AlwaysbeBIG• Show poetry

My name is Brandon Spalletta, and this is my poetry.




I recommend you read Lowell Poe's poetry as well. He is well worth your time.
http://allpoetry.com/Lowell%20Poe

~~And he wrote this for me~~

There is a maverick troubadour of language
that has come from the the coffee houses
in the west,
to the highways and carnivals in the east.
He comes from the tin pan alley
of poetry,
with the sun in his eyes.
I know this
For I have heard and spoke
the reams of works,
and I have pondered them
in the wild west
of cyber-trails and by ways.
Look not at these works as a way
to kill time
or mild entertainment,
but a life in progress.
Such a time has come
for his kind,
when men tremble and fear,
and bow to falsehoods.
So take it in dear reader,
hear and feel this new kind of poet
and know that his words
can move people
in new directions
so they can discard the old ones
and reach their destination.




~~~~Favorite Poems~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water, by William Butler Yeats

I heard the old, old men say,
'Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.'
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
'All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.'



Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.



Alone, by Edgar Allen Poe

From childhood's 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.



Epitaph On A Tyrant, by W.H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.



A Writer, by Philip Larkin

'Interesting, but futile,' said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry;
He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,
There were no prizes: though the eye could see
Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,
It need expect no lasting salary
Beyond the bowels' momentary applause.

He lived for years and never was surprised:
A member of his foolish, lying race
Explained away their vices: realized
It was a gift that he possessed alone:
To look the world in the face;
The face he did not see to be his own.



I Never Saw A Moor, by Emily Dickinson

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a Billow must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given.



Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Halk 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.



Loss and Gain, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Virtue runs before the muse
And defies her skill,
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.

Star-adoring, occupied,
Virtue cannot bend her,
Just to please a poet's pride,
To parade her splendor.

The bard must be with good intent
No more his, but hers,
Throw away his pen and paint,
Kneel with worshipers.

Then, perchance, a sunny ray
From the heaven of fire,
His lost tools may over-pay,
And better his desire.



Reapers, by Jean Toomer

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done.
And start their silent swinging, one by one.
Black horses drive a mower through the weeds.
And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.
His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
Blood stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.




~~~~Favorite quotes~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
- Jesus of Nazareth


“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
- St. Matthew


"I don't know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
- Sir Isaac Newton


"For there is such a difference between the way men live and they way they ought to live, that anybody who abandons what is for what ought to be will learn something that will ruin rather than preserve him, because anyone who determines to act in all circumstances the part of a good man must come to ruin among so many who are not good.."
- Niccolo Machiavelli


“In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me."
- Edgar Allen Poe


"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."
- Robert Frost


"Poetry is more philosophical and of higher value than history; for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular."
- Aristotle


"Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."
- Walt Whitman


"Not all who wander are lost."
- J.R.R. Tolkien


“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”
- Ray Bradbury


“Don’t be afraid to be what you say and say what you are, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
- Dr. Suess


"This is the true measure of love: When we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us"
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?”
- George Bernard Shaw


“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibitory law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
- Abraham Lincoln


“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
- Albert Einstein


“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
- Albert Einstein


“The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.”
- Albert Einstein


"Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. Put your finger on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. THAT'S relativity."
- Albert Einstein


“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”
- A. A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)


“When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.”
- John W. Gardner


"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls."
- George Carlin


"I just take this job very seriously. It's almost like, you play a kid's game for a king's ransom. And if you don't take it serious enough, eventually one day you're going to say, 'Oh, I could have done this, I could have done that. So I just say, 'I'm healthy right now, I'm going into my fourth year, and why not do the best that I can?' And that's whatever it is, whether it's eating right or training myself right, whether it's studying harder, whatever I can do to better myself."
- Sean Taylor, Redskins Safety...RIP





~~~~Favorite Lyrics~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls,”
And whispered in the sound of silence"
- The Sound Of Silence, by Simon and Garfunkel


~~~~~~~~~~
I am an exile - a soujourner; a citizen of some other place.
All I've seen is just a glimmer in a shadowy mirror,
But I know one day I'll see face to face.

I am nomad - a wanderer; I have nowhere to lay my head down.
There's no point in putting roots too deep when I'm moving on;
I'm not settling for this unsettling town.

My heart is filled with songs of forever -
Of a city that endures, where all is made new.
I know I don't belong here; I'll never
Call this place my home, I'm just passing through.

I am pilgrim - a voyager. I won't rest until my lips touch the shore
Of the land that I've been longing for as long as I've lived,
Where there'll be no pain or tears anymore.
- In Exile, by Thrice
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