Thread: Random Poems Thread

Through three cheese trees
Three free fleas flew
While these fleas flew
Freezy breeze blew
Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze
Freezy breeze made these trees' cheese freeze
That's what made the three free fleas sneeze

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

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 how 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, too late, they grieve 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.

--Dylan Thomas

"The Invention of the Saxophone"

It was Adolph Sax, remember,
not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.
And by the time he had brought all the components
together-- the serpentine shape, the single reed,
the fit of the fingers,
the upward tilt of the golden bell--
it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
it was also very late at night.

There is something nocturnal about the sound,
something literally horny,
as some may have noticed on that historic date
when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
into the small, darkened town,

summoning the insomniacs (who were up
waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
even deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.

For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
No one would ever think of blowing reveille
on a tenor without irony.
The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
fingers twined behind their heads,
afloat on pools of memory and desire.

And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
around his numinous neck.
An angel playing the world's last song
on a glistening saxophone might be enough
to lift them back into the light of earth,
but really no farther.

Once resurrected, they would only lie down
in the long cemetary grass
or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
and let the music do the ascending--
curling snakes charmed from their baskets--
while they wait for the shrill trempet solo,
that will blow them all to kingdom come.

--Billy Collins

"Christmas Blessings"

As when a pigeon, loos'd in realms remote,
Takes instant wing, and seeks his native cote,
So speed my blessings from a barb'rous clime
To thee and Providence at Christmas time!

--Howard Phillips Lovecraft

"Music Swims Back to Me"

Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?

-- Anne Sexton

The Gift Of Fruitcake

Bring some presents, bring some wine
Bring the head of Larry Fine
But never on purpose or by mistake
Give anyone the gift of a fruitcake…
I actually take it personal…really I do…
I feel it as an insult through and through…
But given the mentality
Of the person giving one
It matches the giver’s personality
By the ton...

"I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You"

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

--Pablo Neruda

"The Day We May"

This is a love song that makes me laugh.
Something that once made me think of you,
And of everything we shared.

Now I am filled with regret,
I know you must feel the same way,
This is a love song that makes me laugh.

One day we might forget,
Perhaps that day will be today,
One last day to be shared.

I keep myself from feeling upset,
On my bed I stay and lay,
Wishing for an end I dared.

Every time that I hear the same song with regret,
I close my eyes allow my feelings to betray,
Those moments we shared.

Forgetting when we met.
I am finally glad that you are away.
This is a love song that makes me laugh.
A laugh that reminds me of what we had and leaves me scared.

--Orpheus

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll