Here's another confession (you'll probably hear a lot of them, if you look at my site for any length of time):  I love poetry.  I can't write it worth shit, but I like to read it.  Not all the time, and not all poetry, but when I'm in the right mood, the right poem can cheer me up more than virtually anything else.  And I'm going to share some of that poetry with you, whether you like it or not.  For now, I'll stick mainly to the older stuff, not just because I tend to like it better, but because I run a smaller chance of getting sued if I post stuff that's public domain.

My favorite two poets are e.e cummings and William Shakespeare.  If you haven't heard of e.e. cummings, you need to read his stuff. He is an incredible poet, a poet who combines the visual with the literary. If you haven't encountered him before, you're in for a treat. If you haven't heard of Shakespeare before and you're over the age of embryo, I'm impressed that you can tie your shoes, much less use a computer. If you haven't read anything by him, do so.  Don't just think that he's a stuffy dead white guy; he can be funny, touching, cynical, violent, and wonderful, often all at once (he, however, is still a dead white guy). Again, I think you're in for a treat. The other poets included are not necessarily favorites of mine, but I really love a poem or two by them, so I thought I'd include them. Send me suggestions for more poems at loki814@hotmail.com

King Lear 1.2:121-136- "This is the excellent foppery of the world..." A great rant about those who blame their misfortune or problems on fate, rather than taking responsiblity for their own disfunctions.

Dylan Thomas     I know next to nothing about Dylan Thomas.  He's a poet who's last words were legendarily "I just had my sixteenth martini. I think that's some sort of record." He is also the author of one of my favorite poems. It is called "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night." It's about death, and it sums up basically my feelings about death...I don't want to die, and I intend to fight it as much as possible. That's what Dylan was talking about...of course, he was too drunk to fight death when it came for him...but he left us this.

Mark Twain     Now, some of you are probably wondering what's going on here. Mark Twain is a fiction writer, not a poet...for the most part. I've only seen one poem of his, and I absolutely love it.  It's called "The War Prayer," and it's about what we actually pray for when we pray. It let's us know that there are two sides to every story, and our side is not necessarily more valid than the other side. Twain said of this piece that "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead man can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I'm dead." Unluckily for him, eventually he died, but lucky for us, "The War Prayer" was published. You can read it here, or you can try to find the incredible, poignantly illustrated version, but they're hard to come by. I've been looking for a replacement since my current copy is falling apart (from overuse), but they're nearly impossible to find.

William Butler Yeats     So far, I've not read much Yeats, but I love this poem of his. It's wonderfully dark and disturbed...it's weird that it's about the "Second Coming" (presumably of Christ, but maybe of something much more sinister). It doesn't seem to be complimentary though. It's a view of a collapsing world. I haven't done much scholarly study on this poem, so that's about all I can give you. Someone sent me this description of the "Second Coming"...I recommend giving it a quick read through. Just check the poem out yourself.

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