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This is one of my all-time favorite poems that never fails to stir me. "Love Song" How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things? I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects, in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate when your depths resound. Yet everything that touches us, me and you, takes us together like a violin's bow, which draws one voice out of two seperate strings. Upon what instrument are we two spanned? And what musician holds us in his hand? Oh sweetest song. - Rilke
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DECEMBER 30 At 1:03 in the morning a fart smells like a marriage between an avocado and a fish head. I have to get out of bed to write this down without My glasses on. by Richard Brautigan
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Like others have already said, I love Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise." Here are three favorites of mine! "The Quiet World" by Jeffrey McDaniel In an effort to get people to look into each other's eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day. When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way. Late at night, I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you. When she doesn't respond, I know she's used up all her words, so I slowly whisper I love you thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe. - Excerpt from "Two Loves" by Lord Alfred Douglas And lo! within the garden of my dream I saw two walking on a shining plain Of golden light. The one did joyous seem And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were. But he that was his comrade walked aside; He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame: which when I did behold I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth, Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove These pleasent realms? I pray thee speak me sooth What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.' Then straight the first did turn himself to me And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.' Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will, I am the love that dare not speak its name.' - "I Met A Genius" by Charles Bukowski I met a genius on the train today about 6 years old, he sat beside me and as the train ran down along the coast we came to the ocean and then he looked at me and said, it's not pretty. it was the first time I'd realized that.
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The Good Nights by Joseph Mills On the good nights when the bottle's empty we always want just a little more, half a glass, a few sips, a taste. We know this desire can be dangerous to pursue, that it can make mornings difficult, so usually we brush our teeth let the dog in, lock the doors, but sometimes, even as we say We really should get ready for bed, instead of loading the dishwasher we will search for the corkscrew, all the while shaking our heads in wonder at this willingness to ignore the clocks and the fact we have to work tomorrow, this irresponsibility, this evidence even after all these years of the unquenchable desire for each other's company. "The Good Nights" by Joseph Mills from Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers: Wine Poems. © Press 53, 2008.
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hands down: As the Ruin Falls- C.S. Lewis All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you I never had a selfless thought since I was born I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn. Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-- But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin. Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack. I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking. For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.
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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN by Robert Frost 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.
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One that moves me is Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise": You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
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Self-Pity by D H Lawrence I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
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There are too many to list. Shakespeare's sonnets; Wordsworth; Keats...but the top of my list will always be Whitman's Song of Myself. The man was pure genius.
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"The Second Coming" by Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Right now, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by W.B. Yeats. I have grown a distinct fondness for him over the past semester.
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This is one of my favourites, but I have many. THIS IS FAITH To walk where there is no path To breathe where there is no air To see where there is not light- This is Faith. To cry out in the silence, The silence of the night, And hearing no echo believe And believe again and again- This is Faith. To hold pebbles and see jewels To raise sticks and see forests To smile with weeping eyes- This is Faith. To say: "God, I believe" when others deny, "I hear" when there is no answer, "I see" though naught is seen- This is Faith. And the fierce love in the heart, The savage love that cries Hidden Thou art yet there ! Veil Thy face and mute Thy tongue yet I see and hear Thee, Love, Beat me down to the bare earth, Yet I rise and love Thee, Love !" This is Faith. ~Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum
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for me, right now, i gotta hit ya with...Salutation To The Dawn Look well to this day. For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your life: The bliss of growth, The glory of action, The splendor of beauty. For yesterday is but a dream And tomorrow is only a vision, But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness And every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well to this day! Such is the exhortation of the dawn. Kalidasa
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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is my favorite poem---T.S. Eliot But here is a much shorter one by the late great Shel Siverstein that I have long adored: EARLY BIRD Oh, if you're a bird, be an early bird And catch the worm for your breakfast plate. If you're a bird, be an early bird But if you're a worm, sleep late. Makes me giggle with glee every time.....
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"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens. http://www.repeatafterus.com/print.php?i=7179" target="_blank">http://www.repeatafterus.com/print.php?i=7179
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