Poems
 

Since there was a very brief discussion on poetry earlier, I thought we'd have a thread where we could throw in our favorite poets or poems or favorite lines from poems.

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix"

Howl by Allen Ginsberg, very anti-establishment and anti-modern society.

Howz about yooouuuuuu?

Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. I really like the poem,There is a Word, by Emily Dickinson!

Last part of the poem entitled "Ode To The West Wind" by Percy Byshee Shelley. One of my ultimate favourite English poetry...

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip the skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas. GAS! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*


*It is sweet and meet (fitting) to die for one's country

Here are some of mine:


-------

My faceless spirit,
fly away...
your not needed anymore.

i'll be left by myself
yet never alone.
free from all restriction

i'll teach myself to use my wings.
re - discovering
places we've been before.

i'll breathe air which your lungs have tasted
ill see sights that your eyes will miss.
feel the wind against your dark shape for the last time.
be alone as i've been before.

this life is no longer yours
I take it back.
without permission
without regret.

You, my old freind,
will no longer live in me

This Life Is Mine.
Not Yours.
Cast back into the void.
Your not needed anymore

--------- AND

5am
a night gone by
.nothing shown

time..
my empty hourglass

breathing hurts

inhaling...
giving in
giving this poor chest ...
nothing..


these lungs filled of anxiety in every take
pulpatating this heart..

this heart...
dieing everyday

this worry brought upon
kills me
so hard to say

my nerves
once of steel
these nerves
been shattered away

5am
this night
every night

time stoped long ago

freezing
this feeling
reflecting
these feelings

..never had long ago

light and day
now remaining the same

no water
no salvage
..can extinguish this flame

Now set

I burn

my time

the only time..

my 5am...
?

There once was a man named Bob
He had a dog with a big belly named Hog.

But one day his Dog went pop
So the Dog went from Oven to his Gob.

but they don't rhyme:confused: :confused: :confused:

j/k - very nice

All depends how u read it. Thats the thing. They end up flowing and rhyming on certain spots and it just makes it that much sweeter.

thanks though :)

I wish you could come to my lil blip on the map town to our "in" spot on poetry night.
You'd get alot of snaps for what you wrote.

:D

thanks love.

we need to expand this - I suggest horror haikus!

I want to kill you
I have a revving chainsaw
The red blood will flow

To put the country simple, earth has a lot of things other folks might
want...like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes
made. Like more carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, and room for their way of
life. We've seen this happen before, right in these United States.

Your way of life destroyed the Indian's way of life.

The Indian reservation is extinction.

But I offer this distinction. I'm with the invaders, no use trying to hide
that. And at the same, I disagree with some of the things they are doing.

Oh were not united anymore than you are
Oh we're not united anymore than you are.

Conservative factions is set on nuclear war as a solution to the Indian
personality.

Others disagree
Others disagree

I don't claim that my methods are one hundred percent humane, but I do say,
if we can't think of anything quieter, and tidier than that...

We are all not that much better than new earth aches.

There is no place else to go
The theater is closed

There is no place else to go
The theater is closed

Cut word lines
Cut music lines
Smash the control images
Smash the control machine.

That's Quick Hits by William S. Burroughs. Another great Beat writer, he wrote Naked Lunch. If anyone's seen the movie you'll know just how fucked up this guy is.

horror haiku #2 - guess this film:

Maria was hot
Her friend cried and bled alot
But dad lost his head


Any guesses????

hmmmmm.....haunte tension??? youre too easy!

Here I sit
Broken hearted
Try to shit
But only farted.




A classic from Highschool.

That shits deep!!! LOL!!!:D

Whitman!

This is what I want on my tombstone. It's from Shelley

"As the earth when leaves are dead/
As the night when sleep is spead/,
As the heart when joy is fled/,
I am left lone, alone."

Of course there's Poe's Alone

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 loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every 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 rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed 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.

This poem always hits me in the gut.

Its a bit of a morbid subject but i always liked comedian Spike Milligans tombstone, it simply says 'I told you i was ill'

This is my favorite Shakespearean Sonnet

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.

horror haiku #3 - guess this one:

Sunlight on the lawn
Mom's sanity is gone
Wait for the ending

Guesses?????

Give me another hint:D woot woot;)

I love Shelley, I have a booklet of a bunch of his poetry. This is "Lament", a short one but I think its really powerful for doing so much with such little space.

O world! O life! O time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more--Oh, never more!

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight;
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more--Oh, never more!

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

OK -
Haiku #3 redux:

Children in the dark
There are spirits here somehow
Or is it just us

guesses????

The Others??

I spied a pretty butterfly
on a summers day..
come with me i hollered..
come with me n play..
I chased it through the garden
it landed on a leaf..
but when i went to touch it..
the butterfly did flee..
and so i swiped the fucker..
it landed on a rook ..
n now it sits here gaily...
squashed beaneath my book!!!!

we have a winner!!!!! woot woot

so here she sits in the dead of night
as her husband slept..
thinking herself clever
for the secret that she kept..

she typed away so quietly
not thinking of her sin..
and there her breath did falter
when her true love did log in..

They talked about their future
made promises none could keep
his words so soft and tender
did make her sigh and weep.

i love you and i need you!!
both signed off with a kiss..
my heart you own forever'
were burnt upon her lips..

her eyes once closed were teary
but..the smile upon her face
n when he heard her snoring
did move to take her place..

n so he sat in the early morn
as his wife did sleep..
thinking himself pretty smart
for a secret he did keep...........

Forgey, did you write this??

Hey,i'm the only one that gets woot woot:( I'm hurt!!:(

Teacher:
What have we here, laddie? Mysterious scribblings? A secret code? No! Poems, no less! Poems, everybody!
[class laughs]
Teacher: The laddie reckons himself a poet!
[reads poem]
Teacher: "Money get back / I'm all right, Jack / Keep your hands off my stack / New car / Caviar / Four star daydream / Think I'll buy me a football team." Absolute rubbish, laddie.
[whacks him with a ruler, growls at Pink]
Teacher: Get on with your work.

http://images.art.com/images/-/Pink-...C10282162.jpeg

but your "woots" are the only one's filled with love

mine too...woot<3 woot<3

Yeah baby!!!!!:D Pink rocks!!!

Hey, guys, lets keep it on topic.

This next poem is by Lord Byron. It's not really a Byronic theme, but the poem is awesome.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those which dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;—a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe

Sorry, Haunted! Back to the topic! That is a beautiful poem!;)

Nova likes William Blake, especially Tyger Tyger. My favorite is A Poison Tree:


I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

sowwy miss Haunted......sometimes i get a thought and i gotta roll with it.;)

Mysterious, blown in with the night
All this beauty captured in a frame
Visibly shaken, but never stirred
Drives them insane
I see the way she plays her men
And I know I've got to know her name
She's so beautifully broken
Shaped by the wind
Dangerously twisted
Here I go again

I see the way she cast her spell
It's like drowning in moonlight
Discards them she's done
They're lost in her twilight
I watch her move from star to star
And I wonder why, why it feels so right

She's so beautifully broken
You can barely see the flaw
Especially from a distance
Which is always how I fall

Why do I fall for the dangerous ones
The ones that never learned to let go
And why do I lie to myself
And pretend that I can break her
When she's already been so
Beautifully broken

Why do I fall for the dangerous ones
The ones that don't know how to let go
And why do I lie to myself
And pretend that I could break her
When she's already been so

Beautifully broken
Shaped by the wind
Dangerously twisted
Here I go again, here I go again

yes..my own work..poetry.com
katrina allen..auckland n.z..

i won a free trip to the prizegiving ..but had to come up with something close to 10,grand just to leave the country.
accomodation..food...travel insurance...sheesh..

The last one i wrote when i was an op in mirc..n i could see all the cyber love affairs going on..
was quite hilarious.

this one i wrote for my mum

my mother had a picture
on her dresser drawer
but yesterday i found it
laying on the floor..
the pictures of my father..
my nana n my sis..
each night before she goes to bed
she gave each one a kiss.
They left her here in sorrow
so many years ago
she is but a flower...
without them she can't grow
I tried to give her comfort..
n told her i was here..
but mother didnt notice
she simply didnt care..
my mother has a picture
on her dresser drawer..