Favorite poems

1Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

2Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

3For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,

4Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

5From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

6Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

7And soonest our best men with thee do go,

8Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

9Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

10And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

11And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

12And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

13One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

14And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

--John Donne

'Nuff said.

Here is one I wrote myself:

The Winter Slumber

From the first note

of the November wind's whistle

To the soft flutter

Of the January flake

To the bitting sting

Of the cold March rain

Let us keep close in our minds

The notition that winter is when

Mother Nature dreams the dreams of spring

Renewing herself for the seasons to come

- MTH

What Is Love?

What is love?

What is this longing in our hearts for togetherness?

Is it not the sweetest flower?

Does not this flower of love have the fragrant aroma of fine, fine diamonds?

Does not the wind love the dirt?

Is not love not unlike the unlikely not it is unlikened to? Are you with someone tonight?

Do not question your love.

Take your lover by the hand.

Release the power within yourself.

Your heard me, release the power.

Tame the wild cosmos with a whisper.

Conquer heaven with one intimate caress.

That's right don't be shy.

Whip out everything you got and do it in the butt.

By Leon Phelps

An Horation Notion

The thing gets made, gets built, and you're the slave

who rolls the log beneath the block, then another,

then pushes the block, then pulls a log

from the rear back to the front

again and then again it goes beneath the block,

and so on. It's how a thing gets made -- not

because you're sensitive, or you get genetic-lucky

or God says: here's a nice family,

seven children, let's see: this one in charge

of the village dunghill, these two die of buboes, this

one

Kierkregaard, this one a drooling

nincompoop, this one clerk, this one cooper.

You need to love the thing you do--birdhouse building,

painting tulips exclusively, whatever, and

then you do it

so consciously driven

by your unconscious

that the thing becomes a wedge

that splits a stone and between the halves

the wedge then grows, i.e. the thing

is solid but with a soul,

a life of its own. Inspiration, the donnee,

the gift, the bolt of fire

down the arm that makes the art?

Grow up! Give me a f***ing break!

You make the thing because you love the thing

and you love the thing because someone else loves it

enough to make you love it.

And with that your heart like a tent peg pounded

toward the earth's core.

And with that your heart on a beam burns

through the ionosphere.

And with that you go to work.

-Thomas Lux

JDonne wrote:

1Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

2Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

3For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,

4Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

5From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

6Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

7And soonest our best men with thee do go,

8Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

9Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

10And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

11And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

12And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

13One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

14And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

--John Donne

'Nuff said.

Great choice. Donne was the king of understatement, which may be one of the lesser-known reasons that Eliot liked him (other than the whole objective correllative thing).

I also favor Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill" especially as I get older. Nikki Giovanni's "Ego Tripping" is a cool poem, too.

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

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.

- Dylan Thomas

I need the reason for why you like the poem also

Friends may come and friends may go

And friends may peter out you know

But we'll be friends thru thick or thin

Peter out or peter in.

sorry i couldn't resist.

By Paul Dunbar (1872-1906)

VENGEANCE IS SWEET

When I was young I longed for Love,

And held his glory far above

All other earthly things. I cried:

"Come, Love, dear Love, with me abide;"

And with my subtlest art I wooed,

And eagerly the wight pursued.

But Love was gay and Love was shy,

He laughed at me and passed me by.

Well, I grew old and I grew gray,

When Wealth came wending down my way.

I took his golden hand with glee,

And comrades from that day were we.

Then Love came back with doleful face,

and prayed that I would give him place.

But, though his eyes with tears were dim,

I turned my back and laughed at him.

I first heard this poem in Miss Shingler's 9th grade English class. I like it because it rhymes, has a cleaver message, and is easy to understand.

Here's one from on-line.

http://www.markmisch.com/DRSP.html

bump

Tim Meadows wrote:

What Is Love?

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

Oh, baby don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

What is love

Yeah

Oh, I don't know why you're not there

I give you my love, but you don't care

So what is right and what is wrong

Gimme a sign

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh

Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh

Oh, I don't know, what can I do

What else can I say, it's up to you

I know we're one, just me and you

I can't go on

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh

Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh

What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh

What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

Don't hurt me

Don't hurt me

I want no other, no other lover

This is your life, our time

When we are together, I need you forever

Is it love

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more (oooh, oooh)

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more

What is love

Oh baby, don't hurt me

Don't hurt me no more (oooh, oooh)

What is love?

William Wordsworth

Upon Westminster Bridge

http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/543/

Background: Westminster Bridge is one of the bridges over the river Thames right in the heart of London (England). It gives the image of the city as a living thing. When you read it, read it slowly, taking in each word. Marvellous!

Hadd (away,

HAHAHAHA... that was the best post ever!!!

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard,

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea,

Yet,never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

We wouldn't even lace up our running shoes without hope, would we?

"Dolemite" - Rudy Ray Moore

An epic poem. A young man's introspective journey through life, love and the quest for bling.

http://www.dolemite.com/discography.php?album_id=5#

How about this one:

Earth and Fire

In this woman the earth speaks.

Her words open in me, cells of light

flashing in my body, and make a song

that I follow toward her out of my need.

The pain I have given her I wear

like another skin, tender, the air

around me flashing with thorns.

And yet such joy as I have given her

sings in me and is part of her song.

The winds of her knees shake me

like a flame. I have risen up from her,

time and again, a new man.

Wendell Berry

or perhaps this one, which I know (because I know the poet) was inspired by his watching the NYC Marathon, although certainly it's not "about" it:

The Runners

Here or there hundreds of them, phantom-like,

bobbing in place at street corners, then

lifting their knees suddenly and leaping

into the densest, loudest traffic

(of briefest trajectories, of shortest views),

in transit yet at ease, breathing, loping,

like bearers of distance and pure direction,

darting half naked out of nowhere and

where, where in the world are they running to?

swift and solitary, silent beings

who, should you now step into the path,

have dodged away, or, if you raise a hand

to stay them or speak, immediately

are gone: who are these runners who create

in their gliding such fine, singular spaces

among the street's vociferous jargons?

-- as if each one were a still, wordless message

or question one would answer if one could grasp it,

this one, that one, sliding past, going away,

while you stand there, your hand raised to no purpose,

your hidden heart rejoicing that the quick heel

won't soon, won't ever, be overtaken,

although you, as you have longed to, suddenly

disburden yourself and follow follow.

Irving Feldman

and finally on this first day of 2007:

Dickhead

To whomever taught me the word dickhead,

I owe a debt of thanks.

It gave me a way of being in the world of men

when I most needed one,

when I was pale and scrawny,

naked, goosefleshed

as a plucked chicken

in a supermarket cooler, a poor

forked thing stranded in the savage

universe of puberty, where wild

jockstraps flew across the steamy

skies of locker rooms,

and everybody fell down laughing

at jokes I didn’t understand.

But dickhead was a word as dumb

and democratic as a hammer, an object

you could pick up in your hand,

and swing,

saying dickhead this and dickhead that,

a song that meant the world

was yours enough at least

to bang on like a garbage can,

and knowing it, and having that

beautiful ugliness always

cocked and loaded in my mind,

protected me and calmed me like a psalm.

Now I have myself become

a beautiful ugliness,

and my weakness is a fact

so well established that

it makes me calm,

and I am calm enough

to be grateful for the lives I

never have to live again;

but I remember all the bad old days

back in the world of men,

when everything was serious, mysterious, scary,

hairier and bigger than I was;

I recall when flesh

was what I hated, feared

and was excluded from:

Hardly knowing what I did,

or what would come of it,

I made a word my friend.

Tony Hoagland

Forgive the long post. These are some poems that mean a lot to me, along with a representative sample.

Andrew Marvel "To His Coy Mistress" (carpe diem/seduction masterpiece)

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am'rous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.

William Wordsworth "Tintern Abbey" (two excerpts)

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration:--feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love.

And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days

And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all.--I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, not any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.--

John Keats "Ode to a Nightingale"

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

John Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge "Kubla Khan"

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Matthew Arnold "Dover Beach"

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Edgar Allen Poe "Annabel Lee"

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea--

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson "Ulysses" (This should be a runner's motto)

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

T.S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid

T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men" (two stanzas)

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

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.

W.B. Yeats "Sailing to Byzantium"

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

W.B. Yeats "The Second Coming"

but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Robinson Jeffers "Hurt Hawk"

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;

but the great redtail

Had nothing left but unable misery

From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,

He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,

Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old

Implacable arrogance.

I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.

What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what

Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising

Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House - Billy Collins

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark

that he barks every time they leave the house.

They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

I close all the windows in the house

and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast

but I can still hear him muffled under the music,

barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,

his head raised confidently as if Beethoven

had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,

sitting there in the oboe section barking,

his eyes fixed on the conductor who is

entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful

silence to the famous barking dog solo,

that endless coda that first established

Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Billy Collins