01 November 2012

Poetry Thursday - indecision

Sometimes you come across a poem and it becomes one you want to "have" - and sometimes you have to look for one. Hunting around (on poemhunter) for this week's short poem to memorise, I am torn between several. Perhaps I should be looking for a poem on indecision? Last week's poem isn't yet firmly lodged in my brain, so I'll choose the new one tomorrow, and keep on with Li Bai's monk from Shu and his green lute-case in the meantime.

Epilogue

Rows of books around me stand,
Fence me in on either hand;
Through that forest of dead words
I would hunt the living birds -
So I write these lines for you
Who have felt the death-wish too,
All the wires are cut, my friends
Live beyond the severed ends. 
Louis Macneice

Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. 
Langston Hughes

A Question
A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth. 
Robert Frost

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