These are the Poems I like

I'm Nobody by Emily Dickenson

2006-01-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

It's been some time since I posted a poem.

But today I came across this poem at this site. And the poem somehow felt very close to my heart.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!

How dreary — to be — Somebody!
How public — like a Frog –
To tell one’s name — the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Poetry in Motion

2005-01-23T12:56:00.000-05:00

I've written so many posts here on the Poetry in Motion initiative in the New York Subway, I think it's high time I put a link to it as well!

So, here it is....

Let Me Stop by Jeremy Davis

2005-01-21T04:42:00.000-05:00

I'm packing up to leave. And as usual, over time you tend to collect a lot of junk, especially in terms of paper. I was clearing all the slips, bills and reciepts out, when I came across this small slip of paper where I had jotted down this poem from one of the subway "Poetry in Motion" entries.

I wish this po’m to oblige her, kindly,
but I shouldn’t sign my name to these words–
I should just keep admiring her qui’tly
’cause I can’t write like her beauty deserves:

my pen’s too slight to boldly show her face,
on a page too dim and pale to be kind
reflecting her eyes, shined ’neath arched brows’ lace,
easily recalled as paired polished rhyme–

by that light a bird takes flight from finger,
whistles o’er her river and limber streams,
palms aflutter o’er standing waves in her
that softly through their curvy banks careen

but I’ll bid the bird hide and stop whistling
so she won’t catch it, annoyed at list’ning.

Spinning a Penny by Piet Hein

2004-12-14T13:07:00.000-05:00

Came across this post on an interesting blog by Amit called Anything Else. Interesting posts, mostly techie. The poem was great. Incidentally, I liked his retitling of it, so I'll keep it the same! (The original name is A Psychological Tip)

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.

No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're Hoping.

The poem is by Piet Hein, a Danish poet and scientist. His poems are known as "Grooks"!

Googled him and came across Piet Hein's Home Page. Interesting reading!

A Leaf by Maj Bronislaw

2004-11-27T19:58:00.000-05:00

A leaf, one of the last, parts from a maple branch:
it is spinning in the transparent air of October, falls
on a heap of others, stops, fades. No one
admired its entrancing struggle with the wind,
followed its flight, no one will distinguish it now
as it lies among the other leaves, no one saw what I did. I am
the only one.

(Yup, it sounds like the poetry version of "Raindrops on the window")

Excerpt from "To his Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell

2004-08-29T22:22:00.000-04:00

As we grow older, we start asking the same questions. What have I done? What should I do? My past was the best.

And other thoughts, about the slow realisation that life is not something which extends forward to infinity. It's a fixed time period! The scary thought is, all of a sudden you think, where am I on this time scale? You get to realise that you've already spent a number of years alive! Somehow, when you're young you really don't put to much thought into all this!!

Anyway, came across a nice poem, which was uplifting. It says that time would be better spent if instead of looking back we looked forward. The poem is by Andrew Marvell and this part is just a small bit, but which for me, gives me more points to ponder!

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

And then I came across Oscal Wilde. Trust him to put in the last word with his irrepressible wit!

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young."

A Question by Robert Frost

2004-08-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

And finally, he asked me a question...

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

I think that question kind of laid everything to rest! I said bye to Frosty and the bookshop.

I had some living to do. Suddenly I realise that thinking also happens in time, and thinking about life too much makes me miss living it!!! So let me go live some, then I'll think about it some more...

The Freedom of the Moon by Robert Frost

2004-08-07T21:27:00.000-04:00

And then he showed me that the moon was not out there, it's in here...

I've tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I've tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.

I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I've pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

2004-08-05T21:28:00.000-04:00

It's been ages since they changed the poems on the subway. Every day I get on hoping that I'll read something new. But nothing.

Today, meandering around New York, a book shop invited me in. And then Robert Frost decided to show me a book of his poems.

So, here's one I hadn't read in a long, long time.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today by Tom Waits

2004-07-12T10:57:00.000-04:00

This one is depressing, so don't say I didn't warn you!! It's about death, one of my favourite topics! Only mine, I assure you!

I came across this poem today. Well, again, this is a song, and not strictly, a poem. But when I heard it, it was like a poem recited, no music, no nothing.

So, it got me thinking. What if death betrays you? What if you want to die, and death doesn't comply? What if you just want your heart to stop at the next beat, but it just goes on beating? What if you don't want to breathe, but can't hold your breath? What if life conspires against you to make you go on living?

What if the ocean doesn't want me today?

The ocean doesn't want me today
But I'll be back tomorrow to play
And the strangels will take me, down deep in their brine
The mischievous braingels, down into the endless blue wine
I'll open my head and let out all of my time
I'd love to go drowning
And to stay and to stay

But the ocean doesn't want me today

I'll go in up to here
It can't possibly hurt
All they will find is my beer and my shirt
A rip tide is raging and the life guard is away

But the ocean doesn't want me today

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

2004-07-12T10:37:00.000-04:00

Read this one years and years ago. Even now, it moves me as much as it did then....

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.

Happy by Lighthouse Family

2004-07-11T15:58:00.000-04:00

Ok, ok, strictly speaking this is not a poem, it's a song. And that too
by a pop group. But good poetry is good poetry, wherever it's heard -

Hey, what's happened to our lives?
When did you and me forget how to have a good time?
And I've got to get back to the life
That we forgot 'cos we got too much on our minds

Hey, we got to make some time
for the stuff that you can't buy
And get a life
'cos you know all that serious stuff ain't no fun

Hey let's all go out tonight
Why don t you and me go out and have a good time?
Make our life a supernatural high
Cos we're both leaving all that bad stuff far behind

Hey there's gonna come a time
you kiss it all goodbye
So get a life
'cos you ain't got a clue when that day's gonna come

Who says you can't be happy all the time?
I know but I'm still gonna try

Who says you can't be happy all the time?
Say what you like but I'm still gonna try

But I'm still gonna try
But I'm still gonna try

From '1984' by George Orwell

2004-07-11T15:52:00.000-04:00

Read '1984' recently. Never knew that George Orwell also tried his hand at poetry! Liked this one among many others in the book, which incidentally, is one great book!

It was an ’opeless fancy,
It passed like an Ipril dye,
but a look an’ a word an’ the dreams they stirred
They have stolen my ’eart awye!

They sye that time ’eals all things,
they say you can always forget;
but the smiles an’ the tears across the years
They twist my ’eart-strings yet!

A Tongue of Wood by Stephen Crane

2004-07-11T15:51:00.001-04:00

Moving, to say the least! Read it in the subway as part of New York's 'Poetry in Motion' movement. Some of the other poems are also from there.

There was a man with tongue of wood
Who essayed to sing,
And in truth it was lamentable.
But there was one who heard
The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood
And knew what the man
Wished to sing,
And with that the singer was content.

Parlour-Piece by Ted Hughes

2004-07-11T15:51:00.000-04:00

I never thought that it was possible to portray unsaid emotions and feelings in English as you could in several other Indian languages; until I came across this one. Subtle, yet powerful!....

With love so like fire they dared not
Let it out into strawy small talk
With love so like a flood they dared not
Let out a trickle lest the whole crack

These two sat speechlessly
Pale cool tea in tea-cups chaperoned
Stillness, silence, the eyes
Where fire and flood strained.

Unnamed (I call it Life) by Dorothy Parker

2004-07-11T15:50:00.000-04:00

An old time favourite! Sometimes this is how life feels!!!...

Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
Drugs cause a cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful...
You might as well live.

A Coat by W. B. Yeats

2004-07-11T15:49:00.000-04:00

Touching. A poem from 'Poetry in Motion' run by the Poetry Society of America, from the New York subway....

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;

But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.

Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.