Request + poem

[pyreneeees]

I hate to be this person, but I am going through a terrible breakup of a three-year relationship and I would love poetry to make me feel better. Any poetry! Poetry about love, loss, breakups - or just poetry you read when you're having a tough time, poetry that cheers you up, anything. I know this is rather general but if you can't ask your

Comments

[pachamama]

Two Trees

[pyreneeees]

Hahahaha ohh I love this.

[bright_ephemera]

The last line surprises me every time I read this. Such amazing denial.

and another

[pachamama]

Anti-Love Poem
by Grace Paley

Sometimes you don't want to love the person you love
you turn your face away from that face
whose eyes lips might make you give up anger
forget insult     steal sadness of not wanting
to love     turn away then turn away     at breakfast
in the evening     don't lift your eyes from the paper
to see that face in all its seriousness     a
sweetness of concentration     he holds his book
in his hand     the hard-knuckled winter wood-
scarred fingers     turn away     that's all you can
do     old as you are to save yourself     from love

Re: and another

[pyreneeees]

And this. "Don't lift your eyes from the paper/to see that face in all its seriousness." Though much more beautiful, it reminds me of my favorite movie line about breakups, from Forgetting Sarah Marshall: "You've got to stop talking about it. It's like the Sopranos. It's OVER. Find a new show."

Re: and another

[cest_laila]

haha, yeah!

Re: and another

[bloodrebel333]

This is nice.

and finally

[pachamama]

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Re: and finally

[pyreneeees]

Awesome.

Re: and finally

[cest_laila]

one of my favorite poems ever.

Re: and finally

[dyingishate]

Reading this totally tripped me out because I had written this poem in my own live journal a long time ago, but neglected to write the title or the author, so when I went and reread my old LJ entries I found this poem and thought it was something I had written--the thought that it was somebody else's poem had never even crossed my mind. I even edited it as though it was my own, deleting and adding stuff.

Not entirely relevant, but a very weird personal experience.

[teithiwr]

Well, here's a classic:

One Art -- Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master:
So many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master,
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

And because Mary Oliver is amazing:

Starlings in Winter -- Mary Oliver

[jillianfish]

Thank you for posting One Art. It was what I was coming here to comment with.

[with_rainfall]

I like that last one. =)

[bloodrebel333]

I really like the last one.

[stormydown]

Pretty much any and all Yeats.

No Second Troy

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?