The Hollow Men

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Erlkönig

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?

Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;

Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,

Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht? -

Siehst Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?

Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif? -

Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif. -

»Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!

Gar schöne Spiele spiel ich mit dir;

Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,

Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.«

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,

Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht? -

Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;

In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind. -

»Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?

Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;

Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn

Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.«

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort

Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort? -

Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:

Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. -

»Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;

Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.«

Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!

Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan! -

Dem Vater grauset's, er reitet geschwind,

Er hält in den Armen das ächzende Kind,

Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not;

In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Still remember how I had to learn it back in elementary over and over, but it's still one of my favourite poems

EDIT: I'm new to Hubski and I'm too stupid to properly format this text. Atm I have one blank line between each verse, this way atleast not everything is in one line, but now I can't put paragraphs in the poem. Could someone help me?

Das Fräulein stand am Meere

Und seufzte lang und bang,

Es rührte sie so sehre

Der Sonnenuntergang.

"Mein Fräulein! Sein Sie munter,

Das ist ein altes Stück;

Hier vorne geht sie unter

Und kehrt von hinten zurück."

Granted, I only know it because my German teacher made us recite it every lesson for a month or two. But I like it nonetheless.

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

“Because it is bitter,

“And because it is my heart.”

- Stephen Crane

A Late Walk by Robert Frost

  When I go up through the mowing field,
  The headless aftermath,
  Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
  Half closes the garden path.

  And when I come to the garden ground,
  The whir of sober birds
  Up from the tangle of withered weeds
  Is sadder than any words

  A tree beside the wall stands bare,
  But a leaf that lingered brown,
  Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
  Comes softly rattling down.

  I end not far from my going forth
  By picking the faded blue
  Of the last remaining aster flower
  To carry again to you.

Definitely my favorite: Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

  Whose woods these are I think I know.   
  His house is in the village though;   
  He will not see me stopping here   
  To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

  My little horse must think it queer   
  To stop without a farmhouse near   
  Between the woods and frozen lake   
  The darkest evening of the year.   

  He gives his harness bells a shake   
  To ask if there is some mistake.   
  The only other sound’s the sweep   
  Of easy wind and downy flake.   

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
  But I have promises to keep,   
  And miles to go before I sleep,   
  And miles to go before I sleep.

  Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
  Et nos amours
  Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
  La joie venait toujours après la peine
  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure

  Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
  Tandis que sous
  Le pont de nos bras passe
  Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure

  L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
  L'amour s'en va
  Comme la vie est lente
  Et comme l'Espérance est violente

  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure

  Passent les jours et passent les semaines
  Ni temps passé 
  Ni les amours reviennent
  Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

  Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
  Les jours s'en vont je demeure

I don't really have a thing for Andrew Motion, but I read one of his poetry collections recently. I can't say that I was particularly impressed with what I read. One poem, 'Dead March', however, really struck me. I've changed the formatting from that which I found on the internet to that which I remember reading in the book. I don't like how it starts, but I need a responsible adult with a defibrillator to get through the final stanza.

It’s twenty years (It’s not, its twenty-three-

be accurate) since you were whisked away

(I wasn't whisked away: I broke my skull)

and I was left to contemplate your life.

(My life. Ridiculous. You mean my death.)

Well, twenty or twenty-three. I can’t decide

if that’s a long time or no time at all,

or whether everything I've said since then,

and thought, and done, to try and work out how

the way we treat our lives might be involved

with how our lives treat us is more than just

a waste of breath. That’s right. A waste of breath.

You see, you’re always with me even though

you’re nowhere, nothing, dead to all the world

you interrupt me when I start to talk,

you are the shadow dragging at my heels.

This means I can’t step far enough away

to get the thing I want you to explain

in focus, and I can’t lean close enough

to hear the words you speak and feel their weight.

And if I could, what difference would it make?

It’s like I said. I can’t decide. It’s just

that having you suspended all these years

at some clear mid-point between life and death

has made me think you might have felt your way

along the link between the two, and learnt

how one deserves the other. Or does not.

I feel I’m standing on a frozen pond

Entranced by someone else below the ice,

a someone who has found out how to breathe

the water and endure the cold and dark.

I know I ought to turn my back. I can’t.

I also know that if I just stay put

and watch the wax-white fingers flop about

I’ll start to think they must be beckoning.

I stare and stare and stare and stare and stare.

It’s twenty years since you were whisked away,

or twenty-three. That’s more than half my life.

One Train May Hide Another, Kenneth Koch

One Train May Hide Another

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

  In a poem, one line may hide another line,
  As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
  That is, if you are waiting to cross
  The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
  Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
  Wait until you have read the next line--
  Then it is safe to go on reading.
  In a family one sister may conceal another,
  So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
  Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
  One father or one brother may hide the man,
  If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
  So always standing in front of something the other
  As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
  One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
  The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
  On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
  One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
       Antica one tomb
  May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
  One small complaint may hide a great one.
  One injustice may hide another--one colonial may hide another,
  One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath
       may hide another bath
  As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
  One idea may hide another: Life is simple
  Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
  One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
  One invention may hide another invention,
  One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
  One dark red, or one blue, or one purple--this is a painting
  By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
  These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
  May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
  Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
  One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
  A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
  Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
  A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
  Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.
  In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by
       the mother's
  And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
  May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
  Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love
       or the same love
  As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers
  The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"
  Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"
  And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the
       Garden of Eden
  Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
  Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
  When you come to something, stop to let it pass
  So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
  Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
  Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
  The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading 
      A Sentimental Journey look around
  When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
  If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
  And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
  May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
  May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and
  One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
  Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the
       foot of a tree
  With one and when you get up to leave there is another
  Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
  One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
  May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
  You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It 
       can be important
  To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

https://hubski.com/pub?id=154078

https://hubski.com/pub?id=68067

Farewell sweet earth and northern sky,

for ever blest, since here did lie

and here with lissome limbs did run

beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,

Lúthien Tinúviel

more fair then mortal tongue can tell.

Though all to ruin fell the world

and were dissolved and backwards hurled

unmade into the old abyss,

yet were its making good, for this---

the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea---

that Lúthien for a time should be.

That is from, of course, the poet who a certain someone referred to yesterday as "half the writer George RR Martin is."

The Elder Sister by Sharon Olds

When I look at my elder sister now

I think how she had to go first, down through the

birth canal, to force her way

head-first through the tiny channel,

the pressure of Mother’s muscles on her brain,

the tight walls scraping her skin.

Her face is still narrow from it, the long

hollow cheeks of a crusader on a tomb,

and her inky eyes have the look of someone who has

been in prison a long time and

knows they can send her back. I look at her

body and think how her breasts were the first to

rise, slowly, like swans on a pond.

By the time mine came along, they were just

two more birds in the flock, and when the hair

rose on the white mound of her flesh, like

threads of water out of the ground, it was the

first time, but when mine came

they knew about it. I used to think

only in terms of her harshness, sitting and

pissing on me in bed, but now I

see I had her before me always

like a shield. I look at her wrinkles, her clenched

jaws, her frown-lines—I see they are

the dents in my shield, the blows that did not reach

me.

She protected me, not as a mother

protects a child, with love, but as a

hostage protects the one who makes her

escape as I made my escape, with my sister’s

body held in front of me.