny new Mercedes - his daughter works for the National Health

But Mohammed's son's a madman; to him Osama is a hero
And he watches the hardline videos, taking pleasure in Ground Zero
The money Mohammed gives him, some filters back to Iraq
If he thought that he had half a chance he'd stab us in the back

Mohammed's son went to Pakistan, a wedding for to see
Where he met an Afghan veteran, a hard man from deep Saudi
Who taught him of the Last Battle, between the East and the West
How to shoot a Kalashinkov and how to make a bomber's vest

Mohammed's son he's easily led so he became a terrorist's tool
Taught to try to find a way to fight back at Western rule
So he came back to Great Britain to strike a blow in Allah's name
And he thought of how best to do it to achieve a terrorists fame

Mohammed's son he poisoned all the baby food in the store
Then he took a plane back to Pakistan and vanished out the door
More than ninety kids were poisoned and half of all them died
So Mohammed's son's a hero in modern Islam's eyes

Now this story it's never happened, at least it hasn't happened YET!
But Mohammed's son's not fiction, and he handles the food you get
And his cousin owns the corner shop beside you and you and yours
And there's just no way of telling what a terrorists tool may do

So think about it the next time you put a pound in Mohammerd's till
Some of it may go to terrorists to bomb and maim and kill
And Mohammeds control the corner shops in every British street
So put the pound back in your pocket
Don't lay it at Allah's feet!


Long days and pleasant nightsl

[killyerdarlings]

The Soul's Banquet


This dining on daggers of distraction
Delays a heartier hunger,
A starvation born of this attraction;
Sate this emptiness, and linger.

Let the garden full of roses peek to see
What bloom fulfills their master’s need;
A banquet, then, to all the senses be,
Rest here; allow this soul to feed.

Come ever closer, patient Adonis,
Complete this halfway hollow frame,
Giving others only faintest solace;
Burn those pretenders with your flame.

Burn, when gone, as heaven’s visions oft do,
Know what joyous intent awaits,
Return exultant, warmly tender, true,
Bring union, so hunger abates.

For here’s where the half-souls rest from their plight,
Here the souls sing, brought together,
Come with a passion to last through the night;
Stay in this garden forever.

--Wrote this for a competition a few months ago.

[Gwenivere]

Christmas Long Ago

Frosty days and ice-still nights,
Fir trees trimmed with tiny lights,
Sound of sleigh bells in the snow,
That was Christmas long ago.
Tykes on sleds and shouts of glee,
Icy-window filigree,
Sugarplums and candle glow,
Part of Christmas long ago.
Footsteps stealthy on the stair,
Sweet-voiced carols in the air,
Stocking hanging in a row,
Tell of Christmas long ago.
Starry nights so still and blue,
Good friends calling out to you,
Life, so fact, will always slow...
For dreams of Christmas long ago.

-Jo Geis

[CorbinKale]

Heads up from Rudyard Kipling.

http://www.olimu.com/readings/GodsOfTheCopybookHeadings.htm

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[Patricia A]

This is my new favorite poem, and it was written by our own MrsSmeej, the Poet Laureate of the SKMB if you ask me.
It's untitled but allow me to call it Countdown. :love:

Countdown

14, 13... Counting down
Days 'til Bush is leaving town
12, 11, 10, 9, 8...
We can barely stand to wait

7 and 6... 5 then 4...
Bush and Cheney out the door
3 then 2 and finally 1
More day before their reign is done

It cannot come too soon for me
Until the last of them we'll see.
Barrack Obama's next in line
I have to say that suits me fine

He looks like he's prepared to lead
Dignified in word and deed.
But, what will late night comics do
When gaffes are far between and few?

They may resort to finding funny
The current crisis with our money
Economy is quite a mess
I'm not amused, I must confess

'Though, Stewart and Colbert, I'm sure
Are bound to find Obama's cure
Better news they can report
With sly wit and a quick retort.

A President who's not a joke
May be tough on comic folk
But no more will we have to pray
That Bush will finally go away.

[MrsSmeej]

:blush:

Purrtricia, you're a darlin' and you've made me blush again.
I'm pleased that Suessilitis put a smile on your face when
I mentioned that I joined you in your wish that Bush would hurry
Pack his bags, get out of Dodge, and back to Texas scurry.

It's clear to me why John thinks you're the best. I think so too.
I'd like to thank you once again for those kind words from you.
I cannot take much credit... It's a symptom of disease.
At least with cyber-posting I'm not killing any trees.

:biggrin2:

[Patricia A]

:blush:

Purrtricia, you're a darlin' and you've made me blush again.
I'm pleased that Suessilitis put a smile on your face when
I mentioned that I joined you in your wish that Bush would hurry
Pack his bags, get out of Dodge, and back to Texas scurry.

It's clear to me why John thinks you're the best. I think so too.
I'd like to thank you once again for those kind words from you.
I cannot take much credit... It's a symptom of disease.
At least with cyber-posting I'm not killing any trees.

:biggrin2:
Sorry, but I like your disease!
Don't ever get better if you please! :love:

[Kim L.]

Sorry, but I like your disease!
Don't ever get better if you please! :love:

AWPS.
I know it doesn't rhyme but
it really was well said.

[killyerdarlings]

Why Mrs. Smeej! I thought your name looked familiar when I saw it at TPS! You may know me as Jamie over there. *waves hi!* :smile2:

[Gwenivere]

‘Twas the Night Before the Super Bowl
‘Twas the night before the Super Bowl, when along the gulf shore,

Steelers fans were praying for “just one more;”

The players were nestled all snug in the sack,

With visions of the first NFL Six-Pack;

Coach Tomlin was young, but wise for his years,

So I drifted off to sleep without any fears;

When at the stadium there arose some strange chatter,

The Cardinals feared, what was the matter;

We heard “Okel Dokel”, we heard “Double Yoi,”

We jumped from our beds, our hearts jumped for joy;

He stood at the fifty with a grin ear to ear,

Steelers fans everywhere started to cheer;

Then in an instant to our surprise,

This little old man had tears in his eyes;

He went to the booth and there took his chair,

While Terrible Towels waved in the air;

Then over the airwaves came his shrill voice,

The Steelers Nation began to rejoice;

He said, “I am back, but you know I can’t stay,

I just had to see my Steelers play;

From my home up above, I have a great view,

But I wanted to celebrate here with you;

So bring on the Birds, we’ll send them a flyin’,

On the way back to Phoenix , they will be cryin’;

Ben, Hines, Troy , Jeff and all of the rest,

No matter the outcome, to me you’re the best;”

The airwaves went silent, the stadium still,

Was this just a dream, it seemed so real;

In our team we have faith, in our team we have hope,

But the game’s not the same without Myron Cope;

Written by:

A.K. Young

01-23-09

[CorbinKale]

"His Majesty's General Gage's Lament, 1775.
by Mike Vanderboegh

I didn't want to start a war,
It was not my intention.
They were subjects of the King, you see,
And so were under my direction.

There was riot and tumult 'round about,
The King's name was disrespected.
The sight of Regulars, by gad,
Would soon put things corrected.

The one thing that we could not brook,
Was not the taunts and jeers.
The one thing that ruled my acts
And was the object of my fears --

Was all those guns 'round about,
Held by enemies of the Crown.
T'would not be peace upon our terms
'Til they were gathered into Town.

So we quickly slipped out of Boston
Undetected, we thought, at night.
And when we got to Lexington,
The Rebels were put to flight.

My men went on to Concord,
'Twas most efficiently done.
But after the fight at Concord Bridge
'Twas our turn now to run.

It started out quite disciplined,
As Regulars we'd never lost --
But after about a mile or so,
We began to count the cost.

The path from Concord back to town
Was a toll road bought with blood.
What was a march became a rout
And the butcher's bill, a flood.

Cowardly little farmers,
They'd hardly ever stand.
Yet no sooner would we shoo them off
Here would come another band.

They didn't like our bayonets.
They were very fleet of foot.
But give 'em a tree to hide behind,
By gad, those farmers could shoot!

I waited back in Boston town,
For news of our victory.
We'd have the guns and powder and shot
And their assault artillery.

But then came the despatches,
And the melancholy reports.
We'd got their guns and powder and shot
But we'd got them in the shorts!

The Siege of Boston then began,
And at Breed's Hill made plain
That militia who knew how to shoot
Can limit a King's domain.

But I didn't want to start a war.
It was not my desire.
It was a "reasonable regulation."
I never thought they'd fire.

The yokels ended my career,
In time they whipped us fair.
And let that be a warning
To any well-intentioned heir.

For one thing you should never do,
Either seriously or in fun,
Is try to part a free American
From his liberty and his gun.

For you will find to your chagrin,
Though you may not intend it,
To march from Boston is easily done,
But you may not get back in it.

[Ducky]

I've been meaning to post this particular verse for a long time, I just never seemed to get around to it until now. It is from a poem called "Alle er barn når de sover," ("We're all children when we sleep") by the Norwegian writer Rolf Jacobsen. Translated into English, it goes something like this:

"We're all children when we sleep.
There is no war in us then.
We open our hands and breathe
in the quiet rythm
that heaven has given mankind."

I keep this verse in a frame on top of the drawers in my bedrom. Always relaxes me. Enjoy. :smile2:

[Haunted]

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[pandora]

This is the most beautiful poem. It's not the entire poem, only my favorite part. To me it says so much about love.


John Donne

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"


The speaker explains that he is forced to spend time apart from his love, but before he leaves, he tells her that their farewell should not be the occasion for mourning and sorrow. If their souls are separate, he says, they are like the feet of a compass: His lover's soul is the fixed foot in the center, and his is the foot that moves around it.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WsE6M_RjBIY/R5LQ0zs7XNI/AAAAAAAAGhQ/ntN3jb2HFEg/s320/trigonometry_compass.jpg

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

[Autumnlyn]

Loved this one since I was a wee lass...

Merlin

O Merlin in your crystal cave
Deep in the diamond of the day,
Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away
The furrow drawn by Adam's finger
Across the memory and the wave?
Or a runner who'll outrun
Man's long shadow driving on,
Break through the gate of memory
And hang the apple on the tree?
Will your magic ever show
The sleeping bride shut in her bower,
The day wreathed in its mound of snow
and Time locked in his tower?

Edwin Muir

[Perse Jr.]

A SIGN, A SONG

I have to believe…

I never got to say goodbye,
You were gone, I wasn’t there;
I should’ve been by your side.
I’d sell my soul to have you here.

I see you, then I don’t,
Where are you, I suffer to know;
Please show me you’re OK somehow,
How could you leave me alone?

One day I’ll see you,
I have to believe;
How can life just keep going,
It’s too much, don’t people see?

Do you know if I’m OK?
Do you watch me cry or play?

Are you happy or sad,
Are you here, there or lost;
Every day you’re on my mind,
I wish you would show me a sign.

One day I’ll see you,
I have to believe;
I’ll hug you and tell you,
You meant the world to me.

Shine down a ray on a cloudy day,
Show me your face;
Turn day into night, a bird takes flight;
I’ll take anything.

One day I’ll see you,
I have to believe;
That you’re where it’s better,
Where we’ll laugh again one day.

One day I’ll see you,
I have to believe;
I’ll take anything, please.

Written for the best big sister there ever was, from her pesky, adoring, little sister...

[Q'smum]

I've heard this particular poem twice, but yet have never gotten the full title or the author. I remember it begins: "I only have a minute, but so much time is wrapped up in it..." and that is all I can remember. The two times I have heard it has been on the radio, and then the subject matter of discussion has just knocked it out of my head. Is anyone familiar with it?

[Seneca_V]

I've liked The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, ever since I read the excerpt in DT 3.
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

Here's a link to the whole poem, it's kinda' long, easier than trying to post it here, lol!

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

Also The Second Coming by Yeats
"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold."

http://www.secretdoors.com/weavermoon/secondcoming.html

I have quite few though, and I've gotten most of them from Sai King's books.

[Kim L.]

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days
Then heaven tries earth if it be in tune
and over it softly her warm ear lays

James Russell Lowell

[Kim L.]

The Road Not Taken


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

[Roseasharn]

Well, my two favorite poems are No second Troy by W.B. Yeats and and To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvel. I love poetry, but those two are the ones that consistently make me smile.
No Second Troy
WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

[jenboxer77]

This is the most beautiful poem. It's not the entire poem, only my favorite part. To me it says so much about love.


John Donne

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"



If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

I love this poem. I actually wrote a thesis paper in college about this poem. Great minds, I must say!!! ;)

[Miri]

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley, 1875

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.

[Kim L.]

From "The Hill Wife" by Robert Frost

ALWAYS—I tell you this they learned—
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away, 15
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.

[Kim L.]

Also from Frost's "The Hill Wife"

IT was too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,

And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard
When he called her—

And didn’t answer—didn’t speak—
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother’s house
Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.

[CorbinKale]

By Lawrence Tribble, this poem has been variously dated as 1751, 1770 or "late Eighteenth Century."

One Man awake,
Awakens another.
The second awakens
His next-door brother.
The three awake can rouse a town
By turning
The whole place
Upside down.

The many awake
Can make such a fuss
It finally awakens
The rest of us.
One man up,
With dawn in his eyes,
Surely then,
Multiplies.

[Kim L.]

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams


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

[Perse Jr.]

The Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

[MadamMack]

Bump . . .for Duma D.

[Duma D]

Blues by Tony Matthews (From Breaklight--The Poetry of the Caribbean, ed by Andrew Salkey/ Doubleday Anchor Book)

A blues in the night
is an o wl on the prowl.

A blues-singing owl
is one on a deadly prowl
singing and seeing
far into the night.

[Duma D]

The Gothic Farmhouse (Here is one of mine.)

It drew them there perhaps
Like something lost that needed finding
Called them through the rotting gate reminding
Of all forgotten places from past times;
Urged them up the steps with missing risers
And across the narrow porch with high squared pillars
Threatening to fall from the crush of underbrush
And suffocating folliage, cottonwoods and pines,
That blocked out daylight, blocked out time;
Beckoned them through the tall doorway on one side
Into the massive hallway with windows floor to ceiling
Where ghostly faces pressed to look upon the guests;
Charmed them to rest upon the steps that led upstairs
And to the attic where eventually all visitors must hide
Forevermore and be heard of in the outer world no more!

[Starchild]

Christina Rossetti - Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

[Theregulator]

This one always stuck in my head from school. Not sure why. The Scarecrow by Walter de la mere

All winter through I bow my head
beneath the driving rain;
the North Wind powders me with snow
and blows me black again;
at midnight 'neath a maze of stars
I flame with glittering rime,
and stand above the stubble, stiff
as mail at morning-prime.
But when that child called Spring, and all
his host of children come,
scattering their buds and dew upon
these acres of my home,
some rapture in my rags awakes;
I lift void eyes and scan
the sky for crows, those ravening foes,
of my strange master, Man.
I watch him striding lank behind
his clashing team, and know
soon will the wheat swish body high
where once lay a sterile snow;
soon I shall gaze across a sea
of sun-begotten grain,
which my unflinching watch hath sealed
for harvest once again.

[Duma D]

John Dalglish invented this form of 19 syllable haiku in honor of SK which he calls a Kingku: They should have a funereal tone.
Here are 2 of mine:

For Teddy

The cloth-draped coffin
The "sadness softened with hope"--
The faith that survives the grave.

Volcano

Though dormant, you kill--
Carbon dioxide filling
Crevices beneath deep snows chilling.

The dead ski patrol
Tried to rescue the fallen
Their oxygen masks inadequate.

How many died there?
Heros helping out heros
Hoping their equipment would not fail.

Each year more trees die
On the volcano's steep slopes
From poison gas rising from below.

[Duma D]

How about a short little Emily Dickinson poem?

These Strangers, In A Foreign World

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me--
Befriend them, lest yourself in Heaven
Be found a refugee--


And here is my own short poem:

Lilacs

And still the lilacs bloom
Along the windowsills in Wyoming
Their petals vie with the lavender of evening.

[JohnDalglish]

John Dalglish invented this form of 19 syllable haiku in honor of SK which he calls a Kingku: They should have a funereal tone.


Hi,

Actually Duma invented them, I just suggested that it would be a neat idea in honour of Sai King to take the 17 syllable form to a 19 one.

Great stuff, Duma!

Anyone else want to try a Kingku?

Long days and pleasant nights

[Anni M]

The words of the hymn “The Love of God” capture in word pictures the breathtaking magnitude of divine love:


Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies
of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll
contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.


I'm not religious by any means, but I heard this from my Grandfather Bulloch when I was a kid and it has stuck with me ever since
**********************************************************

Another by Shakespeare:
When Icicles Hang by the Wall,
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/leemorgan/images/icicleline.gif


from Love's Labour's Lost
(Vivaldi: Winter)

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/leemorgan/images/milkpail.jpg
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,


Tu-whit Tu-who, a merry note,


While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/leemorgan/images/wind.jpg
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,


When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/leemorgan/images/owl.jpg

[Matthew.Degnan]

My favourite poem is actually Brooklyn August by SK

Can't seem to find it to paste here, its in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

[Damaris]

- Vow -

We will love like dogwood.
Kiss like cranes.
Die like moths.
I promise.

- Larissa Shmailo

[Anni M]

My favourite poem is actually Brooklyn August by SK

Can't seem to find it to paste here, its in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.
I know the one! I like it, too... :smile2:

[Kim L.]

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

--Christina Rossetti

[Kim L.]

expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my sould went into the body of a
cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper
basket
but your paste is getting so stale I can't eat it
there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you
would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why
don't she
catch rats that is what she is supposed to be for
there is a rat here she should get without delay

--Don Marquis

[Eidolon]

My favorite poem is "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning.

[Duma D]

Here's a good teeth chatterer by Emily Bronte:

Spellbound

The nigiht is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

[Sawney Beane]

"What is poetry?"... You ask,as you nail
your blue pupil on my pupil.
What is poetry? And you ask me?
Poetry is...you.

That´s Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer,I don´t care much for poetry but I´ve always secretely liked that one, as cheesy as it is.

[Duma D]

Or how about a poem by Charles Bukowsi?

eulogy to a hell of a dame--

some dogs who sleep at night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you
drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were onlly
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that this dog
still
dreams about.

[lpeckyno]

Here's one of my favorites...

Fortune
has its cookies to give out
which is a good thing
since its been a long time since
that summer in Brooklyn
when they closed off the street
one hot day
and the

FIRE MEN
turned on their hoses
and all the kids ran out in it
in the middle of the street
and there were
maybe a couple dozen of us
out there
with the water squirting up
to the
sky
and all over
us
there was maybe only six of us
kids altogether
running around in our
barefeet and birthday
suits
and I remember Molly but then
the firemen stopped squirting their hoses
all of a sudden and went
back in
their firehouse
and
started playing pinochle again
just as if nothing
had ever
happened
while I remember Molly
looked at me and
ran in
because I guess really we were the only ones there

- by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from "A Coney Island of the Mind"

[Damaris]

- Dreams In The Dusk -

Dreams in the dusk,
Only dreams closing the day
And with the day's close going back
To the gray things, the dark things,
The far, deep things of dreamland.
Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,
Only the old remembered pictures
Of lost days when the day's loss
Wrote in tears the heart's loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams
May find your heart at dusk.

- Carl Sandburg

[Duma D]

Rage by Mary Oliver

You are the dark song
of the morning;
serious and slow,
you shave, you dress,
you descend the stairs
in your public clothes
and drive away, you become
the wise and powerful one
who makes all the days
possible in the world.
But you were also the red song
in the night,
stumbling through the house
to the child's bed,
to the damp rose of her body,
leaving your bitter taste.
And forever those nights snarl
the delicate machinery of the days.
When the child's mother smiles
you see on her cheekbones
a truth you willl never confess;
and you see how the child grows--
timidly, crouching in corners.
Sometimes in the wide night
you hear the most mournful cry,
a ravisihed and terriblle moment.
In your dreams she's a tree
that will never come to leaf--
in your dreams she's a watch
you dropped on the dark stones
till no one could gather the fragments--
in your dreams you have sullied and murdered,
and dreams do not lie.

[Duma D]

The Underworld by Amy Gerstler

The exhausted dead lean on silvery pillars
The frilly scent of pear blossoms mixes
easily with the heavier smells of fried food
that hand jagged, spiking the air
like invisible stalactites. There [I]is[I]
a river; Women who murdered their husbands
with hairpins study Plato daily.
Saints are encouraged to complain at length,
to dress better, sweeten their anxious,
famished breath by gumming mint leaves.
Horizons braokden. The pear blossoms wither
and drop off. Hard little knobs of fruit swell
underneath. Harmless, noiseless swordplay
takes place. There are plenty of figs
to use in making nice sticky brown jam.
Pigs squeal throughout. Bedrooms are decorated
in either the fierce heraldic hues
of an ancient age or all nineteen
shades of white identified by the Eskimos,
a color scheme even the recalcitrant dead,
who refuse to rise, find surprisingly reviving.

[Duma D]

As You Enter Autumn (for Stephen King)

As you enter autumn for the 62nd time
may stores be plentiful and ravens kind
companions in the baring branches over
gold and scarlet fields. May words hover,
In the cooling air, faded monarchs,
emblems of summer's prodigious bulk.
Let there be bountiful presents
and delicious cakes, enticing scents
for birthdays come but once a year
with hummingbird rapidity they blear!

[Duma D]

I like this one because though short it encompasses so much:

How Lonely It Is by Richard Wright

How lonely it is:
The snowstorm has made the world
The size of my yard.

[Duma D]

Vultures by Mary Oliver

Like large dark
lazy
butterflies they sweep over
the glades looking
for death,
to eat it,
to make it vanish,
to make of it the miracle:
resurrection. No one
knows how many
they are who daily
minister so to the grassy
miles, no one
counts how many bodies
they discover
and descend to, demonstrating
each time the earth's
appetite, the unending
waterfalls of change.
No one,
moreover,
wants to ponder it,
how it will be
to feel the blood cool,
shapeliness dissolve.
Locked into
the blaze of our own bodies
we watch them
wheeling and drifting, we
honor them and we
loathe them,
however wise the doctrine,
however magnificent the cycles,
however ultimately sweet
the huddle of death to fuel
those powerful wings.

[Charms7]

This was written about cyber friendship.


Wind Friend
by Jim Williamson
Out she reaches touching this darkened soil of an aged earth.
Soft hair and tender eyes she walks this path to its very end.
Colours reaching from a gentle wind giving life's beauty a natural worth.
Slowly bowing, rising, turning, from this smile it sent my friend.

[Duma D]

The Murderer's House by Mary Oliver

Now small boys come to stare across the garden
Where flowers cast their petals day by day
Over the ground, and search the wind for winter,
And no one comes to chase the boys away.
This is a house of dark and mumbled fame.

Driving along at night, sometimes I've seen
A thin light burning deep within the rooms,
And thought how when the violent pass, how few
They leave to shed their tears upon the scene.

This is our failure, that in all the world
Only the stricken have learned how to grieve.
Safe in our cars, we pause along the highway
As one by one the leveling seasons fall;
And one by one we drive away rejoicing
In such a distance as could strike us all.

[Duma D]

Hands by Robbinson Jeffers

Inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tassajara
The vault of rock is painted with hands,
A multitude of hands in the twilight, a cloud of men's palms, no more,
No other picture. There's no one to say
Whether the brown shy quiet people who are dead intended
Religion or magic, or made their tracings
In the idleness of art; but over the division of years these careful
Signs-manual are now like a sealed message
Saying: "Look: we also were human; we had hands, not paws. All hail
You people with the cleverer hands, our supplanters
In the beautiful country; enjoy her a season, her beauty, and come down
And be supplanted; for you are also human.

[Duma D]

A Song In The Front Yard by Gwendolyn Brooks

I've stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want to peek at the back
Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where all the charity children play.
I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it's fine
How they don't have to go in at a quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George'll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he stole our back gate.)

But I say it's fine. Honest, I do.
And I'd like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

[Matthew.Degnan]

My favourite poems are:

Hero and Leander by Kit Marlowe
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

I would post them on here but you all probably know that each one of those is about 100pages long.

[Smikes]

Antigonish

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

Also featured in Dreamcatcher.

[Kim L.]

Antigonish

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

Also featured in Dreamcatcher.

Love this poem; thanks for posting it.

[michal]

Don't want to sound all tacky, but of all Shakespeare poems this is my absolute favorite

Love Sonnet 130


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 damasked, 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.

[Srbo]

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.
Each man's life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.

Herman Hesse - Demian

[Duma D]

Here is one of my favorites:

The Windhover by Gerald Manley Hopkins

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,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart is hiding
Stirred for a bird,--the achieve; 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
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

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

[nicklove09]

Edgar allen poe

[Bryan James]

Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and of course "The Road Not Taken."

T.S. Eliot's "Love Song-Hollow Men-Wasteland."

Some of Willy Shake's sonnets, but not all of them. I can only take so much Iambic Pentameter.

Haiku (gesundheit!) is appealing.

[Smikes]

my colon hangs out
my intestines move about
I have been gutshot

[Antony butterworth]

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This is one of my Favourite Poems:grinning:

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Michal posted this little gem from Dorothy Parker in the Alcohol thread and I think it bears repetition in here -

I wish I could drink like a lady
I can take one or two at the most
Three and I'm under the table
Four and I'm under the host

Thankee for that, Michal!

Long days and pleasant nights

[killyerdarlings]

Wow, this thread has grown immensely since I visited it last. I've been writing quite a bit of poetry over the past year. Here's a fun one of mine, written from the perspective of The Gingerbread House:

http://www.scottgustafson.com/Images/Gallery/LEPs/Fairy_Tales/Hansel_and_Gretel.png

When at my best I embodied temptation
Made to appeal to the eye
Innocent children would gasp with elation,
"A house made of Candy!," they'd cry.

Bespelled by a Witch with dastardly design--
Made evil in spite of myself --
Constructed with purpose surely not benign,
Luring those poor children to death.

Unable to stop them from coming inside,
(The Witch never gave me a voice)
I hoped that in my nooks and crannies they'd hide,
For if they escaped I'd rejoice!

Then two children came, so much smarter than most,
Wary of the Witch's lovin',
They outwitted their blind, unfortunate host--
Shoved her right into the oven!

My gingerbread walls simply shuddered with glee
No more accomplice to killing!
And Hansel and Gretel could now stay with me
Content and happy, God willing.

Sadly, it seems, with the Witch gone forever,
So was my spell of protection,
Gingerbread molds, gumdrops lose hold: weather
Marred my confection complexion.

Now I'm alone in the woods slowly rotting,
My roof made of sugar, not slate!
Slowly dissolving, guilty and forgotten--
Alas, my unfortunate fate.

Ms. Mod if it needs to go spoiler for length I understand.

[Bryan James]

SOMETHING FOR YOUR CHILDREN CLOSER TO "THE HOLIDAYS": (You know...for kids)

There was a Christmas Poem (are those still legal?) insert in a Family Circle magazine when I was four that I recited during a Holiday Pageant for kindergarten. It was my earliest poem, so I'd have to say it's among my favorites.

"A Christmas Party," by Carolyn Bailey

On Christmas Eve,
Would you believe,
The Forest gave a party.

She asked the little squirrels in,
And rabbits, fat and hearty.

She called the Bear
Who slumbered there,
Until he heard the talking,

And all the little woodchucks came
In couples, neatly walking.

She lit the skies to charm their eyes
With many Christmas tapers.
She spread the ground with snowy rugs
To help their merry capers.

She hung a tree for all to see
With frosty chains and pompons.
She spread a feast,
For scores at least!
With nuts and carrot bonbons.

They clapped their paws, and joined their claws,
And danced in dizzy measure,
And Santa Claus drove home that way,
And dropped them each a Treasure.

He gave the Bear a lion's share
Of sweets and Christmas candy.

The rabbits, bows,
And no one knows,
How fine they felt, and dandy!

Each squirrel found pecans, a pound,
The woodchucks corn and clover,
And Santa stayed to watch a while
Until the fun was over.

On Christmas Eve, would you believe?
And yet I think it shocking,
Not one of all the guests who came
Could hang a Christmas stocking.

[Duma D]

Another favorite:

Child on Top of a Greenhouse by Theodore Roethke

The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,
Up through the straked glass, flashing with sunlight,
A few white clouds all rushing eastward,
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,
And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!

[Smikes]

Probably my favorite poem of all time. A truly timeless classic by a fellow Hoosier:

LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE

by: James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)


To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

LITTLE Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

[Kim L.]

Another by James Whitcomb Riley:

When The Frost Is On The Punkin

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...
I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me—
I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

[Duma D]

Why He Was There by Edwin Atlington Robinson

Much as he left it when he went from us
Here was the room again where he had been
So long that something nof him should be seen,
Or felt--and so it was. Incredulous,

I turned about, loathe to be greeted thus,
And there he was in his old chair, serene
As ever, and as laconic and as lean
As when he lived, and as cadaverous.

Calm as he was of old when we were young,
He sat there gazing at the pallid flame
Before him. "And how far will this go on?"
I thought. He felt the failure of my tongue,
And smiled: "I was not here until you came;
And I shall not be here when you are gone."

[Duma D]

To Autumn by John Keats

Seaon of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er brimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store/
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred blouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


sallows=willows
bourn=creek
croft=small enclosed field

[Bryan James]

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
No, because you are rotting in the compost heap behind the shed.

[Duma D]

From childhood's hour by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then, --in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

[Kim L.]

Duma D, I am loving all these poems you post. It's great the way you keep this thread going. Thanks!

[Bryan James]

I hate this world, it is a cloud,
They chose my school, it is a shroud,
I hunger now, I'd like a pizza,
To watch a show on Chichen Itza.

Hehe, so many bad poets have such interesting intentions.

[Smikes]

The Mystery of Loneliness


No one may speak for the lonely,
those not have no right to try;
those who are, then are the only
who can know, so unheeded they die

taking secrets of solitude over
to a place where at last they'll be heard
by the only one Lonely Forever
who will listen to their every word.


Live, love, laugh & be happy,
Smikes

[Duma D]

Lai withSounds of Skin by Chyss Yost (b.1966)

Shall we dress in skin,
our living linen?
bone weft,
pull of masculine
into feminine,
the heft,
the warp, weave and spin
of carded days in
tightly-twisted thin
yarns that we begin--
like wool
like will, like has been,
spoken to silken--
to spool:
thick bolts of linen,
skin to skein to skin.


Her poem inspires this:

Song with Silence of Words

What if words were like skin that sloughs
off from exposure to sun and elements
and time, spilling from us in recognition
of our insignificance from before memory
imprints: like the dry shroud of a snake
left on the bank of a western creek or
cocoons amid the milkweeds of monarchs--
what if our words transform us into
some strange hereafter, like ghosts?

Happy Halloween from Duma D!

[Bryan James]

Ethel was built like the Moon,
Her husband died--sat on a spoon.
The mess was bad, I must confess,
But she did not soil her dress.

[JRLauer]

Here’s to you and here’s to me
Friends forever we shall be
And if we should ever disagree
Then to hell with you and here’s to me.

[Duma D]

Skunk Cabbage by Mary Oliver

And now as the iron rinds over
the ponds start dissolving,
you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers
and new leaves unfolding,
upon the brash
turnip-hearted skunk-cabbage
slinging its bunched leaves up
through the chilly mud.
You kneel beside it. The smell
is lurid and flows out in the most
unabashed way, attracting
into itself a continual spattering
of protein. Appalling its rough
green caves, and the thought
of the thick root nestled below, stubborn
and powerful as instinct!
But these are the woods you love,
where the secret name
of every death is life again--a miracle
wrought surely not of mere turning
but of dense and scalding reenactment. Not
tenderness, not longing, but daring and brawn
pull down the frozen waterfall, the past.
Ferns, leaves, flowers, the last subtle
refinements, elegant and easeful, wait
to rise and flourish.
What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.

[Duma D]

Rabbitbrush (this is mine)


The stink of brilliant yellow rabbitbrush
like something rotten, something forgotten,
decaying, sour, not in good taste, verboten.

[Duma D]

The Mourner by Nora May French (1881-1907)

Because my love has wave and foam for speech,
And never words, and yearns as water grieves,
With white arms curling on a listless beach,
And murmurs inarticulate as leaves--

I am become beloved of the night--
Her huge sea-lands ineffable and far
Hold crouched and splendid Sorrow, eyed with light,
And Pain who beads his forehead with a star.

[Smikes]

The Mourner by Nora May French (1881-1907)

Because my love has wave and foam for speech,
And never words, and yearns as water grieves,
With white arms curling on a listless beach,
And murmurs inarticulate as leaves--

I am become beloved of the night--
Her huge sea-lands ineffable and far
Hold crouched and splendid Sorrow, eyed with light,
And Pain who beads his forehead with a star.

Very feminine— Dickensonian even, down to the dashes and weighted capitalization. I love older, lyrical poetry.

Live, love, laugh & be happy,
Smikes

[Duma D]

Mushrooms by Mary Oliver

Rain, and then
the cool pursed
lips of the wind
draw them
out of the ground--
red and yellow skulls
pummeling upward
through leaves,
through grasses,
through sand; astonishing
in their suddenness,
their quietude,
their wetness, they appear
on fall mornings, some
balancing in the earth
on one hoof
packed with poison,
others billowing
chunkily, and delicious--
those who know
walk out to gather, choosing
the benign from flocks
of glitterers, sorcerers,
russulas,
panther caps,
shark-white death angels
in their torn veils
looking innocent as sugar
but full of paralysis:
to eat
is to stagger down
fast as mushrooms themselves
when they are done being perfect
and overnight
slide back under the shining
fields of rain.

[Duma D]

Thanks for the thoughts Smikes. I am always struggling to understand poetry, and your thoughts help!!!Appreciated!

We Are Only Human by Mary Jo Bang

Nighttime amnesia.
The dream becoming
Cartoonish and mint-sequined.

A caboose climbing an emerald hill.
Daily we tend the garden.
Daily we wave

Our lashes like little flags
In a cordial wind. I? Who isn't
Ever I in a circular now.

The toothbrush is ready.
The mouth comes to meet it.
Life begins and goes on.

The fall is always waiting.
We're the always drifting above.

[Duma D]

The Black Snake by Mary Oliver

When the black snake
flashed onto the morning road,
and the truck could not swerve--
death, that is how it happens.

Now he lies looped and useless
as an old bicycle tire.
I stop the car
and carry him into the bushes.

He is as cool and gleaming
as a braided whip, he is as beautiful and quiet
as a dead brother.
I leave him under the leaves

and drive on, thinking
about death: its suddenness,
its terrible weight,
its certain coming. Yet under

reason burns a brighter fire, which the bones
have always preferred.
It is the story of endless good fortune.
It says to oblivion: not me!

It is the light at the center of every cell.
It is what sent the snake coiling and flowing forward
happily all spring through the greeen leaves before
he came to the road.

[Duma D]

Nevada Winter Morning by Richard Strong

Winds of dawn lift hair
on backs of calves at feeding time.

I break ice on water trough,
sledge hammer glazes with ice.

Sweep last loose hay from truck,
look back at cattle feeding on snowy ground.

Then to windmill to switch sucker rod
from pump motor to the fan.

I release tail so fan faces into wind,
check the number of salt blocks

and head for the house.

[Duma D]

Old Man Feeding Cattle by Richard Strong

Vowing to think young
the old man mused,
having passed his life
on desert ranches.

The chill early morning bit sharply,
snow squeaked under his boots
polished pitch fork handle
sliding in worn out gloves.

Breath puffing raw white
against chill of blue sky.
Standing bent kneed on jouncing truck
gray head bent to the work,
eyes watering in the cold.

Knock on the cab so they stop
while wires are cut, pulled and rolled up.
Cattle streaming along in snow
bawling and eating green flakes
of sweet meadow hay.

[Mr. Jingles]

I'm not sure what the title of this poem is, but it's by Canadian poetry writer Al Purdy. After my dad died, I read this poem a lot, and I still remember it almost 17 years later. It sure made me cry.


You are ill and so I lead you away
and put you to bed in the dark room
- you lie breathing softly and I hold your hand
feeling the fingertips relax as sleep comes

You will not sleep more than a few hours
and the illness is less serious than my anger or cruelty
and the dark bedroom is like a foretaste of other darknesses
to come later which all of us must endure alone
but here I am permitted to be with you

After a while in sleep your fingers clutch tightly
and I know that whatever may be happening
the fear coiled in dreams or the bright trespass of pain
there is nothing at all I can do except hold your hand
and not go away

Al Purdy