Favourite Poems

I caught the second programme of the BBC's ' My life In Verse' last night, with the gorgeous Robert Webb. I was half asleep when this wonderful poem was read out and it jolted me upright in bed and I was desperate to hear it or read it again - and I just have.
And so I thought I'd start a poetry thread for anyone who's that way inclined.

This is by e.e. cummings...who I'm sure is very familiar to you folks on the other side of the big sea......last night was my introduction to him. And I'll get soppy and dedicate it to the person who's heart I carry......you know who you are.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

: ) i will get back to this thread

oznz wrote:: ) i will get back to this thread

I hoped you would.

I will too when I remember some names and titles.....but I expect to post some Norman MacCaig and WB Yeats.

Yeats -

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.

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I liked that one ^

Toad by Norman MacCaig

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse
squeeze under the rickety door and sit,
full of satisfaction, in a man's house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners —
right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,
for crawling like a Japanese wrestler,
and for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it,
and set you down outside directly under
every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,
you've put one in mine,
a tiny radiance in a dark place.

"my dragon's been disconsolate" by jack prelutsky

my dragon's been disconsolate
and cannot help but pout
since he defied a thunderstorm
that put his fire out

here's one i wrote when i was like 8 or so

"manure"

manure does stink
but so unfortunately
it's reality!


it's a haiku btw.

was ' manure' a title set by the teacher or was that all that was in your head?

This one by RL Stevenson was one of the first things I remember reading at primary school.....I loved swings

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

no i came up with that all on my own. here's the other haiku

"monkeys"

monkeys are mammals
wack them on their heads with sticks
it is really fun

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 say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.