What's the best poem you've ever read?  I mean, the one you can read a thousand times, and never get tired of it?
  I'll start...mine is "The Second Coming" by WB Yeats.

Bukowski's "there's a bluebird in my heart".

Equivocal about A favorite, but this, by Neruda, surely rates high. It's my own translation (and an inspiration).

Ars magnetica
                          Pablo Neruda

From so much love and travelling come books,
and if they don’t contain kisses or regions,
if they don’t contain a man with full hands,
if they don’t contain a woman in each drop,
hunger, desire, anger, roads,
they’re useless as a shield or bell:
they have no eyes and can’t open them,
they have the dead mouth of a statement.

I loved the tangling of genitals,
from blood and love I carved my poems,
in hard earth I planted a rose
fought over by the fire and the dew.

Thus I can go my way singing.

i didn't know we were quoting...cool!  here's BLUEBIRD by Charles Bukowski:

Bluebird
by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

“What I Must Tell Myself” by David Whyte

Above the water
And against the mountain
The geese fly through the
Brushed darkness
Of the early morning
And out into the light,

They travel over
My immovable house
With such unison
Of faith
And with such
Assurance
Towards the south

Cresting the mountains
And the long
Coast of a continent

As they move
Each year
Toward a horizon
They have learned
To call their own.

I know this house
And this horizon
And this world I have made.
I know this silence
And the particular treasures
And terrors
Of this belonging
But I cannot know the world
To which I am going

I have only this breath
And this presence
For my wings
And they carry me
In my body
Whatever I do
From one hushed moment
To another.

I know my innocence
And I know my unknowing
But for all my successes
I go through life
Like a blind child
Who cannot see,
Arms outstretched
Trying to put together
A world.

And the world
Works on my behalf
Catching me in its arms
When I go to far.

I don’t know what
I could have done
To have earned such faith.

But what of all the others
And the bitter lovers
And the ones who were not held?

Life turns like a slow river
And suddenly you are there
At the edge of the water
With all the rest
And the fire carries the
Feast and the laughter
And in the darkness
Away from the fire
The unspoken griefs
That still
Make togetherness
But then
Just as suddenly
It has become a fireless
Friendless
Night again
And you find yourself alone
And you must speak to the stars
Or the rain-filled clouds
Or anything at hand
To find your place.

When you are alone
You must do anything
To believe
And when you are
Abandoned
You must speak
With everything
You know
And everything you are
In order
To belong.

If I have no one to turn to
I must claim my aloneness.

If I cannot speak
I must reclaim the prison
Of my body.

If I have only darkness
I must claim the night.

And then,
Even in the closest dark
The world
Can find me

And if I have honor
Enough
For the place in which it finds me
I will know
It is speaking to me
And where I must go.

Watching the geese
Go south I find
That
Even in silence
And even in stillness
And
Even in my home
Alone
Without a thought
Or a movement
I am part
Of a great migration
That will take me to another place.

And though all the things I love
May pass away and
The great family of things and people
I have made around me
Will see me go,
I feel them living in me
Like a great gathering
Ready to reach a greater home.

When one thing dies all things
Die together, and must live again
In a different way,
When one thing
Is missing everything is missing,
And must be found again
In a new whole
And everything wants to be complete,
Everything wants to go home
And the geese traveling south
Are like the shadow of my breath
Flying into the darkness
On great heart-beats
To an unknown land where I belong.

This morning they have
Found me,
Full of faith,
Like a blind child,
Nestled in their feathers,
Following the great coast of the wind
To a home I cannot see.

PLUS might I add the best poem of the 20th century, Four Quartets by TS Eliot. A bit long for a post.

There are many poems that I like better than this one
but because it is the first poem I ever memorized
and because it brings an emotional memory to mind
I choose


Breathes There the Man... From the Lay of the Last Minstrel
by Sir Walter Scott

Canto Sixth

I

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

My mother would often recite poems for me when I was little.
The first poem she ever memorized was also her favorite.
OK, OK, it seems sappy today but I can still remember
laying my head in her lap and listening to her drone the words

I wandered lonely as a cloud
  WIlliam Wordsworth

          I wandered lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

          Continuous as the stars that shine
          And twinkle on the milky way,
          They stretched in never-ending line
          Along the margin of a bay:                                 
          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          The waves beside them danced; but they
          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie
          In vacant or in pensive mood,                             
          They flash upon that inward eye
          Which is the bliss of solitude;
          And then my heart with pleasure fills,
          And dances with the daffodils.

Now, as far as Yeats is concerned, I love:

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
 

My girl:
Anne Sexton, 'For My Lover, Returning to His Wife'

She is all there.
She was melted carefully down for you
and cast up from your childhood,
cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies.

She has always been there, my darling.
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast-iron pot.

Let's face it, I have been momentary.
vA luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.

She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has grown you your practical your tropical growth.
This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.
She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,

has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
sat by the potter's wheel at midday,
set forth three children under the moon,
three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,

done this with her legs spread out
in the terrible months in the chapel.
If you glance up, the children are there
like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.

She has also carried each one down the hall
after supper, their heads privately bent,
two legs protesting, person to person,
her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.

I give you back your heart.
I give you permission --

for the fuse inside her, throbbing
angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her
and the burying of her wound --
for the burying of her small red wound alive --

for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,
for the mother's knee, for the stocking,
for the garter belt, for the call --

the curious call
when you will burrow in arms and breasts
and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair
and answer the call, the curious call.

She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

J

I disagree with this assessment...I think your pick is second best.  "Howl" beats it by a long mile...it is as purely, savagely, barbarically American as anything ever spawned by any poet in America. 
But then again, I like Jim Morrison's poetry, too, so I am inclined to savagery and barbarity...LOL.
Old TS is one of my go-to guys, though.

as ever,
Anita

ahhh, anita, is it not a matter of taste? I meant no assertion of absolutes when stating Four Quartets being the best poem of the 20th century...you certainly have a case for contention with "Howl", I must say. Both eliot and ginsberg can be rather 'longwinded' poets...which I enjoy WHEN it is written to the superb perfection that these great masters have mastered.
thank you for your contention.

Sunday Morning  - Wallace Stevens

Well, I'd have to say the one that I find myself reciting parts of from time to time--because I'm on a long journey and remember that in periods of solitude--is "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," Robert Frost.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

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.

This is my favourite.....

The Lady of Shalott    (Alfred Tennyson)

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road run by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the bearded barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly;
Down to tower'd Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
The Lady of Shalott."

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, burning bright,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance --
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right --
The leaves upon her falling light --
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

I liked Ozymandius ever since I was a kid. Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota by James Wright is another - great images and superb get out.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening is a good one too Jay. I used to do a lot of readings and this was one I often used when sick of my own stuff.