So I was thinking...

  • Everlasting
    7 years ago

    What are your favorite poems? Do you have one in particular?
    Care to share it with us?

  • Yakari Gabriel
    7 years ago

    Why are people asking me to expose myself like this? What did I do?

    in any case, no surprise. here is one of my all time favorite.!

    Melanie, I Remember
    by Abracadabra

    Melly, was that you at Blythe St this morning
    when the tram grated and showered sparks into the sky?
    I swear I felt one land on me, blonde and warm.
    I was at our corner stop, eating danishes from Filou's,
    the ones that gave us sugary moustaches
    and the old ladies something to stare at.

    Last night was the warmest one we've had in August. Was that you?
    In those clammy nights long ago, stuffed in our backyard tents
    after torch-lit stories of the Frankston Strangler and Cut-Throat Jack,
    tossing in my sleeping bag, I'd finally touch your face
    in the dark, your two front teeth
    beneath my fingertips,
    square and solid.

    The brook always laughs louder when I come near.
    Are you happy to see me? We never did catch any fish
    but they know our stories. They know which teachers we liked,
    they know calculus and Sonya Hartnett's books,
    they know how scared you were.

    We'd cry, sometimes.
    Sometimes, there's a red leaf on my window sill,
    glowing and fading with the morning light.
    Piles of them on the way to school, you'd kick, I'd jump,
    we'd spin. We'd vow to roadtrip to Uluru in winter.
    Was that your red desert dust still clinging to my skin,
    under my nails, in my hair when I returned?
    I washed it, it turned to blood.

    There was a silence today in the park. I walked home
    and there was no one, not even a possum. The leaves were still,
    the cars were still.

    Against the sunset, a bird started singing.
    Was that you, Mel? Was that you?

  • hiraeth
    7 years ago

    I got too many, but my here's two random favourites:

    how to calm the sea by silvershoes

    She carries with her oceans;
    salty waves that when left alone,
    build and crash against her cheekbones,
    and you may find her running to you,
    arms outstretched as if silently screaming, I need to be held.
    The most you can do in that moment is fill her need.
    Hold her; hold her tightly so her legs won't erode beneath her;
    hold her; hold her tightly so giant heaves won't diminish her.
    She doesn't know why it hurts still, so don't ask,
    but please repeat two words in your bravest voice:

    I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.

    If you say them enough while she's bundled,
    the oceans will recede and she'll stave one more day for
    drowning.

    --------

    a semblance of love by xanthe

    I give in to the urge to pull away dry skin from lips,
    gazing blindly at trees, ermine-drenched,
    regretting at once as blood met tongue.
    It is that time of the year again; when nights are brighter
    than mornings, when cashmere is suctioned to our bodies
    - and we don't mind - when I could watch clouds of our
    breaths waft through the air, collide, dancing
    (but this time, you couldn't take the lead)
    right before the breeze tore them to nothing,
    while you held my gloved hand - oblivious, woolgathering -
    waiting for snowfall, you said, like a child; fascinated.

    I bite my lip, and you -
    you wipe away the blood.

  • Ben Pickard
    7 years ago

    *One of my favourites simply because writing a poem this beautiful and unforced when using the same rhyming words is very difficult.

    --

    Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half-light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

    William Butler Yeats

  • nouriguess
    7 years ago

    Http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/misc/poems.php?id=1244458

    and

    http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/life/poems.php?id=1159091

  • ddavidd
    7 years ago

    Your Laughter - Poem by Pablo Neruda

    Take bread away from me, if you wish,
    take air away, but
    do not take from me your laughter.

    Do not take away the rose,
    the lance flower that you pluck,
    the water that suddenly
    bursts forth in joy,
    the sudden wave
    of silver born in you.

    My struggle is harsh and I come back
    with eyes tired
    at times from having seen
    the unchanging earth,
    but when your laughter enters
    it rises to the sky seeking me
    and it opens for me all
    the doors of life.

    My love, in the darkest
    hour your laughter
    opens, and if suddenly
    you see my blood staining
    the stones of the street,
    laugh, because your laughter
    will be for my hands
    like a fresh sword.

    Next to the sea in the autumn,
    your laughter must raise
    its foamy cascade,
    and in the spring, love,
    I want your laughter like
    the flower I was waiting for,
    the blue flower, the rose
    of my echoing country.

    Laugh at the night,
    at the day, at the moon,
    laugh at the twisted
    streets of the island,
    laugh at this clumsy
    boy who loves you,
    but when I open
    my eyes and close them,
    when my steps go,
    when my steps return,
    deny me bread, air,
    light, spring,
    but never your laughter
    for I would die.

  • ddavidd
    7 years ago

    Die in This Love by Rumi:

    Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yapagnigdZ4

  • silvershoes
    7 years ago

    Mark! You are so lovely <3 Thanks for making me feel special.

  • Em
    7 years ago

    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.

    The road not taken by Robert Frost.

    One of the first pieces I read and was like WOW!!

  • Mr. Darcy
    7 years ago

    ^^
    Em, you took the words right out of my mouth...

  • Jamie
    7 years ago

    Stopping by woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost

    And snowball by shel silverstein

  • Darren
    7 years ago

    This;

    Dear Reader:
    by MyHalozChokinMe

    I feel like I was born into this.

    I write therefore I am.

    I did not choose to be a writer.

    It's an exorcism.

    My mind pours, and the page
    soaks up my demons.

    They're locked inside,
    they're read,
    they become your demons.

    For a moment,
    we are connected,
    intertwined.

    Intellectual intercourse takes us away.

    I'm yours, you're mine.

    Lover to lover.

    Writer to reader.

    ................

    and this

    Bleu de France
    by Xanthe

    I used to find the ocean cradled safely in your eyes.
    Perhaps your calm gaze no longer could contain its life,
    ebbing away with the waves upon the shore of my flesh.

    The breeze licks the curtains as though trying to
    moisten its parched tongue.
    The kettle never whistled its ode to the morning.
    Perhaps it is waiting still, for the sun has not
    yet peeked through my curtain-less window.

    I lie back down, allowing the silence to waft
    through the air.

    And I waited
    (for nothing, it seemed)
    And I thought
    (of nothing, it seemed)
    And I tried to dream...

    If the breeze through my window and the steam
    through my kettle were to have colour, just think

    I've always harbored reveries of us breathing skies
    of blue air. Not as blue as skies, however,
    for France has but grey skies these days.
    But blue as Lac du Bourget back home.

    ...perhaps bluer...

    Because ever since the wind took you away,
    I've been drowning; trying to re-surface,
    yet I find no surface.

    But if I do, would I ever really breathe again?

    My lungs have not tasted the air for a long time,
    and I fear its vastness would only suffocate me.

    Lately, I've been drifting with the fishes;
    helping them breathe, for the pressure underneath
    has been getting stronger.

    We all are drowning. They are drowning.

    I am drowning.

    And I find myself drifting, drifting away from them -
    from us.

    Until the ocean no longer exists.

    I find myself beneath blue skies, and I can breathe.
    Everything smelled of home.
    Yet...

    I am l o s t

  • hiraeth
    7 years ago

    Sorry just a quick question; do you remember abed's reading of bleu de france? he did a great job

  • Sunshine
    7 years ago

    From P and Q, there are two poems by Silvershoes which I often come read, every now and then

    Lonely Mountain

    It snows down lonely mountain.
    Somehow the wind has brought me here.

    I try to move, but I cannot.

    There spins a heavy ball inside me,
    below the chest,
    above the navel,
    constrained by neither heart nor lung.

    It grows with every inhaled breath.
    It grows with steps I almost take.
    It's made of all things bad and lost;
    things broken, cold, forgotten.

    It keeps my feet from treading up,
    to brave the frosted giant.

    It keeps my path from turning back,
    for nothing back is left.

    It keeps me still as Death, itself,
    a leafless tree, long standing.

    The force that spins inside the ball
    that spins inside my weighted soul
    will grow and grow
    until rocks have melted,
    and all that's left is ice.

    Somehow the wind has brought me here,
    with nowhere else to go.
    It snows down lonely mountain,
    but why, I do not know.

    ******************
    and
    ******************

    Growing up

    Time is slipping from
    my hands, such that
    i can feel the rough grains
    roll between my fingers
    and pile to the ground.
    Walls on all sides seem to
    shrink in upon me
    and i become ever larger;
    larger than life.
    My chest presses hard
    against my pulsing heart,
    tears well in my eyelids,
    hope is a dream
    and nothing more.

    i once felt the footsteps
    of a little girl.
    i once walked in shoes
    smaller than my hands -
    i felt the ocean was something that
    would seem not so very big
    as i got bigger.
    i once stood in valleys,
    looking up and
    wondering,
    wishing,
    waiting
    for my time to grow.

    i never knew how sorry i would be
    to sit atop a mountain,
    looking down upon my youth.
    i never knew as time swept
    under my feet and on
    into the past,
    the future would devolve
    to a fickler place.
    i never knew the ocean was
    this big,
    nor i this small.

    i never knew,
    i never knew,
    how small and insignificant
    i could be.

    ********************************

    From other poets

    Invictus by William Ernest

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/51642

    and I rise by Maya Angelo

    https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise

  • ddavidd
    7 years ago

    Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SkcdVhI_Ns

  • silvershoes
    7 years ago

    Rania, "Growing up" reminds me of you now because you have told me you like it several times throughout the years. Thank you, my dear <3 I am so happy you like both of those poems. They mean a lot to me. It is special that they mean something to you as well.

    Jamie, Mr Darcy, Em... YES! I love Robert Frost's poetry.

  • Everlasting
    7 years ago

    Keep on sharing Guys. All of those pieces I have read so far are wonderful.

    I miss Xanthe.

  • hiraeth
    7 years ago

    J miss her too, here's abed's wonderful reading of bleu du france if anyone was at all curious:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jprPLMcZyu8

  • Larry Chamberlin
    7 years ago

    I, too, have many, but this one is great:

    Endless Fall
    by End Of Eternity

    Behind the darkness of light
    Breathes a creature of memories
    Wearing away normal thoughts
    Hiding your soul's pain with ease

    Evil eyes, bring haunted dreams
    Echos promised eternity
    With arms capturing broken hearts
    Embracing our serenity

    All it takes is one divine kiss
    Bringing those tortured fears back
    Trapping you within your own mind
    Until every vein burns and cracks

    Far behind this endless fall
    We breathe with our memories
    With plastic smiles painted on
    So much sadness yet to release

    2010-12-13

  • abracadabra
    7 years ago

    Yaki, I'm still curious about what resonates so much with you in this poem. Thank you x