Poetry

[Captain Indigo !aR10YHrTDg No.1040297]

/lit/, I've been thinking - my knowledge of poetry really is sadly lacking. There's a few poets I'm really into - namely Simon Armitage, Ginsberg and Dylan Thomas - but as a whole I'm very poorly read in poetry, whereas I just devour prose literature constantly.

So, what I want you all to do is take your favorite poet of all time, and post his or her very best work. This way everybody gets to discover new and interesting poets.

Dylan Thomas - "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night".
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Anonymous No.1040303]

Dylan Thomas was the right stuff, yeah.

also try Bukowski, he was a genius poet, and William Carlos Williams.

[Captain Indigo !aR10YHrTDg No.1040336]

>>1040303

Any recommendations for particular works to look out for?

[Anonymous No.1040441]

I'd suggest buying Palgrave's Golden Treasury. It's a collection of English poems starting in the time of Shakespeare and ending with modern poetry. It's a fantastic collection and for a while it was THE collection as well. Anyway have a poem.
Stevie Smith- Not Waving But Drowning
NObody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
and not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Not my favorite poem or poet (I don't have one) but a masterpiece. Also I would recommend Yeats, Auden, Larkin, and Anne Sexton as poets to look into. Specifically "When You Are Old", "Funeral Blues," "This Be the Verse," and "You All Know the Story of the Other Woman." Hope this helps!

[Anonymous No.1040455]

Read Chaucer.

[Anonymous No.1040818]

Bump for poetry.

[Anonymous No.1040834]

Bump because the first page is full of threads made by 15 year olds.

[Anonymous No.1040835]

Reporting in

[Anonymous No.1040842]

Margaret Atwood - You Fit Into Me

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
A fish hook
An open eye

[Anonymous No.1040847]

>implying poetry has as much literary merit as prose

[Anonymous No.1040856]

>>1040847
0/10. Try harder next time, too obvious.

[Anonymous No.1040880]

"The Cat and the Moon"
W.B. Yeats

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

[Anonymous No.1040896]

A sonnet by Edmund Spenser, very formalistic and versatile poet. Mostly known for his longer works, this is from a series of sonnets called "Amoretti." The whole sonnet cycle is lovely, as it thematically follows the changing of the seasons and has a very chronological, linear feel.

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wipèd out likewise.
Not so (quod I); let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

[Anonymous No.1040917]

Here's part III of Seamus Heaney's "Seeing Things." I cannot find the rest of the poem online, so I'm going to have to type this up. Enjoy.

Once upon a time my undrowned father
Walked into our yard. He had gone to spray
Potatoes in a field on the riverbank
And wouldn't bring me with him. The horse-sprayer
Was too big and new-fangled, bluestone might
Burn me in the eyes, the horse was fresh, I
Might scare the horse, and so on. I threw stones
At a bird on the shed roof, as much for
The clatter of the stones as anything,
But when he came back, I was inside the house
And saw him out the window, scatter-eyed
And daunted, strange without his hat,
His step unguided, his ghosthood immanent.
When he was turning on the riverbank,
The horse had rusted and reared up and pitched
Cart and sprayer and everything off balance
So the whole rig went over into a deep
Whirlpool, hoofs, chains, shafts, cartwheels, barrel
And tackle, all tumbling off the world,
And the hat already merrily swept along
The quieter reaches. That afternoon
I saw him face to face, he came to me
With his damp footprints out of the river,
And there was nothing between us there
That might not still be happily ever after.

[Anonymous No.1040918]

Maya Angelou-Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like the moons and like the suns,
with the certainty of tides,
just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you talk it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That i dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.

[Anonymous No.1040929]

Philip Larkin is by far my favorite poet of all time - his use of language, and, especially, his use of enjambment consistently blows me away, he has a dark and negative but also somehow romantic view of life that I love (and really share, tbh) and all in all I can't get enough of his poetry - he says what I think. His most famous poems are probably "This Be The Verse", "Whitsun Weddings", and "Annus Mirabilis." I also particularly love "An Arundel Tomb", "Church Going," "Dockery and Son", "Myxomatosis," and especially "Reasons for Attendance". Check him out. A bunch of his poems (altho not all of them) are posted at http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4865/ so you know check that out.

[Anonymous No.1041035]

Bump for amazing thread.

[Implying !!OwMMiDsuHLo No.1041050]

inb4 some asshole with a trust fund posts Charles Bukowski.

>I, like, I get where he's coming from, man. I get that hurt.

[Anonymous No.1041054]

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

[Anonymous No.1041096]

walt whitman, son

[Anonymous No.1041398]

>>1040834

[Anonymous No.1041430]

i normally recommend bukowski to people that say they hate poetry, but you're already one step past him. give bukowski a shot but don't get sucked in. try john ashbery (especially ashbery), kenneth koch, frank o'hara, ted beggigan, and anselm berrigan. they're a little microcosm (anselm being the son of ted, their styles are way different but they're both great) of the poetry world (new york school, minus anselm) and they're all pretty popular.

if you want to try something more contemporary, look up johannes goransson, matt hart, christian hawkey, zachary schomburg, dorothea lasky, CA Conrad, joshua beckman, and eric baus.

i know that's a lot of names i just threw out there but if you google, you'll find plenty to read by them all over.

good luck, i hope you find something you love.

[Anonymous No.1042952]

Poetry bump.

[Anonymous No.1042959]

I've never gone wrong with a little Galway Kinnell

[Anonymous No.1042984]

"Goodbye, Iowa" by Richard Hugo (Page 123 of Selected Poems)

Once more you've degraded yourself on the road.
The freeway turned you back in on yourself
and you found nothing, not even a good false name.
The waitress mocked you and you paid your bill
sweating in her glare. You tried to tell her
how many lovers you've had. Only a croak came out.
Your hand shook when she put hot coins in it.
Your face was hot and you ran face down to the car.

Miles you hated her. Then you remembered what
the doctor said: really a hatred of self. Where
in flashes of past, the gravestone
you looked for years and never found, was there
a dignified time? Only when alone,
those solitary times with sky gray as a freeway.

And now you are alone. The waitress
will never see you again. You often pretend
you don't remember people you do. You joke back
spasms of shame from a night long ago.
Splintered glass. Bewildering blue swirl
of police. Light in your eyes. Hard questions.
Your car is cruising. You cross with ease
at 80 the state line and the state you are entering
always treated you well.

[Anonymous No.1042991]

"Strange Thanksgiving" by Tess Gallagher (Page 41 of Moon Crossing Bridge)

I don't know anyone at the table except
the friend who's brought me, who knows only
the host and hostess. I perch on my chair
like an egret, snowy and attentive. The man
to my left is the youngest son of an onion farmer.
The crop this year was ruined by rain.
His wrist is speckled blue from painting his
girlfriend's Chevy last night. We talk
about his hobby, building underwater cars. He
drove one off a dock into a lake. Nice
to putt around under the ducks, then wheel
on shore and go for burgers. Our host

draws up a chair, offers three kinds of pie.
He plays vicious squash to stay ahead of his bad
back. His wife will be near-dead
on the bathroom floor from swallowing pills
a few short nights away. But things
are holding now. Even that crumb at the edge of
my friend's mouth. I reach up
as if we're man and wife and brush it
away, unconscious tenderness letting my hand
graze for a moment my own love's face
and so, submerged, fall heavily to sea in the homely
clatter of plates lifted suddenly

away. We're stalled out and anxious
in the chitchat before the hearth. Soon
into our coats and thank-yous. Getting to the car
down a fresh bank of snow, I steady myself
on my friend's sure grip. The rid home is better
than sleep, initialled over with afterthoughts we speak
out loud in that half-heard, half-said way -- yet easy
to feel rescued by his debonair steering through
the unacknowledged coma of side streets. His intimacy
to know I'm beyond accompaniment and already
home, dividing myself with approach
like two moon-bright windows, seen after dark, across a field.

[Anonymous No.1042996]

Ginsberg, "Howl" of course with "Footnote to Howl." Stereotypical, sure, but it really is his best poem, and the best poem of all time. It's the perfect, piercing poetic summation of everything the soul finds in life. Everything's there, everything's in it. "Kaddish" is just ("just," hah) a really, really nice elegy and little modernist play-with-religious-tropes.

If you like Ginsberg, by the way, you'll like Auden. Their styles are pretty different, but their concerns and constant themes are the same: sex, politics, and the experience of the individual faced with the 20th century. The stuff that matters.

[Anonymous No.1042999]

"Love Poem" by Peter Viereck (Page 20 of Terror and Decorum)

We are the satraps of a sinking season.
Our year's a Ferris Wheel, whose guests we are,
Before I rise again, I must fall far.

But not with you. Our snow-time aches with treason,
At wheel's deep dip when soil gapes nearest bone,
Then you'll stand up,
force doors,
fall out alone.

[Anonymous No.1043006]

"Audubon: A Vision. I. Was Not the Lost Dauphin. [E]" by Robert Penn Warren (Page 133 of Selected Poems)

The sons come in from the night, two, and are
The sons she would have. Through slit lids
He watches. Thinks: "Now."

The sons
Hunker down by the fire, block the firelight, cram food
Into their large mouths, where teeth
Grind in hot darkness, their breathing
Is heavy like sleep, he wants to sleep, but
The head of the woman leans at them. The heads
Are together in firelight.

He hears the jug slosh.

Then hears,
Like the whisper and whish of silk, that other
Sound, like a sound of sleep, but he does not
Know what it is. Then knows, for,
Against firelight, he sees the face of the woman
Lean over, and the lips purse sweet as to bestow a kiss, but
This is not true, and the great glob of spit
Hangs there, glittering, before she lets it fall.

The spit is what softens like silk the passage of steel
On the fine-grained stone. It whispers.

When she rises, she will hold it in her hand.

[Anonymous No.1043090]

Bumping.

[Anonymous No.1043149]

>>1040297
A friend of my family read that at his dad's funeral - it was one of the most moving things I've seen.

>>1040917
We had to study Seamus Heaney at school. I'm not sure why they thought unrelenting bleakness would appeal to 12-year-olds. Damn Dan Taggart's eyes.

>>1040929
"They fuck you up, your mum and dad" is an excellent opening line - pretty much all I knew of Larkin. Thanks for reminding me of his existence.

My suggestion is The Prose of the Transsiberian and of Little Jeanne of France by Blaise Cendrars. I know him better for his novels than his poetry, but this preserves his panicky, modernist style. It's an account of his journey from Moscow to the site of the Russo-Japanese war that he actually made when he was 16. It's too long to post here, so here's a link - http://faculty.dwc.edu/wellman/CENDRARS.html

[Anonymous No.1043157]

"Zola" by Edwin Arlington Robinson
"Life" by Charlotte Bronte

[Anonymous No.1043271]

Has to be Goethe.

Der König in Thule

Es war ein König in Thule,
Gar treu bis an das Grab,
Dem sterbend seine Buhle
einen goldnen Becher gab.

Es ging ihm nichts darüber,
Er leert' ihn jeden Schmaus;
Die Augen gingen ihm über,
So oft er trank daraus.

Und als er kam zu sterben,
Zählt' er seine Städt' im Reich,
Gönnt' alles seinen Erben,
Den Becher nicht zugleich.

Er saß beim Königsmahle,
Die Ritter um ihn her,
Auf hohem Vätersaale,
Dort auf dem Schloß am Meer.

Dort Stand der alte Zecher,
Trank letzte Lebensglut,
Und warf den heiligen Becher
Hinunter in die Flut.

Er sah ihn stürzen, trinken
Und sinken tief ins Meer,
die Augen täten ihm sinken,
Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr.

[Anonymous No.1043276]

>>1043271

The King in Thule

There was a king in Thule,
So faithful to the grave.
His love, when she was dying,
a goblet of gold him gave.

He used to love it deeply,
And always drank from it.
His eyes they filled with tears
Whenever he emptied it.

And when his time to die came
He counted all his wealth,
And everything gave to his heirs,
But only kept that cup.

He sat at the royal banquet,
With all his knights around,
In his forefathers' lofty hall
There in his castle by the sea.

There stood the old carouser,
And drank life's final glow,
Then threw the holy goblet far
Deep down into the waves.

He watched it fall, and drinking
it sank into the sea.
He closed his eyes forever,
And never drank a drop.

[Anonymous No.1043291]

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer up in this bitch

Alles war ein Spiel
In diesen Liedern suche du
Nach keinem ernsten Ziel!
Ein wenig Schmerz, ein wenig Lust,
Und alles war ein Spiel.

Besonders forsche nicht danach,
Welch Antlitz mir gefiel,
Wohl leuchten Augen viele drin,
Doch alles war ein Spiel.

Und ob verstohlen auf ein Blatt
Auch eine Träne fiel,
Getrocknet ist die Träne längst,
Und alles war ein Spiel.


Unruhige Nacht
Heut ward mir bis zum jungen Tag
Der Schlummer abgebrochen,
Im Herzen ging es Schlag auf Schlag
Mit Hämmern und mit Pochen.

Als trieb sich eine Bubenschar
Wild um in beiden Kammern,
Gewährt hat, bis es Morgen war,
Das Klopfen und das Hammern.

Nun weist es sich bei Tagesschein,
Was drin geschafft die Rangen:
Sie haben mir im Herzensschrein
Dein Bildnis aufgehangen!

[Anonymous No.1043338]

Eichendorff
Der Letzte Gruss

Ich kam vom Walde hernieder,
Da stand noch das alte Haus,
Mein Liebchen, sie schaute wieder
Wie sonst zum Fenster hinaus.

Sie hat einen andern genommen,
Ich war draußen in Schlacht und Sieg,
Nun ist alles anders gekommen,
Ich wollt, 's wär wieder erst Krieg.

Am Wege dort spielte ihr Kindlein,
Das glich ihr recht auf ein Haar,
Ich küßt's auf sein rotes Mündlein:
"Gott segne dich immerdar!"

Sie aber schaute erschrocken
Noch lange Zeit nach mir hin,
Und schüttelte sinnend die Locken
Und wußte nicht, wer ich bin. -

Da droben hoch stand ich am Baume,
Da rauschten die Wälder so sacht,
Mein Waldhorn, das klang wie im Traume
Hinüber die ganze Nacht.

Und als die Vögelein sangen
Frühmorgens, sie weinte so sehr,
Ich aber war weit schon gegangen,
Nun sieht sie mich nimmermehr!

[Anonymous No.1043557]

>George Tsongas - the states

it's an
amazing
place, where
no-one enjoys

life

but they
all want
to live

forever

[Anonymous No.1043800]

[Lying in bed I think about you]

BY JOSHUA BECKMAN

Lying in bed I think about you,
your ugly empty airless apartment
and your eyes. It’s noon, and tired
I look into the rest of the awake day
incapable of even awe, just
a presence of particle and wave,
just that closed and deliberate
human observance. Your thin fingers
and the dissolution of all ability. Lay
open now to only me that white body,
and I will, as the awkward butterfly,
land quietly upon you. A grace and
staying. A sight and ease. A spell
entangled. A span. I am inside you.
And so both projected, we are now
part of a garden, that is part of a
landscape, that is part of a world
that no one believes in.

[Captain Indigo !aR10YHrTDg No.1043956]

Bumping this because there's fantastic suggestions here and I'm currently working through some of them.

[Anonymous No.1043967]

Macaulay - Lays of Ancient Rome

esp. Horatius

Too long to post here, see
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/847/847-h/847-h.htm#2H_4_0001

[Anonymous No.1044327]

Bump for poetry.

[Anonymous No.1044332]

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

[Anonymous No.1044337]

My favorite single volume is Ted Hughes's Crow, but I think you kinda have to read the whole thing. Taken on their own, they're not as incredible.

Crow Blacker Than Ever

When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven,
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing heaven and earth together-

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank-
A horror beyond redemption.

The agony did not diminish.

Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony

Grew.

Crow

Grinned

Crying: "This is my Creation,"

Flying the black flag of himself.

[Anonymous No.1044672]

bump for great thread.

[Anonymous No.1044887]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_%28Byron%29

[Anonymous No.1045270]

bump

[Anonymous No.1046064]

Poetry bump.

[Anonymous No.1046711]

Die Lorelei
Heinrich Heine (1799 - 1856)

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
In Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh'.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei getan.

[Anonymous No.1046714]

>>1046711

The Loreley

I know not if there is a reason
Why I am so sad at heart.
A legend of bygone ages
Haunts me and will not depart.

The air is cool under nightfall.
The calm Rhine courses its way.
The peak of the mountain is sparkling
With evening's final ray.

The fairest of maidens is sitting
Unwittingly wondrous up there,
Her golden jewels are shining,
She's combing her golden hair.

The comb she holds is golden,
She sings a song as well
Whose melody binds an enthralling
And overpowering spell.

In his little boat, the boatman
Is seized with a savage woe,
He'd rather look up at the mountain
Than down at the rocks below.

I know the waves will devour
The boatman and boat as one;
And this by her song's sheer power
Fair Lorelei has done.

[Captain Indigo !aR10YHrTDg No.1047039]

Found an amazing one yesterday, Mein Kampf by David Lerner. It's pretty long so here's a link:

http://outlawpoetry.com/2008/09/04/david-lerner-mein-kampf/

[crimson No.1047068]

while e.e. cummings isn't my favorite poet, i really enjoy this one "anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
with by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

[Anonymous No.1047145]

Garcia Lorca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCZB85OE8Bg

Spanish version is first then read in English

[Anonymous No.1047417]

Bump because it's better than tripfag shit.

[Anonymous No.1047431]

My Erotic Double

BY JOHN ASHBERY

He says he doesn’t feel like working today.
It’s just as well. Here in the shade
Behind the house, protected from street noises,
One can go over all kinds of old feeling,
Throw some away, keep others.
The wordplay
Between us gets very intense when there are
Fewer feelings around to confuse things.
Another go-round? No, but the last things
You always find to say are charming, and rescue me
Before the night does. We are afloat
On our dreams as on a barge made of ice,
Shot through with questions and fissures of starlight
That keep us awake, thinking about the dreams
As they are happening. Some occurrence. You said it.

I said it but I can hide it. But I choose not to.
Thank you. You are a very pleasant person.
Thank you. You are too.

[African Poet, You know it!!!!!! 867-5309 No.1047683]

This here's a tale for all the fellas
Try to do what those ladies tell us
Get shot down cause you're over zealous
Play hard to get an females get jealous
Ok smartie, go to a party
Girls are stancin the crowd is showin body
A chick walks by you wish you could sex her
But you're standin on the wall like you was Poindexter
Next days function, high class luncheon
Food is served and you're stone cold munchin'
Music comes on, people start to dance
But then you ate so much you nearly split your pants
A girl starts walkin, guys start gawkin'
Sits down next to you and starts talkin'
Says she wanna dance cus she likes the groove
So come on fatso and just bust a move

You're on a mission and you're wishin'
someone could cure you're lonely condition
You're lookin for love in all the wrong places
Not fine girls just ugly faces
From frustration first inclination
Is to become a monk and leave the situation
But every dark tunnel has a lighter hope
So don't hang yourself with a celibate rope
New movie's showin... so you're goin
Could care less about the five you're blowin
Theatre gets dark just to start the show
When you spot a fine woman sittin in the front row
She's dressed in yellow, she says "Hello,
Come sit next to me you fine fellow"
You run over there without a second to loose
And what comes next, hey bust a move

[African Poet, You know it!!!!!! 867-5309 No.1047688]

In the city ladies look pretty
Guys tell jokes so they can seem witty
Tell a funny joke just to get some play
Then you try to make a move and she says "no way"
Girls a fakin' ... goodness sakin'
They want a man who brings home the bacon
Got no money and you got no car
Then you got no woman and there you are
Some girls are sophistic... materialistic
Looking for a man makes them opportunistic
They're lyin on the beach perpetratin a tan
So that a brother with money can be their man
So on the beach you're strollin'... real high-rollin'
Everything you have is your's and not stolen
A girl runs up with somethin to prove
So don't just stand there, bust a move

[African Poet, You know it!!!!!! 867-5309 No.1047691]

Your best friend Harry has a brother Larry
In five days from now he's gonna marry
He's hopin you can make it there if you can
'Cause in the ceremony you'll be the best man
You say "neato"... check your libido
And roll to the church in your new tuxedo
The bride walks down just to start the wedding
And there's one more girl you won't be getting
So you start thinkin, then you start blinkin
A bride maid looks and thinks that you're winkin
She thinks you're kinda cute so she winks back
And now you're feelin really fine cus the girl is stacked
Reception's jumpin, bass is pumpin
Look at the girl and your heart starts thumpin
Says she wants to dance to a different groove
Now you know what to do g, bust a move

[Anonymous No.1048610]

La Beauté— Charles Baudelaire

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J'unis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,
Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,
Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études;

Car j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,
De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!

[Anonymous No.1048613]

>>1048610

Beauty

I'm fair, O mortals, as a dream of stone;
My breasts whereon, in turn, your wrecks you shatter,
Were made to wake in poets' hearts alone
A love as indestructible as matter.

A sky-throned sphinx, unknown yet, I combine
The cygnet's whiteness with a heart of snow.
I loathe all movement that displaces line,
And neither tears nor laughter do I know.

Poets before my postures, which I seem
To learn from masterpieces, love to dream
And there in austere thought consume their days.

I have, these docile lovers to subject,
Mirrors that glorify all they reflect —
These eyes, great eyes, eternal in their blaze!

>more English translations of this poem here:
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/116

[Anonymous No.1048672]

Suicide in the Trenches- Siegfried Sassoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSprrAkBkGE&playnext=1&videos=Sphm0uQIq-8

Death of The Ball Turret Gunner- Randall Jarrell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNocWjBqA-8&playnext=1&videos=hiwqOihTqwo

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead- Charles Sorley:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDFm1rvuALA

Dreamers- Siegfried Sassoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpPKly2Pc8o

The Dug Out-
Siegfried Sassoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-_HELBuz3w

Miss Me But Let Me Go - Unk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c0ts3h2vRc

How to Kill- Keith Douglas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AgpKTp5JZ4

Time Eating- Keith Douglas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0nmHiWc5ns

[Anonymous No.1049400]

For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

[Anonymous No.1049702]

some good suggestions here!

[Anonymous No.1050581]

bump for poetry

[Anonymous No.1050699]

>>1050581

[Anonymous No.1050705]

A Study of Reading Habits - Philip Larking

When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later, with inch-thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my coat and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark.
The women I clubbed with sex!
I broke them up like meringues.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.

[Anonymous No.1050715]

SCARY, NO SCARY BY ZACHARY SCHOMBURG

One night, when
you return to your childhood
home after

a lifetime away,
you'll find it
abandoned. Its

paint will be
completely weathered.

It will have
a significant westward lean.

There will be
a hole in its roof
that bats fly
out of.

The old man
hunched over
at the front door
will be prepared
to give you a tour,
but first he'll ask
Scary, or no scary?

You should say
No scary.

[Anonymous No.1051401]

>>Funeral Hymn - Walter Scott
>>From the novel Ivanhoe.

Dust unto dust,
To this all must;
The tenant hath resign'd
The faded form To waste and worm—
Corruption claims her kind.

Through paths unknown
Thy soul hath flown,
To seek the realms of woe,
Where fiery pain
Shall purge the stain
Of actions done below.

In that sad place,
By Mary's grace,
Brief may thy dwelling be
Till prayers and alms,
And holy psalms,
Shall set the captive free.

[Anonymous No.1051459]

One of my favorite poets, her confessional poetry is genius.

The Eye-Mote by Sylvia Plath


Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,

Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.

Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week:
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.

What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.

[Anonymous No.1051556]

contemporary poetry ground zero:

ronsilliman.blogspot.com

[Anonymous No.1051929]

The Mother
-Gwendolyn Brooks

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

[Anonymous No.1052210]

>>1050581

[Anonymous No.1052212]

Try William Blake, particularly Songs of Innocence & Experience. Compare the poems and fall in love.

[Captain Indigo !aR10YHrTDg No.1053385]

Bumping because it beats the hell out of misogynistic bawwwwwwing.

[Anonymous No.1053399]

I dunno, I kinda like Wislawa Szymborska. A more recent poet that's pretty sweet.

Here's my favorite poem of all time, by Wilfred Owen:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[Jerks !!USHZtxsn4gh No.1053402]

Tempted to post Keats' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' if only for the 'Beauty is truth' line, but I thought I'd go with Auden.

Here's a recording of a reading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q__Z185H8I

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

[Jerks !!USHZtxsn4gh No.1053405]

>>1053402
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

[Jerks !!USHZtxsn4gh No.1053421]

My favourite poem by Auden is actually a word-setting, or rather, a poem that was dedicated to Britten as a word-setting.

I found a half-decent recording on youtube, but Rutter's conducting and he's an indulgent man, so the first movement is really slow and languid- more than I think Britten would have approved of. He makes up for it by making the second movement a bit too fast, and the third movement is pretty much almost right.

Anyway, the words are in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyB7_2RnS4

[Anonymous No.1053814]

Poetry bump.

[ISC !!QmXNqgmBFwG No.1053837]

Off-shore, by islands hidden in the blood
jewels & miracles, I, Maximus
a metal hot from boiling water, tell you
what is a lance, who obeys the figures of
the present dance

1
the thing you’re after
may lie around the bend
of the nest (second, time slain, the bird! the bird!
And there! (strong) thrust, the mast! flight
(of the bird
o kylix, o
Antony of Padua
sweep low, o bless

the roofs, the old ones, the gentle steep ones
on whose ridge-poles the gulls sit, from which they depart,

And the flake-racks
of my city!

[ISC !!QmXNqgmBFwG No.1053839]

>>1053837

2
love is form, and cannot be without
important substance (the weight
say, 58 carats each one of us, perforce
our goldsmith’s scale

feather to feather added
(and what is mineral, what
is curling hair, the string
you carry in your nervous beak, these

make bulk, these, in the end, are
the sum

(o my lady of good voyage
in whose arm, whose left arm rests
no boy but a carefully carved wood, a painted face, a schooner!
a delicate mast, as bow-sprit for

forwarding

[ISC !!QmXNqgmBFwG No.1053843]

>>1053839

3
the underpart is, though stemmed, uncertain
is, as sex is, as moneys are, facts!
facts, to be dealt with, as the sea is, the demand
that they be played by, that they only can be, that they must
be played by, said he, coldly, the
ear!

By ear, he sd.
But that which matters, that which insists, that which will last,
that! o my people, where shall you find it, how, where, where shall you listen
when all is become billboards, when, all, even silence, is spray-gunned?

when even our bird, my roofs,
cannot be heard

when even you, when sound itself is neoned in?

when, on the hill, over the water
where she who used to sing,
when the water glowed,
black, gold, the tide
outward, at evening

when bells came like boats
over the oil-slicks, milkweed
hulls

And a man slumped,
attentionless,
against pink shingles

o sea city)

[ISC !!QmXNqgmBFwG No.1053846]

>>1053843

4
one loves only form,
and form only comes
into existence when
the thing is born

born of yourself, born
of hay and cotton struts,
of street-pickings, wharves, weeds
you carry in, my bird

of a bone of a fish
of a straw, or will
of a color, of a bell
of yourself, torn

[ISC !!QmXNqgmBFwG No.1053851]

>>1053846

5
love is not easy
but how shall you know,
New England, now
that pejorocracy is here, how
that street-cars, o Oregon, twitter
in the afternoon offend
a black-gold loin?

how shall you strike,
o swordsman, the blue-red black
when, last night, your aim
was mu-sick, mu-sick, mu-sick
And not the cribbage game?

(o Gloucester-man,
weave
your birds and fingers
new, your roof-tops,
clean shit upon racks
sunned on
American
braid
with others like you, such
extricable surface
as faun and oral,
satyr lesbos vase

o kill kill kill kill kill
those
who advertise you
out)

[ISC !!QmXNqgmBFwG No.1053854]

>>1053851

6
in! in! the bow-sprit, bird, the beak
in, the bend is, in, goes in, the form
that which you make, what holds, which is
the law of object, strut after strut, what you are, what you must be, what
the force can throw up, can, right now hereinafter erect,
the mast, the mast, the tender
mast!
The nest, I say, to you, I Maximus, say
under the hand, as I see it, over the waters
from this place where I am, where I hear,
can still hear

from where I carry you a feather
as though, sharp, I picked up
in the afternoon delivered you
a jewel,
it flashing more than a wing,
than any old romantic thing,
than memory, than place,
than anything other than that which you carry
than that which is,
call it a nest, around the head of, call it
the next second
than that which you
can do!

Charles Olson - "I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You" from The Maximus Poems

[Anonymous No.1053858]

bump

keep 'm coming!

[Anonymous No.1053891]

Wilhelm Müller - Der Leiermann

Drüben hinterm Dorfe
Steht ein Leiermann
Und mit starren Fingern
Dreht er, was er kann.

Barfuß auf dem Eise
Schwankt er hin und her
Und sein kleiner Teller
Bleibt ihm immer leer.

Keiner mag ihn hören,
Keiner sieht ihn an,
Und die Hunde brummen
Um den alten Mann.

Und er läßt es gehen
Alles, wie es will,
Dreht und seine Leier
Steht ihm nimmer still.

Wunderlicher Alter,
Soll ich mit dir geh'n?
Willst zu meinen Liedern
Deine Leier dreh'n?

[Anonymous No.1053896]

>>1053891
>>1053891
The hurdy-gurdy-man

There, behind the village,
stands a hurdy-gurdy-man,
And with numb fingers
he plays the best he can.

Barefoot on the ice,
he staggers back and forth,
And his little plate
remains ever empty.

No one wants to hear him,
no one looks at him,
And the hounds snarl
at the old man.

And he lets it all go by,
everything as it will,
He plays, and his hurdy-gurdy
is never still.

Strange old man,
shall I go with you?
Will you play your hurdy-gurdy
to my songs?

[Anonymous No.1053899]

>>1053891
& remixed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pze4NxCOjg0

[Anonymous No.1053920]

>>1053896
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yWZcsgwF8

[Anonymous No.1053936]

>>1053920
how can a voice like that come out of such a small guy?

[Anonymous No.1053948]

>>1053920
yeah I'm aware of that song, but that is more likely a donovan cover, no?

at least these guys stay close to the Muller lyrics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPoKJlb2SrY

[Anonymous No.1053954]

>>1053948
I was just trolling. Yeah, it's a Donovan cover.

[Anonymous No.1055136]

bump for poetry

[Anonymous No.1055162]

National Trust
by Tony Harrison
Random House, New York, 1987.


Bottomless pits. There's one in Castleton,
and stout upholders of our law and order
one day thought its depth worth wagering on
and borrowed a convict hush-hush from his warder
and winched him down; and back, flayed, grey, mad, dumb.

Not even a good flogging made him holler!

O gentlemen, a better way to plumb
the depths of Britain's dangling a scholar,
say, here at the booming shaft at Towanroath,
now National Trust, a place where they got tin,
those gentlemen who silenced the men's oath
and killed the language that they swore it in.

The dumb go down in history and disappear
and not one gentleman 's been brought to book:

*Mes den hep tavas a-gollas y dyr*

(Cornish) -
'the tongueless man gets his land took.'

###

[Anonymous No.1055168]

(Harrison manages to cram a whole lot of fluency and plain speech into a 16-line sonnet; the diction is so straightforward that it's easy to miss how strictly it's rhymed and metered. And I love "those gentlemen who silenced the men's oath/And killed the language that they swore it in.")

[Anonymous No.1055981]

Bumping because all the other posts on /lit/ right now suck

[Anonymous No.1056847]

>>1055981
>>1055981

[Anonymous No.1056879]

Ok, he's not a favorite of mine anymore, but god damn I loved how Bukowski had those "punchlines" at the end of so many of his poems, and this one still remains one of my favorite poems ever:

Some People by Charles Bukowski

some people never go crazy.
me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch
for 3 or 4 days.
they'll find me there.
it's Cherub, they'll say, and
they pour wine down my throat
rub my chest
sprinkle me with oils.

then, I'll rise with a roar,
rant, rage -
curse them and the universe
as I send them scattering over the
lawn.
I'll feel much better,
sit down to toast and eggs,
hum a little tune,
suddenly become as lovable as a
pink
overfed whale.

some people never go crazy.
what truly horrible lives
they must lead.

[Anonymous No.1056883]

And one by e.e. cummings for the same reason

nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added

my Uncle Sol's farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who'd given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and

i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my uncle
Sol

and started a worm farm)