Favorite poems

All this thread proves is that people don't read poetry unless they're required to. I mean every poem cited is taught in high-school or college. Read something that isn't almost 100 years old for once.

not true. look at Hadd(away)'s reply

darkness imprisoning me

all that I see absolute horror

I cannot live, I cannot die

trapped in myself

body my holding cell

If there is a scheme,

perhaps this too is in the scheme,

as when a subway car turns on a switch,

the wheels screeching against the rails,

and the lights go out—

but are on again in a moment.

Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976)

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.

Robert Frost

^case in point. How do you fight stupidity?????

I saw the best minds of my generation etcetera

The Bridge by Hart Crane. The finest American poem of the twentieth century, smacks T.S. Eliot in the face.

On the Increasing Diminution of Our Lives

“It is estimated that Americans now spend, on average,

fourteen years of their lives watching TV.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Fourteen divided by seventy-four — a life span.

Multiply the quotient by one hundred.

Nineteen percent.

About one-fifth of your life (if you’re average, of course).

Sever one complete leg from your body.

Take it from the hip down. That’s close to a fifth.

Now run fast.

Take your house and board up a room,

without first removing anything from it.

How cramped does it feel?

Are there five in your family. Shoot one. Any one.

How long will you grieve?

Drop your salary from forty to thirty-two thousand.

Burn eight thousand one-dollar bills, one at a time.

Cover yourself with their ashes.

What is twenty percent of our vision? When gone,

are we legally blind?

Lose ten points from your IQ. Slam your head

against a brick wall, repeatedly.

Can you still read this?

And if this is all too daunting, go down easy:

watch others live their lives,

disregard your own, the real one,

the one slipping away.

There once was a man from Nantucket...

IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE

by John Ashbery

We were warned about spiders, and the occasional famine.

We drove downtown to see our neighbors. None of them were home.

We nestled in yards the municipality had created,

reminisced about other, different places—

but were they? Hadn't we known it all before?

In vineyards where the bee's hymn drowns the monotony,

we slept for peace, joining in the great run.

He came up to me.

It was all as it had been,

except for the weight of the present,

that scuttled the pact we had made with heaven.

In truth there was no cause for rejoicing,

nor need to turn around, either.

We were lost just by standing,

listening to the hum of wires overhead.

We mourned that meritocracy which, wildly vibrant,

had kept food on the table and milk in the glass.

In skid-row, slapdash style

we walked back to the original rock crystal he had become,

all concern, all fears for us.

We went down gently

to the bottom-most step. There you can grieve and breathe,

rinse your possessions in the chilly spring.

Only beware the bears and wolves that frequent it

and the shadow that comes when you expect dawn.

You went to one hell of a college "I'm making fun of the thread." My three date from within the last couple of decades.

I haven't noticed any woman poets. Here's one, plus she gets running into it:

Sex Without Love

How do they do it, the ones who make love

without love? Beautiful as dancers,

gliding over each other like ice-skaters

over the ice, fingers hooked

inside each other's bodies, faces

red as steak, wine, wet as the

children at birth whose mothers are going to

give them away. How do they come to the

come to the come to the God come to the

still waters, and not love

the one who came there with them, light

rising slowly as steam off their joined

skin? Theer are the true religious,

the purists, the pros, the ones who will not

accept a false Messiah, love the

priest instead of the God. They do not

mistake the lover for their own pleasure,

they are like great runners: they know they are alone

with the road surface, the cold, the wind,

the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-

vascular health -- just factors, like the partner

in the bed, and not the truth, which is the

single body alone in the universe

against its own best time.

Sharon Olds

and another woman:

The Way Things Work

is by admitting

or opening away.

This is the simplest form

of current: Blue

moving through blue;

blue through purple;

the objects of desire

opening upon themselves

without us;

the objects of faith.

The way things work

is by solution,

resistance lessened or

increased and taken

advantage of.

The way things work

is that we finally believe

they are there,

common and able

to illustrate themselves.

Wheel, kinetic flow,

rising and falling water,

ingots, levers and keys,

I believe in you,

cylinder lock, pully,

lifting tackle and

crane lift your small head --

I believe in you --

your head is the horizon to

my hand. I believe

forever in the hooks.

The way things work

is that eventually

something catches.

Jorie Graham

and finally for you masters:

Forty Something

She says to him, musing, "If you ever leave me,

and marry a younger woman and have another baby,

I'll put a knife in your heart." They are in bed,

so she climbs onto his chest, and looks directly

down into his eyes. "You understand? Your heart."

Robert Haas

Whoops!

In "Sex Without Love"

"theer are the true religious" should be

"these are the true religious"

Sorry.

*Please quote great literary works correctly, dummy.

And fot the rest of you numb nuts: stop doing this ass's homework for him.

aw, we're just giving him source material.

you'll notice that nobody's explaining anything, saying why we like things, etc. that part, he's got to do for himself.

my guess was that the work was due the first day school started again ... likely tuesday ... so our student probably doesn't need us any more. he (or she) hasn't posted again, right?

and another typo from me:

"Robert Haas" is of course "Robert Hass."

How am I supposed to explain why somebody likes a certain poem with out them telling me? Part of the project was for me to get the reason why they liked the poem.

Dammit, We went a page and a half without someone posting this. While I'm ridiculously surprised no one posted it sooner, I'm ridiculously disappointed anyone posted it at all. Ugh.

the bee

I suppose like any other boy

I had one best friend in the neighborhood.

his name was Eugene and he was bigger

than I was and one year older.

Eugene used to whip me pretty good.

we fought all the time.

I kept trying him but without much

success.

once we leaped off a garage roof together

to prove our guts.

I twisted my ankle and he came up clean

as freshly-wrapped butter.

I guess the only good thing he ever did for me

was when the bee stung me while I was barefoot

and while I sat down and pulled the stinger out

he said,

"I'll get the son of a bitch!"

and he did

with a tennis racket

plus a rubber hammer.

it was all right

they say they die

anyway.

my foot swelled up double-size

and I stayed in bed

praying for death

and Eugene went on to become an

Admiral or a Commander

or something large int he United States Navy

and he passed through on or two wars

without injury.

I imagine him an old man now

in a rocking chair

with his false teeth

and glass of buttermilk...

while drunk

I fingerf%$k this 19 year old groupie

in bed with me.

but the worst part is

(like jumping off the garage roof)

Eugene wins again

because he's not even thinking

about me.

---Charles Bukowski

Yo - How is your project going? Do you need more poetry and comments?