What Poetry Moved You?

[violetvixen17]

Ung mga poems na memorable ay ung Don't Quit at Desiderata back in CAT days.. i have to memorize these poems by heart kundi lagot.. hehe

[Leyna]

I wonder if he knows

I wonder if he knows

how much I miss

him or if he knows

how many times my

thoughts will turn to

him during the day,

leaving a smile

on my face and

a glow from deep within

while my heart races

as memories seem

to flash, taking over my

mind leaving my skin

flushed and warm

to the touch,

my eyes suddenly

glisten bright

with tears as the sound

of his voice seems

to reach out to

me, caressing me,

soothing me, touching

my heart while breathing

life into my soul

in the way that only

he can

I wonder if he knows…

~M

[Lord Superb]

This is perhaps my favorite Bertrand Russell poem dedicated to Edith Finch, his fourth and last wife.

 

Through the long years

I sought peace.

I found ecstasy, I found anguish

I found madness,

I found loneliness.

I found the solitary pain

That gnaws the heart,

But peace I did not find.

 

Now, old and near my end,

I have known you,

And, knowing you,

I have found both ecstasy and peace.

I know rest.

After so many lonely years,

I know what life and love may be.

Now, if I sleep,

I shall sleep fulfilled.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Lord Superb

[maldita_overload]

The Grave No One Tended

The day was lovely as I strolled along

peering at stones on the way,

And that's when I saw it, that pitiful cross

that looked splintered and faded away.

With flowers in hand to tend Father's grave,

I knew I must hurry along.

But I couldn't help but linger while

at that cross that just didn't belong.

The date on the front confirmed my suspicions

of what I already knew.

A child lay beneath that horrible cross and its faded color of blue.

What selfish parents they must have been,

to bury their child all alone,

Without flowers or candles to light the night

and not even a simple headstone.

I looked even closer at that awful cross

that was nearly splintered away.

And there on the back,

I read the words that changed me forever that day.

"This cross isn't grand, but it was carved by my hands

so you'll know, son, how much I care.

It's the color of blue to remind me of you

and how painful it is I'm not there,

That it's you who is gone and it's me living on

while your young life has come to an end.

And left alone, never again with a home

and a grave that's to painful to tend."

Tears stung my eyes as I looked all around

at the monuments that ragged cross put to shame.

And I shared with those parents their horrible loss

that brought them such terrible pain.

And all of the tombstones, some even taller than me

suddenly seemed small in a way,

Next to that little handmade cross, carved with such love

and the flowers I planted that day.

By Cheryl L. Costello-Forshey

 

[zolber]

Wiliam Wordsworth's "She Was a Phantom of Delight" should move every man who has loved a perfect woman. These are my favorite lines:

 

A perfect Woman, nobly planned,

To warm, to comfort, and command;

[Itto Ogami]

Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,

And looks to God alone;

Laughs at impossibilities,

And cries it shall be done.

 

-Charles Wesley

[Itto Ogami]

Open my ears,

that I may hear voices of truth Thou sendest clear;

And while the wave-notes fall on my ear,

everything false will disappear.

 

-Anon

[Lord Superb]

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

 

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 

I love the vivid imagery in this one.

[naked_angel]

what we want

linda pastan

 

what we want

is never simple.

we move among the things

we thought we wanted:

a face, a room, an open book

and these things bear our names—

now they want us.

but what we want appears

in dreams, wearing disguises.

we fall past,

holding out our arms

and in the morning

our arms ache.

we don't remember the dream,

but the dream remembers us.

it is there all day

as an animal is there

under the table,

as the stars are there

[chantal777]

My sister inserted this poem in the black Moleskine planner she gave me for Christmas. I think that this poem is a fitting message to kick off a new year -- the "steady movement toward self-transcendence" as one critic puts it.

 

This poem, upon study and reflection, also has an "Inception" feel to it (which is one of my favorite films, by the way). The "Inception" feel is not borne solely by the "waking" and "sleeping" but rather the numerous paradoxes presented and the circular effect these paradoxes produce (as a paradox is 2 opposing ideas combined to come up with an entirely new idea).

 

Enjoy!

 

"The Waking"

 

 

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

 

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

 

Of those close beside me, which are you?

God bless the ground! I shall walk softly there.

And learn by going where I have to go.

 

Light takes the tree; but who can tell us how?

The lovely worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

 

Great creature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

 

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

 

-- Theodore Roethke --

P.S. For a more thorough analysis of the poem, visit: http://www.mrbauld.com/roethwak.html

Edited August 15, 2010 by chantal777

[superseeker]

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

 

Invictus

 

OUT of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

 

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

 

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

[Guest FL]

I walked a mile with Pleasure;

She chatted all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

 

I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne'er a word said she;

But, oh! The things I learned from her,

When Sorrow walked with me.

 

Robert Browning Hamilton

[laging_nagmamahal]

Sa Dakong Hindi Ko Pa Nalalakbay

(ang aking pagsasatagalog ng "somewhere i have never travelled" ni e.e. cummings)

 

sa dakong hindi ko pa nalalakbay, may galak, sa kabila

ng anumang karanasan, may angking katahimikan ang iyong mga mata:

sa iyong pinakabahagyang paramdam, naroon ang mga bagay na kumukupkop sa akin,

o hindi ko masaling dahil napakalapit nila.

 

ang pahapyaw mong sulyap ay madaling magpapalaya sa akin

kahit pa ipinid ko ang sariling gaya ng mga daliri,

lalagi mo akong pinamumukadkad ng talulot sa talulot, gaya ng pamumukadkad ng Tagsibol

(sa pagdamping maparaan, mahiwaga) sa una niyang rosas.

 

o kung ang hiling mo’y ipinid ako, ako at

ang buhay ko ay magpipinid ng buong kagandahan, daglian,

tulad sa panginginita ng puso ng bulaklak na ito sa niyebeng

maingat na nananaog sa lahat ng dako.

 

walang masasaksihan sa mundong ito ang papantay

sa kapangyarihan ng sukdol mong kahinaan: ang kakinisan mong

nag-uudyok sa akin ng makulay niyang mga parang,

naglalarawan ng kamatayan at kawalang-hanggan sa bawat paghinga.

 

(hindi ko batid kung alin sa iyo ang nagpipinid

at nagbubukas; taglay ko lamang ang saloobing nakauunawa,

ang tinig ng iyong mga mata ay higit pang malagom sa lahat ng rosas)

walang sinuman, kahit pa ang ulan, ang may ‘sing munting mga kamay.

[cuatro_ojos]

The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)

 

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 marked 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.

[Leyna]

A POEM FOR SWINGERS, A POEM FOR THE PLAYGIRLS OF THE UNIVERSE

I like women who haven't lived with too many men.

I don't expect virginity but I simply prefer women

who haven't been rubbed raw by experience.

 

There is a quality about women who choose

men sparingly;

it appears in their walk

in their eyes

in their laughter and in their

gentle hearts.

 

Women who have had too many men

seem to choose the next one

out of revenge rather than with

feeling.

 

When you play the field selfishly everything

works against you:

one can't insist on love or

demand affection.

you're finally left with whatever

you have been willing to give

which often is:

nothing.

 

Some women are delicate things

some women are delicious and

wondrous.

 

If you want to piss on the sun

go ahead

but please leave them

alone.

 

- Charles Bukowski