My favorite poem. What 's yours?

Joseph Campbell formulated what became his most quoted dictum, "Follow your bliss" in the decade before his death. Join this conversation to explore this idea and share stories.

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FDamkar
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Post by FDamkar »

Ooh, thank you for the link, Carmela! I can't wait to check it out. (:

For me, one of my favorite poems is by Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Emily, a kindred spirit. Beautiful.

Learned a new word yesterday.....prosody, which is the "science of poetical forms"...somewhat intimidating.

Welcome to the Conversations, FDamkar.

8)
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

lancimouspitt
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Post by lancimouspitt »

O was it war-wolf in the wood?
Or was it mermaid in the sea?
Or was it man, or vile woman,
My ain true love, that mis-shaped thee?


Dark but so delicious! :twisted:
A ship is safe in harbor,but that's not why a ship is built.

CarmelaBear
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Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Ouch!

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

JamesN.
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Location: Nashville, Tn.

Post by JamesN. »

Hey everyone. I thought you might enjoy these from one of my favorite poets.



( From "A Coney Island of the Mind"; 1958 ):
I Am Waiting

By 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
The World Is a Beautiful Place
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti


The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half bad
if it isn’t you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
Sometime During Eternity . . .

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti


Sometime during eternity

some guys show up

and one of them

who shows up real late

is a kind of carpenter

from some square-type place

like Galilee

and he starts wailing

and claiming he is hip

to who made heaven

and earth

and that the cat

who really laid it on us

is his Dad


And moreover

he adds

It’s all writ down

on some scroll-type parchments

which some henchmen

leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres

a long time ago

and which you won’t even find

for a coupla thousand years or so

or at least for

nineteen hundred and fortyseven

of them

to be exact

and even then

nobody really believes them

or me

for that matter

You’re hot

they tell him

And they cool him


They stretch him on the Tree to cool


And everybody after that

is always making models

of this Tree

with Him hung up

and always crooning His name

and calling Him to come down

and sit in

on their combo

as if he is the king cat

who’s got to blow

or they can’t quite make it


Only he don’t come down

from His Tree

Him just hang there

on His Tree

looking real Petered out

and real cool

and also

according to a roundup

of late world news

from the usual unreliable sources

real dead
Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti


Constantly risking absurdity

and death

whenever he performs

above the heads

of his audience

the poet like an acrobat

climbs on rime

to a high wire of his own making

and balancing on eyebeams

above a sea of faces

paces his way

to the other side of day

performing entrechats

and sleight-of-foot tricks

and other high theatrics

and all without mistaking

any thing

for what it may not be


For he's the super realist

who must perforce perceive

taut truth

before the taking of each stance or step

in his supposed advance

toward that still higher perch

where Beauty stands and waits

with gravity

to start her death-defying leap


And he

a little charleychaplin man

who may or may not catch

her fair eternal form

spreadeagled in the empty air

of existence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Ferlinghetti

“ If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of
apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.
You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words....


—Lawrence Ferlinghetti. From Poetry as Insurgent Art .
What do I know? - Michael de Montaigne

CarmelaBear
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Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

8)
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Candid
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Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:26 pm

Post by Candid »

Dreams of a Crazy Man

If all the dreams of a crazy man seem far away
then I say to listen to the wind
as it begins to tell you of life and what it means
to be a crazy man
to understand a dream.

If to love me will make you cry
and if you don't know the reason why
just whistle through the storm
it will be warm
the clouds can't hide the sun forever
be happy child
don't worry 'bout the weather.

Night is night and the day is bright
in-between may seem to last forever
well forever it may be
though to me it's almost morning
and morning comes only once a day.

Candid
Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:26 pm

Post by Candid »

Dreams of a Crazy Man

If all the dreams of a crazy man seem far away
then I say to listen to the wind
as it begins to tell you of life and what it means
to be a crazy man
to understand a dream.

If to love me will make you cry
and if you don't know the reason why
just whistle through the storm
it will be warm
the clouds can't hide the sun forever
be happy child
don't worry 'bout the weather.

Night is night and the day is bright
in-between may seem to last forever
well forever it may be
though to me it's almost morning
and morning comes only once a day.

Candid
Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:26 pm

Post by Candid »

Dreams of a Crazy Man

If all the dreams of a crazy man seem far away
then I say to listen to the wind
as it begins to tell you of life and what it means
to be a crazy man
to understand a dream.

If to love me will make you cry
and if you don't know the reason why
just whistle through the storm
it will be warm
the clouds can't hide the sun forever
be happy child
don't worry 'bout the weather.

Night is night and the day is bright
in-between may seem to last forever
well forever it may be
though to me it's almost morning
and morning comes only once a day.

Candid
Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:26 pm

Post by Candid »

Dreams of a Crazy Man

If all the dreams of a crazy man seem far away
then I say to listen to the wind
as it begins to tell you of life and what it means
to be a crazy man
to understand a dream.

If to love me will make you cry
and if you don't know the reason why
just whistle through the storm
it will be warm
the clouds can't hide the sun forever
be happy child
don't worry 'bout the weather.

Night is night and the day is bright
in-between may seem to last forever
well forever it may be
though to me it's almost morning
and morning comes only once a day.

Candid
Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 11:26 pm

Post by Candid »

Dreams of a Crazy Man

If all the dreams of a crazy man seem far away
then I say to listen to the wind
as it begins to tell you of life and what it means
to be a crazy man
to understand a dream.

If to love me will make you cry
and if you don't know the reason why
just whistle through the storm
it will be warm
the clouds can't hide the sun forever
be happy child
don't worry 'bout the weather.

Night is night and the day is bright
in-between may seem to last forever
well forever it may be
though to me it's almost morning
and morning comes only once a day.

CarmelaBear
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Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Still Here
Langston Hughes


I’ve been scarred and battered.

My hopes, the wind done scattered.

Snow has friz me, sun has baked me.

Looks like between ‘em,

They done tried to make me

Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’—

But I don’t care!

I’m still here!



This poem was sent to me in an email from Harvard sociologist, Anthony Abraham Jack.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2 ... 2016%20(1)

~
Last edited by CarmelaBear on Sat Apr 30, 2016 10:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

CarmelaBear
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Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

:shock:
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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