Your Favorite Poems

[sisterofyu]

Your Strange Transcendence

You'll go to Venice for your 40th,
heart large, taking heart from small
remunerations for being an original.
Some claim you're mad but humility
is for the hypocritical. The only problem
is meaning to live by spiritual standards
in the midst of consumerism reborn
as a form of moral admonishment.
These silly folk hear profit
when you speak of prophet, listen
politely as you talk of luminous
visitions! "Sing a song," one croons,
and you pipe tunes for today:
"Nervous Fear Blues," "Jittery Jitterbug,"
"Bipolarity Rag," and everyone's favorite,
"Agoraphobia Mon Amour."
                                               Your husband,
surrounded by enthusiastic Christians,
chatters like Jesus of redemption,
dabbles in mesmerism, and discovers
oxygen, in too great quantities, makes
a body disintegrate. He says, "I have
very little of Mrs. Flake's company;
she is always in Paradise."

This popularity, subtle at first,
progresses until your radical ideas
are exposed. Now everyone gets you
and sales plummet. How bland
to accuse misogynists of misogyny!
And did you think the remark
"that the poor waste their days of Wisdom
in Drudgery for a pittance of scant meal"
news?
            Your lineaments, though never classic,
mirror a restless and kinetic spirit
planning to fact-gather abroad,
make sense of the messianic,
ramble nude along the Mediterranean
magnetically healing with Mr. Flake?
will you ever return from this pilgrimage?
Travelling all night into mortal life,
you cross the main square of a sinking city
toward God's golden dome, the crumbling stair

Cynthia Hogue

[Mr. Redman]

Unknown Love
By: Almost Famous (C) [Yes, I wrote it]

Love, a word that not many know,
The true meaning of,
Love, a word often misused,
By everyone, that doesn't know,
What true love is,
Some say they do,
But it's only been a week,
Day, or an hour,
You can't love someone,
That you don't truely know,
Inside n' out.

True love, you can tell,
When they know you,
better then you know yourself,
True love, you can tell,
When no matter what,
You can live n' let live,
Cryin' in a puddle, after doing the worst thing,
As you're watchin' them walk away,
You sit in a puddle, and let it all let loose,
They come back, yet they're 4 blocks away,
To tell you it's alright, even though you've hurt them,

Memories, photographs, time,
Can never be replaced,
And either can you...

[journey]

'Desiderata' -  (desired things)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even 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 and 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 the 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 noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.


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


 - Max Ehrmann

[sisterofyu]

'Desiderata' -? (desired things)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even 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 and 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 the 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 noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.


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


 - Max Ehrmann

This was read at my wedding the 2nd time I got married...keekee

[sisterofyu]

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

neat animated poem by Billy Collins

[journey]

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy _something,_ to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

 - Rumi

[sisterofyu]

                Desire
   
   in my dreams
   I hold my lovers
   next to me all at once
   and ask them
   
   what was it I desired?
   
   my hands are full
   of their heads
   like bunches of cut roses
   blond hair, brown hair, red, black,
   their eyes are pools of bewilderment
   staring up at me
   from the bouquet
   
   what was it I desired?
   I ask again
   
   was it your bodies?
   did I hope by draping
   your flesh over me
   I could escape
   boredom
   loneliness
   gray hairs shooting
   towards me
   from the future
   like thin arrows?
   did I think I could escape,
   by taking your breath
   into my mouth,
   did I think I could escape
   the responsibility
   of breathing?
   
   what did I desire in you?
   
   sex
   knowledge?
   power?
   love?
   
   did I expect the clouds to
   crack
   and blue moths to fly out of the stars?
   did I expect a voice
   to call to me
   saying
   "Here at last is the answer."
   
   what
   I yell at them
   shaking my lovers
   what did I desire in you?
   
   their ears fall off like petals
   they shed their faces
   in a pile at my feet
   their bewildered eyes
   pucker and close
   centers of fallen flowers
   
   the last face
   floats down
   circling in the darkness
   at my feet
   
   what did I desire in you? I whisper
   
   the stems of their bodies
   dry in my hands
                            -- Mary Mackey

[journey]

Ernest Hemingway:

'The Age Demand'

The age demanded that we sing
And cut away our tongue.

The age demanded that we flow
And hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance
And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed
The sort of shit that it demanded.


'Chapter Heading'

For we have thought the longer thoughts
And gone the shorter way.
And we have danced to devils' tunes,
Shivering home to pray;
To serve one master in the night,
Another in the day.

[AxlsMainMan]

Sylvia Plath - Balloons

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish ----
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.

 

[Mauve_All]

Lovesong
by Ted Hughes

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

*****

[AxlsMainMan]

Black Rook In Rainy Weather by Sylvia Plath

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

[AxlsMainMan]

Blackberrying - Sylvia Plath

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks ---
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

[Mauve_All]

@AxlsMainMan

You really like Plath, don't you? 

[AxlsMainMan]

@AxlsMainMan

You really like Plath, don't you? 

She's simply the best Mauve_All.

I could read her all day

[Mauve_All]

@AxlsMainMan

You really like Plath, don't you? 

She's simply the best Mauve_All.

I could read her all day

I like Plath as well. Any special reason why you've chosen these particular poems?

[AxlsMainMan]

They are simply some of my favorites that are easily appreciated by anyone with a love for poetry, while some of her other poems tend to be rather complex, yet equally intriguing

[Mauve_All]

One of my most favouite poems by Plath is "Words"
(I've already posted it here, it's on page 13 of this thread)

[AxlsMainMan]

One of my most favouite poems by Plath is "Words"
(I've already posted it here, it's on page 13 of this thread)

Great choice!

That too is one of my favorite poems by Ms. Plath

[Doc Emmett Brown]

Requiem

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

?It is done.?

People did not like it here.


~ RIP Kurt Vonnegut.  He passed away today.

[Mauve_All]

Storm Warnings
by Adrienne Rich

The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has travelled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.
Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.
I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defence against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.