Post your favorite poems!

[MilkJar]

I like poetry, it's like really short form writing, but can hold a whole hell of a lot of meaning.

heres 2 of my favorites:
Two-Headed Calf, by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass.
And as he stares into the sky, there
are twice as many stars as usual.

Immortality, by Clare Harner

Do not stand
          By my grave, and weep.
     I am not there,
          I do not sleep
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning's hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
     Do not stand
          By my grave, and cry
     I am not there,
          I did not die.

[invader_gvim]

Bunny must work 12 hours in the honey factory so it can buy 1 jar of honey.

-My husband

Dib

wrote this poem for me as a text message. It made the whole day at the factory I work at bearable. 

[stranger]

i wanna give special attention to the poetry of jonny bolduc, as i genuinely enjoy his poetry a lot! as he's struggling financially at the moment i think it's more important than ever to share his beautiful works :)

jonny bolduc - untitled(?)

oliver baez bendorf - dysphoria

It’s true that I’m im-
patient under affliction. So?
Most of what the dead can

do is difficult to carry. As for
gender I can’t explain it
any more than a poem: there

was an instinct, I followed
it. A song. A bell. I saw
deer tracks in the snow. Little

split hearts beckoned me
across the lawn.

gabrielle calvocoressi - hammond b3 organ cistern
  note that i'm linking this poem instead of sharing the text directly; this is because it's a poem about suicide and mentions methods thereof. however, it's a very hopeful poem, full of love. i hope those that feel strong enough to read it can do so and feel lightened by it :)

[Rosaria Delacroix]

What a wonderful little thread. Highly topical to my own life, as I've just spent some time putting some of my favourite poems together for a recent 32-Bit Cafe Valentines webweaving event. Here we are, then:

Scheherazade — Richard Siken
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake

and dress them in warm clothes again.

How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running

until they forget that they are horses.

It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,

it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,

how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days

were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple

to slice into pieces.

Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means

we’re inconsolable.

Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

These, our bodies, possessed by light.

Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

Wild Geese — Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye — Albert Goldbarth
Physics says: go to sleep. Of course

you're tired. Every atom in you

has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes

nonstop from mitosis to now.

Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance

inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.


Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch

by inch America is giving itself

to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness

lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.

You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be

one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.


Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,

Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,

Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so

Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town

and

History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

[sen.fish]

Oh yay another place where I can talk about how much I love Ocean Vuong. These are probably two of my favorite poems from Vuong:

"Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker"
Ocean Vuong

Mar.

Advil (ibuprofen), 4 pack 
Sally Hansen Pink Nail Polish, 6 pack 
Clorox Bleach, industrial size 
Diane hair pins, 4 pack 
Seafoam handheld mirror 
“I Love New York” T-shirt, white, small

Apr.

Nongshim Ramen Noodle Bowl, 24 pack 
Cotton Balls, 100 count 
“Thank You For Your Loyalty” cards, 30 count 
Toluene POR-15 40404 Solvent, 1 quart 
UV LED Nail Lamp 
Cuticle Oil, value pack 
Clear Acrylic Nail Tips, 500 count

May

Advil (ibuprofen), 4 pack 
Vicks VapoRub, twin pack 
Portable Electric Nail Drill 
Salonpas Heat-Activated muscle patch, 40 count 
Lipstick, “Night Out Red” 
Little Debbie Chocolate Zebra Cakes, 4 boxes

Jun.

Large faux-clay planter pots, value set 
Carnation Condensed Milk, 6 pack 
Clear Nail Art Acrylic Liquid Powder Dish Bowl, 2 pcs 
Birthday Card—Son—Pop-up Mother and Son effect 
Nike Elite Basketball Shorts, men’s small

Jul.

Saviland Holographic Gold Nail Powder, 6 colors 
Nescafé Taster’s Choice Instant Coffee 
Advil (ibuprofen), 4 pack 
PIXNOR Pedicure Double-Sided Callus Remover 
Bengay Medicated Cream, 3 pack

Aug.

Newchic Ochre Summer Dress Floral Print, sz 6 
Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum, 8 pack 
Plastic Adirondack Lawn Chair, colonial blue

Sep.

Nail buffers and files, 10 pcs 
Coppertone Sunblock, 6 oz

Oct.

CozyNites Fleece Blanket, pink 
Sleep-Ease Melatonin caps, 90 count 
Icy Hot Maximum Strength pain relief pads

Nov.

Tampax, 24 count 
Faux-Resin Hair clips, 3 pack

Dec.

Advil (ibuprofen) Maximum Strength, 4 pack 
True-Gro Tulip Bulbs, 24 pcs

Jan.



Feb.

Healthline Compact Trigger Release Folding Walker 
Yankee Candle, Midsummer’s Night, large jar

Mar.

Chemo-Glam cotton head scarf, sunrise pink 
White Socks, women’s small, 12 pack

Apr.

Chemo-Glam cotton scarf, flower garden print 
“Warrior Mom” Breast Cancer awareness T-shirt, pink and white

May

Mueller 255 Lumbar Support Back Brace

Jun.

Birthday Card—“Son, We Will Always Be Together,” Snoopy design

Jul.

Eternity Aluminum Urn, Dove and Rose engraved, small 
Perfect Memories picture frame, 8 x 11 in, black 
Burt’s Bees lip balm, Honey, 1 pc

Aug.



Sep.

Easy-Grow Windowsill herb garden

Oct.

YourStory Customized Memorial Plaque, 10 x 8 x 4 in 
Winter coat, navy blue, x-small

Nov.

Wool socks, grey, 1 pair

"Seventh Circle of Earth"
Ocean Vuong

Then, of course, there's Ginsburg's "Howl", which you can listen to him read. All three of these have made me cry so many times.

[sleepyhare]

What a wonderful little thread. Highly topical to my own life, as I've just spent some time putting some of my favourite poems together for a recent 32-Bit Cafe Valentines webweaving event.

^^ @Rosaria Delacroix I loved these poems so much! We seem to have a similar taste :)) if you still have the poems from the event, or any other recommendations, I'd love to see them!

Most of my favourite poems are either from university english classes, old poetry collections from the thrift store, or from various websites on the personal web! Here are a few...

From Em's poetry collection:

The Quiet World: By Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred   
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear   
without saying hello. In the restaurant   
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,   
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.   
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,   
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line   
and listen to each other breathe.

From an old english poetry book, wayyy up high on the bookshelf in my living room-- I flipped through it out of passive curiosity, I wasn't expecting to cry when I read this one:

Snake: By D. H. Lawrence

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
 
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough
            before me.
 
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over
            the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
 
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second-comer, waiting.
 
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused
             a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels
            of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
 
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold
            are venomous.
 
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
 
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink
            at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
 
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
 
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
 
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
 
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
 
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders,
            and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into
            that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing
            himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
 
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
 
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed
            in an undignified haste,
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
 
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
 
And I thought of the albatross,
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
 
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
 
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

And from my university english lit. class:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

I also like this one:

Forgotten Language: By Shel Silverstein

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

And I really love "Fireworks" from delovely's site! Any poetry about animals and nature gets to me.

This is a great thread, let's revive it! I want to hear more people's inspirations :)

[hi_tsem]

Really love this. My favorite at the moment is 'Mutilated Fire' by Daisy Aldan. I created an altar for it on the toy version of my website (the version of my website where I test ideas): https://chainless.nekoweb.org/sandbox/poem-altar/index.html.

Here's the text of the poem:

Mutilated Fire
Night of footsteps; image of a metronome:
You have played dead and thrown the earth in our mouths
to keep us from speaking. My shadow walking
away from your house toward the cemetery
looks older. The snowbirds spread their crystallized
wings in the refection of the broken nine
mirros in the well the glaciers molded.

Life will be simpler when Dionysian wings
stop beating centrifugally. It will be
more tranquil to trace peripheral designs
cut off a continent. Here, the coward's story
will be denied. Better the cold silence
of clouds. And if I go hurtling suddenly
onto Ireland, will I find you clarifed?

@sleepyhare Thank you for sharing 'Snake.' So moving. 'The Quiet World' always lifts my spirits!

[Seryndelle]

I can't begin to think of what my all-time favourite poem would be! Here are a few that I've been enjoying of late. I'm sure I'll chime in here again if more spring to mind! I work in a school and am present in more than a few English lessons, so I thankfully get a fair bit of exposure to poetry!

Haiku by Wendy Cope

A perfect white wine
is sharp, sweet, and cold as this:
birdsong in winter.

Incidentally, Wendy Cope is a truly marvellous poet, and I could populate an entire blog with posts about her works. I highly recommend checking out her most famous poem, 'The Orange', at the very least! Actually, you know what? I'll post it right here.

The Orange by Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

As you might be able to tell from 'Haiku', I'm in a bit of an "imagist" phase at the minute. Here's one that I really liked the other day by William Carlos Williams, who's famous for that poem about the plums in the icebox (he seems to have a lot of poems about plums, for some reason!)

To a Poor Old Woman by William Carlos Williams

munching a plum on   
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good   
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her

I really love how visceral this poem is. I'm not even a huge plum eater, but reading it makes me want to just shove plum after plum into my mouth until my hands are stained blue and sticky and the juice is trickling down off my chin. But if we're talking about imagism, it would be churlish not to mention 'In a Station of the Metro' by Ezra Pound!

In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

I will no doubt be back at some point in the future to infodump more about poems, especially because I haven't even touched on anything written before 1900 here! I feel like I fall more and more in love with poetry as an art form each year—both reading them and writing them. There were a few years where I didn't feel particularly creative (at least in a poetic sense), but it seems (fingers crossed) that I'm starting to regain that muse once again of late!

[MrsMoe]

There's this one poem that strikes me in the gut because on a metaphorical level, it describes how I pretty much feel all the time. It's called My Cat is Sad, and it's by Spencer Madsen

my cat is sad.

no one else in his family is a cat

we are all human except for him

he is excluded from most things

and no one tells him why

he just wants to play

and be loved

he looks at us with wonder

and disappointment

he says hello i am a cat what is my existence

what is that / why it and not me / please can you look at me and love me too

can i have some of your food please i'm sorry i don't like my food so much

do you want to play with my toys? this one is my favorite

do you like me

are we brothers

why didn't i grow up

why am i so small

can you help me be happy

where are you going

Likewise, To the Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks has been fucking me up equally as much (...for no particular reason).

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.

You need not die today.
Stay here—through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.

[504slashdiv]

Sharing three poems here! Starting with "a sinkhole invites a street to consider its future" by Dominik Parisien:

cracks always long to grow. asphalt craves other than the horizontal. you could become a poem. straight line caesuraed into a mouth. a ruin. a fucking statement. you were meant for so much more than conveyance or convenience. were primordial ooze once. could have kissed the ozone layer. made microplastic and endured millennia. were paved underfoot instead. i have a right to be. mole people deserve to see the sun. chaos is a public service and unemployment’s rising. change is another word for opportunity. secret tunnels are all the rage. there are depths to you most never dreamed. exquisitely efficient systems. whole worlds. katabasis quests are due for a comeback. i would owe you my existence. everything sinks eventually.

And sharing this poem, "“where is Ligaya [1]” – DAY 22" by Caroline Hung from the Strange Horizons litmag, which encapsulates the dull feeling I think of melancholy (translation note: "Ligaya" mans "joy/happiness" in filipino, and it is also used as a first name sometimes usually for girls.

neon flicker. lightning strike. fluorescent spark.

the walls are pink. the tiles are cold. while

you sit

the clothes spin–spin–spin

behind the round glass door

Speed Queen washing machine

creak rumble thump

you scramble

on your knees

slipping over tiles cold–cold–cold

bruising

put your hands on the machine

bent, rusted, and battered

look through the soap, the suds, the sopping wet clothes

tumbling ’round and round

see the little girl swimming

in her old shirt


smiling. Happy


creak rumble thump

you lost her again.

And lastly, "A Meeting" by Wendell Berry.

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: “How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”

[haumeaGeth]

Sharing three poems here!

OUGH-- All three of these gave me a thrill! Very very good picks. Thank you for sharing!

As for me, I have three to share as well. The first one is 'Unabridged car banter', by E.K. Bartlett, published in the genderqueer literary magazine, Beestung.

I am not a woman, but this thing that weeps at night
that steals your smile
at the supermarket
and hides it in the tomato aisle.
I am a ravenous beast
a warehouse of tears
stored neatly in jugs
for later indulgence,
for eternal eruption
just you wait. I like to be
squished
during sex
and not during sex.
Let me pluck
your eyebrows.
When we pass mile marker 35
I get hungry
for pickled okra
and we share the whole
jar. Look
at this finite
object of sustenance.
Look at my tongue.
Tongue of a woman?
Didn’t think so. More like
tongue of a spaceship
probing for some blue star
we identified, but it’d take us
a million years
to get to
and we’d still find ourselves
lost.

The other two that have been living in my mind rent-free lately are slam poems. The first one is 'how to write a poem', by Steven Willis. This poem was shared by a classmate of mine in my creative writing course. The second one I found the other night completely by chance; it's 'SHUSHED BY A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (Diary of a Lesbian Virgin)', by Boone Williams. Both of these are youtube links. I think slam poetry might be my favourite...

[Bairuzg]

Well, since im a spanish speaker my favorite poem is one in Spanish, Im not going to translate the poem since I dont really speak english, but I hope that somehow you guys understand the meaning 

He cometido el peor de los pecados
que un hombre puede cometer. No he sido
feliz. Que los glaciares del olvido
me arrastren y me pierdan, despiadados.

Mis padres me engendraron para el juego
arriesgado y hermoso de la vida,
para la tierra, el agua, el aire, el fuego.
Los defraudé. No fui feliz. Cumplida

no fue su joven voluntad. Mi mente
se aplicó a las simétricas porfías
del arte, que entreteje naderías.

Me legaron valor. No fui valiente.
No me abandona. Siempre está a mi lado
La sombra de haber sido un desdichado.

[WaybackGuy]

I'm not a poetry lover in general, but here are the 2 I love the most, both "well known"...

Song of Myself, Part 16 from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,...

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,...