Poetry Appreciation (do NOT post your own poetry)

splash

the illusion is that you are simply
reading this poem.
the reality is that this is
more than a
poem.
this is a beggar’s knife.
this is a tulip.
this is a soldier marching
through Madrid.
this is you on your
death bed.
this is Li Po laughing
underground.
this is not a god-damned
poem.
this is a horse asleep.
a butterfly in
your brain.
this is the devil’s
circus.
you are not reading this
on a page.
the page is reading
you.
feel it?
it’s like a cobra. it’s a hungry eagle circling the room.

this is not a poem. poems are dull,
they make you sleep.

these words force you
to a new
madness.

you have been blessed, you have been pushed into a
blinding area of
light.

the elephant dreams
with you
now.
the curve of space
bends and
laughs.

you can die now.
you can die now as
people were meant to
die:
great,
victorious,
hearing the music,
being the music,
roaring,
roaring,
roaring.

-Charles Bukowski
 
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"Speak to me only in the liquor of your skin, unbottled over mine. Empty your mouth into mine. Tell me. Tell me everything."

-Peregrine​
 
314q7t4.jpg


If We Must Die

If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

-Claude McKay​
 
Christians


When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."
I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!
 
Refugee in America

There are words like Freedom
Sweet and wonderful to say.
On my heart-strings freedom sings
All day everyday.

There are words like Liberty
That almost make me cry.
If you had known what I knew
You would know why.

Langston Hughes
 
I spent a lot of time
searching for affection
in shallow spaces.

I gave people bits of me
they didn’t deserve
and I let myself be hurt,
because I thought
that’s what I deserved.

But once I let go
of trying to shove puzzle pieces
in places that did not fit,
once I let go of all the hate
I secretly had stored in the
gashes that decorate my heart

I met you.

MK
 
"I want to know how many scars you have
and memorize the shape of your tongue.
I want to climb the curve of your lower back
and count your vertebrae
your ribs
your fingers
your goosebumps.
I want to chart the topography of your anatomy
and be fluent in your body language.
I want you, entire"
 
First Sight


I believe
in love at first sight
but
I will always believe
that the people
we love
we have loved before.
Many, many
many times before
and when we stumble
through grace
and circumstance and
that brilliant illusion of choice
to finally meet them again
we feel it faster
each time through.
The one glance
that set life alight
is two sets
of two eyes
staring through the layers
of lifetimes
and stolen glances
and first kisses
and hands held;
the brace against the
weight and unrelenting
tide of waiting.
I believe
in love at first sight
but am not burdened
with the misconception
that it’s a first sight
at all.

-Tyler Knott Gregson-
 
RaiderLL said:
First Sight


I believe
in love at first sight
but
I will always believe
that the people
we love
we have loved before.
Many, many
many times before
and when we stumble
through grace
and circumstance and
that brilliant illusion of choice
to finally meet them again
we feel it faster
each time through.
The one glance
that set life alight
is two sets
of two eyes
staring through the layers
of lifetimes
and stolen glances
and first kisses
and hands held;
the brace against the
weight and unrelenting
tide of waiting.
I believe
in love at first sight
but am not burdened
with the misconception
that it’s a first sight
at all.

-Tyler Knott Gregson-
Click to expand...

Love it! :smt038
 
I don't want to be called perfect
or beautiful or special.
We have overused those words
to the point where their meanings
no longer hold the eloquence
they used to.

Instead I want to be called
breathtaking
or alluring
or unparalleled.

I want to be called something
like that so then
I know I'm not
average to them.
I'm not 'perfect'
because that would
be too easy of a
word to think up.
I want to know that they
have spent their time
thinking of me
wondering about me
and imagining me.

(LTN)
 
Giorgos Seferis

? ???????? ??? ??????
?????? ??...
??????​
​


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??????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?? ????? ???? ??? ????????:
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???? ??????.

?????, ????????? '38 - ?????, ???. '40


THE KING OF ASINE
ILIAD


All morning long we looked around the citadel*
starting from the shaded side, there where the sea,
green and without luster—breast of a slain peacock—
received us like time without an opening in it.
Veins of rock dropped down from high above,
twisted vines, naked, many-branched, coming alive
at the water’s touch, while the eye following them
struggled to escape the tiresome rocking,
losing strength continually.

On the sunny side a long empty beach
and the light striking diamonds on the huge walls.
No living thing, the wild doves gone
and the king of Asine, whom we’ve been trying to find for
two years now,
unknown , forgotten by all, even by Homer,
only one word in the Iliad and that uncertain,
thrown here like the gold burial mask.
You touched it, remember its sound? Hollow in the light
like a dry jar in dug earth:
the same sound that our oars make in the sea.
The king of Asine a void under the mask
everywhere with us everywhere with us, under a name:
“?s???? te... ?s???? te...”
and his children statues
and his desires the fluttering of birds, and the wind
in the gaps between his thoughts, and his ships
anchored in a vanished port:
under the mask a void.

Behind the large eyes the curved lips the curls
carved in relief on the gold cover of our existence
a dark spot that you see traveling like a fish
in the dawn calm of the sea:
a void everywhere with us.
And the bird that flew away last winter
with a broken wing:
abode of life,
and the young woman who left to play
with the dogteeth of summer
and the soul that sought the lower world squeaking
and the country like a large plane-leaf swept along by the
torrent of the sun
with the ancient monuments and the contemporary sorrow.

And the poet lingers, looking at the stones, and asks himself
does there really exist
among these ruined lines, edges, points, hollows, and curves
does there really exist
here where one meets the path of rain, wind, and ruin
does there exist the movement of the face, shape of the
tenderness
of those who’ve shrunk so strangely in our lives,
those who remained the shadow of waves and thoughts with
the sea’s boundlessness
or perhaps no, nothing is left but the weight
the nostalgia for the weight of a living existence
there where we now remain unsubstantial, bending
like the branches of a terrible willow-tree heaped in
permanent despair
while the yellow current slowly carries down rushes up-
rooted in the mud
image of a form that the sentence to everlasting bitterness
has turned to stone:
the poet a void.

Shieldbearer, the sun climbed warring,
and from the depths of the cave a startled bat
hit the light as an arrow hits a shield:
“?s???? te...?s???? te...” Would that it were the king
of Asine
we’ve been searching for so carefully on this acropolis
sometimes touching with our fingers his touch upon
the stones.

Asine, summer ´38—Athens. Jan. ´40​
 
Places

Come to think of it
I'm not entirely sure
Where I lost myself

Maybe it was in those 8 hours
of class time
lost in notes and due dates
equations and definitions

In beds of strangers or
old friends who I know longer
know the where about's of

Was it in love lost and forgotten?
Perhaps words and friendly exchanges
greetings and goodbyes

Did i lose myself somewhere
along those roads driven on
late nights
to places with people whose
faces i wont ever recall?

Did i leave myself behind
in books or shows at the cinema?
in lonely coffee shops
or crowded concert halls?

Or maybe it was in the ticking of the clocks
and the counting of the time
and waiting for the better times
that never came

Come to think of it
I'm not entirely sure i lost myself
I'm not entirely sure i had myself

Maybe all these places
are where I've found myself

JM
 
if you're laying in bed
wrapped up in sheets
of miserable thought,
go to sleep

if thumbing through old messages
only causes your heart to ache
and long for something unattainable
erase them

if it hurts to keep
everything you're feeling
bottled up inside
let it out

if you're clinging onto someone
that doesn't treat you like
you're worth the world
let them go

because sometimes
we choose to believe
that things are only
indistinguishable shades of gray
when in reality,
life is more black and white
than it seems

if you're unhappy
with the way
you're living your life
change it

-mk
 
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