Poems from your favorite poets

1235

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  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    rollings wrote:
    a severed hand

    8-)
  • mikalinamikalina Posts: 7,206
    I Taught Myself To Live Simply... by Anna Akhmatova

    I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
    to look at the sky and pray to God,
    and to wander long before evening
    to tire my superfluous worries.
    When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
    and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
    I compose happy verses
    about life's decay, decay and beauty.
    I come back. The fluffy cat
    licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
    and the fire flares bright
    on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
    Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
    occasionally breaks the silence.

    If you knock on my door
    I may not even hear.....
    ********************************************************************************************* image
  • mikalinamikalina Posts: 7,206
    A Girl's Garden... by Robert Frost

    A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village
    Likes to tell how one spring
    When she was a girl on the farm, she did
    A childlike thing.

    One day she asked her father
    To give her a garden plot
    To plant and tend and reap herself,
    And he said, "Why not?"

    In casting about for a corner
    He thought of an idle bit
    Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
    And he said, "Just it."

    And he said, "That ought to make you
    An ideal one-girl farm,
    And give you a chance to put some strength
    On your slim-jim arm."

    It was not enough of a garden,
    Her father said, to plough;
    So she had to work it all by hand,
    But she don't mind now.

    She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
    Along a stretch of road;
    But she always ran away and left
    Her not-nice load.

    And hid from anyone passing.
    And then she begged the seed.
    She says she thinks she planted one
    Of all things but weed.

    A hill each of potatoes,
    Radishes, lettuce, peas,
    Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
    And even fruit trees

    And yes, she has long mistrusted
    That a cider apple tree
    In bearing there to-day is hers,
    Or at least may be.

    Her crop was a miscellany
    When all was said and done,
    A little bit of everything,
    A great deal of none.

    Now when she sees in the village
    How village things go,
    Just when it seems to come in right,
    She says, "I know!

    It's as when I was a farmer--"
    Oh, never by way of advice!
    And she never sins by telling the tale
    To the same person twice.....
    ********************************************************************************************* image
  • rollingsrollings unknown Posts: 7,124
    You are tired,
    (I think)
    Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
    And so am I.

    Come with me, then,
    And we'll leave it far and far away—
    (Only you and I, understand!)

    You have played,
    (I think)
    And broke the toys you were fondest of,
    And are a little tired now;
    Tired of things that break, and—
    Just tired.
    So am I.

    But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
    And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
    Open to me!
    For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
    And, if you like,
    The perfect places of Sleep.

    Ah, come with me!
    I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
    That floats forever and a day;
    I'll sing you the jacinth song
    Of the probable stars;
    I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
    Until I find the Only Flower,
    Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
    While the moon comes out of the sea.


    --e.e. cummings
  • Godfather.Godfather. Posts: 12,504
    Polk Salad Annie

    If some of ya'll never been down South too much...
    I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this, so that you'll understand
    What I'm talking about
    Down there we have a plant that grows out in the
    woods and the fields,
    looks somethin' like a turnip green.
    Everybody calls it Polk salad. Polk salad.
    Used to know a girl that lived down there and
    she'd go out in the evenings and pick a mess of it...
    Carry it home and cook it for supper, 'cause that's about all they had to eat,
    But they did all right.

    Down in Louisiana Where the alligators grow so mean
    There lived a girl that I swear to the world Made the alligators look tame

    Polk salad Annie polk salad Annie
    Everybody said it was a shame
    Cause her mama was working on the chain-gang
    (a mean, vicious woman)

    Everyday 'fore supper time She'd go down by the truck patch
    And pick her a mess o' Polk salad And carry it home in a tote sack

    Polk salad Annie 'Gators got you granny
    Everybody said it was a shame
    'Cause her mama was aworkin' on the chain-gang
    (a wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin' woman,
    Lord have mercy. Pick a mess of it)

    Her daddy was lazy and no count
    Claimed he had a bad back
    All her brothers were fit for was stealin' watermelons out of my truck patch
    Polk salad Annie, the gators got your granny
    Everybody said it was a shame
    Cause her mama was a working' on the chain gang
    (Sock a little polk salad to me, you know I need a mess of it.

    Tony Joe White-
  • rollingsrollings unknown Posts: 7,124
    89

    now what were motionless move(exists no

    miracle mightier than this:to feel)
    poor worlds must merely do, which then are done;
    and whose last doing shall not quite undo
    such first amazement as a leaf--here's one

    more than each creature new(except your fear
    to whom I give this little parasol,
    so she may above people walk in the air
    with almost breathing me)--look up;and we'll

    (for what were less than dead)dance,i and you;
    high(are become more than alive)above
    anybody and fate and even Our
    whisper it Selves but don't look down and to

    -morrow and yesterday and everything except love

    ~ e.e. cummings
  • rollingsrollings unknown Posts: 7,124
    dive for dreams
    or a slogan may topple you
    (trees are their roots
    and wind is wind)

    trust your heart
    if the seas catch fire
    (and live by love
    though the stars walk backward)

    honor the past
    but welcome the future
    (and dance your death
    away at this wedding)

    never mind a world
    with its villains or heroes
    (for god likes girls
    and tomorrow and the earth)







    --e.e. cummings
  • These poems come to mind this time of year as we observe Remembrance Day (US Veterans day) on Nov. 11

    Lest we forget.

    "High Flight"

    John Gillespie Magee Jr.

    Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
    And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
    Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
    of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
    You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
    High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
    I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
    My eager craft through footless halls of air....

    Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
    I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
    Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
    And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
    The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
    - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


    "Flanders Fields"

    John McRae

    In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the Dead. Short days ago
    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
    In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
    In Flanders fields.
    IF NOTHING IS EVERYTHING, I'LL HAVE IT ALL.

    Vancouver 2003
    EV Vancouver 2008
    Winnipeg & Saskatoon 2011
    Wrigley July 2013
    Vancouver & Seattle 2013
    Tulsa, Lincoln & St. Paul 2014
    Mexico City 2015
    Quebec City, Ottawa, Wrigley 1 & 2 2016
    Seattle TOTD 1 & 2 2016 
    London 1, Cancelled / Boarderline, Missoula, Wrigley 1 & 2 2018
    Ohana 2019 
  • SD48277SD48277 Woodstock, NY Posts: 12,242
    nobody but you by Charles Bukowski


    nobody can save you but
    yourself.
    you will be put again and again
    into nearly impossible
    situations.
    they will attempt again and again
    through subterfuge, guise and
    force
    to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
    inside.

    nobody can save you but
    yourself
    and it will be easy enough to fail
    so very easily
    but don't, don't, don't.
    just watch them.
    listen to them.
    do you want to be like that?
    a faceless, mindless, heartless
    being?
    do you want to experience
    death before death?

    nobody can save you but
    yourself
    and you're worth saving.
    it's a war not easily won
    but if anything is worth winning then
    this is it.

    think about it.
    ELITIST FUK
  • rollingsrollings unknown Posts: 7,124
    Robert Desnos and the Hummingbird

    A poem about you would begin with a tiger, a cobra,
    a salami sandwich
    , it would contain
    taxonomic terms for woody plants: sessile, catkin,
    schizocarp, dehiscent, involucre, whorl;
    it would cruise rue Saint-Martin and pick up chicks
    at the Musée de l'Orangerie between marble busts
    of Etruscan warriors, a poem about you
    would go everywhere, and never arrive.


    It would list a series of phobias:
    ailurophobia fear of cats
    erythrophobia fear of red
    nostophobia fear of returning home
    It would indulge in hyperbole: you are as exotic
    as an ocelot, or the merge of an abacus
    with a hummingbird—a moving scale of song.

    A poem about you would include an obituary,
    Compiègne, Havana, rumba, tango,
    plums, the language of pain which has no letters,
    only cells and vortexes; however, a poem about pain
    would not be a poem about you.

    It would speak of the heart though,
    not as symbol but as organ and orator
    of the body's blood. Its hollow muscularity
    and conical shape, obliquely placed,
    its vena cava and auriculo-ventricular groove;
    endocardium, myocardium, pericardium.

    A poem about you would switch subjects
    suddenly and lilt word duets: creeper vine,
    adder's tongue. It would contemplate
    the prepositional phrase and carry the glare of stars
    beneath the innuendoes of trees
    . It would abound
    with women: Madeleine, Yvonne, Youki.

    A poem about you would tell a story about a girl
    who might one night while steeping tea, spilled
    honey on a book and discovered you.
    In the end every poem is drenched
    with honey and history and so the girl
    leaned near the window with violet light
    falling through like liquid and wrote a poem
    to you called
    Crepuscule
    A hummingbird quivers near my ear:

    wind singed with sumac, the dusky
    sibilance of your name: Desnos,
    Desnos. Sky thick with cumulonimbus and
    the whining of blue jays. How odd
    to never hold the heft of you
    knowing already your absence, like echo
    and snow, but to think of this
    is to sink into a subterranean landscape
    of crows and curses. Permit me
    the traffic of a broken heart.

    Blue slate of this day stains
    my dress, but the rain's veneer is beautiful
    and contains the language of lost causes.
    Such lassitude in this wet darkness—lamps
    locate bodies like pearls
    rolling across a dresser
    . Light
    diffracts through my glasses in the rain—
    a microscopic slide of amoeba
    that glitters in my periphery. Every word spoken
    is a city sunk beneat a verdigris sea.
    My heart is full of seaplants smelling
    like lead and laundry.
    Wet bark skimming my spine while
    rivulets write your words upon my bodice:
    J'ai tant rêvé de toi que tu perds ta réalité.

    —Simone Muench
  • mikalinamikalina Posts: 7,206
    Sending this one to You....

    also sung by Loreena McKennit

    http://youtu.be/e7Y-VBD0kRI

    The Highwayman
    By Alfred Noyes 1880–1958 Alfred Noyes


    The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
    The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
    The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    And the highwayman came riding—
    Riding—riding—
    The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.


    He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
    A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.
    They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.
    And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
    His pistol butts a-twinkle,
    His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.


    Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.
    He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.
    He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
    Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.


    And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
    Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.
    His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
    But he loved the landlord’s daughter,
    The landlord’s red-lipped daughter.
    Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—


    “One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,
    But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
    Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
    Then look for me by moonlight,
    Watch for me by moonlight,
    I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”


    He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand,
    But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand
    As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
    And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
    (O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
    Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.


    PART TWO


    He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon;
    And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
    When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,
    A red-coat troop came marching—
    Marching—marching—
    King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.


    They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.
    But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.
    Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
    There was death at every window;
    And hell at one dark window;
    For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.


    They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.
    They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!
    “Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say—
    Look for me by moonlight;
    Watch for me by moonlight;
    I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!


    She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
    She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
    They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years
    Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
    Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
    The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!


    The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest.
    Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast.
    She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
    For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
    Blank and bare in the moonlight;
    And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s refrain.


    Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear;
    Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
    Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
    The highwayman came riding—
    Riding—riding—
    The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.


    Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
    Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.
    Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
    Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
    Her musket shattered the moonlight,
    Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.


    He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood
    Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!
    Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear
    How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
    The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
    Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.


    Back, he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky,
    With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.
    Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.


    . . .


    And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
    When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    A highwayman comes riding—
    Riding—riding—
    A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.


    Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.
    He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.
    He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
    Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
    ********************************************************************************************* image
  • AafkeAafke Posts: 1,219
    edited February 2014
    er drijven maar wolken over

    er drijven maar wolken over

    wolken van grijs en wit

    wolken waar licht op ligt

    ik kan aan de wolken geloven.



    er drijven maar wolken over

    wolken van langzaam op reis

    wolken van grijs en grijs

    ik moet aan de wolken geloven.



    ik kijk maar ik kijk er maar naar

    ik kijk naar de wolken te kijken

    begin op de wolken te lijken

    ik drijf als een wolk de hemel weet waar.



    hans andreus

    And now my crappy translation from this poem of Hans Andreas

    Clouds

    Clouds are floating by
    Clouds of grey and white
    Clouds where light lies on
    I can believe of the clouds

    Clouds are floating by
    Clouds of slowly traveling by
    Clouds of grey and grey
    I must believe of the clouds

    I look, I look at it
    I look at the clouds and see
    I start to look like the clouds
    I am floating like a clouds Heaven knows where
    Post edited by Aafke on
    Waves_zps6b028461.jpg
    "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed".- Carl Jung.
    "Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see."- Paul Klee
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    James Clarence Mangan - And Then No More

    I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
    ’Twas Eden’s light on Earth a while, and then no more.
    Amid the throng she passed along the meadow-floor:
    Spring seemed to smile on Earth awhile, and then no more;
    But whence she came, which way she went, what garb she wore
    I noted not; I gazed a while, and then no more!

    I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
    ’Twas Paradise on Earth a while, and then no more.
    Ah! what avail my vigils pale, my magic lore?
    She shone before mine eyes awhile, and then no more.
    The shallop of my peace is wrecked on Beauty’s shore.
    Near Hope’s fair isle it rode awhile, and then no more!

    I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
    Earth looked like Heaven a little while, and then no more.
    Her presence thrilled and lighted to its inner core
    My desert breast a little while, and then no more.
    So may, perchance, a meteor glance at midnight o’er
    Some ruined pile a little while, and then no more!

    I saw her once, one little while, and then no more:
    The earth was Peri-land awhile, and then no more.
    Oh, might I see but once again, as once before,
    Through chance or wile, that shape awhile, and then no more!
    Death soon would heal my griefs! This heart, now sad and sore,
    Would beat anew a little while, and then no more.
  • The
    Responsibility
    of Knowledge

    By Michael Robinson

    My dream was one of fantasy
    with no purpose
    or fear,
    I raced from one idea
    to another,
    passing over strange landscapes,
    never having to stop
    and become involved.
    I neither took or gave.
    It was a journey of pure pleasure.
    My beliefs and my history
    were left behind.
    I felt no obligation to them
    or that I had to bring them
    or explain why I left them behind.

    But when I awoke,
    I was surprised how empty I felt.
    something was missing...
    I slowly looked behind me,
    as though I could look
    back into my dream.
    I saw no light
    or silver clouds.

    Only a dark tunnel
    stared back at me,
    cold, stone-like.
    Suddenly I saw something
    moving.

    It was rolling,
    slowly, side to side,
    deep in the black hole.
    To my horror,
    I watched
    as this alien figure
    tried desperately
    to pull itself along,
    only to continuously slide back.
    Its face, its pain;
    It stared right at me
    freezing my very soul.

    I tore myself from my bed
    and raced outside,
    hoping my nightmare
    would not follow me.

    The Sun was bright
    and warm
    and quickly calmed my racing heart.
    I slowly walked away
    from the house...
    Just to walk

    A large bird
    flew over my field,
    passing over my head
    and my eyes followed its shadow
    across the grass.

    I stopped!
    My eyes stared at the ground,
    at my feet.
    I slowly looked behind me,
    then my right side,
    my left side.
    I looked at a small tree
    in front of me.
    Its shadow was strong.

    I looked back at my feet.
    I had no shadow!
    Then slowly I looked behind me, at the house...
    back at my dream.
  • Duality

    By Michael Robinson

    The danger of any one reality
    is that it is guarded
    on both sides
    by non-realities.
    It is held in one place,
    unable to move.
    A prisoner.

    The Earth gently moved
    Her hand
    so men could see Her,
    She gave them
    a gift;
    a chance to be free
    she gave "Duality"

    This was Her last prayer
    to the world of Men,
    as she disappeared
    into the night.
    This was the last struggle
    between a dream
    and a song.
    The last chance to listen
    and dance
    with silence.

    She knew "fear"
    had entered the world,
    blinding
    and distorting men's view
    of themselves
    and of Her.

    For the first time
    in Her life,
    She felt like a prisoner.
  • The Fifth
    River
    Running

    By Michael Robinson

    The Serpents come to you
    as groping hands,
    reaching out
    in the night
    to tap your soul,
    in an attempt to lure
    your spirit
    into the running river.

    You wait a lifetime
    to escape this dream.
    To ease your fear.
    But nights come and go
    in the blink of an eye.
    You soon
    lose your way,
    forgetting your real purpose and drift away.
    into someone else's
    reality.
  • Cooking-success?

    Once upon a time I planned to be
    An artist of celebrity

    A song I thought to write one day
    And all the world would homage pay

    I longed to write a noted book
    But what I did was learn to cook,

    for life with single tasks is filled
    And I have done not what I willed

    Yet when I see boy's hungry eyes
    I'm glad I make good apple pies!

    Anonymous
  • Vision

    I had been sitting alone with books,
    Till doubt was a black disease,
    When I heard the cheerful shout of rooks
    In the bare, prophetic trees.

    Bare trees, prophetic of new birth,
    You lift your branches clean and free
    To be a beacon to the earth,
    A flame of wrath for all to see.

    And the rooks in the branches laugh and shout
    To those that can hear and understand:
    "Walk through the gloomy ways of doubt
    With the torch of vision in your hand."

    Aldous Huxley
  • SD48277SD48277 Woodstock, NY Posts: 12,242
    While it is not my favorite of his poems, it is his most known poem, so in honor of Robert Frost's birthday today:

    The Road Not Taken by 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.

    ELITIST FUK
  • The snake force
    of depression,
    if you look at it
    with total awareness,
    the places inside
    where it bumps up & hurts,
    thru awareness & total acceptance
    of that sensation,
    it clears a pathway & opens
    up
    space
    in you
    for m0re light,
    openness & awareness
    The snake is a gift to open you up from the inside.
    to work with you,
    to raise your energy.
    It moves around
    to make more space





    Author Unknown by me
  • New Moon Tongue

    Faint new moon arc, curl,
    again in the west. Blue eve,
    deer-moving dusk.
    Purple shade in a plant-realm---
    a million years of sniffs,
    licks, lip and
    reaching tongue.

    Gary Snyder
    Mountains and Rivers Without End
  • On not finding you at home

    Usually you appear at the front door
    when you hear my steps on the gravel.
    but today the door was closed,
    not a wisp of pale smoke from the chimney.

    I peered into a window
    but there was nothing but a table with a comb,
    some yellow flowers in a glass of water
    and dark shadows in the corners of the room.

    I stood for a while under the big tree
    and listened to the wind and the birds.
    your wind and your birds,
    your dark green winds beyond the clearing.

    This is not what it is like to be you,
    I realized as a few of your magnificent clouds
    flew over the rooftop.
    It is just me thinking about being you.

    And before I headed back down the hill.
    I walked in a circle around your house.
    making an invisible line
    which you would have to cross before dark.

    Billy Collins

    THE TROUBLE WITH
    POETRY
    AND OTHER POEMS
    .
  • PJSirenPJSiren Salem, OR Posts: 5,863
    I dropped by to see you
    late last night
    But you were out
    like a light
    Your head was on the floor
    & rats played pool w/ your eyes

    Death is a good disguise
    for late at night

    Wrapping all its games in its calm garden

    But what happens
    when the guests return
    & all unmask
    & you are asked
    to leave
    for want of a smile

    I'll still take you then
    But I'm your friend

    ~ Jim Morrison
    Music is my Religion and Pearl Jam, my Savior!
    Tattooed Dissident!
  • PJSirenPJSiren Salem, OR Posts: 5,863
    I am troubled immeasurably
    by your eyes
    I am struck by the feather
    of your soft reply

    Broken glass
    speaks quick disdain
    and conceals what your
    eyes fight to explain.

    ~Jim Morrison
    Music is my Religion and Pearl Jam, my Savior!
    Tattooed Dissident!
  • vogonpoetbythelakevogonpoetbythelake Posts: 2,146
    edited May 2016
    THE TUFTED PUFFIN
    excerpt from
    "Thoughts to Live By" Maxwell Maltz

    WINGS

    Be like the bird that,
    Pausing in its flight awhile
    On boughs too light,
    Feels them give way,
    Yet sings!
    Knowing she has wings.

    by Victor Hugo
    Post edited by vogonpoetbythelake on
  • JWPearlJWPearl Posts: 19,893
    it says poets from your favorite poets
    i guess this is my favorite poem because
    my daughter did it when she was eight years
    old.. written as follows



    POEMS



    Dogs
    fast, playful
    barking,running,chasing
    loves to chew up shoes
    Dogs


    Friends
    good,funny
    understanding,helping,smiling
    always by your side
    Friends



    Buzzing bees and tall trees
    the sounds of nature and the
    smell of flowers.

    The small butterfly gracefully
    fluttered its colourful wings
    about.


    Salty breeze and dunking
    waves, the bright orange
    sun and exciting beach games.




    typed just as it was written
    14 years ago
    mary knows her rock...
  • Andrew Zawacki

                       Two Poems from Masquuerade

                                                4

    Return was a myth departure coined as incentive: we didn't believe it, bracken and twig, but moved ahead anyway.  Negotiating winter's frisk and what remained of its pane, worn away by powerlines and barns the rain brought down, we kept to where the sun revamped its reach: upholstered clouds and amassings of geese, making their exodus vocal, mountains that seemed to change their position, ruptures in the road the crews ignored, before defaulting to some other damage control.  It would not have been false to conjure transparency or zero, to coax the sight of scaffolds ghosting white lines, ilex, tea tree, birch.  The metabolism of snowshoe and compass: nothing could stall it or usher it onward, not when it had already been stated, and called us so we came.

                                                12

    Asleep on the shattered surface of a cinematic, lunar creek, one of us dreamt the silhouette of a dog, yet found upon waking it hadn't strayed.  Such were the spells of a landscape that couldn't be trusted although we devised it ourselves, if only to attribute otherwise:  a zone where no one believed any longer the hollows that brought them this far, where flowers were blooming again, without any scent.

                                           (2001)
  • Ms. HaikuMs. Haiku Washington DC Posts: 7,245

    West Wind, 2, by Mary Oliver

    You are young. So you know everything. You leap
    into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me.
    Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
    any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
    Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
    your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
    me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
    penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
    dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
    away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
    as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
    sharp rocks—when you hear that unmistakable
    pounding—when you feel the mist on your mouth
    and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
    plunging and steaming—then row, row for your life
    toward it.
    I posted this in 2012, but Mary Oliver past away this week, and I keep thinking of this poem.
    There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
    The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,592
    Ms. Haiku said:

    West Wind, 2, by Mary Oliver

    You are young. So you know everything. You leap
    into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me.
    Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
    any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
    Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
    your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
    me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
    penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
    dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
    away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
    as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
    sharp rocks—when you hear that unmistakable
    pounding—when you feel the mist on your mouth
    and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
    plunging and steaming—then row, row for your life
    toward it.
    I posted this in 2012, but Mary Oliver past away this week, and I keep thinking of this poem.
    I heard about that as well.  What a great poet and essayist.  Sad to hear of her passing.
    “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
    Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













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