What Poetry Moved You?

[sklardrog]

"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

[Leyna]

"I am a few years older now and I know this:

There are tastes of mouths I could not have lived without;

there are times I've pretended it was just about the sex

because I couldn't stand the way my heart was about to burst

with happiness and awe and I couldn't be that vulnerable,

not again, not with this one.

That waiting to have someone's stolen seconds can burn you alive.

That the shittiest thing you can do in the world is lie to someone you love;

also that there are certain times you have no other choice –

not honoring this fascination, this car crash of desire, is also a lie.

That there is power in having someone risk everything for you.

That there is nothing more frightening than being willing to take this freefall.

That it is not as simple as we were always promised.

Love – at least the pair-bonded, prescribed love – does not conquer all."

 

― Daphne Gottlieb, Homewrecker: An Adultery Anthology

[Danielle]

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

 

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

-Maya Angelou

[yaslyn]

Mind of a true gentleman <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<natatawa lang ako sa poem na to

by Maple Tree

 

I am only a man

with the greatest

of intentions, and

I truly wish for

just one night

alone with you,

 

you are so beautiful-

 

(looks in mirror, continues

talking to himself)

 

Why can't I find the courage

to ask her out?

My nerves are

about to cave in,

for I know, when

my eyes look into hers

my gaze will drop

south, and those

enchanting bosoms

will speak to me

Edited October 10, 2012 by yaslyn

[Leyna]

She said, I love you.

 

He said, Nothing.

 

(As if there were just one

of each word and the one

who used it, used it up).

 

In the history of language

the first obscenity was silence.

 

The Primer by Christina Davis

 

 

[dungeonbaby]

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go

followed obediently by the title, the plot,

the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel

which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never

even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor

decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,

to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses good-bye

and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,

and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,

the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember

it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,

not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river

whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those

who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night

to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.

No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted

out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

- Billy Collins

[LostCommand]

In celebration of the return of the old school, badder, better Bond:

Here is the whole of that defiant poem powerfully articulated by M...

 

The cycle turns. The old is new once more. The new has receded to overhype.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

 

 

Ulysses

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

 

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honoured of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers;

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breath were life. Life piled on life

Were all to little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the scepter and the isle

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and through soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

 

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old;

Old age had yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

 

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in the 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.

[johnnynobody013]

If

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

 

If you can dream --and not make dreams your master;

If you can think --and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings --nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And --which is more-- you'll be a Man, my son!

 

Rudyard Kipling

[bacsilog]

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.

 

 

William Ernest Henley

[Lord Superb]

This one is from the autobiography of Bertrand Russell, dedicated to his last wife Edith.

 

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 & near my end,

I have known you,

And, knowing you,

I have found both ecstasy & peace

I know rest

After so many lonely years.

I know what life & love may be.

Now, if I sleep

I shall sleep fulfilled.

[Headroom]

THE SEA ANEMONES - Gwen Harwood

 

Grey mountains, sea and sky. Even the misty

seawind is grey. I walked on lichened rock

in a kind of late assessment, call it peace.

The the anemones, scarlet, gouts of blood.

There is a word I need, and the earth was speaking.

I cannot hear. These seaflowers are too bright.

Kneeling on rock, I touch them through cold water.

My fingers meet some hungering gentleness.

A newborn child's lips moved so at my breast.

I woke, once, with my palm across your mouth.

The word is: ever. Why add salt to salt?

Blood drop by drop among the rocks they shine.

Anemos, wind. The spirit, where it will.

Not flowers, no, animals that must eat or die.

[iggy112]

Sonnet XVII

Pablo Neruda

 

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

 

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Edited May 30, 2013 by iggy112

[boxer_NA]

Jose Garcia Villa's The Bashful One.

[sQi]

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

 

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

 

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on your eyes

And not on your mind.

 

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

By letting

Bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

 

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.

 

-Epitaph by Merrit Malloy

[untitled]

He wishes for the cloths of heaven - W. B. Yeats