Poems That Move You

[Peace-Phoenix]

What are some of the poems that have really moved you in the past, or have really meant something to you for some reason or other? It could be a famous poem, or it could be something a friend wrote. Here's one that really touched me, doubly so having visited his grave:

The Parable Of The Old Man And The Young

Wilfred Owen

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

[PooBrain]

Where the clouds are dark

and the dogs go bark
when the clouds are black
and the ducks go quack
when the sky is blue
and the cows go mooooo
Think of loverly poobrain
she'll be thinking of you


:D

[Peace-Phoenix]

Where the clouds are dark

and the dogs go bark
when the clouds are black
and the ducks go quack
when the sky is blue
and the cows go mooooo
Think of loverly poobrain
she'll be thinking of you


:D
Man that poem's so beautiful, probably the second most beautiful in the world after NP's poetry....

[PooBrain]

It was writen by queenie from blackadder


:H

[Peace-Phoenix]

I don't remember Queenie every saying PooBrain :eek: You just have poo on the brain....

[Harry Tuttle]

That's great poo! lol

[Cerebus]

In nineteen sixty-six
the Queen pulled down her knicks
she licked her bum
and said "yum yum,
it tastes like Weetabix"

[Peace-Phoenix]

You're all a uncultured swine! :rolleyes:
;)

[PooBrain]

Best way to be :D

[lithium]

I've avoided this thread 'cos teaching poetry is work to me so I get sick of reading the stuff:D But this is probably my favourite poem, one of William Wordsworth's "Lucy" poems.


A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

[Lagan]

if you have taken this rubble for my past
raking through it for fragments you could sell
know that i long ago moved on
deeper into the heart of the matter
if you think you can grasp me, think again:
my story flows in more than one direction
a delta springing from the riverbed
with its five fingers spread

delta, adrienne rich

[L.A.Matthews]

Either America by Allen Ginsberg, or this:


The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

-- Frank O'Hara

[phoenix_indigo]

I consider some lyrics to be poetry. This to me is just as much a poem as it is a song. It has always been super meaningful to me since the first time I ever heard it about 10 years ago. Yes, maybe I'm cheating a bit, but I still think this is poetry.


"Hurt"
by Trent Reznor

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear my crown of shit
On my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stain of time
The feeling disappears
You are someone else
I am still right here
What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

[fountains of nay]

Skin Deep


I think that I am lovely
Despite a broken nose
You can detract from it
By wearing fancy clothes
I think I am beautiful
Although I have cross-eyes
You can detract from that aswell
By wearing fancy ties
I think I am beautiful
Even though I've got big ears
I cover them with blankets
When anyone appears.
I think I am beautiful
Although my legs are thin
If people want to see them
I say my legs aren't in
If some folk say I'm ugly
As some folk certainly will
I get out my rotweiler
And say kill kill kill.

Spike Milligan 1995

[sentient]

This poem by Byron is seriously underestimated by academics who rate other works of his,His greater stuff like "she walks in beauty" and his epics, are brilliant but I love this poem and it is the one which if I am buried I would have that last verse on my grave stone. He wrote it, I believe, for lady Caroline Lamb, who actually died of grief when he left her. I think he is saying in the first two verses that youth is vibrant with life and that its goal is to find love, fame and fortune are not on the agenda, what is fame and fortune without the love of a woman. In the second two verses he is saying that he sought fame precisely so that it would make him more attractive to women and that when he had fame, fortune and love, he realised the best of it was love and that the guiddy feeling of first love is
life itself. youth and love is life itself
ps
(if any of you wonder what "hoary" means - it means "old")

ALL FOR LOVE
O TALK not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary—
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.
.
(Lord George Gordon Byron)

[ronald Macdonald]

I love this one by Polly Styrene of X-ray spex

Its about womanhood as a mere commodity and makes me think of Mahler and Hunderwasser whenever I read it

BONDAGE UP YOURS

Bind me tie me
Chain me to the wall
I wanna be a slave to you all

Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more

Chain-store chain-smoke
I consume you all
Chain-gang chain-mail
I don't think at all

Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more

Thrash me crash me
Beat me till I fall
I wanna be a victim
For you all

Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more

[ronald Macdonald]

Again by polly styrene

GERM FREE ADOLESCENCE

I know your antiseptic
Your deodorant smells nice
I'd like to get to know you
You're deep frozen like the ice

She's a germ free adolescent
Cleanliness is her obsession
Cleans her teeth ten times a day
Scrub away scrub away scrub away
The S.R. way....

You may get to touch her
If your gloves are sterilised
Rinse your mouth with listerine
Blow disinfectant in her eyes

Her phobia is infection
She needs one to survive
It's her built-in protection
Without fear she'd give up and die

She's a germ free adolescent
Cleanliness is her obsession
Cleans her teeth ten times a day
Scrub away scrub away scrub away
The S.R. way....

[phoenix_indigo]

i liked those polly styrene poems, especially the second one. i've never heard of her before. she sounds pretty interesting.

[lithium]

i liked those polly styrene poems, especially the second one. i've never heard of her before. she sounds pretty interesting.X Ray Spex were a two hit wonder from the punk era, good stuff:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEjkPRp60bU