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Best Famous Continuing Poems

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Written by Obi Nwakanma | Create an image from this poem

The Four Seasons

I
ICICLES fall from trees, molten with age, 
without memory - they stand aloof in their 
nakedness - they limber; 
like the gods terrified into silence, 
like tall brooding deities looming out of the 
fog: 

The forest hugs them 
carves them into stones, 
Etches them into the slow 
eastern landscape: rivers, hills 
the slow running water, 
times broken inscapes…

The willows are burdened with ice 
the white shrouds of burial spread 
upon the earth's ravaged face; the eyes 
unseeing, the mouth unspeaking, 
a gust of wind proclaims the anger of 
immemorial ages; the cycle, the 
eternal ritual of mystical returns - 

The cypress - whitening -
boneless; wearing her best habit, 
a pale green in the forest of ghosts -

And so I walk through this windless night 
through the narrow imponderable road 
through the silence - the silence of trees -

I hear not even the gust of wind
I hear only the quiet earth, thawing underneath; 
I hear the slow silent death of winter -

where the sun is yellowest. 
But above, Monadnock looms 
like some angry Moloch, her 
white nipple seizing the space

drained of all milk... 

A she-devil beckoning to worshippers 
seductive - her arm stretching outwards -
to this lonely pilgrim
lost in the mist: 

Behold the school of wild bucks 
Behold the meeting of incarnate 
spirits -
Behold the lost souls bearing tapers 
in rags of rich damask, 
Down Thomas - the saint of 
unbelievers - down the road to bliss 
Down to the red house, uncertain 
like a beggar's bowl hanging unto the cliff 
of withdrawn pledges, where the well is 
deepest... 

I have dared to live 
beneath the great untamed. 

To every good, to every 
flicker of stars along the pine 
shadows; 
To every tussle with lucid dusk, 
To every moonlit pledge, to 
every turn made to outleap 
silvery pollen, 

I have desired to listen - to listen -
to the ripening of seasons.... 

Winter 2001
This is ONE of a continuing sequence.  


Written by Edgar Allan Poe | Create an image from this poem

Dreams

 Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be- that dream eternally
Continuing- as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,- have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?
'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass- some power
Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit- or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was
That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.

I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
I have been happy- and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality, which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
Written by Michael Ondaatje | Create an image from this poem

Application For A Driving License

 Two birds loved
in a flurry of red feathers
like a burst cottonball,
continuing while I drove over them.
I am a good driver, nothing shocks me.
Written by Jorie Graham | Create an image from this poem

The Guardian Angel Of The Little Utopia

 Shall I move the flowers again?
Shall I put them further to the left
into the light?
Win that fix it, will that arrange the
thing?
Yellow sky.
Faint cricket in the dried-out bush.
As I approach, my footfall in the leaves
drowns out the cricket-chirping I was
coming close to hear 
Yellow sky with black leaves rearranging it.
Wind rearranging the black leaves in it.
But anyway I am indoors, of course, and this is a pane, here,
and I have arranged the flowers for you
again. Have taken the dead cordless ones, the yellow bits past apogee,
the faded cloth, the pollen-free abandoned marriage-hymn
back out, leaving the few crisp blooms to swagger, winglets, limpid

 debris
Shall I arrange these few remaining flowers?
Shall I rearrange these gossamer efficiencies?
Please don't touch me with your skin.
Please let the thing evaporate.
Please tell me clearly what it is.
The party is so loud downstairs, bristling with souvenirs.
It's a philosophy of life, of course,
drinks fluorescent, whips of syntax in the air
above the heads -- how small they seem from here,
the bobbing universal heads, stuffing the void with eloquence,
and also tiny merciless darts
of truth. It's pulled on tight, the air they breathe and rip.
It's like a prize the way it's stretched on tight
over the voices, keeping them intermingling, forcing the breaths to

 marry, marry,
cunning little hermeneutic cupola,
dome of occasion in which the thoughts re-
group, the footprints stall and gnaw in tiny ruts,
the napkins wave, are waved , the honeycombing
thoughts are felt to dialogue, a form of self-
congratulation, no?, or is it suffering? I'm a bit
dizzy up here rearranging things,
they will come up here soon, and need a setting for their fears,
and loves, an architecture for their evolutionary
morphic needs -- what will they need if I don't make the place? --
what will they know to miss?, what cry out for, what feel the bitter

 restless irritations
for? A bit dizzy from the altitude of everlastingness,
the tireless altitudes of the created place,
in which to make a life -- a liberty -- the hollow, fetishized, and starry

 place,
a bit gossamer with dream, a vortex of evaporations,
oh little dream, invisible city, invisible hill
I make here on the upper floors for you --
down there, where you are entertained, where you are passing
time, there's glass and moss on air,
there's the feeling of being numerous, mouths submitting to air, lips

 to protocol,
and dreams of sense, tongues, hinges, forceps clicking
in anticipation ofas if the moment, freeze-burned by accuracies--of
could be thawed open into life again
by gladnesses, by rectitude -- no, no -- by the sinewy efforts at
sincerity -- can't you feel it gliding round you,
mutating, yielding the effort-filled phrases of your talk to air,
compounding, stemming them, honeying-open the sheerest

 innuendoes till
the rightness seems to root, in the air, in the compact indoor sky,
and the rest, all round, feels like desert, falls away,
and you have the sensation of muscular timeliness,and you feel the calligraphic in you reach out like a soul
into the midst of others, in conversation,
gloved by desire, into the tiny carnage
of opinionsSo dizzy. Life buzzing beneath me
though my feeling says the hive is gone, queen gone,
the continuum continuing beneath, busy, earnest, in con-
versation. Shall I prepare. Shall I put this further
to the left, shall I move the light, the point-of-view, the shades are
drawn, to cast a glow resembling disappearance, slightly red,
will that fix it, will that make clear the task, the trellised ongoingness
and all these tiny purposes, these parables, this marketplace
of tightening truths?
Oh knit me that am crumpled dust,
the heap is all dispersed. Knit me that am. Say therefore. Say
philosophy and mean by that the pane.
Let us look out again. The yellow sky.
With black leaves rearranging it
Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Vanity Fair

 Through frost-thick weather
This witch sidles, fingers crooked, as if
Caught in a hazardous medium that might 
Merely by its continuing
Attach her to heaven.

At eye's envious corner
Crow's-feet copy veining on a stained leaf;
Cold squint steals sky's color; while bruit
Of bells calls holy ones, her tongue
Backtalks at the raven

Claeving furred air
Over her skull's midden; no knife
Rivals her whetted look, divining what conceit
Waylays simple girls, church-going,
And what heart's oven

Craves most to cook batter
Rich in strayings with every amorous oaf,
Ready, for a trinket,
To squander owl-hours on bracken bedding,
Flesh unshriven.

Against virgin prayer
This sorceress sets mirrors enough
To distract beauty's thought;
Lovesick at first fond song,
Each vain girl's driven

To believe beyond heart's flare
No fire is, nor in any book proof
Sun hoists soul up after lids fall shut;
So she wills all to the black king.
The worst sloven

Vies with best queen over
Right to blaze as satan's wife;
Housed in earth, those million brides shriek out.
Some burn short, some long,
Staked in pride's coven.


Written by Ezra Pound | Create an image from this poem

Canto XIII

 Kung walked
 by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
 and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi
 and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?
 "Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery?
"Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the defences in order,"
And Khieu said, "If I were lord of a province
"I would put it in better order than this is."
And Tchi said, "I would prefer a small mountain temple,
"With order in the observances,
 with a suitable performance of the ritual,"
And Tian said, with his hand on the strings of his lute
The low sounds continuing
 after his hand left the strings,
And the sound went up like smoke, under the leaves,
And he looked after the sound:
 "The old swimming hole,
"And the boys flopping off the planks,
"Or sitting in the underbrush playing mandolins."
 And Kung smiled upon all of them equally.
And Thseng-sie desired to know:
 "Which had answered correctly?"
And Kung said, "They have all answered correctly,
"That is to say, each in his nature."
And Kung raised his cane against Yuan Jang,
 Yuan Jang being his elder,

or Yuan Jang sat by the roadside pretending to
 be receiving wisdom.
And Kung said
 "You old fool, come out of it,
"Get up and do something useful."
 And Kung said
"Respect a child's faculties
"From the moment it inhales the clear air,
"But a man of fifty who knows nothing
 Is worthy of no respect."
And "When the prince has gathered about him
"All the savants and artists, his riches will be fully employed."
And Kung said, and wrote on the bo leaves:
 If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
 And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.
And Kung gave the words "order"
and "brotherly deference"
And said nothing of the "life after death."
And he said
 "Anyone can run to excesses,
"It is easy to shoot past the mark,
"It is hard to stand firm in the middle."

And they said: If a man commit murder
 Should his father protect him, and hide him?
And Kung said:
 He should hide him.

And Kung gave his daughter to Kong-Tchang
 Although Kong-Tchang was in prison.
And he gave his niece to Nan-Young
 although Nan-Young was out of office.
And Kung said "Wan ruled with moderation,
 "In his day the State was well kept,
"And even I can remember
"A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
"I mean, for things they didn't know,
"But that time seems to be passing.
A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
But that time seems to be passing."
And Kung said, "Without character you will
 "be unable to play on that instrument
"Or to execute the music fit for the Odes.
"The blossoms of the apricot
 "blow from the east to the west,
"And I have tried to keep them from falling."
Written by Charles Bukowski | Create an image from this poem

Hot

 she was hot, she was so hot
I didn't want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn't get home on time
she'd be gone, and I couldn't bear that-
I'd go mad. . .
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the damn thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I'd be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops. . .
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again. . .
I had to be home by 8,8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
1/2 block from the station. . .
it wouldn't start, it couldn't start. . .
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the 
station. . .
I threw the keys down. . .signed out. . .
your goddamned truck is stalled at the signal,
I shouted,
Pico and Western. . .
. . .I ran down the hall,put the key into the door,
opened it. . .her drinking glass was there, and a note: 

 sun of a *****:
 I waited until 5 after ate
 you don't love me
 you sun of a *****
 somebody will love me
 I been wateing all day

 Miriam

I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I'd make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.
Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

 1
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, 
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, 
Out of the Ninth-month midnight, 
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d
 alone, bare-headed, barefoot, 
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, 
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, 
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, 
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, 
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, 
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, 
From the myriad thence-arous’d words, 
From the word stronger and more delicious than any, 
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, 
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly, 
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again, 
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, 
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them, 
A reminiscence sing. 

2
Once, Paumanok, 
When the snows had melted—when the lilac-scent was in the air, and the Fifth-month grass
 was
 growing, 
Up this sea-shore, in some briers,
Two guests from Alabama—two together, 
And their nest, and four light-green eggs, spotted with brown, 
And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, 
And every day the she-bird, crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes, 
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. 

3
Shine! shine! shine! 
Pour down your warmth, great Sun! 
While we bask—we two together. 

Two together!
Winds blow South, or winds blow North, 
Day come white, or night come black, 
Home, or rivers and mountains from home, 
Singing all time, minding no time, 
While we two keep together.

4
Till of a sudden, 
May-be kill’d, unknown to her mate, 
One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest, 
Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next, 
Nor ever appear’d again.

And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea, 
And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather, 
Over the hoarse surging of the sea, 
Or flitting from brier to brier by day, 
I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama. 

5
Blow! blow! blow! 
Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok’s shore! 
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me. 

6
Yes, when the stars glisten’d,
All night long, on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake, 
Down, almost amid the slapping waves, 
Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. 

He call’d on his mate; 
He pour’d forth the meanings which I, of all men, know.

Yes, my brother, I know; 
The rest might not—but I have treasur’d every note; 
For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach gliding, 
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows, 
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, 
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, 
Listen’d long and long. 

Listen’d, to keep, to sing—now translating the notes, 
Following you, my brother.

7
Soothe! soothe! soothe! 
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, 
And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one close, 
But my love soothes not me, not me. 

Low hangs the moon—it rose late;
O it is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love. 

O madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land, 
With love—with love. 

O night! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the breakers? 
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?

Loud! loud! loud! 
Loud I call to you, my love! 

High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves; 
Surely you must know who is here, is here; 
You must know who I am, my love.

Low-hanging moon! 
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? 
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! 
O moon, do not keep her from me any longer. 

Land! land! O land!
Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again, if you only
 would;

For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. 

O rising stars! 
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you. 

O throat! O trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere! 
Pierce the woods, the earth; 
Somewhere listening to catch you, must be the one I want. 

Shake out, carols! 
Solitary here—the night’s carols!
Carols of lonesome love! Death’s carols! 
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! 
O, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the sea! 
O reckless, despairing carols. 

But soft! sink low;
Soft! let me just murmur; 
And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea; 
For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, 
So faint—I must be still, be still to listen; 
But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.

Hither, my love! 
Here I am! Here! 
With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you; 
This gentle call is for you, my love, for you. 

Do not be decoy’d elsewhere!
That is the whistle of the wind—it is not my voice; 
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray; 
Those are the shadows of leaves. 

O darkness! O in vain! 
O I am very sick and sorrowful.

O brown halo in the sky, near the moon, drooping upon the sea! 
O troubled reflection in the sea! 
O throat! O throbbing heart! 
O all—and I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night. 

Yet I murmur, murmur on!
O murmurs—you yourselves make me continue to sing, I know not why. 

O past! O life! O songs of joy! 
In the air—in the woods—over fields; 
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! 
But my love no more, no more with me!
We two together no more. 

8
The aria sinking; 
All else continuing—the stars shining, 
The winds blowing—the notes of the bird continuous echoing, 
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok’s shore, gray and rustling; 
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost
 touching; 
The boy extatic—with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying, 
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting, 
The aria’s meaning, the ears, the Soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing, 
The colloquy there—the trio—each uttering, 
The undertone—the savage old mother, incessantly crying, 
To the boy’s Soul’s questions sullenly timing—some drown’d secret hissing, 
To the outsetting bard of love.

9
Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,) 
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly to me? 
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, 
Now I have heard you, 
Now in a moment I know what I am for—I awake,
And already a thousand singers—a thousand songs, clearer, louder and more sorrowful than
 yours, 
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, 
Never to die. 

O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself—projecting me; 
O solitary me, listening—nevermore shall I cease perpetuating you;
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, 
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, 
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there, in the night, 
By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon, 
The messenger there arous’d—the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me. 

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere;) 
O if I am to have so much, let me have more! 
O a word! O what is my destination? (I fear it is henceforth chaos;) 
O how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and all shapes, spring as from graves
 around
 me!
O phantoms! you cover all the land and all the sea! 
O I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me; 
O vapor, a look, a word! O well-beloved! 
O you dear women’s and men’s phantoms! 

A word then, (for I will conquer it,)
The word final, superior to all, 
Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen; 
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves? 
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands? 

10
Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not, 
Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before day-break, 
Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word DEATH; 
And again Death—ever Death, Death, Death, 
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my arous’d child’s heart,
But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet, 
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me softly all over, 
Death, Death, Death, Death, Death. 

Which I do not forget, 
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach, 
With the thousand responsive songs, at random, 
My own songs, awaked from that hour; 
And with them the key, the word up from the waves, 
The word of the sweetest song, and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, 
The sea whisper’d me.
Written by Philip Larkin | Create an image from this poem

Continuing To Live

 Continuing to live -- that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries --
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
 It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise --
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
 But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
 To exist.

And what's the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
 But to confess,

On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
 And that one dying.
Written by Bertolt Brecht | Create an image from this poem

Parting

 How I have felt that thing that's called 'to part',
and feel it still: a dark, invincible,
cruel something by which what was joined so well
is once more shown, held out, and torn apart.

In what defenceless gaze at that I've stood,
which, as it, calling to me, let me go,
stayed there, as though it were all womanhood,
yet small and white and nothing more than, oh,

waving, now already unrelated
to me, a sight, continuing wave,--scarce now
explainable: perhaps a plum-tree bough
some perchinig cuckoo's hastily vacated.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry