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Thread: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

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    Default Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    The other day, I was browsing through one of the threads and I noticed quite a few of us are artists. So I decided to start this thread for those of us who love poems. Please share your favorite excerpts of poems here. Also tell us little about why you love it.

    I will start with this:

    Here, on the level sand,
    Between the sea and land,
    What shall I build or write
    Against the fall of night?

    Tell me of runes to grave
    That hold the bursting wave,
    Or bastions to design,
    For longer date than mine.

    I cannot explain in words why I love it so much. But if I must, it just reminds me how insignificant our human lives are when compared to things that have been here forever.

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    THE CREATION OF A VAGINA
    Seven wise men with knowledge so fine
    Created a pussy to their design.
    First was a butcher, smart with wit,
    Using a knife, he gave it a slit.
    Second was a carpenter, strong and bold,
    With a hammer and chisel, he gave it a hole.
    Third was a tailor, tall and thin,
    By using red velvet, he lined it within.
    Fourth was a hunter, short and stout,
    With a piece of fox fur, he lined it without.
    Fifth was a fisherman, nasty as hell,
    He threw in a fish and gave it a smell.
    Sixth was a preacher whose name was McGee,
    He touched it and blessed it and said it could pee.
    Last came a sailor, a dirty little runt,
    He sucked it and fucked it and called it a cunt

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    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.

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT
    (Three Poems)




    I
    A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
    I drink alone, for no friend is near.
    Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
    For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
    The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
    Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
    Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
    I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
    To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
    In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
    While we were sober, three shared the fun;
    Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
    May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
    And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

    II
    In the third month the town of Hsien-yang
    Is thick-spread with a carpet of fallen flowers.
    Who in Spring can bear to grieve alone?
    Who, sober, look on sights like these?
    Riches and Poverty, long or short life,
    By the Maker of Things are portioned and disposed;


    But a cup of wine levels life and death
    And a thousand things obstinately hard to prove.
    When I am drunk, I lose Heaven and Earth.
    Motionless—I cleave to my lonely bed.
    At last I forget that I exist at all,
    And at that moment my joy is great indeed.

    III
    If High Heaven had no love for wine,
    There would not be a Wine Star in the sky.
    If Earth herself had no love for wine,
    There would not be a city called Wine Springs.
    Since Heaven and Earth both love wine,
    I can love wine, without shame before God.
    Clear wine was once called a Saint;
    Thick wine was once called "a Sage."

    Of Saint and Sage I have long quaffed deep,
    What need for me to study spirits and hsien?
    At the third cup I penetrate the Great Way;
    A full gallon—Nature and I are one…
    But the things I feel when wine possesses my soul
    I will never tell to those who are not drunk.


    LI PO
    (A.D. 701-762)
    Last edited by bucket; 06-15-2011 at 03:16 PM.

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    Consummation Of Grief


    I even hear the mountains
    the way they laugh
    up and down their blue sides
    and down in the water
    the fish cry
    and the water
    is their tears.
    I listen to the water
    on nights I drink away
    and the sadness becomes so great
    I hear it in my clock
    it becomes knobs upon my dresser
    it becomes paper on the floor
    it becomes a shoehorn
    a laundry ticket
    it becomes
    cigarette smoke
    climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
    it matters little
    very little love is not so bad
    or very little life
    what counts
    is waiting on walls
    I was born for this
    I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.


    -Charles Bukowski

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    I prefer poems that are funny or tell a story. This one used to be told at bonfire nights when I was a kid. I've had it memorized for a while now. I like the bit of morbidity of it.

    Cremation of Sam McGee

    There are strange things done 'neath the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold.
    The arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold.
    The northern lights have seen queer sights
    But the queerest they ever did see,
    Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
    When I cremated Sam McGee.

    Now Sam McGee was from Tenessee
    Where the cotton blooms and blows.
    Why he left his home in the south to roam
    'round the poles, God only knows.
    He was always cold, but the land of gold
    Seemed to hold him like a spell,
    Though he'd often say in his homely way
    That he'd sooner live in Hell.

    On a Christmas day we were mushing our way
    Over the Dawson trail.
    Talk of your cold, through the parka's fold
    It stabbed like a driven nail.
    If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
    'til sometimes we couldn't see.
    It wasn't much fun, but the only one
    To whimper was Sam McGee.

    And that very night while we lay packed tight
    In our robes beneath the snow,
    And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'er head
    Were dancing heel and toe,
    He turns to me, and "Cap" says he
    "I'll cash in this trip, I guess.
    And if I do, I'm asking that you
    Won't refuse my last request."

    Well, he looked so low that I couldn't say no,
    Then he says with a sort of a moan,
    "It's the cursed cold, it's got right hold
    'til I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
    Yet tain't being dead, it's my awful dread
    Of an icy grave that pains.
    So I want you to swear that foul or fair,
    You'll cremate my last remains."

    Well, a friend's last need is a thing to heed,
    So I swore I would not fail.
    We started on at the streak of dawn,
    But, God, he looked ghastly pale!
    He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
    Of his home in Tenessee,
    And before nightfall, a corpse was all
    That was left of Sam McGee.

    There wasn't a breath in that land of death,
    And I hurried on, horror stricken.
    With a corpse half hid, that I couldn't get rid,
    Because of a promise I'd given.
    It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say,
    "You may tax your brawn and your brains,
    But you promised true, and it's up to you
    To cremate these last remains."

    Now, a promise made is a debt unpaid,
    And the trail has its own stern code.
    In the days to come, 'though my lips were dumb,
    In my heart, how I cursed the load.
    In the long, long night by the lone firelight
    While the huskies 'round in a ring
    Howled out their woes to the homeless snows
    Oh, God, how I loathed the thing.

    And every day that quiet clay
    Seemed to heavy and heavier grow.
    But on I went, though the dogs were spent
    And the grub was getting low.
    The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
    But I swore I would not give in.
    And I'd often sing to the hateful thing
    And it harkened with a grin!

    Then I came to the marge of Lake LeBarge
    And a derelict there lay.
    It was choked with ice, but I say in a thrice
    It was named the "Alice May".
    I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
    Then I turned to my frozen chum,
    And "This" said I with a sudden cry
    "Is my crematorium!"

    Some planks I tore from the cabin floor
    And lit the boiler fire.
    Some coal I found that was lying around
    And heaped the fuel higher.
    The furnace roared and the flames they soared,
    Such a blaze you seldom see.
    Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal
    And I stuffed in Sam McGee.

    Then I made a hike, for I didn't like
    to hear him sizzle so.
    And the heavens scowled and the huskies howled
    and the wind began to blow.
    It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
    down my cheeks, I don't know why.
    And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak
    went streaking down the sky.

    I do not know how long in the snow
    I wrestled with grisly fear.
    But the stars were out and they danced about
    'ere again I ventured near.
    I was sick with dread, but I bravely said
    "I'll just take a peek inside.
    He's probably cooked, it's time I looked."
    Then the door I opened wide.

    And there sat Sam, looking cold and calm
    In the heart of the furnace roar.
    He wore a smile you could see a mile,
    And he said "Please shut that door!
    It's warm in here, but I greatly fear
    You'll let in the cold and storm.
    Since I left Plumtree, down in Tenessee,
    It's the first time I've been warm."



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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    On a lighter note-



    My Groupie


    I read last Saturday in the
    redwoods outside of Santa Cruz
    and I was about 3/4's finished
    when I heard a long high scream
    and a quite attractive
    young girl came running toward me
    long gown & divine eyes of fire
    and she leaped up on the stage
    and screamed: "I WANT YOU!
    I WANT YOU! TAKE ME! TAKE
    ME!"
    I told her, "look, get the hell
    away from me."
    but she kept tearing at my
    clothing and throwing herself
    at me.
    "where were you," I
    asked her, "when I was living
    on one candy bar a day and
    sending short stories to the
    Atlantic Monthly?"
    she grabbed my balls and almost
    twisted them off. her kisses
    tasted like shitsoup.
    2 women jumped up on the stage
    and
    carried her off into the
    woods.
    I could still hear her screams
    as I began the next poem.
    mabye, I thought, I should have
    taken her on stage in front
    of all those eyes.
    but one can never be sure
    whether it's good poetry or
    bad acid.

    Charles Bukowski

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    Not a lot of poerty lovers around here I see......
    Isn't that special

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    The Guest House

    This being human is a guest house.
    Every morning a new arrival.

    A joy, a depression, a meaness,
    some momentary awareness comes
    as an unexpected visitor.

    Welcome and entertain them all!
    Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
    who violently sweep your house
    empty of its furniture,
    still, treat each guest honorably.
    He may be clearing you out
    for some new delight.

    The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
    meet them at the door laughing,
    and invite them in.

    Be grateful for whoever comes,
    because each has been sent
    as a guide from beyond.

    --Rumi

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    Not a poem but I've never forgotten it:

    Come what may although I often say realities come from dreams,
    but approach all lies with open eyes because nothing in this world is ever all it seems.
    Thank Goodness I smartened up! The old me is dead and gone.

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    The first stanza is my absolute favorite:

    Henry Vaughan - The World

    I saw Eternity the other night
    Like a great Ring of pure and endless light
    All calm as it was bright;
    And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,
    Driven by the spheres,
    Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
    And all her train were hurled.
    The doting Lover in his quaintest strain
    Did there complain;
    Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
    Wit's sour delights;
    With gloves and knots, the silly snares of pleasure;
    Yet his dear treasure
    All scattered lay, while he his eyes did pour
    Upon a flower.

    The darksome Statesman hung with weights and woe,
    Like a thick midnight fog, moved there so slow
    He did nor stay nor go;
    Condemning thoughts, like sad eclipses, scowl
    Upon his soul,
    And clouds of crying witnesses without
    Pursued him with one shout.
    Yet digged the mole, and, lest his ways be found,
    Worked under ground,
    Where he did clutch his prey; but One did see
    That policy.
    Churches and altars fed him, perjuries
    Were gnats and flies;
    It rained about him blood and tears, but he
    Drank them as free.

    The fearful Miser on a heap of rust
    Sat pining all his life there, did scarce trust
    His own hands with the dust;
    Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
    In fear of thieves.
    Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
    And hugged each one his pelf.
    The downright Epicure placed heaven in sense
    And scorned pretence;
    While others, slipped into a wide excess,
    Said little less;
    The weaker sort, slight, trivial wares enslave,
    Who think them brave;
    And poor despisèd Truth sat counting by
    Their victory.

    Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
    And sing and weep, soared up into the Ring;
    But most would use no wing.
    'Oh, fools,' said I, 'thus to prefer dark night
    Before true light,
    To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
    Because it shows the way,
    The way which from this dead and dark abode
    Leaps up to God,
    A way where you might tread the sun, and be
    More bright than he.'
    But as I did their madness so discuss,
    One whispered thus,
    This Ring the Bridegroom did for none provide
    But for his Bride.
    "You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories -Stainslaw J. Lec

    Confuscius say: "Man who pull bra stap get bust in face"


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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    Here is one more that I love. It's a sad love story. Loreena McKennet also put it to song:

    The Highwayman

    PART ONE

    I

    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.

    II

    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.

    III

    Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
    And 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.

    IV

    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—

    V

    "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."

    VI

    He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
    But she loosened her hair i' 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,
    (Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
    Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.



    PART TWO

    I

    He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
    And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' 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 matching, up to the old inn-door.

    II

    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.

    III

    They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
    They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
    "Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
    She heard the dead 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!

    IV

    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!

    V

    The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
    Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel 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 .

    VI

    Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs 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!

    VII

    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.

    VIII

    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 red blood!
    Not till the dawn he heard it, 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.

    IX

    Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
    With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
    Blood-red were his spurs i' 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 the bunch of lace at his throat.

    * * * * * *

    X

    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.

    XI

    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.
    "You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories -Stainslaw J. Lec

    Confuscius say: "Man who pull bra stap get bust in face"


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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    After a while you learn the subtle difference
    Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
    And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
    And company doesn’t mean security,
    And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
    And presents aren’t promises,
    And you begin to accept your defeats
    With your head up and your eyes open
    With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
    And you learn to build all your roads on today,
    Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
    And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
    After a while you learn
    That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
    So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
    Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
    And you learn that you really can endure...
    That you really are strong,
    And you really do have worth.
    And you learn and learn...
    With every goodbye you learn.

    By Veronica Shoffstall

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    I love The Highwayman, too!

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    Default Re: Share Your Favorite Poems Here

    Like manna from heaven u came 2 me beautiful as if a dream,
    looking at me from the very first time like i'm the best thing you've ever seen.

    Made me feel like i was perfection beside you even though we both knew that i was flawed,
    u understood the complexion of visual deception because u yourself were an outlaw.

    How did i fall in love so quickly that i couldn't fight it or save myself,
    but did somebody living wrong have to steal my heart to learn true love isn't about status or wealth?

    Now i am only lonely for you & not simply tired of being alone,
    what i wouldn't do what i wouldn't give to be able to call you on the phone.

    Whats worst is knowing i opened up only to be let down so hard,
    i'll neva say i regret it even though i was left with thorns & scars.

    I had a choice 2 live a lie or go Ryde or Die as the evidence displayed,
    i did my part so what i lost my heart I AM ***** thats why i stayed
    Thank Goodness I smartened up! The old me is dead and gone.

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