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Author Topic:   Oh I didn't realize that you wrote poetry...
adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 27, 2007 07:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
What you love says alot about you, I think, and I want to know you better! So hey everyone, post your favorite poems! It would be cool if people also talked about any personal significance the poems have for them (but you don't have to of course).Here is one of my all-time favorites by one of my favorite poety/prose authors. In the past few years, I have suffered immense tragedy and trauma. I know I am a stronger woman for it but I honestly would prefer to be weaker and have it not have happened, lol. Anyway, during some of my darkest days this poem in its utter simplicity and sweetness brought me real comfort and it still does:

Your Catfish Friend


If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond.I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond?It seems like
a perfect place for them."

Richard Brautigan

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adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 27, 2007 08:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
copied painstakingly by my first love, scribbled inside a Valentine's Day card...sigh...

somehwere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e.cummings

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future_uncertain
Knowflake

Posts: 2681
From: ohio
Registered: Aug 2004

posted June 27, 2007 10:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for future_uncertain     Edit/Delete Message
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That one is one of my all-time faves.

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goatgirl
Knowflake

Posts: 954
From: Anywhere
Registered: Jul 2002

posted June 27, 2007 11:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for goatgirl     Edit/Delete Message
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
~ Walt Whitman

------------------
The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer

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Mirandee
Knowflake

Posts: 4812
From: South of the Thumb - Taurus, Pisces, Cancer
Registered: Sep 2004

posted June 28, 2007 12:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mirandee     Edit/Delete Message
I find much comfort in the words of this poem by William Blake

On Another's Sorrow

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear --

And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled an gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

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Heart--Shaped Cross
Knowflake

Posts: 7178
From: 11/6/78 11:38am Boston, MA
Registered: Aug 2004

posted June 28, 2007 12:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Heart--Shaped Cross     Edit/Delete Message
These are great!

Thanks everyone for sharing.


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TINK
Knowflake

Posts: 3831
From: New England
Registered: Mar 2003

posted June 28, 2007 12:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for TINK     Edit/Delete Message

This one has been on my mind lately ....

A story, a story!
(Let it go. Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plastic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched -
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside of me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.

As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing

Anne Sexton

yeah. that 'bout sums it up.

but I'll be back to Uncle Walt soon enough...

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adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 28, 2007 04:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
Thank you goatgirl, Mirandee, and TINK for sharing these gorgeous words

TINK--Anne is one of my favorites! Thank you for reminding me

Let's see some more! I am a poetry addict!

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adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 28, 2007 04:47 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear


it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love


whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time


that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.


I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

--ee cummings

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goatgirl
Knowflake

Posts: 954
From: Anywhere
Registered: Jul 2002

posted June 28, 2007 04:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for goatgirl     Edit/Delete Message
Extracts from an Opera
by John Keats

I

O! were I one of the Olympian twelve,
Their godships should pass this into a law -
That when a man doth set himself in toil
After some beauty veilèd far away,
Each step he took should make his lady's hand
More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more fair;
And for each briar-berry he might eat,
A kiss should bud upon the tree of love,
And pulp and ripen richer every hour,
To melt away upon the traveller's lips.

II DAISY'S SONG

1
The sun, with his great eye,
Sees not so much as I;
And the moon, all silver-proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.

2
And O the spring - the spring!
I lead the life of a king!
Couched in the teeming grass,
I spy each pretty lass.

3
I look where no one dares,
And I stare where no one stares,
And when the night is nigh,
Lambs bleat my lullaby.

III FOLLY'S SONG

When wedding fiddles are a-playing,
Huzza for folly O!
And when maidens go a-maying,
Huzza, etc.
When a milk-pail is upset,
Huzza, etc.
And the clothes left in the wet,
Huzza, etc.
When the barrel's set abroach,
Huzza, etc.
When Kate Eyebrow keeps a coach,
Huzza, etc.
When the pig is over-roasted,
Huzza, etc.
And the cheese is over-toasted,
Huzza, etc.
When Sir Snap is with his lawyer,
Huzza, etc.
And Miss Chip has kissed the sawyer,
Huzza, etc.

IV

O, I am frightened with most hateful thoughts!
Perhaps her voice is not a nightingale's
Perhaps her teeth are not the fairest pearl;
Her eye-lashes may be, for aught I know,
Not longer than the may-fly's small fan-horns;
There may not be one dimple on her hand -
And freckles many. Ah! a careless nurse,
In haste to teach the little thing to walk,
May have crumpled up a pair of Dian's legs,
And warped the ivory of a Juno's neck.

V SONG

1
The stranger lighted from his steed,
And ere he spake a word,
He seized my lady's lily hand,
And kissed it all unheard.

2
The stranger walked into the hall,
And ere he spake a word,
And kissed my lady's cheery lips,
And kissed 'em all unheard.

3
The stranger walked into the bower -
But my lady first did go:
Ay, hand in hand into the bower,
Where my lord's roses blow.

4
My lady's maid had a silken scarf,
And a golden ring had she,
And a kiss from the stranger, as off he went
Again on his fair palfrey.

VI

Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!

------------------
The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer

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goatgirl
Knowflake

Posts: 954
From: Anywhere
Registered: Jul 2002

posted June 28, 2007 04:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for goatgirl     Edit/Delete Message
John Keats (1795–1821). The Poetical Works of John Keats. 1884.

55. La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Ballad


I.

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

III.

I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew, 10
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 15
And her eyes were wild.

V.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan. 20

VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet, 25
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”

VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, 30
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d 35
On the cold hill’s side.

X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!” 40

XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

XII.

And this is why I sojourn here, 45
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

------------------
The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer

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adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 28, 2007 04:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
And another...ee cummings has so many good ones!

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

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goatgirl
Knowflake

Posts: 954
From: Anywhere
Registered: Jul 2002

posted June 28, 2007 04:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for goatgirl     Edit/Delete Message
The Highwayman
By Alfred Noyes

Part One
I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV
And dark in the old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-

V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

Part Two
I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching-
Marching-marching-
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement, the road that he would ride.

III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say-
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till here fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs
ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did
not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up strait and still!

VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night
!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.

VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

* * * * * *

X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding-
Riding-riding-
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

------------------
The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer

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adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 28, 2007 04:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
goatgirl--
!!!!!

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goatgirl
Knowflake

Posts: 954
From: Anywhere
Registered: Jul 2002

posted June 28, 2007 04:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for goatgirl     Edit/Delete Message
I love that ee cummings poem too!

------------------
The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer

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adrienne
Knowflake

Posts: 103
From: Northampton, MA, USA
Registered: Apr 2007

posted June 28, 2007 06:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for adrienne     Edit/Delete Message
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

--Sylvia Plath

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