poetry

[Ninquelote]

Ach, I promise!

Bleh, I'm too self-concious about my work to share it with strangers in person! If y'know what I mean.

[Miranda]

Hey no pressure but the offer's there- you don't even have to tell people you're name if you don't want to- its a poet's paradise. Mx

[miss_poet]

That was a beautiful poem! It made me cry! I loved it! I have actually gotten 4 poems published, but you are MUCH better than me!

[Miranda]

Originally posted by miss_poet
That was a beautiful poem! It made me cry! I loved it! I have actually gotten 4 poems published, but you are MUCH better than me!

Thankyou Hey major congrats on getting your work published though- I've never tried sending my stuff to a publisher so I don't know whether its market orientated or not- don't think I ever will either. Mx

[miss_poet]

I wrote some REALLY REALLY good poems...I write much better than I used to! One of my friends cried at a poem I wrote!

[Rosie Gamgee]

Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I love Tennyson's Idylls of the King, as well as his poems The Lady Of Shalott, The Two Voices, and Charge Of The Light Brigade.

I love poetry!! I like writing it (though lately I've not been able to do it). If I can find a couple of my poems, I might copy them here for you guys- people, sorry!

[Hasty Ent]

any Charles Bukowksi fans out there? here's a favorite:


The Blackbirds are Rough Today

lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.

shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.

taken by tears like
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere is
nowhere---
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:

why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school---
you tell
me,
you who were a hero in some
revolution
you who teach children
you who drink with calmness
you who own large homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.

we might surely have some interesting
correspondence.
it will keep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.

don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors.

[King of Men]

Wow, your poems are really good all! Here's one of mine, it's untitled so far, so if anyone has any ideas, I'll be glad to hear them.

Before doubt could tap my shoulder
I would have already died 10 thousand deaths
without gentle mercy
so pain could never touch your heart
or your porclien skin so clear.

I would be her slave,
running for hours
so every happiness she could ever want
would be at her soft feet.

No solid wall or evil creature
could keep me from her,
No snake with lethal poison,
No thick forest or wide canyon,
She gives me life, laughter and joy.

I got my inspiration from my friend, I love her so dearly and would do exactly what the poem says for her. Any ideas on how to make it better, or a title? I'm open to any critisism.

[azalea]

I don't know much about poetry, but is a shift in voice like that "acceptable?" I know it's frowned on in prose (in the first stanza you're addressing her, then you shift to talking about her in the third person in the remaining stanzas). Just an observation. (Also, probably a typo, but you spelled "porcelain" wrong).
Otherwise, that's quite a poem -- your friend is lucky to have a friend like you! Have you checked out the Writer's Workshop forum? You might like it. And welcome to Entmoot!

[King of Men]

Thanks for the observation, I guess I got caught up in the whole plot and didn't notice.

[Squirrel Bit]

Before doubt could tap my shoulder I would have already died 10 thousand deaths
without gentle mercy
so pain could never touch your heart
or your porclien skin so clear.

I would be her slave,
running for hours
so every happiness she could ever want
would be at her soft feet.

No solid wall or evil creature
could keep me from her,
No snake with lethal poison,
No thick forest or wide canyon,
She gives me life, laughter and joy.

I wish my friend felt like that about me!! I'm not sure if she does, she hasn't told me. Ya, fix that thing with the switching from 1st person to 3rd... or the other way around. I was never good in English.

[Hanza]

my friend wrote this poem for me just kinda randomly.

Oh, the leaves of the branches
Blew off of the withering trees
Coting the forms of the early-morning
Passers by, with the a golden colour
They thought so bold

The leaves are blown further by the wind
And further and further
Until
But yes,
They have reached there maximum
And as the viewers marvel at their splendour
They forget to realise
That this leaf
oh so vibrant with colour,
is sadly living no more

[sun-star]

*bump* for new poetry lovers.

Post (short) favourite poems here.

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

[Lady Ravyn]

hey cool! thanx, star, i didn't even see this thread before

i love poetry; i write poems quite often (i have a few posted in the some poems thread in the writing forum ) and i read them all the time. my favorite poem is Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy's "Ode, We Are The Music Makers"...

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and the shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an ampire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

[Lady Ravyn]

i have just discovered the poet robert creeley; excellent modern-contemperary poet.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Lady Ravyn

i love poetry; i write poems quite often (i have a few posted in the some poems thread in the writing forum ) and i read them all the time. my favorite poem is Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy's "Ode, We Are The Music Makers"...

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and the shakers
Of the world forever, it seems. [...]

Funny, I looked up this thread to post that exact same poem only to find out you've beaten me to it by 2 months, almost to the day! I've just discovered O'Shaughnessy's 'Ode' and I love the first alinea to bits.

[Lady Ravyn]

lol earniel! great minds think alike

i've also been reading alot of william carlos williams lately; his poems can be cliched, but the way they're written disguises that fact and makes them seem very thoughtful. i like the one in my sig now ("The Act") and i also like "To Flossie"

[Mercutio]

Christina Rossetti

"Amor Mundi"

'Oh where are you going with your lovelocks flowing,
on the west wind blowing along this valley track?'

'The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.'

So they two went together in glowing August weather,
The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;

And dear she was to dote on, her swift feet seemed to float on
The air like soft twin pigeons, too sportive to alight.

'Oh what is that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven,
Where blackest clouds hang even just at the rainy skirt?'

'Oh that's a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,
An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.'

'Oh what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
Their scent comes rich and sickly?' 'A scaled and hooded worm.'

'Oh what's that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?'
'Oh that's a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.'

'Turn again, O my sweetest, - turn again, false and fleetest;
This beaten way thou beatest, I fear, is hell's own track.'

'Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting;
This downhill path is easy, but there's no turning back.'

~
its talking about how easy it is to get on the path to hell & not turn back

On the other hand...
~

"Uphill"

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

~
the answerer in this poem is Christ. (talking about the path to heaven)
We just did these in English class.

[sun-star]

I love that second one, Mercutio

A seasonal poem (though only for those in the same hemisphere as me, I suppose). Read it slowly and savour the dreamy, sensual language.

Ode to Autumn, by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


Autumn is my favourite season

[sun-star]

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold (1822–88)

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-winds, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confus’d alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

*shiver*