Please tell me your favourite poem(s)

[NotAFabergeEgg]

I love poetry but don't have many friends IRL who like it, so please can you enrich my brain with your favourite(s).

I have loads, but for brevity I'll share "If people disapprove of you" by Sophie Hannah

"Make being disapproved of your hobby.
Make being disapproved of your aim.
Devise new ways of scoring points
In the Being Disapproved Of Game.

Let them disapprove in their dozens.
Let them disapprove in their hordes.
You’ll find that being disapproved of
Builds character, brings rewards.

Just like any form of striving
Don't be arrogant; don't coast
On your high disapproval rating.
Try to be disapproved of most.

At this point, if it's useful,
Draw a pie chart or a graph.
Show it to someone who disapproves.
When they disapprove, just laugh.

Count the emotions you provoke:
Anger, suspicion, shock.
One point for each of these
And two for each boat you rock.

Feel yourself warming to your task -
You do it bloody well.
At last you've found an area
In which you can excel.

Savour the thrill of risk without
The fear of getting caught.
Whether they sulk or scream or pout,
Enjoy your new-found sport.

Meanwhile all those who disapprove
While you are having fun
Won't even know your game exists
So tell yourself you've won."

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
————-

such beauty & truth in her simple words

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

I also love Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

He wishes fir the cloths of heaven, wby.

A Code Poem for the French Resistance (The Life That I Have),' Leo Marks

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

And Pigeons by Richard Kell! (will stop now...)

They paddle with staccato feet
In powder-pools of sunlight,
Small blue busybodies
Strutting like fat gentlemen
With hands clasped
Under their swallowtail coats;
And, as they stump about
Their heads like tiny hammers
Tap at imaginary nails
In non-existent walls.
Elusive ghosts of sunshine
Slither down the green gloss
Of their necks an instant, and are gone.
Summer hangs drugged from sky to earth
In limpid fathoms of silence:
Only warm dark dimples of sound
Slide like slow bubbles
From the contented throats.
Raise a casual hand –
With one quick gust
They fountain into air.

The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Seems fairly apt these days...

This was read at my former RAF pilot grandfather's funeral. It is beautiful and so moving.

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall live on.

For where a man has no voice,
there, my voice.

Where blacks are beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory comes,
even though I am mute I must speak;
I shall see it come even
though I am blind.

No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things
you wanted me indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.

The dead woman by Pablo neruda

Donegal (for Ellie) by Robin Robertson

Ardent on the beach at Rossnowlagh
on the last day of summer,
you ran through the shallows
throwing off shoes, and shirt and towel
like the seasons, the city's years,
all caught in my arms
as I ploughed on behind you, guardian still
of dry clothes, of this little heart
not quite thirteen,
breasting the waves
and calling back to me
to join you, swimming in the Atlantic
on the last day of summer.
I saw a man in the shallows
with his hands full of clothes, full of
all the years,
and his daughter going
where he knew he could not follow.

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

Long distance 2 Tony Harrison

‘Fern Hill’ and ‘The Orange’ have already been mentioned.

I’d like to add:

‘After the Lunch’ by Wendy Cope

‘Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening.’ By Robert Frost.

‘The Listeners’ by Walter De La Mer

‘Full Moon and Little Frieda.’ By Ted Hughes.

‘Under One Small Star.’ By Wisława Szymborska

This be the verse - Philip Larkin

Prufrock by TS Eliot is my favourite.

I also adore the Mad Girl's Love Song by Plath;

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I like The Barrel Organ by Alfred Noyes. Too long to post here.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47543/the-barrel-organ

People might know it better as 'Go down to Kew in lilac time'.

It was published in 1913 , but there are these lines which would take on quite a different meaning a few years later, just because of one word:

Hark, a hundred thousand feet
Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat
In the land where the dead dreams go.

Unto us...
Spike Milligan.

Somewhere at some timeThey committed themselves to meAnd so, I was!Small, but I WAS!Tiny, in shapeLusting to liveI hung in my pulsing cave.Soon they knew of meMy mother —my father.I had no say in my beingI lived on trustAnd loveTho' I couldn't thinkEach part of me was sayingA silent 'Wait for meI will bring you love!'I was takenBlind, naked, defenselessBy the hand of oneWhose good nameWas graven on a brass platein Wimpole Street,and dropped on the sterile floorof a foot operated plastic wastebucket.There was no Queens CounselTo take my brief.The cot I might have warmedStood in Harrod's shop window.When my passing was toldMy father smiled.No grief filled my empty space.My death was celebratedWith tickets to see Danny la RueWho was pretending to be a womanLike my mother was.

Some absolute belters on here already!! I love Wilfred Owen as his poems are so full of rich language and pain and perfectly chosen vocabulary.

But at the other end of the poetry spectrum, there’s this. I adore it. So sweet and silly…
it’s called Postcards from a Hedgehog by AF Harrold

I couldn’t find it as text but I found a pic - hopefully, you’ll see it soon once it’s passed the pic uploading review!!

so many. So many. Poetry is life. Thank you for this lovely thread and to everyone sharing their loved poems.

Ill throw in If by Rudyard Kipling, which makes me cry every time.

and of course Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

The Lady of Shalott, by Tennyson.
Cargos and Sea Fever, both by John Masefield.

This is another Kipling that makes me cry....

Merrow Down

part I
1
There runs a road by Merrow Down -
A grassy track today it is -
An hour out of Guildford Town,
Above the river Wey it is.
2
Here, when they heard the horse-bells ring
The ancient Britons dressed and rode,
To watch the dark Phoenicians bring
Their goods along the Western Road.
3
Yes, here, or hereabouts, they met
To hold their racial talks and such -
To barter beads for Whitby jet,
And tin for gay shell torques and such.
4
But long and long before that time
(When bison used to roam on it)
Did Taffy and her Daddy climb
That Down, and had their home on it.
5
Then beavers built in Broadstonebrook
And made a swamp where Bramley stands;
And bears from Shere would come and look
For Taffimai where Shamley stands.
6
The Wey, that Taffy called Wagai,
Was more than six times bigger then;
And all the tribe of Tegumai
They cut a noble figure then!

part II
1
Of all the Tribe of Tegumai
Who cut that figure, none remain, -
On Merrow Down the cuckoos cry -
The silence and the sun remain.
2
But as the faithful years return
And hearts unwounded sing again,
Comes Taffy dancing through the fern
To lead the Surrey spring again.
3
Her brows are bound with bracken-fronds,
And golden elf-locks fly above;
Here eyes are bright as diamonds
And bluer than the sky above.
4
In mocassins and deer-skin cloak,
Unfearing, free, and fair she flits,
And lights her little damp-wood smoke
To show her Daddy where she flits.
5
For far - oh, very far behind,
So far she cannot call to him,
Comes Tegumai alone to find
The daughter that was all to him!
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
(For anyone who didn't know, Kipling had a little daughter, Josephine, who died aged seven.)

Another vote for Under One Small Star by Szymborska.

And ‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

*Cargos and Sea Fever, both by John Masefield.

The rhythms of Cargoes are so clever. You can see the dirty British coaster going up and down in the waves in the Channel.

Night Mail is another one that's as much about the rhythms as the actual words. But does it mean anything to anyone under fifty-ish now?

This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient’s against her, but she’s on time.

Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder.......

Dawn freshens, Her climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends,
Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs
Men long for news........

One more Kipling, then I must go to bed.

Legate, I had the news last night–my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!
2
I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.
3
Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid–my wife–my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?
4
For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze–
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?
5
You'll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate's triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!
6
You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You'll go where laurel crowns are won, but–will you e'er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?
7
Let me work here for Britain's sake–at any task you will–
A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops to drill.
Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite Border keep,
Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old messmates sleep.
8
Legate, I come to you in tears–My cohort ordered home!
I've served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?
Here is my heart, my soul, my mind–the only life I know.
I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

Pam Ayres Oh I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Worth a google for those who don’t remember her work.

I can’t stand poetry but make an exception for Pam.