Favourite Poem

[Stedric]

I was just wondering what everyone's favourite poem is. I don't actually like very much poetry but there are a few outstanding poems which do come to mind. So post your favourite poem and maybe a verse from it?

I like "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe.

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!"

Stedric Reviewed by Stedric on 12-05-2005. Favourite Poem I was just wondering what everyone's favourite poem is. I don't actually like very much poetry but there are a few outstanding poems which do come to mind. So post your favourite poem and maybe a verse from it? I like "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. "And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his Rating: 5

[psychopixi]

I like that one too. For some reason I've always had a thing for Limbo, by Seamus Heaney after studying it for AS level.

Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,

A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly

Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.

She waded in under
The sign of her cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be

A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christs's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there.

[Roadking]

THE PANTHER

His gaze has grown so tired from the bars
passing, it can't hold anything anymore.
It is as if there were a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars nothing.

The soft gait of powerful supple strides,
which turns in the smallest of all circles,
is like a dance of strength around a center
where an imperious will stands stunned.

Only at times the curtain of the pupils
silently opens-. Then an image enters,
passes through the taut stillness of the limbs-
and in the heart ceases to be.

- Rilke

[Lulu]

I Didn't Fall Over

I was wondering what would happen
if I lay quietly in my bed
and thought about the deep rich green
which comes upon the grass
after a fall of rain
a green so fresh and brightly new
that you would live forever
if you stood there looking at it.
Wondering what would happen
if I emptied my mind of everything
and thought of nothing else but
every field and meadow and parkland
I have ever seen
self-consious
with their new abundant greeness.

I asked a friend about it.
He said - "You would fall over."

Last night
long after my neighbours' houses
were dark and quiet
I lay on my mattress
and welcomed into my mind
The Phoenix Park
Fairview Park
Bushy Park
St.Anne's Park
Hampstead Heath
Dunstable Downs
The Lady Acre
Portmarnock Golf links
All the green bits on Howth Head
Ever soccer pitch I ever have ever played
or looked upon.
I welcomed them all in and let them settle
into the widest continent of breathless green
that ever tipped a far horizon.

Then I invited in the rain.
Misting drifting drenching
up a brightness so sharp
that even underwater
it would blind you
misting drifting drenching
till the agony of greeness
could cut away your sight
running me along a sharp edge
within an instant of the answer
forcing me to open my eyes
because I could not bear to look
upon such an emerald light.

[BaseRSX]

Poe owns!

[powair]

Anything by Wistawa Szymborska.

Interview With A Child

The Master hasn't been among us long.
That's why he lies in wait in every corner.
Covers his eyes and peeks through the cracks.
Faces the wall, then suddenly turns around.

The Master rejects outright the ridiculous thought
that a table out of sight goes on being a table nonstop,
that a chair behind our backs stays stuck in chairlike bounds
and doesn't even try to fly the coop.

True, it's hard to catch the world being different.
The apple tree slips back under the window before you can blink.
Incandescent sparrows always grow dim just in time.
Little pitchers have big ears and pick up every sound.
The nightime closet acts as dull as its daytime twin.
The drawer does its best to assure the Master
it holds only what it's been given.
And no matter how fast you open the Brothers Grimm,
the princess always manages to take her seat again.

"They sense I'm a stranger here," the Master sighs,
"they won't let a new kid play their private games."

Since how can it be that whatever exists
can only exist in one way,
an awful situation, for there's no escaping yourself,
no pause, no transformation? In a humber from-here-to-here?
A fly caught in a fly? A mouse trapped in a mouse?
A dog never let off its latent chain?
A fire that can't come up with anything better
than burning the Master's trustful finger one more time?
Is this the definitve, actual world:
scattered wealth that can't be gathered,
useless luxury, forbidden options?

"No," the Master cries and stomps all the feet
he can muster - for such great despair
that beetle's six legs wouldn't be enough.

[Funkamander]

I gotta go with "Modern Man" by George Carlin.

In fact, I daresay it's the only poem I've understood completely and still enjoyed. In another fact, I daresay I don't really like poetry and have no business being in this thread.

[Cleveland]

there once was a man from Nantucket

[RIP ODB]

'Twas the night before Christmas - by Charlie Murphy

[GreenGenes]

HOWL by Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water fiats 'doating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz....

And so on... It's way to long to post. "America" is another really great one he wrote.