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The Poetry Thread

23K views 1K replies 347 participants last post by  Starcut83 
#1 ·
Hey all,

This thread is devoted to the art of poetry. I figured it would be great to have it all posted in one place rather than in individual threads.

Feel free to post your own works or your favorites but be sure to state the author please & thank you. Comments are welcome also.

I'll start with a poem that I read recently & enjoyed, it's called:


The Man And The Machine
By E.J. Pratt

By right of the fires that smelted ore
Which he had tended years before,
The man whose hands were on the wheel
Could trace his kinship back through her steel,
Between his body warped and bent
In every bone & ligament,
And this "eight-cylinder" stream-lined,
The finest model yet designed.
He felt his lesioned pulses strum
Against the rhythm of her hum,
And found his nerves and sinews knot
With sharper spasms as she climbed
The steeper grades, so neatly timed
From storage tank to poison shot-
This creature with the cougar grace,
This man with slag upon his face.​
 
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#2 ·
This has been my favorite English-language poem lately:

Dylan Thomas - "Fern Hill"

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
 
#3 ·
I always liked this poem;

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794

its even been made into a song'
 
#4 ·
Charles Bukowski-

the aliens


you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction of distress.
they dress well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here.


from: The Last Night Of The Earth Poems
 
#5 ·
Here's the latest I've read:

She Landed On The Moon
By Harryette Mullen


She studied the science of motion,
applied physics to the wound
and her loneliness healed.

She landed on the moon,
alert in the snarl of machinery,
shining in complex uniform
with zippers and pockets
for emergency secrets,
a helmet to shelter her head.

Earphones played a musical wind
where not a tree was blowing.
Computers drove her there,
calculating her fall.

She landed on a soft spot on the moon,
evading the stony heart.
Emerging into greater solitude
she walked with new gravity,
her music parting the slow silence.
 
#6 ·
I totally love this poem by Bronwen Wallace. It is one of the few poems that has made me want to write my own.

The Woman In This Poem
by Bronwen Wallace, 1987

The woman in this poem
lives in the suburbs
with her husband and two children
each day she waits for the mail and
once a week receives
a letter from her lover
who lives in another city
writes of roses warm patches
of sunlight on his bed
Come to me he pleads
I need you and the woman
reaches for the phone
to dial the airport
she will leave this afternoon
her suitcase packed
with a few light clothes

But as she is dialing
the woman in this poem
remembers the pot-roast
and that fact that it is Thursday
she thinks of how her husband's face
will look when he reads her note
his body curling sadly toward
the empty side of the bed

She stops dialing and begins
to chop onions for the pot roast
but behind her back the phone
shapes itself insistently
the number for airline reservations
chants in her head
in an hour her children will be
home from school and after that
her husband will arrive
to kiss the back of her neck
while she thickens the gravy
and she knows that
all through dinner
her mouth will laugh and chatter
while she walks with her lover
on a beach somewhere

She puts the onions in the pot
and turns toward the phone
but even as she reaches
she is thinking of
her daughter's piano lessons
her son's dental appointment

Her arms fall to her side
and as she stands there
in the middle of her spotless kitchen
we can see her growing
old like this
and wish for something anything
to happen we could have her go
mad perhaps and lock herself
in the closet crouch there
for days her dresses withering
around her like cast-off skins
or maybe she could take
to cruising the streets at night
in her husband's car
picking up teenage boys
and ****ing them in the back seat
we can even imagine
finding her body
dumped in a ditch somewhere
on the edge of town

The woman in this poem offends us
with her useless phone and the persistent
smell of onions we regard her as we do
the poorly calculated overdose
who lies in bed somewhere
not knowing how her life drips
though her drop by measured drop
we want to think of death
as something sudden
stroke or the leap
that carries us over the railing
of the bridge in one determined arc
the pistol aimed precisely
at the right part of the brain
we want to hate this woman

but mostly we hate knowing
that for us too it is
moments like this
our thoughts stiff fingers
tear at again and again
when we stop in the middle
of an ordinary day and
like the woman in this poem
begin to feel
our own deaths
rising slow within us
 
#28 ·
Ooh, I loved that one. Good poems always give me the shivers. It's a shame there's such innate elitism associated with liking poetry though. Rivals opera.
 
#7 ·
I don't really write poetry, but a girl in one of my classes last year wanted us to write poems for children battling cancer at CHOC hospital to send messages of encouragement so I wrote this poem:

God I need your strength
As I endure this long road ahead
Please send me an Angel
To look beside me in my bed

My Angel will help me win this fight
And though I may shed a tear
I am going to give it all my might
To conquer my biggest fear

For you I will bravely take this on
Scared and weak as I may be
Because everyday there's a new dawn
Awakening with opportunity
 
#8 ·
I just noticed the you're first person with my real name as their username. :D When I joined I just wanted to be anonymous. Otherwise I might have used it here. Thanks for using it. I don't see my name as much as I would like.

I don't really write poetry, but a girl in one of my classes last year wanted us to write poems for children battling cancer at CHOC hospital to send messages of encouragement so I wrote this poem:

God I need your strength
As I endure this long road ahead
Please send me an Angel
To look beside me in my bed

My Angel will help me win this fight
And though I may shed a tear
I am going to give it all my might
To conquer my biggest fear

For you I will bravely take this on
Scared and weak as I may be
Because everyday there's a new dawn
Awakening with opportunity
 
#9 ·
Stephen Crane:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

a part from 'mehitabel dances with borealis' by don marquis:

whirl mehitabel whirl
spin mehitable spin
thank god you re a lady still
if you have got a frozen skin

blow wind out of the north
to hell with being a pet
my left front foot is brittle
but there s life in the old dame yet

dance mehitabel dance
caper and shake a leg
what little blood is left
will fizz like wine in a keg
wind come out of the north
and pierce to the guts within
but some day mehitabel s guts
will string a violin

moon you re as cold as a frozen
skin of yellow banan
that sticks in the frost and ice
on top of a garbage can

and you throw a shadow so chilly
that it can scarcely leap
dance shadow dance
you ve got no place to sleep

--the rest here: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/IDD/Dzine11.htm

earle birney, 'vancouver lights': http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/birney/poem1.htm

kaija:

i was thinking about
coastal nights and the
way they used to make my
breasts sweat
beneath glitter &
citylights.

we'd smoke canadians
on the comedown cause
heaven knows,
we're even cheap
about dying.

d.h. lawrence, 'escape':

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us so that we do not know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in,
passion will make our bodies taut with power,
we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.
 
#10 ·
I heard this poem on the BBC yesterday, it was read during a documentary about the idea of the tree of life & it's relationship to many aspects of life from evolution to kinship.

The poem itself reminds me of thoughts I've had while out strolling at times

When I Am Among the Trees

BY Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.


 
#11 ·
These are song lyrics but to me are very poetic. They're by Elliott Smith from the song called No Name 1. It describes people with SA so well.

At a party he was waiting
looking kind of spooky and withdrawn
like he could be underwater
the mighty mother with her hundred arms
swept all aside
i hate to walk behind other people's ambition
i saw you waiting
saint like
with your warning
leave alone
you don't belong here
he got nervous
started whistling
every thought a ricochet
did you notice?
well i wondered
what's the worst thing i could say?
and i froze up and sighed
you remind me of someones daughter
i forgot her
i forgot her name ashamed
go home and live with your pain
leave alone
leave alone 'cos you know you don't belong
you don't belong here
and when i go
don't you follow
leave alone
leave alone 'cos you know you don't belong
you don't belong here
slip out quiet
nobody's looking
leave alone
you don't belong here
 
#12 ·
I think i shall post one of my own first, then in another reply a poem i like alot by sharon olds..



So I wrote this in 2001:

I held onto the memory of you for too long
Feeling I missed the oppurtunity of a lifetime
Cat got my tongue and swallowed it.
Aches and pains as I could not face you with how I felt
I heard screams of laughter and saw you and your friends making light of my emotions.
I wouldn't do it.
For 6 months maybe more the model of your car caught my eye
trapped it,
hurting, I could barely stand the sun-- it was beating my eyes.

I thought we were meant to be,
invested time -- later regret.
wasted time, neglected pets, home, family,
lost track-
as the time went by-
and left only a memory-
A day dream
Unrealized
and alone.

and the sequel:

Now I'm in a new situation
but you're familliar as a bed
do you really care about me?

Expectations of a loved one
Past usury abides in my temples throbbing
no more

Drugs took my life away
and all I can think to do is use drugs
Feeling sorry myself, abuse me
what else is new?!

No more expectations which lead me to scrutinize
well you could have done this or that
what is the bottom line?!

you did not come to see me

Is this going to be repeated
to let me know it's over

I won't sweat over tomorrow
if I am running my life today

Family and Friends coming into my dreams
that helped me live through these crazy states

I don't know what happened,
it makes me feel safe when i masturbate
 
#13 ·
http://vincymon.deviantart.com/art/Take-me-to-the-place-I-love-127251170

I want to go,
where the rivers do not flow,
where the the second is not an hour,
when a flower is an actual flower.

And not instead,
A trick of the head
An illusion
A manifestation
Where a bat appears a dove

Take me to the place I love.
Where the truth is what we want.
Where the machete is a dull machine,
and bullets do not bite
and Life becomes a science.

Take me to the place I love by ~vincymon
On deviantART
©2009 ~vincymon
 
#14 ·
Here`s one of my favourite poems:

The Listeners by 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 out of 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 that 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 on 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:
Ay, 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.
 
#15 ·
I have always loved this poem by Emily Dickinson:


Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
Tonight in thee!
 
#16 ·
Here's a poem that was written by Marge Piercy. It provides an excellent commentary on prescribed gender roles and the way they can eat away at a woman's self confidence.

Barbie Doll
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
 
#17 ·
Dream Song 40

I'm scared a lonely. Never see my son,
easy be not to see anyone,
combers out to sea
know they're goin somewhere but not me.
Got a little poison, got a little gun,
I'm scared a lonely.

I'm scared a only one thing, which is me,
from othering I don't take nothin, see,
for any hound dog's sake.
But this is where I livin, where I rake
my leaves and cop my promise, this' where we
cry oursel's awake.

Wishin was dyin but I gotta make
it all this way to that bed on these feet
where peoples said to meet.
Maybe but even if I see my son
forever never, get back on the take,
free, black & forty-one.

-John Berryman
 
#59 ·
one of my favorite Berryman poems. ^^

this one is by Umberto Saba

Winter

It's night, a bitter winter. You raise
the drapes a little and peer out. Your hair
blows wildly; joy suddenly
opens wide your black eyes,
and what you saw- it was an image
of the worlds end- it comforts
your inmost heart, warms and eases it.

A man ventures out on a lake
of ice, under a crooked streetlamp.
 
#21 ·
The Aim Was Song- Robert Frost

Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.

Man came to tell it what was wrong:
It hadn't found the place to blow;
It blew too hard--the aim was song.
And listen--how it ought to go!

He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.

By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be--
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song--the wind could see.

This is perhaps my all time favorite of poems. I especially enjoy Robert Frost's ability to personify, as demonstrated here in 'The Aim Was Song'. There are others which I'll read and post up soon.
 
#22 ·
Stars- Robert Frost

How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keeness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

I also enjoy this poem.
 
#23 ·
Dream Song #14 ("Life, friends, is boring") by John Berryman. Starts around the 4:09 mark of the video:



Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) 'Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
 
#25 ·
I Died As A Mineral
By Rumi


I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, 'To Him we shall return.'
 
#26 ·
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
 
#29 ·
Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?


Robert Hayden


This poem resonates for me as a parent and a son. I love the sensuality, and the last line is beautiful in print or said out loud.

 
#31 ·
one of mine...

completion, deflation
sorrow. such a joke
amusing fallacy
wait, i thought it completed me

beware the fallen crow
cause nature makes a mockery of the soul

the tree house has been filled to capacity
but the child belongs to you

it's really a simple procedure
the doctor says baa baaaa ba be me
don't fret, he knows what's best...he'll
caress your dick, also your chest
now its time to pay, if not, get da **** out da way

paxil, relaxer, zombie enforced master
between the sheets, upstairs, downstairs
peace to be. here. peace to be. here.
conquest of mind, reflection of soul

trickery is real, and so are we!
 
#32 ·
Two of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems

Success

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!


I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell one's name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!
 
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