Your Favorite Poems

[Kätzchen]

Burned Forest
~ Nichita Stãnescu

Black snow was falling. The tree line
shone when I turned to see -
I had wondered long and silent,
alone, trailing memory behind me.

And it seemed the stars, fixed as they were,
ground their teeth, a stiffened nexus,
an infernal machine, tolling
the halted hours of conciousness.

Then, a thick silence descends,
and my every gesture
leaves a comet tail in the heavens.

And I hear evey glance I cast
as it echoes against
some tree.

Child, what were you seeking there,
with your gangly arms and pointed shoulders
on which the wings were barely dry -
black snow drifting in the evening sky.

A horizon howling, far from view,
darting its tongues and anthracite,
dragged me forever down the mute row,
my body, half naked, sliding from sight.

In distances of smoke the town afire,
blazing beneath the planes, a frigid pyre.
We two, forest, what did we do?
Why did they burn you, forest, in a toga of ash -
and the moon no longer passes over you?

From the book "Bas-Relief with Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.

[atomiczombie]

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.


Robert Herrick

[Gina]

The Cold Within
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood--
Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back,
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next one looked cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain,
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game,

Their sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without--
They died from cold within.
-- James Patrick Kinney

[Truly Scrumptious]

There’s a sort of eternity
when we’re in bed together
whether silently you awaken
me with the flat of your hand
or sleep breathing with a small scratch
in your throat, or quietly attach
a bird to the sky I dream
as a way in to my body—

Now you have made me excited
to accept heaven as an idea
inside us, perpetual
waters, because you let yourself
fall from a sky you invented
to a sea I vaulted
when it was small rain
accumulating—My heart drained

there and fills now in time
to sketch in the entire
desert landscape we remember
as an ocean port,
that part of me accepting
your trust, a deep
voluptuous thrust into my hours,
that has no earthly power

but lives in believing you were made for me
to give in to completely,
every entry into you the lip
of water that is in itself scant hope
broken into like sleep
by kisses—Policed in the desert
by a shooting star, we are the subversive
love scratched out of the sky, o my visitor.

~ Jane Miller

[Semantics]

I will love you.
And you will have no say in the matter.
You will be sitting reading. I will step through the wall
and take you by the ears.
Gold Latin will come out of your mouth.
Years will pass.
We will be old.
I will have loved you, against my nature,
no other being worthy,
thrown as I am on my own powers,
alone there.
And as we sit together reading you will say
“Did you really love me?”
And I will be terrified.


-Stan Rice

[SoNotHer]

They say that 'Time assuages'
by Emily Dickinson

They say that "Time assuages"—
Time never did assuage—
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, with age—

Time is a Test of Trouble—
But not a Remedy—
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady—

[SoNotHer]

Sympathy
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats its wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

[SoNotHer]

New Year's
by Dana Gioia

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.
Eternity has festivals enough.
This is the feast of our mortality,
The most mundane and human holiday.

On other days we misinterpret time,
Pretending that we live the present moment.
But can this blur, this smudgy in-between,
This tiny fissure where the future drips

Into the past, this flyspeck we call now
Be our true habitat? The present is
The leaky palm of water that we skim
From the swift, silent river slipping by.

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along—to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

[Truly Scrumptious]

And somewhere,
inside the usual grammar
of morning,

between all the shortest syllables
of clock ring & water boil
egg tap & salt shake

you discover
you are
this body
that loves her

Even though
your finest words are gone
leaving only the smallest bones
the metatarsals
the humble feet
of your love
to beat out their passions
on two rough heels

It happens here
over tea,
sun shoots one flawless arrow
across the tip of your spoon
and into hers
-the way she looks up
over the rim of her cup
one green eye,
then two

& suddenly
all four corners
of your world
meet here;
in the central moon
of your saucer

perfect alchemy

and it is then
that you swap
the ordinary floss
of morning
for a glimpse
of what the love
of this body
will be

~ Chaia Heller

[Kätzchen]

A Beautiful Stranger

At a mirror, naked, pleasing to herself
You really were pretty; let that moment last.
The rose-brown shield of your breasts,
A belly with a black tuft just recently grown.
And they would dress you immediately in languishing
Blouses, slips, wispy robes with trains.
You wore a corset in a fashionable shade of lilac,
On your thighs garters like the straps on armor.
They hung on you layers of ridiculous fabrics
So that you could take part in their theater
of pretended ecstasies, smutty allusions.
A slave; and such you remained in the photograph
Dimmed by emulsion and the coloring of time.
Did you rebel? Yes, it is quite possible.
To know for yourself, not to tell anybody
And from the nothingness of their words,
To protect the wisdom of your mocking body.

And I; am I now liberated
from those rituals, masks, the floodlights of the ball?
Have I escaped the law that draws me
into frozen fashions, half-dead manners?

I would like to save you, beautiful stranger.
Together we depart for eternal meadows.
You are naked again, and fifteen years old.
I take you by the hand, your promised one.
Think that nothing will happen to you
That was suppose to happen,
That you can be different,
That you are your own,
And not arrested by the exactness of fate.

Czeslaw Milosz

[Hollylane]

Phenomenal Woman
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

[mustangjeano]

Why do I like horses. I think I must be mad.
My Mother wasn't horsey--and neither was my Dad.

But the madness hit me early- and it hit me like a curse.
And I've never gotten better. In fact I've gotten worse.

I hardly read a paper- but I know whose sold their horse.
And I wouldn't watch the news-Unless Mr. Ed was on- of course.

One eye's always on the heavens-But my washing waves in vain
As I rush to get the horses in-in case it's gonna rain.

I spend up every cent I've got - on horsey stuff for sure
I buy saddles, bridles, fancy boots- and the I buy some more

I can't sew a button- I don't even try
But I can back a truck and trailer- in the twinkling of an eye

It's jeans and boots that I live in night and day
And that smell of sweaty horses just doesn't wash away

But late at night when all is still- and I've gone to give them hay
I touch their velvet softness and my worries float away

They give a gentle nicker and they nuzzle thru my hair
And I know it's where my heart is-more here than anywhere

author unknown

[SoNotHer]

May the Poe-toaster rise again, and may the Ravens win, win, win.

Alone
By 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—

[Hollylane]

I was going to thank the Edgar Allen Poe portion of that post, but I couldn't separate it from the "Ravens" portion...I'm just sayin'...

[SoNotHer]

Poem In Which Words Have Been Left Out
by Charles Jensen

—The "Miranda Rights," established 1966


You have the right to remain
anything you can and will be.

An attorney you cannot afford
will be provided to you.

You have silent will.
You can be against law.
You cannot afford one.

You remain silent. Anything you say
will be provided to you.

The right can and will be
against you. The right provided you.

Have anything you say be
right. Anything you say can be right.

Say you have the right attorney.
The right remain silent.

Be held. Court the one. Be provided.
You cannot be you.

[adorable]

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued. ~Robert Frost

[Truly Scrumptious]

Loving you is like living
in the war years.
I do think of Bogart & Bergman
not clear who’s who
but still singin’ a long smoky
mood into the piano bar
drinks straight up
the last bottle in the house
while bombs split
outside, a broken world.

A world war going on
but you and I still insisting
in each our own heads
still thinking how
if I could only make some contact
with that woman across the keyboard
we size each other up
yes …

Loving you has this kind of desperation
to it, like do or die, I
having eyed you from the first
time you made the decision to move
from your stool
to live dangerously.

All on the hunch
that in our exchange of photos
of old girlfriends, names
of cities and memories back in the states
the fronts we’ve manned
out here on the continent
all this on the hunch

that this time there’ll be
no need for resistance.

Loving in the war years
calls for this kind of risking
without a home to call our own
I’ve got to take you as you come
to me, each time like a stranger
all over again. Not knowing
what deaths you saw today

I’ve got to take you
as you come, battle bruised
refusing our enemy, fear

We’re all we’ve got. You and I

maintaining
this war time morality
where being queer
and female is as rude
as we can get.

~ Cherrie Moraga

[smouldering]

‎"Before I understood how to open with you, I tried giving you orgasms so I knew I was a good lover.

But now, all I want is your surrender.

I want your heart's pleasure to ripple through your open body and saturate my life with your love.
...
Your body's openness to love's flow draws me into you, and through your heart's surrender I am opened to the love that lives as the universe.

Whether you have an orgasm or not while we make love, your body's trust and devotional openness is my secret doorway to love's deepest bliss."

-David Deida

[adorable]

Originally Posted by smouldering

‎"Before I understood how to open with you, I tried giving you orgasms so I knew I was a good lover.

But now, all I want is your surrender.

I want your heart's pleasure to ripple through your open body and saturate my life with your love.
...
Your body's openness to love's flow draws me into you, and through your heart's surrender I am opened to the love that lives as the universe.

Whether you have an orgasm or not while we make love, your body's trust and devotional openness is my secret doorway to love's deepest bliss."

-David Deida

I LOVE DAVID DEIDA!!!! (Yes, I was yelling.)

[Greco]

Joy and Sorrow


Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine
the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit,
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous,
look deep into your heart and you shall find
it is only that which has given you sorrow
that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow,"
and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

KAHLIL GIBRAN