Favourite Poem by kpo

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Favourite Poem

POSTED BY: KPO
UPDATED: Friday, June 18, 2010 17:04
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Friday, June 11, 2010 1:47 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Been wanting to start this thread for a while. I've never really taken to 'verse' as an art form, but I'm curious about it and keen to hear about other Browncoats' tastes.

I could probably give a couple as personal favourites:

Time does not bring relief
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go - so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

And one more, though this is something of a national poem here in Britain:

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Heads should roll

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 2:45 AM

BORIS

I envy anyone that can interpret and appreciate poetry. I've never been able to do either.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 3:39 AM

PENGUIN

King of the Mythical Land that is Iowa

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:13 AM

KATESFRIEND

This is a little poem I found on the internet accompanied by a picture of a little boy who was dressed like a gang member. But it could apply to anyone whom you see as different.

Please do not Judge Me for Living My Truth
It’s mine and I own it whatever it’s Proof
Please do not Fear for Me for my Soul is Safe
Should you see Darkness within Me
Fear not, for it is in the right Place
My Lessons are Many, my fears may be great
Yet it is Mine to Reveal, and Restore without Hate
If ever you view me standing at Hell’s Darkest Gate
Please let it be known, the Light in my Heart, Shall be my guide Home.
When I struggle with Darkness, Fear and ill Faith
Your Love, plain and simple, shall help me find Grace
So Pray, judge not my fears, with your Anger nor Pain
Instead speed me Light, with Joy, in great Haste!
I ask simply this please…
Do not Judge me for Living my Truth
I AM what I AM and with All of my Might
I AM Purely and Simply
A Being of Light.
~Janya

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:13 AM

KATESFRIEND

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:14 AM

KATESFRIEND

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:14 AM

KATESFRIEND

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:16 AM

KATESFRIEND

Sorry about that, I kept getting kicked out with an error message.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 1:07 PM

THESOMNAMBULIST

Hey KPO.
Nice topic. I always liked that 'If' poem.

Personally though I'm a Ted Hughes fan. He wrote some great poems about nature and wildlife. And I think because I live in the countryside I understand his prose more so than any other poet.

Always liked this one:

The Warm and the Cold by Ted Hughes

Freezing dusk is closing
Like a slow trap of steel
On trees and roads and hills and all
That can no longer feel.
But the carp is in its depth
Like a planet in its heaven.
And the badger in its bedding
Like a loaf in the oven.
And the butterfly in its mummy
Like a viol in its case.
And the owl in its feathers
Like a doll in its lace.

Freezing dusk has tightened
Like a nut screwed tight
On the starry aeroplane
Of the soaring night.
But the trout is in its hole
Like a chuckle in a sleeper.
The hare strays down the highway
Like a root going deeper.
The snail is dry in the outhouse
Like a seed in a sunflower.
The owl is pale on the gatepost
Like a clock on its tower.

Moonlight freezes the shaggy world
Like a mammoth of ice -
The past and the future
Are the jaws of a steel vice.
But the cod is in the tide-rip
Like a key in a purse.
The deer are on the bare-blown hill
Like smiles on a nurse.
The flies are behind the plaster
Like the lost score of a jig.
Sparrows are in the ivy-clump
Like money in a pig.

Such a frost
The flimsy moon
Has lost her wits.

A star falls.

The sweating farmers
Turn in their sleep
Like oxen on spits.

Cartoons - http://cirqusartsandmusic.blogspot.com

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 1:58 PM

CHRISISALL

Robert Frost:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Yes, I've read a poem; try not to faint.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 4:52 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

A couple more of Kipling's are among my favorites.

"By the Hoof of the Wild Goat"

By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,
So she fell from the light of the Sun
And alone!

Now the fall was ordained from the first
With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,
But the Stone
Knows only her life is accursed
As she sinks from the light of the Sun
And alone!

Oh Thou Who hast builded the World,
Oh Thou Who hast lighted the Sun,
Oh Thou Who hast darkened the Tarn,
Judge Thou
The sin of the Stone that was hurled
By the goat from the light of the Sun,
As she sinks in the mire of the Tarn,
Even now--even now--even now!

"The Grave of the Hundred Head"

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face--
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race--
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven's gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay--
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village--
The village of Pabengmay,
And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris--
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a kullah's head
Must be paid for with heads five score.

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 5:28 PM

ASORTAFAIRYTALE

I'm not a huge fan of poetry in general, but I do enjoy Robert Browning's poems. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is an especially good one, although a bit long:

http://www.bartleby.com/246/654.html

Along the same line of longish and dark poems is the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge, which I think is a really cool story.
http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 5:37 PM

MINCINGBEAST

The Kraken, Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

also note that poetry is for the affected and the dreary. fart jokes are more thoughtful and honest.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010 6:58 PM

FEARTHEBUNNYMAN

I love this poem b/c I love flying and it also reminds me of my father, who was a bomber pilot.

"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

also like "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Elliot, "A Leave-Taking" by Algernon Swinburne, and the usual suspects (Poe, Donne, Plath, Emily Dickenson, etc)

Enjoying reading others' selections here.

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Sunday, June 13, 2010 8:24 AM

ASORTAFAIRYTALE

Quote:
Originally posted by fearthebunnyman:

also like "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Elliot

T.S. Eliot is another great one! I like "The Wasteland" by him.
I love his extremely desolate view of the world.

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Sunday, June 13, 2010 11:43 AM

CHAPTERANDVERSE

KPO, I love Edna St. Vincent Millay! She is hugely underappreciated.
My personal favourite:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

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Sunday, June 13, 2010 2:44 PM

OUT2THEBLACK

"Old Inuit Song"

'...I think over again
My small adventures
My fears
Those small ones that seemed so big
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach
And yet there is only one great thing
The only thing
To live to see the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world.'

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Sunday, June 13, 2010 3:12 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Chris, thanx for Stopping By Woods. I was gonna post it myself, but couldn't recall it exactly by memory, which I used to be able to do, and hadn't got around to digging it up.
Frost was a genius- short poem, lovely images and music in the words, he's playing a little game with the rhyme scheme, and a serious, generalized theme.

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Sunday, June 13, 2010 3:32 PM

CHRISISALL

It's always been my favourite! Glad you love it as well.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Monday, June 14, 2010 1:42 PM

OUT2THEBLACK

Quote:
Originally posted by asortafairytale:

Along the same line of longish and dark poems is the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge, which I think is a really cool story.

http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/

Must be why Joss referenced it in the BDM...

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Monday, June 14, 2010 3:53 PM

ISROUSRO

Anything by Red Green.
Here is one,

It is Spring
Time to fire up the old barbecue,
Turn on the propane
Check the spark igniter
Fire up the the old barbecue.
Booooom.
Get the lid down from the roof
Fire up the old fire extinguisher

passoniatetly indifferent

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:10 AM

DMI

Expired, forgotten, spoiled rotten.

Good thread.

This sonnet by Edmund Spenser is one of my favorites:

ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wipèd out likewise.
Not so (quod I); let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

And then there is Canis Major by Robert Frost. I'm not a big Frost fan (or a big dog guy) but this one gets me for some reason:

The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

------------------------
I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.

http://www.blogiversity.org/blogs/dmi/default.aspx

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Thursday, June 17, 2010 3:53 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Chapterandverse, I only came upon Edna St. Vincent Millay while flicking through a book of poems and was struck by that poem, and its defiant bleakness from the outset... And yours is quite poignant as well. So I like her so far.

Enjoyed reading through the selection here, good work guys.

Heads should roll

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Friday, June 18, 2010 2:37 AM

CALHOUN

My favourite.

"Ode to Spot" was a poem composed by Data, addressed to his pet cat, Spot. It was written in the iambic heptameter mode. (TNG: "Schisms")

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

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Friday, June 18, 2010 2:51 AM

SERENITYRIDDLE

I love ee cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

I also really enjoy Emily Dickinson's

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

and of course I am thoroughly moved by Queen Elizabeth Tudor's

On Monsieur's Departure

I grieve and dare not show my discontent;
I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant;
I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate.
I am, and not; I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun—
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands, and lies by me, doth what I have done;
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.

Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft, and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low;
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die, and so forget what love e'er meant.

Here's my two cents.

"Also, I can kill you with my brain" -River Tam

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Friday, June 18, 2010 10:59 AM

CHAPTERANDVERSE

Calhoun, Thanks so much for Ode to Spot. Made my day.

I also love this by Auden...

Roman Wall Blues

Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,
My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone.

Aulus goes hanging around her place,
I don't like his manners, I don't like his face.

Piso's a Christian, he worships a fish;
There'd be no kissing if he had his wish.

She gave me a ring but I diced it away;
I want my girl and I want my pay.

When I'm a veteran with only one eye
I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

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Friday, June 18, 2010 11:21 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Do songs count? They're poems set to music, after all...

Small Swift Birds, by Margo Timmons

I've been told that it's just the way life goes...
Once the wildest river is now a trickle to the sea.
The peaks we risk our lives to scale become dirt beneath our feet.
The wisdom of a lifetime always disappears untapped.
Paradise once given can always be taken back.
And the love you hang your life upon will start to slowly crack.

I have seen people suffocate the dream.
Forgetting to turn back one last time while she watches through the door.
Focusing on the garbage that you used to ignore.
Thinking she looks so beautiful but not yelling it out loud.
He should have thought to kiss her before he headed out.
Just forgetting how fucking lucky you are to have found her in such a crowd.

But I've seen a cloud of starlings rising on a crisp autumn day.
I was handed the weight of a child sleeping and bore her away.
I've tasted the tears that fall when saying goodbye forever.
And I've seen the silver from a waxing moon wash upon the shore.

I have heard about the lives of small swift birds.
They dazzle with their color and their deftness through the air.
Just a simple glimpse will keep you simply standing there.
Legendary journeys made on fragile hollow wings.
The night skies rich with whistling each and every spring.
And then there's the day we look for them and can't find them anywhere.

I've been told that it's just the way life goes...

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Friday, June 18, 2010 11:24 AM

KWICKO

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Mike

On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you. --Auraptor

This vile and revolting malice - this is their true colors, always has been, you're just seeing it without the mask of justifications and excuses they hide it behind, is all. Make sure to remember it once they put the mask back on. --Fremdfirma

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Friday, June 18, 2010 2:22 PM

KWICKO

Second Coming, by WB Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. Surely so
revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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Friday, June 18, 2010 5:04 PM

CALHOUN

Quote:

Calhoun wrote:
Friday, June 18, 2010 02:37
My favourite.

"Ode to Spot" was a poem composed by Data, addressed to his pet cat, Spot. It was written in the iambic heptameter mode. (TNG: "Schisms")

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

Riker is an asshat..

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