What is your favorite poem?

Question

I am probably looking more for a new poem which I have not heard before. Thanks, all, for your answers already. I'm still deciding on the best!

Answer 1

Not a fair question, I have hundreds of favorites, including some of my own. One I like a lot is called "Fifth of May" and it's by me, and not about drinking.

Fifth of May

I started out to see the world,
It was the fifth of May.
I wondered if I'd see it all,
And make it in a day.

I took a walk along the shore,
The sea was to my right.
The smell and sound filled up my head,
Enhancing such a sight.

The waves were crashing on the shore,
A sound like dynamite.
Water droplets flying by,
Like tiny birds in flight

The spray was flying in the air,
Unfurling as a sail.
Shooting to the left and right,
Just like a serpent's tail.

As I walked on the great sea calmed,
I found a tiny beach.
It seemed a long way down to it,
T'was almost out of reach.

But down I climbed, and stood alone,
Upon the packed wet sand.
And marvelled at the workmanship,
Of Mother Nature's hand.

Then I sat down upon the sand,
My toes were in the sea.
I scratched my name upon the beach,
For all the world to see.

I wondered if I were the first,
To reach this lovely spot.
The only answer that I found,
Said, "Oh, I reckon not".

As I got up to go again,
Upon my lonely lark.
A wave then washed my name away,
And left there ne'er a mark.

As I climbed up I turned around,
Would I come back this way?
To see this little strip of sand.
I found that fifth of May.

Answer 2

Well, that's a hard one, but I think this one is my favorite:

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. 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 shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare

*I must make a note. "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes comes VERY close to my favorite, or else is. As Dondi pointed out, this isn't a fair question. :)

Answer 3

The October based poem called "Ulalume" by Edgar Allen Poe is a great lonely feel for this time of year. I also love "Rhapsody on a Windy Night," by T.S. Eliot. A version of it became the Barbra Streisand song (and Barry Manilow song) called "Memory," and it appeared in the play "Cats."

Answer 4

After a while by Veronica Shoftstall

After a while, you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning.
And company doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a women, not the grief of a child,
And learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for future plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in midflight,
And after a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and learn...
With every goodbye, you learn.

Answer 5

Delusion Angel
- David Jewell

Daydream, delusion, limousine, eyelash.
Oh baby with your pretty face.
Drop a tear in my wineglass.
Look at those big eyes.
See what you mean to me.
Sweet-cakes and milkshakes.
I'm delusion angel, I'm fantasy parade,
I want you to know what I think.
Don't want you to guess anymore.
You have no idea where I came from.
We have no idea where we're going.
Latched in life, Like branches in a river,
Flowing downstream, Caught in the current,
I'll carry you, You'll carry me.
That's how it could be, Don't you know me?
Don't you know me by now?

Answer 6

"If" by Rudyard Kipling, it is very inspiring.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


--Rudyard Kipling

Answer 7

The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot. Every time I read it, I notice something new.

Close second - Things I Didn't Know I Loved, by Nazim Hikmet

Answer 8

I like funny poems such as The panther and the termite both who are by ogden nash.

Answer 9

i had a dream
no not for ice cream
but for people in items to be a ploy
to manufacture a toy
but worth as much as they were
my writing was a blur

Answer 10

"the road less traveled" by Robert Frost