Poems for enjoying, reading, reciting or acting out

 "Tyger! By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 

1794ry your heart with me(i carry it in]

By E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

            

 Why Do You Paint? (Self Interview by e.e.cummings)

                      Why do you paint?

          For exactly the same reason I breathe.

                  That’s not an answer.

       How long hasn’t there been any answer?

                As long as I can remember.

     And how long have you written?

              As long as I can remember.

                         I mean poetry.

                             So do I.

Tell me, doesn’t your painting interfere with your writing?

       Quite the contrary:  they love each other dearly.

               They’re very different.

       Very: one is painting and one is writing.

But your poems are rather hard to understand, whereas your

             paintings are so easy.

                     Easy ?

Of course – you paint flowers and girls and sunset; things

           that everybody understands.

                  I never met him.

                         Who?

                     Everybody.

Did you ever hear of nonrepresentational painting?

                      I am.

                Pardon me?

I am a painter, and painting is nonrepresentational.

                 Not all painting.

       No, house painting is representational.

   And what does a house painter represent?

               Ten dollars an hour.

  In other words, you don’t want to be serious –

              It takes two to be serious.

Well, let’s see… oh yes, one more question: where will you

           live after the war is over ?

             In China, as usual.

                    China?

              Of course.

     Whereabouts in China?

 Where a painter is a poet.

A poem by e.e. cummings with no title

“think of it: not so long ago
this was a village”
“yes; I know”
“of human beings who prayed and sang:
or am I wrong?”
“no, you’re not wrong”
“and worked like hell six days out of seven”
“to die as they lived: in the hope of heaven”

“didn’t two roads meet here?”
“they did;
and over yonder a schoolhouse stood”

“do i remember a girl with blue-
sky eyes and sun-yellow hair?”
“do you?”

“absolutely”
“that’s very odd,
for I’ve never forgotten one freckle faced lad “

“what could have happened to her and him ?”
“maybe they waked and called it a dream”

“in this dream there were three green and gold
neadows?”
“through which a lazy brook strolled”

“wonder if clover still smells that way.
up in the mow”
“full of new mown hay”

“and the shadows and sounds and silences”
“yes, a barn could be a magical place”

“nothing’s the same: is it”
“something still
remains, my friend; and always will”

“namely?”
“if any woman knows,
one man in a million ought to guess”

“what of the dreams that never die?”
“turn to your left at the end of the sky”

“where are the girls whose breasts begin?”
“under the boys who fish with a pin”

Bluebird (Charles Bukowski) 
there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you? 

Saddest Song (Pablo Neruda) 

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,

and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.

I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.

How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

To think I don´t have her. To feel that I´ve lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.

And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn´t keep her.

The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That´s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.

My sould is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.

My heart searches for her and she is not with me. 

The same night that whitens the same trees.

We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how I much I loved her.

My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else´s. She will be someone else´s. As she once belonged to my kisses.

Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer lover her, true, but perhaps I love her.

Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,

my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,

and this may be the last poem I write.     


A Coney Island of the Mind   (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

        Don't let that horse
                                          eat that violin
              cried Chagall's mother
                                          But he
                                     kept right on
                                          painting

         And became famous
         And kept on painting
                                     The Horse With Violin in Mouth

       And when he finally finished it
       he jumped up upon the horse
                                    and rode away
                         waving the violin

And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across

And there were no strings   attached.          

        Wolf (by Kristi Murray)

Look, darling, I did nothing wrong

She didn’t have to follow me this morning.

(Did you never teach your daughter not to leave the path?)

I didn’t even ask.

Just gave her my come-to-bed bad-boy shoulder,

flicked my tail.

How quickly she dropped her pretentious wicker basket –

fat, gleaming cherries rolled out into the mud.

She let her cloak slip from her shoulders

To reveal

The types of hills and valleys

That no child should possess.

I smiled, stalked away.

She followed,

tripping over herself to keep up

with my learned graceful curve

through the trees.

I slipped into my den,

and turned to watch her awkward clamber in.

The forest had turned her wild.

Torn dress, scratched face –

the usual suspects.

But her eyes …

naivety replaced with

raw, carnal lust.

She pounced.

We tumbled through the house

out of the back door,

into the garden,

finally came to rest

On that patch of flattened grass you see over there.

And that, Mrs. H, is where your daughter became

a little less green.

Restaurant (John Terlazzo)

 Me. and the Buddha and Adolf
Sat down to dinner
In some French restaurant
In New York

The Buddha said
"Here eat some"
And gave me a plate
Of Wild-Horse-Changing-Straight- At- Me
Quiche Lorraine.
I said " Thanks, old fart,"
And ran my wet finger
Along the crystal rim
Of his bald head.

Then I took liberties with De Fuhrer.
Using a cake fork and butter knife
I took the heart from his body
And chopping it up real fine
Mixed it with my quiche
And downed it with wine.

And the Buddha laughed like an ass.

When Helen Lived (W.B.Yeats)

We have cried in our despair

That men desert,

For some trivial affair

Or noisy, insolent sport,

Beauty that we have won

Feom bitterest hours;

Yet we, had we walked within

Those toplesss towers

Where Helen walked with her boy,

Had given but as rest

Of the men and women of Troy,

A word and a jest.

Black Woods (by Keven Prufer. From March Poetry magazine)

Do you know where our child has gone?

I’m sorry. Do you know what has become

of him? I’m sorry. [        .] Is he hiding

in a closet? No. Is he crouched among

the shoes? No. [        .] Should we look

in the closets? He’s not in the closets. [        .]

Should we check the empty boxes? He’s not

in the empty boxes. It’s very cold out. [        .]

Probably he’s hiding behind the couch.

Come out, come out! I will count to ten.

One, two, three — He’s not behind the couch.

[        .] It’s very cold out. [        .] Probably

he’s playing a trick. It isn’t a trick. He’s probably

hiding above the ceiling tiles. Hello up there!

He’s not in the ceiling. [        .] It’s very cold out.

[        .] Did he go out? No. Was he wearing

a jacket? No. Was he wearing boots

and a hat? [        .] It’s just black woods

out there. [        .] Did you give him your jacket?

[        .] Did you offer him your jacket? [        .]

Maybe he’s in disguise. Disguise? In your hat

and jacket. Disguised? [        .] Disguised

as you. [        .] Did he climb through your window?

Listen to yourself. Did he step inside you?

Listen to yourself. Is he trapped inside you?

Let go of me. Is it black woods in there? 

The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Langston Hughes)

I´ve known rivers:

I´ve known rivers ancient as the world 

and older than the flow of human blodd in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I´ve seen its muddy

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I´ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I Am Waiting (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) 

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

Do not go gentle into that good night (Dylan Thomas)

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying now bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men, who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, to late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Saint Judas (James Wright)

When I went out to kill myself, I caught

A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.

Running to spare his suffering, I forgot

My name, my number, how my day began,

How my soldiers milled around the garden stone

And sang amusing songs; how all that day

Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone

Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,

Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope

Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:

Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,

The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,

I held the man for nothing in my arms.

The Tiger (William Blake)

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare is deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Rudaki  (Translated from the Persian by Basil Bunting)

Came to me--

      Who?

She

      When?

In the dawn, afraid.

      What of?

Anger.

      Whose?

Her father´s.

      Confide!

I kissed her twice.

      Where?

On her moist mouth.

      Mouth?

No.

      What, then?

Cornelian.

       How was it?

Sweet.

may i feel said he (by e e cummings)

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

The unknown citizen (W.H.Auden)

He was found by the bureau of statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his condust agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community,
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn´t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was poopular with his mates and liked a drink,
The press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way,
¨Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured.
And his Health Card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured,
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire,
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went,
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation,
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education,
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Jad aanything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Weather Forecast (Harold Pinter)

The day will get off to a cloudy start
It will be quite chilly
But as the day progresses
The sun will come out
And the afternoon will be dry and warm.

In the evening the moon will shine
And be quite bright
There will be, it has to be said,
A brisk wind
But it will die out by midnight
Nothing further will happen.

This is the last forecast.

COUNTING THE BEATS (Robert Graves)

You, love, and I,
(He whispers) you and I,
And if no more than you and I
What care you or I?

Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats
Wakeful the lie.

Cloudless day,
Night, and a cloudless day;
Yet the huge storm will burst open their heads one day
From a bitter sky.

Where shall we be,
(she whispers) where shall we be,
When death strikes home, O where then shall we be
Who were you and I?

Not there but here,
(He whispers) only here,
As we are, here, together, now and here,
Always you and I.

Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.


NIGHT THOUGHTS ( Kenneth Rexroth)

I cannot sleep. The long, long
Night is full of bitterness.
I sit alone in my room,
Beside a smoky lamp,
I rub my heavy eyelids
And idly turn the pages
Of my book. Again and again
I trim my brush and stir the ink.
The hours go by. The moon comes
In the open window, pale
And bright like new money,
At last I fall asleep and
I dream of the days on the
River at Tsa-feng, and the
Friends of my youth in Yen Chao.
Young and happy we ran
Over the beautiful hills.
And now the years have gone by,
And I have never gone back.

435 (Emily Dickinson)

Much Madness is divinest Sense--
To a discerning Eye Eye--
Much Sense--the starkest Madness--
{Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail--
Assent--and you are sane--
Demur--you´re straightway dangerous--
And handled with a Chain.

LOVE IN THE ASYLUM (Dylan Thomas)

A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds

Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.
Straight in the mazed bed
She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds

Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room,
At large as the dead,
Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.

She has come possessed
Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall,
Possessed by the skies

She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust
Yet raves at her will
On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears.

And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.

TO PAINT A PORTRAIT OF A BIRD (Jacques Prévert, translated by Michael Benedikt)

First of all paint a cage
its door standing open
then paint
something appealing
something beautiful
something tasty
for the bird
then lean the canvas up against a tree
in a garden
in a forest
or in the woods
find another tree and hide yourself behind it
silently
without moving a muscle
sometimes the bird will come right away
but it also could take many long years
before it decides to
Don´t become discouraged
but wait
wait if you have to year after year
the earliness or lateness of its arrival
has no relation
to the success of the work
When the bird appears
if he appears
maintain the most total silence
while you wait for the bird to enter the cage
and once he´s in
softly shut the door with a quick stroke of your paintbrush
the
one by one blot out all the bars of the cage
taking care not to touch the bird´s feathers
Then paint the tree´s portrait
choosing the most beautiful of all its branches
for the bird
also paint the green foliage and the freshness of the breeze
the dust afloat in the sunlight
and the noises of the insects in the grass in the intense heat
   of summer
and then wait for the bird to sing
If the bird does not sing
it´s a bad sign
a sign that the picture is bad
but if it does sing that´s a good sign
that is to say a sign that you can sign
Then you reach out and gently pluck
one of the feathers of the bird
and you write your name over in one corner of the picture.