What's your favorite poem(s)?

[RoniMan]

uh...the subject line explains all.

sorry had to add that little insert

[nickel]

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, 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 travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Robert Frost

[JG2004]

I dont have a favorite poem really. Any poem my one guy friend writes for me i enjoy.

[whitak24]

John Donne's A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is one of my faves:

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say, "No:"
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refin'd,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

I also like Whitman's O Captain! My Captain! and Shakespeare's The Phoenix and the Turtle

[molecularfire]

I don't know who wrote this (in my defense, I didn't).




If I go to heaven and you're not there,
I'll carve your name on the golden stairs.
If you're not there on judgement day,
I'll know you went the other way.
So, I'll give the angels back their wings,
and their hearts with the golden strings,
and just to show our love is true,
I'll go to hell to be with you.

[nickel]

i like that


the poetry i really like best is the kind recited to me word for word from memory by a hot guy.

[Hiro]

As you sleep in the cool night.
My gentle touch helps keep you warm.
With my arms protecting you from fright.
Not letting you come to harm.

You wake in the night with a subtle jump.
I reach out to comfort your shaking skin.
You lay back down with a gentle slump.
And you slide back into my arms on a whim.

As the morning light shines on your face.
The angels sing of an amazing beauty.
A beauty I long to slowly embrace.
You are my baby, my sweetie, and I am so lucky.

Time has come to part and say goodbye.
Even though only for a short time.
To see you again, and make my heart fly.
My love for you like a twisting vine.

You don’t even have to try to brighten my day.
Your presence alone makes me warm inside.
I will do anything to make you stay.
A true lover in who I can confide.

When you look at me as we lay down.
I get lost in your eyes,
Such a wonderful place to drown.
I can see my future, with you as my wife.

I reach over and realize you aren’t here.
Suddenly I feel empty inside,
And it draws a tear.

Believe in my love, true as can be.
From this life into the next
You shall see.

[Freelance Superhero]

Originally posted by whitak24
John Donne's A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is one of my faves:

oh WOW... i didn't expect anyone to say Donne... very nice... i happen to like that poem a lot as well... i'll have to get back to yall with my favorite... too many to choose from...

[CornMonkey]

there once was a man from nantucket...

[whitak24]

Originally posted by Freelance Superhero
oh WOW... i didn't expect anyone to say Donne... very nice... i happen to like that poem a lot as well... i'll have to get back to yall with my favorite... too many to choose from...

i'm not a huge poetry person, but Donne is probably my fave poet overall.

he has a lot of great poems about love, loss, and religion.

[zenbooty]

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams


I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

[zenbooty]

"Andromeda Suite Part 2. (a song, actually)
By Edward Ka Spel

Tell me doctor,
what exactly is the problem?
Do I not behave
according to the patterns on your wall?
Do I push all your parameters,
am I unfit for your box? Tell me doc...
do you have the perfect cure?

Will you shower me
with red ones, green ones, yellow ones?
Is the answer in a spike,
or with a rusty knife,
or in this place that they call "heaven"?

There's no need to send me flowers, I have gardens.
Where I go walking with my wife.
And Though I haven't met her yet,
I know she's coming
because she sends me messages...
lots of messages.
It's a long way to Andromeda
but we'll marry in the spring.

[Hunny]

Originally posted by RoniMan
uh...the subject line explains all.

sorry had to add that little insert

Anything written by "Maya Angelou" is beautiful...

[Ladogaboy]

Well, I'm not much of a fan of romantic poetry. My all-time favorite poem is "A Bedtime Story" by George Macbeth:

Long, long ago when the world was a wild place
Planted with bushes and peopled by apes, our
Mission Brigade was at work in the jungle.
Hard by the Congo

Once, when a foraging detail was active
Scouting for green-fly, it came on a grey man, the
Last living man, in the branch of a baobab
Stalking a monkey.

Earlier men had disposed of, for pleasure
Creatures whose names we scarcely remember -
Zebra, rhinoceros, elephants, wart-hog,
Lion, rats, deer,

But After the wars had extinguished the cities
Only the wild ones were left half-naked
Near the Equator: and here was the last one,
Starved for a monkey.

By then the Mission Brigade had encountered
Hundreds of such men: and their procedure.
History tells us, was only to feed them:
Find them and feed them:

Those were the orders. And this was the last one
Nobody knew that he was, but he was, Mud
Caked on his flat grey flanks. He was crouched, half-
Armed with a shaved spear

Glinting between broad leaves, When their jaws cut
Swathes through the bark and he saw fine teeth shine,
Round eyes roll round and forked arms waver
Huge as the rough trunks

Over his head, he was frightened. Our workers
Marched through the Congo before he was born, but
This was the first time perhaps that he's seen one.
Staring in hot still

Silence, he crouched there: then jumped with a long swing
Down from his branch, he had angled his spear too
Quickly, before they could hold him, and hurled it
Hard at the soldier

Leading the detail. How could he know the Queen's
Orders were only to help him? The soldier
Winced when the tipped spear pricked him. Unsheathing his
Sting was a reflex.

Later the Queen was informed. There were no more
Men. An impetuous soldier had killed off,
Purely by chance, the penultimate primate.
When she was certain,

Squadrons of workers were fanned through the Congo
Detailed to bring back the man's picked bones to be
Sealed in the archives in amber. I'm quite sure
Nobody found them

After the most industrious search, through.
Where had the bones gone? Over the earth, dear.
Ground by the teeth of the termites, blown by the
Wind, like the dodo's.

-----------------

But for something romantic, it has to be Neruda.

My favorite, his Soneto 17

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el aima.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.


Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,


sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

[aznkiddo]

anything by hmm.. shakespear = good