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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[JihadOnTheRiver]

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