who's your favorite poet? and what's your favorite poem of theirs?

sponger

Khalil Gibran's "Sand and Foam"

I AM FOREVER walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam,
The high tide will erase my foot-prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.
But the sea and the shore will remain
Forever.

Once I filled my hand with mist.
Then I opened it and lo, the mist was a worm.
And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird.
And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward.
And again I closed my hand, and when I opened it there was naught but mist.
But I heard a song of exceeding sweetness.

It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.

They say to me in their awakening, "You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea."
And in my dream I say to them, "I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore."

chadwick

last night a friend of mine read the ending part of this poem to me, and i loved it, so i came online this morning and found it.



Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more that this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among the yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds will let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered against getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times have we seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

chadwick

Opium in the East
by, Pablo Neruda

From Singapore on, there was a smell of opium.
The honest Englishman was well aware of it.
In Geneva he denounced
The undercover dealers,
But in the colonies each port
gave off a cloud of legal smoke,
numbered, juicily licensed, legalized.
The gentleman from London,
impeccably dressed like a nightingale
(striped pants, starched armor),
raged against sellers of dreams,
but here in the East
he took off his mask
and peddled lethargy on every corner.

I wanted to know. I went in. Every bench
Had its recumbent occupant.
Nobody spoke. Nobody laughed. I thought
they smoked in a total silence,
but pipes crackled beside me
when the needle met the flame,
and with that inhaled coolness,
an ecstatic joy came with the milky smoke,
some far door
opened on a luscious emptiness.
Opium was the flower of torpor,
paralyzed joy,
pure activity without movement.
everything moved like an oiled hinge
to become a sheer existence.
Nothing burned, nobody wept.
There was no room for anguish.
There was no fuel for anger.

I looked around. Poor victims,
slaves, coolies from the rickshaws and plantations,
run-down workhorses,
street dogs,
poor abused people.
Here, after their wounds,
after being not human beings but feet,
after being not men but beasts of burden,
sweating blood, having no soul,
there they were,
lonely,
stretched out,
lying down at last, the hard-footed people.
Each one had exchanged hunger
for an obscure right to pleasure,
and under the crown of lethargy,
dream or deception, luck or death, they were
at last at rest, what they looked for all their lives,
respected, at last, on a star of their own.

Drummer98136

Another of my Neruda favs.

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Drummer98136

This is also very nice by Death Cab for Cutie

Transatlanticism

the atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how:
the clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
when the water filled every hole.
and thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
making islands where no island should go.
oh no.

those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.
the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
it seems farther than ever before
oh no.

I need you so much closer

Clarice

Your Shoulders Hold Up The World

A time comes when we no longer can say:
my God.
A time of total cleaning up.
A time when we no longer can say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And the eyes don't cry.
And the hands do only rough work.
And the heart is dry.
They knock at our door in vain, we won't open.
We remain alone, the light turned off,
and our enormous eyes shine in the dark.
It is obvious we no longer know how to suffer.
And we want nothing from our friends.

Who cares if old age comes, what is old age?
Our shoulders are holding up the world
and it's lighter than a child's hand.
Wars, famine, family fights inside buildings
prove only that life goes on
and not everybody has freed themselves yet.
Some (the delicate ones) judging the spectacle cruel
will prefer to die.
A time comes when death doesn't help.
A time comes when life is an order.
Just life, without any escapes.