Favorite Poem.

Of all your poetry written which one, and you can only choose one, is your favorite. Mine is "Reflection In The Mirror" because it was the first time I realized the past was over and I could let the person inside show through.

Reflection In The Mirror
A. W. Nutter

My reflection in the mirror reveals
Lines on my face from life’s ordeals
An old man staring back at me
The boy long gone, where can he be?

Looking intently I slowly find
A mischievous child laying dormant inside
Placed into a dark corner curled up in fear
With my encouragement he begins to appear

Come out little one I’ll let you stay
Never again will I tuck you away
A smile adorns our young and old features
Realizing we’re safe from predatory creatures

My reflection in the mirror quickly reveals
A new found freedom from life’s ordeals
Where once stood a hollow old man
Now stands one filled with his greatest fan

God bless the child in all of us.

RE: Favorite Poem.

I can't say it's my favorite because I think I have a good amount that could be my favorite depending on the day but this is the one I chose.


I hear you, I hear you not

New moments made are used to grasp at the sanity left
because old moments though old, refuse to go stale
extending a foot towards a spot of different
with the other foot firmly planted in familiarity
while convinced walking towards new voices is right
I repel them for the old song plays an imaginary new tune
rejection holds me tight and sorrow is my greatest love
curled up and unable to stand in the presence of my ghost
yet reborn and jubilant every time my ghost whispers "I love you"

RE: The Cross

I can see why you chose this one as a favorite. Excellent write and an uplifting read.

Last edited by Rhymer 04-24-2010 at 01:33:25 PM

RE: Favorite Poem.

Interestingly enough, even though I am known for ballads, rhyming and structured poetry, My favorite (or at least the one that has struck me in the most powerful way) is a free verse poem....Daddy by Sylvia Plath.

DADDY

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag
full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

ays there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Last edited by Balladeer 04-24-2010 at 09:20:06 PM

RE: Favorite Poem.

RE: Favorite Poem.

I wrote this one night, after my son and I had been playing the "I Love You More" game for about a week. I realized we wouldn't have this time together for very long...

A Father's Love

As into bed I tuck him.
Soon as his prayers are said.
When I tell him, "Go to sleep."
He'll counter with instead.

"I love you, Dad, To the roof and back.
Then, up into the sky.
Up to where the angels live."
He'll wait for my reply.

"I love you more than there are stars,
more than grains of sand.
Love larger than the universe.
More than you'll understand."

I'll chase away the monster,
who hides beneath his bed.
I'll listen to each story that
has "popped into his head."

I'll walk him to the bathroom.
"Just in case," He'll say.
Though, I will know it's just a part
of the bedtime game we play.

He'll tell me that he loves me.
As into bed he'll climb.
Through the universe and back.
Until the end of time.

I'll smile and quip,"You beat me."
Though in my heart I'll say,
I'll love you through infinity,
and
That's only about halfway.


© 3/21/09 TS (All Rights Reserved)

RE: Favorite Poem.

I would have to say the favorite poem that I have written is Small Pain in My Chest. It is used in the high school literature books as required reading in India and was also read at the funeral services of the first American Blackhawk pilot shot down in Iraq. AN eighth grade student from a small school in Idaho used it in a speech competition, won the school, district and state championships and placed third in the nationals in Washington DC. The school of less than 200 students, which had never won or received recognition for anything, named a day for her and a letter from her parents told of how the experience had changed her from a shy, introverted, insecure girl with few friends to a completely different person who was now doing much better in school with a lot of friends. Isn't it amazing what one poem can do? That's why we all need to keep writing. One never knows the difference one poem can make in someone's life...

The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree.

As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me.

The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night

And scores of figures on the ground lay still by morning's light.



"I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could.

"A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good.

We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest -

A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest."



As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt

All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed in with Asian dirt.

"Not much", said he. "I count myself more lucky than the rest.

They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest."



"Must be fatigue", he weakIy smiled. "I must be getting old.

I see the sun is shining bright and yet I'm feeling cold.

We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest,

The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest."



"I looked around to get some aid - the only things I found

Were big, deep craters in the earth - bodies on the ground.

I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best,

But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest."



"I'm grateful, sir", he whispered, as I handed my canteen

And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen.

"Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest,

Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest."



"What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown,

If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone?

Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast,

That I'd be sitting HERE one day with this pain in my chest?"



"Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun.

"It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun.

I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest ..........”

And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest.



I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried;

I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side

And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed

The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest.

RE: Favorite Poem.

One of my favorites is from the brilliant Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the tother, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy ans wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.



This one coined a timeless phrase still commonly used to this day, 'the road less traveled' (paraphrased in todays venacular I guess).

-Spence

RE: Favorite Poem.

Sorry I read the thread too quickly, I thought you meant fav's of all time, one of my favorites from what I have written is probably my newest (but doesnt it always seem that way lol), but it is for similar reasons to what rhymer stated above.


Fade to White

Daydreaming through memories I search for you
my journey takes me to waters of blue,
Your reflection shimmers, on the lake of my mind,
Unbroken by ripples, shed from the oars of time
Strong was our love, but in the end it was feigned,
Soon came a wind, pursued by the rain
just but a hint of your reflection remains,
washed away by the rains, and tides of distain
baptizing my memory of the trace of your face,
Just then, crashing thunder, and lightening a blaze
shining light on a memory, the day you left me in scorn,
confused, alone, and somewhat forlorn
All traces of you are fading to white,
these words I recite were not meant in spite,
I've been released from the grasp of your ghost on this night
No longer for the past will my heart mourn,
As I open my eyes, I wince at the light
A passion for love, in my heart now reborn,
with this new freedom, I smile in delight

http://www.originalpoetry.com/fade-to-white

-Spence

Favorite Poem of mine...

Like so many others here in OP land, picking one's favorite poem is
like choosing which of your children you like best.......but, bah, on that.
My favorite of mine is...

- Warmth -

You fill me with a smiling glow,
That expands my mortal soul.

From somewhere deep within me,
Comes a sudden rush of ecstasy;
When e'er I embrace your artistry......................

RE: Favorite Poem.

The elements of the sea and romance combined...ever the hopeful romantic I guess...

Lady Grey

She favored twilight's ebbing glow
as breezes cooled the air
when the punishing sun dips at last
into darkening waters below

the lonely moon taunted
entreating her to follow
down the path beside the sea
many claimed was haunted

the ghost she knew was named "Regret"
for it seldom left her side
leaving her soul little peace
lest by chance she may forget

the time it seemed had come and gone
for chasing hopes and dreams
those ships had sailed long ago
and left her all alone

once soft words and kisses
promised endless Summer skies
but shadows of impending storms
loomed larger then mere wishes

a sailors heart would not be bound
and he returned to her no more
for on the ocean he had found
his true love... not the shore

still she watches there and waits
from her cottage by the cliffs
an eerie specter dressed in Grey
belonging only to the mists.

RE: Favorite Poem.

RE: Favorite Poem.

It is rather hard to choose from the list of my poems for I love them all in their own way, but out of the poems I have posted thus far, this one would have to be my favorite, because it puts me in a future I want to see soon.

Pushing away the loving Void.......

Allow me to push
Push your world away
To dimensions of aggrieving fade, put away, from my mind
allow me to break this chain, my heart thus bonded to your domain
Insane, that I still write about our plane
we once shared, now stained by our fallen reign.
As the falling rain signifies the pain
this visual I know so well maintains
its temperamental sameness within my loneliness
how can you contain all the shame you know of?
Quaint, run away to your path's subconscious
lost in strengthened bounds when you loss my touch
upon your lips to hush your worries, so much
in the reticent chamber that harbored our love.

Allow me to push, your world away
allow me the charming nature, I displayed
allow me the ability, to covet and pray
allow me the absence...of you in my world, one day.

One day to suffice in giving my all
sufficed to help you breathe in your pause...remorse
I walked the tight rope, understanding your flaws
only to be left alone with no audience.
The importance of seeing it though for I never felt anything such as you
such rue in dualities that I brew
this poem, the words, you knew that I loved you.
So weak and powerless in defeat
but the source of my energy is stored away incomplete
in your mind I hope I live for eternity
you're mine to cast to the depths of nothing
only to find yourself, taunted...wanting
yet can't escape the void of your world so haunting.

Those thirteen lines are a relic in pushing
forth, away from you and the love I am missing
blisters in remission as my lead grows dull
this pencil's memories so tragically full.
To rest upon the mantle, alone, without aid
it shall never admit again to the page
as the spider webs cover and drip blood in rage
for the taste of the fly, who was caught one day
twisted in full, what a lovely display
the chaos that beauty brings, what a web you made.....

Allow me to push, your world away
allow me the charming nature, once displayed
allow me the ability, to covet and pray
allow me the absence....of you in my world, one day......

RE: Favorite Poem.

This is an amazing account of lost love. Very well written. So moving and vividly so. Easy to see why it is a favorite. Kudos.

RE: Favorite Poem.

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever God's my be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond the place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Read as a child in high school, I was inspired to write by this poem. Written by William Ernest Henley, My prayer is that everyone knows it already.

RE: Favorite Poem.

[quote="Rhymer"]Of all your poetry written which one, and you can only choose one, is your favorite. Mine is "Reflection In The Mirror" because it was the first time I realized the past was over and I could let the person inside show through.

Reflection In The Mirror
A. W. Nutter

My reflection in the mirror reveals
Lines on my face from life’s ordeals
An old man staring back at me
The boy long gone, where can he be?

Looking intently I slowly find
A mischievous child laying dormant inside
Placed into a dark corner curled up in fear
With my encouragement he begins to appear

Come out little one I’ll let you stay
Never again will I tuck you away
A smile adorns our young and old features
Realizing we’re safe from predatory creatures

My reflection in the mirror quickly reveals
A new found freedom from life’s ordeals
Where once stood a hollow old man
Now stands one filled with his greatest fan

God bless the child in all of us.


**************************************************************************************************



My reflection in the mirror quickly reveals
A new found freedom from life’s ordeals
Where once stood a hollow old man
Now stands one filled with his greatest fan



A popular saying about "golden- agers" is "Once a man twice a child." In earlier days, there used to be search for a legendary elixir of eternal youth, .known as "The Fountain of Youth". Ponce de Leon looked for it in Florida. The poet in this poem needs no such search. He jubilantly discovers his childhood once again. This poem is an exquisite metaphor which conveys the leisurely musing of an old man, who on viewing himself in a mirror, philosophically concludes that he is in love with himself.---he is "his greatest fan,"
The diction, development of theme, rhyming scheme,piquancy, tone and other literary features are faultless,
[/quote]

Last edited by cousinsoren 04-28-2010 at 04:58:45 PM

RE: Favorite Poem.

I like this poem very much.It reminds me of my childhood days to the favorite times in my life, all tucked away in mind, memories past. If we could go back or get back the time lost, then we would have no place to be. For today is where we are meant to be. If we could go back then where would our children be ? A friend without a parent. Hold tight those special thoughts and memories.You are where you belong right here in their hearts. When they wish they could , you'll say , your place is right here with me.