Cool Poetry Thread

[Falada]

Hey, all. I am very fond of poetry. It gets stuck in my head the same way songs do, and it sounds even better than songs when recited dramatically in the shower.

Anyway, I think a thread for the sharing of cool poems is in order so that we can all revel in each other's good taste. Post your favorite poem, an interesting poem, or just a cool poem, with all due credit given and copyrights respected for the author.

[Falada]

A short one, but one that has always captured a particular feeling perfectly for me, "Down" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

[Godfather]

Dylan Thomas - Twenty-four Years

Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
(Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)
In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor
Sewing a shroud for a journey
By the light of the meat-eating sun.
Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun.
With my red veins full of money,
In the final direction of the elementary town
I advance for as long as forever is.

[Rivana]

"Dark hills at evening in the west,
Where sunset hovers like a sound
Of golden horns that sang to rest
Old bones of warriors under ground,
Far now from all the bannered ways
Where flash the legions of the sun,
You fade -- as if the last of days
Were fading, and all wars were done."

The Dark Hills from the collection The Three Taverns
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

//It sat on a poster in my old english home-room and I memorized it because it was such a lovely little poem (and because I was bored quite often).

[dahmnait]

You should check out the Rate-A-Poem Index (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24245). There are some great poems in there too. :)

[poetinahat]

This Be the Verse
Philip Larkin

They fvck 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 fvcked 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.

[Bret]

A CandleLion Poem

Turn a candle inside out
and you've got the smallest
portion of a lion standing
there at the edge of the
shadows.

-Richard Brautigan

[Stew21]

The Power of My Speeching
by TrumanCoyote

Why is?: a rock a rock
and not a chair,
when it's him I'm sitting on?
And then why's it not a door,
when it stands in water's way?

And that stream a stream,
though it keeps my food
all splishing-splashing cool and clean?
Sounds like a 'fridge, to me.

But then it's strange enough
to say the sun rises,
as if it wipes its booger-eyes,
swears at the clock and farts,
then climbs
up into the sky, personified.

Can't we just say
it's been spun upon?

No, no, but that's all too scary,
I think,
to skip a chair across the face
of my running G.E. 'fridge.
No. I'm taught, like most,
to like life as it is.
__________________

[dahmnait]

To add on to Trish's post check out the Calling Card (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23161) thread and Absolute's Poets' Collections (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30943). There are some amazing poets on this board.

[Stew21]

I was thinking similarly Tammy. I was thinking of some of my favorite AW poems and this would be a great thread to revive them. We have some incredibly talented, very cool poets here!

[ddgryphon]

The Addict
By Anne Sexton

Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!

Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour balls.
I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit
it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-
blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,
hauled away by the pink, the orange,
the green and the white goodnights.
I'm becoming something of a chemical
mixture.
that's it!

My supply
of tablets
has got to last for years and years.
I like them more than I like me.
It's a kind of marriage.
It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside
of myself.

Yes
I try
to kill myself in small amounts,
an innocuous occupation.
Actually I'm hung up on it.
But remember I don't make too much noise.
And frankly no one has to lug me out
and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.
I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie
eating my eight loaves in a row
and in a certain order as in
the laying on of hands
or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony
but like any other sport
it's full of rules.
It's like a musical tennis match where
my mouth keeps catching the ball.
Then I lie on; my altar
elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is
with two pink, two orange,
two green, two white goodnights.
Fee-fi-fo-fum-
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb.