Post your favourite Poems

[DavidRoss]

From Beautiful Losers

God is alive, magic is afoot
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is afoot, magic is alive
Alive is afoot, magic never died
God never sickened
Many poor men lied
Many sick men lied
Magic never weakened
Magic never hid
Magic always ruled
God is afoot, God never died
God was ruler
Though his funeral lengthened
Though his mourners thickened
Magic never fled
Though his shrouds were hoisted
The naked God did live
Though his words were twisted
The naked magic thrived
Though his death was published
Round and round the world
The heart did not believe

Many hurt men wondered
Many struck men bled
Magic never faltered
Magic always lead
Many stones were rolled
But God would not lie down
Many wild men lied
Many fat men listened
Though they offered stones
Magic still was fed
Though they locked their coffers
God was always served
Magic is afoot, God is alive
Alive is afoot

Alive is in command
Many weak men hungered
Many strong men thrived
Though they boast of solitude
God was at their side
Nor the dreamer in his cell
Nor the captain on the hill
Magic is alive
Though his death was pardoned
Round and round the world
The heart would not believe

Though laws were carved in marble
They could not shelter men
Though altars built in parliaments
They could not order men
Police arrested magic and magic went with them
Mmmmm.... for magic loves the hungry
But magic would not tarry
It moves from arm to arm
It would not stay with them
Magic is afoot
It cannot come to harm
It rests in an empty palm
It spawns in an empty mind
But magic is no instrument
Magic is the end
Many men drove magic
But magic stayed behind
Many strong men lied
They only passed through magic
And out the other side
Many weak men lied
They came to God in secret
And though they left Him nourished
They would not tell who healed
Though mountains danced before them
They said that God was dead
Though his shrouds were hoisted
The naked God did live
This I mean to whisper to my mind
This I mean to laugh within my mind
This I mean my mind to serve
Til' service is but magic
Moving through the world
And mind itself is magic
Coursing through the flesh
And flesh itself is magic
Dancing on a clock
And time itself
The magic length of God

       --Leonard Cohen

[toledobass]

Can anyone help me out here?  I like this but have not a friggin' clue as to what he's talking about.....

It's by Frank O'hara

ANIMALS
               
               
       Have you forgotten what we were like then
       when we were still first rate
       and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
     
       it's no use worrying about Time
       but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
       and turned some sharp corners
     
       the whole pasture looked like our meal
       we didn't need speedometers
       we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
     
       I wouldn't want to be faster
       or greener than now if you were with me O you
       were the best of all my days
       

[DavidRoss]

Yes, Alan--

It's about the loss of innocence, and it's a wonderful poem.  Who is Frank O'Hara?  I'm not familiar with his work, but this is terrific, resonating both on the personal level (i.e. relating to youth) and on the cosmic (i.e. our species' youth, as in the "Garden of Eden," before we cut ourselves off from God and became fully self-conscious tillers of soil).

Terrific poem--thanks for sharing!

P.S.  I think it's interesting that you claim not to understand it, yet offer it shortly after I reprinted Leonard Cohen's For Anne, which addresses a similar loss in a similar way--though O'Hara's pond and ripples are wider and deeper.

[Kullervo]

I've recently discovered the joy of William Blake's wonderful poetry. Here is one I particularly like:

Eternity

He who binds himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

[Sergeant Rock]

Yes, Alan--

It's about the loss of innocence, and it's a wonderful poem.  Who is Frank O'Hara?

Poet associated both with the Beats and the New York School (Ashberry, Koch, Schuyler etc). Educated at Harvard and U of Michigan, he lived and worked in New York City until his accidental death on Fire Island. (1926-1966).

In this photo he's on the right (Ginsberg in the middle):



I agree with you, David: a fantastic poem. Thanks Allan.

Sarge

[orbital]

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

=Gwendolyn Brooks=

PS - you can hear it from the poet's own voice here:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433

[Chosen Barley]

Thanks, Vandermolen.  I first heard the last line "...and the hunter home from the hill" as a child in some film or other, and I never forgot it.  Pretty atmospheric, the last 2 lines. 

I am not sure I like that poem about the boy, his father and the grenade. I was able to read the Russian version even tho I am not fluent.  Quite a few of the poems here revolve around death one way or the other.  The poem by R.L.S., however, is  satisfied & contented.  The Animals verse, too, speaks to me.   

[pjme]

This (used...)to be a classic in schools .    
Guido Gezelle was perhaps the most important Flemish poet of the nineteenth century. He was priest, schoolteacher, poet and linguist, and translator of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha  into Dutch (1886).

Born in Brugge in 1830, trained for the priesthood at Roeseleare. His poetry expresses his deep love of God in nature. His poetry was originally written in the West-Flemish dialect, but is mainly read nowadays in standard Dutch. Sound, rhythm, onomatopoeia and alliteration are just some of the verse techniques that characterize his work.

The swifts
   'See, see, see,
see! see! see!
see!! see!! see!!
    see!!!
scream the
swifts,
twice, three times
    three,
sweeping and
screeching and
'We, we'll no
    be
beat and no
tail be shown!
Whee, whee! whee!!
    whee!!!'

Peeping and
cheeping and
sleek and quick-
    limbed;
twirling and
whirling as
fleet as the
    wind;
wheeling and
keeling as
keen as a
    dirk,
swooping and
looping in
rings round the
    kirk.

Lower now
floating, then
flashing their
    flights;
higher now
stretching their
wings to the
    heights;
scarcely now
    audible,
hard now to
    see,
ceaselessly
singing a
'We??? we?? we?
    we...'


trans. Harry Lake, c.1985

   
    'Zie,zie,zie,
    zie!zie!zie!
    zie!!zie!!zie!!
    zie!!!'
      tieren de,
      zwaluwen,
      twee-driemaal
          drie,
      zwierende en
      gierende:
      'Niemand,die...
          die
      bieden de
      stiet ons zal!
      Wie,wie?wie??
         wie???'
     
      Piepende en
      kriepende
      zwak en ge-
           zwind;
      haaiende en
      draaiende,
      rap als de
             wind;
      wiegende en
      vliegende,
      vlug op de
          vlerk,
      spoeien en
      roeien ze
      ringsom de
          kerk.
     
      Lege nu
      zweven ze,en
      geven ze
          burcht;
      hoge nu
      hemelt hun'
      vlerke,in de
           lucht:
      amper nog
      hore ik...en,
      die 'k niet en
           zie,
      lijvelijk
      zingen ze:
      'Wie???wie??wie?
           wie...'

[bhodges]

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

=Gwendolyn Brooks=

PS - you can hear it from the poet's own voice here:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433

Too many great poems appearing here to comment on all of them, but this one particularly fascinates me.  Loved hearing Brooks read it (and her intro is pretty amusing, too, including her description of June and comments on the word "jazz"), which echoes how the poem actually looks on the printed page.

--Bruce

[pjme]

And Szymborska ,of course!


Some like poetry

Some--

that means not all.

Not even the majority of all but the minority.

Not counting the schools, where one must,

and the poets themselves, there will be perhaps two in a thousand.

Like--

but one also likes chicken noodle soup,

one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf,

one likes to prove one's point,

one likes to pet a dog.




Poetry--

but what sort of thing is poetry?

More than one shaky answer

has been given to this question.

But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,

as to a saving bannister.

[pjme]

Paul Van Ostayen (1896 - 1928)

  YOUNG LANDSCAPE (1928)

So the two stand almost motionless in the meadow
the girl who hangs straight down on a rope from heaven
puts her long hand on the long straight line of the goat
that bears the earth on its tiny feet inversely
Against her white-and-black checked smock
the girl — in the whimsy of
my solitude I call het Ursula —
holds a poppy high

There are no words as graceful
as the rings in the zebu horns
as tanned by time as a zebu hide -—
shock inside of you their value bare
Such words I'd like to garner to a sheaf
for the girl with the goat

Across the edges of my hands
my hands
feel for my hands
incessantly 


Melopee (1926)

Onder de maan schuift de lange rivier
Over de lange rivier schuift moede de maan
Onder de maan op de lange rivier schuift de kano naar zee

Langs het hoogriet
langs de laagwei
schuift de kano naar zee
schuift met de schuivende maan de kano naar zee
Zo zijn ze gezellen naar zee de kano de maan en de man
Waarom schuiven de maan en de man getweeën gedwee naar de zee 
                           
Melopeia

Under the moon the long river slides by
Above the long river the moon mournfully slides
Under the moon on the long river the canoe slides to the sea

By tall reedbeds
by low meadows
the canoe slides to the sea
with the sliding moon the canoe slides to the sea
Companions then to the sea the canoe the moon and the man
Why do the moon and the man two together slide submissively to the sea 

[DavidRoss]

Poets should know
The meanings of their words,
Not just how they look on the page
Or sound in the wind:

None < some ≤ all.

[toledobass]

Yes, Alan--

It's about the loss of innocence, and it's a wonderful poem.  Who is Frank O'Hara?  I'm not familiar with his work, but this is terrific, resonating both on the personal level (i.e. relating to youth) and on the cosmic (i.e. our species' youth, as in the "Garden of Eden," before we cut ourselves off from God and became fully self-conscious tillers of soil).

Terrific poem--thanks for sharing!

P.S.  I think it's interesting that you claim not to understand it, yet offer it shortly after I reprinted Leonard Cohen's For Anne, which addresses a similar loss in a similar way--though O'Hara's pond and ripples are wider and deeper.

Thanks David,

This poem is also my first encounter with O'Hara.  A friend of mine forwarded this to me thinking I'd enjoy it.  I did understand it on a singular level but somehow I couldn't get passed that to see that it also relates to our species.  That really helps me out and brings the words into sharper focus for me.  Posting after the Cohen is just coincidence.  

Again thanks,

Allan

[Renfield]

I've recently discovered the joy of William Blake's wonderful poetry. Here is one I particularly like:

Eternity

He who binds himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

Blake! I love Blake. Alas, a very apt poem I'd have wanted to quote for this thread is currently en route to the British Isles (in the printed form of it that I own), and I am hard-pressed to quote it from memory... It'll have to wait.

Incidentally, Sarge's new signature made me remember how much I also love Bukowski (presently in my own signature as well).

Therefore, here it is in full, one of my very favourite poems of his, but maybe not for the more obvious among possible reasons:



so you want to be a writer?


if it doesn't come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don't do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don't do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don't do it.

if you're doing it for money or

fame,

don't do it.

if you're doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don't do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don't do it.

if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,

don't do it.

if you're trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.





if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.



if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you're not ready.



don't be like so many writers,

don't be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don't be dull and boring and

pretentious, don't be consumed with self-

love.

the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don't add to that.

don't do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don't do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don't do it.



when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.



there is no other way.



and there never was.




(No, I did not quote this from memory either, but I don't own the collection it comes from to begin with; madness perhaps, but still... )

[Solitary Wanderer]

Before Leonard Cohen was a musician, he was a poet. And he has continued writing poetry. The lyrics to his songs are often excellent poems.

Here's one of the oldies:

Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen

Suzanne takes you down to
her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body
with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body
with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body
with her mind.

Thanks, I enjoyed revisiting that one  

On a very early date with my wife, about 13 years ago, she recited Suzanne to me by candlelight.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

This (used...)to be a classic in schools .    
Guido Gezelle was perhaps the most important Flemish poet of the nineteenth century. He was priest, schoolteacher, poet and linguist, and translator of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha  into Dutch (1886).

Born in Brugge in 1830, trained for the priesthood at Roeseleare. His poetry expresses his deep love of God in nature. His poetry was originally written in the West-Flemish dialect, but is mainly read nowadays in standard Dutch. Sound, rhythm, onomatopoeia and alliteration are just some of the verse techniques that characterize his work.

I have always connected Gezelle with Gerard Manley Hopkins - both adventurous poet-priests, and contemporaries (though unbeknownst to each other). The poem you quote is one of my wife's favourites. And - we live 'in de Guido Gezellelaan'...

[ezodisy]

The problem I have with a lot of poetry, well represented in this thread, is that it is too close to prose, too close to a lazy talking style laid out literally with few or no images. AFAIC it might as well be written as prose if it's going to be put down without images and without an elusive narrative and without a song.

A few from the Columbus of new poetic continents, Velimir Khlebnikov.

We share a single destiny. That yoke
on us lies easy, like our middle names.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The smell of night, inhaling stars
into my frenzied nostrils,
water broken on a bed
of nails, babbling into foam.

A figure passes, you, and on your head
a green turban of dried grass--
I recognise my teacher, your face
burned bonfire black.

And another approaches,
exhausted as all Asia. See?
He holds in his hand
a small red flower.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When horses die, they breathe
When grasses die, they wither,
When suns die, they go out,
When people die, they sing songs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A fist in the face,
that's how I kiss.
Red,
redder
than the rough rowan-berry,
splashing splashes,
a shaft of red,
cherry blossom bough--
split lips.
And the air all howl.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Neva knows the look in those Last Supper eyes.
Here, the blood of saviours
commingled yesterday
with the body of the North
in stale black bread.
Love lies like ashes upon the river,
workingmen's love, a writer's love.

The Neva knows the look
in those Last Supper eyes--
in her cast-iron horses,
the austere stonework
of her Stroganov Palace.

The beds of dried seas
rise as the river's banks.
Cobwebs entangle
the graves of the tsars.
When the triple lamps burn
on the bridges at evening,
the stream runs red.
A kiss on the mouth.

[pjme]

http://belgium.poetryinternationalweb.org

For those who are interested in Belgian poetry, check this website . All poems have an English translation.
The selection of writers focuses mainly on the 20th century - from Karel Van de Woestijne's baroque pessimism, to the cool, "urban-chic" of Stefan Hertmans ...

P.

[Renfield]

The problem I have with a lot of poetry, well represented in this thread, is that it is too close to prose, too close to a lazy talking style laid out literally with few or no images. AFAIC it might as well be written as prose if it's going to be put down without images and without an elusive narrative and without a song.

But for poetry like Bukowski's (and for me), this adds to the allure of the (non-)verse. It's "formally evocative" to begin with.


However, let me note that both my favourite poems in general, Poe's "The Raven", and even more so Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 ("When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"), are highly metric. Not to mention my weakness for Coleridge, or Yeats.

So if I were to have a bias, it would likely be for the "song-like" style, rather than against it.

[DavidRoss]

The smell of night, inhaling stars
into my frenzied nostrils,
water broken on a bed
of nails, babbling into foam.

This is nice.  I wonder how else one might translate the word rendered here as "frenzied?"