Favorite Poems

I'm pretty sure this thread exists here because I thought I'd found it earlier, but when I searched "Poems" and "Poetry", I didn't find threads where people addressed others' poems. Maybe I'm as blind as I know I am. I remember posting a James Dickey poem somewhere.

Now, this is not even remotely my fave poem, but when I read it tonight, I had an overwhelming desire to post it here.


THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams

Turns mine to wax.

And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins

How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool

Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wing

Hauls my shroud sail.

And I am dumb to tell the hanging man

How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;

Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood

Shall calm her sores.

And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind

How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb

How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

- Dylan Thomas

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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You posted the Dickey poem here.

And we do have a poetry thread.

Sorry, Marko.

Actually, now that I look a a little closer at that poetry thread I linked to, it's actually just for stuff that we Mofos have written ourselves. But that sure didn't stop me from posting some random Allen Ginsberg poem I kinda like. I'm such a rebel. So I guess this thread is an original. I'll throw in some of my personal favorites in a little while. Or tomorrow.

First off, thanks for finding my GOOD, Dickey poem. That one is brilliant on multiple levels. Secondly, your second link says that it's poems written by the poster, so that doesn't work, even though I've embarrassed myself and posted many of My OWN poems all over the NET.

I'll keep this one up for now until somebody can show me where to post other people's poems.

My favorite poem gives me inspiration every time I read it...


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; 5

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, 10

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. 15

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

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Δύο άτομα. Μια μάχη. Κανένας συμβιβασμός.

Very nice poem there Equi.. I love it... Thanks for sharing...

aw - nice thread Mark - I could be at this all day, so I spare you!

only one, for now:

Resignation
by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
(1807-1882)

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,--the child of our affection,--
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,--

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.

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something witty goes here......

W.B. Yeats

Easter 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club;
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingéd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream,
Changed minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of it all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse ---
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

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Comment is free but facts are sacred

I'll not post The Waste Land, Yeats' The Tower or any of Ezra Pound's Cantos. They're rather ubiquitous. And long.

My scanner is broken and I can find precious few links to this fella on the web so this has been typed from a book - and is pretty short.

The Most Beautiful Protestant Girl in Muggalnagrow

She wears hot pants and a skin-tight blouse
And we hear she is a demon at college - her divinity
Is simplay first-class. Muggalnagrow men
Sit simply chatting in a rustic row
On stools outside their haunts on summer eves
Murmuring her name as she clops past,
Day-dreaming of marriage to her;
What jesse-trees take root, what exotic dynasties!
Her father is the local Presbyterian minister
And he is mad about golf (except on Sundays
When his Catholic friends play four-balls:
He yearns to join-in in a four ball:
The Lord God, why cannot he be in a four-ball?);
He is a left-hander and he has got a swing like a scythe;
He does not hit the ball - he mows it down.
But although he is mad about golf, he is madder
About his bogbrown, beanstalk daughter:
He cannot keep her away from young men
Nor young men away from sweet her; fifty-fifty
She will have a baby by one of them or, worse,
Marry him. Imagine having to suffer
One of those long-haired poetry-preaching goons
In my own living-room for the rest of my days?
O The Lord God, save me from distraction
Or I will have to resign my stipend of Muggalnagrow
And go die in an old, slated, home for elderly elders
Far from golf-courses and reality:
O my heavenly daughter, what about me?

Paul Durcan

Durcan is easily my favourite poet currently working. Seek him out and be prepared to laugh and cry in the same stanza.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

speaking of ezra pound, here is my favorite from him:

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass


Ezra Pound

And Death Shall Have No Dominion - D. Thomas


And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

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I was the nerd hanging in the library in high school... one day as I was leafing through some books, I found this poem and fell in love with the language.

Song (of Egla)
By Maria Gowen Brooks

Day, in melting purple dying,
Blossoms, all around me sighing,
Fragrance, from the lilies straying,
Zephyr, with my ringlets playing,
Ye but waken my distress;
I am sick of loneliness.

Thou, to whom I love to hearken,
Come, ere night around me darken;
Though thy softness but deceive me,
Say thou’rt true, and I’ll believe thee;
Veil, if ill, thy soul’s intent:
Let me think it innocent!

Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure:
All I ask is friendship’s pleasure;
Let the shining ore lie darkling,
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling!
Gifts and gold are nought to me;
I would only look on thee!

Tell to thee the highwrought feeling,
Ecstasy but in revealing;
Paint to thee the deep sensation,
Rapture in participation,
Yet but torture, if comprest
In a lone unfriended breast.

Absent still? Ah, come and bless me!
Let these eyes again caress thee;
Once, in caution, I could fly thee:
Now I nothing could deny thee;
In a look if death there be,
Come, and I will gaze on thee!

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Johann von Goethe

That's a good 'un. For some reason, it reminds me of "It's All Right, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". I could hear Bob Dylan singing that poem.

"Heavenly Father" - Take to Thee

“Heavenly Father” -take to thee
The supreme iniquity
Fashioned by thy candid Hand
In a moment contraband-
Though to trust us-seem to us
More respectful—“We are Dust”-
We apologize to thee
For thine own Duplicity-

- Emily Dickinson

Hey mark, Emily Dickinson is great choice. I can remember trying to explain to a feared Eng professor that I should not have marks removed because I used Hyphens.....because Emily Dickinson used them! That was probably the only smile I ever got from that battleax.

really good one Mrs. D. Vey passionate. We totally know what you were thinking about in the library way back when!

I love reading poetry but, when I can, I love reading it out loud better. Hearing the poet reading their own work can be a rare treat and I'm lucky to be blessed by living in a small statelet with an abnormally high concentration of great poets, all of them giving regular readings.

I've always held Paul Muldoon in high regard and was delighted to see that he has a selection of his work in MP3 format, freely available from his website. He is now a professor at Princeton but the Armagh accent is still there. It's nearly as good as the Tyrone accent.

Click this please

The Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike .
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Sylvia Plath

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

O Where Are You Going?

"O where are you going?" said reader to rider,
"That valley is fatal when furnaces burn."
"Yonder's the midden whose odours will madden."
"That gap is the grave where the tall return."

"O do you imagine" said fearer to farer,
"That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?"

"O what was that bird" said horror to hearer,
"Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease."

"Out of this house," said rider to reader,
"Yours never will," said farer to fearer
"They're looking for you," said hearer to horror.
As he left them there, as he left them there.

- W.H. Auden

Argh, that Sylvia Plath poem brought back memories. I remember having to write a 5,000 word essay on her.

I wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs for a few days afterwards.

In the interests of balance, here's a Ted Hughes poem.

View of a Pig

It was like a sack of wheat.
One feels guilty insulting the dead,
Walking on graves. But this pig
Did not seem able to accuse.
It was too dead. Just so much
A poundage of lard and pork.
Its last dignity had entirely gone.
It was not a figure of fun.
Too dead now to pity.
To remember its life, din, stronghold
Of earthly pleasure as it had been,
Seemed a false effort, and off the point.
Too deadly factual. Its weight
Oppressed me — how could it be moved?
And the trouble of cutting it up!
The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.
Once I ran at a fair in the noise
To catch a greased piglet
That was faster and nimbler than a cat,
Its squeal was the rending of metal.
Pigs must have hot blood, they feel like ovens.
Their bite is worse than a horse’s —
They chop a half–moon clean out.
They eat cinders, dead cats.
Distinctions and admirations such
As this one was long finished with.
I stared at it a long time.
They were going to scald it,
Scald it and scour it like a doorstep.

Without wishing to appear flippant (that'll make a change!), is it any wonder the poor woman killed herself?

I prefer his Crow poems, to tell the truth.