To E. H. K.
ON THE RECEIPT OF A FAMILIAR POEM
To me, like hauntings of a vagrant breath
From some far forest which I once have known,
The perfume of this flower of verse is blown.
Tho' seemingly soul-blossoms faint to death,
Naught that with joy she bears e'er withereth.
So, tho' the pregnant years have come and flown,
Lives come and gone and altered like mine own,
This poem comes to me a shibboleth:
Brings sound of past communings to my ear,
Turns round the tide of time and bears me back
Along an old and long untraversed way;
Makes me forget this is a later year,
Makes me tread o'er a reminiscent track,
Half sad, half glad, to one forgotten day!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
What Make A Poem A Poem?
What makes a poem a poem
Is it the story it tells
The feeling it sells.
what makes a poem a poem
is it the history it shows
or the letters of word flow
do the lines mater it they rhyme
or not, can it be free verse of
abcabc line schem,
What makes a poem a poem
is it the words i repeat
Or the emotion they cove.
What makes a poem a poem
Half The World
Half the world lives,
Half the world makes,
Half the world gives
While the other half takes.
Half the world hates,
Half the world runs away,
Half the world's late,
Half the world praises the day.
Half the world is,
Half the world was,
Half the world thinks,
Half the world does.
Half the world lies,
Half the world burns,
Half the world cries
While the other half turns.
Half the world cares,
Half the world weeps,
Half the world shares,
Half the world keeps.
Half the world sings,
Half the world laughs,
Half the world brings,
Half the world tries to be the other half.
End.
Verwoerd is Black
This poem is pregnant
with the black bloodshed of 1976.
This poem is constipated
with slavery of the poor.
This poem is the titanic of people’s hopes
sinking in the freezing ocean of democracy.
This poem is the enemy of the state,
‘cause, this poem bears testimony.
Don’t you know?
Verwoerd is black.
This poem is a hook that fishes
odd deeds buried behind black faces.
This poem is a mirror
that reflects odd unknown images
of stinking rich black men.
This poem is the voice of the angry dead.
This poem is a hammer to nail
in the brain of greedy politicians.
This poem is a database
of all black leaders.
This poem bears testimony.
Don’t you know?
Verwoerd is black.
This poem is for you
black man who spits
at the sight of a white man.
This poem is for you
white man who owns a savaged land
full of secret mass graves.
This poem is for you
black and white who hug and kiss
to please Madiba.
This poem is for you
the poor, who sing:
freedom has finally come.
This poem is for you, who know no truth,
‘cause, this poem bears testimony.
Don’t you know?
Verwoerd is black.
This poem is for you
my brother & sister who have lost taste
of your mother-tongue
in the multiracial Model C schools.
This poem is for you
black mama, who has configured her black being
‘cause black is barbaric.
This poem is the anger of hunger.
This poem is for the unemployed voters
who find solace in booze, sex & crime.
This poem bears testimony.
Don’t you know?
Verwoerd is black.
poem by Mpho Ramaano
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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What else do I want?
If my poem brings happiness to someone,
What else do I want?
If my poem makes someone forget his sorrow,
What else do I want?
If my poem brings back someone's smile,
What else do I want?
If my poem inspires someone,
What else do I want?
Nothing else I want to ask Almighty
But make me write beautiful poems on and on.
poem by Geeta Nair
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A Poem Is Just A Poem
a poem is just a poem and if it is just a poem
it must be just a poem just like another poem
a poem is nothing but just a poem otherwise
it cannot be my poem; it may speak about
anything, or something, or about everything,
but my poem is just a poem just like anybody's
poem, which is just but a poem, like any other
poem, for a poem to be a poem it must just be
a poem: it has nothing to do with my love, and death
my life, or bliss, but as i have told you, once, twice
thrice, eat some rice, and be that wise, a poem is
just a poem, just like your poem. Why do you insist
on asking, what is happening to me? I am not a
poem, for i am but just the composer of the poem,
need i tell you again, that a poem is just a poem?
just like any other poem, which is just a poem
it is just a voice in my head that i have heard
someone comes and speaks and i listen so
this poem is not actually my poem but the poem
of someone else's: theirs not mine, from a mind.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Half The World
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson
Half the world hates
What half the world does every day
Half the world waits
While half gets on with it anyway
Half the world lives
Half the world makes
Half the world gives
While the other half takes
Half the world is
Half the world was
Half the world thinks
While the other half does
Half the world talks
With half a mind on what they say
Half the world walks
With half a mind to run away
Half the world lies
Half the world learns
Half the world flies
As half the world turns
Half the world cries
Half the world laughs
Half the world tries
To be the other half
Half of us divided like a torn-up photograph half of us are
Trying to reach the other half
Half the world cares
While half the world is wasting the day
Half the world shares
While half the world is stealing away
song performed by by Rush
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Poem About The Poem About The Poem
THE POEM ABOUT THE POEM ABOUT THE POEM
The poem about the poem about the poem
Written in dream
And forgotten in sleep
Comes back to me slowly now
As if it had been away on a long long journey
And is reluctant to come home-
I write it
But it really writes me
And when I try to make sense of what it means
It tells me its ambiguities
Are more important and interesting
Than my clarity-
The poem about the poem about the poem
Written now
May not be a poem about a poem about a poem at all
But may merely be my own playing with words
Which take the place in my life
Of really living-
A poem about a poem about a poem?
Surely this is a mysterious thing
If it exists at all.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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This Poem
THIS POEM
This poem
This first poem
This last poem
This poem that invented Poetry
This one and only one poem
This fictional poem
This ideal poem
This perfect poem
This would – be holy poem
This unreal poem
This poem which is not a poem
This poem which is the essence of all poetry
This poem
And that poem
And my poem
And your poem
And all poems
Poem poem poem poem poem
This poem
Mine and yours
This one small poem of so so many
And not such a good poem at all.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poem Is A Catalogue
The Poem is a Catalogue
The Poem is a Catalogue
A Long List
Of all things seen and known
All one’s memories
All the times and loves one has had
The great story of many other lives.
The Poem is a Catalogue of a Continent
Of a new world seen through fresh eyes
It is the night of all Rabelais body- functions
And Whitman’s wanderings
And Borges literary labyrinths
Of Joyce’s English language styles
Oxen of the Sun.
The Poem is a Catalogue of all the people
One has known
Their names and faces and lives
All the relationships one has wanted and regretted
And loved and lived in and needed to be.
The Poem is a Catalogue
Of a few small possessions
One takes in one’s hand
And goes far away with
The books on the desert island
And the last few things a hospice can hold.
The Poem is a Catalogue
Of all one will never be
All one wanted and did not get
The empty half glass.
The Poem is the Catalogue God makes
Of everything there is.
God’s Poems
And we if we can be
Privileged to be
Occasional readers
Or not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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As Though It Were My Only Son....
there is no such thing as an official poem.
there maybe familiar ones,
most acceptable ones with the pulitzers and nobels and whatevers
but there is only this personal poem that you compose
for no one, or for no other and sometimes not even for yourself
it is a journal, a landmark of your stay,
a feeling that you cannot forget, you record it,
it is only you who knows it well and fully
recognizes it when after a time, when you have forgotten,
it comes to you as a reminder
about someone, about something, about an event
that when you pass away and come back
in whatever form
it becomes a scent of someone, or something and then
you remember exactly
what it was, and then you say, this is the poem that i have once
composed
and i love it, and i remember,
it is my poem,
i have composed it for that reason
and i am proud of it
as though
it were my only son.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Poem.
I do not like the silly poem,
I do not like the angsty poem,
I do not like the ridiculous poem,
I do not like the damned poem,
I do not like the cheesy poem,
I do not like the random poem,
Or the epic poem,
Or the dandy poem,
Or the long poem,
Or the short poem,
Or the stupid poem,
Or the rude poem,
Or the useless poem,
Or the wordless poem,
Or the poem poem,
Or the poem poem's daughter,
Or the word, Poem,
I like the story.
poem by Aisha Patterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Poem.
I do not like the silly poem,
I do not like the angsty poem,
I do not like the ridiculous poem,
I do not like the damned poem,
I do not like the cheesy poem,
I do not like the random poem,
Or the epic poem,
Or the dandy poem,
Or the long poem,
Or the short poem,
Or the stupid poem,
Or the rude poem,
Or the useless poem,
Or the wordless poem,
Or the poem poem,
Or the poem poem's daughter,
Or the word, Poem,
I like the story.
poem by David Carter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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That elusive perfect poem
Some day I’ll write one…
That won’t garner great numbers
Yet will linger in hearts…and
Rest sweetly on one’s lips
A poem that readers
will want to come back to
A poem that readers will savor
Tasting, …In long, sensuous sips
A poem that warms one’s cockles
Makes one lean back and smile
Makes one glad to have read it
To enjoy my writing…for a while
Maybe place it in their favorites
Hopefully, at least… keep in their hearts
Repeat to themselves favorite phrases
All my descriptive and alliterative parts
Better to have written
Just that one special poem
That could arouse great emotion
Than to write many… that arouse it in none
I have not yet accomplished it
And by me, this feat may ne’er be done
The perfect poem yet eludes me…
Yet I hope… some day I’ll write one
poem by David Whalen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Poet vs Poem
Does a poet makes poem
Or poem makes poet?
The eternal war goes on.
The big confusion who will solve it?
Poet fight with sword of pen.
Poem armoured with shield of senses.
Poet tries to rich sky high,
Poem pulls rope of meaning and tenses.
Does poet sketc the poem
Or poem drags him through the invigible gravity.
A piece of paper becomes battlefield.
The war of ink and vocabulary,
Creates a historic beauty.
Poet cages the poem in a book.
Where the world will look.
Praises all to poet 'oh how great'
But the poem is what counts after his death.
poem by Saurav Karki
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The Poem Is The Poet
THE POEM IS THE POET
The poem is the poet
It tells his story even when he does not intend it to-
It bears his signature even when he forges it-
The poem is the poet-
It reflects his mind his soul-
It cannot be written without what he is
Though he denies what he is to himself-
The poem is the poet
And the poet's contradictions-
It is the mask of his self - expression
And his ultimate definition in words-
When he writes he becomes himself
And when he finishes it
He leaves a part of himself in it for as long as it exists.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Past Is An Old Man's Poem
The Past is an old man’s poem
And all he was
And all he can never be again
And all the people he loved
No longer here-
And all the times he can barely remember
And never forget
And all the love lost
And all the waste
And all the sadness
And all the joy and the still strong happiness-
The Past is an old man’s poem
Written in his memory
And waiting to be said again and again
While he lives through another day and another night and another memory lost
The past is an old man ‘s poem
And that poem too will be gone before long.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Time (part 2) .
time starts with a new borns first breath,
time ends with someones death,
time makes you win or loose,
time makes you choose,
time is forever,
time keeps a relationship together,
time always changes,
time goes thru stages,
time is like a book it turns pages,
time gives you a raise in your wages,
time sometimes makes you a drug addict,
time helps you break the habit,
time makes you friends and enemies,
time brings back memories,
time is unpredictable,
time is unforgetable,
time gives you life,
time makes you husband and wife.
1/09/2009
Copyright ©2009 Jose Murguia
poem by Jose Murguia
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The Winter Poem Is A Cold Poem
THE WINTER POEM IS A COLD POEM
The winter poem is a cold poem
It is a poem seeking warmth
It wants to feel a comfort
In being at home
But the cold is deep
And so dark
And the pain so rigid in its breaking
That no light can heat it
And no sun can thaw it
And nothing not even the bright blue skies of another time
Can make one forget it.
The winter poem is a hard poem and a cold poem
And the soul of that poem is as loveless as death.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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There Are Those Who Wait Years To Write A Poem
THERE ARE THOSE WHO WAIT YEARS TO WRITE A POEM
There are those who wait years to write a poem
The fruit slowly ripens inside and then as with Rilke
It suddenly falls -
There are those who write a few lines
And come back time after time
And find the poem after many efforts-
There are those who cannot wait to write a poem
And once conscious of it must write it down as fast as possible
Before it is lost-
And there are those who only in the present writing
Find the poem -
The page suffers many methods and modes
But what truly makes a poem worthy
Is another question.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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God's Poets A Good Poem & Love
GOD'S POETS
The prize jewels of any nation
Are the philosophers of the heart.
How they think is universal
For it's God who makes them so smart.
Most poets tell the truth of life
Though they may wrap it in beauty.
It's their passion, not their purpose
To compose is but their duty.
Poets have no reason to lie
When the truth is always so clear.
All that others say and do
Is but food for the poet's ear.
One merit of a poet's work
Which most cannot deny.
They say more and in fewer words
To illuminate you and I.
God sent His poets down to earth
With words of wisdom and of worth.
That they might touch the souls of men
And bring them back to Him again.
A GOOD POEM
A good poem paints a picture
For both your heart and brain.
It doesn't need a second chance
To make its meaning plain.
A good poem is like the flower
The lily or the rose.
God plants it in a poet's brain
And there its beauty grows.
A good poem like a cardinal
Is pregnant with song
You can't help but hear its message
As it sings what's right or wrong.
A good poem helps us remember
What the joys of life are for
It makes us want to love someone
Till death comes knocking at our door.