Words of a Poet

This poem definitely stuck out to me, what do you think of it?

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

by Pablo Neruda

Yesterday after writing Pitch Black Night I looked for a few quotes as well as some of my old poetry. I found that I write about darkness a lot. I’ve gotten lost along the way and looking back I can’t imagine anything comparing to my feelings right now. Not of sadness or loss, but just being ‘lost’ and ‘dark’.

Being alone always represents darkness to me, especially being lost and alone. I picture myself at the bottom of some hole, or wandering around at night.

The sky went black,
My eyes went blind,
Darkness surrounded me,
When you left me behind

excerpt from Path of Darkness

I found that searching through several old poems and I thought it was pretty dead on about how I feel right now. However after hitting rock bottom, you can always go up from there.

If you can make it through the night, there’s a brighter day.”
— Tupac Shakur

Another good one is Tupac’s poem, The Tears in Cupid’s Eyes.

I finally was able to watch Eclipse from the Twilight Saga. In the opening with Bella, she recites a poem. Of course it got my attention. After looking it up I realized why, it’s by Robert Frost.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great,
And would suffice.

by Robert Frost

I am surprised I never have read this poem before, it’s apparently one of his most famous poems. However, The Road Not Taken is obviously my favorite one. Because I took the road less traveled by.

This is definitely my favorite poem from Mary Oliver’s book Thirst. The lies we tell to those that have hurt us, just to show them, that they can’t hurt us.

Letter to ___________.

You have broken my heart.
Just as well. Now
I am learning to rise
above all that, learning

the thin life, waking up
simply to praise
everything in this world that is
strong and beautiful

always – the trees, the rocks,
the fields, the news
from heaven, the laughter
that comes back

all the same. Just as well. Time
to read books, rake the lawn
in peace, sweep the floor, scour
the faces of the pans,

anything. And I have been so
diligent it is almost
over, I am growing myself
as strong as rock, as a tree

which, if I put my arms around it, does not
lean away. It is a
wonderful life. Comfortable.
I read the papers. Maybe

I will go on a cruise, maybe I will
cross the entire ocean, more than once.
Whatever you think, I have scarcely
thought of you. Whatever you imagine,

it never really happened. Only a few
evenings of nonsense. Whatever you believe –
dear one, dear one –
do not believe this letter.

by Mary Oliver

After reading Billy Collin’s book, it wasn’t really my style of poetry. However I did find one that I liked.

The Trouble With Poetry

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night–
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky–

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti–
to be perfectly honest for a moment–

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

by Billy Collins

This is one of my favorite Rumi poems from his book the Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing.

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.

by Maulana Jalalu’ddin Rumi

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

by Maya Angelou

After publishing Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes, I went to check out his poetry book. 860 poems later, I think I found my favorite.

My Loves

I love to see the big white moon,
A-shining in the sky;
I love to see the little stars,
When the shadow clouds go by.

I love the rain drops falling
On my roof-top in the night;
I love the soft wind’s sighing,
Before the dawn’s gray light.

I love the deepness of the blue,
In my Lord’s heaven above;
But better than all these things I think
I love my lady love.

by Langston Hughes

Loves Deceit is a poem by Big Rube that was recited on the movie ATL. It’s been a popular poem on our site and many of our readers have read this poem. One reader, Holden, commented “can someone explain this poem to me in depth please? and yes i know it has to do with love.” So I decided to break down the poem by paragraph. My analysis of the poem will be in italics.

“Loves Deceit”

Pleasure turns to the pain,
Of the lessons learned from the strain,
Of the questions burned in my brain,
About whether to love is humane
In its touch.

The good feeling of love is gone, and now it hurts. From heartbreak lessons of life are learned, discovering how much love can hurt. Love is pain, is it right to feel this bad?

These thoughts are like salmon
Swimming upstream
In the tears of your deceit,
Fighting the current hurt
That kills more than is created
By the chaos of our intertwined emotions:
Chaotic because the anchor
Of Eros’ arrow has been plucked from the vessel
Of my undying infatuation.

The thoughts of the broken love are difficult to comprehend, almost impossible. It’s like fish swimming the wrong way, impossible. The feeling of a lost love doesn’t make sense, emotions running wild. Eros, the Greek god of love and sexual desire, now gone. Sort of like removing a love connection made by Cupid (Eros is less cliche then cupid, makes the poem a bit better).

Separation not as simple as the distance between us,
My mind no longer possessed
By the demons
That had been the overseers
Of my enslavement to your lies.

Being apart from love isn’t as simple as something like time or distance, it’s more complex. However, no longer being in love has made it possible to get away from the person and lies.

The seeds of these lies,
Rooted so deeply
They have cracked the foundation
Of what we once shared,
Allowing the faith in us I had sealed inside
To gush out like a river,
Ripping the image of our future together
From my thoughts
As violently and as brutally
As if it were a child being taken
From his mother’s arms.

The lies broke us apart, they ruined the relationship and the love that used to be there. He thought the love would survive but after it didn’t he let the thought go. To let in the pain that was unbearable, referencing a child being separated from his mother. Separating something that isn’t meant to be apart.

I’m left surrounded in darkness,
But I refuse to be swallowed by it,
My loneliness like the night air.
Invisible to the eye, oblivious to the touch,
In its cold uncomfortableness.

Now alone, but fighting against the loneliness. Refusing to give into the pain. It’s overwhelming but able to be hidden.

Yet if I could do it all over again,
I’d do it in the same skin I’m in.
To lay down and let love die,
Just stay down and let love lie:
No, no, not I.
I’ll stay ’round and let love fly,
Even though I have seen its darkest form, deceit.
Nothing else could taste this warm
Or feel this sweet.

But if it could be done all over again, it would be done exactly the same. Basically “its better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”. At the end they still believe in love and they’d never surrender that feeling. Even though the end result was heartbreak, it was “warm and sweet” while it lasted.

by Big Rube
interpreted by Matthew Henrickson

“Dream Deferred”
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore–
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?