Favorite Poems

[chagak]

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

 

[hazel_flagg]

'no assistance' -Ntozake Shange, 1974

without any assistance or guidance from you
i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day
i have been stood up four times
i’ve left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left
town so i could send to you

you have been no help to me, on my job
you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays
so i could drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work
charmin charmin, but you are of no assistance

i want you to know, this waz an experiment
to see how selfish i couldd be
if i would really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i could stand not being wanted, when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair

this note is attached to a plant
i’ve been watering since the day i met you
you may water it
yr **** self

 

[Solivagant]

"Old Age Befriended" (John Ross MacDuff).

Evening shades fall fast around me;
Cherished ones no more surround me--
Gone forever!
'I will never,
Never leave thee, nor forsake!'
Voices hushed that once spake gladness.
Must I float in lonely sadness
Down Time's river?
'I will never,
Never leave thee, nor forsake!'
Earth's most treasured joys may perish,
From each gourd I fondly cherish,
Death may sever--
'I will never,
Never leave thee, nor forsake!'​

Another I just remembered: "The Author to Her Book" (Anne Bradstreet).

I'm not big on poetry, but there are some I like. A few of my favorites are: "The Raven" (Edgar Allan Poe), "I Would I Were a Careless Child" (Lord Byron), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (Robert Frost), "Sonnet 116" (William Shakespeare), "Snow" (Archibald Lampman), "The Lady of Shalott" (Alfred, Lord Tennyson), and "The Song of Hiawatha" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow). There are others, but I can't recall them at the moment.

 

[Solivagant]

"The Rainy Day" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.​

"Old Age Befriended" (John Ross MacDuff).

Another I just remembered: "The Author to Her Book" (Anne Bradstreet).

I'm not big on poetry, but there are some I like. A few of my favorites are: "The Raven" (Edgar Allan Poe), "I Would I Were a Careless Child" (Lord Byron), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (Robert Frost), "Sonnet 116" (William Shakespeare), "Snow" (Archibald Lampman), "The Lady of Shalott" (Alfred, Lord Tennyson), and "The Song of Hiawatha" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow). There are others, but I can't recall them at the moment.

 

[Arachne]

Goblin Feet is a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien


I am off down the road
Where the fairy lanterns glowed
And the little pretty flitter-mice are flying
A slender band of gray
It runs creepily away
And the hedges and the grasses are a-sighing.
The air is full of wings,
And of blundery beetle-things
That warn you with their whirring and their humming.
O! I hear the tiny horns
Of enchanged leprechauns
And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming!
O! the lights! O! the gleams! O! the little twinkly sounds!
O! the rustle of their noiseless little robes!
O! the echo of their feet - of their happy little feet!
O! the swinging lamps in the starlit globes.

I must follow in their train
Down the crooked fairy lane
Where the coney-rabbits long ago have gone.
And where silvery they sing
In a moving moonlit ring
All a twinkle with the jewels they have on.
They are fading round the turn
Where the glow worms palely burn
And the echo of their padding feet is dying!
O! it's knocking at my heart-

Let me go! let me start!
For the little magic hours are all a-flying.

O! the warmth! O! the hum! O! the colors in the dark!
O! the gauzy wings of golden honey-flies!
O! the music of their feet - of their dancing goblin feet!
O! the magic! O! the sorrow when it dies.

 

[ladyforsaken]

More Than Love
by Lang Leav

Love was cruel,
as I stood proud;
he showed me you
and I was bowed.

He deftly dealt
his swiftest blow--
I fell further than,
I was meant to go.

And he ashamed,
of what he'd caused,
knew from then,
that I was yours.

That he, an echo
and you, the sound--
I loved you more
than love allowed.

 

[Cavey]

Pretty much everyone has read this, but that doesn't preclude it from being a great poem...


If—
By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

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 breathe 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!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

[Solivagant]

"A painter having drawn with curious art
The picture of a woman---every part
Limned to the life---hung out the piece to sell.
People who passed along, viewing it well,
Gave several verdicts on it. Some dispraised
The hair; some said the brows too high were raised;
Some hit her o'er the lips, misliked their color;
Some wished her nose were shorter; some, the eyes fuller;
Others said roses on her cheeks should grow,
Swearing they looked too pale; others cried no.
The workman still, as fault was found, did mend it,
In hope to please all; but this work being ended
And hung open at stall, it was so vile,
So monstrous, and so ugly, all men did smile
At the poor painter's folly.
And thus,
If we to every brain that's humorous
Should fashion deeds, we, with the painter, shall,
In striving to please all, please none at all."

- Moll, "The Roaring Girl"​

"The Rainy Day" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

"Old Age Befriended" (John Ross MacDuff).

Another I just remembered: "The Author to Her Book" (Anne Bradstreet).

I'm not big on poetry, but there are some I like. A few of my favorites are: "The Raven" (Edgar Allan Poe), "I Would I Were a Careless Child" (Lord Byron), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (Robert Frost), "Sonnet 116" (William Shakespeare), "Snow" (Archibald Lampman), "The Lady of Shalott" (Alfred, Lord Tennyson), and "The Song of Hiawatha" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow). There are others, but I can't recall them at the moment.

 

[Arachne]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae​

 

[HoodedMonk]

She Walks in Beauty
By: Lord 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 mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!"

 

[Nely Lo]

Bluebird - Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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