Favorite poem

I can't think of what would be my favorite ever, but this is definately in my top 5.

How to Write a Political Poem
By Taylor Mali

However it begins, it's gotta be loud
and then it's gotta get a little bit louder.
Because this is how you write a political poem
and how you deliver it with power.

Mix current events with platitudes of empowerment.
Wrap up in rhyme or rhyme it up in rap until it sounds true.

Glare until it sinks in.

Because somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.
I said somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted!

See, that's the Hook, and you gotta' have a Hook.
More than the look, it's the hook that is the most important part.
The hook has to hit and the hook's gotta fit.
Hook's gotta hit hard in the heart.

Because somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.

And Dick Cheney is peeing all over himself in spasmodic delight.
Make fun of politicians, it's easy, especially with Republicans
like Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, and . . . Al Gore.
Ooooh! See what I did? I called Al Gore a "Republican"
That must mean that my political sensibilities are much more finely tuned then yours
Create fatuous juxtapositions of personalities and political philosophies
as if communism were the opposite of democracy,
as if we needed Darth Vader, not Ralph Nader.

Peep this: When I say "Call,"
you all say, "Response."

Call! Response! Call! Response! Call!

Amazing Grace, how sweet the—

Stop in the middle of a song that everyone knows and loves.
This will give your poem a sense of urgency.
Because there is always a sense of urgency in a political poem.
There is no time to waste!
Corruption doesn't have a curfew,
greed doesn't care what color you are
and the New York City Police Department
is filled with Police Officers
who wear guns on their hips
and carry metal badges pinned over their hearts.
Injustice isn't injustice it's just in us as we are just in ice.
That's the only alienation of this alien nation
in which you either fight for freedom
or else you are free and dumb!

And even as I say this somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.

And it makes me wanna beat box!

Because I have seen the disintegration of gentrification
and can speak with great articulation
about cosmic constellations, and atomic radiation.
I've seen D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation
but preferred 101 Dalmations.
Like a cross examination, I will give you the explanation
of why SlamNation is the ultimate manifestation
of poetic masturbation and egotistical ejaculation.

And maybe they are still counting votes somewhere in Florida,
but by the time you get to the end of the poem it won't matter anymore.

Because all you have to do is close your eyes,
lower your voice, and end by saying:

the same line three times,
the same line three times,
the same line three times.

[Edited on Feb 26, 2005 by Akira]

Dangerous Times

Sometimes when you least expect it
The sky does not show up,
the clouds have already finished marching past
the grass is blue on the other side
and so must we be or how would we know?

Sometimes when you've just about had enough....
Those who hunt you, those who stalk you
and seek your destruction
Save your life
Oh really? I thought that was only in the movies.

Press that button on the
front of the TV that
says
"Setup"
I knew it

Sometimes when I'm feeling playful....
the word, “standby”
is all that comes out, that and,
“47 bullets”
you knew he would be there didn't you?
You knew and yet you came
and you came dressed for the weather
So really, kid, who do you think you're fooling?

Do the words mean anything anymore?
I fear it's the actions
the word
the words
the word's
POWER
I'll steal it and keep it in a small glass bottle
I'm not afraid to steal anymore
It is arousing
don't you think?
Better find one with a tight cork
These are dangerous times

And so we ride by camel
by moonlight
by the seat of our collective
pants
or was it bootstraps that pulled us up
And pulled us out
and pulled us through and tightened around our
swan-like tender throats?

Was it really the blood of children that paved these city
streets with gold and the whip crack of the sally rod that
could not break the backs of a thousand slaves?
"I fear we'll never know"
quipped the professor as he poured himself a brandy

I pondered that and cried but the professor just wanted to CHILL
it's ever so hard to learn now that he has MTV2

And the sun never stopped shining in the mall across the street
and maybe that was all the reassurance the pigeons asked
Me I was Greedy
Another day another dollar
And another lesson for another
Bleary eyed kid
To scratch onto loose-leaf
With a new BIC pen
First time every time my ass

As the young impossibly gifted
freaks of nature
Freaks
Of
nature
streak through the skies over Babylon on their winged steeds
it occurs to noone
occurs too infrequently
they squawk at each other
in southern tinged gibberish
and can you imagine the feeling of pride?


"It's not so muh-ch that I lahyke whut he say-es," she drawled
"but i lahyke haowww he say-es it", a giggle and a roll of the ocular stuff
"’spacially at six thutty in the moanin’ on a frahday aftuhnoon"
and with that she flashed her perfect
and i mean perfect
perfect-o chico
teeth
to the room and left, not
worried about all day protection and visible panty lines

the professor winced
"my dear boy
i'm afraid it is better to be glib than to be right
these are dangerous times"
to be a cheetah
or a lemur
or 19 year old girl out on her
second date
it's freshman year for the love of God
and who the devil is peering through the window
in space
at this hour?

The professor gets lost sometimes
in the thump
the booty shakin
Ja Rule
Tribe
MosDef
he says he could teach those guys some thing
whatever
it's harder to learn but
everynow and then he sits back
the beard
it used to be thicker no?
No it's always been like this
maybe a little darker but even then it's all shades of grey
right
dangerous times indeed. But in a rocking chair down south
with green so lush and humid it
DRIPS
and liquor calms the soul like nothing ever happened
Dripping from a hundred thousand glasses in a hundred thousand
cheap-ass
nickelodeon
paperback
throw away
bus station
melodramas
People think about dinner and how they’re gonna fit all those extra people
When Christmas comes


And the professor squinted against the blinding cobwebs of mental atrophy and
smiled and said
I keep meaning to plant tobacco
And some of those whiplash plants
?
they smell
Like licorice, you know
Isn’t that Anise?
Naturally
Maybe this year maybe
next
but mark my words four square,
tis better to have loved and lost
but I felt like I had been a pick-a-ninny
sitting on a cotton bale doing nothing as the
shoes were thrown and the cartwheels came off
it’s just as well
nothing grows in the asphalt these days
anyway
except parking lots
so let's go back inside and CHILL
I followed

Hey that's my line.

Invictus
(William Ernest Henley)

OUT of the night that covers me, 
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
 
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
 
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
 
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.





 


 I had to memorize this in junior high school. It was life-changing. This poem inspires me.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night/Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will,
and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

I have two absolute faves...

one by edwin arlington robinson

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.


and

I saw a man pursuing the horizon by Stephen Crane

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -- "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

it's kinda long, but here goes:

"Daughter" by Nicole Blackman

one day i'll give birth to a tiny baby girl
and when she's born she'll scream
and i'll tell her to never stopl
i will kiss her before i lay her down at night
and will tell her a story so she knows
how it is and how it must be for her to survive.
i'll tell her to set thigns on fire
and keep them burning.
i'll teach her that fire will not consume her,
that she must use it.
i'll tell her that people must earn the right
to use her nickname,
that forced intimacy is an ugly thing.
i'll help her to see that she will not find God
or salvation in a dark brick building built by dead men.
i'll make sure she always carries a pen
so she can take down the evidence.
if she has no paper, i'll teach her to
write everything down with her tongue,
write it on her thighs.
i'll make her keep reinventing herself and run fast.
i'll teach her to write her manifestos on cocktail napkins.
i'll say she should make men lick her ambition.
i'll make her understand that she is worth more
with her clothes on.....


it is about 3 times longer, but that is the jist of it. beautiful.

I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB

I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.

- Carl Sandburg

One of my favorites:

"One Art" - Elizabeth Bishop (1911 - 1979)

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent,
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (WRITE IT!) like disaster

I heard a reading of this book on an NPR show called "This American Life," it's so pure and honest it reads like poetry. You can stream the episode here.

As one huge fan of TS Eliot, I applaud you for posting this gem. It's one of my favorites as well.

I don't think I can pick just one favorite with so much good poetry in existence, but this one has been lodged in my mind again of late:

"Fire and Ice"

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

--- Robert Frost


Bless the poets., each and every one.

My favorite poet is a friend of mine. Here's a tiny sample:

i remember

salt and the curve of the road,
i remember

cigarette ash
cooling on my skin and
the rake of her nails
her apologies
and always her long, long hair

“Lines Composed Over Three Thousand Miles from Tintern Abbey” - Billy Collins

"I was here before, a long time ago,
and now I am here again,"
is an observation that occurs in poetry
as frequently as rain occurs in life.

The fellow may be gazing
over an English landscape,
hillsides dotted with sheep,
a row of tall trees topping the downs,

or he could be moping through the shadows
of a dark Bavarian forest,
a wedge of cheese and a volume of fairy tales
tucked into his rucksack.

But the feeling is always the same.

It was better the first time.

This time is not nearly as good.

I'm not feeling as chipper as I did back then.

Something is always missing—
swans, a glint on the surface of a lake,
some minor but essential touch.
Or the quality of things has diminished.

The sky was a deeper, more dimensional blue,
clouds were more cathedral-like,
and water rushed over rock
with greater effervescence.

From our chairs we have watched
the poor author in his waistcoat
as he recalls the dizzying icebergs of childhood
and mills around in a field of weeds.

We have heard the poets long dead
declaim their dying
from a promontory, a riverbank,
next to a haycock, within a copse.

We have listened to their dismay,
the kind that issues from poems
the way water issues forth from hoses,
the way the match always gives its little speech on fire.

And when we put down the book at last,
lean back, close our eyes,
stinging with print,
and slip in the bookmark of sleep,

we will be schooled enough to know
that when we wake up
a little before dinner
things will not be nearly as good as they once were.

Something will be missing
from this long, coffin-shaped room,
the walls and windows now
only two different shades of gray,

the glossy gardenia drooping
in its chipped terra-cotta pot.
And on the floor, shoes, socks,
the browning core of an apple.

Nothing will be as it was
a few hours ago, back in the glorious past
before our naps, back in that Golden Age
that drew to a close sometime shortly after lunch.

The Devil and Billy markham - Shel Silverstein
The Devil walked into Linebaugh's on a rainy Nashville night
While the lost souls sat and sipped their soup in the sickly yellow neon light.
And the Devil, he looked around the room, then got down on his knees.
He says, "Is there one among you scum who'll roll the dice with me?"
Red, he just strums his guitar, pretending not to hear.
And Eddie, he just looks away and takes another sip of beer.

Vince, he says, "Not me, I'll pass, I've had my share of Hell,"
And kept scribbling on a napkin, some song he was sure would sell.
Ronnie just kept whisperin' low to the snuff queen who clutched at his sleeve,
And somebody coughed -- and the Devil scoffed -- and turned on his heel to leave.
"Hold on," says a voice from the back of the room. "'fore you walk out that door.
If you're lookin' for some action, friend, well, I've rolled some dice before."

And there stood Billy Markham, he'd been on the scene for years,
Singin' all them raunchy songs that the town didn't want to hear.
He'd been cut and bled a thousand times, and his eyes were wise and sad,
And all his songs were the songs of the street, and all his luck was bad.
"I know you," says Billy Markham, "from many a dark and funky place,
But you always spoke in a different voice and wore a different face.
While me, I've gambled here on Music Row with hustlers and with whores,
And, Hell, I ain't afraid to roll them devilish dice of yours."

"Well, then, get down," says the Devil, "just as if you was gonna pray,
And take these dice in your luckless hand and I'll tell you how this game is played.
You get one roll -- and you bet your soul -- and if you roll thirteen you win,
And all the joys of flesh and gold are yours to touch and spend.
But if that thirteen don't come up, then kiss your ass goodbye
And will your useless bones to God, 'cause your goddamn soul is mine!"

"Thirteen?" says Billy Markham. "Hell, I've played in tougher games.
I've loved ambitious women and I've rode on wheelless trains.
So gimme room, you stinkin' fiend, and let it all unwind.
Nobody's ever rolled a thirteen yet, but this just might be the time."

Then Billy Markham, he takes the dice, and the dice feel as heavy as stones.
"They should, they should," the Devil says, "'cause they're carved from Jesus' bones."
And Billy Markham turns the dice and the dice, they have no spots.
"I'm sorry," says the Devil, "but they're the only dice I got."

"Well, shit," says Billy Markham. "Now, I really don't mean to bitch,
But I never thought I'd stake my roll in a sucker's game like this."

"Well, then, walk off," says the Devil. "Nobody's tied you down."

"Walk off where?" says Billy Markham. "It's the only game in town.
But I just wanna say 'fore I make my play, that if I should chance to lose,
I will this guitar to some would-be star who'll play some honest blues,
Who ain't afraid to sing the words like damn or shit or fuck
And who ain't afraid to put his ass on the stage where he makes his bucks.
But if he plays this guitar safe, and sings some sugary lies,
I'll haunt him till we meet in Hell -- now, gimme them fuckin' dice."

And Billy Markham shakes the dice and yells, "Come on, thirteen!"
And the dice, they roll -- and they come up blank. "You lose!" the Devil screams.

"But I really must say 'fore we go our way that I really do like your style.
Of all the fools I've played and beat, you're the first one who lost with a smile."

"Well, I'll tell you somethin'," Billy Markham says. "Those odds weren't too damn bad.
In fourteen years on Music Row, that's the best damn chance I've had."

Then, arm in arm, Billy Markham and the Devil walk out through Linebaugh's door,
Leavin' Billy's old beat-up guitar there on the floor.
And if you go into Linebaugh's now, you can see it there today
Hangin' from a nail on the wall of peelin' gray
Billy Markham's old guitar . . .
That nobody dares to play.

I would post the whole series, but that'd be waaaaay long....

google it.
cut and paste.

I ♥ Shel Silverstein

OK, one more that inspires me:



If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


--Rudyard Kipling

The Cobweb
by Raymond Carver

A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that's happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my forehead.
It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I turned
and went inside. There was no wind. The sea
was dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.
Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath
touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.
Before long, before anyone realizes,
I'll be gone from here.

Yup, one of my favorite people ever