Favorite Poems

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oliveu2cm

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I've been wanting to do this for a while, I love discovering new poems and thought we could post our favorite ones here.

Comfort
By Rod McKuen


If we could do it all again
motor bike though roman cities
in the rain
watch the cats chase lizards in the forum
and drink bad wine from mouth to mouth

I probably would try
to love you harder than I did
I probably would smile a smile
much better than the ones you knew
for I was just rehearsing then
imagining what easily might happen
in years to come.

It is not just you I love
(or even Roman rain)
or all the times you rattled on my window
after twelve o'clock.

I love the smell of rooms -
where you have been
the foreign touch of things I never knew
until you came along.

I even love your enemies
because they drive you to my arms
for comfort.
 
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Would you believe I was about to post the same thread today? We had a favouite poems thread--quite a while back now. It's time for a new one. Good call Olive.

I digress. Here's a poem my sixth grade teacher gave to the class...I never appreciated it fully until I stumbled upon it last week by chance.

Nothing Gold Can Stay--By Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
 
Two by Maya Angelou

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.


I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.


Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.


Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.


Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you best with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Yeats is probably my favorite poet..

When You Are Old
By William Butler Yeats


When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the 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 hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
 
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Beautiful poems! Gina you posted two of my favorite- I :heart: Maya Angelou!


Passing Time
by Maya Angelou

Your skin like dawn
Mine like dusk

One paints the beginning
of a certain end.

The other, the end of a
sure beginning.


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven
William Butler Yeats



Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
 
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Cool idea Olive :yes:

This is my favorite poem of all time:

Alone
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 lov'd-I lov'd alone-
Then-in my childhood-in the dawn
Of a most stormy life-was drawn
From ev'ry 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 roll'd
In it's autumn tint of gold-
From the lighting of the sky
As it pass'd 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.
 
To Jane (The keen stars were twinkling) -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane.
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.

As the moon's soft splendor
O'er the faint cold starlight of Heavem
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.

The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night;
No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.

Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.




Everyone Sang -- Siegfried Sassoon

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisioned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away...O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.


To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time -- By Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And the same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
 
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It's not my favorite but its funny

I found this on Poetry.com, its pretty funny:lol:



The Fruit Cocktail Rebellion

Mom makes me eat it straight out of the can.
Pineapple,
that yellow enemy disguised
as tropical fruit.
I hate the sick,
sweetness of it all.
Peaches bullying me from the table;
red cherries bobbing
in yellow juice, chanting as they ooze
past lumpy mango, unfamiliar pear.
Eat it,
she says, oblivious
to the riot of fruit in my tin.
I can barely hear her
over the cantaloupe frenzy.
I throw the fruit onto the floor,
smash the tangy fortress
into a million pieces, stomp each cherry
one by one,
tell the bananas to never come back.

Gillian Jones

Copyright ?2002 Gillian Jones
 
Me again? Oh Dio.... :)

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.

Friendship -- By Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes;
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,--
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness,
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again,
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red;
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
The mill-round of our fate appears
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness had taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.

In Flander's Fields -- John McCrae

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.

Sonnett XLIII -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
 
The_Sweetest_Thing said:
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time -- By Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And the same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry. [/B]

I read this one in English class a few weeks ago.
 
I love R. Frost- Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening!!


Always Finish

If a task is once begun
Never leave it till it's done.
Be the labor great or small,
Do it well or not at all.
Unknown

Walk Slowly

If you should go before me, walk slowly
Down the ways of death, well-worn and wide.
For I would want to overtake you quikly.
And seek the journey's ending by your side.

I would be so forlorn not to descry you
Down some shining highroad when I came;
Walk slowly, dear, and often look behind you
And pause to hear if someone calls your name.
Unknown
 
I think I would ponder so long about THE poem, it won't happen

but fancy you starting with Rod McKuen and Robert Frost
u guys...this place:sad: :yes: :wink: is good




will my apples eat your pine cones.? u prehistoric shadow u..something to that effect. Unforgettable, ..........well the impact it had is unforgettable. I've forgotten the correct words...a lot of correct words. This will be a golden thread when it's done imho thanks
 
A Dream Within A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe

In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed--
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream--that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar--
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?

Fairy-Land
Edgar Allan Poe

Dim vales ? and shadowy floods ?
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over
Huge moons there wax and wane ?
Again ? again ? again ?
Every moment of the night ?
Forever changing places ?
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down ? still down ? and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be ?
O'er the strange woods ? o'er the sea ?
Over spirits on the wing ?
Over every drowsy thing ?
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light ?

And then, how deep ! ? O, deep !
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like ?? almost any thing ?
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before ?
Videlicet a tent ?
Which I think extravagant :
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things !)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
***
:heart: poe!
 
Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden
 
Hanana said:
Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

I cry every time this poem is read in Four Weddings And A Funeral. Such a beautiful piece of prose in the way it captures raw emotion.
 
Gina Marie said:







When You Are Old
By William Butler Yeats


When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the 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 hid his face amid a crowd of stars.




that is my favourite poem ever- I adored studying Yeats last year!!

My other favourite poem is The Listeners

The Listeners

Walter de la Mare


"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
And a bird flew up the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To the voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
 
THE HITCHHIKER
~Jim Morrison

Tell them you came & saw & looked
into my eyes, & saw the shadow
of the guard receding
Thoughts in time & out of season
The hitchhiker stood by the side of the road
& levelled his thumb in the
calm calculus of reason

(and then a car passes)

Why does my mind circle around you
Why do planets wonder what it
would be like to be you

All your soft wild promises were words
Birds, endlessly in flight

Your dog is still lost in the frozen woods
or he would run to you
How can he run to you
Lunging w/blooded sickness on the snow
He's still sniffing gates & searching
Strangers for your smell
which he remembers very well

Is there a moon in your window
Is madness laughing
Can you still run down beach
rocks bed below without him?
 
15 mls of rain and it's so cold my toes are fruzz...Ozsummer?weird

I do not polish anything...not even my furniture. so these words are strung togtether in 2 minutes without much thought...my usual style. I loose my net connection tomorrow...must be feeling risque. I'll pop back in asap,asop. asmp...u just see if i don't. i certainly have a will ( I haven't had a smoke in a month and I don't miss it..so far) so there will be a way. I am sooo cold brrrrr.here goes nothing...........





rhyme and reason, troubles and strife
man takes a woman, man takes a life
man makes a child, man makes his land
man makes a choice, woman takes a stand

tomorrow and today, their birth right
behind closed doors, decisions in the night

please make the choices wisely
please make the choices soon
please make a choice for harmony
please listen to their tune
the song of mother's singing
a song of child and life
for future generations
for brother, sister, wife
for every little bird and bee
for every little flower
for every child upon the earth
who entrusts us with their power
they trust each and every one of us
to join them in their song
to lift up our voices
and shout
it is wrong
it's wrong, IT'S WRONG
everything U tell us is wrong
PLEASE
listen
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

the newborn baby's song
it's the same the world over....

it's beautiful
it's simply
perfect





:larry: :adam: :bono: :edge: :heart: :combust:
:hug: buh bye musiclovers:wave:
 
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