Some of these are narrative poems, so it is fitting to think they are "short stories"

Poetry doesn't have to rhyme. It comes in many different forms-- just like music.

So here's a rhyming poem. A favorite of mine from Plath. This poem is a villanelle. These particular poems have a refrain and there is a definite rhyme scheme-- all the second lines rhyme(or in this case, a slant rhyme). Besides the repeating pattern, the content is a favorite subject.

Mad Girl
Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

katsy, I also love poetry and so I'm glad you made this thread!

Recently, thanks to someone who joined MusicBanter and was here briefly, I learned about the poet Philip Larkin. I'm very happy I did, because Larkin wrote a poem that is now one of my favorites:

* * * * *

The Mower by Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

I like Larkin, though I have never read that one before. I enjoyed it very much, thanks for posting! It's nice to have another poetry fan around.

Read this one yesterday on Verse Daily, and WOW. It is truly beautiful.

The Comet
Emma Törzs

I re-named the comet but nothing stuck. What do I know of bone-
deep lonely, of the beautiful freeze, of running a circuit through the
stars until all landmarks are my own staring eyes: of families
in general, what do I know? Say I'm young. Say I am the aftertaste
of all my parents' grief, a childhood spent in the downwind
of chicken blood, recurring dreams of being left behind—my mother
kneeling by the VCR to watch a video of her lost daughter—
and this is Hell: believing you can be a lens and meet your
loved ones' eyes beyond the screen, smacking your pain against glass
like a doomed swallow The half-life of loss is forever.There is hope
we don't get over. When my son began to die, I did not record
his voice, but let him simmer, speechless, in my memory, while I tried
to gain the faith to think we'd meet again. I held his fist against my lips,
I closed my teeth around the juncture of his throat and chest, I said
you'll be the fire of the sun, and I will circle you until you draw me close,
until our nearness breaks me into pieces and you burn me whole.
I would have ripped his heart out and consumed it if I'd thought
that it would choke me: I would have been the eternal mouth.
Say I'm young. Say the speeding rock of my body is as bright
as any resurrection, and I have time to shake before I hit the earth.

everything this guy does rips my heart out and gives me hope simultaneously. it's definitely spoken word, and i'm not privy to the vernacular of poetry classifiers, so i don't know if it belongs here, but's a bunch of words coming out of a guy's mouth and it's so god damn beautiful...

PAN, thanks for posting. I would say it belongs here, spoken word is a performance art and the speaker here is for sure using poetry. He has some really great/witty/clever lines. Interestingly enough, after I did some research, today's spoken word originated from the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance.

So, I've decided to share a poem from one of the greats from that time. Langston Hughes is not a favorite of mine, but the following is pretty heavily anthologized. He does have a book of short stories, "The Ways of White Folks", which I happen to like very much.

Langston Hughes
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Currently I'm living in Italy,and here I started to love Hermeticism,which is a suggestive form of poetry. I'll post a couple of my favorite ones.

VIGIL
(BY GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI)

A whole night

thrown near

the body

of a slain comrade

his mouth

snarling

at the full moon

his clawed

fingers

ripping

into my silence

I wrote

letters full of love


Never did I

so

cling to life.


XENIA

(BY EUGENIO MONTALE)

Your arm in mine, I've descended a million stairs at least.
And now that you're not here, a void yawns at every step.
Even so our long journey was brief.
I'm still en route, with no further need
of reservations, connections, ruses,
the constant contempt of those who think reality
is what one sees.
I’ve descended millions of stairs giving you my arm,
not of course because four eyes see better.
I went downstairs with you because I knew
the only real eyes, however darkened,
belonged to you.

I love poets reading their poetry. I don't know why, but my favorite has been Sylvia Plath reading "Daddy."



I love her speaking voice. Also, there are several lines in this poem which give me absolute chills. I know, it's very, very well-know, but I think that's for good reason. It's really fantastic.

So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Also, TS Eliot reading "The Hollow Men" gives me chills. I actually read this for a public speaking class.



And Bukowski reading his poems, wonderful.


I chose "Style," because Bukowski says the word 'style' better than any person who has ever lived. Also I love this poem.

And, just for kicks, my favorite thing Christopher Walken has ever done:

Spoken word is more about performance than poetry. The problem (depending on your perspective)/ strength (depending on your perspective) is that there are cliches stacked on cliches. Therefore, we "identify" with the poem/speaker because we've heard the sentiment before.

Having said that, there are lots of witty turns-of-phrase in spoken word, which is its saving grace.

Plath is one of my favorites and this is one of my favorites by her husband, Ted Hughes-- who is kind of a big deal all on his own.


"Lovesong"

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

Ted Hughes

More Neruda

Don't Go Far Off

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Pablo Neruda