What Is Your Favorite Poem?

Id say mine is sonnet xi by pablo neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
Hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue

"Et comme tous les choses du monde, elle aussi, avait un destin triste et prevu." In French, translates to "And like all things of earth, she also, had a sad and onseen destiny."

This Is Just To Say -- William Carlos Williams

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.


and my favorites:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy, and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

-Kenneth Koch, 1962

A Much Better View Of The Moon (Evans and Doherty)

I used to walk through this world
cautious and oh, so serious,
Till the life I was living was nearly
a near-death experience;
But I changed my story when I finally saw,
where I was wasn't where it was at,
And now I'm alive, I let destiny drive,
and I'm stretching out in the back.
If I lose my job, I'll sleep till noon,
If the news is bad, I'll watch cartoons;
If my house burns down, I'll have lots more room,
And a much better view of the moon.
In the vastness of space,
the ever-expanding universe,
We are all puny specks of galactic dust
down here on mother earth;
Now, I ain't no preacher, don't know if I'll reach ya,
but here is some humble advice:
Use your uncommon sense and you surely will live
an uncommonly sensible life.
If you lose your job, sleep till noon,
If the news is bad, watch cartoons;
If your house burns down, you'll have lots more room,
And a much better view of the moon.
Now, I ain't no preacher, don't know if I'll reach ya,
But here is some humble advice:
Use your uncommon sense and you surely will live,
An uncommonly sensible life.
If you lose your job, sleep till noon,
If the news is bad, watch cartoons;
If your house burns down, you'll have lots more room,
And a much better view of the moon.