This is my humble giveaway to say thank you to this wonderful community. I'll feature as many games as possible so that more people can win games. The games in the giveaway are:

Avencast: Rise of the Mage (Steam)
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (Steam)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee + Exoddus (Steam)
Syberia (Steam)
Postal 2: Complete (Desura)

In order to enter the giveaway, all you have to do is to post one of your favorite poems (only in English please). It would be great if you tell me why you like the writing. I'll choose 5 winners according to the poems and according to the comments about them. It'll be a subjective giveaway! :) The games of the winners will be chosen randomly on random.org. I'll close the giveaway on Sunday night.

Here is one of the poems I like, it's from Alice Walker:

On Stripping Bark from Myself

(for Jane, who said trees die from it)

Because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their 'how nice she is!'
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.

No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes
to embrace.

I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I finally understand.

Besides:

My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death – to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.

Here's a great poem from John Keats: "Welcome joy and welcome sorrow". The reason I like it, is because it constantly stirs up contradicting emotions.

Welcome joy, welcome sorrow

"Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryon atoms." - Milton

WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night -
Both together: - let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath'd with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.

It's a shame that Keats died in such an early age (he was only 25!). There is a wonderful movie based on his life. It's called Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion. Here is Keats' poem, Bright Star:

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Haven't read much poetry really, but this is my favourite.

Night-Gaunts (H.P. Lovecraft)

Out of what crypt they crawl, I cannot tell,
But every night I see the rubbery things,
Black, horned, and slender, with membraneous wings,
And tails that bear the bifid barb of hell.
They come in legions on the north wind’s swell,
With obscene clutch that titillates and stings,
Snatching me off on monstrous voyagings
To grey worlds hidden deep in nightmare’s well.

Over the jagged peaks of Thok they sweep,
Heedless of all the cries I try to make,
And down the nether pits to that foul lake
Where the puffed shoggoths splash in doubtful sleep.
But oh! If only they would make some sound,
Or wear a face where faces should be found!

Not entering, but thanks and +1 for the giveaway, Accatone!

Also, a little promotion to it:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/how_does_one_make_a_gift_aka_gifting_on_gog_for_dummies/post316

I've always found this poem tremendously inspiring, and in a way, as a guide to life:

I Shall Not Live In Vain by Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

Not entering, because I have most of them, but want to say thank you for your generosity! :-)

Sorry, my English level don't allow me to write or appreciate a poem.

The Prophecy, from Sacrifice:


"The Gods are four, whose works grow cold
As one betrays their laws of old.

Then dark grow deeds, and darker hearts
For lost to all are holy arts.

A vagrant comes amidst the gloom
To seal the gaping maw of Doom..."



If I win, would you have any problem with me trading the potential prize?

No, no problem at all.

Thanks :)

Nice giveaway, I mainly like Finnish poetry, but have occasionally stumbled in to some good Scottish ones as well.

John Barbour: Freedom

Ah, freedom is a noble thing!
Freedom makes man to have liking!
Freedom all solace to man gives:
He lives at ease that freely lives!
A noble heart may have none ease,
Nor ellys nought that may him please,
If freedom fail: for free liking
Is yearned owre all other thing.
Nor he, that has aye lived free,
May not know well the property,
The anger, nor the wretched doom,
That is coupled to foul thraldom.
But, if he had essayed it,
Then all perquer he should it wit;
And should think freedom more to prize
Than all the gold in world that is.


When presented correctly, poems like this always hit a soft spot.

Something by my favourite poet and one of my favourite novelists...

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 pour 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 still 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?

Children of the Dark

Children of the dark
Running from the sun
Drinking from the vain of life
Waiting for their dawn to come

Wishing for the warmth on their face
Hiding with all the rage
Dancing in the misty moonlight
Seeking out a place with out daylight

Children of the Dark

Chasing shadows in the pain
Looking for the last standing victim to fall
Blood bath, swimming in the vain of existence

Longing for a mortals heart
Left in the dark with no life spark
Pale and alone
Singing a lonely song

Children of the Dark

Remaining in the shadows
Ready to take the night
The moon befriends those who depend on her
Children of the Dark
Children of the Night
Thirsty for life
Thirsty for daylight

Here is a poem from a classic play that everyone should know. I thought it fitting since it is nearly Halloween, and it brings back memories from when we studied Macbeth back in junior high school.

The Witches’ Spell

Act IV, Scene 1 from Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare

[i] A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.
Enter the three Witches.
[/i]
1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d.
3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time!
1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Not entering but +1

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor 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.

Robert Frost