The Post Your Favourite Poem Thread

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Do you have a favourite poem? And if so, what is it, and who is it by? Poems written by members also welcome.

"The Ancient Mariner" by S. T.Coleridge

He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

http://www.searchlyrics.org/queen/no-one_but_you.html

http://www.ketzle.com/frost/snowyeve.htm

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/classicd ... oflife.htm

Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
The region of my heart! Be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound
When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy doom;
And in thy best consideration check
This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment,
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness.

--King Lear

Man, by Koi Bashi.

heaven longing ape
angel who stumbles
blind light bearer
who falls and fumbles
worshiper of error
seeker after truth
hurting and aging
lover of lovely youth
wild beast raging
craven and brave
freak of fashion
and custom's slave
puppet of passion
lowest and loftiest
a sideshow gape
god's fool, nature's jest
heaven longing ape

"Still I Rise" By Maya Angelou (extracts)

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

I also enjoy "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde, the last stanza i find particularly significant.

"And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"

The Charge Of The Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson


Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Everytime I read this poem my eyes tear up.

About the darkness within:

What shall I do with all these troubles?
When all inward beauty has faded
With this misplaced melancholy
Where shall I place these disfigured bodies?
And the men unwholesome in their stories
Gloat with glint in eye of glories
Gloat into the Lion's den
But I cannot give this dark to them.

Pernicious people parading proud
To hear their thoughts drift over crowds
Too shallow to hear my screams and cries
Abiding under moonlit skies

Who shall I give this darkness to?
When careworn colours fade to blue
I want to dearly donate to fire
Where the colour's sad parade expires

What shall I do with all these longings?
Such sorrow cleared of me!
I would cast my cares into the sea
Or in a cliche, I would to you
Envelope them in deepest blue
Please don't turn towards their thunder
For if you turn into one of them
I will never dream again
But I will sleep while fleshed out eye
Holds me underneath the sky.

Some thirty inches from my nose
The frontier of my person goes
And all the air that's in between
Is private, pascus, or demsene,
Reader, unless with bedroom eyes
I beckon you to fraternise
Beware of rudely crossing it;
I have no gun, but I can spit

****************************

There once was a woman from York
Who was shortly expecting the stork,
The doctor walked in
With a horrible grin,
A pickaxe, a spade and a fork.

****************************

I am falling off a mountain,
I am plummeting through space,
You may see this doesn't please me
By the frown upon my face.

As the ground keeps getting nearer
It's a simple task to tell
That I've got a slight dilemma
That my day's not going well.

Though I'm unafraid of falling
I am prompted to relate
That the landing has me worried
And I don't have long to wait.

My velocity's increasing
I am dropping like a stone.
I could do with some assistance,
Is there someone I can phone?

I am running out of options,
There's just one thing left to try...
IN THE NEXT ELEVEN SECONDS I HAVE GOT TO LEARN TO FLY!! !!

That's beautiful, Lo. Did you write that yourself?

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T.S.Eliot


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 5
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 45
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 65
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, 100
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.

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.

wussy boy manifesto
by erik ott, aka big poppa E



My name is Eirik Ott, and I am a Wussy Boy.

It's taken me a long time to admit it ... I remember shouting in high school, "No, Dad, I'm not gay! I tried to like cars and jet planes and football and Budweiser poster girls, but I never got the hang of it! I don't know what's wrong with me."

Then, I saw him, there on the silver screen, bigger than life and unafraid of earrings and hair dye, and rejoicing in the music of the Cure, Morrissey and Siouxsie and the Banshees, talking loud and walking proud, my Wussy Boy icon: Ducky in "Pretty in Pink."

And I realized I wasn't alone. I looked around and saw other Wussy Boys living large and proud of who they are.

Anthony Michael Hall, Wussy Boy.

Michael J. Fox, Wussy Boy.

And Lord God King of the Wussy Boy movement, Matthew Broderick, unafraid to prove to the world that sensitive guys kick ass.

Now I am no longer ashamed of my Wussiness. No, I'm empowered by it.

When I'm at a stoplight and some testosterone-redneck-methamphetamine-jock-fratboy-asshole dumb f**k pulls up beside me blasting his Trans Am's stereo with power chord anthems to big tits and date rape, I no longer avoid his eyesight. Hell, no. I just crank all 12 watts of my car stereo and I rock out right in his face, sporting the devil sign and Morrissey's voice, "I am human and I want to be loved, just like everybody else does!"

And, yeah, before I get the nerve to hold a girl's hand, I gotta play that eighth-grade thumb-rubbing game for 45 minutes and, yeah, it takes four dates and three Zimas before I get the nerve to kiss her. But you know what, it's worth every moment you wait for it! So, just kick back, relax, watch "When Harry Met Sally" for the fifth time and know that it's coming ... eventually.

I am Wussy Boy, hear me roar (meow).

Bar fight? Pshaaw! You think you can take me, huh? Just because I like poetry better than Sports Illustrated? Well, let me tell you, I'm not just your average every day run-of-the-mill Wussy Boy that you beat up in high school, punk - I am Wuss Core!

Don't make me get Renaissance on your ass because I WILL write a poem about you that tears your psyche limb from limb, that exposes your selfish insecurities, that will wound you deeper and more severely than knives and chains and gats and baseball bats could ever hope to do.

You may see 65 inches of wussy boy standing in front of you, but my steel-toed soul is ten feet tall and bullet proof, jerk! I've got a 20-foot-tall billowing American flag of soul on a 20-story-tall golden flagpole of soul!

Bring the pain, punk, beat the crap out of me, show all the people in this bar what a real man can do to a smack-talking wussy boy like me, but you'd better remember that my bruises will fade, my cuts will heal, my scars will shrink and disappear, but my poem about how pitiful and small and helpless you really are will last forever.

I am a Wussy Boy, and don't you forget it.

A Song of the Rolling Earth
Walt Whitman
http://tinyurl.com/39435g

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,
For none more than you are the present and the past,
For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the
past and present, and the true word of immortality;
No one can acquire for another--not one,
Not one can grow for another--not one.

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him--it cannot fail,
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress
not to the audience,
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or
the indication of his own.

http://tinyurl.com/39435g

Sorry Louise, I didn't notice this poetry thread when I started another one.

This is one of my favourites, it's short, but I think it's beautiful.

Learning to Fly

Guillaume Apollinaire

'Come to the edge', He said.
They said, 'We are afraid.'
'Come to the edge', He said.
They came.
He pushed them... and they flew."