So I was thinking...

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

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?

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.

*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

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

and

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

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.

Die in This Love by Rumi:

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

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

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!!

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

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost

And snowball by shel silverstein

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I miss Xanthe.

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

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

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