What Poetry Moved You?

[pacey]

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

 

--sonnet XVII, pablo neruda

[Mister J]

"Jingle bells, batman smells, robin laid an egg

 

Batmobile lost its wheel, joker got away."

 

not poetry but it rhymes.

[Kermitdfrog]

odd to an unfulfilled longing..

[filibustero]

Don't Quit

 

 

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit -

Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

 

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a fellow turns about

When he might have won had he stuck it out.

Don't give up though the pace seems slow -

You may succeed with another blow.

 

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up

When he might have captured the victor's cup;

And he learned too late when the night came down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

 

Success is failure turned inside out -

The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It might be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

[Archus]

The Road Not Taken

 

 

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

[karma_police]

" So shines a good deed in a weary world"

[nolz]

...twingkle twinhkle little star.. never fails to make me cry

[Pitik]

Love's Secret

William Blake

 

Never seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.

 

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!

 

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Pitik

[youmakemewannabeabetterman]

To laugh often and love much;

to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children;

to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty;

to find the best in others;

to give of one’s self;

to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;

to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded

 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

[johnnynobody013]

We're a stunted little paragraph blowing in the wind,

full of maybes and we-could-have-beens.

We're winter nights dancing through the sky,

dreaming of warmth and summer, burnt-skin sunscreen.

We're fruits hanging from a tree,

ripe with promise and fearing bitter seeds.

We're dripping photographs in darkrooms

waiting to become something beautiful.

You and I, we're not fancy like fireworks.

Sparks are the little lights that dance between us when we smile.

Sparks are private things, and they shine more prettily

when no one else can see them except you and me.

So when I write poetry about us,

it won't be about mountains and kisses

and rosebushes vomiting bouquets.

Because this is what I want to tell the world:

The both of us?

We're stones and branches and imperfect things.

And that's exactly why we fit.

("You and I" by oneofthose-rachels)

Edited January 11, 2014 by johnnynobody013

[johnnynobody013]

When I think of you, I always see you lit from below, like a queen on a terrace looking down upon a torchlit courtyard.

 

I've adored your unusual ways, your quiet cool, your beautiful face. But instead of talking to you, I say it to the wind.

 

I have loved you for so long I do not remember how not to.

 

I have tried.

 

I try.

 

I will try.

 

But I miss your voice, your strength, your gifted eye, and earthy ways and all those other things I have no words for.

 

I have been awakened and delighted by the push and pull of our acquaintance though I have never truly understood it. We meet and we talk as if we aren't who we are and what we've been—not lovers, but we must have been something.

 

I have respected the boundaries you've set between us. I have never touched you or seen the secret, sacred places of your heart.

 

I realize that it's my nature that's put me where I am—my gaze that's determined who you are to me.

 

It is my need to resolve this that brings me here, time and time and time again.

 

I have made so many mistakes that to dwell on them is foolish if I can't learn from them and put them aside. You say what you say. I do what I do. Nothing matters, and I walk away.

 

But even as I put the space between us, I feel you and I love you.

 

I have longed for you so deeply but cannot have you in life, so I claim you in my art—caressing you with another's hands, consorting with you in another's voice, and honoring you in my own gentle way—secretly hoping that you'll happen upon my work one day, and get it.

 

I'm stupid, I know.

 

Perhaps writing this will help me come to terms with how I feel and the fact that you don't

 

—never have

 

—never will—

 

love me.

 

Maybe if I say it enough times, my soul

 

will

 

let

 

you

 

go.

 

 

 

Maybe.

 

("Infinite Variety" by L. Tooks)

[yawsiyawsa]

Invictus

[ADAM]

rows of houses,

sound asleep.

only street lights

notice me.

 

i am desperate,

if nothing else,

in a holding pattern

to find myself.

 

i talk in circles,

i talk in circles,

i watch for signals,

for a clue.

 

how to feel different.

how to feel new.

like science fiction

bending truth.

 

no one can unring this bell,

unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new.

God knows, i am dissonance

waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune.

 

i’ll go anywhere you want,

anywhere you want me.

 

i know the further i go,

the harder i try, only keeps my eyes closed.

and somehow i’ve fallen in love

with this middle ground at the cost of my soul.

 

yet i know, if i stepped aside,

released the controls, you would open my eyes.

that somehow, all of this mess

is just an attempt to know the worth of my life…

[Lord Superb]

Do You Love Me?

 

A lover asked his beloved,

Do you love yourself more

than you love me?

The beloved replied,

I have died to myself

and I live for you.

 

I've disappeared from myself

and my attributes.

I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learning,

but from knowing you

I have become a scholar.

 

I have lost all my strength,

but from your power

I am able.

If I love myself

I love you.

If I love you

I love myself.

 

~ Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

[shhhhhh]

Lifetime of Goodbyes

Never once did I take for granted what we had,

and now it's over, though it makes me kinda sad,

I know that you'll be better off this way.

 

Though you said you were happy here with me

I looked inside and saw the pain you couldn't see.

I want you to smile, so I let you fly away.

 

I set you free to be happy as you were before,

So smiling sadly, I'll turn to close my door.

I should have known, your heart would sway.

 

Because I love you lots I have let you leave.

Let your dreams come true, or so I believe.

So I'll still be wishing you well, day to day.

 

Still, I have left a lifetime of goodbyes.

So, I'll hide my tears with a little bit of lies,

as my heart still pleads for you to stay.

Edited May 12, 2014 by shhhhhh