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Favourite Poems By Famous & Featured Poets


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#81
Algernon

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A couple of strange lines ruined the overall poem a little, like 'direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech'. It just felt forced and... 'not at home' in the poem. Still, that was a pretty good poem.

Osip Mandelstam - This
This is what I most want
unpursued, alone
to reach beyond the light
that I am furthest from.

And for you to shine there-
no other happiness-
and learn, from starlight,
what its fire might suggest.

A star burns as a star,
light becomes light,
because our murmuring
strengthens us, and warms the night.

And I want to say to you
my little one, whispering,
I can only lift you towards the light
by means of this babbling.


Charles Bukowski - And The Moon And The Stars And The World
Long walks at night--
that's what good for the soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands.


Joseph Brodsky - I Sit By The Window
I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.

I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole girl if you've got her knee?
Sick of the dust raised by the modern era,
the Russian eye would rest on an Estonian spire.
I sit by the window. The dishes are done.
I was happy here. But I won't be again.

I wrote: The bulb looks at the flower in fear,
and love, as an act, lacks a verb; the zer-
o Euclid thought the vanishing point became
wasn't math--it was the nothingness of Time.
I sit by the window. And while I sit
my youth comes back. Sometimes I'd smile. Or spit.

I said that the leaf may destory the bud;
what's fertile falls in fallow soil--a dud;
that on the flat field, the unshadowed plain
nature spills the seeds of trees in vain.
I sit by the window. Hands lock my knees.
My heavy shadow's my squat company.

My song was out of tune, my voice was cracked,
but at least no chorus can ever sing it back.
That talk like this reaps no reward bewilders
no one--no one's legs rest on my sholders.
I sit by the window in the dark. Like an express,
the waves behind the wavelike curtain crash.

A loyal subject of these second-rate years,
I proudly admit that my finest ideas
are second-rate, and may the future take them
as trophies of my struggle against suffocation.
I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out
which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.

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#82
Nereus

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Ahh, time for some Robert Frost. One of my favorite poets of all time.


Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



The Road Not Taken

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

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

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

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



Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

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#83
O Brave New World

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I honestly do not know where I found this and I do not know who wrote it. Hell, I do not even know the title of it.

The last man's life settles into the grave.
Our world is now left in ruins.
Extinction exists across the Earth.
Eulogy imprinted on their hearts.
Humanity now forgotten in the silence of the void.
Do you know the cause of the universe's failure?
The cowardly white light of god is to blame.
The church weakness and suffocates the will.
Man-made plague to poison the race.
Fools live to be led by fools.
Holy arrogance builds on their mountain ignorance.
This world of misery and you are to blame.

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#84
Elinor Zatarra

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I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy.
I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough
just to stand before you like a thing,
dark and shrewd.
I want my will, and I want to be with my will
as it moves towards deed;
and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,
when something is approaching,
I want to be with those who are wise
or else alone.
I want always to be a mirror that reflects your whole being,
and never to be too blind or too old
to hold your heavy, swaying image.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere do I want to remain folded,
because where I am bent and folded, there I am lie.
And I want my meaning
true for you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I studied
closely for a long, long time,
like a word I finally understood,
like the pitcher of water I use every day ,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the deadliest storm of all

It's by rilke. It was origionally written in german but.. I can't speak german.. but I love it smile.gif
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#85
Algernon

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It's not so much the poetry as its message.

Muhammed Iqbal - A Spider And A Fly
One day a spider said to a fly
"Though you pass this way daily

My hut has never been honored by you
By making a chance visit inside by you

Though depriving strangers of a visit does not matter
Evading the near and dear ones does not look good

My house will be honored by a visit by you
A ladder is before you if you decide to step in

Hearing this the fly said to the spider,
"Sire, you should entice some simpleton thus

This fly would never be pulled into your net
Whoever climbed your net could never step down"

The spider said, "How strange, you consider me a cheat
I have never seen a simpleton like you in the world

I only wanted to entertain you
I had no personal gain in view

You have come flying from some unknown distant place
Resting for a while in my house would not harm you

Many things in this house are worth your seeing
Though apparently a humble hut you are seeing

Dainty drapes are hanging from the doors
And I have decorated the walls with mirrors

Beddings are available for guests’ comforts
Not to everyone’s lot do fall these comforts".

The fly said, "All this may very well be
But do not expect me to enter your house

"May God protect me from these soft beds
Once asleep in them getting up again is impossible"


The spider spoke to itself on hearing this talk
"How to trap it? This wretched fellow is clever

Many desires are fulfilled with flattery in the world
All in the world are enslaved with flattery"

Thinking this the spider spoke to the fly thus!
"Madam, God has bestowed great honors on you!

Everyone loves your beautiful face
Even if someone sees you for the first time

Your eyes look like clusters of glittering diamonds
God has adorned your beautiful head with a plume

This beauty, this dress, this elegance, this neatness!
And all this is very much enhanced by singing in flight".

The fly was touched by this flattery
And spoke, "I do not fear you any more

I hate the habit of declining requests
Disappointing somebody is bad indeed"

Saying this it flew from its place
When it got close the spider snapped it

The spider had been starving for many days
The fly provided a good leisurely meal

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#86
Infinity

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Daddy

By Sylvia Plath



You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one grey toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of *you*,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You---

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
and drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat, black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.









I like this because of it's bitterness and loneliness. I relate to her relationship with her father.


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#87
Algernon

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Charles Bukowski - Throwing Away The Alarm Clock
my father always said, "early to bed and
early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise."

it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house
and we were up at dawn to the smell of
coffee, frying bacon and scrambled
eggs.

my father followed this general routine
for a lifetime and died young, broke,
and, I think, not too
wise.

taking note, I rejected his advice and it
became, for me, late to bed and late
to rise.

now, I'm not saying that I've conquered
the world but I've avoided
numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some
common pitfalls
and have met some strange, wonderful
people

one of whom
was
myself—someone my father
never
knew.

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#88
Nereus

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A little Dylan Thomas for you.

Do not go gentle into that good night- Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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#89
Algernon

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Henry David Thoreau - Conscience
Conscience is instinct bred in the house,
Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin
By an unnatural breeding in and in.
I say, Turn it out doors,
Into the moors.
I love a life whose plot is simple,
And does not thicken with every pimple,
A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it,
That makes the universe no worse than 't finds it.
I love an earnest soul,
Whose mighty joy and sorrow
Are not drowned in a bowl,
And brought to life to-morrow;
That lives one tragedy,
And not seventy;
A conscience worth keeping;
Laughing not weeping;
A conscience wise and steady,
And forever ready;
Not changing with events,
Dealing in compliments;
A conscience exercised about
Large things, where one may doubt.
I love a soul not all of wood,
Predestinated to be good,
But true to the backbone
Unto itself alone,
And false to none;
Born to its own affairs,
Its own joys and own cares;
By whom the work which God begun
Is finished, and not undone;
Taken up where he left off,
Whether to worship or to scoff;
If not good, why then evil,
If not good god, good devil.
Goodness! you hypocrite, come out of that,
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
I have no patience towards
Such conscientious cowards.
Give me simple laboring folk,
Who love their work,
Whose virtue is song
To cheer God along.

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#90
georgewilson

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Not sure who it's by, but it's a personal favourite. I know it's a cheesy pride poem but it's a poem all the same wink.gif

Today, I saw a St Georges flag fluttering from a mast,
It waved in recognition to the glories of the past,
It beckoned to the future and seemed to say aloud,
If you should be an Englishman look up my son be proud,
Let hope still be your anvil,
And courage be your forge,
Come what may let men still say,
CRY GOD FOR ELIZABETH,
ENGLAND AND SAINT GEORGE.
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#91
Nereus

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Fireworks- Amy Lowell

You hate me and I hate you
And we are so polite, we two!

But whenever I see you, I burst apart
And scatter the sky with my blazing heart.
It spits and sparkles in the stars and balls,
Buds into roses – and flares, and falls.

Scarlet buttons, and pale green disks,
Silver spirals and asterisks,
Shoot and tremble in a mist
Peppered with mauve and amethyst.

I shine in the windows and light up the trees,
And all because I hate you, if you please.

And when you meet me, you rend asunder
And go up in a flaming wonder
Of saffron cubes, and crimson moons,
And wheels all amaranths and maroons.

Golden lozenges and spades
Arrows of malachites and jades,
Patens of copper, azure sheaves.
As you mount, you flash in the glossy leaves.

Such fireworks as we make, we two!
Because you hate me and I hate you.

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#92
Algernon

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Konstantin Balmont - The Devil's Voice
With a passion I detest the saintly –
Their scrupulous and tortured concerns
And shallow thoughts are for themselves;
Themselves alone exclusively they save.

They fear excessively for their souls,
In terror of their dreams’ gaping abyss
And of that ancient poisoner the Worm
They massacre without guilty conscience.

I would have hated heaven just as well,
Among those shades with meekly smiles,
Where the eternal holiday, forever May,
Proceeds on its measured, pacing way.

I have no wish to live in Paradise
While executing the Serpent’s wiles.
From childhood years I’ve loved the Asp
And am amazed by it as by a masterpiece.

I have no wish to live in Paradise
Among dullards writhing in ecstasy.
I’m dying, I'm destroyed, am killed – I sing,
the mind-deprived demon of dreams lyrical.

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#93
Infinity

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No No No No

Maya Angelou




No
the two legg'd beasts
that walk like men
play stink finger in their crusty asses
while crackling babies
in napalm coats
stretch mouths to receive
burning tears
on splitting tongues
Just give me a cool drink of water
'fore I die

No
the gap legg'd whore
of the eastern shore
enticing Europe to come
in her
and turn her pigeon shit back to me
to me
Who stoked the coal that drove the ships
which brought her over the sinuous cemetery
Of my many brothers

No
the cocktailed after noons
of what can I do.
In my white layed pink world
I've let your men cram my mouth
with their black throbbing hate
and I swallowed after
I've let your mammies
steal from my kitchens
(I was always half amused)
I've chuckled the chins of
your topsy-haired pickaninnies.
What more can I do?
I'll never be black like you.
(Hallelujah)

No
the red-shoed priests riding
palanquined
in barefoot children country.
The plastered saints gazing down
beneficently
on kneeling mothers
picking undigested beans
from yesterdays shit.

I have waited
toes curled, hat rolled
heart and genitals
in hand
on the back porches
of forever
in the kitchens and fields
of rejections
on the cold marble steps
of America's White Out-House
in the drop seats of buses
and the open flies of war

No more
the dream that you
will cease haunting me
down in fetid swamps of fear
and will turn to embrace your own
humanity
which I AM

No more
The hope that
the razored insults
which mercury slide over your tongue
will be forgotten
and you will learn the words of love
Mother Brother Father Sister Lover Friend

My hopes
dying slowly
rose petals falling
beneath an autumn red moon
will not adorn your unmarked graves

My dreams
lying quietly
a dark pool under the trees
will not carry your name
to a forgetful shore
And what a pity

What a pity
That pity has folded in upon itself
and old man's mouth
whose teeth are gone
and I have no pity.
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#94
O Brave New World

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QUOTE (Jessticles @ Sep 14 2010, 12:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
MORE Neruda! I ordered a book of his work, so expect to be hassled with it. 

I found this one unbelievably touching and poignant. 

Pablo Neruda - Tonight I can write


All the poems best be in spanish, they are better that way.
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#95
Oracle

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Adisa.
Eject the clip:


I posted the youtube vid instead of the lyrics, because his poetry isn't the best in the world, but when he performs it, he's amazing.

Eject the clip

Eject the clip
Release your grip
Let your bullet vocals
Pierce the sun
MC's spit
In a MP's battle
So take control, your day has come

Mistaken identity
Urban collage of drugs and crime
Picked out in the id parades
In high and low places
Power is wined and dined

Power speaks in many tongues
Removing the cataract from the blind
Designing your own history
As you sign the dotted line

Is it power when we stand back
And watch the hammer of injustice fall
As we borrow someone's else's ladder
To scale the fame academy wall

Eject the clip
Release your grip
Let your bullet vocals
Pierce the sun
MC's spit
In a MP's battle
So take control, your day has come

On the counting of a vote
Lives are re-arranged
Are you who you think you are
Are you free of are you caged

Where's your manor
Where do you feel safe to roam
Are you a 1st 2nd or 3rd class citizen
Does a passport make this home

Played like tokens
In a game of, monopoly
Tossing our future like dice
Our fore fathers, faced
The ballet or bullet
Many paid the ultimate price

Eject the clip
Release your grip
Let your bullet vocals
Pierce the sun
MC's spit
In a MP's battle
So take control, your day has come

Is power
A label, a gun, diamonds
or the person
Beyond the designer shirt

Does it involve?
Culture
Language
Values
And respect for the earth

When misty visions
Turn our spectacles into LCD screens
And the hypnotic billboard advert
Tells you.
This is the car of your dreams!

Who are the victims?
Who can we blame?
When they came for the others
I did nothing
They did not call my name

Those are the lyrics.

Edited by Jessticles, 21 October 2010 - 11:53 AM.
fixing embedding

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#96
Algernon

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Richard Crashaw - The Weeper
HAIL, sister springs,
Parents of silver-footed rills!
Ever bubbling things,
Thawing crystal, snowy hills!
Still spending, never spent; I mean
Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene.

Heavens thy fair eyes be;
Heavens of ever-falling stars;
'Tis seed-time still with thee,
And stars thou sow'st whose harvest dares
Promise the earth to countershine
Whatever makes Heaven's forehead fine.

Every morn from hence
A brisk cherub something sips
Whose soft influence
Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips;
Then to his music: and his song
Tastes of this breakfast all day long.

When some new bright guest
Takes up among the stars a room,
And Heaven will make a feast,
Angels with their bottles come,
And draw from these full eyes of thine
Their Master's water, their own wine.

The dew no more will weep
The primrose's pale cheek to deck;
The dew no more will sleep
Nuzzled in the lily's neck:
Much rather would it tremble here,
And leave them both to be thy tear.

When sorrow would be seen
In her brightest majesty,
--For she is a Queen--
Then is she drest by none but thee:
Then and only then she wears
Her richest pearls--I mean thy tears.

Not in the evening's eyes,
When they red with weeping are
For the Sun that dies,
Sits Sorrow with a face so fair.
Nowhere but here did ever meet
Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.

Does the night arise?
Still thy tears do fall and fall.
Does night lose her eyes?
Still the fountain weeps for all.
Let day and night do what they will,
Thou hast thy task, thou weepest still.

Not So long she lived
Will thy tomb report of thee;
But So long she grieved:
Thus must we date thy memory.
Others by days, by months, by years,
Measure their ages, thou by tears.

Say, ye bright brothers,
The fugitive sons of those fair eyes
Your fruitful mothers,
What make you here? What hopes can 'tice
You to be born? What cause can borrow
You from those nests of noble sorrow?

Whither away so fast
For sure the sordid earth
Your sweetness cannot taste,
Nor does the dust deserve your birth.
Sweet, whither haste you then? O say,
Why you trip so fast away?

We go not to seek
The darlings of Aurora's bed,
The rose's modest cheek,
Nor the violet's humble head.
No such thing: we go to meet
A worthier object--our Lord's feet.

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#97
Algernon

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Walt Whitman - Give Me The Splendid Silent Sun
I
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape,
Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content,
Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the
Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can
walk undisturb'd,
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I should never tire,
Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the
world a rural domestic life,
Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own ears only,
Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!

These demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and
rack'd by the war-strife,)
These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city,
Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give me up,
Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me forever faces;
(O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries,
see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.)

2
Keep your splendid silent sun,
Keep your woods O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods,
Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards,
Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month bees hum;
Give me faces and streets- give me these phantoms incessant and
endless along the trottoirs!
Give me interminable eyes- give me women- give me comrades and
lovers by the thousand!
Let me see new ones every day- let me hold new ones by the hand every day!
Give me such shows- give me the streets of Manhattan!
Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching-give me the sound of
the trumpets and drums!
(The soldiers in companies or regiments- some starting away, flush'd
and reckless,
Some, their time up, returning with thinn'd ranks, young, yet very
old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;)
Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black ships!
O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!
The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the
torchlight procession!
The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following;
People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants,
Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now,
The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even
the sight of the wounded,)
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!
Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.

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#98
robby

robby

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QUOTE (Algernon @ Aug 17 2008, 03:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
--

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Rainy Day


nice Poem

QUOTE (death.by.pretzel @ Aug 17 2008, 03:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Dulce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen.

this is really good 

Edited by Jessticles, 29 October 2010 - 04:44 AM.
removing the poems + unrelated pictures attached

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#99
Infinity

Infinity

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QUOTE (Jessticles @ Sep 14 2010, 09:10 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
MORE Neruda! I ordered a book of his work, so expect to be hassled with it. 


I liked this poem of his. When you get the book tell me what you think of it. Might be inclined to buy it as well.
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#100
RawrBittenTwice

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I KNEW a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum, 5
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
. . . .

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 10
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

by siegfried sassoon

I love this poem because it bites back, it horrifies and overall it retells the horror that was the Great War, it shows us all that the patriot england was missing the truth of the war and was in fact living in a dream of what the soldier was

DULCE ET DECORUM EST by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares2 we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest3 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 hoots4
Of tired, outstripped5 Five-Nines6 that dropped behind.

Gas!7 Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets8 just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime9 . . .
Dim, through the misty panes10 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,11 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 cud12
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest13
To children ardent14 for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.15

this is a true war poet and this is one of his most famous poem and I especially like it, not because it is morbid but because it paints a picture of what life was like
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