your favourite poem/s of all time

How Is Your Heart?
Charles Bukowski

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment—
I wouldn’t call it
happiness—
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.

it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.

to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade—
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror—
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.

what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

Beautiful, Tony! But where are your own poems?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Danik 2016

Beautiful, Tony! But where are your own poems?

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They're still in the personal poetry sections. Oh god, should I kiss the ocean - and then dive into her soft depths and retrieve my poems from the bottom, gasping.

This is a photograph of me by Margaret Atwood


It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

Rather sad, melancholy piece... enjoyed.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

For Jane


225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows.

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.

what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.

(charles bukowski)

This Be The Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They f uck 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 ****ed 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.

“Time of the Mad Atom”

This is the age of the half-read page.

And the quick hash and the mad dash.

The bright night with the nerves tight.

The plane hop and the brief stop.

The lamp tan in a short span.

The Big Shot in a good spot.

And the brain strain and the heart pain.

And the cat naps till the spring snaps—

And the fun’s done!

By Virginia Brasier

For at least 40 years I have believed that to be by Carl Sandburg. I want to believe it was misattributed by the place I first heard it (and not that I had Alzheimer's when I was relatively young).

Hello,SQ, welcome back. Enjoyed the poem.

"The Big Shot in a good spot." Quite up to date!

Ozymandias - Percy Shelley (to be completely honest I had to look up who it was by, I haven't read it for a while). Don't know why. I just really like it.
I just like;

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

most of all. It sticks in my mind, though I usually paraphrase it (had to look up the quote too to be correct)

Great poem :)

Too many for me to nail down at this time... need to mull over.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

p.s. just noticed I posted a few years ago with the same quandary... could prolly add to the list lol.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

I have been loving Rilke lately.

THE PANTHER

His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
And out beyond those bars the empty air.

The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
Is like a dance of strength circling around,
While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.

But there are times the pupils of his eyes
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
Tense with the flood of visions that arise
Only to sink and die within his heart.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bluebiird

Ozymandias - Percy Shelley (to be completely honest I had to look up who it was by, I haven't read it for a while). Don't know why. I just really like it.
I just like;

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

most of all. It sticks in my mind, though I usually paraphrase it (had to look up the quote too to be correct)

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I love Shelley a lot. I love Alastor, or, the spirit of Solitude by him.

Your post of Ozymandias reminds me of Ad Olum, one of my favorite by Stevenson.

Ad Olum
Call me not rebel, though { here at every word
{in what I sing
If I no longer hail thee { King and Lord
{ Lord and King
I have redeemed myself with all I had,
And now possess my fortunes poor but glad.
With all I had I have redeemed myself,
And escaped at once from slavery and pelf.
The unruly wishes must a ruler take,
Our high desires do our low fortunes make:
Those only who desire palatial things
Do bear the fetters and the frowns of Kings;
Set free thy slave; thou settest free thyself.

https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poe...n/ad_olum.html

But in general, William Blake was more philosophically astute.