10)
Survivor
Ian McGough
Everyday
I think about dying.
About Disease, starvation,
Violence, terrorism, war
The end of the world.
It helps
Keep my mind off things.
9)
Helas
Oscar Wilde
Hélas
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God.
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance—
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?
8)
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
7)
Walking Song
JRR Tolkein
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
6)
The Flea
John Donne
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Curel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;
Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
5)
The Road Not Taken
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.
4)
We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
3)
The Hippopotamus Song
Michael Flanders
A bold Hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar.
He gazed at the bottom as it peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star.
Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair Hippopotamine maid.
The Hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
The fair Hippopotamus he aimed to entice,
From here seen on the hilltop above,
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice,
Came tip-toeing down to her love.
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang as they met.
His enamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
Now more Hippopotami began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide.
I wonder now what am I to say of the scene
That ensued by the Shalimar side?
They dived all at once with an ear-splitting splash,
Then rose to the surface again,
A regular army of Hippopotami
All singing this haunting refrain.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
2)
Invictus
William Earnst Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
1)
Andy Warhol
Wild wild bird
of neon
strangers
at his feet ,
and The New Yorker
writes
about sex ,
it's in the air
you know .
Honorable Mention
The Best Poem You Ever Read
by wayoutwalt
Is not necessarily by Thoreau
Or for that matter Keats or Shelley
Or Edgar Allan Poe
It might not be amongst the
Dusty books there on the shelf
The greatest poem you ever read
May just be written by yourself
Did you ever write a poem?
That just made you softly sigh
Or was there one that emotion
Made you bittersweetly cry
Is there one that was born to you?
That made you wholly believe
Words weren't born long time ago
You yourself can conceive
This poem that I am writing
Is not the best there ever was
But few poems can do for me
What my own poetry does
When you think of Percey Shelly
And when you think of ole John Keats
Remember theirs is their own
Even if
You wish to match their feats
I hope the poetry you respect
From which have made you grown
I hope the greatest poem you ever read
Was one you call your own
The End (sentiment)
In spirit of the honourable mention
Western disturbances
Me
Born and raised cold
To worship the profane
A freezing, murky afternoon
Daylight reached the drain
And society lingers
Despite all the strain
Out of sync and out of tune
Another prejudice to sustain
Like staying safe inside
Mulling over the mundane
During a muddy monsoon
A mere mind driven insane
Blood red raindrops
And the hurts they contain
The insults they commune
The spoils of proud disdain
An obligation for sympathy
Perhaps parodied by the pain
Like a cloud cloaked moon
Or smoke strings in the rain
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