..poetry's most powerful lines ever written...

Ooshin

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn't interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesnt interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if have been opened
by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn't interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."


It doesn't interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.


It doesn't interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.


It doesn't interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.


I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.



Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.co ... ah-mountain-dreamer

Ooshin

TENTANG RASAKU

Aksaraku tak pernah terbaca
Kau selalu mengacuhkannya
Berpaling muka
Tega

Goresan penaku bagimu biasa
Tak ada artinya
Sebatas tinta
Sia-sia

Kini jiwa terasa lelah
Mengikutimu tanpa arah
Ego semata
Landasannya

Ingin rasanya aku merebah
Menghentikan segala langkah
Membuang resah
Gelisah

Tapi aku tak mampu
Bayangmu merajai kalbu
Cintaku padamu
Menggebu

Andai aku boleh meminta
Kan kupinta padamu
Ajari aku
Melupakanmu

reginagrace

Giving Up Smoking



There's not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That's easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven't finished yet —
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette.

by Wendy Cope

reginagrace

Sporty People


I took her for my kind of person
And it was something of a shock
When my new friend revealed
That, once upon a time,
She was a Junior County Tennis Champion.

How could that happen?
How could I accidentally
Make friends with a tennis champion?
How could a tennis champion

Make friends with me?

She wasn't stupid. She read books.
She had never been mean to me
For being bad at games.
I decided to forgive
Her unfortunate past.

Sporty people can be OK -
Of course they can.
Later on, I met poets
Who played football. It's still hard
To get my head round that.

by Wendy Cope

reginagrace

A Broken Appointment


You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.


~ Thomas Hardy

reginagrace

Then our mother came in
And she said to us two,
“Did you have any fun?
Tell me. What did you do?”

And Sally and I did not
know what to say.
Should we tell her
The things that went on
there that day?

Well... what would YOU do
If your mother asked you?

~ Dr Seuss, The Cat in The Hat

golden_rose

W.B Yeats

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

golden_rose

W.B Yeats

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

golden_rose

W.B Yeats

September, 1913

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

golden_rose

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…
-Lord Byron-

golden_rose

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 have a call.
~Sylvia Plath

reginagrace

'Clown in the Moon'

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble;

It is so sad and beautiful,

So tremulously like a dream.

~ Dylan Thomas

carlis

PENAT*

Aku penat
Menjadi seorang yg pura2 kuat
Sudah pada 1 sisi yg rapuh
Aku juga kian ampuh
Semangat dulu kian terhakis
Cuma kerana sebu dan tangis...

Aku lemah
Menjadi seorang yg tabah
Tidak tepat pada masa
Konflik banyak tertempa
Sudah tiada daya
Andai aku hiba , kau pergi seraya...

Aku hilang
Ingin saja pergi
dtg tak diundang
Mencipta 1 kenangan
Tak betah tanggung ujian
Yang Allah kirim tanda kasih sayang

Percaya pd janji
Kononnya berada dihati...
Mati aku dari 1 hati ,
pergi aku kambus diri ,
usah khuatir
aku sedang bersemadi disini*

bungaavee15

Aku-by chairil anwar
Kalau sampai waktuku
‘Ku mau tak seorang ‘kan merayu
Tidak juga kauTak perlu sedu sedan ituAku ini binatang jalang
Dari kumpulannya terbuangBiar peluru menembus kulitku
Aku tetap meradang menerjangLuka dan bisa kubawa berlari

reginagrace

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.



~ Lewis Carrol, Jabberwocky

cheergirlz

The Lesson by Maya Angelou
I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.

cheergirlz

I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.

by Langston Hughes

cheergirlz

Picture Puzzle Piece
One picture puzzle piece
Lyin' on the sidewalk,
One picture puzzle piece
Soakin' in the rain.
It might be a button of blue
On the coat of the woman
Who lived in a shoe.
It might be a magical bean,
Or a fold in the red
Velvet robe of a queen.
It might be the one little bite
Of the apple her stepmother
Gave to Snow White.
It might be the veil of a bride
Or a bottle with some evil genie inside.
It might be a small tuft of hair
On the big bouncy belly
Of Bobo the Bear.
It might be a bit of the cloak
Of the Witch of the West
As she melted to smoke.
It might be a shadowy trace
Of a tear that runs down an angel's face.
Nothing has more possibilities
Than one old wet picture puzzle piece.

by Shel Silverstein

frinyx

Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, /
That looks on tempests, and is never shake

'Sonnet 116', William Shakespeare

frinyx

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child - so high - you are,
And all this is folly to the world

'A Girl', Ezra Pound