A Gathering of Poems

[BoSoxGal]

A place to share our favorites - hopefully we have many. Poems - and I think lyrics would be appropriate, too?

I’ll get us started.

Dreams
Langston Hughes - 1902-1967

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Tis all a checker board of nights and days
Where destiny, with men for pieces, plays.
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one, back in the closet lays.

[TPFKA@W]

I think that I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree-I'd
hoped, of course, that there would be
a tree still left for me to see- some lumber firm
from out of town has chopped the whole darned forest down.
I'll show up those dirty skunks-I'll go and write
a poem called "Trunks".

[Big RR]

This is th3 end of a Pablo Neruda poem called "If You Forget Me" by Pablo Neruda; the whole poem is wirth the read, but I love this last stanza:

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

[Bicycle Bill]

I guess this falls under the category of free verse....

And we saw the Northern Lights once,
In the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana.
They're like flames from some prehistoric campfire,
Leaping and dancing in the sky and changing colors.
Red to gold, and blue to violet...

Aurora Borealis.
It's like the equinox, the changing of the seasons.
Summer to fall, young to old, then to now.
And then tomorrow....

And then everyone was asleep, except me.
And as I saw the morning star come up over the mountains,
I realized that life is just a collection of memories.
And memories are like starlight:
they go on forever.

(Shine on, Katherine.   I'll remember...)

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

from Power Politics by Margaret Atwood

[MajGenl.Meade]

I would like to be naive, like my father,
but I was born in captivity: I am not him.
The one who feeds me will betray me.
The one who pets me will kill me.


Yevgeny Yevtushenko
From: Monologue Of A Polar Fox On An Alaskan Fur Farm

[Gob]

To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least not in Wales.
There is the language for instance,
The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night
As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows,
Hushed at the fields' corners.

R S Thomas
Welsh Landscape.

[ex-khobar Andy]

That's How Every Empire Falls

RB Morris wrote this; he, John Prine, Marianne Faithfull (and others) sang it.

Caught a train from Alexandria
Just a broken man in flight
Running scared with his devils
Saying prayers all through the night
Oh but mercy can't find him
Not in the shadows where he calls
Forsaking all his better angels
That's how every empire falls

The bells ring out on Sunday mornng
Like echoes from another time
All our innocence and yearning
And sense of wonder left behind
Oh gentle hearts remember
What was that story? Is it lost?
For when religion loses vision
That's how every empire falls.

He toasts his wife and all his family
The providence he brought to bear
They raise their glasses in his honor
Although this union they don't share
A man who lives among them
Was still a stranger to them all
For when the heart is never open
That's how every empire falls

Padlock the door and board the windows
Put the people in the street
"It's just my job, " he says "I'm sorry."
And draws a check, goes home to eat
But at night he tells his woman
"I know I hide behind the laws."
She says, "You're only taking orders."
That's how every empire falls.

A bitter wind blows through the country
A hard rain falls on the sea
If terror comes without a warning
There must be something we don't see
What fire begets this fire?
Like torches thrown into the straw
If no one asks, then no one answers
That's how every empire falls.

[Big RR]

Andy--what' the name of the poem and the poet? It osunds familiar to me, but I'm not sure.

[Big RR]

Anothe poem of I have liked, this is the last Stanza from Sep 1, 1939 by W HAuden:, a plea for peace


Here Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

He backed away from those sentiments a year later, but they still are valid today.

[BoSoxGal]

The weather here today brings to mind ~

The Rainy Day
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

[Big RR]

Thanks BSG; it's been years since I recall reading that. Good poem.

[BoSoxGal]

A Litany in Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe 1567-1601

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave;
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds open her gate.
"Come, come!" the bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness;
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Haste, therefore, each degree,
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

[BoSoxGal]

"Boys and Girls Together" by Neil Gaiman



Boys don't want to be princes.
Boys want to be shepherds who slay dragons,
maybe someone gives you half a kingdom and a princess,
but that's just what comes of being a shepherd boy
and slaying a dragon. Or a giant. And you don't really
even have to be a shepherd. Just not a prince.


In stories, even princes don't want to be princes,
disguising themselves as beggars or as shepherd boys,
leaving the kingdom for another kingdom,
princehood only of use once the ogre's dead, the tasks are done,
and the reluctant king, her father, needing to be convinced.


Boys do not dream of princesses who will come for them.
Boys would prefer not to be princes,
and many boys would happily kiss the village girls,
out on the sheep-moors, of an evening,
over the princess, if she didn't come with the territory.


Princesses sometimes disguise themselves as well,
to escape the kings' advances, make themselves ugly,
soot and cinders and donkey girls,
with only their dead mothers' ghosts to aid them,
a voice from a dried tree or from a pumpkin patch.
And then they undisguise, when their time is upon them,
gleam and shine in all their finery. Being princesses.
Girls are secretly princesses.


None of them know that one day, in their turn,
Boys and girls will find themselves become bad kings
or wicked stepmothers,
aged woodcutters, ancient shepherds, mad crones and wise-women,
to stand in shadows, see with cunning eyes:
The girl, still waiting calmly for her prince.
The boy, lost in the night, out on the moors.

[Gob]

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron priested shore
The morning beckoned with water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net-webbed wall
Myself to set foot that second
In the still sleeping town and set forth

My birthday began with the water birds
And the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose in a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived
When I took the road over the border
And the gates of the town closed as the town awoke

A springful of larks in a rolling cloud
And the roadside bushes brimming with whistling blackbirds
And the sun of October, summery on the hill's shoulder
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly come in the morning
Where I wandered and listened to the rain wringing wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea-wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle brown as owls

But all the gardens of spring and summer
Were blooming in the tall tales beyond the border
And under the lark full cloud
There could I marvel my birthday away
But the weather turned around
It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples, pears and red currants

And I saw in the turning, so clearly, a child's forgotten mornings
When he walked with his mother through the parables of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice-told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks, and his heart moved in mine
These were the woods the river and the sea
Where a boy in the listening summertime of the dead
Whispered the truth of his joy to the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide
And the mystery sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds
And there could I marvel my birthday away
But the weather turned around
And the true joy of the long dead child sang burning in the sun

It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning

Poem in October
Dylan Thomas

[BoSoxGal]

The River Cannot Go Back
~ Kahlil Gibran


It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

[Bicycle Bill]

“Apex”

The lion tamers wrestle with the lions in a cage,
With but a fragile whip they dare their charges’ feral rage.
They put their heads in tigers’ mouths and do not flinch a grain,
But … they never tried to take a cat five hundred miles to Maine.

You hunters who bring back alive from Afric’s roaring shore
The nilghai and the elephant, the rhino and the boar;
Who load them on a steamer and evince no sign of strain —
Let’s see you drive a cat five hundred miles to Maine.

Go cope with your rhinoceros bare-handed and alone,
Or kick a famished grizzly if for harmless fun you hone,
Or aggravate a timber wolf with pokings of a cane,
But do NOT try to drive a cat five hundred miles to Maine.

There is no word, there is no tongue, there is no ink to tell
One-tenth of what one cat can raise of concentrated hell,
When after two hours’ driving to mistaken qualms you yield
And take poor puss to stretch her limbs in some adjacent field.

And if you’ve done the things set forth in stanzas two and three,
You stand a chance, when Krazy from the leash has wriggled free
(Provided you are clad in steel with hat and gloves to match),
To get her back into the car without a bite or scratch.

Ye lion tamers, naturalists, and big-game hunters eke,
When I’m around be chary of your tendency to speak.
To hear you boast your petty deeds gives me a shooting pain
For I have driven Krazy — whew! — five hundred miles to Maine!
...... lifted shamelessly from 'Our Cat' by Baron Ireland (1934) — all credit or blame is his

-"BB"-

[Bicycle Bill]

When the Lord God made man in the Garden of Eden.
He then said to himself, "There's still something he's needin' "

After casting about for a suitable pearl,
He kept messing around and created a girl.

Two beautiful legs, so long and so slender,
Round, slim, and firm, and ever so tender.

Two lovely hips to increase his desire,
And rounded and firm to bring out the fire.

Two swelling breasts, so full and so proud,
Commanding his eyes, as he whispers aloud.

Two loving arms, just aching to bless you,
And two delicate hands, to soothe and caress you.

Soft, cascading hair hung down over her shoulder,
And two dreamy eyes, just to make him grow bolder.

'Twas made for a man, just to make his heart sing.

Then God added a mouth —
Ruined the whole fucking thing.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

Thanks for the reminder that your posts are not worth reading.