Your Favorite Poems

BullDog · 05-09-2018, 10:35 PM

Love After Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Anastasia11 · 05-10-2018, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BullDog

Love After Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Federico Garcia Lorca

It's True

Ay, the pain it costs me
to love you as I love you!

For love of you, the air, it hurts,
and my heart,
and my hat, they hurt me.

Who would buy it from me,
this ribbon I am holding,
and this sadness of cotton,
white, for making hankerchiefs with?

Ay, the pain it costs me
to love you as I love you!

Anastasia11 · 05-24-2018, 07:03 PM

Your silence today is a pond where drowned things live
I want to see raised dripping and brought into the sun.
It’s not my own face I see there, but other faces,
even your face at another age.
Whatever’s lost there is needed by both of us—
a watch of old gold, a water-blurred fever chart,
a key. . . . Even the silt and pebbles of the bottom
deserve their glint of recognition. I fear this silence,
this inarticulate life. I'm waiting
for a wind that will gently open this sheeted water
for once, and show me what I can do
for you, who have often made the unnameable
nameable for others, even for me.

Anastasia11 · 05-29-2018, 06:17 AM

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Anastasia11 · 05-29-2018, 10:00 AM

5

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your
tongue to my bare-stript heart,
... and reach'd till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that
pass all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the
women my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

Kätzchen · 05-31-2018, 10:27 AM

There are many poems by Maya Angelo that are so inspirational and very poignant.

Still I Rise is one of her very best and one that I like and love, so very much.

RebelDyke · 06-02-2018, 10:16 PM

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 hear(i carry it in my heart)

05-09-2018, 10:35 PM	#1
BullDog Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: Dominant Stone Butch Daddy Preferred Pronoun?: She Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: In A Healing Place Posts: 5,371 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 18,160 Thanked 22,640 Times in 4,463 Posts Rep Power: 21474856	Love Yourself Love After Love Derek Walcott The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. __________________ Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. - Rainer Maria Rilke

05-24-2018, 07:03 PM	#3
Anastasia11 Junior Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: she/her/hers Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: N/A Posts: 49 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 48 Thanked 52 Times in 25 Posts Rep Power: 859002	Twenty-One Love Poems, # IX, Adrienne Rich Your silence today is a pond where drowned things live I want to see raised dripping and brought into the sun. It’s not my own face I see there, but other faces, even your face at another age. Whatever’s lost there is needed by both of us— a watch of old gold, a water-blurred fever chart, a key. . . . Even the silt and pebbles of the bottom deserve their glint of recognition. I fear this silence, this inarticulate life. I'm waiting for a wind that will gently open this sheeted water for once, and show me what I can do for you, who have often made the unnameable nameable for others, even for me.

05-29-2018, 06:17 AM	#4
Anastasia11 Junior Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: she/her/hers Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: N/A Posts: 49 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 48 Thanked 52 Times in 25 Posts Rep Power: 859002	Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX), Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950 Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would.

05-29-2018, 10:00 AM	#5
Anastasia11 Junior Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: she/her/hers Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: N/A Posts: 49 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 48 Thanked 52 Times in 25 Posts Rep Power: 859002	From Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman 5 I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other. Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best, Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice. I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, ... and reach'd till you held my feet. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

05-31-2018, 10:27 AM	#6
Kätzchen Member How Do You Identify?: As a very feminine woman. Relationship Status: No thanks, I am not available. Join Date: May 2010 Location: Near smoke signals in the sky. Posts: 16,202 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 29,455 Thanked 33,609 Times in 10,706 Posts Rep Power: 21474868	There are many poems by Maya Angelo that are so inspirational and very poignant. *Still I Rise* is one of her very best and one that I like and love, so very much.

06-02-2018, 10:16 PM	#7
RebelDyke Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Butch Preferred Pronoun?: She/Her/Hers...please no male ID..it's insulting Relationship Status: settled and content Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: oz Posts: 2,569 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 4,574 Thanked 3,223 Times in 1,574 Posts Rep Power: 21474853	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 hear(i carry it in my heart)