Poetic Moods

Sometimes it is difficult to reply when someone asks you what your favourite poem is. Every poem is unique, every poem has different objects, voices, messages, allusions, cadences and characters. So today, as I woke up, I felt compelled to share one of my favourite poems. Which poems do you class as one of your favourites? Comments below.

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

Ozymandias, by Percy B Shelley

 

Haunting, depressing, aggressive, defiant and empty, all at the same time. These are the five words I would use to describe this poem. After reading it, which five words would you choose to describe this poem? I look forward to your answers…

Introversion

The man sat across me has a vacant stare

Deep and morbid and empty and bare

He shifts and glances but he cannot see

Then through narrow eyes, looks right at me

His bloodied eyes go through my soul

I imagine no heart but an empty hole

He conveys a message of dread and fear

Not encompassing, but he is all I can hear

I hear the terror emanating from his heart

He sees my turmoil like a piercing dart

I hear the pain upon his breath so foul

He sees my panic making me howl

I hear his soft cries muffled and violent

He sees my ache and stays entirely silent

Nothing remains now but that lasting decay

He will mimic all that I do until that final day

‘I know him well and he knows me too’

I look straight at him and he says ‘I’m you’.