Your Favorite Poems

[journey]

Sex Without Love
? ?
 
How do they do it,
the ones who make love
without love?
Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies,
faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth
whose mothers are going to give them away.
How do they come to the
come to the, come to the
God
come to the still waters,
and not love the one who came there with them,
light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin?
These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God.
They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.


 - Sharon Olds
 
 

[Mauve_All]

The garden

En robe de parade.
Samain

Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.

Ezra Pound

[CheapJon]

a poem that i wrote myself is my favourite one, but it's on swedish so no reason to post it

[journey]

The Missing

the way loss seeps
into neck hollows
and curls at temples
sits between front teeth
cavity
empty and waiting
for mourning to open
the way mourning stays
forever shadowing vision
shaping lives with memory
a drawer won't close
sleep elusive
smile illusive
the only real is grief
forever counting the days
minutes missing without knowing
so that one day
you find yourself
showering tears
missing that love
like sugar
aches teeth

 - Suheir Hammad

[Mauve_All]

The Missing

the way loss seeps
into neck hollows
and curls at temples
sits between front teeth
cavity
empty and waiting
for mourning to open
the way mourning stays
forever shadowing vision
shaping lives with memory
a drawer won't close
sleep elusive
smile illusive
the only real is grief
forever counting the days
minutes missing without knowing
so that one day
you find yourself
showering tears
missing that love
like sugar
aches teeth

 - Suheir Hammad

I just loved that.

[journey]

I just loved that.

Suheir is an amazing poet. Her work is very moving and extrospective.

Glad you liked it.?

[sisterofyu]

Human
   
 
  What is it,
To be human?
Is it that we are not animal?
Not mineral?

Who's to say what is human?
You?
Humans have only fear and doubt.
They cower in fortresses
Brought down by their own kind.
Wasteful, unmindful of others, furthering only their own greed.

If such is human,
Then I am an animal,
Gladly an animal.
To prowl the streets, searching for food
And using all that is nature to curb my every need, my every whim.

What is human?
To lie, steal, cheat.
To live life without really living.

I am an animal.
Born to run free and unfettered by rules or norms.
I am wild as mother earth
Whose only purpose is to exist.
And exist I shall.

Joy Vanderhelm 2005 
 

[MCT]

The Beach

A harsh Northerly breeze enlightens,
Purifying my unfortunate mind.

Seagulls dotted here and there;
Like points on a map you may wish to visit,
This is my small world.

Ships upon the horizon, carrying their poison,
In sight, in mind, out of reach.

Two fortresses stand as they?ve always stood, in defiance
Hulking, rusting, tempting me always
The weather is their enemy now.

When people arrive, tranquillity dies,
So I observe them.

Old people with their complaints
Their dogs and their memories,
Seated on the benches behind the wave break,
Longing to be drowned by the youthful exuberance below.

Brash gaggles of families armed with seaside propaganda
ruin my view.

I?ll come back tonight, and the stars will write for me.

--Kris Thain--

[Mauve_All]

excerpt from "Biographical Insert"
by K. Dimoula
(translation by D. Connolly)

I grew up self-taught listening to the waves
how naturally they move the pebbles.
Secretly listening to the rattle
from the easy crushing
of previous positions.

I translated echos into many foreign errors.
At my own expense I asphalted the pointless
enabling the dirt-crowds to travel dust-free.

I popularized the one into many.
I proved mathematically.

[Mauve_All]

I Made A Mistake
by Charles Bukowski

I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties
and showed them to her and
asked "are these yours?"
and she looked and said,
"no, those belong to a dog."
she left after that and I haven't seen
her since. she's not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes
are still there. I take the Maltese cross
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.

[Doc Emmett Brown]

Progress by Laurie Anderson

She said: What is history?
And he said: History is an angel
being blown backwards into the future

He said: History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel
backwards into the future

And this storm, this storm
is called
Progress

[Doc Emmett Brown]

t isn't the kind of blue you would imagine;
the melancholy suspenders that hold some up.
It is cobalt, the muscular blue that doesn't fold
the kind that comes from heat
the kind from growing old
and knowing where you are from
and knowing where you are going
without those silly denials
that come from rose coloured eyes
~terri lynn~

[sisterofyu]

Coda

There?s little in taking or giving,
  There?s little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
  Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
  The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
  And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
  And rest?s for a clam in a shell,
So I?m thinking of throwing the battle?
  Would you kindly direct me to hell?

Dorothy Parker

[sisterofyu]

Ballad of the Despairing Husband


My wife and I lived all alone,
contention was our only bone.
I fought with her, she fought with me,
and things went on right merrily.

But now I live here by myself
with hardly a damn thing on the shelf,
and pass my days with little cheer
since I have parted from my dear.

Oh come home soon, I write to her.
Go fuck yourself, is her answer.
Now what is that, for Christian word?
I hope she feeds on dried goose turd.

But still I love her, yes I do.
I love her and the children too.
I only think it fit that she
should quickly come right back to me.

Ah no, she says, and she is tough,
and smacks me down with her rebuff.
Ah no, she says, I will not come
after the bloody things you've done.

Oh wife, oh wife -- I tell you true,
I never loved no one but you.
I never will, it cannot be
another woman is for me.

That may be right, she will say then,
but as for me, there's other men.
And I will tell you I propose
to catch them firmly by the nose.

And I will wear what dresses I choose!
And I will dance, and what's to lose!
I'm free of you, you little prick,
and I'm the one to make it stick.

Was this the darling I did love?
Was this that mercy from above
did open violets in the spring --
and made my own worn self to sing?

She was. I know. And she is still,
and if I love her? then so I will.
And I will tell her, and tell her right . . .

Oh lovely lady, morning or evening or afternoon.
Oh lovely lady, eating with or without a spoon.
Oh most lovely lady, whether dressed or undressed or partly.
Oh most lovely lady, getting up or going to bed or sitting only.

Oh loveliest of ladies, than whom none is more fair, more gracious, more beautiful.
Oh loveliest of ladies, whether you are just or unjust, merciful, indifferent, or cruel.
Oh most loveliest of ladies, doing whatever, seeing whatever, being whatever.
Oh most loveliest of ladies, in rain, in shine, in any weather.

Oh lady, grant me time,
please, to finish my rhyme.


Robert Creeley

[sisterofyu]

America
   
 
  America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.

Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world

you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.

People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.

Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back

what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be.

Robert Creeley 
 

[sisterofyu]

The Warning
   
 
  For love-I would
split open your head and put
a candle in
behind the eyes.

Love is dead in us
if we forget
the virtues of an amulet
and quick surprise.

Robert Creeley 
 

[sisterofyu]

The Rain
   
 
  All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quite, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent--
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

Robert Creeley 
 

[journey]

Nice poems, sisterofyu. I especially like Ballad of the Despairing Husband and The Rain.


I Do Not Love You... by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

[BangoSkank]

charles bukowski is one of the greatest i've ever read.

[sisterofyu]

For Men Who Still Consider Sex A Casual Occasion


It's always lust, whether you have some intention

Of making it last or not.

But when has the notion of a lasting passion

Even entered your mind?

And after so many women,

Isn't it obvious there's only one

You've any business doing this with?

Whatever you're looking for--
Harlot, mother, holy sister--

They all end up with the same words on their lips.

For even as you reach that other shore behind their eyes,

You can feel the questions swimming up after

And darting about your ankles

Like shy but famished fish:

"What is it that you see in me? Am I really the one?"

The eyes go on:

"I want the moon, you know.
Do you think you can give me that?

And even as you die inside me

Every time you come,

Is what I give you back then

Enough so you won't resent that?

And what of the smiling child

Who plays like a shadow about my mouth

Whenever you take my hand?

In taking my hand, you are making a promise

To the ones I have come from as much as to me,

And it speaks of all that's in store for us

Though most of that you cannot see.

After all, I'm dying too--

But not for a love any less than this."



Frederic Sibley