Literature Poems

[PTree15]

Sonnet 69, Shakespeare

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Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The solve is this, that thou dost common grow.​

 

[Envy]

We are, most likely, our own worst critic.

's true indeed.

 

[Cerebellion]

 

[Envy]

Yes yes, I said to not hold myself back so I'll post one simple just to start things up a bit.

When gazing in the sky for stars
a sight of purest gem and gold
one might be thinking "naught for me that bars
the dreams that I forever will hold"

 

[KLS52]

See...it's good! I like it!

 

[Renee1]

 

[Cerebellion]

Friends Within The Darkness

I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible--
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.

the old composers -- Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and
they were dead.

finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into
the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and
monotonous
jobs
by strange men behind desks
men without eyes men without faces
who would take away my hours
break them
**** on them.

now I work for the editors the readers the
critics

but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in.

Charles Bukowski

 

[KLS52]

THE CAT AND THE MOON

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

HE cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

 

[Cerebellion]

Good Bye, Old Man
by Baxter Black

Somewhere deep in the old man's eyes a mem'ry took a'hold.
It fought the ageless undertow that drains and mocks the old.
I wiped a dribble off his chin, "Pop, tell me what you see?"
"It's all the boys I rode with, I think they've come for me."
Unconsciously I checked the door. "It's nothin' but the wind.
You better try and git some rest, tomorrow we'll go in."
"Is that you, Bob? I can't quite see. Yer mounted mighty well.
You never rode a horse that good when we were raisin' hell."

"Lie down, old man. There's no one here." "No wait, that looks like Clyde.
He helped me put ol' Blue to sleep. Why, hell, he even cried.
Now don't forget to check the salt, them cows'll drift back down.
Well, I'll be damned, there's Augustine, he worked here on the Brown.

"When I hired on to buckaroo...But that's been fifty years."
The old man squinched his rheumy eyes, I dabed away the tears.
The boss had told me he was old, had seen a lot of springs.
I bet ya if you peeled his bark, you'd count near eighty rings.

We'd rode the last three summers here together on the rim.
Just he and I, for puncher's pay. I'd learned a lot from him.
But now I'm settin' by his bed, uncertain what to do.
I ain't no good at nursin' coots. I'm only twenty-two.

"I reckon that I'm ready now. My friends are set to go.
They've got an extra mount cut out that's just for me, I know."
"You've got to stop this foolish talk! You shouldn't overdo!
Pop, all you need's a good night's sleep. You'll be as good as new."

"Don't make it complicated, kid, cut a pal some slack.
The saddle on that extra horse...that's my ol' weathered kak.
I'm comin' Bob, I'll be right there." He winked a misty eye
And tried to reach up for his hat, then died without a sigh.

I'll tellya, man, it freaked me out! I dang near came in two!
I'd never watched a person die, especially one I knew.
I tried to say a little prayer but all I knew was grace.
So I just said, "Good Bye, Old Man," and covered up his face.

I poured myself the bitter dregs and stood out on the step.
Alone I listened to the night, as still as death, except,
I thought I heard above the coffee sloshin' in my cop,
The far off, easy, pleasured sound of old friends catchin' up.

 

[ledboots]

:'(

 

[Spang]

Ms. Zuniga says **** a few times. Also, it gets real emotional.

 

[Cerebellion]

Invictus

William Ernest Henley​

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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.

 

[Spang]

There will be "naughty" language:

 

[ledboots]

Invictus

William Ernest 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.

I memorized this for a class once. Awesome. And you posted it on my birthday, I see.

 

[Envy]

There's no shame with rhymes in poems, right?

 

[Amy SF]

I'm not much of a poet, but I JUST wrote something and wanted to share it.


DREAMS
Hollywood sells us dreams;
They’re not MY dreams.
I don’t carry a briefcase
or wield a sword
or bow and arrows.
I don’t date Spider-Man
or Hercules
or live in a mansion in the country.
My dream is an ordinary dream;
a house with a yard.
a dog in that yard
a man in that yard
who loves me for me,
who loves me for my very being,
kind, sensitive, compassionate,
full of laughter and awe,
and not because I carry a briefcase
or wield a sword
or bow and arrows
or live in a mansion in the country.

 

[Amy SF]

There's no shame with rhymes in poems, right?

Nope. Rhyme away.

 

[Spang]

africa
does not need your tears
or
your prayers
or
your money,
or
your t-shirts
or
your hands ever so lovingly placed
on her buttocks.
your mouth at her breasts.
she wants you to stop pissing in her face
and
calling it water.
she wants you to leave.
she is the cradle of civilization
and
you hate that.
but,
one day
you will reap
what
you have sown.

--nayyirah waheed

 

[KLS52]

Amy, I love that!

 

[Amy SF]

Amy, I love that!