# Poetry that grabs you by the throat. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 23, 2000, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188 "2000-03-23T17:58:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Whammo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Whammo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whammo)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2000, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/1 "2000-03-23T17:58:00Z")
alone from childhoods darkest hour I have not been as others were I have not seen as others saw I could not bring my passions from a common spring; from the same source I have not taken my sorrow; I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone; and all I loved I loved alone then in my childhood, in the dawn of a most stormy life was drawn from every depth of good and ill the mystery which binds me still from the torrent or the fountain from the red cliff of the mountain from the sun that round me rolled in its autumn tint of gold from the lightning in the sky as it passed me flying by from the thunder and the storm and the cloud that took the form (when the rest of heaven was blue) of a demon in my view. Edgar Allen Poe ---- Did you ever read a poem for the first time and have it strike such a cord in your soul that you almost instantly memorize it and could years later recite it on queue? if so… would you like to share? ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/2 "2000-03-24T06:22:00Z")
. . . Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows. For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until I die. - Alfred Lord Tennyson _Ulysses_ ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/3 "2000-03-24T06:34:00Z")
By my heroine of depression, Dorothy Parker. _Godmother_ The day that I was christened- It’s a hundred years, and more!- A hag came and listened At the white church door, A-hearing her that bore me And all my kith and kin Considerately, for me, Renouncing sin. While some gave me corals, And some gave me gold, And porringers, with morals Agreeably scrolled, The hag stood, buckled In a dim gray cloak; Stood there and chuckled, Spat, and spoke: "There’s few enough in life’ll Be needing my help, But I’ve got a trifle For your fine young whelp. **I give her sadness, And the gift of pain, The new-moon madness, And the love of rain."** And little good to lave me In their holy silver bowl After what she gave me- Rest her soul! The bolded section is the “grabbing me by the throat” part. Me described to a T. ---
**Author:** ![TheNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TheNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNerd)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/4 "2000-03-24T06:37:00Z")
… > [@](#): > > I will show you something different > from either your shadow at morning striding behind you > Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you > I will show you fear in a handful of dust. ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/5 "2000-03-24T06:48:00Z")
Ok, one more Parker poem. Then I’ll be quiet. Interior Her mind lives in a quiet room, A narrow room, and tall, With pretty lamps to quench the gloom And mottoes on the wall. There all the things are waxen neat And set in decorous lines; And there are posies, round and sweet, And little, straightened vines. Her mind lives tidily, apart From cold and noise and pain, And bolts the door against her heart, Out wailing in the rain. [http://www.users.interport.net/~lynda/parker2.gif](http://www.users.interport.net/~lynda/parker2.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/6 "2000-03-24T06:50:00Z")
_points at sigline_ _the Second Coming_ W.B. Yeats ---
**Author:** ![Demo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demo/32/8472_2.png) [@Demo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/7 "2000-03-24T06:55:00Z")
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign, Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same: And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in! -Keats _Ode to Psyche_ ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2000, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/8 "2000-03-23T23:37:00Z")
it is at moments after i have dreamed of the rare entertainment of your eyes, when(being fool to fancy)i have deemed with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise; at moments when the glassy darkness holds the genuine apparition of your smile (it was through tears always)and silence moulds such strangeness as was mine a little while; moments when my once more illustrious arms are filled with fascination,when my breast wears the intolerant brightness of your charms: one pierced moment whiter than the rest -turning from the tremendous lie of sleep i watch the roses of the day grow deep. - e. e. cummings ---
**Author:** ![sorrel554](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@sorrel554](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sorrel554)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2000, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/9 "2000-03-23T23:48:00Z")
I drive Westward. Tumble and loco weed Persist. And in the vacancies of need, The leisure of desire, whirlwinds a face As luminous as love, lost as this place. ``` --J.V. Cunningham ``` _Inauguration Day: January 1953_ The snow had buried Stuyvesant. The subways drummed the vaults. I heard the El’s green girders charge on Third, Manhattan’s truss of adamant, that groaned in ermine, slummed on want… Cyclonic zero of the word, God of our armies, who interred Cold Harbor’s blue immortals, Grant! Horseman, your sword is in the groove! Ice, ice. Our wheels no longer move. Look, the fixed stars, all just alike as lack-land atoms, split apart, and the Republic summons Ike, the mausoleum in her heart. ``` --Robert Lowell ``` (Poetry thread! Yay!) ---
**Author:** ![Sealemon88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/10 "2000-03-24T00:05:00Z")
There was a poem I read back in the Dark Ages (high school), that was about a man who was eating his own heart. When asked how it tasted, he said something along the lines of “Bitter, bitter, But it’s _my_ heart.” sorry, for the vagueness. I don’t remember the poet, or even the title. * * * You say “cheesy” like that’s a **BAD** thing. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/11 "2000-03-24T00:09:00Z")
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.” —Stepen Crane from The Black Riders and Other Lines ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/12 "2000-03-24T00:14:00Z")
I am going to be a complete hog and also post this one. I can’t put my finger on why I love this so much, but love it I do: HOW TO MAKE STEW IN THE PINACATE DESERT Recipe for Locke and Drum A.J. Bayless market bent wire roller basket buy up parsnips, onion, carrot, rutabaga and potato, bell green pepper, & nine cuts of dark beef shank. They run there on their legs, that makes meat tasty. Seven at night in Tuscon, get some bisquick for the dumplings. Have some bacon. Go to Hadley’s in the kitchen right beside the frying steak- Diana on the phone - get a little plastic bag from Drum- Fill it up with tarragon and chili; four bay leaves; black pepper corns and basil; powdered oregano, something free, maybe about two teaspoons worth of salt. Now down in Sonora, Pinacate country, build a fire of Ocotillo, broken twigs and bits of ironwood, in an open ring of lava: rake some coals aside (and if you’re smart) to windward, keep the other half ablaze for heat and light. Set Drum’s fourteen-inch dutch oven with three legs across the embers. Now put in the strips of bacon. In another pan have all the vegetables cleaned up and peeled ans sliced. Cut the beef shank meat up small and set the bone aside. Throw in the beef shank meat, And stir while it fries hot, lots of ash and sizzle - singe your brow- Like Locke says almost burn it- then add water from the jeep can- add the little bag of herbs- cook it all five minutes more - and then throw in the pan of all the rest. Cover it up with a big hot lid all heavy, sit and wait, or drink budweiser beer. ## And also mix the dumpling mix aside, some water in some bisquick, finally drop that off the spoon into the stew. And let it cook ten minutes more and lift the black pot off the fire to set aside another good ten minutes. Dish it up and eat it with a spoon, sitting on a poncho in the dark. –Tory Snyder “It says, I choo-choo-choose you. And it’s got a picture of a train.” – Ralph Wiggum ---
**Author:** ![xekul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/838e76/32.png) [@xekul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xekul)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/13 "2000-03-24T00:17:00Z")
TheNerd: I’ve had that exact same passage stuck in my head for the past few days… powerful stuff. * * * ``When I was little, my mother told me not to look into the sun. So one day when I was six, I did.’’ – Max Cohen in Pi: The Movie. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/14 "2000-03-24T00:17:00Z")
I first read _There Will Come Soft Rains_ in 7th grade and have remembered it ever since. There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground And swallows circling with their shimmering sounds And frogs in the pools singing at night And wild plum trees dressed in tremulous white Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence wire And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at least when it is done Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If Mankind perished utterly And Spring herself when she woke at dawn Would scarely know that we were gone. - Sara Teasdale * * * “I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.” ---
**Author:** ![mega\_the\_roo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@mega\_the\_roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mega_the_roo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/15 "2000-03-24T00:55:00Z")
this is my alltime fave. The Buried Life - Matthew Arnold Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet! I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll. Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile! But there’s a something in this breast, To which thy light words bring no rest, And thy gay smiles no anodyne. Give me thy hand, and hush awhile, And turn those limpid eyes on mine, And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul. Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel? I knew the mass of men conceal’d Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d They would by other men be met With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved Trick’d in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves–and yet The same heart beats in every human breast! But we, my love!–doth a like spell benumb Our hearts, our voices?–must we too be dumb? Ah! well for us, even we, Even for a moment, can get free Our heart, and have our lips unchain’d; For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain’d! Fate, which forsaw How frivolous a baby man would be– By what distractions he would be possess’d, How he would pour himself in every strife, And well-nigh change his own identity– That it might keep from his capricious play His genuine self, and force him to obey Even in his own despite his being’s law, Bade through the deep recesses of our breast The unregarded river of our life Pursue with indiscernible flow its way; And that we should not see The buried stream, and seem to be Eddying at large in blind uncertainty, Though driving on with it eternally. But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us–to know Whence our lives come and where they go. And many a man in his own breast then delves, But deep enough, alas! none ever mines. And wehave been on many thousand lines, And we have shown, on each, spirit and power; But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves– Hardly had skill to utter one at all The nameless feelings that course through our breast, But they course of for ever unexpress’d. And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well–but t’is not true! And then we will no more be rack’d With inward striving, and demand Of all the thousand nothings of the hour Their stupefying power, Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call! Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne As from an infinitely distant land, Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey A melancholy into all our day. Only–but this is rare– When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear, When our world-deafen’d ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caress’d– A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again. The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know. A man becomes aware of his life’s flow, And hears its winding murmur, and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze. And there arrives a lull in the hot race Wherein he doth for ever chase That flying and elusive shadow, rest. An air of coolness plays upon his face, And an unwonted calm prevades his breast. And then he thinks he knows The hills where his life rose, And the sea where it goes. * * * if wishes were fishes, we could walk on the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![sorrel554](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@sorrel554](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sorrel554)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/16 "2000-03-24T01:08:00Z")
_A Lesson from Van Gogh_ Howard Moss Speechless tree and animal and bird Vein dreams with meaning, often blurred. If we could but connect the beast and word! “The end of life,” life callously repeats, “Is love and its renewal,” yet it cheats Us all in graveyards of eternal streets. Unharmed by guilt or will, day after day, The silly fish, performing in the bay, The simple serpent, lion, pig, and jay, Are not more separate in each other’s sight Than we who speak–our speech engraves the night With all the hieroglyphics of delight That daylight cannot translate. “Take my ear,” One painter said, who painted out his fear. Madness has a poetry that comes too near Truth for comfort: though the mind goes numb Thinking of that severance, the deaf and dumb Communicate by signs, and everyone Can follow the plain meaning: “Talk to me,” Van Gogh was saying, “I am not a tree, A fish, a serpent, lion, pig, or jay.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/17 "2000-03-24T01:33:00Z")
I noticed that on eBay, I could buy a lot of the peripherals for the TI-994A that I used to pine so badly for when I was a child cheap as dirt. Nowadays, it would just be a waste of space. It made me sad, and I remembered the words of A. E. Housman: ``` When first my way to fair I took Few pence in purse had I, And long I used to stand and look At things I could not buy. Now times are altered: if I care To buy a thing, I can; The pence are here and here's the fair, But where's the lost young man? ``` I strongly recommend the practice of memorizing poems. It’s not as hard as a lot of people think, and it pays rich dividends when you find that you can recall them when they are most apt. ---
**Author:** ![Sealemon88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/18 "2000-03-24T02:08:00Z")
Arnold: You rock, man! Thank you! * * * You say “cheesy” like that’s a **BAD** thing. ---
**Author:** ![Sake\_Samurai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sake\_Samurai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sake_Samurai)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/19 "2000-03-24T02:24:00Z")
_This one flung my heart into the brambles the first time I read it. I will never forget it._\* **DE PROFUNDIS** by George Trakl There is a stubble-field where a black rain is falling. There is a brown tree that stands alone. There is a hissing wind that encircles the empty shacks. How melancholy this evening is. Past the village pond A gentle orphan gathers sparse corn. Golden and round, her eyes are gazing in the dusk, And her womb awaits the heavenly bridegroom. Returning home The shepherds found her sweet body Rotting in the bushes. I am a shadow far from the dark hamlets. I drink the silence of God From a spring in the woods. On my forehead cold metal forms. Spiders search for my heart. There is a light that dies in my mouth. At night I found myself upon a heath, Rigid with refuse and the dust of stars. In the hazelbush Crystal angels kept ringing. * * * Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/20 "2000-03-24T02:42:00Z")
From Milton’s Paradise lost: “Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!” (I: 330). They, looking back, all th’ eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. (VII: 641-649) Although I would never say that I “identify” with _Paradise Lost_ --only a meglomainiac could make such a claim-- the whole damn thing gives me the shivers. Every single line. I believe that man wrote the bible, but _Paradise Lost_ almost has to be the inspired word of God. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188.md?page=2)