English Poems

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. - The call of the wild, Jack London

SAY IT, I'M ALWAYS IN LOVE they all do, when I scramble into dinner unforgivably late with too many bags, rambling about some new lover & the way they listen better than the last. say it, you don't believe me this time because last time i lost six months mourning our demise, chain-smoking on a rooftop next to the airport, where every four minutes a plane would tear its belly across the sky, until a new love came along, danced with me in a parking lot & made sure i drank water. yes, i thought that one would stay until my birthday, & no, they didn't, yes, i was alone by winter, practicing some familiar grief, my old heart's sacrament. okay okay, another rolled around by spring, gone by the next fall, of course i know the patte you teach me nothing when you say it but say it, i'm always either in love or heartbroken, say it, i should be alone more often, ill admit, sometimes i don't trust the way i worship, okay? sometimes i forget who's who. i know i know, how many gods can a girl have? who will she go home to when she dies? #poem #love #god — Olivia Gatwood

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime Though this might take me a little time #poem #love — W. H. Auden, The More Loving One

IMPERATIVE The thing to remember is how tentative all of this really is. You could wake up dead Or the woman you love could decide you're ugly. Maybe she'll finally give up trying to ignore the way you floss your teeth when you watch television. All I'm saying is that there are no sure things here. I mean, you'll probably wake up alive, and she'll probably keep putting off any actual decision about your looks. Could be she'll be glad your teeth are so clean. The morning could be full of all the love and kindness you need. Just don't go thinking you deserve any of it. #poem #love #marriage — Scott Cairns

In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body's been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. #Poem #melancholy —Keeping Things Whole, Mark Strand

And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea, I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure. Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now in the waves and wars. Add this to the total — bring the trial on!” #life — Homer, the odyssey, spoken by Odysseus

"To be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy." —Edwin Abbott, Flatland

For the consequence is that, as things now are, we Males have to lead a kind of bi-lingual, and I may almost say bi-mental existence. With the Women, we speak of "love," "duty," aright," "wrong," "pity," "hope," and other irrational and emotional conceptions, which have no existence, and the fiction of which has no object except to control feminine exuberances ; but among ourselves, and in our we have an entirely different vocabulary and I may almost say, idiom. "Love" then becomes the anticipation of benefits;" "duty becomes "necessity" or " fitness ; " and other words are correspondingly transmuted. Moreover, among Women, we use language implying the utmost deference for their Sex ; and they fully believe that the Chief Circle Himself is not more devoutly adored by us than they are : but behind their backs they are both regarded and spoken of—-by all except the very young—as being little better than mindless organisms." #women Extract, The women in flatland.

I. Then is omnividence the attribute of others beside Gods ? Sphere. I do not know. But, if a pick-pocket or a cut-throat of our country can see everything that is in your country, surely that is no reason why the pick-pocket or cut-throat should be accepted by you as a God. This omnividence, as you call it—it is not a common word in Spaceland—does it make you more just, more merciful, less selfish, more loving? Not in the least. Then how does it make you more divine ? I. "More merciful, more loving!" But these are the qualities of women And we know that a Circle is a higher Being than a Straight Line, in so far as knowledge and wisdom are more to esteemed than mere affection. Sphere. It is not for me to classify human faculties according to merit. Yet many of the best and wisest in Spaceland think more of the affections than of the understanding, more of your despised Straight Lines than of your belauded Circles. #Irony #God #religion #women Extract from Flatland

Oh, that it were not in religion sin To make our love a god, and worship it! #play #love #sin ― John Ford, ' Tis Pity She's a Whore

Such a pair of stars As are thine eyes, would, like Promethean fire, If gently glanced, give life to senseless stones. #play #romance ― John Ford, ' Tis Pity She's a Whore

The flakes are delicately landing on the surface of things, cover the infinite, permeate the world of their absolute whiteness to the bottom of our ivory hearts. There is no more paradise or hell. Tomorrow, dogs will be silent. Volcanoes will sleep. The people will vote white. Our ghosts in wedding dress will wander in the street frost. We will be immortal. #war #melancholy #death —Extract from Petit pays (Gaël Faye) Translated

I saw the peaceful image of Papa and Ana lying on the bed, in front of the television. The image of their innocence, of all the innocences in this world struggling to walk on the edge of abysses. And I felt sorry for them, for myself, for the purity ruined by the all-consuming fear that transforms everything into malice, hatred, death. Into lava. Everything was or around me, the vociferations grew louder. The man in the taxi was a nearly dead horse. If there is no sanctuary on earth, is there one elsewhere? #Innocence #death #war —Extract from Petit pays (Gaël Faye) Translated

Where does the river come from? And the eel, the night-mind of water 一 The river within the river and opposite - The night-nerve of water? Not from the earth's remembering mire Not from the air's whim Not from the brimming sun. Where from? From the bottom of the nothing pool Sargasso of God Out of the empty spiral of stars A glimmering person #poem #cheating #love #nature -Catadrome, By Ted Hughes

PARTING Three hundred nights like three hundred walls must rise between my love and me and the sea will be a black art between us. Time with a hard hand will tear out the streets tangled in my breast. Nothing will be left but memories. (O afternoons earned with suffering, nights hoping for the sight of you, dejected vacant lots, poor sky shamed in the bottom of the puddles like a fallen angel.... And your life that graces my desire and that run-down and lighthearted neighborhood shining today in the glow of my love....) Final as a statue your absence will sadden other fields. #poem #love #melancholy Poem by Jorge Borges, Translated by [W. S. Merwin]

Why so many candles, these faces above me? No more harm shall ever meet my body. Everyone is standing - while here alone I lie - Grieving, feigning. One must be true when one must die. And so, buried under these wreathes of leaves, I lie - Solemnly - Agelessly - Solitarily. Death, gone silent, once again rushes to my head, Though by now I know all comprehension is dead. How I loathe to become accustomed to this grave, To be what I once was - that is all I crave. #poem #death #melancholy #identity Poem by Bolesław Leśmian, Translated by Stefano Salsicciao

Peace, tender sapling. Thou art made of tears, And tears will quickly melt thy life away #play #love #langauge — From Titus Andronicus

when no friends are by, men praise themselves. — from Titus Andronicus

If there were reason for these miseries, Then into limits could I bind my woes. When heaven doth weep, doth not the Earth o’erflow? If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad, Threat’ning the welkin with his big-swoll’n face? And wilt thou have a reason for this coil? I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth flow! She is the weeping welkin, I the Earth. Then must my sea be moved with her sighs; Then must my Earth with her continual tears Become a deluge, overflowed and drowned, Forwhy my bowels cannot hide her woes But like a drunkard must I vomit them. Then give me leave, for losers will have leave To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues. #play #shakespeare #melacholy — Titus Andronicus

AARON, aside Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over. #play #shakespeare #god #sin — from Titus Andronicus