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Dolce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen. A grim, anti-war masterpiece written by a soldier fighting in the trenches in WW1
Ozymandias - Percy Shelley. A reminder of human transience and hubris
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas. Helps me to endure when things seem bleak or hopeless.
I really like all of Wlfred Owen’s work. So fucking sad. And I dont mean just the poetry but his life. When I found about him I read his biography and it made me cry a little. You probably already know this but not only did he fought and wrote his poetry in the first WW but he also died there with only 25 years. Just writing this Im starting to tear up, trully heartbreaking.
Invictus by William Ernst Henley
When I was younger I clung to it’s message of perseverance. It ended up being the first poem that I ever memorized.
Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul.I was just trying to remember this today, thank you!
I think about this often.
I do not belong here.
I was looking for this one I never was much of a poem person but this one. I love this one
It is one of the most bittersweet things I’ve ever read.
Really resonates with me in a huge way. Gets me every time.
This reminds me of The Four Leaved Clover
Beware that four leaved clovers can also be seen as a sign of good luck.
Strange poem, kinda sad. I liked it, It gave me chills reading it. Do you know who the author is?
The author is Laura Gilpin.
Subh Milis (Sweet jam). It’s a short and powerful Irish poem reminding parents to be kind to their kids.
English translation below. Can’t seem to get the formatting correct on mobile…
Bhí subh milis ar bháscrann an doras
ach mhúch mé an corraí
ionaim a d’éirigh
mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá
a bheadh an bháscrann glan
agus an lámh beag – ar iarraidh…”
There was jam on the door handle
But I quelled the anger
That rose inside me
Because I thought of the day
That the handle would be clean
And the little hand - longed for
Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.
I also love Masks by Shel.
It’s not DNS,
There’s no way it’s DNS,
It was DNSThis hurts to read :-(.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44049/a-man-said-to-the-universe
A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.”Written in like the 1890s. So straight forward. Feels modern.
This Bread I Break by Dylan Thomas
It’s a short, beautiful poem that laments man’s destructive relationship with nature.
Mark Strand - Keeping things whole. It helps me deal with depression. I find it very soothing when I’m feeling down. It’s one of the few I know by heart.
I really like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. I first encountered it as a result of reading Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels, but one day I saw the original in the library and just read it from start to finish. It’s fantastic, so weird, so compelling.
I also like his Kubla Khan, the imagery of the “caverns measureless to man” and the “sunless sea” have always stuck with me.
“The View From Halfway Down” by Alison Tifel has always resonated with me:
The weak breeze whispers nothing The water screams sublime His feet shift, teeter-totter Deep breath, stand back, it’s time
Toes untouch the overpass Soon he’s water bound Eyes locked shut but peek to see The view from halfway down
A little wind, a summer sun A river rich and regal A flood of fond endorphins Brings a calm that knows no equal
You’re flying now You see things much more clear than from the ground It’s all okay, it would be Were you not now halfway down
Thrash to break from gravity What now could slow the drop All I’d give for toes to touch The safety back at top
But this is it, the deed is done Silence drowns the sound Before I leaped I should’ve seen The view from halfway down
I really should’ve thought about The view from halfway down I wish I could’ve known about The view from halfway down
Bojack
Yeah, Alison Tifel wrote the episode “The View From Halfway Down”, which is what this poem is from and shares the same name with.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Der Panther/ The Panther.
(I don’t really feel the english translation does the poem justice. In german the words create a certain rhythm, nearly like a melody, that I find utterly enchanting)_His gaze against the sweeping of the bars has grown so weary, it can hold no more. To him, there seem to be a thousand bars and back behind those thousand bars no world.
The soft the supple step and sturdy pace, that in the smallest of all circles turns, moves like a dance of strength around a core in which a mighty will is standing stunned.
Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides up soundlessly — . An image enters then, goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs — and in the heart ceases to be._
----- The original German‐------
_Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf –. Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille – und hört im Herzen auf zu sein._
Teeny tiny axolotl
There is really not a lotl
Of you. Not a jot or tittle
So I’ll call you axolitl
— anon
Richard Cory
A surprising poem on a dark subject matter. Perhaps one of the best poems that demonstrate how mysterious other people are and how hard it is to truly connect with strangers.
I’m partial to To make a prairie by Emily Dickinson:
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.
I enjoy the simplicity. Also, there’s a great choir setting by Rudolf Escher which I really enjoy.
