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These poems

Greet these poems as you would greet
at your tent-flap a wise man come from far;

drink with him a cup of wine
that tastes like the memory of roses;

then sit and eat with him as the evening falls
by the flickering flames, under a canopy of desert stars,

remembering great men and great deeds;
feeling your backbone tall with their memory;

recall lines of poetry which have crept into your heart
like your faithful hunting-hound, sprawled with a long sigh
beside the fire;

and look around at the glowing embers catching
with their light, the shining eyes of your companions
cross-legged in a circle,

rejoicing in their hearts at a fortune which is theirs
so great that they can only sit in silence and become
a stillness beyond time.

Freely adapted from Ibn Qutayba’s 9th-century book on literature.

poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes

At This Great Distance

Memory
Ancient light from a binary star
Bends across a receeding tide
A single point of light st this great distance
At this great distance only the eye
Pressed against the telescope of dreams
Sees two stars
Two stars, two white hot lines on a firey white
Spinning madly on lines defined
By each others gravity.
And by the time we see
The light of memory
There is no hope
Theres no hope
Only memory
They danced to songs
Played at the speed of light
Red shifting
Untouchable
At this great distance two stars, two souls
Become one single point of light
Not hot
Not cold
Not you
Not me
Only memory
Chorus
Only memory - at this great distance
(repeat to end

song performed by by Level 42
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Old Flames Cant Hold A Candle To You

Downtown tonight, I saw an old friend, someone who
I use to take comfort from long before I met you
I caught a spark from his eyes of forgotten desire
With a word, or a touch, I could have rekindled that fire
Old flames cant hold a candle to you
No one can light up the night like you do
Flickering embers of love
Ive known one or two
But old flames cant hold a candle to you
Sometimes at night, I think of old lovers Ive known
I remember how holding them helped me not feel so alone
Then I feel you beside me and even their memories are gone
Like stars in the night lost in the sweet light of dawn
Old flames cant hold a candle to you
No one can light up the night like you do
Flickering embers of love
Ive known one or two
But old flames cant hold a candle to you
Old flames cant hold a candle to you
Mmmm...

song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Thank You for the Memory

My body tingles as I lay there still feeling your body wrapped around mine
I close my eyes and notice that there is nothing I can do but dream
For you have left me here with nothing but a memory
A memory of what we had what we were
A memory of nothing more at this time nothing to have to look forward to
My heart aches as I open my eyes and turn to see nothing but an empty bed
The scent of you makes me wonder what could have been
It makes me wonder what went so wrong
We had something that could never be replaced and not it has vanished right before my eyes
You think that the memory will be nothing more than a picture
They say “A memory will last a life time”
I say “A memory will only last a life time as long as you can keep it alive inside of your heart”
There is one thing that should be said
Thank You for the memory that will last me a lifetime of joy

~*Tosha*~

poem by Darkness Falls
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Memory Of Me As A Poet,

memory of me as a poet,
My doleful soul need's the great memory of me as a poet,
The pure memory taught me of the spontaneous event's of life,
How creation gave me authority to reveal such a strong poetic verse,
I recited the poem in my mind only to realise the great motor memory,
But pure memory revealed all my past writing,
I can relive my past only by the memory of the great history,
Global memory took my mind to think of the great poet.

poem by Maxim Muyu
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Without Our Gift Of Memory

What would we be without the power to recall?
Without our gift of memory we'd be little at all
To those who lose their memory confusion is their lot
The faces of friends and family by them even forgot
For the children and kindred of alzheimers sufferers life must be very sad
The memory loss of a sibling, uncle, aunty, mum or dad
Though 'tis a natural instinct for us to cling to life's breath
In a choice between death and loss of memory I think I would choose death
I am a lucky fellow my gift of memory I retain
And I hope till my last breath of life that with me it will remain
To the great gift of memory I will gladly drink a toast
In that sense I am lucky far luckier than most
Life would not be worth much without it the great gift of memory
I am sure at what I say here that most with me would agree.

poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Who Now Shall Be My Friend?

Once again slow brewing
Inside my stomach aching,
A bright new world is making
New lenses for my eyes.
Filters matt all life aroused,
Here and now my fingers poised,
Ready for your words,
Great goddess, Great Muse,
Come be wise amuse me.
Sing me your song from behind the curtain of the world,
Into the nightmare, all creatures now befriending.
Dance the dance divine,
Keep your beat and beat your time,
Or else lose into their world,
All memory of what you were,
All memory of who you are,
All memory of why.

Too long it has been since I laid myself before you,
Too long indeed old friend,
When now shall be the end?
When now is now the past?
Who now shall be my friend?

poem by David Lacey
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Of Your Knowledge On Poetry

Of your knowledge on poetry you wish me to know
Your three favourites poets Eliot, Whitman and Poe
Though great they may be I regret for to say
That on reading them you won't be laughing all day
It is good of you to honour their renown
But this evening I must say I feel a bit down
And though the poetry of Eliot, Whitman and Poe I even read as a boy
Their meaningful words never filled me with joy
If you wish to talk of poetry talk of something that's happy and light
Like the poems of Pam Ayres they are breezy and bright
Though she is one who is not seen as a poetic great
In her poetry the joy of laughter she create
Why talk to me of serious poets and their poetry today
When the tears from my eyes are not that far away
This evening I do need a good laugh or two
Something I cannot have whilst I'm talking to you.

poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Unknown Fair Faces

Though I am faithful to my loves lived through,
And place them among Memory's great stars,
Where burns a face like Hesper: one like Mars:
Of visages I get a moment's view,
Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too,
Ascend, tho' virgin to my life they passed.
Lo, these within my destiny seem glassed
At times so bright, I wish that Hope were new.
A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave,
Went, in a shawl voluminous and white,
Last sunset by; and going sow'd a glance.
Earth is too poor to hold a second chance;
I will not ask for more than Fortune gave:
My heart she goes from-never from my sight!

poem by George Meredith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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We Did It There

Every time I think Ive got you figured out
Every time I think Ive got you in a chinese box.
Every time I think I have got you nailed to the cross again...
Youre still happy, now...!
Every time I think Ive gotten you everything.
Every time I remember somewhere we have been.
Every time I think that I have reintroduced you to my life...
Youre still glowing, now...!
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there! we did it there!
Every time look I see another place.
When I look at you I see another face.
Every time I feel that Ive been melted into a pool of blood...
Youre still glowing, yeah...!
Every time I see a place that we have been.
When I think of you I think of what we did.
Every time I look at you I cannot seem to feel prepared...
Youre still glowing, yeah...!
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there! we did it there!
Ordinary furniture.
Ordinary room.
Glowing still for
Glowing just like you...!
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it we did it... there!
We did it there! we did it there!
Things will never be the same
At each and every place place weve been!
We did it there we did it there!
That place will ever be the same!
Did something there where we have been.
Theres cruelty in the memory!
We did it there we did it there!
Every time I see another place where we have been.
It becomes a second temple.
Praying to our sins.
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there! we did it there!
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it there.
(we did it there.)
We did it we did it... there!
Bright moonshine.
Whered my dream go?
Loves all gone.
Where did my lucky star go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Whered my girl go?
Loves all gone.
Whered that girl go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Had a life.
Lifes gone now.
Wheres that thing go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Had some sex.
Sex gone now.
Whered that sex go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Yeah...
Yeah....
Oh yeah!!!
Where did my lucky star go?
Where did my lucky star go?
Yeah...
Yeah....
Oh yeah!!!
Where did my lucky star go?
Where did my lucky star go?
We did it like rabbits.
While on fire.
...falling in my arms again.
We did it like that.
We did it like that.
We did it there
We did it there
We hide society from our sins.
We did it there
We did it there
We did it we did it there.
Every time I think Ive got you figured out
Every time I think Ive got you in a chinese box.
Every time I think I have got you nailed on the cross again...
Youre still glowing now!
Every time I see a place that we have been.
When I think of you I think of what we did.
Every time I look at you I cannot seem to feel prepared...
Youre still glowing, yeah...!
We did it there we did it there!
That place will ever be the same!
Did something there where we have been.
Theres cruelty in the memory!
We did it there we did it there!
Every time I think I love you,
I remember burning embers.
Makes me dizzy.
Glowing embers.
I remember.
Were so sweaty.
Altogether I remember!
Jeans undone, sweating face.
I remember I remember.
Moving slow, sweating bullets.
Glowing embers.
I remember...
Were on fire were on fire.
Glowing face and smelly breath.

song performed by by Oingo Boingo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Loss of memory

I thank the loss of my memory
Of those days when I had not a friend
I am thankful to the memory
Of those great moments when we are together

I thank the loss of my memory
Of those seconds prior to your reasonableness
I am thankful to the memory
Of the great dimple when you smile

I thank the loss of my memory
Prior to the reduction of your anger
I am thankful to the memory
Of those great sharing moments of your success

I thank the loss of my memory
For the reasons of our arguments
I am thankful to the greatest
Moments of my life with you.

poem by Hariharans Sundaram
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Second Best

Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one
Wisdom - the truth! - 'All day the good glad sun
Showers love and labour on you, wine and song;
The greenwood laughs, the wind blows, all day long
Till night.' And night ends all things.
Then shall be
No lamp relumed in heaven, no voices crying,
Or changing lights, or dreams and forms that hover!
(And, heart, for all your sighing,
That gladness and those tears are over, over. . . .)

And has the truth brought no new hope at all,
Heart, that you're weeping yet for Paradise?
Do they still whisper, the old weary cries?
‘’Mid youth and song, feasting and carnival,
Through laughter, through the roses,as of old
Comes Death, on shadowy and relentless feet,
Death, unappeaseable by prayer or gold;
Death is the end, the end!’
Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet
Death as a friend!

Exile of immortality, strongly wise,
Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes
To what may lie beyond it. Sets your star,
O heart, for ever! Yet, behind the night,
Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,
Some white tremendous daybreak. And the light,
Returning, shall give back the golden hours,
Ocean a windless level, Earth a lawn
Spacious and full of sunlit dancing-places,
And laughter, and music, and, among the flowers,
The gay child-hearts of men, and the child-faces
O heart, in the great dawn!

poem by Rupert Brooke (1908)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Songs Of A Fool

I
A SPECKLED cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to providence.
I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it's found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering-witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?
I slept on my three-legged stool by thc fire.
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,
Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap?
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name, she had heard.
It may be, and had not stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

ANOTHER SONG OF A FOOL

THIS great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.
Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look;
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.
Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet.
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.

poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Don't Forget who is your Father

God is Great
He created you and me so ladies and gentleman
he is the only person to praise and pray
Cause some of us we pray Alan people you pray him
who is him God is the one who created us
so guys help me to Thank him every time i'm sick i call him cause
he is the hiller the killer of diseases in the world
Help me to sing.
How great is our God sing with me how great is our God
all we sing is how great is our God age to age praise his
Great great great great great
great great great great great great great
great great great great great great great
great great great great great great great great great great great

GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD..

Thank you Help me pliz.

poem by Ruvimbo Daisy Matsika
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Oh The Poems

OH THE POEMS AND THE POEMS AND THE POEMS

Oh the poems and the poems and the poems
Oh the love of Literature
Oh all that stuff
I have given my life to-
Words and meanings and feelings
Pages and pages and pages –

What it is all this literary life for?
When out the window out the door
With our eyes we see in an instant other worlds other dreams?

I don’t know and I will never know
And Literature is certainly far more than I can say it is-

Oh the poems and this poem and this day turning grey
And all my life old and old and more old and more old-

Oh why oh why oh why
And always back to God
My last rescue and refuge and escape
I who have read so much Great Literature
And can only write this-

Oh the why and the oh oh oh and the words
And the whole world of Literature
I would belong to and do not.
Oh the words oh the world oh the Literature
Oh God help me please can’t you please help me a little or not?

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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0041 Goods train in the night

Film meets the poetic image,
and in some things never fails – as when

out there alone in the prairie -
the steppes, the tundra,
snowfields, desert -
past midnight, the heavens
a carpet of stars, maybe a flash
over the horizon of Northern Lights,
or the centered assurance of the Southern Cross,
silence broken only by a howl,
was that a wolf,
just one observer as
a camera, a poet, whom
we never see..

and then a distant sound and
one plaintive assertive impersonal wail and
almost too soon, the fast rhythmic rattle
of a goods train on the railway line over there
but near enough to shake the scene, and
seemingly endless; minutes pass? then as suddenly
it’s past, it’s gone… and the silence following
is deeper, huge, saying something huge
by the absence of anything said…or

back in the city, the child rewarded for trust by trust,
allowed to wander the railway goods yard
next to the gasworks down the sulphured end of town,
miniatured rail tracks leading to the glowing maw
of the furnaces; but all afternoon-sleepy between trains except for
over there, the ceaseless smack and clang and clink of chain and
barely audible sigh of wagon wheels and buffers
as invisible engine and railwaymen shunt and couple,
shunt, uncouple, couple, empty wagons for return
to far-off places named upon their sides…

was this how I learned to make poetry,
shunting, uncoupling, coupling
empty words into lines of trucks that have direction,
to return to heart's-truth and poetry

and timely, late at night, out there in the waiting solitude
to disturb that great silence under a canopy of stars,
singing their rhythm in the dreaming night
with the assurance of human company,
leaving behind them
a deeper silence in the listening heart

poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Long-Legged Fly

THAT civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps ate spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.

That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

poem by William Butler Yeats
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Memory Hall

Memory hall has
been added to
the school department.

On the day before
the big test,
it's a great place
to go.

Revive your memory
here to retain
the information
of things learned.

They take you into
this room and
go to the corner
of the memory.

You will recall
all knowledge
that you will need
for the big test.

Now get going,
for time is
runing out.

Memory hall is
a place every student
wants to be,
before the big
test.

(4-11-07)

poem by Jim Foulk
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Poetry The Beacon!

Beacon of literature is ever poetry only!
Greatness of literature lies in quality ideas;
Richness of language depends on poetry;
Worthiness of matter in poetry only is best!

Writing needs creative mind whatever thing is!
Novels, Short stories, Prose and Poetry are they
That enhance the richness of literature ever;
That too writing poetry makes one great sure!

Having chosen the form of poetry to write itself
Is not an easy matter as it needs skill and time
To write what one feels, thinks and conceives
In heart, mind and soul, otherwise no good at all!

Other forms of literature needs concentrated work
But poetry needs natural ability to express free all!

poem by Ramesh T A
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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All The Poems Remain Written Where They Once Never Were

ALL THE POEMS REMAIN WRITTEN WHERE THEY ONCE NEVER WERE

All the poems remain written where they once never were
The grass and the skies of Whitman form lines in the mind of Baudelaire
The trees and dark cities of the distance form single sounds in the heart of the poet who cares
Night is more than darkness and day more than an early setting out
Each thing influences the other and calls back its own origins and end
We are going somewhere we will never know whether we write eternal lines or not
Over everywhere can be heard in the morning light the selfsame sound that through the heart of Ruth burned the alien corn
Keats is not dead, and Borges is not dead and Kafka is not dead and Wordsworth and all those who wrote great lines are not dead
Poetry is the last first eternity of the living word
And those who can hear the sounds of others greater than themselves in their own lines know
We are all writing down this last poem for ourselves and no one else
Though as we go to pray each morning the minyan tells us secretly
All our prayers together are more than any single poem can be alone
In the grey long distance where no one hears any poem at all
God writes and rewrites for us all the book of the stars in which dread is no longer a name
And beauty bright bright beauty is heard and reechoed as more than we will ever be
God is the only Poetry in the End
God is the Only One who never will be dead..