Favourite lines of poetry/verse?

[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"