Just did a quick search on the forum and it appears we've got no thread for our favourite pieces of poetry. Considering this carefully, I decided to start one. One of my favourites is as follows.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas - 1951

Love his work!

And he was a drunken Welshman like you good self!

Here's mine



By Philip Larkin, dies 1985, quite alot of good stuff actually!

-m0r

Yeah, he did a good job on a lot of his work.

Try Saul Williams, he's an excellent modern poet.

A few of my favourites, nothing really modern at all:

"The Flea" by John Donne
The whole conceit is just excellent, a great example of metaphysical poetry.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
My first real experience of analysing allusions, Eliot once said that "Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal". He was a very mature poet.

First, a li'l lighthearted love poetry:

After the Lunch
-Wendy Cope

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove,
And try not to notice I've fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge, I am trying to think,
"This is nothing - you're high on the charm and the drink."
But the jukebox inside me is playing a song,
That says something different, and when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair,
I am tempted to skip. "You're a fool." I don't care.
The head does it's best, but the heart is the boss,
I admit it before I am halfway across.

Love it because the rhythm is excellent.

Death Stands Above Me - Walter Savage Landor

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear


A Somewhat Absent Minded Attempt to Be Politically Correct - John Hegley

Someone I don't know that well
tells me they have a little boy.
"Oh yes," I enquire, "and how old is he or she?"

I've already posted a few of my favourites over in quotes, but they're more than worth a repeat:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

My favourite is the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost because it represents how I try to live my life and what I feel about travelling.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, 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 travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

My favorite is 'Song of Myself' by Walt Whitman, a cool American dude with a great beard.


I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.


It goes on a bit longer than this but for reasons of time, space etc.

This one isn't necessarily my favourite, but it did reach me on some deep, emotional level.

Mario
By Seth "Fingers" Barkan

King of Plumbers; cartoon hands
white gloves, a psychotic
jumping thing made of big
slabs of solid colour punctuated
by black lines, giving him features;
old hand... old hand...the saviour
of the princess, hero of the mushroom kingdom,
commander of the psychotic and useless power of Yoshi,
a creature so dumb and pointless that,
only you, my little mustachioed Italian freak,
would dare punch it in the back of the head
as if to say
"ready the toungue
prepare to fire!"
mounted like a monkey on a dog at a rodeo;
you bastard, sent him, after jumping - to his death,
using his doomed back for leverage.

Jump those pits, flee into the safety
of those green pipes, spit those shells,
send up the flag at the castle of every kingdom,
for, I, the liberator, the conquering Italian hero,
have returned, again and again and again;
we're going to make millions doing this!
you and me, kid, millions.

Taken from Blue Wizard Is about to Die!: Prose, Poems, and Emoto-Versatronic Expressionist Pieces about Video Games, 1980-2003

Read this the other day, and it had a bit of an effect on me.

'Survivors' by Siegfried Sassoon



No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’—
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they’ll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

I like Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard' because, if you really look at it uncynically it does simply spell out that all that we are will count for nought but not to find that worryingly sad for each life is worth what it is. It's quite long for a poem but it is easy to read.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

'The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

That's in my top 3.

Hire Car by John Cooper Clarke

double park - don't lock the door
push the pedals through the floor
give it loads and then some more
it's a hire car baby


grip the stick - grind the gears
watch that distance disappear
never yours in a thousand years
it's a hire car baby


hire-car, hire-car
why would anybody buy a car?
bang it, prang it, say ta ta
it's a hire car baby


bad behaviour on the street
save yourself a couple of sheets
collision rate keeps it sweet
it's a hire car baby


show this motor no respect
bump it, dump it, call collect
what else do the firm expect
it's a hire car baby


drive the fucker anywhere
just like you don't care
put it down to wear and tear
it's a hire car baby


pray the person who hired it last
didn't drive it quite so fast
this dakarum dodgem doesn't last
it's a hire car baby


try not to kill yourself
or injure anybody else
don't forget to fasten your belts


rent it, dent it, bang it, prang it
bump it, dump it, scorch it, torch it
crash and burn it, don't return it
lost deposit, let 'em earn it
who cares, it's on the firm
it's a hire car baby

It's so moving isn't it? Sasoon's the reason I started reading poetry, could never get into it until I had to do some GCSE coursework on the war poets. Glad school gave me something.

Independence - A.A Milne

I never did, I never did,
I never did like "Now take care, dear!"
I never did, I never did,
I never did want "Hold-my-hand";
I never did, I never did,
I never did think much of "Not up there, dear!"
It's no good saying it.
They don't understand.

Not my favourite but one that I used to enjoy as a child. I still like it.

Saw him at Reading doing his drum & bass/hip-hop stylings, strange but compelling.

I love Robert Frost's stuff, though mainly because me and my Eng Lit class used to make fun of some of it (in a good way, we always used to think it was funny how he could make a sunny day a metaphor for death). My personal favourite though would have to be the work of Emily Dickinson, particulary this poem:

254

''Hope'' is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops-At all-

And sweetest-in the Gale-is heard-
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little Bird
Who kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land-
And on the strangest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity
It asked a crumb-of Me.

A lovely poem, and I remember talking about it in class and getting a round of applause. Good times

To my mind you can't beat a bit of Betjeman, but I also like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and Alfred Noye's The Highwayman.

Oh, and Shelley’s Ozymandias is a good un too!

Love John Donne - I left all my poetry books back in London so I can't go through and find my favourites, but one of them is The Sun Rising:

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Other favourite poets: Wilfred Owen and Charles Beaudelaire. When my poetry books get over here, I'll write up my favourites.

Widowspiders right about the other war poets, I read em at school. Really touching moving (and sometimes amazingly graphic) accounts of the front line in the great war.

John Cooper Car is just a nutter though feck off!, if you like him you should check out some stuff like 'The Ruttles' and the 'bonzo dog doo dah band'

I was into the beatnik stuff for a bit there a while back. There is a good CD of Kerouac stuff read by some decent famous people. Don't rate it as highly anymore (well apart from Rolf!)

-m0r

On the war poet theme, Dulce et Decorum Est by Wifred Owen.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

One of my favourite poems of all time, that. I love Wilfred Owen's stuff.

Just for you then Widowspider, here's another Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Every rose has its thorn
Just Like every cowboy sings a sad sad song

Bill and Ted

Heart still patters with last night's poison.
The spiteful world squats on each optic nerve,
wrenches my head towards the blaring window.

As if my brain had snapped its stalk---
it steadies queasily
as oily water slopped clumsily round a tank.

A mallet-blow belled over my left eye all morning.
Worse---it faded hour by hour,
a barbed stiletto skewered from the skull.

I've hung for hours
over the hurtful purity of the lavatory,
its white, deepening, accusatory lens.

My mind possesses all the sharpness
of a fluffy, liquefying peach in a dish.
I feed it deliberately with scenes

of long tawny glasses slid across the table-spills.
Hands receive them of their own accord.
But at the touch of liquid to lip, a trap-door

bangs open, brain's a torrent of sand
rocketing from my mouth
to make the only eye that sees me blind.

Thats one very pretty hangover.

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

^ I like that, Jinx.


The Secret - John Clare
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

I've met her, she's been to my theatre, a very nice woman.

I have to write an essay comparing that poem to three others of her's for English lit. Can't say she's my favourite poet , but I find it more interesting than Betjeman.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!


Thought I'd be topical. I like this poem ,my dad read it to me as a kid.

I'm going to chip in with something utterly un-profound that my mum used to read to me when I was tiny:

Deborah Delora liked a bit of fun,
Went to the bakers and bought a penny bun.
Dipped the bun in treacle, threw it at her teacher,
Deborah Delora - What a wicked creature!

What I like about it is the way you have to pronounce Deborah De-boar-ah to make it scan. Delightful.

Journey - Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me--I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, as I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I would fain lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.

Yet Onward!
Cat-birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are gutteral. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they dissappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.

Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,--sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs--
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road;
A gateless garden, and an open path;
My feet to follow, and my heart to behold.

Huh, I just looked this thread up to post '254 - ''Hope'' is a thing with feathers' since I've been reading through some of my old Emily Dickinson collections recently, turns out some young Turk has already beaten me to it:



Curse him! He's always four years ahead of me (wow, that's a long time ago).

So...anyone else got some poems they want to flag up? Share your favourites and bare your souls, dear hearts.

Deary me it has been a long time

This is another favourite of mine by Mr Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

I have The History Boys and Alan Bennett to thank for bringing this to my attention:

Drummer Hodge

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined - just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew -
Fresh from his Wessex home -
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.


Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally.


Thomas Hardy

This one's always been a little favourite of mine. The classic, A Poison Tree by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

It's been a looooong time since I read any poetry (probably not since school), so this collection of Ten Best Poetry Books might be a good start - some very interesting sounding writing. Or just get this. Ah, Lithgow - is there anything he can't do?

I think this thread deserves a revival, I started a poetry group at the library so I've been reading (and writing) a fair bit of late.

This is one of my recent favourites.

Full Moon and Little Frieda

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.

Ted Hughes