Some people like poems because they reflect how they feel, or remind them of people or places. That's fine, but I believe truly great poems should stand alone, making you think and feel beyond your normal boundaries. Here are a few I like. Two X: e.e. cummings
16 heures
L' Etoile
The communists have fine Eyes
Some are young some are old none
Look alike the flics rush
Batter the crowd sprawls collapses
Singing knocked down trampled the kicked by
Flics rush (the
Flics, tidiyum, are
Very tidiyum reassuringly similar,
They all have very tidiyum
mustaches, and very
tidiyum chins, and just above
their very tidiyum ears their
very tidiyum necks begin)
let us add
that there are 50 (fifty) flics for every
one (1) communist and
all the flics are very organically
arranged
and their nucleus (composed
of captains in frehly-creased
-uniforms with only-just-
shined buttons
tidiyum
before and behind) has a nucleolus:
the prefect of Police
(a dapper derbied
creature, swaggers daintily
twiddling
his tiny cane
and mazurkas about tweak-
ing his wing collar pecking at his im
-peccable cravat directing being
shooting his cuffs
saluted everywhere saluting
reviewing processions of minions
tappingpeopleontheback
"allez circulez")
-my, he's brave!
the communists pick
up themsevels friends
& their hats legs &
arms brush dirt coats
smile looking hands
spit blood teeth
the Commuists have (very) fine eyes
(which stroll hither and thither through the
evening in bruised narrow questioning faces)
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
The plums
That were in
The icebox
And which
You were probably
Saving for breakfast
Forgive me
They were delicious
So sweet
And so cold
(William Carlos Williams)
Assault of Angels: Michael Roberts
The mind trembles from the assault of angels;
Running in familiar light it sees the sea,
It remembers the dark subway and the lost fields of childhood,
It remembers the loneliness of first love and the end of a summer:
These are familiar and small.
But the assault of angels is more terrible; angels are invisible,
Angels cast no shadow, and their unpredicted motion
Moves the familiar shadows into light.
Angels cannot burn the fingers: unacknowledged,
They pass unseen. No one will ever know.
Refuse them: they have no claim to charity;
To ignore them offers a key to omniscience.
Angels breed darkness out of light, angels rejoice
In things we hate and fear.
Angels are the launching of a new ship,
Angels offer to inhabit the landscape of your body,
Angels will let you grow as a child grows,
They are your enemy: they will destroy you.
And a time comes when a man is afraid to grow,
A time comes when the house is comfortable and narrow.
A time when the spirit of life contracts.
Angels are at the door: admit them, now.
You Went Away: Norman MacCaig
Suddenly, in my world of you,
You created time.
I walked about in bitter lanes
Looking for whom I lost, afraid to go home.
You stole yourself and gave me this
Torturer for my friend
Who shows me gardens rotting in air
And tells me what I no longer understand.
The birds sing still in the apple trees,
But not in mine, I hear
Only the clock whose wintry strokes
Say "Now is now," the same lie over and over.
If I could kill this poem, sticking
My thin pen through its throat,
It would stand crying by your bed
And haunt your cruelty every empty night.
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