Post a poem

[SarahB]

Yours or someone else's. I need random poetry to clear my brain. My own poems are simply my own, so here's an old favorite by someone else....

"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou

free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

[proud patriot]

1. Okay

[Gildor Inglorion]

2. From one of far too many young men who died in WWI:

"I Have a Rendezvous with Death"

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Alan Seeger. 1888–1916

[Rowdyboy]

3. Emily Dickinson "Wild Nights"

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,-
Down with the compass,
Down with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! The sea!
Might I tonight
But moor in thee!


Miss Dickinson was not the prudish spinster lady some supposed. She could only write so beautifully because she had felt so deeply about the person she loved.

[Gildor Inglorion]

4. Thanks, Rowdyboy

You say the things that will always be true...that's a wonderful little poem.

[Speck Tater]

5. Roses are red,

Violets are purple.
Sugar is sweet,
and so is maple surple.

[HawkerHurricane]

6. For the veterans

The Last of the Light Brigade
1891
There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be conbnued' and 'see next page' o'the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the sconrn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shamme.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made --"
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

[rumguy]

7. To SA

To S.A.

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars.
To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me.
When we came.

Death was my servant on the road, till we came near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and
took you apart:
Into his quietness

So our love's earnings was your cast off body to be
held one moment.
Before earth's soft hands would explore your face and
the blind worms transmute.
Your failing substance.

Men prayed me to set my work, the inviolate house
in memory of you.
But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now
The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels
in the marred shadow
Of your gift.

By Lawrence of Arabia

[silverlib]

8. Mother's Day Peace Poem

Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation, penned
in Boston by Julia Ward Howe in 1870:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and
patience.
We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of
war.
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.

[tishaLA]

9. “Gretel in Darkness”

This is the world we wanted. All who would have seen us dead
Are dead. I hear the witch's cry
Break in the moonlight through a sheet of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas....

Now, far from women's arms
And memory of women, in our father's hut
We sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
From this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother.
Summer afternoons you look at me as though you meant
To leave, as though it never happened. But I killed for you.
I see armed firs, the spires of that gleaming kiln come back, come back--

Nights I turn to you to hold me but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
Hiss in the stillness, Hansel we are there still, and it is real, real,
That black forest, and the fire in earnest.

Louise Gluck

[JohnLocke]

10. "The Road Less Traveled" by Robert Frost

"The Road Less Traveled"
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-- From The Poetry of Robert Frost

[AlienGirl]

11. I Have Spent My Life Preparing

I Have Spent My Life Preparing for a Disaster that Never Happens

1. Fast

If I can, I will run. I whirl, dodge, leap, turn—fall. When raw speed isn’t there (I run shuffling, always likely to sprain something, awkward on legs that don’t hold up) hope must be in strategy:
set aside a bag, clothes, food,
money, always. Now watch and be ready, ready to go without looking back, into the rain and night


2. Hidden

To change appearances is more than just a matter of wigs and clothing. The right makeup can make you seem older; moving like a guy and hiding the long hair can make you look like someone else (who it is safe to be). A person, especially a small and limber person, can hide in spaces much smaller than you might expect. In an emergency duck under someone’s house; there’s often a few feet of space in there, and it’s out of the rain if you don’t mind breathing next to the spiders. This isn’t good long-term though. Hiding for long requires allies who will share a closet, a spare room, maybe a basement. They can bring food and the smell of free air. Try not to resort to this, as it is precarious at best.

3. Invisible

Here’s a plan that works for a while:
stand
perfectly
still
don’t
draw
attention

belong

or at least, be something unremarkable
be a dusty nothing reading in the library
be nobody walking down the street
look like air.

4. Teamwork

There’s no point in talking about it, as there is no safety in numbers or anywhere else. If you can learn one thing by watching the mistakes of others, that’s it.

5. Woods

Look, here is water and all the providence of nature. You can never starve
in the woods. Cattail roots, boiled. Skunk cabbage, boiled in two waters but who’d want to eat that? Gather all the acorns you can, take out the nutmeats, put them in a bag or basket, and dunk them in a stream until water leaches the tannins out.

Water lily roots. Inner bark of pine trees. Maple leaves. Berries in summer and fall. Burdock. Wild onion. Pigweed. Reindeer moss, boiled twice and wrung out like a sponge. Seaweed if the coast is nearby.

For this you need a good knife, a hatchet, and some string or thread and a needle. You also need courage and patience, sheer stubbornness and a will to live that matches any forest creature’s.

A lean living, but maybe a living.

6. Somewhere Else

You have to believe
there is somewhere else.
Soft summer breeze.


Tucker

[Amaya]

12. America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Allen Ginsberg

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

13. One of my old personal favorites

written by me many years ago.
---

A SPECIAL DREAM

I had a special dream last night—
I dreamed that I could fly
away, beyond the floating clouds—
I danced up in the sky.

The treetops were my stepping stones
to reach the summer air
so clear, so warm and sparkling blue!
I wish I was still there.

My dream was very real to me—
I thought of it all day.
I want to go back to my sky—
I wish there were a way!

To fly; to fly just like a bird!
To laugh at gravity!
It tasted sweet up in the sky—
like summer wine to me.

I had a special dream last night—
I dreamed that I could be
above the mountains; with the stars!
I flew, and I was free!

-----
Copyright © 2001-2004 Steven A. Hessler
All Rights Reserved

On edit, a link to more of my online works: http://home.comcast.net/~shessler1/poetry/poetry_introduction.htm

[AlienGirl]

14. Guide for Survivors by Josephine Jacobsen

Guide for Survivors

First comes the flight, of course. Hope gleams in steel
And lean tracks flash and conjugate the hope:
"I shall escape," "I will escape," even "I am
Escaping"; and the salty prow repeats
In a soft rush "seascape, safe cape, escape."
Station and quay support him, porter, taxi--
Timid but trustful through the alien air
To the red reassurance of the lobby.
Pages and aspidistras take him in.
The bedroom door flies back and windowed there
Clash palms, burns bay, felicitous and fresh
With all the tonic tropic of delight.

And only when the blue boy has withdrawn,
His hat on the bed, ice water at his lips,
Do his eyes meet the eyes in the far corner
Where the squat figure has awaited him.

At this, far too intelligent to flee,
He knows that hope now lies in strategy
And carefully returns to ancient use.
Monsters can mope, and lonely monsters leave.
At midnight, shimmering under falling notes
Faces of friends like flowers in a rain
Shine fresh as truth and laughter crests and breaks.
His covert gaze, ranging the rustling room,
Finds out no undesired watching thing;
Best, when the door has closed on him again
With curded smoke and petals dropped on glass,
The place is his. Till, leaning on the mantel,
Who was not there before, regards him, speechless.

Pure terror has him now; now he perceives
The visitor is at home.
In the back room
He holds destruction neatly in his palm,
Small, cold, and practical, and marvels briefly
Upon how death, that democratic lord,
Can be commanded like a ready lackey
By a crooked finger. But he does not crook it.

Some root of joy, some subterranean pride
Feeds him his strength again in slow sharp drops,
And strength restores him to the outer room.
Keeping his eyes upon the watching face
He does not hope to alienate or fly,
He mentions gravely the inclement night,
Fetches a blanket for the couch. And then
The worst befalls--the face profoundly changes
To friendship sudden as love.

[AlienGirl]

15. How they Survive the Winter

How They Survive the Winter

The bear and the lizard sink
deep into the earth to sleep.
Swallows wing it to Cabo,
caterpillars change their skins,
flies dry on windowsills. And flowers die
to creep up from the root again in spring.

Tucker

[LDS Jock]

16. sappy love poem I like

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

[Rowdyboy]

18. Thank you so much for posting this....

Its another of my all time favorites

[Rowdyboy]

19. Alfred Lord Tennyson writing of the death of his beloved friend

Arthur Hallam at the age of 22 "In Memorium"

Dark house by which once more I stand
Here in the long, unlovely street
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasped no more
Behold me for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door

He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again
And ghastly, through the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day

[NightTrain]

17. Robert Herrick's TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

[randr]

20. World's shortest poem

FLEAS
Adam
hadem

[midnight armadillo]

21. here's one

The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe

First Published in 1845

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,.
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;---
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
Lenore?, This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
"Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,
"Surely," said I, "surely, that is something at my window lattice.
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
" 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,---
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never---nevermore."

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath
Sent thee respite---respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore:
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore---
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted---nevermore!

[HawkerHurricane]

40. The Lander

Once upon a planet dreary
Came a rocket engine cheery
Coming forth to test the theory
Upon Mar's barren desert floor
Did life arise spontaneous?
Or from alien trash exterraneous?
Quoth the Lander "Either/Or"

[banana republican]

22. "Dog," by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"Dog," by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees
are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
and the things he smells
smell something like himself
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddles and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn't hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit's Tower
and past Congressman Doyle of the Unamerican Committee
He's afraid of Coit's Tower
but he's not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog's life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master's Voice
and looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramophone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything

[Rowdyboy]

25. I am totally unfamiliar with the work of Ferlinghetti

I won't be this time tomorrow night. Thanks for helping continue my DU education.

[regnaD kciN]

34. Well, here's some more...

I Am Waiting
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
Of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the second coming
And I am waiting
For a religious revival
To sweep thru the state of Arizona
And I am waiting
For the grapes of wrath to stored
And I am waiting
For them to prove
That God is really American
And I am waiting
To see God on television
Piped into church altars
If they can find
The right channel
To tune it in on
And I am waiting
for the last supper to be served again
and a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed
and I anxiously waiting
For the secret of eternal life to be discovered
By an obscure practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and TV rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting for retribution
for what America did to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

[SOteric]

23. William Butler Yeats, from the Maude Gonne collection

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you.

******

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
They cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong to great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a caket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

*******

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrow of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his faced amid the crowd of stars.

[Rowdyboy]

26. The third piece "When you are old and gray and full of sleep"

has always had the power to move me to tears. Thanks for the reminder.

[The Lone Liberal]

24. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). I love this poem

When confronted with the arrogance of ideologues I think of this poem.


Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

[ironflange]

27. Hey! I was going to post that one!

I love it, ripping down the arrogant with irony. Bush & Co. should pay heed.

[moof]

28. Roses are red

violets are blue
we don't have multiple personalities
and neither do we

[guitar man]

29. Some cowboy poetry

I am a fan of cowboy poetry,especially Wally Mcrae. This is my favorite poem by 'ol Wally. It's called "Reincarnation"

"What does Reincarnation mean?"
A cowpoke asked his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Yer life has reached its end.
They comb yer hair, and warsh yer neck,
And clean yer fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails."

"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation starts in when
Yore planted 'neath a mound.
Them clods melt down, just like yer box,
And you who is inside.
And then yore just beginnin' on
Yer transformation ride."

"In a while, the grass'll grow
Upon yer rendered mound.
Till some day on yer moldered grave
A lonely flower is found.
And say a hoss should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once wuz you, but now's become
Yer vegetative bower."

"The posy that the hoss done ate
Up, with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed,
But some is left that he can't use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground
This thing, that once wuz you."

"Then say, by chance, I wanders by
And sees this upon the ground,
And I ponders, and I wonders at,
This object that I found.
I thinks of reincarnation,
Of life and death, and such,
And come away concludin': 'Slim,
You ain't changed, all that much.'"


:)

[Rowdyboy]

30. Here's a real classic from critic, poet, and writer Dorothy Parker

"Suicide"

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acid stains you;
And drugs cause cause cramp;

Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live!

[NightTrain]

31. And another from Ms. Parker

If I abstain from fun and such
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am
because I do not give a damn.

[Rowdyboy]

32. Oh, we could do Miss Dorothy Parker all night long

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of extemporanea
And love is a thing that can never grow wrong,
And I am Marie of Rumania

(admittedly, being a history major and knowing who Marie of Rumania is, helps)

She really was brilliantly funny. What a flawless wit!

[pagerbear]

48. A more sensitive Dorothy Parker poem

Prayer for a New Mother

The things she knew, let her forget again ---
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.

Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.

Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.

Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan
The proud and happy years that they shall know
Together, when her son is grown a man.

[flaminbats]

33. I Am Mirror, by Claribel Alegria

Water sparkles
on my skin
and I don't feel it
water streams
down my back
I don't feel it
I rub myself with a towel
I pinch myself in the arm
I don't feel
frightened I look at myself in the mirror
she also pricks herself
I begin to get dressed
from the corners
shouts like lightning bolts
tortured eyes
scurrying rats
and teeth shoot back and forth
although I feel nothing
I wander through the streets;
children with dirty faces
ask me for charity
child prostitutes
who are not yet fifteen
the streets are paved with pain
tanks that approach
raised bayonets
bodies that fall
weeping
finally I feel my arm
I am no longer a phantom
I hurt
therefore I exist
I return to watch the scene:
children who run
bleeding
women with panic
in their faces
this time it hurts me less
I pinch myself again
and already I feel nothing
I simply reflect
what happens at my side
the tanks
are not tanks
nor are the shouts
shouts
I am a blank mirror
that nothing penetrates
my surface
is hard
is brilliant
is polished
I became a mirror
and I am fleshless
scarcely preserving
a vague memory
of pain.

[Lasira]

35. another Frost

"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 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.

[Insider]

36. american poet by ras baraka

"are there any american poets in here?"

unfortunately i can't find the text, but here is a link to the performance on def poetry jam. worth the click, america.

http://www.bet.com/articles/0%2C1048%2Cc5gb6195-6947-1%2C00.html#boardsAnchor

[Insider]

37. i, too by langston hughes

I, Too, Sing America.


I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table
When company comes. Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.

[boobooday]

38. Here is my Anti-War Poem

Written for Poetsagainstthewar.

Are we the Dragon?

Are we the dragon – do we bring the fire
Are we the stuff that sends chills down the spine
Of children far away, their eyes wide and sleepless in their
Dark beds
Do they huddle, waiting for the fire

Are we the tank that rolls over arms and legs
Are we the missiles that rain down
Are we the smell of smoke, and death
Burned plastic
Clothing, hair and flesh

Are we the consumers who eat the hopes of our children
Are we the consumers who shit out the bombs
Are human emotions for sale in
Endless campaigns
Vengeance, Viagra, SUVs

Are we the mothers who weep for lost sons
Are we the veterans in nursing homes grouchy, horny
Maimed, proud, noble or bitter or
Blissfully forgetful
Or afraid to sleep for dreams

Are we the change that must happen or merely observers?
Are we the ones who will say enough! Enough with death!
The peacemakers must rise – we must stand
Reverently human
We shall awaken – strong, together

For we are the dragon and the dragon-slayer.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[ACK]

Mexico City Blues "Chorus 113" by Jack Kerouac

Got up and dressed up
and went out & got laid
Then died and got buried
in a coffin in the grave,
Man --
Yet everything is perfect,
Because it is empty,
Because it is perfect
with emptiness,
Because it's not even happening.
Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness--
Anger
Doesn't like to be reminded of fits--
You start with the Teaching
Inscrutable of the Diamond
And end with it, your goal
is your startingplace,
No race was run, no walk
of prophetic toenails
Across Arabies of hot
meaning you just--
numbly don't get there

[ACK]

39. Self-delete

Accidently double post sorry.

[Nalgenelover Snort]

41. Stephen Crane-- "In the Desert"

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered,
"But I like it
"Because it is bitter,
"And because it is my heart."

[pagerbear]

42. A. E. Housman (1859–1936). from A Shropshire Lad. 1896.

XXIII. The lads in their hundreds


THE LADS in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

[Duncan Grant]

43. "Those Winter Sundays" - Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.


I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,


Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

[tigereye]

44. Love by Ruth Stone

This part of myself devoted to you
admits of nothing that falls away.
Although I melt moment by moment
into something else, I carry you
with me, a doll of circumstance,
that dances as I do when I
present myself, the stranger,
to you,the stranger. We speak
of them hurriedly. We
take them out of our breasts
and hold them out to each other,
the glass hearts, the transparent bodies.

I really like this poet. Thanks for the poetry thread.

[Rowdyboy]

45. A delightful old nonsense poem for a change of pace...

"As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today.
I wish,I wish he'd go away!"

Hugh Mearns (1875-1965)
US writer and educationalist
for an amatuer play in Philadelphia in 1910.

This poem was taught to me as a child by my mother-just one more example of the tremendous work you ladies do in molding the children you raise. I thank you all.....

[johnnie]

46. Pissing spit

Started as a poem, then I changed it around a bit and wrote it in to a song.

Pissing spit...by me

She asked me Not to live up to her dreams
It's just a foolish game People play
I said that's just fine It's a derision of our minds
I didn't want to ruin it anyway

A sordid reflection Of a future gone astray
It echoes with a disenchanted smile.
The dagger of truth pierces unforgiving hearts
And bleeds upon the battlefields of time

And you'll feel the hunger Of the solitude that sleeps inside your soul
And you'll hear the laughter As you stand and face your sanity alone


I stay awake And defend my right to stay
Somewhere in the night it waits for me
Tender is the kiss Of my self induced Judas
I'll embrace the final fight and be free

The silence of your words Are often seldom heard
Regenerating scars of yesterday
Don't be misled By the voices in your head
They tell you of the debts you have to pay

And I'll feel the hunger Of the solitude that sleeps inside my soul
And I'll hear the laughter As I stand and face my sanity alone

And when this chapter ends And I'm pissing spit again
And the anger beats my love into the dirt
I know that you'll be standing right along with me
You understand that nothing really hurts


And we'll feel the hunger Of the solitude that sleeps inside our soul
And we'll hear the laughter As we stand and face our sanity alone

[SarahB]

47. One for the night

To ————

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory.—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.—

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed—
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

[corporatewhore]

49. Robert Johnson's Me and The Devil blues ( i found it very poetic and

had great imagery)
Early this mornin'
when you knocked upon my door
Early this mornin', ooh
when you knocked upon my door
And I said, "Hello, Satan,"
I believe it's time to go."


Me and the Devil
was walkin' side by side
Me and the Devil, ooh
was walkin' side by side
And I'm goin' to beat my woman
until I get satisfied


She say you don't see why
that you will dog me 'round
spoken: Now, babe, you know you ain't doin' me
right, don'cha
She say you don't see why, ooh
that you will dog me 'round
It must-a be that old evil spirit
so deep down in the ground


You may bury my body
down by the highway side
spoken: Baby, I don't care where you bury my
body when I'm dead and gone
You may bury my body, ooh
down by the highway side
So my old evil spirit
can catch a Greyhound bus and ride