Be Drunk Poem by Charles Baudelaire
You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it–it’s the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:”It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”
Dis Poetry Poem by Benjamin Zephaniah
Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops
De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots
Dis poetry is designed fe rantin
Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,
Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep
Preaching follow me
Like yu is blind sheep,
Dis poetry is not Party Political
Not designed fe dose who are critical.
Dis poetry is wid me when I gu to me bed
It gets into me dreadlocks
It lingers around me head
Dis poetry goes wid me as I pedal me bike
IÕve tried Shakespeare, respect due dere
But did is de stuff I like.
Dis poetry is not afraid of going ina book
Still dis poetry need ears fe hear an eyes fe hav a look
Dis poetry is Verbal Riddim, no big words involved
An if I hav a problem de riddim gets it solved,
IÕve tried to be more romantic, it does nu good for me
So I tek a Reggae Riddim an build me poetry,
I could try be more personal
But youÕve heard it all before,
Pages of written words not needed
Brain has many words in store,
Yu could call dis poetry Dub Ranting
De tongue plays a beat
De body starts skanking,
Dis poetry is quick an childish
Dis poetry is fe de wise an foolish,
Anybody can do it fe free,
Dis poetry is fe yu an me,
DonÕt stretch yu imagination
Dis poetry is fe de good of de Nation,
Chant,
In de morning
I chant
In de night
I chant
In de darkness
An under de spotlight,
I pass thru University
I pass thru Sociology
An den I got a dread degree
In Dreadfull Ghettology.
Dis poetry stays wid me when I run or walk
An when I am talking to meself in poetry I talk,
Dis poetry is wid me,
Below me an above,
Dis poetry’s from inside me
It goes to yu
WID LUV.
Poetic Masterpiece Poem by Chinedu Dike
Poetic Masterpiece: A Childbirth Of Profundity.
Like delivery of Divine Revelations
which favours calmness of wilderness;
It’s brought forth in Creative-Glory-Of-Solitude:
an abode of Enlightenment in whose mirror of grace,
purest passions reflect out from shady reality —
to gratify inflamed curiosity of Inward-Eye,
as it wanders around source of enchantment,
seeking in expanded awareness to capture
the essence of a phenomenon shrouded in mystery.
In blessed serene mood with passionate intensity,
mind labours hard to replicate images being
unveiled in the exalted realm of thought.
With illuminative wizardry that nudge limits of speech,
the wordsmith graced with breath of poetic creation
gives life to words —
freeing them from their rigid implications.
Soulful words that sway soul of the reader,
leaving the excited spirit with an enigma to ponder.
Such is the sublime nature of every Poetic Masterpiece.
Songs Of The Singing Bird! Poem by Ramesh T A
The unknown singing bird sang
Several songs for some years;
The songs of the singing bird
Soon created news and history!
All the life songs of the bird about
Nature and culture are literature now!
Knowledge and experience give wisdom
That gives a system of life to live;
This is called human culture.
For all, the beginning and the end
Are in Nature only and so it is
The friend, philosopher and guide
Not only to poets, scientists and artists
But also to the whole of mankind.
From first melody to last funeral song
All songs say only about human love!
In reality the more we love the dear one
The more the dear one goes far away!
The tragedy of loved one lives in mind
Ever plunging everyone in endless tears!
Love is the source of all creations in evolution
From blue green algae to man in the world!
Without love nothing can be created and
Great things worthwhile are achieved by men!
One such great thing is poetry of great poets
Absorbing heart, mind and soul of man ever!
What is poetry? Poetry is the magical expression,
Words of poet’s heart echoing in the minds of men!
Building castle in the air and capturing in camera
Poetry does to produce the album of poetry book!
Collecting honey from flowers to build beehive
Poet bee weaves ideas together to compose poetry!
Arranging beautiful ideas focused on a subject
A great work of art poet creates in poetry with
Sound, sense, substance and seriousness in words!
Beautiful, sweet and light music of poetry absorbs
Heart, mind and soul to entertain and instruct with
Inspiring ideas to live a happy and prosperous life
With confidence, courage and endurance in the world!
Expressing experience of life in meaningful verse
Poet finds favour with everyone everywhere here!
Compressing many ideas in a nutshell, poet makes it
Possible to reveal Universal truths from trivialities;
Such a magical art in any other form of literature
It is not worth trying other than in poetry alone!
The all absorbing power of poetry is an invaluable art
That has royal reception everywhere in world literature.
Sweet songs of Nightingale, beautiful dance of peacock
And so on will be immortal and unforgettable in poetry!
So, the songs of the singing bird, whom we call a poet,
Will echo eternally in the hearts of men and world of art!
Ars Poetica? Poem by Czeslaw Milosz
I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.
In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
and stood in the light, lashing his tail.
That’s why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,
though its an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.
It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
when so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.
What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,
who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,
and who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,
work at changing his destiny for their convenience?
It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
and so you may think that I am only joking
or that I’ve devised just one more means
of praising Art with thehelp of irony.
There was a time when only wise books were read
helping us to bear our pain and misery.
This, after all, is not quite the same
as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.
And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
People therefore preserve silent integrity
thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.
The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.
What I’m saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.
Populist Manifesto No. 1 Poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed-up too long
in your closed worlds.
Come down, come down
from your Russian Hills and Telegraph Hills,
your Beacon Hills and your Chapel Hills,
your Mount Analogues and Montparnasses,
down from your foothills and mountains,
out of your teepees and domes.
The trees are still falling
and we’ll to the woods no more.
No time now for sitting in them
As man burns down his own house
to roast his pig
No more chanting Hare Krishna
while Rome burns.
San Francisco’s burning,
Mayakovsky’s Moscow’s burning
the fossil-fuels of life.
Night & the Horse approaches
eating light, heat & power,
and the clouds have trousers.
No time now for the artist to hide
above, beyond, behind the scenes,
indifferent, paring his fingernails,
refining himself out of existence.
No time now for our little literary games,
no time now for our paranoias & hypochondrias,
no time now for fear & loathing,
time now only for light & love.
We have seen the best minds of our generation
destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.
Poetry isn’t a secret society,
It isn’t a temple either.
Secret words & chants won’t do any longer.
The hour of oming is over,
the time of keening come,
a time for keening & rejoicing
over the coming end
of industrial civilization
which is bad for earth & Man.
Time now to face outward
in the full lotus position
with eyes wide open,
Time now to open your mouths
with a new open speech,
time now to communicate with all sentient beings,
All you ‘Poets of the Cities’
hung in museums including myself,
All you poet’s poets writing poetry
about poetry,
All you poetry workshop poets
in the boondock heart of America,
All you housebroken Ezra Pounds,
All you far-out freaked-out cut-up poets,
All you pre-stressed Concrete poets,
All you cunnilingual poets,
All you pay-toilet poets groaning with graffiti,
All you A-train swingers who never swing on birches,
All you masters of the sawmill haiku in the Siberias of America,
All you eyeless unrealists,
All you self-occulting supersurrealists,
All you bedroom visionaries and closet agitpropagators,
All you Groucho Marxist poets
and leisure-class Comrades
who lie around all day and talk about the workingclass proletariat,
All you Catholic anarchists of poetry,
All you Black Mountaineers of poetry,
All you Boston Brahims and Bolinas bucolics,
All you den mothers of poetry,
All you zen brothers of poetry,
All you suicide lovers of poetry,
All you hairy professors of poesie,
All you poetry reviewers
drinking the blood of the poet,
All you Poetry Police –
Where are Whitman’s wild children,
where the great voices speaking out
with a sense of sweetness and sublimity,
where the great’new vision,
the great world-view,
the high prophetic song
of the immense earth
and all that sings in it
And our relations to it –
Poets, descend
to the street of the world once more
And open your minds & eyes
with the old visual delight,
Clear your throat and speak up,
Poetry is dead, long live poetry
with terrible eyes and buffalo strength.
Don’t wait for the Revolution
or it’ll happen without you,
Stop mumbling and speak out
with a new wide-open poetry
with a new commonsensual ‘public surface’
with other subjective levels
or other subversive levels,
a tuning fork in the inner ear
to strike below the surface.
Of your own sweet Self still sing
yet utter ‘the word en-masse –
Poetry the common carrier
for the transportation of the public
to higher places
than other wheels can carry it.
Poetry still falls from the skies
into our streets still open.
They haven’t put up the barricades, yet,
the streets still alive with faces,
lovely men & women still walking there,
still lovely creatures everywhere,
in the eyes of all the secret of all
still buried there,
Whitman’s wild children still sleeping there,
Awake and walk in the open air.
Everything I See Is Poetry To Me Poem by Allen Steble The Philosophical Poet
Everything I see
Is poetry to me
From the last standing tree
In a lonely forest
To the great ocean sea
Bathing in the sunset
everything I see
Is poetry to me
Every thing I see
From the buzzing honey bee
In a red field of roses
From the whimsical jumping flea
That makes a dog scratch vigorously
Then chase his tail playfully
Is poetry to me
From the sun shinning brightly
To the birds flying freely
And singing in harmony
Everything around me
And everything I see
Is poetry to me.
Poetry Is Sexy Poem by Brian Dorn
Poetry is sexy
Its lyrics aim to please
Poetry is sexy
Engaging in its tease
Poetry is sexy
It radiates with verb
Poetry is sexy
Every idyllic word
Poetry is sexy
Refined for purity
Poetry is sexy
Stripped of subtlety
Poetry is sexy
When read between the lines
Poetry is sexy
Laced with frilly rhymes
Poetry is sexy
Both singular and plural
Poetry is sexy
Every exclamatory swirl
Poetry is sexy
Grammatically raw
Poetry is sexy
Even typos and all
Poetry is sexy
Consummated publicly
Poetry is sexy
When performed properly
Poetry is sexy
Irrespective of its font
Poetry is sexy
Fashioned any way you want
A Single Note Poem by Sandra Fowler
A lilac for the anonymity,
Of Mrs. Hinkle’s simple poetry.
It shines within the margins of its space,
A single note of captivating grace.
The subtle sun through ancient maple leaves,
Paints memory with a gentleness that grieves.
A touch of soul is music to the bone,
Even after every wing has flown.
For Julia Ann Hinkle 1846-1908. This lady rests on a hill
above my house beneath a poem of her own composition.
She has been a great inspiration to me throughout my poetry life.
A Man I Knew Poem by Cj Heck
There was a man I knew
and just knowing him
made me think of poetry.
Loving him, I learned
that accepting love
is as important as giving it
and the not-so-subtle difference
between loving lukewarm
and loving red-hot.
Love like that
can make you stupid –
a total-immersion kind of stupid,
but it made me want
to read poetry.
In a different time
and a different place
it might have worked
but it was over
and when the last page was turned
he was only a man I knew
no regrets
just one perfect memory
and because I loved him
I write poetry.
