Poems?

[S.E. Hardy]

Seeing as I've been on a poetry kick recently, what are your guys' favorite poems or poets?

 

Wilde is far and beyond my favorite.

[miss_fortune]

Er - Wilde is the king. We all know this.

 

 

However, Jack Whyte is a stunning poet. *nudges elly*

 

ETA: I FOUND THE BESTEST POEM EVARSDJFPS HU!!! (By Jack Whyte. Because he's that awesome.)

 

LE MOT JUST...

 

We were arguing one evening, as the sun was going down,

About the names we give to groups: The old Collective Noun.

We had gone through prides of lions; schools of fish; brigades of foot,

When I wondered, "What's collective for the poor old prostitute?"

 

Well! I felt as though I'd stepped upon a hidden hornets' nest,

For each man proposed an answer, and each swore his was the best!

We'd a treasury of trollops, and a tragedy of trulls;

An entire Who's Who of hookers and a calamity of culls...

 

We'd a pastry cook among us who, in tribute to his arts,

Put forth the obvious image of a tempting tray of tarts,

While a fishmonger there present, who was more than slightly nuts,

Proposed the odious and malodorous catchphrase "a slab of sluts!"

 

Then our resident militiaman cried out "A troop of tramps!"

But he was shouted down in favour of a vile vendue of vamps;

A convention of solicitors; a haggling horde of whores;

Such invention for the ladies whom society deplores!

 

No, the task of giving pride of place was not a simple one.

The concubinage of courtesans might easily have won,

Or the hostile hiss of hustlers, but we had to share the rose

Between a bright fanfare of strumpets and an anthology of pros...

Edited November 11, 2004 by miss_fortune

[S.E. Hardy]

Er - Wilde is the king. We all know this.

sad as it is, I had to introduce my brother and 3 of my friends to him, as they had never heard of him (well, one knew that he wrote plays, but knew nothing of his poetry)

[HoboFactory]

Allen Ginsberg:

 

Homework

 

If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my dirty Iran

I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap,

scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in

the jungle,

I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,

Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,

Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly

Cesium out of Love Canal

Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain the Sludge

out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again,

Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little

Clouds so snow return white as snow,

Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie

Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood &

Agent Orange,

Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out

the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state,

& put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an

Aeon till it came out clean

 

A Western Ballad

 

When I died, love, when I died

my heart was broken in your care;

I never suffered love so fair

as now I suffer and abide

when I died, love, when I died.

 

When I died, love, when I died

I wearied in an endless maze

that men have walked for centuries,

as endless as the gate was wide

when I died, love, when I died.

 

When I died, love, when I died

there was a war in the upper air:

all that happens, happens there;

there was an angel by my side

when I died, love, when I died.

 

Refrain

 

The air is dark, the night is sad,

I lie sleepless and I groan.

Nobody cares when a man goes mad:

He is sorry, God is glad.

Shadow changes into bone.

 

Every shadow has a name;

When I think of mine I moan,

I hear rumors of such fame.

Not for pride, but only shame,

Shadow changes into bone.

 

When I blush I weep for joy,

And laughter drops from me like a stone:

The aging laughter of the boy

To see the ageless dead so coy.

Shadow changes into bone.

 

 

 

Andrei Voznesenski

 

Abuses And Awards

 

A poet can’t be in disfavor,

he needs no awards, no fame.

A star has no setting whatever,

no black nor a golden frame.

 

A star can’t be killed with a stone, or

award, or that kind of stuff

He’ll bear the blow of a fawner

lamenting he’s not big enough.

 

What matters is music and fervor,

not fame, nor abuse, anyway.

World powers are out of favor

when poets turn them away.

 

Antiworlds

 

There is Bukashkin, our neighbor,

in underpants of blotting paper,

and, like balloons, the Antiworlds

hang up above him in the vaults.

 

Up there, like a magic daemon,

he smartly rules the Universe,

Antibukashkin lies there giving

Lollobrigida a caress.

 

The Anti-great-academician

has got a blotting paper vision.

 

Long live creative Antiworlds,

great fantasy amidst daft words!

There are wise men and stupid peasants,

there are no trees without deserts.

 

There’re Antimen and Antilorries,

Antimachines in woods and forests.

There’s salt of earth, and there’s a fake.

A falcon dies without a snake.

 

I like my dear critics best.

The greatest of them beats the rest

for on his shoulders there’s no head,

he’s got an Antihead instead.

 

At night I sleep with windows open

and hear the rings of falling stars,

From up above skyscrapers drop and,

like stalactites, look down on us.

 

High up above me upside down,

stuck like a fork into the ground,

my nice light-hearted butterfly,

my Antiworld, is getting by.

 

I wonder if it’s wrong or right

that Antiworlds should date at night.

Why should they sit there side by side

watching TV all through the night?

They do not understand a word.

It’s their last date in this world.

They sit and chat for hours, and

they will regret it in the end!

The two have burning ears and eyes,

resembling purple butterflies...

 

...A lecturer once said to me:

«An Antiworld? It’s loonacy!»

 

I’m half asleep, and I would sooner

believe than doubt the man’s word...

My green-eyed kitty, like a tuner,

receives the signals of the world.

Edited November 11, 2004 by HoboFactory

[S.E. Hardy]

oooh. I'd never read any of his stuff before, thanks.

[HoboFactory]

With Ginsberg, you gotta be sorta careful if you're offended by explicit sexual references, there's quite a bit of that with him.

[S.E. Hardy]

With Ginsberg, you gotta be sorta careful if you're offended by explicit sexual references, there's quite a bit of that with him.

n/a. thanks for the warning though.

[Lauren]

ive found it harder to get into poetry because i never seem to have the resources... but i'll work on that. when im done reading the books i have to read. bah.

[juanpe]

I love Oscar Wilde...

 

There is a Spanish poet - Antonio Machado and Federico García Lorca - who are my most favorite poets though... If you can find some of their poems in English (if you can't read Spanish), read them... if you like Oscar Wilde, you will like these two Spanish poets for sure... I just love them... and they are sometimes the inspiration I need to write my own stuff ;)

[Mouko]

Matthew Good and Carol Ann Duffy.

 

Check out Duffy's 'Mean Time' and 'Valentine'.

[saturnine]

the last poem's poet

[no yu begin wher i end]

Czeslaw Milosz is pretty good. He won a Nobel prize in the 80's, I believe.

 

A Poem For The End Of The Century

 

When everything was fine

And the notion of sin had vanished

And the earth was ready

In universal peace

To consume and rejoice

Without creeds and utopias,

 

I, for unknown reasons,

Surrounded by the books

Of prophets and theologians,

Of philosophers, poets,

Searched for an answer,

Scowling, grimacing,

Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.

 

What oppressed me so much

Was a bit shameful.

Talking of it aloud

Would show neither tact nor prudence.

It might even seem an outrage

Against the health of mankind.

 

Alas, my memory

Does not want to leave me

And in it, live beings

Each with its own pain,

Each with its own dying,

Its own trepidation.

 

Why then innocence

On paradisal beaches,

An impeccable sky

Over the church of hygiene?

Is it because that

Was long ago?

 

To a saintly man

--So goes an Arab tale--

God said somewhat maliciously:

"Had I revealed to people

How great a sinner you are,

They could not praise you."

 

"And I," answered the pious one,

"Had I unveiled to them

How merciful you are,

They would not care for you."

 

To whom should I turn

With that affair so dark

Of pain and also guilt

In the structure of the world,

If either here below

Or over there on high

No power can abolish

The cause and the effect?

 

Don't think, don't remember

The death on the cross,

Though everyday He dies,

The only one, all-loving,

Who without any need

Consented and allowed

To exist all that is,

Including nails of torture.

 

Totally enigmatic.

Impossibly intricate.

Better to stop speech here.

This language is not for people.

Blessed be jubilation.

Vintages and harvests.

Even if not everyone

Is granted serenity.

[Lauren]

i don't like matts poetry too much i must say.

 

i enjoy the works of lorca.

[juanpe]

Federico García Lorca is simply awesome... this is one of my favorite poems ;)

 

Romance Sonambulo

 

Green, how I want you green.

Green wind. Green branches.

The ship out on the sea

and the horse on the mountain.

With the shade around her waist

she dreams on her balcony,

green flesh, her hair green,

with eyes of cold silver.

Green, how I want you green.

Under the gypsy moon,

all things are watching her

and she cannot see them.

 

Green, how I want you green.

Big hoarfrost stars

come with the fish of shadow

that opens the road of dawn.

The fig tree rubs its wind

with the sandpaper of its branches,

and the forest, cunning cat,

bristles its brittle fibers.

But who will come? And from where?

She is still on her balcony

green flesh, her hair green,

dreaming in the bitter sea.

 

--My friend, I want to trade

my horse for her house,

my saddle for her mirror,

my knife for her blanket.

My friend, I come bleeding

from the gates of Cabra.

--If it were possible, my boy,

I'd help you fix that trade.

But now I am not I,

nor is my house now my house.

--My friend, I want to die

decently in my bed.

Of iron, if that's possible,

with blankets of fine chambray.

Don't you see the wound I have

from my chest up to my throat?

--Your white shirt has grown

thirsy dark brown roses.

Your blood oozes and flees a

round the corners of your sash.

But now I am not I,

nor is my house now my house.

--Let me climb up, at least,

up to the high balconies;

Let me climb up! Let me,

up to the green balconies.

Railings of the moon

through which the water rumbles.

 

Now the two friends climb up,

up to the high balconies.

Leaving a trail of blood.

Leaving a trail of teardrops.

Tin bell vines

were trembling on the roofs.

A thousand crystal tambourines

struck at the dawn light.

 

Green, how I want you green,

green wind, green branches.

The two friends climbed up.

The stiff wind left

in their mouths, a strange taste

of bile, of mint, and of basil

My friend, where is she--tell me--

where is your bitter girl?

How many times she waited for you!

How many times would she wait for you,

cool face, black hair,

on this green balcony!

Over the mouth of the cistern

the gypsy girl was swinging,

green flesh, her hair green,

with eyes of cold silver.

An icicle of moon

holds her up above the water.

The night became intimate

like a little plaza.

Drunken "Guardias Civiles"

were pounding on the door.

Green, how I want you green.

Green wind. Green branches.

The ship out on the sea.

And the horse on the mountain.