pantagrapher / October 12, 2007 8:40 AM

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

jamesfinngarner / October 12, 2007 8:44 AM

Anything published at Bardball.com.

jamesfinngarner / October 12, 2007 8:44 AM

Anything published at Bardball.com.

dxo / October 12, 2007 8:58 AM

Babylon Revisited by Amiri Baraka.

kl5 / October 12, 2007 9:13 AM

8 Count
Charles Bukowski

from my bed I watch 3 birds on a telephone wire. one flies off. then another. one is left, then it too is gone. my typewriter is tombstone still. and I am reduced to bird watching. just thought I'd let you know, fucker.

Sol / October 12, 2007 9:30 AM

Eros Turannos by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Good, depressing shit.

ahn / October 12, 2007 9:45 AM

i'm not sure if it counts as a poem or a book but i love "four quartets" by t.s. eliot.

peta / October 12, 2007 9:45 AM

The Flea by John Donne.

A really unique attempt at seduction.

skee bop / October 12, 2007 9:48 AM

Really great Haikus:

If I go alone
I'll lie in the wildflowers
and dream of you

-Tom Gilroy

in the eggshell after the chick has hatched

-Michael Segers

Flynn / October 12, 2007 10:12 AM

Wow, I was going to post my two favorites by Eliot and Donne. In the first 8 posts, both are mentioned. Back to back, no less.

I bow to you, GB readers.

Mo / October 12, 2007 10:47 AM

As a writer, I really ought to appreciate all forms, but I just don't like poetry that much. But I always did love T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Erica / October 12, 2007 10:54 AM

e.e. cummings

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

(it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

mary / October 12, 2007 11:09 AM

im not very well read in regards to poetry, but i love me some robert frost.
------------------------------
Devotion

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean -
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
-------------------------------
it reminds me of college.

Kevin / October 12, 2007 11:31 AM

Kurt Vonnegut:

Tiger got to hunt
Bird got to fly
Man got to sit and ask why why why

Tiger got to sleep
Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand

JBJ / October 12, 2007 12:38 PM

I don't know whose this is, but I've never forgotten it.

Rose of neon darkness
Rose of the sharp-thorned stem
And the rouge-bright petals
Rose of nothing but yesterdays
Too bitter to remember
Little dollar rose
of the bar stools
Facing a two-bit
December

Jill / October 12, 2007 12:45 PM

I third The Flea
I also really like A Dream Within A Dream by Poe
And I know it's a little cheesy, but I've always loved If byKipling.

d. / October 12, 2007 1:09 PM

oh man. i never used to read poetry until the past few years, and my favorite poet ever is kenneth rexroth. i love all of his stuff, but one of my favorites by him is called "when we with sappho." bukowski is also awesome.

do a search for it in google -- it's incredibly lush and beautiful in a way that most people just kinda...get.

---

he did this japanese translation (by ono no komachi):

Although I come to you constantly
over the roads of dreams,
those nights of love
are not worth one waking touch of you.

---

i also write poems too. they are on my webpage and they are kind a cross between bukowski AND rexroth and that was before i even knew who they were. my friends think my "beans for breakfast" poem is their favorite.

Spook / October 12, 2007 1:26 PM

Good question,

Countée Cullen's
A Brown Girl Dead.

Two white roses on her breasts,
White candles at head and feet,
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;
Lord Death has found her sweet.

Her mother pawned her wedding ring
To lay her out in white;
She'd be so proud she'd dance and sing
to see herself tonight.

Plum / October 12, 2007 1:54 PM

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

peanut / October 12, 2007 2:31 PM

the only one i can remember in toto is hayden carruth:

your tears, niobe
are your children now. see how
we have multiplied.

but my all time fave might be "Reconciliation" by Yeats. Also cummings, William Stafford, and Ginsberg.

Sol / October 12, 2007 2:48 PM

@ Plum: I love that one too - I think that poem's the only reason I like plums at all (fresh ones, straight out the icebox).

I forgot how much I love this one, by Tony Hoagland:

IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

In Delaware a Congressman
accused of sexual misconduct
says clearly at the press conference,
speaking
right into the microphone
that he would like very much
to do it again.

It was on the radio
and Carla laughed
as she painted, Die, You Pig
in red nail polish
on the back of a turtle
she plans to turn loose tomorrow
in Jerry’s back yard.

We lived near the high school that year
and in the afternoons, in autumn,
we could hear the marching band rehearsals
from the stadium,
drums and off-key trumpets, brass
smeared weirdly by the wind;

a ragged Louie Louie
or sometimes, The Impossible Dream.

I was reading a book about pleasure,
how you have to glide through it
without clinging,
like an arrow
passing through a target,
coming out the other side and going on.

Sitting at the picnic table
carved with the initials of the previous tenants;
thin October sunlight
blessing the pale grass--
You would have thought we had it all-

But the turtle in Carla’s hand
churned its odd stiff legs like oars,
as if it wasn’t made for holding still

and the high school band played
worse than ever for a moment
as if getting the song right
were the impossible dream.

Jill (the other one) / October 12, 2007 3:14 PM

I like ee cummings too, but my fave is In just-

in just-

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

sparky / October 12, 2007 3:18 PM

I have a number of poems that I love. Here are 2.

Oranges
Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickle in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickle from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.

Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

And e.e. cummings:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

David / October 12, 2007 3:18 PM

At the end of his commencement speech to the students of Harvard University, one of America's greatest poets got ready to step down. "Give us a poem!" came a shout from the crowd.

He thought for a second, looked out across the group, and stepped to the microphone.

"Me," he said, pointing to himself.

He flung his arms wide and with a great smile, finished the poem: "We."

As the crowd roared in approval, Muhammad Ali gave a last wave.

Spook / October 12, 2007 3:43 PM

Dave,out of site!
Greatest Ali tribute!
Thanx, happy Friday!

Lori / October 12, 2007 3:45 PM

I love poetry, and have been writing a bit of it lately, possibly at the expense of other things I'm supposed to be writing. A recent fave is this Billy Collins poem:

Poetry
Billy Collins

Call it a field where the animals
who were forgotten by the Ark
come to graze under the evening clouds.

Or a cistern where the rain that fell
before history trickles over a concrete lip.

However you see it,
this is no place to set up
the three-legged easel of realism

or make a reader climb
over the many fences of a plot.

Let the portly novelist
with his noisy typewriter
describe the city where Francine was born,

how Albert read the paper on the train,
how curtains were blowing in the bedroom.

Let the playwright with her torn cardigan
and a dog curled on the rug
move the characters

from the wings to the stage
to face the many-eyed darkness of the house.

Poetry is no place for that.
We have enough to do
complaining about the price of tobacco,

passing the dripping ladle,
and singing songs to a bird in a cage.

We are busy doing nothing----
and all we need for that is an afternoon,
a rowboat under a blue sky,

and maybe a man fishing from a stone bridge,
or, better still, nobody on that bridge at all.

Kosmo Kramer / October 12, 2007 3:53 PM

I gave this poem to a friend on her birthday a few years ago.

"Think where man's glory
most begins and ends
and say my glory was
I had such a friend."

Yates

eep / October 12, 2007 4:12 PM

"You Fit Into Me"

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye.

A fish hook.
An open eye.

–Margaret Atwood

"Gumeye Ball"

There's an eyeball in the gumball machine,
Right there, between the red and the green,
Looking at me as if to say
"You don't need any more gum today."

–Shel Silverstein

Judy / October 12, 2007 4:56 PM

from darkness I go onto the road of darkness.
moon, shine on me
from far over the mountain edge

(can't remember author off the top of my head. Starts with an "I" )

I have loved this poem for years, but didn't really understand it until my dad died last year.

Leelah / October 12, 2007 6:07 PM

One of my favorites to teach. It's long, but it's fun:
Robert Browning- "Porphyria's Lover"

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me — she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last l knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string l wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And l untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said aword!

Leelah / October 12, 2007 6:38 PM

Best death poem:
W.H. Auden "Funeral Blues"

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever: 'I was wrong'
The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Leelah / October 12, 2007 6:40 PM

Best form.. ee cummings

l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

vanessa / October 12, 2007 6:55 PM

One of my favorites:
"Dirge without Music" Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Anne / October 12, 2007 9:31 PM

This is by A.E. Housman. I don't know the title. What does it say about me that I was an English major, and yet this is the only poem I can recite from memory?

As into the garden Elizabeth ran,
Pursued by the just indignation of Ann,
She trod on an object that lay in her road,
She trod on an object that looked like a toad.

It looked like a toad, and it looked so because
A toad was the actual object it was;
And after supporting Elizabeth's tread
It looked like a toad that was visibly dead.

Elizabeth, leaving her footprint behind,
Continued her flight on the wings of the wind,
And Ann in her anger was heard to arrive
At the toad that was not any longer alive.

She was heard to arrive, for the firmament rang
With the sound of a scream and the noise of a bang,
As her breath on the breezes she broadly bestowed
And fainted away on Elizabeth's toad.

Elizabeth, saved by the sole of her boot,
Escpaed her insensible sister's pursuit;
And if ever hereafter she irritates Ann,
She will tread on a toad if she possibly can.

Carlotta / October 12, 2007 11:41 PM

Thanks to Facets Multimedia, I saw the documentary "O Amor Natural" where elderly people read aloud the posthumously published erotic poetry of Brazillian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade as they recall their own memories of love and sex. The movie itself is not exciting visually, but the English translations of the poetry make me melt!!! Unfortunately, that volume has not yet been translated into English.

Here is a poem from that collection:

---------------
A love that cannot wait for bed
On hard floor, on carpet, rug
Our bodies weave the moist story's thread
And to rest from love, we go to bed
---------------

Here's another one I really like, from another collection of his poems:

---------------
The world is large and fits
in this window over the sea
The sea is large and fits
in the bed and in the mattress of love
Love is large and fits
in the brief space of a kiss.
---------------

Leelah / October 13, 2007 10:19 AM

The poem right above (The world is large...) reminds me of John Donne's "The Sun Rising" (which I also love, but I've posted enough!)

ataraxy / October 13, 2007 10:34 AM

I'm going to come off as a complete romantic when sharing three of my favorite poems, and I might chalk that up to the fact that I'm engaged, but truly I'm a romantic (albeit a cynical one).

These poems give me that feeling of complete awe and wonderment at the human condition. They reassure me. My examined life --anyone's-- may have moments of darkness. But if humans can create poems like these, with simple words used daily in other contexts that, when arranged in certain ways, evoke such emotion? It gives me a shiver of hope and optimism.

Also, I think poetry helped me understand *why* one would want to become fluent in other languages. Reading a poem as written, and being able to understand its nuances, helped me understand how you can really know a people and its culture when you know its language.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weisst du, ich will mich schleichen
leise aus lautem Kreis,
wenn ich erst die bleichen
Sterne über den Eichen
blühen weiß.

Wege will ich erkiesen,
die selten wer betritt
in blassen Abendwiesen -
und keinen Traum, als diesen:
Du gehst mit.

Rilke
from Advent, 1898

The translation I first read, and that I've always preferred:

Do you know, I would quietly
slip from the loud circle,
when first I know the pale
stars above the oaks
are blooming.

Ways will I elect
that seldom any tread
in pale evening meadows—
and no dream but this:
You come too.

I first read this poem in English. Years later, when I lived in Germany and was by then fluent in German, I chanced across the poem in the original language. My knees buckled from the beauty of the German nuances that just can't be effectively translated into English phrases that fit into the lines of a poem, so the poem has to be interpreted, and... oh, I just love this poem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Le jardin

Des milliers et des milliers d'années
Ne sauraient suffire
Pour dire
La petite seconde d'éternité
Où tu m'as embrassé
Où je t'ai embrassée
Un matin dans la lumière de l'hiver
Au parc Montsouris à Paris
A Paris
Sur la terre
La terre qui est un astre

Jacques Prévert
from Paroles, 1946

The Garden

Thousands and thousands
Of years
Would not suffice
To tell of
The sweet moment of eternity
Where you kissed me
Where I kissed you
One moment in the light of winter
In Montsouris Park in Paris
In Paris
Upon this earth
This earth which is a star.

This one I had to memorize in French class in high school, so bothering with the translation is completely worthless to me (kind of like the Rilke poem has become for me now). The translation is a pretty good approximation, but still doesn't do the delicate phrasing justice, in my opinion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-E. E. Cummings
from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings

(BTW, it's NOT "e.e. cummings.
See http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm and http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps2.html for a start)

When I fell in love with my now-fiancé, I had these feelings that I couldn't completely explain and I ran across this poem. I found a link to this poem (http://www.elise.com/quotes/poetry/eecummings.htm) and sent it to him, telling him "it has been felt and expressed by others, and sometimes as well as this."

Wow. Now I feel really good! It's gonna be a great weekend. Thanks for this idea, and this thread. It's so nice to see what touches people.

sleepy / October 13, 2007 12:16 PM

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run - as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears - in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small
he has to screw them on, which one day may make him wonder
about the mental capacity of baseball players -
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across his little, startling muscled body -
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

Galway Kinnell

freepy shwirtel / October 13, 2007 3:07 PM

From an anonymous entry in a high school journal:

Flower
Flower
Petal of Flower
Why Must I Be
So Lonely?

Twenty years later I must confess, I wrote it to mock the rest of the class, who adored it.
Ever since, I have been So Lonely.
So deservedly lonely. Sigh.

Alex / October 14, 2007 11:30 AM

DANSE RUSSE
William Carlos Williams

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,--
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
again the yellow drawn shades,--

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

ataraxy / October 14, 2007 11:45 AM

I submitted three poems yesterday but the post never showed up... what's with that?

Brandy / October 14, 2007 7:52 PM

29.
And that's the way it always is and that's the way it always ends and the fire and the rose are one and always the same scene and always the same subject right from the beginning like in the Bible or The Sun also Rises which begins Robert Cohn was middleweight boxing champion of his class but later we lost our balls and here we go again there we are again there's the same old theme and scene again with all the citizens and all the characters all working up to it right from the first and it looks like all they ever think of is doing It and it doesn't matter much with who half the time but the other half it matters more than anything O the sweet love fevers yes and there's always complications like maybe she has no eyes for him or him no eyes for her or her no eyes for her or him no eyes for him or something or other stands in the way like his mother or her father or something like that but they go right on trying to get it all the same like in Shakespeare of The Waste Land or Proust remembering his Things Past or wherever And there they are all struggling toward each other like those marble maidens on that Grecian Urn or on any market street or merrygoround around and around they go all hunting love and half the hungry time not even knowing just what is really eating them like Robin walking in her Nightwood streets although it isn't quite as simple as all that as if all she really needed was a good fivecent cigar oh no and those who have not hunted will not recognize the hunting poise and then the hawks that hover where the heart is hid and the hungry horses crying and the stone angels and heaven and hell and Yerma with her blind breasts under her dress and then Christopher Columbus sailing off in search and Rudolph Valentino and Juliet and Romeo and John Barrymore and Anna Livia and Abie's Irish Rose and so Goodnight Sweet Prince all over again with everyone and everybody laughing and crying along wherever night and day winter and summer spring and tomorrow like Anna Karenina lost in the snow and the cry of hunters in a great wood and the soldiers coming and Freud and Ulysses always on their hungry travels after the same hot grail like King Arthur and his nighttime knights and everybody wondering where and how it will all end like this in the movies or in some nightmaze novel yes as in a nightmaze Yes I said Yes I will and he called me his Andalusian rose and I said Yes my heart was going like mad and that's the way Ulysses ends as everything always ends when that hunting cock of flesh at last cries out and has his glory moment God and then comes tumbling down the sound of the axes in the wood and the trees falling down it goes the sweet cock's sword so wilting in the fair flesh fields away alone at last and loved and lost and found upon a riverbank along a riverrun right where it all began and so begins again

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Coney Island of the Mind

Brandy / October 14, 2007 7:58 PM

here is little Effie's head... (III)
e.e. cummings

here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid
waiting for something to rise
as the other somethings did-
you imagine his surprise

bellowing through the general noise
Where is Effie who was dead?
-to God in a tiny voice,
i am may the first crumb said

whereupon its fellow five
crumbs chuckled as if they were alive
and number two took up the song
might i'm called and did no wrong

cried the third crumb, i am should
and this is my little sister could
with our big brother who is would
don't punish us for we were good;

and the last crumb with some shame
whispered unto God, my name
is must and with the others i've
been Effie who isn't alive

just imagine it I say
God amid a monstrous din
watch your step and follow me
stooping by Effie's little, in

(want a match or can you see?)
which the six subjective crumbs
twitch like mutilated thumbs;
picture His peering biggest whey

coloured face on which a frown
puzzles, but I know the way-
(nervously Whose eyes approve
the blessed while His ears are crammed

with the strenuous music of
the innumerable capering damned)
-staring wildly up and down
the here we are now judgment day

cross the threshold have no dread
lift the sheet back in this way
here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread

_________

Those 2 are my faves.

SR / October 14, 2007 10:33 PM

4 Quartets by T.S. Eliot.

Shylo / October 14, 2007 11:19 PM

Oh, eep! That Margaret Atwood poem is my fave, too. Fish hook, eye. Golly!