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[raffaellabella]

To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more that whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever

-Anne Bradstreet

[Vespertilio91]

Here's my favorite poem of all time!!!

Alone-Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour--I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
As others saw--I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone.
Then--in my childhood--in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me, flying by,
From the thunder, and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

In my English class, we had to memorize our favorite poem. It had to be famous. My favorite poem before that had been Pandora's Box by a friend of mine, but I found this. It touched me like nothing else ever had before, and I now read it every night before I go to sleep, to remind me that I might sometimes be alone, but normally, it's just a demon in my view.

I hope you enjoyed that poem. It is my absolute favorite, just like Poe is my favorite.

[Gem]

Rabindranath Tagore - Where the Mind is Without Fear:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Oh, sweet. I'm a poet, so here goes:

Poem for a Stalker...

Novella, lovely poem - may I send it to my stalker?

[sirmyk]

Rub a dub, dub
Something, something... in a tub

[KristoCat]

Lovely poem, Gem. I really enjoyed that one

[Peronel]

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

-- Vyvyan Holland

[Smila]

Diving into the Wreck
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

[Heteronym]

Autopsychography

The poet is a forger who
Forges so completely that
He forges even the feeling
He feels truly as pain.

And those who read his poems
Feel absolutely, not his two
Separate pains, but only the
Pain that they do not feel.

And thus, diverting the
Understanding, the wind-up
Train we call the heart
Runs along its track.

- Fernando Pessoa

[Libre]

Redwood
by, me

We sat beside the Redwood Tree,
The little chipmunk, he and I,
In blissful, silent reverie.
The towering trees, the patch of sky.
Then from behind a bramble bush,
A little vixen ambled by.

The pretty little fox sat down.
She sniffed the air and scratched her ear.
Pretty fox with hair of red,
She wagged her tail and showed no fear.
She lay upon her back and said,
"Like, my name is Merilee?
This is, like, totally awesome."

And it was there by the Redwood tree,
The munk, the pretty fox, and me,
Did trip the forest lights fantastic;
Merilee was multi-orgasmic.

[Smila]

Wild Dreams of a New Beginning
by: Lawrence Ferlinghetti

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are listening
for the master to tell them they are one
with the universe
Eyes smell flowers and become them
There's a deathless hush
on the freeway tonight
as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
and bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
buried masts of Amsterdam arise
as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
manhatta steaming in sea-vines
the washed land awakes again to wilderness
the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
a cry of seabirds high over
in empty eternity
as the Hudson retakes its thickets
and Indians reclaim their canoes

[Flor]

Darling of Gods and Men, Beneath the Gliding Stars

Darling of Gods and Men, beneath the gliding stars
you fill rich earth and buoyant sea with your presence
for every living thing achieves its life through you,
rises and sees the sun. For you the sky is clear,
the tempests still. Deft earth scatters her gentle flowers,
the level ocean laughs, the softened heavens glow
with generous light for you. In the first days of spring
when the untrammelled allrenewing southwind blows
the birds exult in you and herald your coming.
Then the shy cattle leap and swim the brooks for love.
Everywhere, through all seas mountains and waterfalls,
love carresses all hearts and kindles all creatures
to overmastering lust and ordained renewals.
Therefore, since you alone control the sum of things
and nothing without you comes forth into the light
and nothing beautiful or glorious can be
without you, Alma Venus! trim my poetry
with your grace; and give peace to write and read and think.

- Basil Bunting, 1930

[Middle Eye]

Taught Me Purple

Evelyn Tooley Hunt

My mother taught me purple,
Although she never wore it.
Wash-grey was her circle,
The tenement her orbit.

My mother taught me golden,
And held me up to see it,
Above the broken moldings,
Beyond the filthy street.

My mother reached for beauty,
And for its lack she died.
Who knew so much of duty,
She could not teach me pride.

[FrodoLIVES]

When We Two Parted by Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
 
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
 
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Lond, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
 
I secret we met--
I silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

I loved this poem the first time I read it and still do. I think everyone who's gone through a messy breakup can understand it.

[PhilW]

The General, by Siegfried Sassoon

'Good morning; good morning!' the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

[Michael Stone]

There is a young man in Toronto,
who can't find a girl he can hold onto.

His love life is tragic,
an absence of magic,

Where have all the women gone to?

So he channels his passions to write,
it helps him get through the night.

In the lonely midnight hours,
between the cold showers,

He lets his imagination take flight.

There is an undying dream,
that never loses its steam,

That one of his stories will sell.

And with celebrity and wealth,
and the keeping of health,

The girls will be ringing his bell!