Post your favourite poems here, or even ones you've written yourself.

This is a therapeutic place to discuss and share poetic works.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it—— A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?—— The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot—— The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call. It’s easy enough to do it in a cell. It’s easy enough to do it and stay put. It’s the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: ‘A miracle!’ That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart—— It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash— You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—— A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

I lay waiting between turf-face and demesne wall, between heathery levels and glass-toothed stone. My body was braille for the creeping influences: dawn suns groped over my head and cooled at my feet, through my fabrics and skins the seeps of winter digested me, the illiterate roots pondered and died in the cavings of stomach and socket. I lay waiting on the gravel bottom, my brain darkening. a jar of spawn fermenting underground dreams of Baltic amber. Bruised berries under my nails, the vital hoard reducing in the crock of the pelvis. My diadem grew carious, gemstones dropped in the peat floe like the bearings of history. My sash was a black glacier wrinkling, dyed weaves and Phoenician stitchwork retted on my breasts' soft moraines. I knew winter cold like the nuzzle of fjords at my thighs–– the soaked fledge, the heavy swaddle of hides. My skull hibernated in the wet nest of my hair. Which they robbed. I was barbered and stripped by a turfcutter's spade who veiled me again and packed coomb softly between the stone jambs at my head and my feet. Till a peer's wife bribed him. The plait of my hair a slimy birth-cord of bog, had been cut and I rose from the dark, hacked bone, skull-ware, frayed stitches, tufts, small gleams on the bank.

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Train tracks trees Lining up one by one They may not stay here forever In this life I have not won As I split and no longer together One half of me to the sky The other stuck to not fly I lay here and look across At the train track trees I was already ran over Never got what I wanted Through I never remained sober My insides were always haunted It’s been a bumpy road And now it all ends At the gates my fate awaits Up or down, I may not be proud Everything has already been defined Through his eyes And judgement is upon me

Here I gaze Through the fog and haze Stomped out and over By the invisible horses ran By their invisible kings Over and over Speaking to a dead cobra Winning and losing Battles have been lost Scars from the life Are all a cost Sharp, cutting like a knife, And no one knows Truth behold We take most things for granted And don’t realize what we have until The end Because we never had it in The beginning

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, I can feel the disease My hands with my ice cold body pit into strain, Nothing is quite at ease Can I ever make it past this day Crack by crack, I can not still see the light On my knees and looking for a new way My mother never told me there was this fight I’ve always felt like a slave To my desired one’s love So my body set to fire in my grave Not a single white dove Nobody to surround me Not a flower around me Drowned into a deep blue sea Going through to let it be Sometimes I question my own existence All I see is explosions Lean to first see it at it’s moment The people feeling their isolations I knew to chose to believe Set my mind to succeed Some may think it’s all a joke But all must eventually choke Turn off the lights and step into the dark Here I stand in New York City park Hear the people talking But no one cares for me Now they will see What was never meant to be A deafening sound and that Is the end

Here, there, everywhere Take a look, do you see? They got you by the hook in the deep blue sea Silver as a nickle Rusty as a penny Making our products is their purpose But soon they may hurt us We can be outsmarted in a flash Better dodge to make a dash Nuts and bolts they are tight Tightening of the screws for a fight Duplicates begin made They are the terminator and executioner Here, there, everywhere

Lakes superior to others Urban surrounded by rural America’s largest mall not far away Cities that our twins The world’s fourth largest river runs through here Gold and purple runs deep in the blood Two time World Series champions occupy The phrase “Holy cow” started here Most shoreland in the country Every changing weather for every changing times Right below the maple and right above the hawkeye

Crazy cracked crayons creating crying crabs Days dawn dusk dead dreaded drains Easy elephants eating earth erasing expectations Moon moving mighty mountains morning ll Sun setting seeing scenes shattering soon Over organisms outlasting over organs on oranges Green grass growing Greek grams granted Gods Brain busted being bananas back before butter Windows wiping wands wrapping weird willows Universal unicorns using utilized unsexed under Vikings’ victory vandalizing Venus vectors ventures Yellow yuckiest yearbooks yawning yourself

A Poem by Me
N***a ain't **** but hoes and tricks
Lick the pearl tongue keep ya dick
Get the **** out after I ***
So I can hop in this coupe and make a quick run

Roses are red
Violents are blue
Goosey is Kween
And none of you

Originally posted by MiMiLamb This is a short poem I penned while sitting on a swing in an exclusive resort in Turks & Caicos, about a straight friend whom I've fallen for, but loves another. Twin flames raging in the night Each burns intrepid, unflinching, and glorious Feeding on the wind, riding up through the earth Wild and magnanimous Ah the splendid sound, the rhythm, the cadence Of love's greatest rhapsody And as you burn in your towering inferno There I'll be, a separate flame A flame of friendship.

'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
That 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.

Emily Dickinson

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure - secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere -
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there

Emily Bronte

Originally posted by brndksk '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 That 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. Emily Dickinson

No problem!

Hopefully it will blossom over time. I'll try to find some interesting poems to post soon.

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Actually here is one of my favourites. It's so sad but so relatable...

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Stevie Smith

Originally posted by jackieshann Fading stars She once was a tranny some said she didn't have a fanny, she sang and she danced till her hips were lanced Many heralded her as queen but now she is a hasbeen the monarchy has been overthrown replaced with the new queen of drone Her minions remain some say they're insane vitriol they spewed creating many feuds But now the new queen is alive bow down to her rise she roars louder than thunder making zero blunders worship ha!

Woman and Secrets

Birds can not ask
Are they melodious?
What is it that flies and sings through the clouds?
They just fly knitting love with leaves and seasons
Until all ears awaken by their voice

Butterflies can not ask
Are they beautiful?
What is it that stretches so wonderful?
They just land knitting love with dews and flowers
Until all eyes amused by their beauty

Flowers can not ask
Are they fragrant?
What is it that produces life so buoyant?
They just grow knitting love with honey and seeds
Until universe wraped by their colors

A man can not ask
Why does a woman exist?
Who is she that dwells in elegance?
She's a song knitting love with earth and secrets
Until I'm trembled by her warm embrace

^^^Great work! Well done.

I read that to a family member and she loved it.

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And now for one of the most famous poems (I thought we should get the classics out the way first)...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

A poem called Boy
Boy
Roses are red violets are blue
Boy I'm really starting to hate you
Either you stay away from me or it's 6 feet under the ground for you