What is your favourite poem (s)

This is the place for readers of poetry. Discuss poetry and literary art. You can also discuss music here, including lyrics. Also, you can discuss poets themselves, in addition to poetry.
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Seregil
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Post by Seregil »

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings


somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
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Bighuey
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Post by Bighuey »

Heres one thats kind of nice, I found it in some of my mothers stuff. I guess it was hers, she's the only one in my family who was interested in poetry.


Celestial fantasies of deathless night,
Enraptured colonnades adorned with perals,
Resplendent guardians of crimson light,
Expanse of darkness silently unfurls,
Among colossal ruins on this shore,
That was once purled by Xantoos' rolling seas,
Nothing remains upon this barren core of Mars,
But your palatial memories.

Your alters and magnificent black gods
Still flash beneath the sapphire torches' flames,
The fragrant ring of sacred flowers nods
Beneath the monstrous idols' gilded frames.
Your jeweled gates open on their bands
Of gold: within, a lurid shadow stands.

The Lost Temples Of Xantoos by Howell Calhoun
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Fran
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Post by Fran »

Bighuey wrote:Heres one thats kind of nice, I found it in some of my mothers stuff. I guess it was hers, she's the only one in my family who was interested in poetry.


Celestial fantasies of deathless night,
Enraptured colonnades adorned with perals,
Resplendent guardians of crimson light,
Expanse of darkness silently unfurls,
Among colossal ruins on this shore,
That was once purled by Xantoos' rolling seas,
Nothing remains upon this barren core of Mars,
But your palatial memories.

Your alters and magnificent black gods
Still flash beneath the sapphire torches' flames,
The fragrant ring of sacred flowers nods
Beneath the monstrous idols' gilded frames.
Your jeweled gates open on their bands
Of gold: within, a lurid shadow stands.

The Lost Temples Of Xantoos by Howell Calhoun
Yes ... I like that one :)
We fade away, but vivid in our eyes
A world is born again that never dies.
- My Home by Clive James
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Kdor11
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Post by Kdor11 »

I am a fan of 'story' poetry like 'The Vision', also known as 'The Cameronian's Dream' which is based on the slaughter of Richard Cameron at Ayrs-moss in 1680. I also enjoy Edger Allen Poe and Robert Service for this same reason.
But my favorite poem ever is:

Because I Could Not Stop For Death - Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.
The carriage held but just ourselves,
and Immortality.

We slowly drive, he knew no haste,
and I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his civlity.

We passed the school where children strove
at recess in the ring.
We passed the feilds of grazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us.
The dews drew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer, my gown
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
a swelling of the ground.
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice in the ground.

Since then 'tis centuries and yet
feels shorter than a day,
I first surmised the horses heads
were toward Eternity
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Iambic Meanderer
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Post by Iambic Meanderer »

I have so many favorites, but to suggest just one: A Blessing by James Wright.
Garathnormanmtts
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Post by Garathnormanmtts »

There is a poem called try,try,try again until you succeed.That's my favorite poem.
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Robin jackson
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Post by Robin jackson »

Viddanu wrote:Well...I've been fond of this poem for quite awhile, but it's a short one and I'm not sure who the original author is. I originally found it on some obscure site online.

WHAT I NEED

What I need
is a small plot of land
that expands and contracts
to my desires
like an elastic band
with the sun, sea, and flowers
birds, mountains, and sands.

Yes, what I need
is a small plot of land.
There'd be folk that I liked,
who liked me too.
Yes, this magic plot of land
would very nicely do.
nice written............ i enjoyed to read it ..........
anisha_astrologer
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Post by anisha_astrologer »

my favorite poem is keats' ode to autumn. it is a poem on a very trivial subject but each time i read it it fills my senses with a picture of beauty.
Quest for the Ark
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Post by Quest for the Ark »

Is anyone listening, does anyone care?

The truth you seek, this is all i ask,
so please listen to the fore-mentioned task.
If you care, then to you i say,
find your peace, find your way.
Learn the ways of LOVE.
But first you must behold life with respect,
For it is written, just like the pure dove.

I have a question, and this is what i cry - WHY?
WHY?
Why is humankind so blind, ignorant and cruel?
Must we meet our match, and finally finish this duel?
The remembrance will continue, until this domain,
has seen every creature successfully slain.

It's not any easy understanding, many of you would cry.
If only man understood why he continues to lie.
For in the end he shall realise his way,
as his home and his planet is in ruins where it lays.

Pain and suffering should end and become sparce,
as materialism and greed is recognised as a farce.
begin to understand why so many of you fail to comprehend,
for it is in this way which shall bring about your end.

For you see, your soul, it is a gift of life,
so use it when in need, or facing the deepest of strife.
Complementing existence is the notion of LOVE,
so come on everybody, let's give each other a shove.

There are those that you thank,and others whom you blame,
without this projection, you would face your shame.
Looking back at the Almighy's decision,
to evolve humankind through a higher transition,
i must stop and wonder if you'll ever understand,
that life is a reward ... ... ... and not a demand.

Sean Hayden Terrill
Author - Quest for the Ark

ps hope you liked my poem:)
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Dominic
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Post by Dominic »

this one is my favourite peom:

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
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Maud Fitch
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Post by Maud Fitch »

This poem extract reminds me of renewal in the New Year:

“New eyes each year
Find old books here,
And new books, too,
Old eyes renew..."


by Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
"Every story has three sides to it - yours, mine and the facts" Foster Meharny Russell
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Bighuey
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Post by Bighuey »

Heres one I have always liked. I dont know if its exactly a poem, but I suppose it is. A lady friend really liked it, she thought it was romantic.

The Muse Of Atlantis by Clark Ashton Smith

Will you not join me in Atlantis,
Where we will go down through
Streets of blue and yellow marble
To the wharves of Orichalch
And choose us a galley
With a golden Eros for a figurehead
And sails of Tryian sendal
With mariners that knew Odysseus
And beautiful amber-breasted slaves
From the mountain vales of Lemuria.

We will lift anchor
For the unknown Fortunate Isles
Of the outer sea;
And sailing in the wake of an opal sunset
Will lose that ancient land
In the glacucous twilight,
And see from our couch of ivory and satin
The rise of unknown stars and perished planets.

Perhaps we will not return but will follow
The tropic summer from isle to halycon isle,
Across the amaranthine seas of myth and fable;
We will eat the lotus and the fruit
Of lands whereof Odysseus never dreamt;
And drink the pallad wines of faery,
Grown in a vale of perpetual moonlight.

I will find for you a necklace
Of rosy-tinted pearls,
And a necklace of yellow rubies,
And crown you with precious corals
That have the semblance
Of sanguine-coloured blossoms.

We will roam in the marts
Of forgotten cities of jasper
And carnelian-builded
Ports beyond Cathay;
And I will buy you a gown
Of peacock azure damascened
With copper and gold and vermillion;
And a gown of black samite
With runes of orange,
Woven by fantastic sorcery
Without the touch of hands,
In a dim land of spells and philtres.
"I planted some birdseed. A bird came up. Now I dont know what to feed it." Ramblings of a retired senile mind.
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sweetpea
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Post by sweetpea »

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.


Brilliant but heart breaking :cry:
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RuqeeD
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Post by RuqeeD »

^ We had to read that for English Lit in High School. It's a powerful poem.
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Fran
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Post by Fran »

@sweetpea
That's probably my favourite Heany poem ... that last line breaks my heart every time
We fade away, but vivid in our eyes
A world is born again that never dies.
- My Home by Clive James
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