Whats your favorite poem?

Hi Kimmi

I read Desiderata many years ago.

Thanks for posting it.

It's good to reflect on what life is really about and to appreciate it in all it's diversity

Peace & Blessings

Thank you Squizita for the site link. Unfortunately I couldn't find it there. I'm sure it has the line "my heart is breaking for a little love" but I can't find it anywhere on the internet. Its really bugging me. I know its one of her longer poems (about 4 verses) and its really beautiful. I used to have a typed copy on an old laptop years ago but that doesn't work anymore.
Also thanks Sheila - I've never seen John Hegley live, I've come close a couple of times but on both occasions I found out too late to get tickets. One day ......
I bet he was brilliant in a workshop. Some of his stuff is actually quite deep and its not all silly stuff although his silly stuff is so funny and quirky. I used to love Craig Charles too years ago but I don't know if he still writes, he seems to have gone down the acting root since Red Dwarf but his stuff used to be very good - kind of social commentary stuff with a bit of wit thrown in.

I just remembered I was going to add one of my favourites. This always leaves me feeling tingly. V sad but beautiful and often so true.: -

Not Waving but Drowning
Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man
But still he lay moaning
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him and his heart gave way
They said

Oh, no no no, it is too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning

John Hegley usually does a week of shows in my home town of Bradford for the Literary festival with a group of writers, comedians and other performance poets. Usually in summer.

Hi Arty KitKat

Been looking for the Rossetti poem you like. It's a bit of a treck through internet. Check out these sites

classiclit.about.com/library/bl.../crossetti/bl-crossetti-monna.htm

www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19452

Is this the one you wanted?


'Whose heart was breaking for a little love.'

downstairs I laugh, I sport and jest with all;
but in my solitary room above
I turn my face in silence to the wall;
my heart is breaking for a little love.
Though winter frosts are done,
and birds pair every one,
and leaves peep out, for springtide is begun.

I feel no spring, while spring is wellnigh blown,
I find no nest, while nests are in the grove:
woe's me for mine own heart that dwells alone,
my heart that breaketh for a little love.
While golden in the sun
rivulets rise and run,
while lilies bud, for springtide is begun.

All love, are loved, save only i; their hearts
beat warm with love and joy, beat full thereof:
they cannot guess, who play the pleasant parts,
my heart is breaking for a little love.
While beehives wake and whirr,
and rabbit thins his fur,
in living spring that sets the world astir.

I deck myself with skills and jewelry,
I plume myself like any mated dove:
they praise my rustling show, and never see
my heart is breaking for a little love.
While sprouts green lavender
with rosemary and myrrh,
for in quick spring the sap is all astir.

Perhaps some saints in glory guess the truth,
perhaps some angels read it as they move,
and cry one to another full of ruth,
'her heart is breaking for a little love.'
though other things have birth,
and leap and sing for mirth,
when springtime wakes and clothes and feeds the earth.

Yet saith a saint: 'take patience for thy scathe;'
yet saith an angel: 'wait, for thou shalt prove
true best is last, true life is born of death,
o thou, heart-broken for a little love.
Then love shall fill they girth,
and love make fat thy dearth,
when new spring builds new heaven and clean new earth.'

Oh WOW!!! Thats it - Thank you so much for finding that, I have trawled the internet trying everything and wasn't getting anywhere. I found a lot of other stuff of hers that was also nice but not this one. So thanks again

You're welcome x

The Road Not Yet Taken... I'm a sucker for some Robert Frost.

One that really stuck with my from the past few years was one I actually found on YouTube by Kayleigh "Harmony" Millward lol
It's called "The Long Road To You".

The Long Road to You

Shadow Falls
And all I see if your face
Tears rolling down like rivers of pain

My Heart hurts
whenever we're apart
Together forever
bound by our love

We share one Heart...
one Soul...
one Destiny...

Walking down this
road with you

My feet falter
it's true

But I know you're
here by my side
So no matter how many
miles it takes
Or how many obstacles
bar the road
I know my journey leads
to you

But for now my and
love sustains me

As sleep takes me into the night
And Darkness
closes in around me
In my dreams I see a
Light that is you

Shining like a beacon of
hope to my weary
Wandering

Every moment I think of you
With every step my mind
plays tricks on me
Illusions of you before my
eyes

Your voice ringing in my
ears with childhood
memories

Thinking I finally found
you, my heart fills with
happiness
Then I turn around and
find you're not really
there

But when I fianlly find
you in reality
Destiny intervenes
and I am forced to pay
The ultimate scarifice
to save you

Because of my love for you
I fall into Darkness
Leaving you behind
to weep for me
And the harshness
of our Fate

I found it's true that in
the end love conquers all

As the Darkness engulfs
my still burning soul
I feel your love run through me
bringing me back
To the Light and your
voice calling out my name

We are Reunited at
long last

But before too long my
path leads away from
yours
Pulling our hands
apart once again

While the walls of many
worlds spring up
To break our silently
staring eyes
Know that our hearts are
one and
Although many leauges
lay between us
We shall never be
truly p-a-r-t-e-d

At this wicked crossroad
of Fate and partings

I make you this vow,
"I'll come back to you,
I promise"

Then we'll make our way
back Home together
To be safe again in the
loving arms
Of friends & family

Then you smile as Destiny
steals me from you anew
And tell me simply,
"I know you will"
And I'll be right there
by your side
Leading you back to
me.
Then with our
Promises fulfilled

We can take the
long road Home

Together.

I just about danced with joy seeing these posts- I love poetry! Christina Rossetti and Robert Frost are among my fav poets (as is Shakespear, and I'm equally in love with his plays).

A number of Robert Frost's poems I adore, although this one in probably my favourite:


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



Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (the brother of Christina) is also a brilliant poet, as is William Blake (I've ended up singing 3 diffiferent adaptations of his poem 'In the Bleak Midwinter' over the years). It's easier for me to name poets I love than poems (my list is pretty long at this point lol), but this is probably my all time favourite in terms of being short and brilliantly to the point.


"Outwitted"
- Edwin Markham

He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

My favourite poem is Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

I'm not much of a poem person...though I love dirty limericks, and children's nursery rhymes. (though not to be read together) lol

I kinda scribbled one together for my son. Sort of a modern-day nursery rhyme I suppose. (not really my favorite, just one I can remember enough to recite) ;)

There was an old woman who lived in a plane.
She took to the sky, and never came down again.
When she got hungry, she'd toss out a line,
and fish from the river while up in the sky.
And when she got thirsty, she'd fly through a cloud
and catch all the raindrops before they came down.

lol...there's my two cents on this topic. ;)

My Favorite Poem:

Because I could not stop for Death - Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Eldorado" by Edgar Allan Poe and second is his "The Raven

Stephen Crane's "In The Desert"

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."