~Favoutite Poem?

I'll start with the Sufi Persian poet Rumi.

"Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come."

It's absoloutly beautiful.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 1

Viva Emptiness

20

Mine's Tulips:

Spoiler

If - Rudyard Kipling

Rumi's poems are amazing. I think it was when I was on the verge of leaving Islam that I read one particular poem by Rumi which succinctly outlined my own ideas on the religion (ideas that so many Muslims I knew/know frowned upon and didn't agree with me believing them) and it made me realise that my ideas/beliefs weren't bad at all. That gave me the final push to leave and declare myself a non-Muslim.

My own favourites come from Yeats. The Second Coming and Leda and The Swan are brilliant!

Reply 4

stuffsgrooveyman

OP

Original post by arrogant

If - Rudyard Kipling

Absoloutly love If, especially the last few lines;

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!

Reply 5

stuffsgrooveyman

OP

Original post by Vixen47

Rumi's poems are amazing. I think it was when I was on the verge of leaving Islam that I read one particular poem by Rumi which succinctly outlined my own ideas on the religion (ideas that so many Muslims I knew/know frowned upon and didn't agree with me believing them) and it made me realise that my ideas/beliefs weren't bad at all. That gave me the final push to leave and declare myself a non-Muslim.

My own favourites come from Yeats. The Second Coming and Leda and The Swan are brilliant!

You're right aha; his poems are absoloutly beautiful. I honestly believe that they transgress all languages and cultures and just connect to your heart; I mean this poem..

When you see the lovers
don't pass them by,
sit with them.
The fire of love warms the world,
but even fire dies
in the company of ashes.

It's just beautiful :')

I love Yeats, especially his "A Crazed Girl"

Reply 6

alow

19

The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot

Reply 7

sbj

6

Original post by stuffsgrooveyman

I'll start with the Sufi Persian poet Rumi.

"Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come."

It's absoloutly beautiful.

This is a common mistake. This is not from him.

Reply 8

stuffsgrooveyman

OP

Original post by sbj

This is a common mistake. This is not from him.

Is it not? It's in the introduction to one of his poetry books :s-smilie:

Reply 9

Narutopolaris

12

Ulysses- Alfred, Lord Tennyson. But, If by Kipling is a very close second.

Reply 10

Tom_green_day

16

Probably I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke.
Either that or Eat Your Words by Benjamin Zephaniah.
Honourable mention for Defying Gravity by Roger McGough.

Reply 11

sbj

6

Original post by stuffsgrooveyman

Is it not? It's in the introduction to one of his poetry books :s-smilie:

As I said, it is a common mistake.

This is absolutely not from him. His divan in Turkey does not contain this poem. It is from someone who lived 150 years earlier, also a sufi.

But populist books and facebook quotes made this up.

But don't worry, Rumi has got more powerful poems than this. There is nobody like him, not even in western society.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 12

stuffsgrooveyman

OP

Original post by sbj

As I said, it is a common mistake.

This is absolutely not from him. His divan in Turkey does not contain this poem. It is from someone who lived 150 years earlier, also a sufi.

But populist books and facebook quotes made this up.

But don't worry, Rumi has got more powerful poems than this. There is nobody like him, not even in western society.

Aha, thanks for the clear up :')!
Sufi poetry is beautiful tbh.

Tbhf though, I don't have just one favourite Rumi poet, I mean I absoloutly love these ones;

Don't go anywhere without me.
Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,
or on the ground, in this world or that world,
without my being in its happening.
Vision, see nothing I don't see.
Language, say nothing.
The way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me. Be the rose
nearest to the thorn that I am.

I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work,
when you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.

There's nothing worse than to walk out along the street
without you. I don't know where I'm going.
You're the road, and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love.

Especially the second stanza in that, it does something to me.

~~~~~

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

~~~~~

No end to the journey
No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love ever stop opening
if you love me, you won’t just die once
in every moment you will die into me
to be reborn
Into this new love die
your way begins on the other side
become the sky
take an axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into colour
do it now

~~~~~~

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

~~~~~~

I need a mouth as wide as the sky
to say the nature of a True Person, language
as large as longing.

The fragile vial inside me often breaks.
No wonder I go mad and disappear for three days
every month with the moon

For anyone in love with you,
it's always these invisible days.

I've lost the thread of the story I was telling.
My elephant roams his dream of Hindustan again.
Narrative, poetics, destroyed, my body,
a dissolving, a return.

Friend, I've shrunk to a hair trying to say your story.
Would you tell mine?
I've made up so many love stories.
Now I feel fictional.
Tell me!
The truth is, you are speaking, not me.
I am Sinai, and you are Moses walking there.
This poetry is an echo of what you say.
A piece of land can't speak, or know anything!
Or if it can, only within limits.

The body is a device to calculate
the astronomy of the spirit.
Look through that astrolabe
and become oceanic.

Why this distracted talk?
It's not my fault I rave.
You did this.
Do you approve of my love-madness?

Say yes.
What language will you say it in, Arabic or Persian,
or what? Once again, I must be tied up.

Bring the curly ropes of your hair.
Now I remember the story.
A True Man stares at his old shoes
and sheepskin jacket. Every day he goes up
to his attic to look at his work-shoes and worn-out coat.
This is his wisdom, to remember the original clay
and not get drunk with ego and arrogance.

To visit those shoes and jacket
is praise.

THe Absolute works with nothing.
The workshop, the materials
are what does not exist.

Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it.
Be a spot of land where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted,
a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.

All of his poetry showcases so much feeling, so much longing, so many emotions. I can never grow tired of his work.

Reply 13

Red one

Bear's poems. :giggle:

Reply 14

2ndClass

3

I don't like poetry tbh

Reply 15

RoyalBlue7

19

Rumi's poems and the Mathnawi are like wow

When recited it's pure ectasy I wish I could understand what's its saying without looking at the ****ing English translation

With English my favourite poem is la belle dame sans merci

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 16

Firenze26

20

Mine is by Robert Frost called Fire and Ice (I think).

It goes like this:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 17

JayJay-C19

The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Oscar Wilde

AND

Badly Chosen Lover - Rosemary Tonks

Reply 18

sbj

6

Original post by stuffsgrooveyman

Aha, thanks for the clear up :')!
Sufi poetry is beautiful tbh.

Tbhf though, I don't have just one favourite Rumi poet, I mean I absoloutly love these ones;

All of his poetry showcases so much feeling, so much longing, so many emotions. I can never grow tired of his work.

Well, reading the English translations you can not catch the deepness of Turkish/Arabic/Persian/Hindu poetry.
The poetry of this part of the world is filled with longing and pureness, you can not translate this into English.
If you are able to do, I suggest you to try out the original works of the poets.
For example if you can read Persian, this would be awesome, which I can not, because you could read the creme de la creme without any additions. Trust me, no rhymes and no touching word games are not equal to the originals.