AIS....while I was reading your first entry, Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight" came on, and sent shivers down my spine....

BREADMAKING

~Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

There was a feast. The king was in his cups.
He saw a learned scholar walking by.

"Bring him in and give him some of this fine wine."

Servants rushed out and brought the man
to the king's table, but he was not receptive.

"I had rather drink poison! Take it away!"
He kept on with these loud refusals, disturbing
the atmosphere of the feast. This is how
it sometimes is at God's table.
                                               Someone who has heard
about ecstatic love, but never tasted it,
disrupts the banquet.
                                    He's all fire and no light,
all husk and no kernel. The king gave orders,
"Cupbearer, do what you must."
                                                  This is how
your invisible guide acts, the chess champion
across from you that always wins.
                                                          He cuffed
the scholar's head and said, "Taste!" and
"Again!"
              The cup was drained, and the intellectual
started singing and telling ridiculous jokes.

He joined the garden, snapping his fingers
and swaying. Soon, of course, he had to pee.

He went out, and there near the latrine
was a beautiful woman, one of the king's harem.

His mouth hung open. He wanted her! Right then,
he wanted her! And she was not unwilling.

They fell to, on the ground. You've seen a baker
rolling dough. He kneads it gently at first,
then more roughly. He pounds it on the board.
It softly groans under his palms.
                                                 Now he spreads
it out and rolls it flat. Then he bunches it,
and rolls it all the way out again,
                                                   thin.
Now he adds water and mixes it well.
                                                          Now salt,
and a little more salt. Now he shapes it
delicately to its final shape and slides it
into the oven, which is already hot.
You remember breadmaking!
                                      This is how your desire
tangles with a desired one.
                                           And it's not just
a metaphor for a man and a woman making love.
Warriors in battle do this too.
                                                     A great mutual embrace
is always happening between the eternal
and what dies, between essence and accident.

The sport has different rules in every case,
but it's basically the same,
                                                 and remember, the way
you make love is the way God will be with you.

I hope you don't mind me adding a poem by myself instead of by some famous poet. It was written for a friend who passed away last week at the age of 91. He was vegan for the last years of his life.

Thank you for sharing, printerguy. It takes a lot of gut to throw one's work out into the open. I'm sure your friend appreciates you guts as well.

"A fart is but the lonely cry of a turd, trying to get out."

-Camillus

I tend to like dark poetry...Sylvia Plath is my favorite poet and this is my favorite poem.

Lady Lazarus   
by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

Untitled.. written sneakily at work. A topical, opinionated poem by a jaded florist. :P 8)

A tiny sun of gold
on a tender green stem
brings light to a grey day.

Creamy-petalled narcissus
gazes at its own reflection
in a clear vase of water.

Take these gifts home:
capture a few moments
of ephemeral beauty.

Do not weep when they fade;
treasure the promise of Spring
which you held in your hand.

my love, a balled up storm
soaring above with a watchful eye
you shower me with pretty things
and shiny things and abrasive things
my skin kisses your lips and hands
glowing and reaching and pulling away
petals draped around broken stones

there's an explosion where we lie
in our bed, in our home, to each other
the love bombs that explode through
you and push me against the barriers
of what is soft and your point of view
my blind eye won't understand what you're
anxiously explaining to my seeing eye

delve in and pull out what's ticking
throw it against the wall for some peace
quickly patch it up to make it okay
inside is warmth, glistening, rich honey
pressing out through the fire that pushes me
the sweetest liquor lures me behind the flower
shakingly, i've seen this star before

here's one of my favs:

My Son, Forsake Your Art

By Mahon O’Hefferman

My son, forsake your art,
In that which was your fathers’ own no part—
Though from the start she had borne pride of place,
Poetry now leads to disgrace.

Serve it not then, this leavings of a trade,
Nor by you be an Irish measure made,
Polished and perfect, whole in sound and sense—
Ape the new fashion, modish, cheap and dense.

Spin the spineless verses of the commonplace,
Suffice it that they hold an even pace
And show not too nice taste within their span—
Preferment waits upon you if you can.

Give no man meed of censure nor just praise,
But if needs must your voice discreetly raise,
Not where there’s only hatred to be earned,
Praising the Gael and for your labour spurned.

Break withe them! Reckon not their histories
Nor chronicle them in men’s memories,
Make it no study to enrich their fame,
Let all be named before and Irish name.

Thus you may purge your speech of bitterness,
Thus your addresses may command success—
What good repute has granted, do you hide,
Asperse their breeding, be their blood denied.

The good that has been, see you leave alone,
That which now goes for good dilate upon;
Polish the praises of a foreign rout,
Allies more likely as has come about.

The race of Miled and the sons of Conn,
Who now maintains it, that their sway goes on?
A lying prophet in men’s eyes to stand,
Proclaiming alien dynasts in the land!

The tribes of Lorc, proud Carthach’s company,
Be these your strangers come from oversea,
Over Flann’s ground girt with the smooth sea-ring,
Let none who bore their name bear it as king.

Conn of the Hundred Battles be forgot,
The son of Eochaidh hold you now as naught:
The stock of Conn, modest and generous,
Who had deserved a better fate from us.

Drive out of mind thought of their excellence,
Gerald’s king-blood, our store of recompense,
Whom might no man for love of pelf condemn—
No poem ponder thou in praise of them.

For, since none now care,
For knowledge and the comely things that were,
And were not then like fencing a plot,
The making of a poem shall profit not.

Love that Milne poem and the Silverstein too!

HAHAHA, I have found it!  Didn't want to type the whole damn thing from the book, so i found it on the web.  Thank you to whoever took the time to type it out!

In my humble opinion, this is one of the best poems ever written:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S. Eliot

        S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

(from Dante's Inferno, translated as:
    "If I thought my answer were given
    to anyone who would ever return to the world,
    this flame would stand still without moving any further.
    But since never from this abyss
    has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true,
    without fear of infamy I answer you.")

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats         5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …         10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,         15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,         20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;         25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;         30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go         35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—         40

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

Do I dare         45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,         50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—         55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?         60
  And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

It is perfume from a dress         65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
  And should I then presume?
  And how should I begin?
      .      .      .      .      .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets         70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
      .      .      .      .      .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!         75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?         80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,         85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,         90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—         95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
  Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
  That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,         100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:         105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
  “That is not it at all,
  That is not what I meant, at all.”
      .      .      .      .      .         110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,         115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …         120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.         125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown         130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Emotional Breakdown

When between the ages of child and adult
Feeling like you want to catapult
All dreams and desires
Into the burning embers and dwindling fires

When emotions come tumbling out
Acting like a little child ready to pout
With tears, on your face--streaming
Without a known cause, or meaning

Where all you want,
Is not a taunt
But safety, to feel enwrapped
On Mother’s lap

Gently, so Gently, Calmed and Comforted
Gently, so Gently, Her soothing voice and soft hands,
Helped hold and protect you from the burning fires

Of the outside world.

But now I am tired, I want to nap
And dream of Heaven, and Mother’s lap.

~Written 2000