Poems that you love

[NobodyNothing]

God I wish I could make something beautiful and fascinating. I think that's all I ever really wanted to do (except save the world).

[Truerenigma]

God I wish I could make something beautiful and fascinating. I think that's all I ever really wanted to do (except save the world).

It's not really that hard for me .<--I'm fascinated by this beautiful dot.

[NobodyNothing]

For some reason, I always liked this poem by Seamus Heaney...

Punishment

I can feel the tug

of the halter at the nape

of her neck, the wind

on her naked front.

It blows her nipples

to amber beads,

it shakes the frail rigging

of her ribs.

I can see her drowned

body in the bog,

the weighing stone,

the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first

she was a barked sapling

that is dug up

oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head

like a stubble of black corn,

her blindfold a soiled bandage,

her noose a ring

to store

the memories of love.

Little adulteress,

before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,

undernourished, and your

tar-black face was beautiful.

My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you

but would have cast, I know,

the stones of silence.

I am the artful voyeuur

of your brain’s exposed

and darkened combs,

your muscles’ webbing

and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb

when your betraying sisters,

cauled in tar,

wept by the railings,

who would connive

in civilized outrage

yet understand the exact

and tribal, intimate revenge.

---

God I wish I could make something beautiful and fascinating. I think that's all I ever really wanted to do (except save the world).

It's not really that hard for me .<--I'm fascinated by this beautiful dot.

I almost hate people with such talent. I settle upon envy.

---

---

Now I'm really getting sentimental. Have to put it on here. But before, I have a question. Can anyone be Whitman after Whitman? Really? Has any poet ever come on the scene in their own way and in their own style in such a way that you can't copy them, steal from them, because it would be so obviously so?

Truly, a one of a kind in this way.

Anyway...perhaps his greatest...

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

BY WALT WHITMAN

1
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

2
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

3
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.

4
In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat,
Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st surely die.)

5
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass,
Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.

6
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn,
With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey,
With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.

7
(Nor for you, for one alone,
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.

All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you and the coffins all of you O death.)

8
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d,
As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,)
As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,)
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe,
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,
As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

9
Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you,
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.

10
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my chant,
I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.

11
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

12
Lo, body and soul—this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships,
The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.

Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

13
Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!
You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

14
Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth,
In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo, then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me,
The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.

From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.

Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.

15
To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.

And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)
And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.

16
Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,
Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

[Brownlie]

Here's a cheerful poem about Lincoln's death by Mellville that can be compared to the lilacs. Not sure if its the best poem in the world though. Note the proper nouns.


The Martyr


By Herman Melville

Indicative of the passion of the people
on the 15th of April, 1865

Good Friday was the day

Of the prodigy and crime,

When they killed him in his pity,

When they killed him in his prime

Of clemency and calm—

When with yearning he was filled

To redeem the evil-willed,

And, though conqueror, be kind;

But they killed him in his kindness,

In their madness and their blindness,

And they killed him from behind.



There is sobbing of the strong,

And a pall upon the land;

But the People in their weeping

Bare the iron hand:

Beware the People weeping

When they bare the iron hand.



He lieth in his blood—

The father in his face;

They have killed him, the Forgiver—

The Avenger takes his place,

The Avenger wisely stern,

Who in righteousness shall do

What heavens call him to,

And the parricides remand;

For they killed him in his kindness,

In their madness and their blindness.

And his blood is on their hand.



There is sobbing of the strong,

And a pall upon the land;

But the People in their weeping

Bare the iron hand:

Beware the People weeping

When they bare the iron hand.

[Todd]

FIRE BURNING IN A FIFTY-FIVE GALLON DRUM

Next time you'll notice them on your way to work
or when you drive by that place near the river
where the stockyards used to stand, where everything

is gone now. They'll be leaning over the edge
of the barrel, getting it started--they'll step back
suddenly, and hold out their hands, as though

something fearful had appeared at its center.
Others will be coming over by then, pulling up
handfuls of weeds, bringing sticks and bits of paper,

laying them in gently, offering them to something
still hidden deep down inside the drum.
They will all form a circle, their hands almost

touching, sparks rising through their fingers
their faces bright, their bodies darkened by smoke,
by flashes of ash swirling around them in the wind.

-Jared Carter

[bena]

Eventually I'll post some Gluck (can't do dotties, for give me)

But for now, curious about your guys take on this:


BY Imtiaz Dharker.


The Right Word



Outside the door,

lurking in the shadows,

is a terrorist.



Is that the wrong description?

Outside that door,

taking shelter in the shadows,

is a freedom fighter.



I haven't got this right .

Outside, waiting in the shadows,

is a hostile militant.



Are words no more

than waving, wavering flags?

Outside your door,

watchful in the shadows,

is a guerrilla warrior.



God help me.

Outside, defying every shadow,

stands a martyr.

I saw his face.



No words can help me now.

Just outside the door,

lost in shadows,

is a child who looks like mine.



One word for you.

Outside my door,

his hand too steady,

his eyes too hard

is a boy who looks like your son, too.



I open the door.

Come in, I say.

Come in and eat with us.



The child steps in

and carefully, at my door,

takes off his shoes.

[abu nuwas]

Eventually I'll post some Gluck (can't do dotties, for give me)

But for now, curious about your guys take on this:


BY Imtiaz Dharker.


The Right Word



Outside the door,

lurking in the shadows,

is a terrorist.



Is that the wrong description?

Outside that door,

taking shelter in the shadows,

is a freedom fighter.



I haven't got this right .

Outside, waiting in the shadows,

is a hostile militant.



Are words no more

than waving, wavering flags?

Outside your door,

watchful in the shadows,

is a guerrilla warrior.



God help me.

Outside, defying every shadow,

stands a martyr.

I saw his face.



No words can help me now.

Just outside the door,

lost in shadows,

is a child who looks like mine.



One word for you.

Outside my door,

his hand too steady,

his eyes too hard

is a boy who looks like your son, too.



I open the door.

Come in, I say.

Come in and eat with us.



The child steps in

and carefully, at my door,

takes off his shoes.

Bena, although it has the big plus of having been put to-gether thoughtfully, it seems to ask--and really answer-- simple questions. Freedom fighter/terrorist is old hat. What about any given person? maybe s/he's OK, and we're all the same de da de da. You can't be sure any particular one is nasty. Nothing really new, or to dispute.

I don't worry about nice people. I worry about fruit-cakes. And this 'boy' might just as easily have chosen to blow up Benaville, if he thought you were Shi'ite, or not Shi'ite or some other damn-fool cause.

(Having said which, I recall once crossing over to avoid some nutter one night, only to realise that I knew him well --my eldest son, in fact. Or on another occasion, muttering inwardly about a knot of silly youths and girls hanging around outside the pub-- only to recognise one as nice Lonks, whom I had taken riding with my kids for ages. )

[QDeathstar]

There was a poem; it was about a baby that had been born, but the two parents fought so much they ended up tearing the baby in half.... It was a well known poem


But, i cant seam to find it

[Leanne]

I saw this poem inscribed on the new monument at Bannockburn. I'd never read it before so I looked it up -- it's a very recent one by Kathleen Jamie from Stirling University, and also features as Scotland's entry into the Commonwealth Poetry Postcards series running on BBC Radio.

Anyway, I think it's lovely.

Here lies our land: every airt
Beneath swift clouds, glad glints of sun,
Belonging to none but itself.
We are mere transients, who sing
Its westlin' winds and fernie braes,
Northern lights and siller tides,
Small folk playing our part.
'Come all ye', the country says
You win me, who take me most to heart.

[rayheinrich]

That lovely Kathleen Jamie poem reminded me of one by Hart Crane.
(Thank the gods for Google and the internets, as I've quite lost his book.)
(A 'sarabande' is a majestic waltz.)



          Repose of Rivers   -   Hart Crane

The willows carried a slow sound,
A sarabande the wind mowed on the mead.
I could never remember
That seething, steady leveling of the marshes
Till age had brought me to the sea.

Flags, weeds. And remembrance of steep alcoves
Where cypresses shared the noon’s
Tyranny; they drew me into hades almost.
And mammoth turtles climbing sulphur dreams
Yielded, while sun-silt rippled them
Asunder ...

How much I would have bartered! the black gorge
And all the singular nestings in the hills
Where beavers learn stitch and tooth.
The pond I entered once and quickly fled—
I remember now its singing willow rim.

And finally, in that memory all things nurse;
After the city that I finally passed
With scalding unguents spread and smoking darts
The monsoon cut across the delta
At gulf gates ... There, beyond the dykes

I heard wind flaking sapphire, like this summer,
And willows could not hold more steady sound.

[Leanne]

*sigh*

I love Hart Crane. Poets who are connected with place seem to have a special magic.

[rayheinrich]

*sigh*

I love Hart Crane. Poets who are connected with place seem to have a special magic.

I remember finding a book of his in a used book store (everything I know
about poetry has been randomly harvested* from their jumble), reading it,
and being rendered incapable of composing a conceit for at least two
weeks. (My ego's the only thing that allows me to write; and, from time
to time, even it can be embarrassed. )

[ajcohen613]

*This is a poem titled "This" by Ralph Angel, a decorated poet who teaches at my university. I love this poem. If you have the means, you should pick up his newest book of poetry titled "Your Moon".

Today, my love,
leaves are thrashing the wind
just as pedestrians are erecting again the buildings of this drab
forbidding city,
and our lives, as I lose track of them,
are the lives of others derailing in time and
getting things done.
Impossible to make sense of any one face
or mouth, though
each distance
is clear, and you are miles
from here.
Let your pure
space crowd my heart,
that we might stay awhile longer amid the flying
debris.
This moment,
I swear it,
isn't going anywhere.

[rayheinrich]

                    COMPASS - Jorge Borges (Trans. Alastair Reid)

Every single thing becomes a word
in a language that Someone or Something, night and day,
writes down in a never-ending scribble,
which is the history of the world, embracing

Rome, Carthage, you, me, everyone,
my life, which I do not understand, this anguish
of being enigma, accident, and puzzle,
and all the discordant languages of Babel.

Behind each name lies that which has no name.
Today I felt its nameless shadow tremble
in the blue clarity of the compass needle,

whose rule extends as far as the far seas,
something like a clock glimpsed in a dream
or a bird that stirs suddenly in its sleep.

[ellajam]

^^^mmmmm

[bena]

^^weren't we just talking Borges somewhere else? I love this poem, but every time I see the word "babel" I think of Douglas Adams. I'm just that much a nerd.

[rayheinrich]

^^weren't we just talking Borges somewhere else? I love this poem, but every time I see the word "babel" I think of Douglas Adams. I'm just that much a nerd.

Yes, in the I Love This Site thread in Poetry Discussion.
That's why I dug this up and posted it.

Off-topic Douglas Adams comment:

I LOVE Adams. And I use (like a zillion other people) 42 everywhere I can wedge it.




from a wonderful comic strip called xkcd

[bena]

AHAHhhhhah that is hilarious!

[Leanne]

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes" -- Douglas Adams.

Planes are exploding and bullets are flying,
Earth's heating up and the penguins are dying,
children are homeless and mothers are crying,
can't drive a car without having a crash.

People are callous and cruel to each other,
neighbour hates neighbour and brother hates brother,
won't read the news today, sod it, I'd rather
just sit at home with me bangers and mash.

[rayheinrich]

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes" -- Douglas Adams.

Planes are exploding and bullets are flying,
Earth's heating up and the penguins are dying,
children are homeless and mothers are crying,
can't drive a car without having a crash.

People are callous and cruel to each other,
neighbour hates neighbour and brother hates brother,
won't read the news today, sod it, I'd rather
just sit at home with me bangers and mash.

The Irish Potato Famine comes to mind, but I'm just being a grinch.
Tasteless comment:

There's a dish endemic to my fungus ridden southern clime
that comes to mind whenever I see "bangers and mash". It's
called sausage and grits. The type of sausage used is pretty
much the same as the banger, but instead of having tasty
mashed potatoes we have grits. Grits are a porridge made
of boiled, coarsely ground corn meal. It is quite similar
in taste and consistency to wallpaper glue with some sand
stirred in. I don't know why I just wrote this.