Favourite lines of poetry/verse?

[diebitter]

Mine very favourite is one by Byron, but I don't want it ripped to shreds here and tarnished in my memory forever, so....

my second favourite is:

"He bangs his fists against the posts,
And still insists he sees the ghosts"

[kitaristi0]

Byron is pretty good. The Second Coming by Yates is my favourite.

This excluding song lyrics.

[blaze666]

The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all it's might.
And this was odd because it was the middle of the night.


or


Once upon a midnight dreary, as I whacked it, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten porn, as i nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a slapping, as of someone's violent crapping, crapping on my bathroom floor. Tis some prostitute, I muttered, crapping on my bathroom floor. Only this, and nothing more...

from 'the raven' by unforgiven martyr




or



On arctic floats
That served as boats
The penguins came to kill.

With icy blades
And snow in spades
They landed on Brazil.



from 'attack of the penguins' by aladin-sane

Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Dylan Thomas

[JihadOnTheRiver]

Here I sit, broken hearted.
Came to sh.it, but only farted.

[imported_The Vibesman]

It's been done to death but my favorite is still the close of The Raven:

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

[Tron]

I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies
And hypotheses can't define how I be droppin' these
Mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery
Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me

~Rebel I-N-S

[lu_hawk]

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

[jcmack13]

[ QUOTE ]
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Holy sh-t I was going to post some Wordsworth line I like but then I saw this and remembered that this speech almost makes me weep.

Cliched, but I also like:
"If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run"
Just that couplet.

I'm thinking of more now, I got a couple favorites, I guess.

[jason_t]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (first two stanzas)
By T.S. Eliot

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
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.

[Hamish McBagpipe]

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

-- Randall Jarrell

Almost too obvious, but good imagery, I memorized this one for some grade 6 or 7 thing.

[imported_anacardo]

Damn you for getting to Ball Turret Gunner first.

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd Heaven with their tears,
Did He smile, His work to see?
Did He who made the Lamb make thee?

[Voltron87]

Can I hit in the morning
without givin you half of my dough
and even worse if I was broke would you want me?
if i couldn't get you finer things
like all of them diamond rings bitches kill for
would you still roll?
if we couldn't see the sun risin off the shore of thailand
would you ride then, if I wasn't droppin?
if I wasn't ah, eight figure nigga by the name of Jigga
would you come around me or would you clown me?
if i couldn't flow futuristic would ya
put your two lips on my wood and kiss it - could ya
see yourself with a nigga workin harder than 9 to 5
contend with six, two jobs to survive, or
do you need a balla, so you can shop and tear the mall up?
brag, tell your friends what i bought ya
if you couldn't see yourself with a nigga when his dough is low
baby girl, if this is so, yo..


can I get a [censored] you
to these bitches from all of my niggaz
who don't love hoes, they get no dough

[peachy]

POE

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream...


will forever and always be my favorite...but right behind it is....

CARROLL

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”


i love so many poems...but im also soooo picky wish i had room to list them all without boring everyone /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

POE is by far one of my favorite writers by far though

[imported_anacardo]

SNICKER-SNACK, BITCHES

[peachy]

[ QUOTE ]
SNICKER-SNACK, BITCHES

[/ QUOTE ]

hahah i had this poem memorized when i was a child...my mom would always say it to me from memory and when i learn it we would take turns saying it and leave off and the other would pick up etc etc

[Blarg]

Forgive the weirdnesses with punctuation I put in to keep the poems as they are.

High Windows
Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fu*cking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

by Philip Larkin

"The sun-comprehending glass" is one of my favorite things I've ever read in the English Language.

This Be The Verse

They fu_ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fu_cked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

(1971), Philip Larkin

I'm also a big fan of Wallace Stevens and T.S. Elliot.

"It is part of his poems' strength to speak directly to most people who come across them. He makes each of us feel that he is 'our' poet, in a way that Eliot, for instance, does not - and each of us creates a highly personal version of his character to accompany his work. Pointing out that he was contradictory doesn't pose much of a threat to these versions. It's more disturbing, however, to say that many of Larkin's inner conflicts evolved in ways his work can only hint at. When he found his authentic voice in the late 1940s, the beautiful flowers of his poetry were already growing on long stalks out of pretty dismal ground.... He understood that the relationship he had created between 'high' art and 'ordinary' existence was a remarkable one, which deserved to be made public."

(Andrew Motion)

[orange]

The Destruction of Sennacherib- Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it 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"

[diebitter]

Kay, this thread is a good un, lacking the usual witnit comments etc, and some admirable work been sited. Poe and Kipling are wonderful, and all the quotes of real poetry so far have been spot on.

So here's my very favourite as mentioned in the OP, by Byron:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

[GuyOnTilt]

First that popped to mind:

A word is dead
When it is said
Some say

I say it just
Begins to live
That day

GoT

[whiskeytown]

there's a great Derek Walcott poem - called Bleecker St. -1962, I think.

short poem - about a couple languishing away on the rooftop in NYC as summer comes to an end - and I don't have it memorized verbatim, I remember the last line...

"I would laugh and dry your damp flesh if you came."

the whole image of the poem, short as it is, is great -

RB

[kitaristi0]

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.



Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[Matador225]

Here is one of my favorites.

"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:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and 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 and 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 and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and 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 and 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!"

-The Charge of the Light Brigade
Tennyson

[goofball]

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.

[shadow29]

[ QUOTE ]
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

[/ QUOTE ]

and

[ QUOTE ]
En Viena hay diez muchachas,
un hombro donde solloza la muerte
y un bosque de palomas disecadas.
Hay un fragmento de la manana
en el mueso de la escarcha
Hay un salon con mil ventanas

Ay, ay, ay, ay,
Toma este vals con la boca cerrada

Este vals, este vals, este vals,
de si, de muerte y de conac
que moja su cola en el mar

Te quiero, te quiero, te quiero,
con la butaca y el libro muerto,
por el melancolico pasillo
en el oscuro desvan del lirio,
en nuestra cama de la luna
y en la danza que suena la tortuga.

Ay, ay, ay, ay,
Toma este vals con la boca cerrada

En Viena hay cuatro espejos
donde juegan tu boca y los ecos,
Hay una muerte para piano,
que pinta de azul a los muchachos.
Hay mendigos por los tejados
Hay frescas guirnaldas de llanto

Ay, ay, ay, ay,
Toma este vals con la boca cerrada

Porque te quiero, te quiero, amor mio,
en el desvan donde juegan los ninos,
sonando viejas luces de Hungria
por los rumores de la tarde tibia,
viendo ovejas y lirios de nieve
por el silencio oscuro de tu frente.

Ay, ay, ay, ay,
Toma este vals con la boca cerrada

En viena bailare contigo
con un disfraz que tenga
cabeza de rio.
Mira que orillas tengo de jacintos
Dejare mi boca entre tus piernas,
mi alma en fotografias y azucenas,
y en las ondas oscuras de tu andar
quiero, amor mio, amor mio, dejar,
violin y sepulcro, las cintas del vals.

[/ QUOTE ]

[nothumb]

[ QUOTE ]
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've always felt that this was one of the best couplets ever in the history of English verse.

Another from Eliot that I like, from The Wasteland:

"-Yet when we came back late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."

One of the last phrases has always stuck with me also:
"These fragments I have shored against my ruins."

Or from my favorite Eliot poem, "The Hollow Men:"

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar"

I have to say that "Howl" is also one of my favorite poems of all time. Just an overwhelming work. Not worth quoting unless in its entirety. Just read this poem and notice that, with all the length, the meandering thoughts, the wild images, there is nothing extraneous in the language. Each image is crisp and well-crafted and every word is important.

There are a ton of poems I'd like to share, that's enough for now.

NT

[TheBlueMonster]

Favorite poem. My favorite lines occur at the end of the poem starting with "I have lingered" and ending with "till human voices wawke us and we drown."
(too lazy to cut and past whole thing..)

[BoxTree]

As I Walked Out One Evening
W.H. Auden

In particular, the sixth stanza:

"But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not time deceive you
You cannot conquer time."

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]
perhaps the most misquoted line in the history of poetry. It's a "dishtowel" line on account of being something best quoted on dish towels.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
You put your bet on number one and it comes up every time.
The other kids have all backed down and they put you first in line.
And so you finally ask yourself just how big you are
and take your place in a wiser world of bigger motor cars.
And you wonder who to call on.
-
Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick (http://www.collecting-tull.com/Albums/Lyrics/ThickAsABrick.html)


[/ QUOTE ]

Backstroke lover always hidin' 'neath the covers
Till I talked to your daddy he say
He said you ain't seen nothin' till you're down on a muffin
Then you're sure to be a changin' your ways
I met a cheerleader was a real young bleeder
Oh the times I could reminisce
'Cause the best things of lovin' with her sister and her cousin
Only started with a little kiss
Like this

in just-

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

the

goat-footed

baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

[vulturesrow]

Lately Ive really gotten into the work of Rainer Maria Rilke. Here is one that is one of my favorites so far.

Love Song


How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two seperate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
the droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (first two stanzas)
By T.S. Eliot

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
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.

[/ QUOTE ]


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.

[pryor15]

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
by Amiri Baraka


Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

[Mangatang]

Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barron field, covered with snow.


My 10th grade English teacher made us memorize this poem, and she said that we would never forget the words. We were all like, "Bull [censored]. No way we will remember this crap."

Now, sixteen years later, and I still can't delete it from my memory.

[mikech]

it's impossible to name a "favorite" for this, there's just too many, but here's a stanza i've always loved:


Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

[Blarg]

Definitely one of my favorite poems.

[Vish]

[ QUOTE ]
Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barron field, covered with snow.


My 10th grade English teacher made us memorize this poem, and she said that we would never forget the words. We were all like, "Bull [censored]. No way we will remember this crap."

Now, sixteen years later, and I still can't delete it from my memory.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's too bad. That's a pretty shitty poem to have stuck in your head.

[Victor]

very nice.

[Victor]

i guess i will post the obvious

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

there is also a sonnet that is great. 116 is the most well-known but i like this other one better. something about a ship on the sea. whatever, i will find it.

[jason_t]

Trees
By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

[BoxTree]

[ QUOTE ]
Trees
By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really like this poem except for the last couplet. Self-referential remarks* in poetry (however humbling) usually don't fit quite right. "Trees" is no exception.

*Poems that are mostly self-referential are an entirely different story.

[Dominic]

From Pablo Neruda's "La Muerta"

If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping,
but I shall stay alive,

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Dylan Thomas

[/ QUOTE ]

and, as a prose companion to this, from James Joyce's "The Dead:"

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

[Aces McGee]

[ QUOTE ]
"He bangs his fists against the posts,
And still insists he sees the ghosts"

[/ QUOTE ]

If this is the Beastie Boy lyric, it's actually "thrusts" not "bangs." If it's not, please ignore me.

-McGee

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"He bangs his fists against the posts,
And still insists he sees the ghosts"

[/ QUOTE ]

If this is the Beastie Boy lyric, it's actually "thrusts" not "bangs." If it's not, please ignore me.

-McGee

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I read it years ago in a Stephen King non-fiction work called 'dance macabre', well before the BBs. They must have got it from whereever King got his from. And I could remember it wrong, it might well be 'thrusts'.

[Argus]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En réponse à:</font><hr />
Poems written by masochists flop like cows in the meadow -
Take pity on me, they cry, pay attention, pity on me -
I am so sensitive to nature and full of milk.
Poems should be like pins which prick the skin of boredom
And leave a glow equal in its pride to the gait of the Sadist
Who stuck the pin and walked away.

[/ QUOTE ]
From Norman Mailer's only book of poetry, Deaths for the Ladies.

[SheetWise]

... I looked a Coyote right in the face
On the road to Baljennie near my old home town
He went running thru the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down
And a hawk was playing with him
Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes
He had those same eyes - just like yours
Under your dark glasses
Privately probing the public rooms
And peeking thru keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them thru this passion play

No regrets, Coyote
I just get off up aways
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

Coyote's in the coffee shop
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs
He picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching the waitresses' legs
He's too far from the Bay of Fundy
From Appaloosas and Eagles and tides
And the air conditioned cubicles
And the carbon ribbon rides
Are spelling it out so clear
Either he's going to have to stand and fight
Or take off out of here
I tried to run away myself
To run away and wrestle with my ego
And with this flame
You put here in this Eskimo
In this hitcher
In this prisoner
Of the fine white lines
Of the white lines on the free, free way

Coyote--Joni Mitchell

[mslif]

One of my favorite poems is from Paul Verlaine. This poem was the one broacasted over the radio in occupied France to warn the Resistance that the D-day attack had started.

The long sobs
of the violins
Of autumn
Wound my heart
With a monotonous
Languor.

- Song of Autumn - Poèmes saturniens

This one is also one of my favorite. I was abe to find a good translation for it so I am posting it. It is from Paul Verlaine as well:

Tears fall in my heart
As rain upon the city;
What is this languor
That pierces my heart?
Oh, the gentle sound of the rain
By land and on the roofs!
For a heart that is empty
Oh, the song of the rain! Tears fall without reason
In this heart that is disheartened.
What? No betrayal? . . .
This grief is without reason. It is indeed the worst pain
Not to know why
Without love and without hatred
My heart suffers so much pain!

- Ariettes oubliées

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
Tears fall in my heart
As rain upon the city;
What is this languor
That pierces my heart?
Oh, the gentle sound of the rain
By land and on the roofs!
For a heart that is empty
Oh, the song of the rain! Tears fall without reason
In this heart that is disheartened.
What? No betrayal? . . .
This grief is without reason. It is indeed the worst pain
Not to know why
Without love and without hatred
My heart suffers so much pain!

[/ QUOTE ]

This made me very sad.

One of my favorites:

The beauty of a rose in bloom art naught when compared with thou.
For a rose hath not thy soul.

[mslif]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Tears fall in my heart
As rain upon the city;
What is this languor
That pierces my heart?
Oh, the gentle sound of the rain
By land and on the roofs!
For a heart that is empty
Oh, the song of the rain! Tears fall without reason
In this heart that is disheartened.
What? No betrayal? . . .
This grief is without reason. It is indeed the worst pain
Not to know why
Without love and without hatred
My heart suffers so much pain!

[/ QUOTE ]

This made me very sad.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is a very well written poem that describes very well a chapter of my life.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
and, as a prose companion to this, from James Joyce's "The Dead:"

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, and that can lead us to TS Eliot:

...Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


What the hell. Here's the entire glorious thing (easily my favorite poem):

The Hollow Men

I


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar


Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;


Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II


Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.


Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --


Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III


This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.


Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV


The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms


In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river


Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V


Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.


Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow


For Thine is the Kingdom


Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


Life is very long


Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[Blarg]

Fantastic poem, but I'm sticking to Prufrock as my favorite T.S. Eliot, which means very high among all my favorites. That one has line after stunning line, and a great overall direction. Though I really like The Hollow Men an awful lot, and some phrases really leap out at you in their brilliance. That's one of the things I like about Eliot; he can write lines that absolutely blow you away when you read them and make you wonder if you've ever read anything that good before.

[Cancuk]

Here's a couple lines, not so much my favourites, but...unreal..

first, Arnolds, "Dover Beach"

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is one of the most impressive poem's i've ever read

but, without a question, my favourite poet (and artists) is Bob Dylan:

From "Vision's of Johanna"

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place


From "The Time's they are a-changin"

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

and there's hundred's more..

[nothumb]

The more I think about it, the more I think Rushmore and I are the same person, a few years apart. Except one of us is a bit more wealthy.

The Hollow Men was my favorite poem in college... might still be. I did a musical setting of it in my senior thesis that was probably the best piece of music I wrote. Wish I could hear that played again.

Anyway, it's a criminal shame that we've made it so far in this thread without some Bukowski. Here's a later work:

a poem for swingers

I like women who haven't lived with too many men.
I don't expect virginity but I simply prefer women
who haven't been rubbed raw by experience.

there is a quality about women who choose
men sparingly;
it appears in their walk
in their eyes
in their laughter and in their
gentle hearts.

women who have had too many men
seem to choose the next one
out of revenge rather than with
feeling.

when you play the field selfishly everything
works against you;
one can't insist on love or
demand affection.
you're finally left with whatever
you have been willing to give
which often is:
nothing.

some women are delicate things
some women are delicious and
wondrous.

if you want to piss on the sun
go ahead
but please leave the good women
alone.

hymn from the hurricane


paid my dues in Macon, went crazy in Tennessee,
found the love of God in St. Louis,
got the hell out of there.
found the whore with the heart of gold in Glendale,
ran away from that.
floundered awhile along the Mason-Dixon Line,
came to my senses in New Orleans.
mailed a letter home, and got knocked on my ass in Houston.
started sitting at the center of the bar instead of at the end.
got rolled 3 times in a row somewhere near the Appalachians.
married a woman with a crippled neck who died unclaimed in India.
name of the first horse I ever bet on was Royal Serenade who died
long ago .
what glistens best for me is the first drink of the night.
I will hear forever the wheels of the Greyhound bus carrying me
to nowhere.
J. Cash sang "I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die" as the
cons cheered.
celled with public enemy no. one in Moyamensing Prison (he
snored at night).
my women tell me that I am insane because of my parents.
sometimes I feel like a motherless child.
my favorite color is yellow and my backbone is the same.
nine-tenths of Humanity embraces self-pity and the other tenth
makes them look pitiful.
the rat and the roach are the most powerful reminders of
enduring life.
what was always best for me was seing fear in the eyes of the
bully.
the saddest thing was old women watering geraniums at 2 p.m.
and what I learned was to do it now inspite of the consequenses.
and what I also learned was that something once said could
quickly become untrue.

I paid my dues in Macon, went crazy in Tennessee,
found myself in the second floor of a hotel in Albuquerque (the bed
bugs ate well).
found myself on a track gang going west and didn't yearn for
a seat in Congress.
I remember the girl who showed me her panties when I was 8
years old.

I remember the red streetcars, and the vacant lots between
the houses in Los Angeles.
I remember that the girl who showed her panties to half the town
had
showed me first.
I was always a coward who didn't care.
I was always a brave man who didn't try to win.
I found that screwing women was a social duty like making
money.

I paid my dues in Tennessee and went crazy in Macon.

I had no idea of the black-white game and
sit on the back of a streetcar in New Orleans.
I hate politics and I hate the obvious answers.
I paid my dues in East Kansas City.
I beat the hell out of a 6-foot-4 240-pound guy in Philly
I stayed on the floor on Miami after a 150-pounder decked me
with his first punch.
the state of the mind is the State of the Union.
what you want to do and what you've got to do is the same thing.
I once watched a sailor fight an alligator and the alligator quit.

only boring people are bored.
only the wrong flags fly.
the person who tells you they are not God really thinks otherwise.
God is the invention of failures.
the only hell is where you are.

passed through Dallas and rammed through Pasadena.
I never paid my dues because there was nobody to collect them.
I've smashed two full-length mirrors and they are still looking for
me.
I've walked into places where no man should ever go.
I've been mercilessly beaten and left for dead.
I have lumps all over my scull from blackjacks and etc.
the angels pissed themselves in fear.
I am a beautiful person.

and you are.
and she is.
as is the yellow thumping of the sun and the glory of the world.


---
NT

[bholdr]

Ginsburg, from 'America':

"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."

Whitman (writing about his poetry):

"As idly drifting down the ebb
such ripples, half caught voices,
echo from the shore"

Hunter Thompson (it's from 'the great shark hunt'- can't quite remember the rest of the verse, but...):

"bend her in two like a saftey pin"

[bholdr]

"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"

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
The more I think about it, the more I think Rushmore and I are the same person, a few years apart. Except one of us is a bit more wealthy.

The Hollow Men was my favorite poem in college... might still be. I did a musical setting of it in my senior thesis that was probably the best piece of music I wrote. Wish I could hear that played again.

Anyway, it's a criminal shame that we've made it so far in this thread without some Bukowski. Here's a later work:


[/ QUOTE ]

I consider that a compliment, sir.

And yes, absolutely, Bukowski cannot be passed over in this thread. When I first started reading Bukowski in the 80's, my initial reaction was that it was a little gimmicky. The poems were obviously very free of restriction, and I assumed this was the appeal that most readers were attracted to.

But when you look further, he's brilliant, and certainly not to be overlooked here.

In many ways, I cannot help but think of Raymond Carver when I read Bukowski. Obviously, Carver's forte was stories (which is not to say that I don't re-read Erections, Exhibitions, etc. every two years or so), but there is much of the same sentiment, and masterfully crafted. They obviously had the booze in common, but that's not what does it.

If you love Bukowski's stuff, and you haven't read Carver's stories, you really should.

P.S. I didn't know you were wealthy.

[diebitter]

THE GOOD-MORROW.
by John Donne

I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

[bosoxfan]

Think that beauty will not stay
With you always, but away,
And that tyrannizing face
That now holds such perfect grace
Will both changed and ruined be;
So frail is all things as we see,

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it 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"

[/ QUOTE ]

Kipling's bankroll management was awful, well known fact.

Mack

[codewarrior]

Blake, from America: a Prophecy

The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their
stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk &amp; dry'd,
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening!
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds &amp; bars are burst.
Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field:
Let him look up into the heavens &amp; laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,
Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open.
And let his wife and children return from the opressor's scourge.
They look behind at every step &amp; believe it is a dream,
Singing, 'The Sun has left his blackness, &amp; has found a fresher
morning
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear &amp; cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion &amp; Wolf shall cease.

[samjjones]

Of course one should not have to remind
That Busey is unfairly maligned
Eyes show menace beneath
With his great giant teeth
And he's totally out of his mind

[daryn]

Her bouquet cleaved his hardened shell.
And fondled his muscled heart.
He embibed her glistening spell...
just before the other shoe...fell.

http://www.nutmusic.com/alzo/images/wayne_knight.jpg

[Scotch78]

Town of the Sound of a Twig Breaking
from The Life of Towns
by Anne Carson




Their faces I thought were knives.
The way they pointed them at me.
And waited.
A hunter is someone who listens.
So hard to his prey it pulls the weapon.
Out of his hand and impales.
Itself.

Scott

[Cumulonimbus]

One stanza from The Waking by Theordore Roethke, featured in the book Dreamweaver and Slaughterhouse Five, I believe...



This shaking keeps me steady, I should know.
What falls away is always, and is near.
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Don't turn around, oh oh..
DerKomissar's in town, oh oh.

[WDC]

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix

[M2d]

and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful

edit: actually, any line(s) from this poem make my top ten.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

Written in an outhouse:

Here I sit, broken hearted,
Paid a nickel and only farted.

Next time, take a chance.
Save the nickel and crap your pants.

[steviej1717]

Rilke is awesome.

Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.

And another one that I couldn't find an author for.

When God comes to me I will be shaking. Gun loaded on my knee, my fingers waiting. Gonna tell him I was born, mistaken, then I´m gonna let my fingers slip. God help my shaking hand, I can see your light, they´re lining up the dead. Gonna take another sip of your soul, my favorite sinner.

[kitaristi0]

This is amazing. A post in OOT about poetry that has gone about 80 replies with little-to-no haters.

[diebitter]

OOT can move you sometimes.

Or your bowels, at least.

[steviej1717]

More favorites

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just
Ourselves And Immortality.

Emily Dickinson

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had.

Gary Jules

I drink to our ruined house, to the dolor of my life, to our loneliness together; and to you I raise my glass, to lying lips that have betrayed us, to dead-cold pitiless eyes, and to the hard realities; that the world is brutal and coarse, that God, in fact, has not saved us.



Dreams are the eraser dust I blow off my page.
They fade into the emptiness, another dark gray day.
Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then.
Dreams are eraser dust and now I use a pen

[rory]

THEMES ON LOVE
Grading themes on love at M.I.T.,
one-man Symposium at 3
a.m., across the court I saw a light;
another office-holder working late.
While Plato on a silver pillow rode
above the waves of pre-sophistic prose,
I jotted teacher's notions that were not
as brave as our two lamps against the glut
of dawn. But when I clicked mine off
his too at once was gone, had been
my echo in a distant sheen
of glass; had been my own, and I
was lonely then, and wrote
these English words.

[Georgia Avenue]

Lot of great poems in this thread... This one combines my two favorite things:

Ooh My Soul

—Little Richard
By Charles Harper Webb

By night, ghosts roam Aunt Ermyn’s
elm-shrouded, hundred-year-old home.
By day, my cousin Pete, just out of high school,
combs his ducktail and keeps time
to records with his creaky rocking chair.
I’m in the hall, creating all-star teams
of baseball cards when, blaring
through Pete’s open door, I hear . . .
war drums? Or is it a runaway train?
Keepa knockin’ but you cain’t come in,
then squeals like tires around a curve.
Those chugging drums, smoking piano,
squawking duck-call saxophones
make me feel like an oil rig ready to blow.
I see wells pumping, teeter-totters bumping,
giant turtle-heads working out and in
as bronco riders wave tall hats in the air.
I see girls twirling, dresses swirling
high over their underwear,
guys doing splits, or inch-worming
across the floor.
It makes me want
to slam my head back and forth
like a paddle ball—to jump, shout, bang
my hands on walls, and flap them
in the air—to fall onto the ground
and writhe, flail, roar like Johnny Cerna
in his famous Kiddieland tantrum.
Keepa knockin’ but you cain’t come in,
the preacher howls. But I am in.
I’m in the living room, Bandstand on tv,
Dad ranting, “. . . goddamn Congo beat!”
I’m in the back seat of his Ford
a decade later, learning what that beat
could be. I’m in my first band, hoarse
from screaming “Long Tall Sally.”
I’m in my college dorm, trying to jam
that wild abandon into poems.
I’m in my car, heading for work,
when “Good Golly, Miss Molly!”
catapults out of my Blaupunkt stereo.
I’m walking into Pete’s bedroom,
where I’ve never dared to go. Oh,
womp bompalumomp, a lomp bam boom!
I’m not thinking in words, but I know
I’ve spent my seven years rehearsing
how to feel this way. It’s more exciting
than a touchdown any day, or a home run,
a gunfight, hurricane waves at Galveston,
a five-pound bass on a cane pole.
“What is that?” I ask Pete. He says,
“Rock-and-roll.”