# poetry that defines *you*...



## reyesaaronringo

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life... 
Always look on the light side of life... 

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life... 
Always look on the light side of life... 

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death 
Just before you draw your terminal breath 

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life... 
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life..​


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## limelight3

umm my signature for one,

If I don't use the cork
I may spill the wine-
but if I do?
-Jack Kerouac


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## xezene

W.H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" is probably my favorite.... but to choose a short one, I rather love this one.


Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That's why we wake
and look out -- no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

_-William Stafford_


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## timeless

"Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)
'Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death"—that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward.
O voyagers, O seamen,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination."
- T.S. Eliot, _The Dry Salvages_​


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## Chicken

i am a poet
and i am good at making pwet pwet
fine i suck at poetry
but i am a poultry


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## AirMarionette

*"Star Hole"*
I sit here
on the perfect end
of a star,

watching light
pour itself toward
me.

The light pours
itself through
a small hole
in the sky.

I'm not very happy,
but I can see
how things are
faraway.

(R. Brautigan)


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## Aßbiscuits

_
They say love is a hole in the heart
Well with love did I start
With love had this heart been whole
This anxious heart that’d once been holed
Although it fills with love so does it die

With pleasured breaths and loving sighs
Killed by ones who wished goodbyes
An end suited wholly like my start
Love hurts and loved my punctured heart_​
*It's the closest I could find to a poem defining me, because it was written by me about my heart which is the essence of me. Just, the ending is so...well - finished. So, it's the closest I could get. It's called hole in the heart, which I was actually born with.

This defines my life at the moment*

_I wake up beside you with tired bones
Summer rain patters outside
Your throat makes sleepy moans
My lips feel good against your cheek
As I wonder if they feel good, against your cheek
I stretch my tired bones, heavy against your body
I feel relaxed and comfortably weak
The watery sunlight tints the air gold
A small sheet is all that covers us; bare
I yawn deeply; my limbs feel cold
Though I could barely care_​
*It's about my Summer. It's a bit too sexual but the love is there <3. This one's better because it has a happier ending.

...I swear not all my poems are this sexual :/*


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## xezene

"A little while when I am gone
My life will live in music after me,
As spun foam lifted and borne on
After the wave is lost in the full sea.

A while these nights and days will burn
In song with the bright frailty of foam,
Living in light before they turn
Back to the nothingness that is their home."

- Sara Teasdale, _A Little While_


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## HorribleAesthete

FOR E.J.P.

I once believed a single line
in a Chinese poem could change
forever how blossoms fell
and that the moon itself climbed on
the grief of concise weeping men
to journey over cups of wine
I thought invasions were begun for crows
to pick at a skeleton
dynasties sown and spent
to serve the language of a fine lament
I thought governors ended their lives
as sweetly drunken monks
telling time by rain and candles
instructed by an insect's pilgrimage
across the page - all this
so one might send an exile's perfect letter
to an ancient hometown friend

I chose a lonely country
broke from love
scorned the fraternity of war
I polished my tongue against the pumice moon
floated my soul in cherry wine
a perfumed barge for Lords of Memory
to languish on to drink to whisper out
their store of strength
as if beyond the mist along the shore
their girls their power still obeyed
like clocks wound for a thousand years
I waited until my tongue was sore

Brown petals wind like fire around my poems
I aimed them at the stars but
like rainbows they were bent
before they sawed the world in half
Who can trace the canyoned paths
cattle have carved out of time
wandering from meadowlands to feasts
Layer after layer of autumn leaves
are swept away
Something forgets us perfectly

~Leonard Cohen


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## Raichan

Poetry I write myself speaks to me about who I am..

Life, why will you not allow her to be,
Why must she brave more storms?
Why will you not let her stars and light,
Be as they come for her?
Why must it be storms and storms,
Until you see a heart searching,
For lost self and lost light,
For a light that wants to breathe and heal,
Why must it be another's darkness,
That paralyzes her heart,
Why must it always be shut down,
Why will you not let her light be?


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## SuperunknownVortex

Moving on the floor now babe you're a bird of paradise.
Cherry ice cream smile I suppose it's very nice
With a step to your left and a flick to the right
You catch that mirror way out west
You know you're something special and you look like you're the best.

Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land.
And when she shines she really shows you all she can
Oh Rio Rio dance across the Rio Grande.


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## Raichan

I am often lost in my own heart,
Lost because I own my feelings,
But they connect with such intensity,
Such brightness,
I want to remain alive and real,
In my dreams,
My sense of wonder,
Is overwhelming and endless.


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## reyesaaronringo

*Zero circle*

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up. 

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit. 

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness. 

Rumi


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## Poet

I would not consider any one or few poems to be something which defines me or anyone else. We are all really too complex. Even the MBPT thing is an oversimplification. We are all unique and as far as self-identity is concerned, we have many different aspects of our being; our family, our religion, our nation, our humanity, what we are in relation to other people, etc.


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## QuitenotSilent

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson


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## tuna

I am leaving this harbour
Giving urban a farewell
Its habitants seem too keen on God
I cannot stomach their rights and wrongs

I have lost my origin
And I don't want to find it again
Whether sailing into nature's laws
And be held by ocean's paws

Wanderlust! relentlessly craving
Wanderlust! peel off the layers
Until you get to the core

Did I imagine it would be like this?
Was it something like this I wished for?
Or will I want more?

Lust for comfort
Suffocates the soul
Relentless restlessness
Liberates me (sets me free)

I feel at home
Whenever the unknown surrounds me
I receive its embrace
Aboard my floating house

Wanderlust! relentlessly craving
Wanderlust! peel off the layers
Until we get to the core

Did I imagine it would be like this?
Was it something like this I wished for?
Or will I want more?

Wanderlust! from island to island
Wanderlust! united in movement
Wonderful! I'm joined with you

Wanderlust!

Can you spot a pattern?

(relentlessly restless) 


...Björk's lyrics totally count as poetry okay.


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## zyzzyva

Well ...

*The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost*

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

*The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean by Robinson Jeffers*

Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening
The stars go over the lonely ocean,
And a black-maned wild boar
Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,
Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.
The best nation in Europe has fallen,
And that is Finland,
But the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
The old black-bristled boar,
Tearing the sod on Mal Paso Mountain.

"The world's in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
Said the old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,"
Said the gamey black-maned boar
Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.

*Butterfly Wishes*

Yesterday a butterfly
Came floating gently through the sky.
He soared up through the atmosphere
Then drifted close enough to hear.

I said, "I'd love to fly with you
And sail around the way you do.
It looks like it would be such fun
To fly up toward the summer sun.

But I have not your graceful charm.
I haven't wings, just these two arms.
I've been designed to walk around.
My human feet must touch the ground.

Then magically he spoke to me
and told me what his wish would be.

He said, "What I'd love most to do
Is walk upon God's Earth with you,
To squish it's mud between my toes
Or touch my finger to my nose.

I'd love just once to walk around
With human feet to touch the ground,
But I have not two legs that swing,
I haven't arms, just these two wings."

And so we went our separate ways
In wonder and surprise.
For we'd both seen God's precious gifts
Through someone else's eyes.


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## Rez

*Anything by Veronica Franco*

Capitolo 1

Macro Venier (the lover of Veronica Franco)
(From the Magnifico Marco Venier to Veronica Franco.)

If I love you as much as my own life,
cruel lady, why do you offer no relief
for my suffering in such great love?
And if I ask in vain for grace and pity,
why do not you at least end with death
this pain I endure for love of you?
I know you are not right to reward
my faithfulness in this way; but a wrong
that rights a greater wrong is well received;
my suffering is more bitter than any death,
and to die by your hand in this condition
would be a boon I long for and cherished.
But how ever can it be, in the tenderest part
of your body, that your fair, fine white breast
can enclose a heart so hard and pitiless?
How can it be that such a gay appearance
conceals desires and thoughts so cruel
that they disdain my humble devotion?
To use the great beauty given you by heaven
for the death and grief of a man who loves you-
what deed worse than this could you commit?
Let your natural desire be freed from all this
and let compassion fitting to your beauty
make its way into your mind instead.......

[ll. 1-24; pp. 51]



Veronica Franco
(Franco's response to Capitolo 1.)

Certain qualities concealed within me,
I will reveal to you, infinitely sweetly,
which prose or verse has never shown another,
on this condition: that you prove your love to me
by other means than compliments, for I 
take care not to be fooled by them;
please me more with deeds and praise me less, 
and where your courtesy overflows into praise,
distribute it in some other way.
Does what I say seem right to you,
or do you instead perhaps think I am wrong,
lacking experience to choose the right path?
Sir, being mocked is a most painful thing, 
especially in love; and let whoever 
does not believe this show his reason why.
I am ready to walk in step with you, 
and I will love you beyond any doubt, 
just as your merit requires I should.
If in your breast you have love's burning fire 
I'll feel it by your side, for it will have
the power to set my heart aflame, too;
it's not possible to escape its blows,
and whoever feels truly loved
is bound to love the lover in return;
but attempting to make white pass for black 
is something that everybody dislikes,
even those whose judgment is weak.
So show me the fruits of your love for me, 
for only foolish folk are deceived
by the lure of empty words.......

[ll. 52-81; pp. 63-65]


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## theboywithcoffee3

He's pretty when he wants to be,
communicates with poetry.
He thinks he's sane but cannot see
he's crazy
for the world and me.


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## absent air

*In the sea without lees
Standeth the bird of Hermes
Eating his wings variable
And maketh himself yet full stable
When all his feathers be from him gone
He standeth still here as a stone
Here is now both white and red
And all so the stone to quicken the dead
All and some without fable
Both hard and soft and malleable
Understand now well and right
And thank you God of this sight


The bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame.

The Red Sea. The Red Sol. The Red Elixir Vitae.
Red Stone. White Stone. Elixir Vitae. Luna in Crescent.*


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