The Very Best Poems
The very best poems
are likely written with love
or inspiration
from far above
Each has something that
draws the reader near-
a catchy line or phrase
lasting year after year
So write your poems
not quite as planned,
but with both heart
and pen in hand.
poem by Randall Barfield
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
We Need New Poems
WE NEED NEW POEMS
We need new Poems-
So many great Poems
Have already been written.
Perhaps the Greatest poems
Have already been written.
But we need new poems.
We need our Poems
We need the poems only we can write
We need the poems we must write.
We need new poems
My poems
Your poems
Our poems.
We need new poems.
Let us write them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Gratis Et Amore
for the poems that i have written
and which you read
by heart, i bless you with a prayer for luck
for another year
for the poems which i have not written yet,
i wish you a longer life, so you may read them
when they become finally written
for the poems i have in mind and which i will not write
i wish you patience i wish you some prayers
may these poems realize their worth
may they decide to become truths
with you i pray that God may be also kind
for those still unspoken
and may God bless your mind
may they open up like tight buds to become the flowers
of the world, the sun to warm them, the rain to shower them
may these poems live and linger
may they be like grass always unswerving to grow and cover everything
alive and loving.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Poems About.
There are poems that you will never see
Marked in a folder titled 'privacy'
Poems of hate and anger and personal pain
Poems about greed and hunger and personal gain
Poems about people I would love to see dead
Poems about women I met
Poems about relationships that have gone bad
Poems about issues with mom and dad
Poems about me, the person no one knows
Poems about places where only my soul goes
Poems I wish I could place in the clouds for all to read
Poems about lust, selfishness and greed
Poems I know will hurt those I hate
Poems I write by complete mistake
Poems I have hidden in my heart and my head
Poems about things that are better left unsaid
Poems I want to share and poems I want to retract
Poems of shame and how others might act
They stay in my psyche, they are a part of me
These poems I write, but you will never see.
poem by Mahfooz Ali
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Past Written Poems I Confess I Dislike
I have past written poems
which I confess I dislike
occasionally intensely dislike
when publishing most poets
will not include bad poems
but contrast can be interesting
juxtaposition of poems
arranged in selection volume
major poems great poems
will vary from reader to reader
who likes simple who craves deep
artistry from all forms may creep
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Not Every Poem Knows How To Say Its Own Name Properly
NOT EVERY POEM KNOWS HOW TO SAY ITS OWN NAME PROPERLY
Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly-
There are poems that have no name
And poems that are named by others who have not written them-
There are poems whose names make them what they are
And poems whose names contradict and belie them-
Many poems have their first lines as their names
And these poems often are as memorable as one line only-
Great poems and good poems can be nameless
Or can have unforgettable names.
Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly -
Poems are poems are poems
And names are names are names
And sometimes they meet and are one
And live happily ever after-
But there are times when perhaps
They never should have met each other at all.
Poems have their names
And names have their poems
But sometimes they love each other
And truly are one.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Perhaps My Poems Have Already Been Written
PERHAPS MY POEMS HAVE ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN
Perhaps my poems have already been written
Perhaps it is all now senseless repetition
Perhaps I should just stop
And go on if I can to some other form of writing
God gives us what we have
We strive to go beyond ourselves
We can to a certain point
But then we have done what we have done
We can live a million years more
And write a million more poems
But what we have to write
Is done
Perhaps my poems have already been written
And small and poor and awkward as they are
Less than the truest poetry
They are what I have and am
Good-bye myself
I cannot go home.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I don't write poems
I don't write poems,
I drink them like wine,
I become tipsy
with each coming line.
I don't write poems,
I breathe them like air,
I become so happy
when each one I share.
I don't write poems,
I live with them;
they prolong my years,
they are as true as I am.
I don't write poems,
I weave into verses
sadness, joy, tears,
prayers, love, curses…
My poems talk and sing,
Sense of living they bring.
©Larisa Rzhepishevska (Odessa, Ukraine)
26th of April,2012
poem by Larisa Rzhepishevska
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Have Read Many Poems I Know I Never Could Have Written
I have read many poems I know I never could have written
Poems whose language was far richer and more remarkable than mine
Poems that saw as I cannot see and sounded as I cannot sound
Poems of magnificent music and many hidden meanings
I have read many poems greater than those I could ever write
And have been humbled and saddened and inspired by them
Out there somewhere else
There have been real poets
And I in my own little lines
Love and respect them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Poems Everyday In Your Life
it takes a lot of
frustrations,
a little inspiration
but more
of melancholic
clamor
for someone like
you to write
a poem
sometimes only
once a year
or nothing at all
not a poem
even
when they read it
or when
you read it
yourself
it is a matter
of just
surviving
less the poems
which you
could have
written
everyday in your
life.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Write Poems For Poets
I WRITE POEMS FOR POETS
I write poems for poets
Our situation as poets-
The longings the feelings
We so need to express-
The love of language-
The hunger for recognition-
The frequent rejection-
The kind word of a reader that moves-
Poems for poets
We as we each are
All so different-
And we as we share
Words and worlds
We hope to have read.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Apology To The Reader Who Has Written Me A Message I Have Not Answered
AN APOLOGY TO THE READER WHO HAS WRITTEN A MESSAGE TO ME I HAVE NOT ANSWERED
The real apology is not this poem
It is one by one
Reader by reader
Answering each one
Who has ever written me.
It is reading all the poems of others
I do not want to say
A ‘real no’ or a ‘false yes’ to.
It is opening myself
To perhaps a true friend
To perhaps one whose writing
I see better than my own.
The real apology
Is in opening up to the poems of the many unknown others.
Will I do this
Will I give it the time
When I already am guilty
Of not using my limited time
To correct my past work?
Dear Reader,
I apologize, I do not know.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All I Can Do Now Is Write Another Poem
All I can do now is write another poem-
The poems are small,
And do not require the long hours and long years
Of the books-
Like the world as a whole
I seem to have a shorter attention span
And less patience-
A poem can be written and given a name
In minutes not years-
Though some would say a great poem
Takes the travail of years of waiting
And years of work-
But I did not say
‘All I can do now is write another great poem'
Perhaps I have in all the years of the nights never written one-
I can write the poems I write
My kinds of poems
In a fairly short time-
All I can do now
Is write another of my kind of poems-
Whether they be worth anything,
Or not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
What Is The Next Step?
told my cousin Chris
i was going to out write
every past classical poet
this year (that was in 2011)
put an average of 100 poems
a month on line...
Chris replied with one word BS
that was April 16th 2011
needed to write 600 new poems
that year alone...
in truth i had already out written
almost all past classical poets
these great artists had often written
novels essays plays short stories
i write none of these marvels
i was merely writing my poems
next to catch on my shrinking list
final last magnificent seven
were on 534 Aussie Henry Lawson
master of plays on 550 William Shakespeare
master of lyric on 561 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
popular poetess on 571 Ella Wheeler Wilcox
all sing lines of fascinating allure siren calls
Nobel Prize Literature on 593 Rudyard Kipling
then months long lonely haul to cloud heights
Bard of the Yukon on 832 Robert William Service
crafted persona on then 1123 Emily Dickinson
all i esteemed in awe delight their literary heights
i kept my rare masterpiece best posted the worst the rest
ah sheer delight to think in verse to write to write at last
crazy never worked so hard later often worked all night
i had a focus a standard a bar a goal a philosophy of poetry
i never said what i would write would be good or what
i thought of what i wrote i wasted little time on interaction
comment was all locked self contained in verse writ
race was on half run those who can do love every bit
of creation imagination muse who calls cannot be caught
awesome to have time for that kind of inspiration
"but you did it? " "yes i did it, i believed"
although before i started it was impossible to believe?
Emily Dickinson published less than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems during her lifetime.
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Few Poems Are Remembered
FEW POEMS ARE REMEMBERED
Few poems are remembered -
Few poems are ever really known-
Few poems are chosen -
Few poems make us want to return to them again and again-
Out of thousands written every day
Perhaps one poem in a decade
Perhaps less.
This is not the poem.
One can write a lifetime
Without ever writing one such poem.
Most of us never write the poem
And most of us are not remembered either.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Wanted To Write The Poems Of The Stars
I WANTED TO WRITE THE POEMS OF THE STARS
I wanted to write the poems of the stars
The poem of Beauty and Hope and Inspiration
I wanted to write a poem that helped others
Find Joy and Meaning in their lives -
I write my little poems
Often they are the sad truths of my own little life
Consolations for myself
I think may perhaps echo the souls of others.
I am not what I would have been
And perhaps not what I should be
I am what I am
What G-d has given me to be -
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Which Poems Are True and Which Poems Only A Story?
WHICH POEMS ARE TRUE AND WHICH POEMS ONLY A STORY?
Which poems are true
and which poems only a story?
There are poems I have to write
They are the heart of who I am-
And other poems that tell a story my mind makes
And takes me where I do not know I'll ever really be-
There are real poems and there are imaginary poems-
And there are poems-in- between like this one.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All My Poems Rage In Me
ALL MY POEMS RAGE IN ME
All my poems rage in me,
Written and unwritten
But now I only write this one down
As if it in this moment
Stands for all of them.
Oh God what would I be
Without the poems
And what I am really
With them?
The day has been so long
And the twilight has come
And silence is all around me
And the Poems continue to rage
As if I never lived
And they too
Only will die.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
There Are Poems Too Painful To Be Written
THERE ARE POEMS TOO PAINFUL TO BE WRITTEN
There are poems too painful to be written
Poems also too shameful-
And poems that cannot be said,
Because of the pain they would give others.
No one can tell all their truth
Without hurting too much.
Silence may be sacred
Hiding – True Love.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Always The Poems In Me
Always the poems in me-
Saying themselves over and over
Returning to lines learned long ago
Or lines learned with more difficulty in old age-
Always the poems in me-
While my own poems written
And forgotten
As if only
Poems of a single occasion
The time of their writing-
Always the poems in me-
The poems which others will have in them after me
Poems not my own.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!