#1
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POEMS ... You Like
OK, so i'm not poetic at all...this is about the only one i know......
BUT.. hopefully, a place where you can post whole or part poems / lines that you like and want others to know about or share with Here goes...... “I hope and hope increases my torment: I weep and weeping feeds the weariness I laugh and my laughter does not touch my soul; I burn and no one sees my passion; I fear what I see and what I hear, everything gives me fresh pain; Thus hoping, I weep and laugh and burn, And I fear what I hear and see.” Niccolo Machiavelli |
#2
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Rough by Stephen Spender
My parents kept me from children who were rough Who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes. Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams. I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms. I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys Who copied my lisp behind me on the road. They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges Like dogs to bark at my world. They threw mud While I looked the other way, pretending to smile. I longed to forgive them, but they never smiled. XXXXXX Friends by Elizabeth Jennings I fear it's very wrong of me And yet I must admit, When someone offers friendship I want the whole of it. I don't want anybody else To share my friends with me. At least, I want one special one, Who, indisputably, Likes me much more than all the rest, Who's always on my side, Who never cares what others say, Who lets me come and hide Within his shadow, in his house -- It doesn't matter where -- Who lets me simply be myself, Who's always, always there |
#3
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
A couple of Shakespeare Sonnets:
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed. That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan; That's for thy self to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigured thee: Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Quite a few others, mostly popular ones so I wont bore people with them. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a good one, but far too long to paste. ren |
#4
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
As someone who thinks too much, but who doesn't always feel comfortable talking out loud, I really like this part of 'The Prophet', by Kahlil Gibran. I'm not sure it's really a poem, but it is poetic...
"And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone. The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape. And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand. And there are those who have truth within them, but they tell it not in words. In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market-place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue. Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear; For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered. When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more." Lou |
#5
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Do rap lyrics count?
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#6
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were ****ed up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself. Philip Larkin |
#7
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Wow. I really like The Prophet. I've never come across that poet before. That's a really beautiful poem.
Here's one by Rumi. This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence: This place made from our love for that emptiness! Yet somehow comes emptiness, this existence goes. Praise to that happening, over and over! For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over. Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting. The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness. These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning: Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw: Words and what they try to say swept out the window, down the slant of the roof. |
#8
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
If I knew you and you knew me,
If both of us could clearly see, And with an inner sight divine, The meaning of your heart and mine, I'm sure that we would differ less, And clasp our hands in friendliness; Our thoughts would pleasantly agree, If I knew you and you knew me. Nixon Waterman |
#9
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate. Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate. Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face. Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced. Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air. Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares. Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops, knowing that my sanity content when I'm dropped. But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new, build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth. Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride. I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive
Tupac Shakur:1971 - 1996 |
#10
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Robert Frost wrote some AWESOME poetry. Extremely vivid use of language. Here's one of his that I really like:
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 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's 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. *** And for depressing and eccentric poetry, you can't go wrong with Emily Dickinson: Success is counted sweetest 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 Burst agonized and clear! |
#11
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Heres one from Byron-bleak but powerful :-)
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, 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 desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd 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 who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forest were set on fire but hour by hour They fell and faded and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd 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 gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremolous; and vipers crawl'd 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 assail'd their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corpse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping 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 famish'd 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 heap'd 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 Wich was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and Each other's aspects. saw, and shriek'd, and died, beheld 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 stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd 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 perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them. She was the universe. |
#12
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
If, Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! |
#13
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
Preludes by T.S. Eliot
1 The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of whithered leaves about your feat And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. 2 The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee stands. With the other masquerades That time resumes, One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms. 3 You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed's edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. 4 His soul stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o'clock; And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes Assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing. Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots. |
#14
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
the crunch
too much too little too fat too thin or nobody. laughter or tears haters lovers strangers with faces like the backs of thumb tacks armies running through streets of blood waving winebottles bayoneting and ****ing virgins. an old guy in a cheap room with a photograph of M. Monroe. there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock people so tired mutilated either by love or no love. people just are not good to each other one on one. the rich are not good to the rich the poor are not good to the poor. we are afraid. our educational system tells us that we can all be big-ass winners it hasn't told us about the gutters or the suicides. or the terror of one person aching in one place alone untouched unspoken to watering a plant. people are not good to each other. people are not good to each other. people are not good to each other. I suppose they never will be. I don't ask them to be. but sometimes I think about it. the beads will swing the clouds will cloud and the killer will behead the child like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone. too much too little too fat too thin or nobody more haters than lovers. people are not good to each other. perhaps if they were our deaths would not be so sad. meanwhile I look at young girls stems flowers of chance. there must be a way. surely there must be a way that we have not yet though of. who put this brain inside of me? it cries it demands it says that there is a chance. it will not say "no." Charles Bukowski |
#15
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
original:
Most of life is froth and bubble Two things stand alone Kindness in another's trouble Courage in your own But I prefer the re-write by Kingsley Amis: Most of life is pretty shit Two things get you through Laughing when it hits your neighbour Whinging when it's you I have another favourite by Shelly about an old man from Nantucket, let me think how it goes... Last edited by Moksha; 11th September 2006 at 23:00. |
#16
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
The World Is a Beautiful Place
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don't mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don't sing all the time The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't half bad if it isn't you Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool flesh is heir to Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling flowers and goosing statues and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally 'living it up' Yes but then right in the middle of it comes the smiling mortician Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
#17
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Re: POEMS ... You Like
I visited St Enodoc church recently where John Betjeman is buried.This poem kept coming into my head as the church is surounded by the course and you have to walk across it to get there.It's a very beautiful place and I'm not surprised he loved it so much.
How straight it flew, how long it flew, It clear'd the rutty track And soaring, disappeared from view Beyond the bunker's back - A glorious, sailing, bounding drive That made me glad I was alive. And down the fairway, far along It glowed a lonely white; I played an iron sure and strong And clipp'd it out of sight, And spite of grassy banks between I knew I'd find it on the green. And so I did. It lay content Two paces from the pin; A steady putt and then it went Oh, most surely in. The very turf rejoiced to see That quite unprecedented three. Ah! Seaweed smells from sandy caves And thyme and mist in whiffs, In-coming tide, Atlantic waves Slapping the sunny cliffs, Lark song and sea sounds in the air And splendour, splendour everywhere. |