What's your favorite poem?

[SudsyFist 0]

Mostly stuck in the land of dollar signs and legal verbiage, it's rare that I have the opportunity of both time and frame-of-mind to poke my nose into some verse.
But a few nights ago, I suddenly got the urge to read The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, and I was gleefully reminded of all the reasons why it's my all-time fav poem (and why I'm often heard reciting it randomly throughout the day)...
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
...
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
...
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair
...
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
...
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. (!!!!!!!!)
...
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
After all these years... wow...
So, what's yours???
Steve

[FallRate 0]

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

-William Blake
Not the entire poem, but my favorite part. He must have been a mystic, in the tradition of Parmenides perhaps. Don't know, going to work now.
FallRate

[reprobate 0]

Love by Alfred E. Newman
The love of a beautiful maid,
The love of a staunch, true man
The love of a babe, unafraid,
Has existed since time began.
But the most beautiful love,
The love of all loves,
More beautiful than that of a Mother
Is the tender, infinate, passoniate love
Of one drunken bum for another.

[sangiro 26]

Amen! See my post from last year...April I think... for the full poem.
Safe swoops
Sangiro

[sitflyr 0]

That's one of my favorites, too. I also love " 'Terence, This is Stupid Stuff".

[sitflyr 0]

I also like "anyone lived in a little how town".
..."all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish 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"

[flyhi 24]

Can't remember the whole thing, but it starts out:
There once was a man from Nantucket
I think it's either Tennyson or Donne.
flyhi

[sitflyr 0]

Oops! Make that "...pretty how town"

[freeflir29 0]

I always liked the Dr Seus collections...."Here I come to save the BOOBIES!"

[nws01 0]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You are a skydiver
And I am one too.
Blue Skies,
Nathan

[Lindsey 0]

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Ya' know Smack-water Jack he bought a shotgun
'cause he was in the mood for a little con-fron-ta-tion

[Snowbird 0]

Jabberwocky has long been a favourite!
Here's one by Tennyson, one I found recently.
***
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphory font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.
Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

[bbarnhouse 0]

The Fools Prayer
The Royal feast was done; the King
sought some new sport to banish care
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool, kneel now and make for us a prayer"
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
and stood the mocking court before;
they could not see the mocking smile
behind the painted grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
upon the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose; "Oh Lord be merciful to me, a fool!"
"No pity, Lord could change the heart from red with wrong to white as wool......the rod must heal the sin; but,Lord be merciful to me, a fool"
"Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
of truth and right, oh Lord we stay,
tis by our follies that so long we hear the earth from heaven away."
"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
go crushing blossoms without end;
These well meaning hands we thrust,
among the heartstrings of a friend."
"The ill times truth we might have kept-
who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The words we had not sense to say-
who knows how gradually it had rung?"
"Our faults no tenderness should ask,
the chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders- Oh, in shame
before the eyes of heaven we fall."
"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave and scourage the tool, this did his will.
but Thou oh Lord, be merciful to me, a fool!"
The room was hushed; in silence rose the King, and sought his gardens cool, and walked apart, and murmured low, "be merciful to me, a fool!"
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but rather by the moments that take our breath away.

[kingbunky 3]

"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bunky
get crazy, before it gets you.

[skybytch 273]

Quote

"High Flight"

That one just makes me sad now... seen it at too many funerals.
pull & flare,
lisa
"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda sez

[MrHixxx 0]

mine too...
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
wish 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
e.e.cummings

I also like...
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in you most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e.cummings
-Hixxx
"Woman... Wu -mon... Whoa - man! She stole my heart and my cat"

[MrHixxx 0]

I better add this one too, since I virtually live by it. Yes, I am a big e.e. cummings fan...
hixxx
life is more true than reason will deceive
(more secret or than madness did reveal)
deeper is life than lose:higher than have
--but beauty is more each than living’s all
multiplied with infinity sans if
the mightiest meditations of mankind
cancelled are by one merely opening leaf
(beyond whose nearness there is no beyond)
or does some littler bird than eyes can learn
look up to silence and completely sing?
futures are obsolete;pasts are unborn
(here less than nothing’s more than everything)
death, as men call him, ends what they call men
--but beauty is more now than dying’s when
e.e.cummings
"Woman... Wu -mon... Whoa - man! She stole my heart and my cat"

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"That one just makes me sad now"
Me too, the first person I ever knew to die jumping transposed some of those words onto our old clubhouse mural.
Every time I see that poem, I remember 'Big Andy', and I still miss him.
Cya
D
GR# 37
Remember how lucky you are to see and touch the sky; the blind may only dream.

[ltdiver 3]

The Silken Tent
Robert Frost
She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when a sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the the soul
Seems to owe naught to any single cord
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capricousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.
____________________________________________
LightDiverCam

[PhreeZone 20]

I'm a sucker for childern's stories....
Where The Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends
~Shel Sileverstein
Drop the tube...DROP the tube...

[prepheckt 0]

This is my favorite one. I though, I do like prufrock's poem too.
"Invictus"
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scrolls,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."
By William Ernest Henley

[Dumpster 0]

My faverite would first be "High Flight" - I've read that alot in many different places and occasions- Not just funerals -
Next would be "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, and "Jabberwocky" - For some reason the author escapes me at the moment-

[SudsyFist 0]

e.e. cummings rocks! and, as i recall, we have another e.e. fan in our midst... (you know who you are)

Quote

futures are obsolete;pasts are unborn

steve

[reprobate 0]

There is also:
Beer
I fear I shall never hear
a poem as lovely as a beer.
The brew they serve at Joe's on tap,
with its golden base and foamy cap.
The brew I sit and sip all day,
Until my troubles melt away.
MAD lives!

[drenaline 0]

Favorite poem is desiderata.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world...
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
"Life is full of danger, so why be afraid?"
drenaline