Post your favorite poem(s)

Mein Kampf
David Lerner

all I want to do
is make poetry famous

all I want to do is
burn my initials into the sun

all I want to do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building

standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Building

the literary world
sucks dead dog dick

I'd rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I'd rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to Bolinas

I'd rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I've won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem "Autumn in the Spring"

I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living

I want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomit

I want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and

go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else's money

this ain't no party
this ain't no disco
this ain't foolin' a

grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about

how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun

this ain't no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshit

this ain't no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love

this ain't no letter-press, hand-me-down,
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbow

it is a carnival of dread

it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena

it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie's dead of AIDS

I come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but

throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the motherfucker can
swim for its life

because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it

but, my friends...

there is so much to hate These Days
that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I'll never pay

because they're after us

they're selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we got politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glossy magazines
promising that they'll
fuck us till we shoot blood

if we'll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives

I've got mine

I wish I was the president
Stop them from killing girls and men
Figure out ways around the war
I always thought thats what presidents were for

Eddie Vedder (Montreal 2003)

the reply is muffled by the lace,

heart on your sash...

why the eyeshadow bleeds so purple in the shadows of an evening storm.

the rain may wash

the hands torn

and burned by a travel through the hair.

love is nobody's martyr.

the grace the rapture the glory the net,

oh so captured and sopping wet in this daily drizzled haze.

the salt is worth the devil's fear;

that epoxy bond so strong, so forthright,

that the night may bow and gaze upon itself-

its deepest respect the urn within which we slumber-

ashes to ashes flung upon this lidless wonder.

the flames are not remembered,

the passion full fledged and fleshed out amongst the leaves in the autumnal tide pool.

whither goest thou, young angel?

and whence doth the questions arise?

your answers were flung upon this lidless sky,

dust to dust your proven why.

take your tears of salt and hydrogen,

smear them away.

let them not darken your tailored silk, holding fashion in their sway.

it is neither the flag we wave nor is it the prose we read

i remember the nails,

i planted those seeds

and your love came back to me;

the net the glory the rapture the grace

all for one kiss

upon my face.

Whose woods are these 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

Originally posted by CranMalReign
Lotta favorites there, BE.

Damn Straight! It said poem(s), I thought of some of my favorites. There are more...:D

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Selective Service

Carolyn Forche


We rise from the snow where we've
lain on our backs and flown like children,
from the imprint of perfect wings and cold gowns,
and we stagger together wine-breathed into town
where our people are building
their armies again, short years after
body bags, after burnings. There is a man
I've come to love after thirty, and we have
our rituals of coffee, of airports, regret.
After love we smoke and sleep
with magazines, two shot glasses
and the black and white collapse of hours.
In what time do we live that it is too late
to have children? In what place
that we consider the various ways to leave?
There is no list long enough
for a selective service card shriveling
under a match, the prison that comes of it,
a flag in the wind eaten from its pole
and boys sent back in trash bags.
We'll tell you. You were at that time
learning fractions. We'll tell you
about fractions. Half of us are dead or quiet
or lost. Let them speak for themselves.
We lie down in the fields and leave behind
the corpses of angels.

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down hy my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me -- she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last l knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While l debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string l wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
l am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
l warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And l untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
l propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And l, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said aword!

This isn't a poem as such, but it's so beautiful.....

I think it's one of the most poetic pieces of literature ever written.

"O the sea and the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

(Closing lines of "Ulysses", James Joyce)