In this thread I will post one poem that I enjoy on what I will attempt to maintain as a daily basis.
You are all, naturally, welcome to post any you happen to enjoy as well.
This includes exerpts from prose or anything you happen to find pertaining to the thread. More than one is not condemned, in fact - just the opposite, as the basis for me founding this thread is to encourage just such involvement, as I know which poetry I like and can't think of any reason to renunciate my fondness of them to myself.
If no one, however, is inclined to do such then perhaps some will find a measure of enjoyment in those I post.
(A side-note - this forum bastardizes linebreaks, so with some poetry where the linebreaks are crucial it may be better to attach it in a word document or link us to it on the internet)

As well, commentary on the poetry and literature posted is heartily endorsed. Critical thinking and poetry go hand in hand, and the more thought put into a poem, as a rule of thumb, the more you might reap from it in the way of pleasure or amusement, though there is such a thing as overthinking a poem. A thing to remember when pondering poetry is that literature is essentially a form of communication of concepts and ideas, and not merely attempts at phrasing each word as beautifully as possible, though no doubt there are many 'beautiful' phrasings of said concepts and ideas within the literary realms. If you truly wish to partake in poetry, I've found, you need to at least partially be concerned with -what- is being communicated. Sometimes this is merely an emotion, a theme, or just a way of relating an occurence which strikes the poet. Sometimes it is an intricate personal philosophy. Poetry is immeasurable in its potential scope, and if anyone is interested in what poetry is 'exactly' then I always recommend them to Robert Frost's quip: "Poetry is the kind of thing that poets write." Or, for a more detailed attempt at grasping a generally amorphous 'art', Percy Bysshe Shelley's comment from his A Defence of Poetry: "Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be the expression of the Imagination: and poetry is connate with the origins of man."
In this line of thought Shelley elaborates on that rather abstract concept by relating that Man is essentially composed of Imagination and Ration. Imagination being the inventive capacity of man in all senses of the word from literature to straight innovation and invention itself. Ration being how we relate the imagination to the world itself, and working only with what is already extant. Imagination requires ration for its manifestation. Ration requires imagination "as the shadow to the substance" which is blocking the light. Without Imagination, Ration is stagnate and useless, just as without Ration the Imagination is without any potential.
Poetry is often touted as one of the most clear points where Ration, Imagination, and Emotion are melded. As such, when reading poetry you are reading, not a poem, but the poet. And, because no one person can ever fully read another person, you are also reading yourself, and poetry has, on innumerable occasions, been said to have solidified the reader's sense of self. Poetry is man's cognitive essence in as near complete a state as can be fathomed. Whether or not that is redeeming is for you to decide, I should think.

I will now cease babbling, as I've likely bored you all from Poetry forever, but I, for one, have noticed that if you place poetry before an individual without them possessing some idea of what, for the most part, it is that they are looking at they are more likely to reject poetry than otherwise. Having a great fondness for poetry, it seemed best to attempt to make it as accessible as possible before thrusting it at you for your perusal.

'I will now' actually make due of shutting the f*ck up and posting a poem, you'll be pleased to know.

I have selected a modern poem for the first posting, as it is true that people most often to relate to their own era, though I won't always be catering to our era. Allen Ginsberg was part of a school of poetry known as 'Beat' poetry, and the most famous one to come from that school.
The Beats, or Beatniks, were most prevalent from the 50s throughout the later 70s, and a few other noted poets of the time would be Frank 'O Harra or Jack Kerouac. Ginsberg's 'Howl', one of the most influential poems to be written in terms of its effects on political and social mindsets, is 8 pages long, so I will only recommend you to giving it a shot and post a shorter one that I enjoy.
Beat poetry is often genuinely 'odd' in the way it phrased things. Most of them were heavy drug abusers on top of being intellectual men. You may have to ponder what Ginsberg is saying in terms of how he is saying it, but though it may piss on grammar and appear at times to grammatically mean nothing, this is not so.
Kerouac and Ginsberg were friends, as most of the major Beat poets knew each other at some point or another, and this poem includes Kerouac in its loose narrative:

Sunflower Sutra
by Allen Ginsberg


I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the box house hills and cry.
Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery.
The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves rheumy-eyed and hung-over like old bums on the riverbank, tired and wily.
Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust—
—I rushed up enchanted—it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake—my visions—Harlem
and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the past—
and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye—
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!
The grime was no man’s grime but death and human locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis’ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt—industrial—modern—all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown—
and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos—all these
entangled in your mummied roots—and you there standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!
A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze!
How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of the railroad and your flower soul?
Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?
You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!
And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!
So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack’s soul too, and anyone who’ll listen,
—We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our own eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.


Berkeley, 1955

This poem shows quite well that poets often define what they're saying figuratively, and symbolism, metaphor, similie, or other poetic techniques are employed throughout. Connotation is key to poetry, in general; oftentimes more than denotation itself.
Next time I will post a compendium of online poetry depositories so that others may explore poetry on their own terms, if they find themselves wishing to do so.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.â€

The Buddhist Metta Sutta
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

hmm, two favourites. poems i always come back to. not the only ones but the currently accessable. Poe we all know i guess, suppose some find him cliche. I still like him *shrug*
Mervyn Peake I have mentioned before on this forum. his is in Titus Groan, it's Fuschia's favourite up in her loft, runaway space.
so enjoy.

---------------1
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

---------------2

The Frivolous Cake
Mervyn Peake

A freckled and frivolous cake there was
That sailed on a pointless sea,
Or any lugubrious lake there was
In a manner emphatic and free.
How jointlessly, and how jointlessly
The frivolous cake sailed by
On the waves of the ocean that pointlessly
Threw fish to the lilac sky.

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare,
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.

Up the smooth billows and over the crests
Of the cumbersome combers flew
The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake
Of herself and her curranty crew.
Like a swordfish grim it would bounce and skim
(This dinner knife fierce and blue),
And the frivolous cake was filled to the brim
With the fun of her curranty crew.

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare -
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.

Around the shores of the Elegant Isles
Where the cat-fish bask and purr
And lick their paws with adhesive smiles
And wriggle their fins of fur,
They fly and fly 'neath the lilac sky -
The frivolous cake, and the knife
Who winketh his glamorous indigo eye
In the wake of his future wife.

The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea
To the beat of a cakey heart
And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel
That love is a race apart
In the speed of the lingering light are blown
The crumbs to the hake above,
And the tropical air vibrates to the drone
Of a cake in the throes of love.

----------------

From a friend in England, Conrad.

Scissor, Paper, Stone

I wrestled with Icarus
to alleviate his boredom
like boy brothers we tumbled
on the ground and awoke,
tangled,
in priestly purple sheets
of desperate self improvement,

flaking, downcast,
but I would not divide
my birthright nor tell
my secret name,
treading firewater
in an ocean of flame.

It began with the saddest thing I ever saw:
thirty two bags of potato crisps
on a wheelchair
–could make for a glorious epidemic
that I shall never see, shackled hand
and foot as I am with bonds
the colour of rainbow.

My sheep’s garb is hung up
and neatly pressed.
The adulterous judge (with spray on tan)
distributes shrinkwrapped mercy
and a repetitive programmed wince
shrouds a city of sublime mediocrity.

What can we say to the dissector
of that Noachide nucleus kneedeep
in innocence ugly.
a philantropist’s dummy
who cares little for repayments
or angelic police?

What of the truth who notates
Fingerlength infidelities
In the dirt, maintaining a poised,
beneficent silence?

It mattered little that I was
called freak (on account of
some speedy first-day footwork).
My neck was strong
And the negress soothed me
with owlish song.

I danced joyfully for
the unimpressed and
slept six years-

the dark came early guillotining
paper skin as painless onlookers
compare idol sizes in relative safety.
Still, moralistic posturing tires quickly

and the scissors that were
sharp enough
blunted against my body.
That which I thought to be paper
was pure white stone.

A smooth die, unhewn, awaiting
the casting down will decide
this squalid game of chance.

Vain paint of age begins
to peel. Our necks crick in unison
and a nation of taxis grind
to a halt.

Let us be clear:
They can blink all they want.
They have not invented happiness.
and their god’s hands are still Velcro.

Shall we dive in to drown
their foolmaking tradition?
Shall we behead in reverse?
watch the warring hues
tare this world in two,
flicker through absolution with
our faces reflecting the glory.

We shall. You and I.

So let us die a multitude of deaths
for silk neck tied businessfolk.
Let us feast on the dark
until life floods in.
Let us leave the stone unwrapped,
the paper blank
and beat scissor swords to ploughshare.

Let us wait, with patience
beneath the veil
and melt the sun with our wings.

a well-known one. An excerpt from Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower Came.

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

- Robert Browning

on another note, i'd be quite happy to sticky this thread if you so wish. *shrug* it's one of those 'why not?' situations, maybe?

Stick away, mate.

John Donne, one of the 16th century's Metaphysical Poets. One of the most popular poets today - known for his profundity and seemingly inexhaustible wit, and for changing the face of poetry with his 'conceit', or unexpected and often impressive or amusing twist, loosely summed. Also wrote some of the most moving sermons ever recorded as a preacher along with what has been regarded as some the most personally revealing and moving devotional poetry in his "Holy Sonnets"

I include two here:

The Flea
by John Donne


Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.


Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed and mariage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,
And cloisterd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.


Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God
by John Donne


Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

This latter poem is the perfect poem to ask yourself: Do I know what I just read, do I know what old John was saying to me?

Jelly-Belly
Dennis Lee

Jelly-Belly bit with a big fat bite.
Jelly-Belly fought with a big fat fight.
Jelly-Belly scowled with a big fat frown.
Jelly-Belly yelled 'till his house fell down.

*shrug* It makes me giggle. ^__^

Heheh...It was pretty funny.

I recall John asking about Whitman.
One I enjoy, at least.

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
by Walt Whitman


Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.


Once Paumanok,
When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,
Up this seashore in some briers,
Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.


Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great sun!
While we bask, we two together.


Two together!
Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.


Till of a sudden,
May-be kill’d, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,
Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear’d again.


And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.


Blow! blow! blow!
Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok’s shore;
I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.


Yes, when the stars glisten’d,
All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,
Down almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.


He call’d on his mate,
He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know.


Yes my brother I know,
The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note,
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen’d long and long.


Listen’d to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,
Following you my brother.


Soothe! soothe! soothe!
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,
But my love soothes not me, not me.


Low hangs the moon, it rose late,
It is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love.


O madly the sea pushes upon the land,
With love, with love.


O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?


Loud! loud! loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!


High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,
Surely you must know who is here, is here,
You must know who I am, my love.


Low-hanging moon!
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon do not keep her from me any longer.


Land! land! O land!
Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again if you only would,
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.


O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.


O throat! O trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth,
Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.


Shake out carols!
Solitary here, the night’s carols!
Carols of lonesome love! death’s carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!
O reckless despairing carols.


But soft! sink low!
Soft! let me just murmur,
And do you wait a moment you husky-nois’d sea,
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,
So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.


Hither my love!
Here I am! here!
With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you,
This gentle call is for you my love, for you.


Do not be decoy’d elsewhere,
That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,
Those are the shadows of leaves.


O darkness! O in vain!
O I am very sick and sorrowful.


O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
O troubled reflection in the sea!
O throat! O throbbing heart!
And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.


O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!
In the air, in the woods, over fields,
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my mate no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.

The aria sinking,
All else continuing, the stars shining,
The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok’s shore gray and rustling,
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching,
The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,
The aria’s meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,
The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,
To the boy’s soul’s questions sullenly timing, some drown’d secret hissing,
To the outsetting bard.


Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.


O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there arous’d, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.


O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!


A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?


Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before day-break,


Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart,
But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.


Which I do not forget,
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs at random,
My own songs awaked from that hour,
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)
The sea whisper’d me.

I am now without regular, or, potentially, any, computer access.

I would ask, however, that this thread not die.
If anyone would be willing to answer that, I would appreciate it.

Ah, I, for my part, will do my best. ^_^ Gotta do something with all those poetry books. Though I doubt it will be of the same calibre as your posts.

I'll keep it alive, but I have a request. Sumi, could you make the text in your posts a bit bigger when you post poems? I keep having to copy and paste them to read them.

God Doesn't Live Here Anymore

I dreamed I met Jesus, but Jesus was crying
Jesus wasn’t smiling, Jesus was sad
He said I'm so tired, of all of these people
Nobody's satisfied with anything that they have
And he said, I'm not gonna live here anymore

I told my children, believe in somebody
They just look at me and kinda roll their eyes
I told my children, you won’t have nobody
To give you solace come by and by
And nobody lives here anymore

God doesn’t live here
Nobody lives here
God doesn’t live here anymore

Have you heard about good news, it’s gone out of fashion
Have you heard about brotherhood, it’s gone out of style
And all of our heroes, they’ve all lost their passion
I guess they just gave up, after awhile
And God doesn’t live here anymore
God doesn’t live here
Nobody lives here
God doesn’t live here anymore

© Don Adams 2002

Aye, yeah. I realised actually while using IE on a different computer the other day that I had forgotten IE resolves the sizes different and it's impossible to read using it. In opera it's a nice size that doesn't take up a lot of space but is big enough to read. I'll just post stuff in normal size from now on I guess.

Porphyria's Lover
Robert Browning

The rain set early in to-night
_The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
_And did its worst to vex the lake:
_I listened with heart fir to break,
When glided in Porphyria; straight
_She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
_Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
_Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
_And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
_And, last, she sat down by my side
_And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm around her waist,
_And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
_And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
_And spread o'er all her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me - she
_Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
_From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
_And give herself to me fo rever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
_Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
_For love of her, and all in vain:
_So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
_Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
_Made my heart swell, and still it grew
_While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
_Perfectly pur and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
_In one long yellow string I wound
_Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
_I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
_I warily oped her lids: again
_Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
_About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
_I propped her head up as before,
_Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
_The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
_That all it scorned at once is fled,
_And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
_Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
_And all night long we have not stirred,
_And yet God has not said a word!


ah, k, well i tried to use underscores to get the spacing idea of the poem, since we all know what the boards to to spacing >_<
I really like this one, it's beautiful.
And also - An anonymous epitaph:

On the 22nd of June
Jonathan Fiddle
Went out of tune

somewhere i have never travelled
by e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

A Poison Tree
William Blake

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 watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with 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 veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.


::edit:: oh yeah... talking.. um... this is a pretty popular poem. most people who go to school have probably studied it like.. eighty times. but i really like it. ^_^
it's supposed to be an extended metaphor and really complicated and DUN Dun dun... or something. i just like the imagery really... extended metaphors often bother me for no apparant reason. especially studying them in school. well studying poetry in general in school.
anyway. enjoy ^_^

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

~ Mary Elizabeth Fry

Henry Graham

Tender Heartedness

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I havn't the heart to poke poor Billy.

Calculating Clara

O'er the rugged mountain's brow
Clara threw the twins she nursed,
And remared, "I wonder now
Which will reach the bottom first?"

Sunscreen

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=zly15pcn7[/url]

e.e. cummings

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)