What Poetry Moved You?

[Missionary]

Desert Places

 

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

 

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

 

And lonely as it is, that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less -

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

 

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars - on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

 

~ Robert Frost ~

Edited December 16, 2007 by Missionary

[Missionary]

A Dream within a Dream

 

Take this kiss upon thy brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow—

You are not wrong, to deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

 

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand—

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep—while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

 

 

~ Edgar Allen Poe ~

Edited December 19, 2007 by Missionary

[Missionary]

 

I sat there waiting.

 

Waiting for nothing.

 

Beyond good and evil.

 

There was only the day,

 

The lake, the noon,

 

Time without end.

 

 

 

 

 

~ F N i e t z s c h e ~

Edited December 22, 2007 by Missionary

[spellvexit]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Is there a second life for us?

 

Then,

 

I'd rather be a little sparrow

 

that only knows how to fly

 

never stopping, never landing

 

I'd rather be a blue rose

 

that opens and blooms once

 

then dies in your sight

 

I'd rather be a snowflake

 

on a bright morning that

 

melts away in the heat of your gaze

 

Even as fragment of a sky

 

through your bedroom window:

 

A book leafed through by the

 

saline sea breeze, soaked by the

 

rapping torrent, trickling down

 

a drop of rain

 

on your hand.

 

I'd rather be all these

 

fleeting creatures of no more than

 

a few moments' life,

 

If only I can be with you.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Edited January 2, 2008 by spellvexit

[naked_angel]

funeral blues

 

stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

silence the pianos and with muffled drum

bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

 

let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

scribbling on the sky the message he is dead.

put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

 

he was my north, my south, my east and west,

my working week and my sunday rest,

my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

i thought that love would last forever: i was wrong.

 

the stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;

for nothing now can ever come to any good.

 

-w.h. auden

[mwah]

An excerpt from Erica Jong's The Exposed

 

I am exposed.

I am a print of darkness on a square of film.

I am a garbled dream told by a breakfast-table liar.

I am a wound which has forgotten how to heal.

[lemon]

the age demanded that we sing

and cut away our tongue.

 

the age demanded that we flow

and hammered in the bung.

 

the age demanded that we dance

and jammed us into iron pants.

 

and in the end the age was handed

the sort of s@%t that it demanded.

 

-ernest hemingway, the age demand

 

obviously one of the few who can easily get away with profanity in his work.

[naked_angel]

when you are old

 

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep

and nodding by the fire, take down this book,

and slowly read, and dream of the soft look

your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

how many loved your moments of glad grace,

and loved your beauty with love false or true;

but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

and loved the sorrows of your changing face.

 

and bending down beside the glowing bars,

murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

and paced upon the mountains overhead,

and hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

-wb yeats

[ZO9zaa]

Invictus

[oropesa]

What poetry moved you?

 

-madami, pero eto na lang post ko, mula sa kaibigan kong makata:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/joybartolo/pagbitaw.jpg

[oropesa]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/joybartolo/lets.jpg

[lemon]

se mai foco per foco non si spense

 

since fire is never quenched with fire,

nor rivers ever dried by the rain,

but a thing’s always increased by its like,

and sometimes its opposite makes it blaze higher,

 

love, who have power over my thoughts,

and nourish one soul in two bodies,

why do you there obey a different rule,

making desire weaken by desire?

 

perhaps like the great falls along the nile

that deafen those around with their vast roar,

or the sun that dazzles those who gaze too hard,

 

so desire that is not in tune with itself,

unrestrained in its object, comes to grief,

and by spurring hard its speed is slowed.

 

48, the canzoniere. side effects of sheer holy week idleness.

[burn4me]

Dragon Tears

 

Dragon's eyes,

Gold and bright,

Shining out

Into the night.

Fire rising

Through the mist,

Lighted by

The sun's first kiss.

 

People fleeing,

Full of terror,

Except one girl

With golden hair.

 

Brave is she,

Strong and bold.

Never bound

To any hold.

 

Scales of green and gold,

Glittering blue

In the morn,

Shining through.

 

"Brave are you,

Not to fear me." says he.

"I will not harm you

You may go free."

 

His golden tears

Fell all around.

Dripping softly

to the ground.

 

"Why do you cry,

Oh Dragon sir,"

The maiden asked

To be quite sure.

 

"Oh, maiden,

You do not need

To know the problems

Of this weed."

 

"But, oh, sweet dragon, "

She touched his nose,

"where there are weeds,

A flower grows."

 

"Ah, but maiden,"

He gazed from above.

"When I looked at you,

I fell in love."

 

 

Tiffany Castle

Edited March 22, 2008 by burn4me

[burn4me]

A Dragon's Fate

 

From shadows he flies on dragons wings

searching, the world for his mate

With every glance his heart dies more

Is he the last ? Is this his Fate?

 

To die and never to have loved

never to touched or be embraced

To continues he has tried

for he is the last of his race

 

Atop a mountain he has flown

and one last look he takes

But there is nothing, no one, there

even emptiness has gone

 

Lifting his wings to the sky

a loud moaning roar he makes

His heart crying out in sadness

not a single route to take

 

Now he knows that he has failed

in this lonely world of pain

Ending all would be too sweet

as there is nothing more to gain

 

Lowly dragon once so proud

has fallen so far from grace

If only someone knew his heart

or the pain upon his face

 

Then in the night comes a rustle

the flapping of distant wings

Yet, at first he does not hear it

he is thinking of other things

 

She was searching the world over

so hard looking for her mate

He cannot believe it's happening

could this truly be his fate?

 

She flaps her wings on the mountain

his cries of pain she has heard

And she smiled at him so sweetly

there is no need to say a word

 

He enfolds her in his wings

giving her a warm embrace

His listens to his heart sings

the survival of their race

Edited March 22, 2008 by burn4me

[burn4me]

Riding Dragons

 

 

 

The buses of reality

Fight the dragons in my dreams

The noise of screeching tyres

Drown the mighty lizards screams

Sunlight passes through my guise

Of fearless knight in black

And leaves me riding my bicycle

Down dusty concrete tracks.

 

My Dragon, once proud and mighty

Turns to rusting in the shed

A sad and lonely end for one

Who has countless battles led.

A victory for reality,

But my dragon is not dead,

And I with him still lead battles,

But only in my head.

 

Time cannot take my fantasies

Just put them in their place

What if a dragon rider is needed?

I should keep them just in case

 

 

Tansy Pye

[oropesa]

"Thing Language" by Jack Spicer

 

(i love this one. so powerful. hynoptic. the way poetry's meant to be)

 

-----------

 

Thing Language

 

 

This ocean, humiliating in its disguises

Tougher than anything.

No one listens to poetry. The ocean

Does not mean to be listened to. A drop

Or crash of water. It means

Nothing.

It

Is bread and butter

Pepper and salt. The death

That young men hope for. Aimlessly

It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No

One listens to poetry.

 

 

 

Jack Spicer

[naked_angel]

one can't

have it

 

both ways

and both

 

ways is

the only

 

way i

want it.

- a.r. ammons

[oropesa]

Men with the heads of eagles

no longer interest me

.....

 

I search instead for the others,

the ones left over,

the ones who have escaped from these

mythologies with barely their lives;

they have real faces and hands, they think

of themselves as

wrong somehow, they would rather be trees.

 

--Margaret Atwood

[oropesa]

The Kiss

 

 

My mouth blooms like a cut.

I've been wronged all year, tedious

nights, nothing but rough elbows in them

and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby

crybaby , you fool!

 

Before today my body was useless.

Now it's tearing at its square corners.

It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot

and see--Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.

Zing! A resurrection!

 

Once it was a boat, quite wooden

and with no business, no salt water under it

and in need of some paint. It was no more

than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.

She's been elected.

 

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like

musical instruments. Where there was silence

the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.

Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped

into fire.

 

 

--Anne Sexton

[lemon]

the autumn night

is long only in name --

we've done no more

than gaze at each other

and it's already dawn.

 

- lines from a tanka by ono no komachi... my preferred translation of her work.

[oropesa]

by Luis Omar Salinas

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v256/joybartolo/aztec_angel.jpg

[oropesa]

The Warning

 

 

For love — I would

split open your head and put

a candle in

behind the eyes.

 

Love is dead in us

if we forget

the virtues of an amulet

and quick surprise.

 

 

—Robert Creeley

[lemon]

whatever varied and strange thing

may exist in whatever foreign land,

i truly think it most

resembles me: to such i’m come, love.

there where the day is born,

flies a bird, alone without a mate,

that rises from self-willed

death, and is reborn to life.

so is my desire

found alone, and so it turns to the heights

of noble thought, towards the sun,

and so it is destroyed,

and so returns to its first state:

it burns, and dies, and regains its strength,

able to live again as the phoenix does.

 

135, the canzoniere... indeed as the phoenix does

[lemon]

oda a la soledad

 

oh, soledad, hermosa

palabra, hierbas

silvestres

brotan entre tus silabas!

pero eres solo palida

palabra, oro

falso,

moneda traidora!

yo describi la soledad con letras

de la literatura,

le puse la corbata

sacada de los libros,

la camisa

del sueno,

pero

solo la conoci cuando fui solo.

bestia no vi ninguna

como aquella;

se parece

y a la mosca

de los estercoleros,

pero en sus patas de camello tiene

ventosas de serpiente submarina,

tiene una pestilencia de bodega

 

 

ode to solitude

 

o solitude, beautiful

word: crab-

grass

grows between your syllables!

but you are only a pale

word, fool's

gold

and counterfeit coin!

i painted solitude in literary

strokes,

dressed it in a tie

i had copied from a book,

and the shirt

of sleep

but

i first really saw it when i was by myself

i'd never seen an animal

quite like it:

it looks like

a hairy spider

or the flies

that hover over dung

and its camel paws have

suckers like a deep-sea snake

it stinks like a warehouse piled high

 

neruda is always more enchanting in his own tongue.

[naked_angel]

maggie and milly and molly and may

e.e. cummings

 

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

 

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

 

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

 

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

 

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

 

for whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find in the sea