my fav. poem

[isis]

I who am the beauty of the green Earth,
and the white moon among the stars,
and the mystery of the waters,
call unto your soul: a rise and come unto me,
for i am the soul of nature....


i love this poem

[Reinga]

Nice poem Isis.
This is my fav poem its called "Strange meeting"


It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,-
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said that other, "save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also, I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now... "

-- Wilfred Owen

[isis]

that is a cool poem i like it..

[Harlock]

road not taken is one of my faviorates

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

i made one once and had to turn it in for a english paper, and never got it back. I liked that one, that and the rhyme of an ancient mariner but thats too long to post

[isis]

cool poems lol like them all...

[Odin]

all good poems I'll have to search for mine

[Fr_CV]

here's mine...

Thirst!
Not the thirst of the throat
Though that be the wildest and worst
Of physical pangs - that smote
Alone to the heart of Christ,
Wringing the one wild cry
"I thirst!" from His agony,
While the soldiers drank and diced;
Not the thirst benign
That calls the worker to wine;
Not the bodily thirst
(Though that be frenzy accursed)
When the mouth is full of sand,
And the eyes are gummed up, and the ears
Trick the soul till it hears
Water, water at hand,
When a man will dig his nails
In his breast, and drink the blood
Already that clots and stales
Ere his tongue can tip its flood,
When the sun is a living devil
Vomiting vats of evil,
And the moon and the night but mock
The wretch on his barren rock,
And the dome of the heaven high-arched
Like his mouth is arid and parched,
And the caves of his heart high-spanned
Are choked with alkali sand!

Not this! but a thirst uncharted;
Body and soul alike
Traitors turned black-hearted,
Seeking a space to strike
In a victim already attuned
To one vast chord of wound;
Every separate bone
Cold, an incarnate groan
Distilled from the icy sperm
Of Hell's implacable worm
Every drop of the river
Of blood aflame and a-quiver
With poison secret and sour -
With a sudden twitch at the last
Like certain jagged daggers.
(With bloodshot eyes dull-glassed
The screaming Malay staggers
Through his village aghast).
So blood wrenches its pain
Sardonic through heart and brain.
Every separate nerve
Awake and alert, on a curve
Whose asymptote's name is "never"
In a hyperbolic "for ever!"
A bitten and burning snake
Striking its venom within it,
As if it might serve to slake
The pain for the tithe of a minute.

Awake, for ever awake!
Awake as one never is
While sleep is a possible end,
Awake in the void, the abyss
Whose thirst is an echo of this
That martyrs, world without end,
(World without end, Amen!)
The man that falters and yields
For the proverb's "mouth and an hour"
To the lure of the snow-starred fields
Where the opium poppy's aflower

Only the prick of a needle
Charged from the wizard well!
Is this sufficient to wheedle
A soul from heaven to hell?
Was a man's spirit weaned
From fear of its ghosts and gods
To fawn at the feet of a fiend?
Is it such terrible odds -
The heir of ages of wonder,
The crown of earth for an hour,
The master of tide and thunder
Against the juice of a flower?
Ay! in the roar and the rattle
Of all the armies of sin,
This is the only battle
He never was known to win.

Save to the thirst - not thirst
As here it is weakly written,
Not thirst in the brain black-bitten,
In the soul more sorely smitten!
One dare not think of the worst!
Beyond the raging and the raving
Hell of the physical craving
Lies, in the brain benumbed,
At the end of time and space,
An abyss, unmeasured, unplumbed -
The haunt of a face!

She it is, she, that found me
In the morphia honeymoon;
With silk and steel she bound me,
In her poisonous milk she drowned me,
Even now her arms surround me,
Stifling me into the swoon
That still - but oh, how rarely! -
Comes at the thrust of the needle,
Steadily stares and squarely,
Nor needs to fondle and wheedle
Her slave agasp for a kiss,
Hers whose horror is his
That knows that viper womb,
Speckled and barred with black
On its rusty amber scales,
Is his tomb -
The straining, groaning, rack
On which he wails - he wails!
Her cranial dome is vaulted,
Her mad Mongolian eyes
Aslant with ecstasies
Of things immune, exalted
Far beyond stars and skies,
Slits of amber and jet -
Her snout for the quarry set
Fleshy and heavy and gross,
Bestial, broken across,
And below it her mouth that drips
Blood from the lips
That hide the fangs of a snake,
Drips on the venomous udders
Mountainous flanks that fret,
And the spirit sickens and shudders
At the hint of a worse thing yet.

Olya! the golden bait
Barbed with infinite pain,
Fatal, fanatical mate
Of a poisoned body and brain!
Olya! the name that leers
Its lecherous longing and knavery,
Whispers in crazing ears
The secret spell of her slavery.

Horror indeed intense,
Seduction indeed intenser,
Swinging the smoke of sense
From the bowl of a smouldering censer!
Behind me, behind and above,
She stands, that mirror of love.
Her fingers are supple-jointed;
Her nails are polished and pointed,
And tipped with spurs of gold:
With them she rowls the brain.
Her lust is critical, cold;
And her Chinese cheeks are pale,
As she daintily picks, profane
With her octopus lips, and the teeth
Jagged and black beneath,
Pulp and blood from a nail.

One swift prick was enough
In days gone by to invoke her:
She was incarnate love
In the hours when I first awoke her.
Little by little I found
The truth of her, stripped of clothing,
Bitter beyond all bound,
Leprous beyond all loathing.
Black, the plague of the pit,
Her pustules visibly fester,
Cancerous kisses that bit
As the asp caressed her.

Dragon fire lure and dread,
Tiger of fury and lust,
The quick in chains to the dead,
The slime alive in the dust,
Brazen shame like a flame,
An orgy of pregnant pollution
With hate beyond aim or name -
Orgasm, death, dissolution!
Know you now why her eyes
So fearfully glaze, beholding
Terrors and infamies
Like filthy flowers unfolding?
Laughter widowed of ease,
Agony barred from sadness,
Death defeated of pace,
Is she not of madness?

She waits for me, lazily leering,
As moon goes murdering moon;
The moon of her triumph is nearing;
She will have me wholly soon.

And you, you puritan others,
Who have missed the morphia craving,
Cry scorn if I call you brothers,
Curl lip at my maniac raving,
Fools, seven times beguiled,
You have not known her? Well!
There was never a need she smiled
To harry you into hell!

Morphia is but one
Spark of its secular fire.
She is the single sun -
Type of all desire!
All that you would, you are -
And that is the crown of your craving.
You are the slaves of the wormwood star.
Analysed, reason is raving.
Feeling, examined, is pain.
What heaven were to hope for a doubt of it!
Life is anguish, insane;
And death is - not a way out of it!

[Lady Dunsany]

I was going to say The Road Not Taken but Harlock beat me to it. Here is another of my favorites.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

[Murmur]

The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allen Poe. You'll find that the last two stanzas are in my sig.

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

[isis]

i love Edgar Allen Poe poems lol the tale tell hart is a good one...

[Murmur]

Poe is a genius in every sense of the word.

[isis]

yes he is that is why i love his work

[toadbile]

Ray Bradbury:

Beware those beasts who, now and then,
Disguise themselves as mortal men,
Who walk upright, but sit to dine,
On your dear bones and your blood’s wine,
To sift your head and sieve your thought,
While one by one your beast-dreams, bought,
Are cooked like snails or eaten raw,
While they, in grand pretense of Law,
Do all the right utensils ply,
To smile, and, jolly, wink their eye,
And mocking take your life to task,
Because your face is not their mask,
Whose shadows, cast across the road
Betray the path, melt frog to toad;
Teetotaler cynics, brimmed with ruth
Who blanch at medicine of Truth,
If Good, well now, that’s not for them.
All bad? Now that’s their very phlegm,
They stare at noons time out of mind
And then file suit because stone blind!
While all about in storms of sun
The children of the Light Years run.
They box and slam and nail your lid
And hunchbacked go because their Id
Speaks broken-tongued and smothered sin
Armpit their soul, cold bile their gin.
They greet all wonders with a yawn
Then wonder where damned Fun has gone,
They’d all your Hopes in discard lay
If you should let them Rue your day,
They’d sell you trips in midnight rains
And mail you off in funeral trains
Totalitarians one and all,
They harvest large to crop it small,
And individual will and sport?
Deny it all, cut talent short.
Pure intuition? Down, dog. Die!
Your power to change? Lie dead! Don’t try!
Carbuncle-boils their very thing
They suffer most when world comes spring
The green of sap and song and psalm
But galls these sons of Doubting Tom.
So there’s their list, all cramp and hunch,
A bounteous bilious baleful bunch.
Yet in their poisoned, maliced glee
They walk like you to talk like me.
Beware those beasts who now and then,
Dressed up in flesh, are mortal men.

[Baka_greywolf]

To My Lady Death


I am writing to you, long and beautiful friend,
To tell you that I have cancelled my stay.
Yes, I know; I miss you, and your lovely house and your wonderful friends.
I know I promised to visit, many times, showing my sharp blades and my dulling pills
My promises, my oaths to rush into your arms and leap into your lap with you,
Have turned hollow, I'm afraid.
For while I was out looking for new ways to philanthropize my being,
While busily setting up trust funds for those who have pieces of my heart,
While panhandling for more feelings to give to charity,
Your sisters, Life and Love, found me and pressed me into their service.

It's not all bad. You wouldn't have been happy with my anyway.
Nobody else was.
And I know I'll get to visit some day, but not without Their blessings.
Age or Accident may yet come for me;
You know when you will send these, your brothers.
But for now, I have unpacked my soul and gotten my ticket refunded.
I am so sorry. Not this week, I hope, or next
...unless you know something I don't. I'll send you a postcard. I promise.


Mordewis Gaeafbran ap Llys
©1998, 2004 by Gerald L. "Moss" Bliss; written July 5, 1998

[isis]

i love that poem

[toadbile]

Good one!

but
Lady death will not take rejection lightly,
she will boil your bunny eventually.

[SWM]

bluegrass master ralph stanly:

O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I'll fix your feet til you cant walk
I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very air, come and go with me
I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you're treatin' me
You've close my eyes so I can't see
Well you're hurtin' my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don't take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year

[isis]

that is a good one lol