favorite poem

[snugtop]

what's yours? There must be some literary sprayers out there. Here's one I like a lot by Philip Larkin, from 1943:

 

Love, we must part now

 

Love, we must part now: do not let it be

Calamitious and bitter. In the past

There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:

Let us have done with it: for now at last

Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,

Never were hearts more eager to be free,

To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I

No longer hold them; we are husks, that see

The grain going forward to a different use.

 

There is regret. Always, there is regret.

But it is better that our lives unloose,

As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,

Break from an estuary with their courses set,

And waving part, and waving drop from sight.

[klenke]

Hickery dickery dock...

Oh wait, mixed company. Damn!

[jordop]

Ex Voto, Brodsky

Preparation, Milosz

I'm working on the World, Szymborska

 

And anything else from the dismal side of the Iron Curtain

[snugtop]

If more people don't respond I'm gunna have to trot out the Collected Works of the Vogons, Volume 1...

[AlpineK]

fuzzy wuzzy was a bear

fuzzy wuzzy had no hair

fuzzy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he.

 

 

I kind of like the Inferno by Dante too, but I'm not sure if that's a poem.

[billcoe]

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

 

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.*

 

 

-Wilfred Owen

 

* translates to, ‘It Is Sweet And Honourable To Die For Ones' Country.’

[glassgowkiss]

http://pit1954.150m.com/galeria.html Edited May 5, 2005 by glassgowkiss

[Ireneo_Funes]

Bill, that Wilfred Owen poem is classic. Also the Philip Larkin poem that Snugtop kicked off this thread with is excellent. Never read that one before.

 

Here's one I like:

 

The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens

 

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

 

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

 

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

 

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

 

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[Fairweather]

Last campfires never die. And you and I

On seperate ways to life's December,

Will always dream by this last fire

And have this mountain to remember.

 

Clark E Schurman

[jordop]

The Name, Tomas Transtromer

 

 

I got sleepy while driving and pulled in under a tree at the side of the road. Rolled up in the back seat and went to sleep. How long? Hours. Darkness had come. All of a sudden I was awake, and I didn't know who I was. I'm fully conscious, but that doesn't help. Where am I? WHO am I? I am something that has just woken up in a back seat, throwing itself around in panic like a cat in a gunnysack. Who am I?

After a long while my life comes back to me. My name comes to me like an angel. Outside the castle walls there is a trumpet blast (as in the Leonora Overture) and the footsteps that will save me come quickly down the long staircase. It's me coming! It's me!

But it is impossible to forget the fifteen-second battle in the hell of nothingness, a few feet from a major highway where the cars slip past with their lights dimmed.

[Blake]

The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service

 

 

 

 

 

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

 

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

 

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam MCGee.

 

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking you that you won't refuse my last request."

 

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead--it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

 

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

 

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given'

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate these last remains."

 

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows-- O God! how I loathed the thing.

 

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it harkened with a grin.

 

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

 

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared--such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

 

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

 

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . . then the door I opened wide.

 

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm--

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

 

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

[chirp]

Emily Dickenson - A bird came down the walk

 

A bird came down the walk:

He did not know I saw;

He bit an angle-worm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw.

 

And then he drank a dew

From a convenient grass,

And then hopped sidewise to the wall

To let a beetle pass.

 

He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all abroad,--

They looked like frightened beads, I thought;

He stirred his velvet head

 

Like one in danger; cautious,

I offered him a crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers

And rowed him softer home

 

Than oars divide the ocean,

Too silver for a seam,

Or butterflies, off banks of noon,

Leap, splashless, as they swim.

 

[ScottP]

(As recited by Edie Murphy on SNL)

 

Images

by Tyrone Green

 

Dark and lonely on a summer's night.

Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.

Watchdog barking. Do he bite?

Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.

Slip in his window. Break his neck.

Then his house I start to wreck.

Got no reason. What the heck?

Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.

C-I-L my land lord!

[fenderfour]

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine --

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers;

And all the flowers were mine.

 

Ah, dream too bright to last;

Ah, starry Hope that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the Future cries

"Onward!" --but o'er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,

Mute, motionless, aghast!

 

For alas! alas! me

The light of life is o'er.

"No more-no more-no more,"

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore,)

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

 

Now all my hours are trances;

And all my nightly dreams

Are where the dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams,

In what ethereal dances,

By what Italian streams.

 

Alas! for that accursed time

They bore thee o'er the billow,

For Love to titled age and crime,

And an unholy pillow --

From me, and from our misty clime,

Where weeps the silver willow!

 

-Edgar Allen Poe from "The Assignation"

[mec]

Me no read poems, the closest I generally get is music, does that count? I could post some fav lyrics up here...

[cj001f]

Rupert Brooke (various)

 

Jealousy

 

WHEN I see you, who were so wise and cool,

Gazing with silly sickness on that fool

You’ve given your love to, your adoring hands

Touch his so intimately that each understands,

I know, most hidden things; and when I know 5

Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow

Of his red lips, and that the empty grace

Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,

Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,

That you have given him every touch and move, 10

Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,

—Oh! then I know I’m waiting, lover-wife,

For the great time when love is at a close,

And all its fruit’s to watch the thickening nose

And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye, 15

That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!

Day after day you’ll sit with him and note

The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;

As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,

And love, love, love to habit! 20

 

And after that,

When all that’s fine in man is at an end,

And you, that loved young life and clean, must tend

A foul sick fumbling dribbling body and old,

When his rare lips hang flabby and can’t hold 25

Slobber, and you’re enduring that worst thing,

Senility’s queasy furtive love-making,

And searching those dear eyes for human meaning,

Propping the bald and helpless head, and cleaning

A scrap that life’s flung by, and love’s forgotten,— 30

Then you’ll be tired; and passion dead and rotten;

And he’ll be dirty, dirty!

O little and free

And lightfoot, that the poor heart cries to see,

That’s how I’ll see your man and you!— 35

 

But you

—Oh, when that time comes, you’ll be dirty too!

 

Blake - that's a classic

[archenemy]

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;

You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,

And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,

Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot

And not to be trapped by withering laurels.

And in you I have found aloneness

And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,

In your eyes I have read

That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,

and to be understood is to be leveled down,

And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness

and like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,

You shall hear my songs and my cries an my silences,

And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,

And urging of seas,

And of mountains that burn in the night,

And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,

You and I shall laugh together with the storm,

And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,

And we shall stand in the sun with a will,

And we shall be dangerous.

[olyclimber]

In the sky! Deplane! Deplane!

[aint_this_great]

If you can pronounce Kosciusko I'll give you a carrot, and no it isn't in Kyrgystan. If you've seen the movie, think about the scene where he leaps over the edge of the mountain when you get to that stanza...they did a good job of pictorializing it.

 

Oh, and thumbs up to whoever posted Robert Service - Sam McGee or Dan McGrew was a tossup with this.

 

The Man from Snowy River

 

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around

That the colt from old Regret had got away,

And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,

So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.

All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far

Had mustered at the homestead overnight,

For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,

And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

 

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,

The old man with his hair as white as snow;

But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up —

He would go wherever horse and man could go.

And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,

No better horseman ever held the reins;

For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand,

He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

 

And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,

He was something like a racehorse undersized,

With a touch of Timor pony — three parts thoroughbred at least —

And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.

He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won’t say die —

There was courage in his quick impatient tread;

And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,

And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

 

But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,

And the old man said, ‘That horse will never do

For a long and tiring gallop — lad, you’d better stop away,

Those hills are far too rough for such as you.’

So he waited sad and wistful — only Clancy stood his friend —

‘I think we ought to let him come,’ he said;

‘I warrant he’ll be with us when he’s wanted at the end,

For both his horse and he are mountain bred.

 

‘He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko’s side,

Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,

Where a horse’s hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,

The man that holds his own is good enough.

And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,

Where the river runs those giant hills between;

I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,

But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen.’

 

So he went — they found the horses by the big mimosa clump —

They raced away towards the mountain’s brow,

And the old man gave his orders, ‘Boys, go at them from the jump,

No use to try for fancy riding now.

And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.

Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,

For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,

If once they gain the shelter of those hills.’

 

So Clancy rode to wheel them — he was racing on the wing

Where the best and boldest riders take their place,

And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring

With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.

Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,

But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,

And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,

And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

 

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black

Resounded to the thunder of their tread,

And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back

From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.

And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,

Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;

And the old man muttered fiercely, ‘We may bid the mob good day,

No man can hold them down the other side.’

 

When they reached the mountain’s summit, even Clancy took a pull,

It well might make the boldest hold their breath,

The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full

Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.

But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,

And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,

And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,

While the others stood and watched in very fear.

 

He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,

He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,

And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat —

It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.

Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,

Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;

And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,

At the bottom of that terrible descent.

 

He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,

And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,

Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,

As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.

Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met

In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals

On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,

With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

 

And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.

He followed like a bloodhound on their track,

Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,

And alone and unassisted brought them back.

But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,

He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;

But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,

For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

 

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise

Their torn and rugged battlements on high,

Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze

At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,

And where around the Overflow the reedbeds sweep and sway

To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,

The man from Snowy River is a household word to-day,

And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

[dkemp]

This one won a Purple Prose Award a few years ago. Its so bad I really like it. Google the first line to learn more.

 

Rain, David Hersh, Seattle

 

Rain violent torrents of it

Rain like fetid water from a God sized pot of pasta

Strained through a sky wide colander

Rain as Noah knew it

Flaying the shuddering trees

Whipping the whitecapped waters

Violating the sodden firmament

Purging purity and filth alike from the land

Rain without mercy, without surcease

Incontinent rain

Turning to intermittant showers overnight

With partial clearing Tuesday

 

[foraker]

Koz-ee-os-koh. Saw some dude hiking to the top in a leisure suit. The easiest of the seven.

[klenke]

Let's have some Blake (courtesy of Jah Wobble). Now if you could only read the lines like Jah does on the album (The Inspiration of William Blake):

[klenke]

And some more:

[texplorer]

IF

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,

If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

 

Rudyard Kipling

[klenke]

Ye may kill for yourselves,

and your mates,

and your cubs as they need,

and ye can;

But kill not for the pleasure of killing,

and seven times never kill Man!

--Kipling

 

Last Blake entry attached (in the event you want more). Some have called him a genius. I find him interesting as you might an augur and a little less recondite than Nostradamus, but he's not me favorite poet. I've never really thought about such things, actually.