Well, I tried to start a poetry thread and posted The Jumblies. Clearly not a 3FC type of poem as it did not come up! So I shall post some Gerard Manley Hopkins instead. Cant go wrong with GMH.

God’s Grandeur


The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Whey do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smidge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.


Gerard Manley Hopkins

Good that worked. How about some Carol Ann Duffy? She is very fabulous. This is


Frau Freud (by Carol Ann Duffy)

Ladies, for argument’s sake, let us say
that I’ve seen my fair share of ding-a-ling, member and jock,
of todger and nudger and percy and cock, of tackle,
of three for a bob, of willy and winky; in fact,
you could say, I’m as au fait with Hunt the Salami
as Ms M Lewinsky – equally sick up to here
with the beef bayonet, the pork sword, the saveloy,
love-muscle, night-crawler, dong, the dick, prick
dipstick and wick, the rammer, the slammer, the Rupert,
the shlong. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no axe to grind
with the snake in the trousers, the wife’s best friend
the weapon, the python – I suppose what I mean is,
ladies, dear ladies, the average penis – not pretty….
the squint of its envious solitary eye….one’s feeling of pity……

and another by her, because she is great....

Mrs Icarus

I’m not the first or the last
to stand on a hillock
watching the man she married
prove to the world
he’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

Carol Ann Duffy

And how about this....

from A Song of Life

My body is not this little parcel of flesh,
This bundle of nerves and tissues, these chalky bones;
My body is a wide and blossoming meadow,
My body is a mountain with wild torrents and rainbright stones.

My hair is not this little tuft of fur,
My hair is the leaves of the forests, green, golden and red;
My blood is not these few poor drops in my veins,
My blood is the wine of the world from a million vineyards shed.

I do not only look form these two dim windows,
I look from the countless eyes of heaven, the crowded stars;
And the risen sun is my great and glowing Eye,
And the setting sun that beholds the world through crimson bars

V S de Pinto

Oh, go on then.....one more....then lights out.

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
more accessible,
To loosen my heart
Until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

To live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
And that which came to me as blossom
Goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I was in danger of turning into a one-dimensional character who could only read weight loss material and discuss permitted foods and cheats. There is no cheating when feeding the mind and soul, huh? Thanks again.

Thank you, Clovey! I'll post some, too...

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for..........."
John Keating

THE FOOL

Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that am only a fool;
A fool that hath loved his folly,
Yea, more than the wise men their books
or their counting houses, or their quiet homes,
Or their fame in men’s mouths;
A fool that in all his days hath done never a prudent thing,
Never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped
The fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed;
A fool that is unrepentant, and that soon at the end of all
Shall laugh in his lonely heart as the ripe ears fall to the reaping hooks
And the poor are filled that were empty,
Tho’ he go hungry.

......

I have squandered the splendid years
that the Lord God gave to my youth
In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil.
Was it folly or grace? Not men shall judge me, but God.

.........

I have squandered the splendid years:
Lord, if I had the years I would squander them over again,
Aye, fling them from me!
For this I have heard in my heart, that a man shall scatter, not hoard,
Shall do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow’s teen,
Shall not bargain or huxter with God; or was it a jest of Christ’s
And is this my sin before men, to have taken Him at his word?

.......

The lawyers have sat in council, the men with the keen, long faces,
And said, ‘This man is a fool,’ and others have said,
'He blasphemeth;’
And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life
In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things,
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart,
And that only the heart could hold.

.........

O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? And if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart,
the noble house of my thought?
Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures,
But remember this my faith.

.......

And so I speak.
Yes, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word.
And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
O people that I have loved shall we not answer together?

Patrick Henry Pearse

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.



© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999

Oh, Ellis, I loved that last one! Wonderful! And Clovey, what a miraculous thread! Thank you! I'll have to bring a couple of favorites to work to share with everyone. Poetry is such a balm to the soul, and a joy...especially the hilarious ones you shared, Clovey!



Here's an old standard and a favorite of mine:

"Phenomenal Woman"
Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

My favorite poet, Robert Frost:

Reluctance
by Robert Frost
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

This is fantastic fun! Lovely poems! I am feeling much renewed!

Here is another from Carol Ann Duffy. She has written a book called 'The World's Wife' and these are from that book.

Anne Hathaway
'Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed...'
(from Shakespeare's will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

Here's one I keep on my bulletin board...

MYSELF

I have to live with myself, and so
I want to be fit for myself to know,
I want to be able, as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand, with the setting sun,
And hate myself for things I have done.

I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself, as I come and go,
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of a man I really am;
I don't want to dress up myself in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect,
I want to deserve all men's respect;
But here in the struggle for fame and pelf
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to look at myself and know
That I'm bluster and bluff and empty show.

I can never hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself, and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.
by Edward Albert Guest

Clovey, that's wonderful! Where do you find them all? Any good suggestions for poets to read? (am I opening up Pandora's box? )

http://www.plagiarist.com/
Laurie, check that out...