This is my favourite poem. i saw it years ago in a competition winners book. it was by a little girl and i think it's really cute:

Dear pencil case,
Please let me out
I'm sore and bruised and it hurts me to shout.
My lead is broken, my friends are gone,
Only their shavings linger on.
So please dear pencil case, don't let this be
Let me have freedom, let me be free.
Lots of love and kisses too
Yours sincerely, Pecil: blue

How cute is that

(Edited by lil_miss 06/01/2004 18:43)

I have more favourite poems than is strictly sensible. I could do a poem a day for years and not run short. However, today I am mostly feeling a tad soppy, so here is a poem: it was my first ever Carol Ann Duffy poem, and I saw it on a poster outside the English room in school (Mrs. Williams' room!) when I was about 14...
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Valentine
Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I love that poem, though it took me a while to appreciate it after English GCSE did it's level best to bleed the life out of it.

In a similar vein, and one strictly for adults only, Philip Larkin's Love Again. Special because I actually recited it during a breakup!

Oh wow. I love Larkin. I was lucky enough to encounter Love Again in Professor Carey's class, and he taught it wonderfully. The harsh language has put a lot of people off what is an achingly beautiful poem of deep hurt.
Have some Poe
Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Alienation 'R' us! Great little poem.

I agree about Love Again, Larkin could easily has rephrased the first line of the second stanza without loosing any of the impact. Still, Larkin wouldn't be Larkin if he weren't heroically inappropriate. (See, as I'm sure you have, just about any of his diary entries!)

Have some Tennyson, from before he threw his talent away on a Laudanum-fuelled Laureateship.

---

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

---

(Edited by Byron 07/01/2004 19:21)

This is one of my (many) faves of Dorothy Parker's:

Frustration

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon -
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

---

by Byron
I love that poem, though it took me a while to appreciate it after English GCSE did it's level best to bleed the life out of it.

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Yes, unfortunately that also happened to me. The first few times i read Valentine i thought it was so beautiful but then once we'd ripped it to shreds for GCSE it kinda lost it's meaning which i think is such a shame

A poem from my first ever book of poems (my first ever book ever!)

Where Go the Boats?


DARK brown is the river.
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating—
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore

Robert Louis Stephenson from A Child's Garden of Verses.

Today's Byronic helping, To Whom It May Concern, by Adrian Mitchell.

One I've seen footage of many times, often from protests I've attended but arrived to late to catch a live performance!

Now there's a poem that's given me pause for thought.

Now here's one from me:

The only true love I ever knew
was behind those downcast eyes.
The only comfort I ever felt
was during those long hours of lonliness
when I felt for you
I do believe
Only Innocence can save the world

-Ocean Soul-

Toumas Holopainen

(Edited by Havoc 09/01/2004 19:56)

Something a little lighter, from a book of poems of magic and mystery called Hist Whist that I bought when I was 5 or 6 - my first genre purchase! Some of the poems are actually really creepy (including the Mewlips by Tolkein), but this one by R.C. Sciven is just fun. It's also topical, and may explain what happened to Beagle 2.

The Marrog

My desk's at the back of the class
And nobody, nobody knows
I'm a Marrog from Mars
With a body of brass
And seventeen fingers and toes

Wouldn't they shriek if they knew
I've three eyes in the back of my head
And my hair is bright purple
My nose is deep blue
And my teeth are half yellow, half red.

My five arms are silver, and spiked
With knives on the sharper than spears.
I could go back right now, if I liked -
And return in a million light-years

I could gobble them all,
For I'm seven foot tall
And I'm breathing green flames from my ears.

Wouldn't they yell if they knew,
If they guessed that a Marrog was here?
Ha-ha, they haven't a clue -
Or wouldn't they tremble with fear!
"look, look, a Marrog"
They's all scream - and SMACK
The blackboard would fall and the ceiling would crack
And teacher would faint, I suppose.
But I grin to myself, sitting right at the back
And nobody, nobody knows.


Kind of how I feel on a bad morning after!

(Edited by Nutty Bat 09/01/2004 22:37)

Hey, let's go with it!

Modern Prayer, DH Lawrence

Almighty Mammon, make me rich!
Make me rich quickly, with never a hitch
in my fine prosperity! Kick those in the ditch
who hinder me, Mammon, great son of a bitch!

Yeah! More cheery stuff!

---

Today I saw a little Worm by Spike Milligan
Today I saw a little worm
Wriggling on his belly.
Perhaps he'd like to come inside
And see what's on the Telly.

---

Ah, gives me a warm (or should that be worm? ) fuzzy feeling inside...